Day Two

Here is our project from day two of sewing classes.  I'll try to take a picture from now on of what we're making each day.  This project was fun, but it was a bit time consuming since we had to do a lot of the stitches by hand instead of on the sewing machine.  Oh well, they're excited about projects to come and I am too!  And thankfully the completely Arabic classes haven't proven to be "too" challenging...yet.

Family Visit

I know it has been a long time since I have blogged.  I apologize.  Things have just been going fast around here lately.  My family came out to visit for two weeks, and when they left it took a little bit to get back into the groove of things and life as we now know it.  It was great to have my family come out and visit and see where Andrew and I live.  We had an extremely busy time while my sisters were here trying to get in all the site seeing.  The second week, after my sisters left, and it was just us with my parents slowed back down to normal pace.  A little too slow for my parents I think :)  Since it is so hot here during the daytime.  Most people simply stay indoors until the sun sets and then everyone comes out.  Quite a different routine than we are used to in the States.  And, even when we are out and about, it is a lot of just sitting around, sipping coffee and watching people.  Much more relaxed and slow paced.

So, without further adieu, here are some pictures from when my family came out to visit.

The Family getting ready to leave from the Atlanta Airport

Getting to see my family for the first time in 9 months!

Down by the beach, showing the family around our town

Andrew and I at a fancier restaurant in the capitol

Doing some hiking (or riding of camels and mules) around the Rock City

At our favorite restaurant :)

Nice resort on the Dead Sea

Visiting Jerusalem

Me and my sisters in front of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem

Mom really wanted some henna done before she left

The second week my parents were here, my Mom and I went to a local handicrafts center where low income ladies make recycled handicrafts to sell.  We had a three day intensive sewing seminar for some of the ladies to teach them another trade.  Here my Mom is helping some ladies make beads out of magazine papers.

Since my Mom and I went to do the intensive sewing class, it has opened up some doors for me to go back.  For the next four weeks, I will be returning to this center to do some more in-depth sewing training.  I am excited about the opportunity, but a little nervous about being the only one who knows how to sew.  Please keep me in your thoughts over the next four weeks as I struggle to teach ladies to sew (in Arabic!) and hope that it opens up opportunities for friendship.

Mancef

Yesterday I got to learn how to make one of the favorite traditional meals people love to eat where we live. I wrote about this meal previously here.  The same friend who made it for us the first time, came over yesterday to teach me to make it for myself or "lonely" as they like to translate it.  I am not entirely sure I could make it exactly right, but it seems that most foods here just throw whatever you can find spice wise together with rice and chicken and it makes a meal.  This particular meal, Mancef, is singled out because of the liquid jameed, you pour onto your rice and chicken.  Jameed, is basically a warm, salty, milky substance.  I think it would be similar to buttermilk if you warmed it up and added some salt.  It sounds a little scary at first, but it does taste quite good if you give it a chance.  The other important spice for Mancef is some kind of yellow spice that gives the rice and chicken it's yellow tent.  My first thought was that it was Saffron, but I have been told many times that it is not, but I have no clue what it is.

It was an experience preparing this Mancef.  A few mistakes and burnt edges, but in the end I think it turned out pretty well and quite delicious!

The ladies Mancef, the men got a much bigger tray :)

Some Days

Some days I just miss the comforts of the States...

Heat Wave

I am sorry I have not been blogging as much as I should be lately.  One word to sum up the ten days since my last blog: HOT!  Incredibly, stifling hot.  It is really hard to get motivated to do much, including blogging, in this heat.  It takes a lot of energy to do much of anything.  The scary thing is, it is only the beginning of summer!

Last week we had language lessons every day!  Quite an accomplishment and it made our week much more busy.  We also had some people come in to visit from the capitol.  Andrew and I spent the weekend boarded up in one room of our apartment with our little wall AC running full blast, only making appearances in the evenings when the temperature dropped down closer to 100.  I am beginning to understand why this culture is such a night culture.

Today, Andrew had his first language lesson with a prospective new teacher.  Andrew really enjoyed his new teacher today and hopes that it will work out more permanently.  So be keeping that in your thoughts :)  Unfortunately my teacher cancelled today, and since Andrew was meeting with his guy teacher at our house, I had to make myself scarce.  I spent the morning at Gloria Jean's coffee shop studying Arabic and making a few more final plans for when my family comes out to visit this summer.

Well, this was not much of a blog, but I just wanted to keep ya'll updated on the things going on in our lives here.  Not too much since we returned from Prague, just sticking with the grind and trying to stick out the heat :)

Praha Personal

Since Prague has such a bloody history, there are many Ghost tours available for tourists.  Andrew and I are not big ghost people or anything, but we along with a few friends we made, thought it might be fun/funny to go.  It was quite funny, not really at all scary, and we actually had a few people in our tour group from the area of the world we are currently living, so that was exciting.  So here is Andrew with a ghost or grim reaper who was our tour guide.

While in Prague, we got to go seen Pirates of the Caribbean.  They had an IMAX theater and we were hoping to go there since we have never been to an IMAX before, but it was only showing in Czech so we had to go see the normal version, but it was fun none the less.

Andrew and I with a knight at a traditional Czech restaurant.

While we were in Prague, Andrew and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary!  To celebrate, we went out to a steak restaurant called "The Crazy Cow."  It was decorated with Mexican and Texan posters which made us feel at home.  The steak was delicious, but the dessert was what I wrote home about.  It's called "Hot Love."  A huge spiraling dish with vanilla ice cream, warm raspberries topped whipped cream, raspberry drizzle and a couple of mint leaves.  It was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my whole life and I think we're going to try to figure out how we can make that here :)

The old town square is definitely the place to be if you are in Prague.  Almost every night they had some kind of production, be it a concert or international festival.  In the square you can find just about any type of person, where anything or anyone is accepted.

Here are Andrew and I on the train to go visit the bone church.  As soon as we found our seats on the train, I immediately felt we were on Harry Potter's train to Hogworts.  I was so excited the entire time.  We ended at the bone church which was not quite Hogworts, but I guess it worked

We had a great trip to Prague.  We almost didn't want to come back to real life.  But we are back with renewed energy and vigor.  We are glad to be back in our own bed and not having to eat out every meal.  We miss that everyone there had a dog and the independence I had to go out on my own and the use of public transportation rather than taxis.  We look forward to more visits to Prague, but are thankful for the friends and relationships we have developed here and look forward to how He is going to use us in this place.

Praha

We kept ourselves very busy while we were in Prague.  Andrew spent most of his time in classes, but I was able to get out a lot and see most of the city.  All of the sites were incredible, rich with history that we just do not get to see much of in the States.  I am not going to lie, at many times throughout our trip, I was overwhelmed with all the green vegetation, cool air and even a few bouts of rain.  It was a huge difference from where we currently live, and it can easily overwhelm the senses.  Here are a few pictures to give you a brief overview of our trip:

These two pictures were taken from a Jewish cemetery in the center of Old City Prague, in what was the Jewish ghetto before World War II.  Years before the Nazi regime, they forced all the Jewish people to live in a ghetto with limited space.  Because of this, they were forced to burry their dead on top of each other, up to 10 or 12 graves on top of one another.  The Cemetery surface is at my estimation about 8 feet above the streets that surround it.

This famous clock tower is found in the heart of the old city square.  Tradition holds that the powers that be blinded the engineer of this clock so he could not recreate it for anyone else.  Then, being so depressed over the situation, he committed suicide at the place of this clock tower.

Prague's history is one of religious strife and blood.  This church seen here at the City Square, throughout history has changed between Catholic and Protestant and with each change, blood was shed by throwing people out of it's windows to their death below.

This Cathedral is found just inside of Prague Castle's gates.

A city landscape of Prague with the Vltava River running through the center.

The Dancing House

The famous Charles Bridge

About an hour outside of Prague is located the Bone Church.  This church is decorated with every bone from the human body, it is estimated there are about 40,000 to 70,000 bodies located within these walls.  Some traditions hold that a monk in medieval times went mad during the Black Plague and began this design of the church with the bodies of those who died during the Plague.

Here some local musicians preform on the Charles Bridge