Italy part 2

Pizza; pasta; pastries; gelato. Repeat. Beautiful scenery. Ahhh. If I go into daily detail like BB, I'd get way too long. See how much I wrote in just a couple days?! One observation - when there are a bunch of tourists who don't know what language each other speak, they all just give one another strange smiles rather than speak to say hello or excuse me. Lots and lots of Brits and Aussies in the area. What fun. Glad we indulged ourselves - now back to the routine. It was a long week.


hmmm pizza


Sorrento


So the staff does nothing? This sign was at Pompei bathrooms.


Dar at Pompei.


A courtyard at Pompei.



seafood pasta


Capri main port


On the boat headed to the Blue Grotto


up high on Capri


We took almost this exact same photo on our honeymoon in Florida!


The view from our Positano hotel!


prosciutto, provolone, and tomatoes, yum.


We were in shadow so we used the flash and this picture looks fake but I promise it's totally real.


Dar loves this picture he took of me in Ravello - 1,000 feet over the sea.


Lots of views like this in Ravello.

Italy part 1 - Sorrento e Pompei

Day 1 - 4:30 am our ride has not arrived. 20 minutes later our collegue drives like a banshee to the airport. We make the flight and sleep through it. The bus drives through Naples garbage piles and gardens. The garbage strike is a year old and the rich lava soil is good for gardens. We leave the city for the tiny continuous villages clinging to cliffs along the coast. The bus feels like it hangs out over the cliff on the turns. The driver sounds his horn on the sharp curves to warn on coming drivers. Scooters squeeze into a microscopic slice of asphalt between the bus and the sidewalks in towns. Breath taking views of the mediterranean coast fill up that vacation spot inside our heads.

We arrive in Sorrento and drag our luggage through hords of British tourists, a few American students, and lots of shops. Our hotel, Hotel Mignon, is quaint and just off the main drag of Corso Italia. Sorrento is a tourist town with shops selling the special lemon liquor and lemon table cloths and all things kitsch. I love it. The old city with the shops is charming. Tiny alleys with cheery balconies and curvacous street lights.

We see a lemon grove and go to an incredible pizzeria with a wood oven. They serve on the cooking sheet. We eat too much happily after only granola bars on the airplane. After a self guided walking tour of town and views of the sea from the high cliffs we have a nap. Oh yeah!

We weren't real hungery and Dar got spagetti in a snack bar that was good and I had an incredible salad with fresh spring greens, fresh mozzarella and prosciutto. Yummy!

We joined the Italians and tourists on their evening passagiata - a stroll around main street. They roll out pots of flowers to close the main intersection in Piazzo Tasso and make it a pedestrian boulevard each evening. We had gelato that was incredible- chocolate and lemon. I love lemon drinks and the lemon I got was like a sorbet but the chocolate was exquisite (Davide Gelateria)I could taste the darkness of the cocoa.

Day two was Pompei. A train ride and lots of jockeying with tourist groups. I slurped a lemon granita - a frozen ice thing on our way in. Tangy and a little sour, loved it. Pompei is huge. 20,000 people lived there at one time and it's just frozen in time. I was surprised at the paintings that had survived on the walls °frescoes.°

We just snacked on nuts and fruit and went for the expected two course meal for dinner. Pasta first course, I got veggies and fusilli, Dar got gnocchi and tomatoes. Second course, squid fixed in local style with tomatoes and swordfish with organo, tomatoes and garlic. Both good but we may have got ripped off a bit on tourist prices. We were too full for gelato which was disappointing and decided we will go places where we don't feel we have to eat two courses; it's just too much.

We joined the passagata before going to bed. This morning we are lounging on the roof of the hotel reading our books and indulging in relaxation. Dar decided he doesnàt want to do the archelogical museum in Naples after all so we will stroll, shop, and eat this afternoon. Gelato, pasta, pizza, seafood...oh yeah!

20 years

Yesterday we celebrated 20 years of marriage - zoink! How is that possible? Now I have been married half my life! We have a big trip planned that we leave for next week. We tried to go this week but the office didn't want us to be gone before the dedication of the new building which is next Tuesday.

So on our anniversary - we went to work where they prayed over us since it was our anniversary. We came home and took our traditional photos on our day - we do that every year and have 20 now - except for the 13th year when the lab lost our film. It was quite chilly here yesterday. In fact this may be the first anniversary that I wore slacks for our photos usually I dress up more.

We went to a restaurant with a wood oven and a charcoal type grill. We arrived at the very Spanish time of 8:30pm. It was VERY Spanish but good quality of what we are used to here. We ordered artichokes with ham (more like prosciutto) roasted together, a salad, and cod stuffed red peppers to share. This was the appetizer and veggie courses and then Dar got lamb chops and I got a steak both grilled. We shared a sort of cheese cake with carmel sauce. We were stuffed.

Here's what we look like after 20 years. I'm too lazy to go upstairs and scan our one year anniversary picture for you to compare. So next week we are going to indulge ourselves in Italy. Spaghetti anyone?

Success - sort of

Here are some photos from our gold panning expedition. It is one of the really beautiful parts of the country that looks like Ireland. We found a few flakes which for us was very exciting. The president of the gold panning association who took us around said the water was high and we wouldn't really find anything. I don't know what he finds normally but we were happy with anything. Luckily the sun came out or I don't think I would have found anything without the sparkle. I don't have a picture of the tiny bits - not sure it would really show up in a photo. It was fun though. I think my dad and Dar are instinctive treasure hunters.

Bateador de Oro

I learned a new phrase this week. You see, my dad arrives Friday for a visit and he came up with an interesting idea. He wants to explore a gold-panning area. Apparently in the north the Romans did a lot of gold mining and people still pan there. So I learned bateador de oro which I'm not totally clear on but I think it means a gold panner.

This is something so completely unusual and off the beaten tourist track that it will be interesting. Dar pointed out that the Spanish came to the new world looking for gold and now my dad is coming back to raid the Old World for their gold. Something funny in that.

It will only be for the weekend, then we'll tourist around here more with Dad and be in the office. He's going to try to finish some work the church started when they were here last fall. So I'll be playing tourist and hostess next week...and gold panner. (Is that even a word/phrase??)

Cooking

I wondered recently about how much we affect (or is effect?) ourselves by the way we think about things. I know for myself that in any given situation I can be prone to see the negative, but I'm training myself little by little to see the positive things that are going on too - even if they are small. This helps me have a better perspective. So can I convince myself that things are positive that I have thought of as negative?

I use as an example cooking. I'm a decent cook and I'm often called on in our life here especially to fix meals for people or bring a dish to something. Sometimes Dar steps to the plate and will fix something or help chop or get something going for the church dinner. (Hopefully tomorrow he'll help chop things for the crock pot.) He doesn't really like to cook but will do a recipe now and then.

The thing is I don't really like to cook. I can. I do. I like to eat and I like us to live cheaply...so I cook. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a certain food and then I get into making it. And I'm even beginning to have moments where I become my mother and I realize I like the way I make "whatever" better than the restaurant I'm in. How can that be happening already??

But could I convince myself that I like to cook? Is it just perspective? I think maybe it's not so bad but I tire of constantly thinking: what can we have? do we have the ingredients for X? We need to get X for the potluck? etc. What if I only cooked things I really, really wanted to eat? (Part of brain is saying - yeah but the time!) It's the quantity of time that gets me along with wanting something good which takes time to make. Ahh. Plus it's a never ending cycle. I suppose this is why I love leftovers. Food with no financial guilt and no cooking hassles.

Rest and Rejuvenation

What do you do to rest? Not just sleep but deep down relaxation that involves more than just sleep. I've felt for a few weeks that I'm bone tired. Nothing to do I'm sure with two projects that involved 12-13 hour days. Other than daylight savings time which was last weekend, I'm resting well at night. I've even gone to bed early a couple times. So physically I'm alright.

It's my brain that's tired. I took a day last week and tried to just meditate and evaluate what is important in my life and schedule, and of course for prayer. That day has helped a lot. I've felt closer to my old self since then even though I wasn't really able to resolve - what should my priorities be right now etc.

I had seen/heard several things in a week about lingering before God, or being still and waiting before God, those kind of themes. I realized that this is hard for me and my personality. It's almost a discipline for me to try to sit quietly and just concentrate on God and hearing him. I can talk to him...yeah I can talk a lot. It's the listening that is a challenge. When I'm too busy my brain can't stop and listen.

Of course times get busy but other times aren't as hectic and those are the times that I need to discipline myself to be still before God. The little bit I was able to do was refreshing. It's too easy in busyness to lose track of God and the important things in life. In crazy busyness, which we all have at times, it's all you can do just to survive and you can't rejuvenate.

I also need to restore my creativity. It feels a little sapped and not because I've been so terribly creative. It's just a part of me that needs more energy again. How do you nourish that part of you? Maybe I need to exercise my creativity with something different than video projects.

So what do you do that rejuvenates you? I know laughter always helps me - anyone seen a funny movie lately? I've been in the mood to go to the movies but haven't got organized to figure out where and what and when. Reading blogs and reconnecting with everyone feels good too - it reminds me that life is bigger than the current conundrum. (Do I get some kind of weird blog points for using that word??)

Friends, not the TV show

Thanks. This morning I was sort of struggling and I took time out to read everyone's blogs and I feel better. It is so refreshing to remember my friends and the life that exists beyond the one that I live in here. Sometimes work and private life become one in our lives here and you can get stuck and not see outside the bubble. You all are part of life outside the bubble and it feels really good. It felt for me almost like we all just hung out for the evening and I came away feeling good. I think that is a sign of an extrovert - to be refreshed by interaction with others!

We have friends here and we do have evenings of laughter and hanging out and that is very important to me. I hung out with Spanish speakers two evenings this week which is also a mental work out - following and participating in a conversation in another language. Losing the thread of things and trying to find it again. Sometimes in the middle of those moments I suddenly think - wow I understand. And then I immediately lose it because I broke concentration. For obvious reasons, that's not always as refreshing as hanging out with old friends.

We have a constant turn over here at the office. A girl we'd hung out with a lot the last few years went home for good in December. A couple we've done a lot with for the last year, practically every weekend, will leave in a couple weeks. They are young marrieds and I'm not sure we would have been their first pick for hanging out but they weren't allowed to drive and liked to get out and do things, so they came with us a lot. It's been fun and we'll miss them.

The mix at work is three couples in the 60ish range, and now with the new marrieds leaving, three couples between 36 - 44 age. I have a sort of weird dilemma at times of wanting to include two or three couples but not wanting to include all, but since there aren't a lot of us; it can be viewed as exclusion. (and occasionally lectured about at work...) The other side of that is if we just do things with one couple all the time, we could be viewed as a click. Another couple isn't in the habit of being social but asked me to help them be more conscious and involved. In reality I know I'm a grown up and I can invite who I want but I don't want to hurt feelings or be perceived as exclusionary. This would not be an issue if we weren't all in the same office so that annoys me too.

Anyway...all that to say I miss my friends even though you're not all in KC anymore. It's just good to know you're out there.

Resurfacing

Wow - the holidays passed and things are settling back to normal. November-December passed with 10 flights for me from Madrid, to KC and Arizona, Florida. It was good to the grandparents after so long. It took all my "birthday" money to do the flights but it was a good decision. Then finally back in KC with snow every 3 or 4 days and lots of fun and food with friends adn family. We felt like we had a real winter with all the winter weather. Thanks to many of you for feeding us or hanging out with us. Felt the absence of Dash and T, and BB and Wah-Wah. BTW, BB or Wah-Wah send us your email off blog. We have friends from here headed to live in your city.

The moment I got to Spain I got sick with the flu/cold thing and only went back to work finally two weeks ago. I guess I just needed a rest and there wasn't anything pressing at work so I took the sick days without remorse. Hit the ground running with a new project, well two actually. 1. promote the Bible School here. 2. Revisit their 40 years of history. We have until the 15th to get it done so it will be really, really hectic. It's my first go as a director as well as producer for IMM, I've done it on my own but it is a good project to sink my teeth into. Last week it required a quick trip (4.5 hours away) to Cordoba and Bible School.

Last week I also saw a motorcycle wreck into a car in Spanish traffic. A little scary as people were trying to put the guy in their car and drive off, but ultimately an ambulance came and the police which I was glad to see. The same night I double parked which people do here all the time but I found it nerve wracking to listen for honking in case I needed to move my car. Life is interesting -- even when you don't expect it!

Thanksgiving en España

It hasn't been a festive day. It started yesterday with a miscalculation, misunderstanding on the time of the driving test. The official test is Friday, not today. Thus we could not take it and then scoot on up to the Thanksgiving dinner and the required attendance retreat of missionaries. I made a bunch a phone calls and we were told rather than lose the money and opportunity of the test. So we were excused to arrive at the retreat on Friday afternoon.

This morning we woke up, greeted our house guests who were on their way to the retreat. We said our good byes and headed off to driving lesson number two. (Number one was rough.)

Outside we had a flat tire. Lovely. Oh happy day. Dar changed it in 10 minutes flat. He was aggravated with me for not driving fast enough to get to driving school, which is ironic since he is the slower driver of the two of us. We made it on time and had driving lesson number 2. Dar got better but somehow I can't shake my bad driving habits, especially when a Spanish man is in the passenger seat hollering at me. Sigh.

Everything was open of course and so Dar got the tire fixed, we bought a new toilet seat for the broken one in the spare batheroom. Our poor guests, we think we heard it break out from under someone. Hopefully they didn't end up in the tub or with bruises!

Since we weren't going to get Thanksgiving dinner with the missionaries, Dar was thinking an American meal like Burger King. I was thinking but hadn't yet said I was thinking nice dinner/restaurant somewhere. Fortunately we were spared that decision by our Spanish pastor's family inviting us to their house for a Spanish Thanksgiving. No, it's not a holiday here but they have an American daughter-in-law and so celebrate it. We'll be leaving in a while for the 8pm dinner.

Not the normal thanksgiving day. In spite of all of the oddity of the day, I am aware I have many blessings to count. Let's hope and pray that one of them will be passing the driving half of the drivers test tomorrow. Honestly based on the practice runs with the teacher I am not hopeful for myself. It's a combination of nerves and someone giving orders and crazy traffic all around you at the same time. I can handle just driving here; I can't handle the instructor. Vamos a ver.