a few random pictures

Here's a few pictures from a recent trip we took.

The tulips were in full bloom . . . beautiful!!

The birds were enjoying a picnic of crumbs . . .
maybe a few sesame seeds that had fallen off of a couple of hamburger buns???

This kitty cat was taking a nap in a local transportation office.
Wonder where it was headed to. . . the land of zzz's?

Ignorance is bliss!

So it would seem that by now I would have learned not to eat something without first knowing what it's made of, right? Well, it seems I haven't quite learned that lesson.

A couple of weeks ago, while sitting in a local restaurant, trying to decide what we wanted to eat, I decided to ask what kinds of soup were available. I really like the soups served over here, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. I asked the waitress what kinds of soup were being served that day, and she gave me two names. I didn't really understand the first, so I asked for the second even though I had never heard of it before.

As usual, my soup was brought out before our other food or drinks. I was going to wait until my sandwich came out to start eating, but the waitress came by and asked if there was something wrong with the soup since I hadn't started eating it yet. I explained that it was fine and started eating it.

My very first impression was that it was pretty bland. It lacked salt and any other flavor. It tasted starchy, like rice that had been cooked too long or stirred too much, and it had little bits of white stuff in it that also looked like rice. I added some salt and ate a little bread with it, and although it was still pretty bland, I managed to eat it all.

The next day, we were talking with some friends about our experience at the restaurant (as there had been a few misunderstandings with our order), and they asked me what kind of soup I had. When I told them the name of the soup, the first thing out of their mouths was, "Gross!! You know what you ate don't you?!" Well, of course, I had no idea. They went on to explain that the soup I had eaten is made of water and little bits of cooked cow stomach!!!!

Needless to say, I won't be ordering that soup anymore!! But who knows what I might end up ordering the next time my hungry stomach and inquisitive spirit outwit my better judgment!

Super what???

Yesterday during language class, in the middle of translating a really difficult reading passage, Mark came across a tongue twister of sorts. It was just a couple of words describing a water bottle, nothing extremely funny. Our language teacher, almost immediately grabbed a piece of paper and started writing something down. Our tired and somewhat focused minds thought he was about to expound on the grammar rule for making nouns possessive as a review for our feeble brains. However, what he wrote had noting to do with what we had just read, and it certainly wasn't a grammar rule. The longer he wrote, the bigger his smile became. There was also a slight twinkle in his eye, I think! He wrote three lines of words, and in the last line were the very two words Mark had stumbled across as he was reading aloud. It was a tongue twister - think "Sally sells seashells by the seashore" and you'll have the right idea. He menacingly asked Mark to read it aloud a couple of times. Then, of course, Mark couldn't let the opportunity pass without cornering me to try it!! We had some good laughs before he started writing again. This time he told us he was writing the longest word in the language - it has 36 characters! And do you think we were able to say it?! Not a chance!!

Well, we got back to business and finished our lesson, but I couldn't leave without telling him about the most mysterious word kids growing up in my generation loved to sing and attempt to spell. You got it . . . supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. (No, I never did learn how to spell it correctly by heart - I had to look it up on the internet!) I explained that it comes from a movie and that it's totally nonsensical. In fact, I don't know how many children watch good 'ol Mary Poppins anymore. He found it rather interesting.

Last night I made a point to write the word down for him so he could see it. Before we started class, I opened my notebook, pushed it toward him, and reminded him of the word we had discussed the evening before. He took a running start and made it almost to "expi" before he started giggling. He made a couple of attempts, read it to himself a time or two, and then got brave enough to try the whole thing out loud where we could hear him. It was really a hoot!! He gave a little sigh, like he was ready to start class, so I pulled my notebook back toward myself. Then I noticed him peeking back over to see it again, giggling to himself. Finally, he grabbed a pen, turned to a clean page in his book, and wrote it down.

I don't know what the longest word in the English language is, but between the two words we were comparing, his won out by 2 characters! And to top it all off, that one word equals a sentence made of 10-12 English words. Maybe one day, we'll have the guts to give it a try. Today, I think I would lose my breath trying to get through the whole thing!!

Hope you're able to expand your vocabulary a little today!

The Beauty of Spring

We had the opportunity to visit a historical site a couple of weeks ago, and it reminded me of the way God's beautiful creation does something to lift my spirits when spring arrives. The sky was so blue, the sun was so bright and warm, the grass was so green, the wild flowers were in full bloom, the air was full of the sound of shepherds ringing bells to gather their bleating sheep on the hillsides, and after a heavy spring rain, we saw a couple of rainbows that were set against the contrasting darkness of storm clouds and brightness of green pastures. Breathtaking!! Below are a few pictures we took. They don't really do justice, but maybe it will give a taste of the great outdoors we experienced.

This is some kind of unusual looking flower, weed, plant . . . don't know what it's called.

It's a little hard to see, but the little white specks (toward the middle of the picture) are sheep being herded by their shepherd. I spotted them after hearing the bell the shepherd was ringing.

The rest of the story . . . . .

Well, after asking for the THIRD time, I finally got the rest of the story about what happened to make all our neighbors come to our door at 12:30 at night. Here goes . . .

We had a candle lit in our bedroom in front of a window that faces the street. Apparently, sometime before we blew it out and went to bed, someone across the street saw the flame from the candle and thought there might be a fire. They called someone in our building, who in turn called our building manager, who just happens to be my closest neighbor's husband. It also seems that no one was sure if we were home or not. So first, they all (4 or 5 neighbors) gathered outside our bedroom window, trying to see if there was anything going on. Then they came to our door to see if we were home. When they saw that we were home and everything was OK, they were satisfied. When they asked if we were scared, they were asking if we were scared by them coming to our door. I explained to her that we weren't scared, but we didn't know who it would be or why.

There you go! Gotta love neighbors with a watchful eye!!