It has been 10 days since I posted, so much for my goal of posting at last once a week. We are now back in our city, relearning our way around, trying to relearn what language we had before we left, and rediscover our new home again. It was a little crazy to be here for 3 weeks, then leave for 2. It has definitely been nice to be back again. We arrived home on Tuesday evening after an absolutely crazy travel day. We were "supposed" to arrive back home around 9:30 am, a quick travel day involving a taxi, flight, and then another taxi. Instead we arrived back home at 8:00 pm after taking more modes of transportation than I can remember and spending endless hours sitting and waiting in many random locations. All four of us were completely worn out by the time we arrived home and the next morning Josiah, Jacob and I woke up with nasty colds. (Well Jacob already had some signs of it.) I am finally feeling better, after almost four days of not leaving the house. So glad we were home when that one hit.
Today was our first American holiday spent here in our new city. We started the day with strawberry muffins (mix was given to us when we were down south), Jared and Josiah went out and came back with flowers and chocolate, we went to the store and bought a new shelf for our bathroom, came home and took naps after lunch, then tried a new recipe that actually turned out like it was supposed to for dinner. This afternoon a friend also brought over a bag of goodies including homemade heart shaped sugar cookies (with frosting), conversation hearts and other candy, stickers, and other stuff to help us celebrate. You would not know that it was Valentine's Day when out and about, so different than the states where everything is well commercialized. Although, I was at the market today and happened to run into a lady who spoke English. She even asked me if she could help me with anything and I immediately had her help me find some cooking wine (there are so many bottles of stuff, I had no clue what to look for.) Anyways, she asked me what today was called in English, she said she thought it was "lover's day". That gave me a good laugh.
One more story to leave you with. The other day Jared went to a local supermarket and was looking for oatmeal. One of the woman who worked there decided to give him a hand and suggested a bag of oatmeal that she thought he might like. It was different than what we usually get but he thought he would try it. When he got home we discovered that it is specially fortified for elderly people. I guess she must have thought he looked like he needed it.
