I read through the previous emails I sent and thought I should correct one thing. The magnificent church where we saw the baptism was not the church directly across from our apartment where we attended services on Sunday. It was one more in the center of town. I think you can still see its steeples from our windows though. The one we attended on Sunday was a little smaller, and a little more "protected" from visitors. What I mean by that is that the big one we saw on Saturday was like a museum. People were everywhere, taking pictures, etc. and they sold things in a gift shop. The one we attended Sunday asked that you please respect that this is a place of worship, not a tourist attraction. It asked that you check with a verger before taking pictures so you wouldn't offend anyone.
Actually I also need to apologize for all of the typos in the emails. I have a hard time typing on a "straight" keyboard and I keep hitting the wrong keys. I fix the ones I find but I saw I missed several of them!
Last night's dinner was a much more positive experience for me. :-) I ordered a pork steak (which was breaded) and it came with a salad and fries. The meat was good but wasn't anything special and the fries were
fries. The salad was something else! This would never have been a standard come-with-your-meal salad in the USA! There was a tiny bit of lettuce on a plate. In the center of that was some corn and some kidney beans with a small dollop of a white dressing. Completely covering that were strips of red and yellow peppers, several slices of cucumber, wedges of tomato, green olives, and a whole hot pepper. I thought it was great and it was even better because I got all the colorful peppers and green olives that others didn't want. My boys ate my hot pepper. When the meals came with some lettuce as a garnish, one student was so happy to finally have more lettuce. He tore up several garnishes into his salad. :-)I ordered a coke for dinner and it actually came with 4 ice cubes. We were excited! It also had lemon in it.
Len and one of the students got brave and ordered knipp. We have wondered what it was and this restaurant had a description in the menu. However, the description didn't help much. It said it was "groats, fat, and meat". The student ordered it "blindly" but Len had asked the waitress what was good and she said this was their specialty. We all tried some of it. It tasted like Swedish meatballs and was pretty good. I would order it sometime. The students were amazed that Len ate all of his (besides the tastes he shared with us). The student who ordered it got too full and ended up passing his plate around until it got emptied. Michael and Jake managed to be the last 2. The pickle that came with the knipp (the menu said gherkin) was like a sweet pickle. The students dubbed it a swill pickle because it was unusual -like sweet and dill. One student took a bite thinking it would be dill and then had to scavenge lettuce off other people's plates to get the taste out of his mouth. :-) We all had lemon wedges on our plates which the boys ate. Several students gave theirs to them to eat as well.
After dinner we all walked next door for a tiny ice cream cone. The same man from last night who did not speak English was there and when he saw how many of us there were and that we were speaking English, he quickly called to the back for a certain girl to come up. She spoke a little English -enough to help us if we helped each other. I ordered a flavor called "Snikker". It was caramelly with chunks of chocolate. A student wondered what it was like so I gave him a nibble of mine so he would know if he should order it. I think he was shocked that I would do that. However, after my experience the night before I wanted him to know what he was getting!
Our sleep cycles are getting closer and closer to normal. I still stay up later than I do at home (mid-night or so) and don't feel super tired when I go to bed but this morning I heard Len leave at 8:30 and got up feeling like I had a good night's sleep. The boys are still sleeping but they were still up when I went to bed too. Michael had fallen asleep on the couch while reading so I hope he was able to get back to sleep. The night before he said he was awake yet at 4 a.m.
Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon I read for awhile, took a nap, and played several games with the boys. We played Mancala, Othello, and Scrabble. Jacob was losing the whole Scrabble game but then he Scrabbled out, got 88 points (38 + 50) for that word, and ended up winning. I've never Scrabbled out so that was exciting!
I have read 3 books so far. Michael has read 2 of those 3. If Jacob reads them, then we will just leave them here and not pack them into our suitcases again. The next book I'm going to read is Amistad.
We do not have a toaster but this morning I really wanted toast. I put a dry fry pan on a burner of the stove and laid a slice of bread in it until it was brown. Then I flipped it. It tasted so good with peanut butter! I'll have to show Len how to do it. He misses his toast in the morning.
We have food yet to make for supper tonight but need to get some more fruit and bread. Also, the yogurt is gone and Michael likes to eat that when he is hungry so maybe we'll get some more. I thnk he is eating more food now that he is not drinking so much milk. We have them drinking water so we don't have to buy so much milk. Hmmm. Something to keep in mind when we get home. He sure isn't packing on calories by drinking skim milk. Maybe I should limit how much he has.
Today I told the boys they need to vacuum the apartment. I hear the vacuum running so I wonder if the rooms usually get cleaned when the students are out. (Like a hotel.) Usually students don't stay in this guest house so it is real VIP treatment that our students get to! The boys are still sleeping so if they come here I will tell them that we will do it ourselves.
Well that's about all the news I have for now. I'm going to get myself ready for the day.
Ann
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