Random stuff

It's been another busy week. Not as busy as last week, but pretty productive.

Daniel and I had our first language class yesterday. We will meet with our tutor 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. We are on an intensive 8 week schedule that should allow us to learn 800 words. The learning method is different than anything we've done before. We don't talk for the first few weeks, we just listen to our tutor point to pictures and say the word over and over. It's all built around object recognition and repetition.

We both like it so far. I can tell the words are actually sticking with me (so far, ha!). We will probably study about 2 hours or so each day to make sure we remember everything we learned in class.

In about 8 weeks we'll enroll in a nearby university and have regular classes. Daniel will most def be in a more advanced class than me.

I still haven't run yet. I keep putting it off, because there aren't any parks or grass here, so i'll be running on the sidewalks and streets, and they're SO crowded. I'm afraid a motorbike will hit me. But Monday i'm going to make myself run at least a few miles. I'll let ya know.

I'm still relearning how to cook here. We were going to make hamburgers the other night and after we started cooking the meat, we realized it was actually some type of sausage. So we had sausage burgers instead. They were still good!

I made pizza because it was something i made all the time in the States, so i figured it would be pretty foolproof. It mostly was, except we don't have any salt yet in our house and the toppings were just veggies, so it was good, but a little salt would've gone a long way!

This is for Sarah....i've been eating SO much fruit here! We have a market down the street and i've had fruit with at least 2 meals for several days....apples, peaches, grapes, and cherries. AND i've been getting a good amount of fresh veggies too. True, they're prob drenched in oil. But still......

It's been so hot and humid here. I knew it was like that before we came so at least it's not a shock. But you pretty much know that by the time you walk somehwere you'll be dripping with sweat. We don't have central air, but little ac/heat units in the main rooms. But we also try to be economical so we have mostly just been turning on the ac when we go to bed. But today is already brutally hot so i'm thinking the ac is going to get some use today!

I'll try and take more pics of the local food. It's our fave and we can't get enough of it!

I'm going to try and make chicken parm, tacos, and chicken pastina this week. I'm hoping for no surprises, ha!

love

laura