Our Street

We are constantly experiencing new and interesting things in our new life overseas.  Here are just a few of the new things we've gotten to experience this past week on our own street.

Yum yum fish head.  This is actually very surprising because 1) people here usually cook the head along with the fish and eat the whole thing and 2) we have about a million cats in our neighborhood and none of them had eaten this head yet.

For those of you who are wondering about the goat leg, yes, it is still laying in the street.  I have been meaning to take a new updated picture, but it's getting pretty gross so I decided it might not be a good idea.

Random handsome man standing in the street :)

I have just recently realized that I have not put a picture up of the outside of our apartment.  This is it.  We are on the second floor on the right, above the tin covering.

It is also my goal in the near future to make another video.  So, keep a look out :)

Threading

I have always wanted to get my eyebrows threaded.  I had a friend once who said she could do it for me, but I was a little scared and decided not to at the time.  At the gym/spa I go to, they do threading, so today for the first time ever I got my eyebrows threaded!

I can't decide if it hurt worse than waxing your eyebrows.  Waxing is a bigger area, but it's all at once, while threading is less area but lasts longer.  Here are some photos.

They Say You Only Get Married Once...

I should start this blog by backing up a little bit and telling you about how great my husband is.  As you all know, we are currently living overseas, well, we have been here for 4 1/2 months now and are working on getting our residency.  This whole residency thing is a lot bigger of a hassle than we thought it would be in the beginning.  My amazing husband, Andrew, has gone in to the government office every morning this week trying to get all the ins and outs of residency done.  This morning they informed Andrew that they did not believe our marriage license and since we have the same last name, they think we are siblings.  Our marriage license from the states is in black and white, including the stamp and signatures, so they obviously think it is not legit.

So what's the solution?  Get married again!  So, this evening, after going to the gym, we dropped by the local kanisa, or church, to get married again.  I say we got married again, but in reality we really just got marriage confirmation.  We still have our marriage license from the states, it just now has a local stamp and blue ink signature on it saying we are legitimately married.  Tomorrow morning Andrew will go back to the government office and hopefully this new and improved stamp will do the trick.  If not, the third marriage is the charm!  We have already confirmed that if they do not accept this new stamp, we will go back and get a completely new Arabic marriage certificate.  If that happens, we're definitely going to throw a whole marriage party Arabic style!

The Newlyweds!

(I know I look horrible in this picture.  I don't take good pictures when I'm nervous)

Celebrating our Second Marriage out on the Town

Lately...

I know I haven't posted in a while.  Things have been very busy here lately.  Too much going on to even find words to be able to post.  But here are a few pictures to help out.

Break time during our language class.  I made a chocolate cake as a little pick me up for all of us

Hanging out at Starbucks during our trip to the Capitol

Starbucks was in the Mall.  It was great to go to a mall :)

Andrew with vacuum-sealed fish in the nice grocery store :)

Breakfast at Starbucks complete with made at home gluten free bread

Coffee

I have said before, that going to the gym and hanging out the girls there is kinda like flirting in middle school.  Well, if I have been flirting for the last month, then today I had my first rejection.  It's not as bad as it sounds...  I have been building a friendship with a girl about my age at the gym.  She speaks no English, so it has been a slow process.  Today I finally got up the courage to attempt to ask her to get coffee together.  I am pretty sure she just didn't understand what I was saying (since I have clue how to really ask to get coffee together in Arabic), but rather just thought I was asking her if she liked coffee.  She responded to my asking her with, "No, I don't like coffee."  Hopefully she misunderstood :)  But I was glad that I braved up and asked her out even if it didn't go so well.  Maybe next time...and in the meantime I'll try to learn how to ask someone to coffee.

Stuffed Grape Leaves

Well, I am officially an Arab Chef.  Just kidding, but I did successfully learn how to make stuffed grape leaves today :)  I am pretty sure that I would be able to do it again without any supervision (maybe).  My best friend here came over this morning to teach me how to make them.  She is amazing and very patient.  Conveniently enough, she is also the one teaching us Arabic so it works out pretty well.

So, for these stuffed grape leaves, you will need:

 rice without peels (I never even knew peels was an option), 

grape leaves, 

salt and pepper, 

bouillon cube, 

cardamom, 

tomatoes, 

garlic and 

onion

About an hour before you are going to start stuffing the grape leaves, you need to soak the rice in water to make it soft.  After an hour or so, drain the rice.  Add salt and pepper to taste, one bouillon cube and some cardamom (and meat if you like) to the rice.  Mix it together well.  Grab a big bowl and soak the grape leaves in medium warm water to help make them softer.  

Next you begin stuffing the grape leaves.  Just put a little bit of the rice on the vein side of the leaf.  Fold over the bottom edges and begin rolling.

It takes some time, but it is actually pretty fun.  It helps if you lay out a few grape leaves before you start stuffing, that way the stuffing goes faster.

After you have stuffed and rolled, place them in a pressure cooker.  You will probably have a couple of layers, so between layers put slices of tomato, onion and garlic.

Once you have finished all the leaves, add another bouillon cube, 2 tbs of olive oil and water.  You want to put in enough water to cover the first layer, but not completely submerge the second layer.

Now I have never cooked with a pressure cooker before.  Apparently if you want to cook anything Arab, you will need a pressure cooker.  I borrowed my friends :)  The pressure cooker is quite fun, especially at the end when you get to take the little nob off the top and all the air shoots out the top!

Cook it on low for 10 minutes or so then turn up the heat and cook for about an hour.  Turn down the heat after an hour and cook for another 15 minutes.  If you do not have a pressure cooker you will cover the leaves entirely in water and cook for 2 hours.  Let the pot rest for 10 minutes or so on no heat before attempting to open.  

Yum Yum!  Delicious stuffed grape leaves.  You just dump them out of here into a bowl of your choosing.  Depending on how sour your leaves are, you may need to add lemon to make them more delicious.  We added lemon, because lemon makes everything more delicious according to my friend.

In the states when I have had stuffed grape leaves, they have been as an appetizer or salad, but according to my friend they eat them as a main dish.  I guess they would be satisfying enough if they had meat in them.

Its been a crazy busy day and weekend!  We've had fun and had lots of good food.  Thankfully all gluten free (I hope).  Today I actually forgot we were in another country or away from home.  It feels good to finally be fitting in and feeling at home here.

Meal of Destruction

Tonight Andrew and I went over to one of his friend's house for Mancef.  Literally translated: Destruction. Andrew has met a couple of buddies at the gym.  One of whom is newly married and invited us both over for dinner.  We were especially excited to be able to hang out with other married couples here.

Here we are all ready to go out with new friends.  I've realized I haven't been taking as many photos of us lately, so I thought I would start again.    In this culture, when you go to visit someone, you take a gift with you.  Earlier today, Andrew and I walked down to the souq, to pick up some chocolate.  All along the top shelf in the ducan, they have these canisters of chocolates.  As we were looking at them, one of the men who works there came over to tell us which chocolate is best and which ones are good.  Once we had decided on which chocolates we were going to get, I think he kept asking us if we wanted it wrapped.  We told him no, but then it got me thinking if we should wrap up the chocolate.  I also think I heard him say something about a wedding, so it could be that you only buy that kind of chocolate to give to someone for their wedding and that's why he wanted to wrap it.  In the end, we decided we should wrap it, it couldn't hurt.  Worst case scenario we come in with a wrapped wedding gift :)

That was the most difficult thing I have ever wrapped.  The wrapping paper here is not paper, but more metallic and the container was a crazy shape.  In the end this is what I came up with.  I'm a pretty big fan of the crazy fan on top :)

Mancef, is a delicious meal of rice, parsley and peanuts with chicken.  The thing that makes it, is a warm salty milk you pour over the chicken rice combination.  I was a little weary of the warm salty milk, but it was really good in the end.  I was also thankful that our hosts didn't make us use our hands to eat with, but gave us spoons.  During dinner they were talking about how people who are really good can roll up balls of this stuff in one hand and pop in in their mouth.  Andrew tried it (somewhat unsuccessfully), but they said that even they cannot eat it that way.

This meal was really quite delicious, and apparently it was the first time she had ever cooked Mancef before!  Notice in the back right corner of the picture, this is a glass of the warm salty milk if you want to pour extra on your spot.  We joked about the fact that Andrew wanted to drink it (they eventually made him try to drink it, not delicious).  That brings up another interesting and different thing about eating here.  You do not drink while you eat your meal.  In America we always have a drink while eating and almost ever other bite you take a sip.  Not the case here.  We were so thirsty but only had olives and tomatoes to quench our thirst.  After the meal and the table was cleared, they brought out glasses of Pepsi (aka bebsi) and a little while after that we had coffee and a little while after that we had fruit smoothies.

It was a fun night.  Good to make new friends and experience new foods and new cultures up close.  Tomorrow my friend is coming over to teach me how to make stuffed grape leaves so keep a lookout for a blog about how that goes.