We had a beautiful sunset today and we thought we'd share a few 

pictures with you from the roof of our apartment.  

 

Christmas in the Middle East

We have had a very festive Christmas holiday so far.  For Christmas Eve, we went to our co-workers' house for a party with lots of other Americans who were missing their families.  We ate amazing food (turkey, cookies, baked brie, homemade salsa and chips, homemade eggnog) and played some mean rounds of Catchphrase and Balderdash.  

Then, this morning, we were invited over to another family's house for a Christmas brunch (see picture) and some fun with all the kids of our co-workers.  Christmas really is more fun with kids around.  This group of kids in particular were skating around the apartment in their new rollerblades, just nearly missing the Christmas tree.  

Now we are back at our apartment, doing laundry, watching movies and hanging curtains.  It is a wonderful way to spend Christmas on this COLD, dreary day (see picture from cab ride this morning), especially when the whole town is pretty much shut down for the holiday. Yes, we were surprised too, but the king officially made Christmas a national holiday as of two years ago because of the small population of local Christians here.  So, hey, it feels more like home!  

We want to wish you all a very merry Christmas!!  

Inshallah

The phrase 'inshallah' is used frequently here.  We hear it several times a day.  It means, 'if God wills', hence leaving the future, be it short term or long, up to God.  

We hear it most commonly in conversations where people are planning to do something together, for example:  "Let's have coffee tomorrow, inshallah".  

We hear it when talking about health, marriage, or family:  "He will find a good wife and have lots of healthy baby boys, inshallah".

We hear it when we talk to the people delivering furniture or appliances:  "We will bring it tomorrow between 10 and 8, inshallah".

You can even hear it from the taxi driver when you ask him to take the next left and he replies:  "Inshallah".

Tea or Coffee

You can't get too much tea or coffee around here.  Really, even if you try to refuse, they still serve it to you.  We've also learned that tea and arabic coffee are a major part of doing life here.  When you sign a contract you always start with the coffee.  When a man wants to ask permission to marry someone, he first places the coffee in front of the woman's father to see if he will accept (if the father drinks the coffee, it means he gives his permission).  

This past week we were not running short on our caffeine intake.  First, we saw the Landlord to our building.  Even after signing the contract with him and drinking the coffee and the tea the day before, he wanted us to come back to visit and have more coffee.  Then we met the neighbors across the street who also invited us over to have coffee, then tea, and more tea.  That same day Daniel dropped me off on "Light Street" to pick out light fixtures for the apartment.  I looked at about 15 different shops and finally narrowed it down to picking lights from three places.  When I went in and told them which light fixtures I wanted to buy, they had to put the lights together and put them in boxes with all the parts so it took a while at each shop.  Therefore, they told me to sit and wait while they got things ready.  And at each store they always did the same thing.

Store owner:  Do you want tea?

Me: No thank you, I'm fine. 

Store owner:  Do you want coffee?

Me:  No thank you, I'm fine.

Store owner:  Do you want tea?

Me:  No thank you.

Store owner:  So, tea?

Me:  Ok, tea.

I might not have had the shakes so bad after that if I hadn't skipped lunch.  

The price of things

We just wanted to give you an idea of what things cost here for us.  For those of you who think that everything must be pretty inexpensive over here, well, for the most part, that's not the case After being here a week we've found out a lot about what is expensive and what's not.  Here are just a few examples:

1 snickers bar - $1.50

10 minute taxi ride - $1.50

2 metal clothes hangers - $5.00

Champion brand fleece jacket - $5.00

Lonely Planet travel guide for the country - around $50.00 (in the states it would be about $15)

Cindy Crawford work-out DVD circa 1994 - $15.00  

DVD of a movie still playing in the theaters and seasons of any newer TV show on DVD- $1.70

More prices to come.....

 

Learning Curve II

Here are a few more things we have been learning this week.....

1.  The truck driving around the neighborhood multiple times a day playing music loudly is NOT the ice cream truck, it is the truck delivering propane tanks for the ovens.  So there's not an ice cream man, but there IS a cotton candy man.  He doesn't have a truck.  He just walks around the neighborhood whistling to let you know he's there.  Oh, and it's better to buy the cotton candy in the winter because in the summer it melts too fast.

2.  Diet Coke does not taste like Diet Coke here.  

3.  We are living in quite a metropolis.  You can find anything you want here.  Some surprises this week have been:

 - Restaurants....good sushi place, yummy chinese place, Tony Roma's (we haven't been, we just saw it), TGI Fridays, Papa Johns Pizza, Italian, Mexican, you name it

 - Hotels.....we drove by the Four Seasons (super swanky), the Sheraton (super huge), Hyatt

 - Giant malls with lots of familiar stores

4.  We technically already knew this but the people are SO hospitable.  When we were looking at apartments last night, we were invited in to the landlord's home for coffee and dessert and a visit!

Learning Curve

This has been a full week of learning about life in the ME.  It started on our first night.  We went to bed after being fed dinner by our hosts (we are staying with a family we know until we can get our own apartment) and we each took our Tylenol PM to help us sleep and adjust with the jet lag. Every apartment here has these metal sliding shades outside the windows that you use to keep the heat out in the summer and the heat in in the winter and it also serves as a black out shade at night.  We didn't have a lighted clock in our room so all through the night we never knew what time it was, but we could sort of tell by the sounds of the call to prayer from the mosques surrounding the apartment.

We remember hearing the call to prayer when we were here last year so we knew what to expect, only this time it was different.  We heard the call to prayer, but it didn't stop after 10-15 minutes like normal.  It kept going, and going and it seemed like the different mosques in the area were competing to see who could go longer (and louder).  After we came out of the darkened cave at 11:30 the next day, we found out that a big holiday called Eid just started so the mosques all had services from 5:30-7 am and shared their sermons over the loud speakers with everyone who could hear.  There are at least 3 mosques within earshot of the apartment so we had surround sound sermons.  

During the holiday, most businesses are shut down, including ours which was nice because it gave us a week to get settled before having to start work.  The first two days of the holiday, people will go and visit their families and spend time celebrating together.  The rest of the week you go and visit more extended family, friends, neighbors, etc.  The pictures show some kids walking down the street with balloons, the nearby mosque with car-lined streets of people there to pray, and a family going on an Eid visit with gift in hand.

We are learning much more, but will continue with that on the next post!

Leaving on a jet plane.....

  Well, we are officially already here, but we wanted to blog a little about our trip over to the Middle East.  We packed and re-packed our suitcases the week before we left and tried our hardest to only take 5 big bags over with us, but at the last minute, I gave in and we brought bag #6 to the airport.  Which was a good thing because a few of our bags were a pound or two over the 50 lb limit per bag.  Daniel's mom, who is a pro at packing suitcases, rearranged everything and we even managed to add our favorite quilt to the load (along with all the last minute purchases on Friday!).  

We had a nice group of people meet us at the airport to say good-bye.  After a few tears at the escalator to security, and then quite a few more tears on the flight to Atlanta, we tried to drown our sorrows in the last Chick-fil-a meal at the Atlanta airport.  There is a similar restaurant here, called Chix-fil-a, but I think it serves chili or burgers or something.   We then went to JFK and once we made our way to our gate, we knew life was about to change.  We were two of maybe 5 Americans waiting for the flight.  Thankfully, the flight was only about half full and we were able to have our own row of seats.  We were ready to go, settling down in the plane, with Christmas music playing over the intercom, and the rain out side the windows turned to big, heavy snowflakes!  It was beautiful, but we had to sit on the runway for a couple of hours, waiting to get our plane de-iced.

We left the snow-covered N.Y. and 10 hours and 18 minutes later landed in the Middle East and an airstrip lined with palm trees.  We gathered all of our 6 big suitcases from the baggage claim - only one was damaged, the zipper broke - and met our friends outside customs for a ride to our temporary home.   We are so thankful for a smooth trip!

Family fun continues!

Over the last few weeks, we have been packing in the family fun times.  While we were in Goshen at Daniel's parent's house - we celebrated Turkey day with both sets of parents, Daniel's sister and her family, our aunt and cousin and some friends.  We also took our niece Maelyn to see the lights at the square and to ride the ponies, the carriage AND the camel.   I think she's ready to come with us to the ME.  

Some good friends, the Schwartzman's, came to visit Sierra and Delta (the donkey and the horse) at the Robards' and to say goodbye before we left.  Solomon is one brave little cowboy!

We celebrated Christmas early in Bella Vista at Laura's parents' home with sugar cookies, Christmas music, presents that we had all already picked out and used - but we wrapped them up to make it more fun.   It will be sad to be so far away from home for Christmas this year, but we will try to make due.  Sniff, sniff! 

Enjoy the pictures!

Some of Our Favorite People!

Dave, Kate, Eloise and Lily - four of our favorite things about Portland, OR!

Photo by Eloise- She's so artistic.

Colorado

We just got back from a two week trip to Colorado where we got to see our fun Denver family, lots of beautiful fall foliage - and we (well, Daniel) got rather close to some zoo animals.

Our nephews Luke and Jackson - not always thrilled about sitting down for a picture.  

These boys need to move!

We brought them an old fashioned (can you call it old fashioned if it's made of plastic?) bow and arrow set, which they quickly perfected and started making us their new targets.

Piling in at bedtime.  We had so much fun playing with them and Josh and Erin, too.  We made sure they knew they had to talk to us a lot on the web cam while we are gone.  

This is a view from the window where we had meetings while out in Colorado.  Not a bad place to spend a few days!  

The last week we were in Colorado, we got to spend some time with our great friends from Portland, Rex and Pami.  They were in town for a wedding and saved some time to hang out with us.  We were so excited just to see them and to make our time together even more fun, we headed to the zoo (compliments of Rex's local family).  This was one of the coolest zoo's I have ever been to.  As soon as we walked in, we came face to face with 20 or more giraffes.  

You can walk all around them at eye level on raised platforms.  

Amazing how close we could get!

I think this one was my favorite.  Look at that face!

You could even get these crackers to feed them.  It was a bit of a challenge for some of us to get close enough to their weird looking, mile-long tongues, to actually get the cracker to the giraffe.  But then one of us decided to take the challenge a step further.

Seriously.  We got it on video.  I'll try to post it later.

Rex and Pami and Laura riding up on the chairlift that takes you to the top of the zoo and lets you look down into the cages of the tigers and grizzly bears.  

We had such a great trip and are thankful for all the time we got to spend with our friends and family!

Welcome Baby Hazel!

Last month we celebrated the soon-to-be-arriving baby Mooney with a carnival themed-party.  We called it a party because none of the guys wanted anything to do with a "shower".  Our friends, Matt and Ginny were excited to be welcoming their second child into the world and we were glad to be celebrating with them.   

And now, Hazel has arrived and she is beautiful!!  Just look!

Congrats, Matt and Ginny and brother Eliot.  We love you guys!

Remember the Alamo.....and Shamu, and Six Flags, and the River Walk, and....

Robards at the Alamo

My first trip to San Antonio was a great one. Plenty hot, but plenty to do to cool off. That's what we decided the roller coasters are for. My favorite? Superman and Fiesta Texas! But the Steel Eel at Sea World takes a close 2nd. This was my very first time seeing Shamu at Sea World and I'm a little embarrassed to say that when Shamu and the trainer were swimming around together and she was diving off of his (her?) nose and riding on his belly, well, I teared up. Seriously, I had to wipe my eyes before anyone could see me with tears rolling down my face, but not before Daniel saw and looked at me like I was crazy. I'm blaming it on the emotional music score that played during with the whole performance. The music always gets me. Anyway, I loved Shamu.

We also did all of the San Antonio sight-seeing musts - the Alamo, the River Walk, the Alamo Cafe (fresh, hot, homemade tortillas - mmm). All, in all, it was a great trip and a great time with family. We even got to witness our niece Maelyn's very first dance class. She's a pro!

And the good-bye's begin....

Wow, what a fun weekend we had in North Carolina!  My brother and sister-in-law were the most gracious of hosts and, of course, we were constantly entertained by my nephew Tyler and niece Katie.  We enjoyed lots of Wii, High School Musical, Groovey Girls, and the BEACH!  We drove a couple of hours east of Raleigh to Wrightsville Beach in Willmington (home of the filming of legendary t.v. show Dawson's Creek).  We all had our fill of getting flattened by giant waves and boogie boarding all the while keeping a watch out for any kind of shark, jelly fish, or other sea creature we needed to avoid.  Thanks to the Rowland N.C. clan for a great weekend we will remember for a long time.  It is hard to think about not seeing you guys for while.  We will miss you! 

Packing it all in

Life these days is pretty eventful.  When we aren't in Arabic classes or studying, we are meeting with people to share about our plans, still working part time and trying to pack in all the family time we can get.  

This week Daniel's sister, brother-in-law and niece came in town to visit after living out of the country for the last 5 months.  It was great to see them and catch up and to see how much our niece has grown!  Daniel's parents are also taking all of us on a fun-filled trip to San Antonio for Labor Day weekend.  We're not kidding around on this trip - we are going to get to enjoy all of San Antonio's finest amusements.  Six Flags, Sea World, the zoo, and all in just a few days!  It is my ideal vacation.  I've been craving some coasters!

We will also be traveling to North Carolina to see my oldest brother, sister-in-law and nephew and niece this month for a long weekend.  One last good-bye before we head overseas.

We are very thankful for all the time we get to spend with family.  It's going to be a fun month!

Arabic, Arabii?

We began our first week of Arabic class, or 'saff l-arabii'.  We have a great tutor from the university who is very helpful and laughs at all of Daniel's Arabic jokes.  It is definitely a tough language to learn but we hope to have some basics down by the time we leave (early Nov.)  I mentioned to our tutor that I felt like it took a lot of energy to speak the words and alphabet correctly and she told me, "Yes, it DOES take lots of energy and it also burns lots of calories!"  Needless to say, I think I'll be practicing my arabic as much as possible.

Life has been busy in a great way!  We are filling up our evenings with one on one meetings with friends (old and new) to share about our future in the Middle East.   We look forward to getting to hang out with more of you before in the next few months!