From shopping to shots . . .

Here's a few tid bits of what's been happening since our last post . . .

We hear that one of favorite shopping places here will be opening a new store this week! And it's only 1 1/2 hours away. We can't wait to check it out!!!

There are two litters of puppies that have taken up outside our apartment (with the mommies, of course) and they are sooooo cute! I keep asking Mark if we can bring one inside, but no luck yet! One of the mommy dogs does the funniest thing sometimes . . . when the call to prayer sounds from the nearby mosque she "sings" along with it! Wish we could capture that on a recording for you!!

We got to meet some new neighbors upstairs in our apartment building. They are newly married (just a few weeks, in fact). We had both wanted to go say hello together, but we never found an evening that worked for us to both go. So I decided to go alone one evening. I had geared myself up for the worst case scenario - meaning, "What if they don't understand me? What if I look like a complete fool trying to introduce ourselves to them?" We've been here a year, right? So you would think that fear would be long gone, huh?! No way!! I made my way upstairs, took a deep breath, rang the door bell, and waited. A young, attractive, friendly looking lady appeared at the door. In almost one huge run on sentence I blurted out everything I had been rehearsing to say to her and "shoved" my plate of food through her doorway! "My name is Melissa. We live on the first floor. Thank you for the sweets you sent last week." Before I could get anything else out, she said "I don't understand." I took another deep breath and one sentence at a time repeated the above information, making sure she understood me. About that time her husband appeared at the door and said "Are you a foreigner?" Funny question!!! I politely said yes and waited for the inevitable next few questions to be asked. "Where are you from? What are you doing here?" etc. He then explained that he knows a little English but that since I was speaking his native language, we'd just skip the English! It ended up being a pleasant exchange with an invitation to come again for coffee and a chat. Then she showed up at our door a couple of nights later at 10:00PM with a plate of fresh grapes from somewhere. Thank goodness the most awkward part of building this friendship is over! Now that they know we're "not from 'round these here parts" our next meeting will be much less awkward hopefully!

I'm tutoring a friend's teenage son in English one evening each week.

We've begun the winter battle with mold on our closed in balconies.

We had a little get together with a few ex-pat friends and the kids did some trick or treating behind the doors inside our apartment. What a hoot! We had two cheetahs, a batman, a superman, a fairy princess, and a pirate. Complete with candy corn, orange pumpkin napkins, hot apple cider, and bobbing for apples.

Mark has taken up Chess. It's fairly popular here among folks of all ages, so he has some good teachers/challengers. The only thing is that it seems people here like to change the rules around. Maybe it's like this at home, too, but here, it seems different families might have different rules. Or else, they just make them up as they go to see if it will help them win! I must say though, he's been a very gracious sport about their "rules" and keeps trying to outwit them.

I made my first Boston Cream Pie over the weekend. And boy is that a bear of a cake to make completely from scratch! But, oh, so yummy!!!

This morning two lovely ladies showed up at our door to register me (an expectant mom) for the local health/shot clinic. They "interview" expectant moms to make sure they're eating properly, avoiding unhealthy things, have up to date vaccinations, and not experiencing any emotional problems during the pregnancy. We had a nice little visit! One really great thing is that one of the nurses that works at the clinic is our neighbor, so she'll be a great resource in months to come!!! She's always asking how I'm feeling and if I'm drinking milk, eating yogurt, etc. Here's a funny thing . . . they were asking about when I had my last Tetanus shot. I told them I couldn't remember but it was written down and they could look at the form for themselves. I brought the form out to them and listened to them discuss all the vaccines I've received over the years. They were going down the list . . . measles, polio, tetanus, hepatitis . . . when all of a sudden they said something I didn't understand. When they pointed to it on the paper, I realized they were asking about rabies. Before coming overseas we were given a three series booster of the rabies vaccination as a preventive measure because of the numbers of undomesticated animals that roam the streets in foreign countries. They had no idea what rabies is, and I did a pathetic job of explaining it! All I could get out was that it is a disease that comes from wild animals. They told me they would do a search for it but that it didn't seem to be a major issue concerning pregnancy. Once they figure out what rabies is, they'll probably want to know why in the world I got that shot to start with!

Well, it's time to get my nose in the books for a little while. We're going back to the doctor for a monthly checkup this week and hoping to find out if this growing baby is a boy or girl. We'll keep you posted!