The calm before the storm.
A nice relaxing/busy weekend under our belts....and denial of the coming days of language learning.
Friday, I (Steph) went out to lunch with two girls from my language class. We are making this a weekly celebration and it is entertaining to have 'girl talk' with women from around the world. We went to the Pizza Hut buffet. I was delinquent in my sign reading and got stuck with the salad bar buffet instead of the pizza buffet. Oh well, it was good salad!
Saturday, we tempted fate and boarded the ferry to the "Big Island" despite cloudy skies. Happily, Micah befriended several teenagers on the 80 minute journey that kept him busy eating their picnic food and starring in their cell phone photos. Strangely, we ended up on the same boat home and Micah was loved a second time by those great girls. It made Mom & Dad relax a little..... It started pouring as we neared the island. We were not swayed. We paid for two over-priced "in pouring rain" special umbrellas and started exploring the quaint streets. Then we dodged into a nice-looking restaurant for our first kebab meal since we moved here. Yum. Many restaurants here (including dessert places or coffee shops) have multiple floors so people can take advantage of the view. They often have a separate wait staff and display window of treats for each floor despite all belonging to one restaurant. We had the second floor nearly to ourselves which was perfect since Micah was bemoaning the loss of his afternoon nap on this rainy day. After lunch, the rain slowed and we hopped onto a horse carriage ride to St. George's Monastery. Buyuk Ada is much like Mackinaw Island in that there are no cars, just bikes and horse carriages! No fudge, but lots of yummy ice cream. That may have been Micah's favorite part - waffle cone dipped in chocolate with sprinkles with 3 scoops of yummy ice cream.
Today - a friend of our neighbor's came and created a shower curtain rod for our uniquely shaped bath-tub/shower! Hooray!! We will have standing showers now! AND, he installed our toilet paper holder and a ceiling fan. Ah, the little things in life.....the comforts of home. He's coming back tomorrow to put in our other 3 ceiling fans so we'll be ready for the beastly days of summer. PTL!
