Ivan And Susan.com

September/October 2009

2009-10-15T17:10:00.002-04:00

There has been a bit of a gap in our regular updates since the last post, so now it's time to play catch up. A lot happened to us after the August update and we couldn't really bring ourselves to articulate any of it, but now (this is actually being typed in February 2010) we can fill you in a bit regarding how we've learned God's goodness afresh. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After enjoying our cruise in June so much, we decided to go on another one, but this time to Canada. Ivan had a long weekend for Labor Day, so we took a short trip up to St. John's. Susan had been having some health problems leading up to the cruise and they came to a head on the only day we were at port, so that was bad timing and pretty much ruined the rest of the cruise experience for us, but it was a nice get away. We did enjoy the towel animals, which we didn't get on the first cruise.

The main tourist attraction in St. John's seems to be the Reversing Falls. Ummm, can I say "not very exciting?" Certainly the concept is interesting. The fact that it happens is noteworthy (namely, that the river is so low and the tide so high that at high tide the sea water flows into the river instead of vice versa). But going there to look at it? Not so much. It doesn't look any more impressive than a river flowing. See for yourself.

Another mandatory stop in St. John's was the Tim Horton's (thanks, Zhenya) basically the Starbucks of the North. Ivan enjoyed his cup o' joe.

We returned on Monday and on Tuesday Susan had a doctor's appointment. The diagnosis was bleak, but, as we learned a week later, incorrect. Earlier this year we had worked through the sorrow of an early term miscarriage (3 months) learning a considerable amount about how much God loves us to send His Son to suffer the physical and emotional pain of the cross so that we can be reconciled to Him. Also learning that, like Job, we don't have to know why God does something, but to trust that He is doing it for a good purpose. That's a really great lesson that can be applied to many areas of our life and we continue to face situations where we remind ourselves of that very important fact.

But, back to the doctor's misdiagnosis. "Another miscarriage," he said, only to revise that a week later to "you have an ectopic pregnancy." Oh. Okay. How do you treat that? Chemotherapy. Thankfully it was only two doses and Susan was back to having blood tests twice a week. Her arm was a bit worse for the wear.

Nothing like a care package from family to cheer us up. With all of the essential ingredients: food, clothes, and entertainment!

Actually Susan had other complications that added to her discomfort, so even better than the care package was having Susan's mom come out and stay for about a month. We were very thankful for her help. By the middle of October, Susan was feeling much better and we were able to enjoy a trip to Long Island for some wine tasting.

Dinner with Friends

2009-08-23T23:31:00.002-04:00

What an exhausting week and yet not really much happened that is worth updating y'all about. How do those weeks happen? Friday night rolls around, your house is a mess, you're exhausted, and yet when you look back at what you did that week there's really not much that you remember? Thankfully, after a week like that comes Saturday. For the most part Saturday wasn't a very memorable day, either, but it ended on a good note. We went to a friend's house for dinner. Altogether there were five couples there. Technically, the host wasn't physically present - we found out upon arrival that he was taken to the hospital on Friday for pneumonia - but he urged his wife to continue with the gathering in his absence. We had a marvelous time. It was sort of potluck style - we brought dessert and deviled eggs (ohh, my mouth waters just thinking about them!!). An Indian couple brought a tasty rice and chicken curry (Joanna - her mother tongue is Telugu - we thought of you!). Other dishes included steak (it's been so long since we've had beef and it was very delicious), chicken (marinated in some sort of yummy-awesome-sauce), peanut noodles (unexpectedly delicious as Susan generally doesn't like peanut-flavored dishes), salad, as well as a completely fabulous and somewhat spicy eggplant and vegetable curry. It was great to hang out, relax, and talk with people of such different backgrounds but united through Christ. Two of the couples will be in our Bible Study resuming next month and it was nice to gather socially outside of the study. We were so blessed by the hostess' hospitality and can't believe we haven't imposed on them more :) Today after church we visited the would-be host in the hospital. It turns out that he doesn't have pneumonia after all (although the doctors don't know what caused his coughing fit that took him to the hospital in the first place). We told him all about the gathering yesterday and he reminisced about how he and his wife used to do things like that more often. We'll just have to encourage that type of activity more in the future - with us invited, of course! He ended up coming home from the hospital around 5pm and alls well that ends well. Now for another week...

Peru, Preaching, and Pools

2009-08-15T22:49:00.004-04:00

Another fun-filled week of adventure (and, yes, it was blazing hot... again). On Monday we went to a friend's house for dinner. Walter is one of Ivan's coworkers whom we met in DC, since he was in the same LL.M. program as Ivan. Now they work together at Ernst & Young and we all hang out on occasion. Our original plan was for Susan to come into the city around 6pm when Ivan gets off work and enjoy a leisurely stroll to Walter's apartment. However, work on Monday turned out to be crazy-busy and neither Ivan nor Walter got off work until closer to 8pm! That doesn't happen very often, but it left Susan hanging around E&Y for two hours with not much to do. By the time 8pm rolled around we were very hungry. Walter's roommate started working on dinner, so we didn't have to wait too long, before we were served a feast. Walter is from Peru and his mom owns a restaurant. You can guarantee he's a good cook! He fixed us "Spicy Hen" (Ají de gallina) which is a phenomenal Peruvian dish served on rice and potatoes (here's a recipe, not from Walter, but worth a try - let me know if you do). We enjoyed a great dinner with Walter, his roommate (who's working on a law doctorate S.J.D.), and Benjamin (another E&Y coworker).

On Wednesday, Ivan preached his second (and final) sermon for the summer. We're going through a series on "A Biblical Worldview" and his topic was "A Biblical Worldview of Work and Money." Since Ivan has been preparing for this sermon for about a month, we've had lots of time to apply what he's been learning to our own financial situation. We've been quite spoiled these days with an ample salary that doesn't require us to count our pennies and be extra careful. That has led us to be somewhat wasteful in several areas, so we've buckled down and created a budget to help us trim out the fat. Again, Ivan took the day off of work so he could spend the morning finalizing his notes and the afternoon practicing his delivery. Ivan's not a huge fan of topical sermons, so he was hard pressed trying to find one passage to focus on for the sermon. In the end, he had three points and had to settle for one main passage per point: Work (1Thes 4:11-12), Save (Pr 6:6-9), and Give (2 Cor 9:6-7). Here is the handout in case you're interested. Apparently you can order a copy of his sermons on CD ($3), but the Wednesday Night sermons aren't available for download from the church website (www.ns-bc.org). But, I highly recommend this sermon if you're interested in revisiting your perspective on work and money and compare it to Biblical examples.

Now, as if those two highlights of this week weren't enough. There's more. That's right: more! Today the ladies of our church gathered at a member's home for a pool party and bbq. It was so much fun - we wish we could do that more often! The catch is that the house with the pool is an hour away. Susan decided to carpool with some friends and ended up with three other ladies in her car. We enjoyed great conversation on the way out there and it really helped the drive go by much more quickly. About 30 ladies were there and we enjoyed fun games in the pool (which was a nice relief after being in the hot sun), great food, a wonderful devotional message prepared by Rayna. A few of us even tried out the trampoline briefly! Before we knew it, time had flown by and it was already 7pm. We piled back into the car for the long ride home. The conversation was more subdued, because I think we were all a bit tired, but we had a quick and safe ride back home.

Hot!!!

2009-08-07T22:38:00.002-04:00

Another month has begun. So far this summer we have enjoyed rather mild temperatures with short, enjoyable bursts of rain. Well, August has decided to buck the trend and be a "real" summer month. Wowsers, it's been hot! And humid! Anyone missing CA yet? YES! WE ARE!! We finally bought an air conditioner thru-the-wall unit for our living room, so we hung up a curtain across the hallway and manage to keep the front of the house a fairly decent temperature. We turn off the AC when we go out and it's not uncommon to come back to a house that's 87 degrees. Blech. Unlike CA where it's almost certain to cool down at night, we've been getting no relief after the sun goes down. So, we've started to sleep on a mattress in the living room. We don't like running the AC 24/7, but that's what it's been this last week. "Welcome to New York."

Family Fun

2009-07-31T22:28:00.004-04:00

This was a fun week for Susan. Her sister just finished up working in South Dakota and came by New Jersey to hang out with her ex-roomie, Kristen, for awhile. So, after church on Sunday Susan drove down to NJ and spent a few days with the girls. We cooked yummy food, played fun games (our cousin taught Claire FLUXX and she taught it to Susan - that is an intense game - you have to keep your wits about you!), and overall just relaxed and hung out. Claire and Kristen went tubing down the river on Saturday and they got sun burnt extremely badly, so our hang out time was punctuated by frequent visits to CVS for more aloe vera. We've always wanted to get a hard-sided suitcase and put flag stickers on it from all of the countries we've been to. For the job in South Dakota, Claire bought such a suitcase so we proceeded to buy a dozen or so flag stickers online to start Claire's collection. Another reason why this is a fun week is because one of our parents celebrates their birthday this week. We couldn't be there in person, but we're happy to celebrate vicariously with them.

Vacation Bible School

2009-07-25T21:52:00.003-04:00

Whew! What a long week! This week was VBS (Vacation Bible School) at our church. Originally, Susan wasn't going to be able to help because she was scheduled to go to the Web Science Research Week at RPI in Troy, NY. Susan was looking forward to connecting with more people interested in similar research, comparing ideas, learning from each other, and just overall being encouraged in our research pursuits. However, that plan ended up not being feasible, so Susan was at home this week instead. She volunteered to work with VBS and was assigned to work with a group of children. By the third day her group included four kindergartners, two first graders, and a fourth grader. Rather than divide the groups up by age, our church mixes different ages together so the older kids can help and be a good example to the younger kids. Unfortunately, Susan's group didn't exactly have any "older" kids - although her 4th grader was a great helper. By the end of the week, Susan was worn out by those four little people and she was reminded once again why she didn't go into Elementary Ed! Kudos to you primary school educators who manage to put up with kids who can't read, don't follow directions, and only listen to you if you tell them to "put on their listening ears" (I don't know about you, but I was born with my listening ears firmly attached to my head!) Who comes up with these things?!

She was thankful that other people were in charge of the snacks (thanks, Janet!), teaching time (great job, Won!), crafts (you rock, Susann!), and games (hurrah, Caleb!) [and, of course, honorable mentions to Skeeter and Miss Skeeter - yes, if you say it fast enough it sounds like "mosquito" with a southern drawl]. We learned some great Bible verses and heard all about the miracles God performed in freeing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. We also learned about passover and how it anticipated the Messiah's death, burial, and resurrection. We are so thankful for Jesus, our Messiah, who lived a perfect life and died the death we deserve for our sins and then rose again demonstrating His victory over death. It's always good to be reminded of that and so, instead of focusing on the exhausting time with a bunch of rug rats, we need to look back on this week of VBS and praise the Lord that many children heard the Good News of Jesus Christ and pray that He would use this week to draw some of them to Himself.

Summer Sermons

2009-07-15T21:13:00.005-04:00

This summer our pastor started a Preaching Lab for some of the men in the church. Ivan was invited to join and, with about 10 other guys, he met regularly with the pastor learning and practicing sermon preparation. Last night, Ivan had the opportunity to preach at our Wednesday night service. It has been quite awhile since Ivan has preached (unless you count teaching 5th-6th graders at our church in California), so there was a fair amount of nervousness. Ivan took the day off work to finalize his notes and then spent the bulk of the day practicing. His assigned topic was "Bearing One Another's Burdens" (we're doing a "One Another's" series on Wednesday nights) and his main text was Galatians 6:1-6. I must say he did a fabulous job. Sure there were some hiccups (for example, he started out talking far too quietly and there was microphone feedback), but overall it went quite well. I consider a "good" sermon to be one where I learn something new (or am reminded of something that I already know, but need to hear again) and where there's an applicable "call to action" or suggestion for change. I got both of those last night and thus his sermon was a booming success in my opinion. Sitting in the audience I was nervous for Ivan and I'm really in awe of those pastors' wives who sit through their husbands sermons week after week. How do they do it?!

NYS DMV = Nasty, Yucky, Slow Department of Motor Vehicles

2009-07-11T03:50:00.004-04:00

NY, how do I hate Thee? Let me count the ways...

So, for those of you who follow us on Facebook, you might have noticed that I'm having some trouble sleeping tonight. I blame it entirely on an evil NYS DMV experience.

Let me start from the beginning...

Having decided to abandon our CA residency (which is a long story in and of itself which might get it's own posting some day), we agreed to get NYS driver's licenses and register our vehicles in NY. I spent about 3 hours on Thursday doing research on the NYS DMV website to determine what forms and supporting documents were necessary to bring. It required a few phone calls to DMV and our auto insurance company to get everything in order and on Friday morning we found the closest office to Ivan's work. We rendezvoused around 10am and walked to the Herald Square DMV, arriving between 10:30 and 11am. The first thing we see is a long line at a window marked "Information - Service Tickets". After doing some reconnaissance we were told that everyone had to wait in that line, explain your business, and get a ticket to be serviced. Oh, if only it were that simple. Truly, the only entrance to the DMV office was that roped off line, so we determined that the information we received was reliable.

Instead, we got to the front of that line and we were told that we had to go to a different, even longer line to get our photos taken for our driver's license and then they would give us service numbers to actually get our licenses and change our vehicle registration.

After an hour, we made it to the front of that line only to learn that there was a different "shorter" line to get the photos we needed. We did manage to get a service number for the car registration issue. Indeed, the other line was shorter - no one was in it - but there was also no one servicing that line. We asked a few people and finally after about 5 minutes someone came to help us. He looked over our paperwork and determined that the documents we brought to prove our NYS residency were inadequate because half of them had "FL 3" as part of the address and half didn't. The half that did, would have been enough to prove our residency, but neither had both of our names on it. The half that didn't were supposed to have been enough to prove our residency, but the person at the window said he couldn't accept them since they were issued by the same company. Nowhere on the website did it say that there was a restriction about bringing documents issued by different companies. We then tried explaining that we rent the top floor in a house and we get our mail whether it has the "FL 3" or not, but he wouldn't budge. He did, however, give us a service number to talk to his supervisor. So we waited some more.

The supervisor echoed the same things the first guy said, but consented to walk over with us to discuss the issue with the first guy. We had to wait some more, since the first guy was helping someone else. Eventually they relented and they approved our residency documents. Then we had to wait in line to get our photo taken. Then we had to wait in line to get a service ticket. Then we had to wait for our numbers to be called. So we had three numbers: one of each of our licenses and one for the vehicle registration. By now, we've had the number for the vehicle registration for over an hour and they still hadn't called it. Eventually they called the number for our vehicle registration. Ivan kept watching the "big board" for our other numbers to appear, but then they needed both of us in order for them to process the vehicle registration since both of our names are on the title (although, one of my questions over the phone to the DMV the prior day was precisely this and they said I could do it without Ivan's presence). Meanwhile, Ivan's number was called, so he left. It didn't matter anyways, because the special insurance card that I had requested from our auto insurance company didn't have both of our names on it, so they couldn't process it anyways. Blech.

As that was being explained to me my number for my license was called so I collected my documents and went to the next window. Finally, something was being processed. Although I had filled out a special application to get the enhanced driver's license, the guy helping me assumed that I was getting the regular license, but thankfully asked before completing the transaction. When Ivan was done with his license we double-checked what type of license they gave him and found they had done a regular one instead of the enhanced, so he had to go back and have the transaction reversed and process a new one.

Eventually, 4 1/2 hrs later, we left the DMV having only accomplished 67% of what we went there for. And they aren't open on Saturdays, so we have to go back next week with Ivan taking more time off work, to get the registration straightened out.

Nation's BDay in the Nation's Capital

2009-07-06T03:08:00.003-04:00

The 4th of July. What a great day for picnics, parades, and fireworks. Well, does one out of three count? Which of the three did we get? Fireworks!! And where, do you ask? The National Mall in Washington, D.C.!! Although we technically lived in DC last 4th of July, that was the day Susan's dad and his friend, Peter, rolled into town with the UHaul to take all of our stuff to NY. In the interest of beating traffic, we left DC around 3pm, made it to Claire's house in NJ (she was gone camping with friends, so good thing Dad had a key). And on the 5th we made it to NY and unloaded all our stuff. That means no fantastic 4th of July show last year and we wanted to get a chance to see the celebration in the nation's capital while we're still living on the LEast Coast (no, that's not a typo - that's intentional... as opposed to the BEST Coast AKA West Coast - at least if you believe my sister...)

So, our holiday weekend began a bit early as Ivan got Thursday and Friday off. Thursday morning we got ready for the trip and drove down to NJ to pick up our friend Kristen. We spent the night at her house and headed for DC around noonish. Traffic was significantly better than we had expected, so we took a detour through Annapolis. We had never been there before, so we went to the Capitol building and walked to the pier. It's a quaint little tourist town. If we had more time we would have liked to visit the Naval Academy, but that will have to wait for another trip.

We stayed with friends from our church down there and had a nice time visiting with them in the evening. On Saturday, we packed some PBJs and water and headed downtown with the purpose of seeing the parade and going paddleboating (or peddleboating, if you prefer) on the Tidal Basin. "But I thought you said you didn't see a parade?" you ask in confusion. Quite right. Although technically we did see the last float of the parade. Twice.

It took longer than we expected to get going in the morning (hey, we were on vacation - prime time to sleep in!), so we didn't get to downtown until about an hour after the parade started. We decided paddleboating was more important than the parade and thought we still might have time to catch part of the parade after we were done. While walking to the Tidal Basin, we passed the starting point for the parade and there were the Hare Krishna's congratulating our country on it's birthday. Or at least that's what the float said. (Here's a photo of the float - the words were on the back).

We made it to the Tidal Basin and rented a 4-seater (although only two can peddle at a time). We got some nice photos of the Jefferson Memorial and enjoyed the sunny, while not too hot weather. We ate some sandwiches, reminisced about many of the important lessons Ivan and I have learned during our marriage, and talked to Kristen about life in general. It was a great time. Eventually we got tired of peddling and we returned to the dock. It felt like forever, but was really just over an hour later.

We then headed to the Old Postal Tower to get a nice view of the city. Our path took us across the parade route and what did we see but the last float bouncing along (yes, the Hare Krishna float again). So I don't think that counts as having actually watched the parade. When we made it to the Postal Tower there was quite a line, but it moved quickly and we enjoyed a brief look at the skyline and the crowds below. We were somewhat surprised that there wasn't more decorating done to commemorate the occasion and apart from the crowds (and the garbage left behind) it could have been your average Saturday in DC.

We went back to our friends' house to cool off and recuperate before heading back to the National Mall for the evening fireworks display. The show was set for around 9:30pm and we got there about 2 hours in advance. We had prepared ourselves for the prospect of standing room only on the Mall, but brought a blanket to sit on just in case we found a square of grass. Surprisingly, although it was crowded, it wasn't as bad as we had expected. Not knowing the best place from which to watch the show, we approached the Washington Monument from the East and got a front row seat along Independence Ave. There was a tree blocking the bottom two-thirds of the monument, but from what we read on the internet the fireworks would be exploding above the monument, so we figured we would be all right. Well, you know what they say: "Don't believe everything you read." Sure enough, that lone tree was blocking 95% of the show, so we (along with a hundred other people sitting in the same vicinity) quickly jumped to our feet and skedaddled to a spot on the sidewalk with an unobstructed view. It wasn't too bad standing for the show, but now we know that the fireworks actually explode on the north west side of the monument and you're better off approaching the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial side than the Capitol side.

Apart from a strange malfunction to the screen on our camera, we enjoyed the show and got a few photos and a video to boot. Perhaps I'll post some of them when I get them on my computer.

One of the benefits of vacating our spot on the ground and heading for the sidewalk was that we were about 200 people closer to the metro and we didn't have to waste time gathering our belongings after the show. Instead, we high-tailed it out of there and made it to the Federal Triangle station with the first thousand people. The station was a madhouse, but the federal employees did a remarkable job at keeping everything running smoothly. We had opted for the Federal Triangle station over the Smithsonian station because for the direction we were headed we thought the metro cars would fill up before even getting to the Smithsonian. However, the Metro employees were on the ball and sent completely empty trains to the Smithsonian station every now and again to keep things moving.

We had prepared ourselves for an hour long wait for a train, but it was really more like 20 minutes. Once on the train, us gals had a seat the whole way while Ivan gave his up to an older woman (like the gentleman that he is). Once the train left DC and ran above ground, we could see some of the locals making their own fireworks displays (highly illegal in LA county, but apparently not so in MD). We had a few scares as the train stopped on the tracks waiting for the platform to clear and some locals seemingly intentionally aimed their bottle rockets in our direction. We thought we were in for a direct hit, but there were just a few near-misses, instead.

On Sunday we got an early start back home (we were planning on staying for church, but since Kristen and Ivan had to be back at work on Monday we didn't want to risk the afternoon traffic). It started out as smooth sailing, but we were glad we left when we did because by the end things were quite congested.

And now we can say we saw 4th of July fireworks in our nation's capital. And it was so worth it :)

Catching up with California Comrades

2009-06-28T22:06:00.001-04:00

What a great week! Last week our friends, the Richardsons, from California came for a visit. As part of a longer trip on the East Coast, during which they visited various historical sights from Virginia to Boston, they decided they couldn't resist a stop in the Big Apple to visit us - and we're so glad! Before we got married, Susan spent quite a bit of time at the Richardson house and this visit definitely reminded Susan of how much she enjoyed their company. The kids will all be in high school next year and it was amazing to reminisce about going to watch basketball games when the youngest was in 2nd grade! As Preston was quick to remind me - I really am getting old! It was fun talking with the kids about the highlights of this trip and their latest school experiences; helpful talking with Karen about life and tips for household management; and great talking with Kent getting caught up on the latest news regarding the building project at our old church. It was also a huge blessing having the family here as the girls volunteered to help in the kitchen and Kent cleaned out the screen in our bathroom faucet and increased the quality of life for our neighbors buy purchasing and installing felt for the bottom of our kitchen chairs! We're so glad that our apartment is big enough to allow a family of 5 to visit without it being too squished.

On Friday we went to the city so the girls could do some shopping in Manhattan (I think more for bragging rights at school than anything else!) and then to meet up with Ivan and go to dinner. The girls found some great Tees for school and Karen bought flip flops for me and her. Then, we headed to Ivan's office. Our original plan was to walk to a Puerto Rican restaurant about 15 minutes away. However, by the time Ivan came down, it was pouring rain. Now, I've seen some storms in my life, but it has been a very long time since I've been in such a torrential downpour. We were ill-prepared for the weather (Karen had an umbrella, Kent had a jacket with a hood, and Kailey had a poncho) so we quickly changed our plans to only walk 5 minutes to the Olive Garden. Kent bought two more umbrellas on the way, but we were still soaking wet by the time we arrived. The wait was supposedly an hour, so some of us went to the bathroom to try to dry off. Someone had the fabulous idea to change into the new, dry clothes and flip flops that had just been purchased and it made for a much more comfortable evening. We had a great time eating yummy food (those breadsticks are killer!) and by the time we left the rain had stopped and the sunset was beautiful. We got to go back to Ivan's office and get some great views of the city at night from the upper floors.

We all took some photos, but I can't find my cord to download mine from the camera, so maybe I'll get to add some to this post later or they'll pop up as a Facebook album sooner or later.

Rain Delay

2009-06-21T23:45:00.001-04:00

We got back from the cruise yesterday morning and had enjoyed our vacation so much that we didn't want it to end. As a result, we decided that instead of unpacking, we should go to a Mets game! For all of you Dodgers fans out there, don't take for granted how inexpensive tickets are to go see your team play at home. Apparently baseball is huge out here (there's the Yankees and Mets teams across the river from each other as well as the minor league teams not far away) so tickets are quite expensive. The cheap seats are over $20 a piece! We bit the bullet and bought them (although we made a trip to the stadium to buy them in person to save the extra $24 they tack onto the price if you buy them online - what a rip off!) We were excited about the game and also about the promo item - the Mets cap courtesy of Nathan's.

We packed all sorts of snacks to avoid the temptation of purchasing hot dogs at the field and the sky was looking threatening so we also packed a blanket, sweatshirts, jackets, and gloves. It's a good thing we did, because it didn't take long before we were quite cold sitting in our seats. One positive thing we found about the "nose bleed" seats was that they were under an overhang of the roof. It was drizzling by the time the game started and the rain continued to fall until the game was delayed due to the rain in the top of the 8th inning. We were relatively dry and warm in our cheap seats, but the 75 minute delay was still a bit too much for us to handle. It was already after 9pm and we needed to get some things done, so we decided that we had our money's worth of baseball and headed home before the Mets lost 3-1 to Tampa Bay.

Cruisin' in the Carribbean

2009-06-20T13:49:00.001-04:00

We just got back from our very first cruise! It was wonderful! Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, Susan has been on a cruise before. Her family went to Alaska when she was in 8th grade. That was a fun cruise as we did all of the kids activities and ran around like crazy and ate all sorts of food that we wouldn't get at home, but this cruise was very different and even more enjoyable.

As we were enjoying the cruise we often stopped to ask each other why didn't we go on a cruise for our honeymoon?! We left on Thursday, June 11 from Brooklyn on the Caribbean Princess (a Princess Cruises ship). Ivan worked a half-day and we went directly to the port from his office. We packed light and were able to directly board without waiting in very many lines at all. Our 9-day cruise was scheduled to make stops in Bermuda (West End), Puerto Rico (San Juan), U.S. Virgin Islands (St. Thomas), and Caicos Island (Grand Turk) with 2 days at sea getting to and from the Caribbean. One of the great things about the cruise was that we were able to unpack our bags once and not have to worry about changing hotels every few days and it really didn't work out to be much more expensive per day than our honeymoon was (including food - so maybe it was even cheaper!!).

We totally lucked out on our cabin: we paid for the cheapest interior cabin, but ended up in a partially obstructed ocean view cabin (a full 30 square feet larger and with a gorgeous view). We were directly on the bow of the ship which helped with the view, but did seem to be a bit of a rougher ride than closer to the middle of the ship. Thankfully, neither of us got sea sick and we thoroughly enjoyed our cabin.

We were determined to manage our eating to minimize the weight gain and started out great: going to the gym twice a day and eating frequent, small, healthy meals. We "splurged" at afternoon tea, eating sandwiches and desserts, but decided that it was early enough in the day that we could work off those calories. At dinner we limited ourselves to the "healthy" choices or, if we ordered something that wasn't so healthy we would eat no more than half of it (we tried asking for half of a portion to avoid wasting food, but our waiter told us not to worry about it - so we didn't). By the end of the trip we let our guard down a bit, went to the gym less often, and ate food that we would have scoffed at during the first few days, but we still managed to put on less than 5 lbs each (hurrah!).

During the sea days we made a point to attend the ballroom dance lessons and now can hold our own at dancing the Salsa, Merengue, Cha Cha, and Waltz (although we have to practice or else we forget everything!) Unfortunately, they only teach three moves per dance, so our repertoire is rather limited, but it's still fun to be able to find a song on YouTube and dance to it!

At our first port (Bermuda), we paid for an excursion on a glass bottom boat to see a ship wreck and then snorkel and that was a lot of fun. It was a cloudy day and rained a bit while we were in the water, but it wasn't cold and since we were wet anyways, the extra water didn't bother us. We also went to Hamilton to see the city, but didn't have much time and weren't too impressed with seeing the city. There were a large number of "Tall Boats" (the old fashioned full-rigging sail boats) that were preparing for a transatlantic voyage, so those were pretty neat to see.

On the cruise, there was a lot of photography so we decided we should have brought more clothes so we could have more variety in the photos we could purchase, so in San Juan we decided to do some clothes shopping. We also did the AAA Walking Tour of Old San Juan including a visit to El Morro, La Forteleza, and many Plazas. It was a very warm and sunny day, so we didn't last very many hours out in the sun before heading back to the ship for a late lunch.

Our third port was St. Thomas. Susan had done some research and learned that the most appealing shore excursion was a driving tour of the best spots on the island. Rather than book that tour, we found a taxi bus to take us around for less than 50% what we would have paid on board. Unfortunately, it was miserable weather and we didn't get many good photos from the lookout points. However, when we did get glimpses of the water, we were absolutely astounded by how many different shades of blue it was. It was incredible.

Our final port was Grand Turk. We had wanted to book another snorkeling excursion, but balked at the price so instead we went ashore and rented snorkels for $10 a piece (mental note, next time buy a snorkel at home and bring it with you) rather than spending $80 a piece for an official excursion. The water, for the most part was warm and rather shallow and there were a surprising number of fish to look at, although no coral. Perhaps we would have seen more interesting things on an expensive excursion, but we definitely got our money's worth on the beach and enjoyed sitting around and reading a book in between snorkeling.

On the last two sea days we were very ready to just relax. One morning we sat on deck and watched a movie by the pool. Although we were very diligent to apply sun block, we missed a few spots and are now burnt to a crisp in a strange pattern (a few spots on our arms and legs including all of Susan's neck). Hopefully it's not severe enough to start peeling, but we're also glad that we didn't get sunburnt earlier on the trip.

Our highlights were definitely the dining experience and the dancing on board as well as the snorkeling opportunities ashore. We hope to take another cruise in the not-too-distant future.

For more photos, log into Facebook (they will be posted in the next few days).

Memorial Day in Mass and Fish with Friends

2009-06-03T23:13:00.003-04:00

Another few busy weeks have gone by. A few days after Papa Viktor left, some friends from California came for a visit (JK and Ira). They were on the East Coast for a conference and were able to stay a few days extra. They also celebrated their anniversary while they were here, so on Friday evening they went to Manhattan. On Saturday, Ivan and Susan went to Mike and Prospera's wedding. It was our first New York wedding/reception. We had no idea what we were in for! Most of the weddings we've attended have been for college friends in California, where it's usually a punch and cake reception that lasts for a few hours. This was a full on crazy expensive reception and we had a blast. It started with appetizers (which were so extensive we thought it was the whole meal). Then, we moved into the dining room where the wedding party was announced. There was a DJ playing music and the couple had their first dance. Then came the four course meal with dancing interspersed. Ivan and I enjoyed a few slow dances and tried to swing dance to a few numbers. We decided we need to take some dancing lessons so that we can feel less foolish next time! But we had a lot of fun.

After the reception, we decided to join JK and Ira in the city for a bite to eat. Ivan showed them his office and took them up to the 33rd floor, where there's a great view of Manhattan. Then, we went to a Sushi restaurant. Usually, Susan is afraid of sushi, but she ordered a few California rolls (ie no raw seafood) and they were quite tasty. We drove the Sheas to the airport on Sunday.

The following week was Susan's birthday and Memorial Day weekend. We went out to a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan for Susan's birthday dinner and then Ivan had a few days off, so we went to Boston, MA. We had a great time, although we were sort of hoping that Susan would be able to meet with some people at MIT to discuss research ideas, but since it was a holiday weekend, no one was around. So we just enjoyed watching the scullers on the Charles River, walking around Cambridge, and looking at Harvard. The Mets were playing the Red Sox while we were there and we debated going to a game, but it was cold and rainy, so we opted not to. We did, however, make it out to the JFK Presidential Library, which is only a few miles from the city. It was pretty interesting and made for a good half day trip.

Basically as soon as we got back from Massachusetts, Susan turned around and went to New Mexico to hang out with Claire for her birthday. What many people don't realize is that Memorial Day is actually on May 30, but it's observed on the last Monday in May. Well, Claire's birthday is on Memorial Day, but the rest of the nation observed her birthday on Monday, so we decided that she needed to celebrate her birthday every day that week. Susan learned how to play "Happy Birthday" on the guitar and so she played it and gave her a present every night that week. Our cousin, Shelley, also came out from Ohio to celebrate Claire's birthday with her, so we had fun together. On Friday we went up to the top of Sandia Peak and then went to the Petroglyph National Monument. It was a lot of walking and it was a hot day, but we had a lot of fun. On Saturday we took a trip to Santa Fe to see the capitol. It wasn't as exciting as we had expected - Albuquerque is a much larger and more interesting than Santa Fe, but now we can say we've been to the capitol. After we got back from Santa Fe, we went to see "Up" in the movie theater. What a sad movie! It's a tear-jerker: cute, but very sad. After the movie we went out for Claire's birthday dinner to an award-winning barbeque place. Wow! That was good food! We split a sampler meal so we could try three different kinds of meat. We then went back and bought a pound of the best stuff and took it home. We watched a movie and ate some fabulous Strawberry dessert, which we made last time we were all at Claire's house (in NJ).

Susan left on Sunday to fly back to Boston, where she had finally set up a meeting to discuss research ideas with a professor at Southampton University who was in Boston for a few days for some board of directors meetings. It was a productive meeting and hopefully will lead to some concrete progress in her PhD.

Susan took the train home and is ready to return to a less hectic schedule soon.

Celebrations and Reunions

2009-05-12T23:58:00.003-04:00

"What happened to Madrid Days 9 and 10?" you ask. Well, those last few days were rather busy with lots of staying up late. I came home on Saturday, April 25th and was greeted by Ivan and his dad. That's right, Papa Viktor arrived in NYC while I was away. It was his first trip to the US and we tried to do everything possible to make sure he got the most out of it. The first weekend he was here we stayed in NYC and took it easy. The second weekend, we took a trip down to DC, stopping at Philadelphia on the way (thanks, Kristen, for letting us crash at your place). During the second week that he was here, Ivan had an alumni event for Southwestern in the city, so Susan and Ivan went to that while we sent Papa Viktor off to enjoy the New York City Ballet. The third weekend that he was here, we all flew to CA to spend time with Susan's family and introduce Viktor to the west coast (or, as Claire says, "the best coast" - not to be confused with the east coast aka "the least coast").

We left for California on Thursday night. On Friday we spent the day in Ventura. On Saturday we went to Santa Clarita where we had brunch with the Paradises (Papa Viktor had met them almost 15 years earlier in Kazakhstan). Gayle (Ivan's English teacher in Kazakhstan) came with Nanci on her way out of town and it was touching to see how emotional the reunion was for Papa Viktor.

After brunch, Susan hung out with some friends (Joanna and her family and then Caroline and her family) while Ivan showed Papa Viktor The Master's College campus. Then, we all went to Vitaliy and Michelle's house to hang out and catch up with them. I think Papa Viktor enjoyed having a real conversation in Russian! Monday the 11th is a birthday shared by Ivan and Vitaliy's oldest son, Daniel. Daniel is such a cute kid, he loves it when we come over to visit and always wants to talk to us and when we sit down for a meal he wants to sit in between us. It's so much fun to have a friend's kid be so affectionate.

On Sunday we celebrated Mother's Day and Ivan's birthday. Then, we drove to LA, where we showed some of the sights to Papa Viktor before meeting up with Uncle David and Aunt Valarie for dinner. Finally, Susan's parents dropped us off at the airport and we were on our way back home. Yesterday we took Ivan out to the Outback Steakhouse for his birthday meal and today Papa Viktor left to go back home. So, now we have our house all to ourselves again. Overall, it was a very nice visit although quite rushed. Ivan and his dad had some great conversations and even Susan had a few lengthy conversations in Russian. It will take quite a bit more practice for Susan to become adept at conversing in Russian, but this was a good chance to brush up on it.

Madrid Day 8

2009-04-23T23:54:00.001-04:00

I was so tired when I woke up this morning. I didn't have time to go to the store yesteday so I had to buy breakfast. I discovered a nice cafe not far from the hotel, so I bought a cinnamon roll (which was filled with not just raisins, but various fruit - quite tasty) and a banana. It only cost 2.50 € (about $3.30). Quite reasonable I would say. I think I'll go there on Saturday morning before my flight, too. Work today was much better than yesterday. We changed how some processes work and it seems to be going more smoothly now.

There wasn't much new during the conference. I worked a few sessions. I had some time off (which is when I wrote the update for the previous few days) and that was about it. After the conference there was a banquet at a golf course not far away. It was very fancy (seriously, a 5 course meal and not traditional Spanish food at all - it was very upscale and fancy). The entertainment was a flamenco show - much better than the show we saw Wednesday night. At this show, there were 9 dancers (7 female, 2 male) and they used castanets and changed outfits a few times and overall just did a really fantastic job. I've decided flamenco dancing is like tap dancing except with more flair!

The tradition among the volunteers is to have a party on the night of the banquet. Before the banquet began, we went down to the volunteer room and enjoyed some snacks that each volunteer brought from their home country. Then we went to the banquet and after the banquet (around midnight) we hung out some more. Around 1am I decided it was time to retire so I left, but apparently everyone else stayed out until 3 or 4am! They are crazy! It seems that Spaniards are quite the party animals and it's fairly common for people to stay out until 5, 6, or 7am! Not me! I decided that tomorrow I would skip the morning session (I don't have any responsibilities during it, so it won't be a problem for me to sleep in extra and not arrive until 11am or so). Hopefully I'll get enough sleep!

Madrid Day 7

2009-04-22T23:45:00.003-04:00

Ay caramba!!!! What an awful, crazy day! So, until today, only about 60% of the conference attenders have been here, because the actual conference didn't start until today. There were a ton of people and lots of security - the entire building was sealed off except for the auditorium. So it was crazy until the Prince left. Then, the lunch crowd was insane - way too many people for the way the line was arranged. Eventually we figured out how to rearrange the line and it got easier, but it made life very stressful to me. The room I was assigned to turned out to not be very interesting for me, so that was annoying, too.

After the conference ended, there was a "reception". Last time I was at this conference that meant a dinner with good food and music, but this time it meant sitting in the auditorium and watching a hearing imparied flamenco dancer. At first I didn't think limited hearing would make the dancing that difficult, but at one point it took her awhile to find the right rhythm. She did a beautiful job once she got into it.

After the reception, there was an exclusive event hosted by Google at the Prado Museum (because they are partnering together to make the artwork in the Prado accessible on Google Earth at a very high resolution - 14 paintings are currently available). I was invited because I applied for the Google Travel Grant (so they could pay for part of my airplane ticket - although I was declined). They let me bring one guest, so I brought Karen. I'm glad I did because 1) she enjoyed it far more than I did and 2) she was a lot of fun to talk with. I really enjoy looking at statues more than paintings and we only got to tour the 14 paintings featured on Google Earth. However, the room where the reception was held after the tour contained 7 statues (supposed to be daughters of Apollo? or Zeus?) so that was cool. You aren't allowed to take photos in the museum, but we were able to take photos in that room, so I have one with me and the statues :)

We left around 11pm and walked to the metro. I watched a bit of tennis while I was getting ready for bed - I had to eat something because they've only been feeding us fingerfood!!! I'm tired of not having real food and can't wait to get home!

Well, that's it for now.

Madrid Day 6

2009-04-21T23:41:00.003-04:00

This schedule is starting to wear me down. I awoke at 6:30am and was at the venue by 8:30am. The room I was assigned to for the day was actually very interesting (that doesn't happen very often). There was a challenge (similar to the NetFlix challenge, if you're familiar with that) the goal was to propose an algorithm to disambiguate people on the web (ie, if you're searching for "Michael Jackson" which one do you want - the singer? reporter? other?). It was fun hearing about the groups that participated and what they based their solutions on.

After the conference, we had to stay late to get a security briefing. The Prince of Astorias is coming to the Opening Ceremony tomorrow and there is a big production regarding his safety and all that. We didn't get our briefing until 7:30pm, so by the time we were done and got home it was already very late (after 9pm). I was too tired to do anything, so I ate dinner in the room. All of the other volunteers went to a RealMadrid game (the local soccer team). Tickets were $60 and I was very tired, so I didn't go. But I watched the 2nd half of the game on TV. It was actually a very exciting last 10 minutes and RealMadrid won in overtime! (well, it's technically not overtime, but penalty time... I'm not sure exactly what it's called, the direct translation from Spanish is "discount time" and since I'm not familiar enough with soccer in English I'm not sure what the equivalent is).

So, I went to bed after the soccer game ended, around 1am.

Madrid Day 5

2009-04-20T23:36:00.003-04:00

I have a break and am at the conference using the public computers that have been set up for conference attendees to use. Even though I brought my laptop with me to Spain, it hasn't come in very handy because 1) I'm too lazy to carry it around and 2) the wireless internet at the hotel is too slow to use.

So, here's the latest update:

The conference officially started. As a volunteer, my responsibilities require a typical day to look something like the following... Get up at 7am, eat breakfast, get ready to go, ride the metro to the venue, and be there between 8:30 and 9am. Check in with my boss and hang out until the first session starts (between 9 and 9:30am, depending on the day). When the session starts I need to be in the room that I am assigned to for the day, ensuring that the presenter(s) is(are) comfortable and doesn't(don't) have any questions as well as count the attenders. After 90 minutes there is a coffee break for 30 minutes. During the coffee break I don't really have to do anything except answer questions and help people find what they need. Then the next session starts and my job is the same as during the first session (well, during all sessions I do the same thing). Then there's lunch, which can hardly be called a meal. It's a bunch of fingerfood and paella (and the locals say the paella really isn't that tasty). During half of lunch I stand at the entrance collecting lunch tickets and during the other half of lunch I get to "eat" (if you can call it that - it's really just glorified grazing). After lunch the schedule is the same as the morning.

At the end of the day, all of us volunteers check in with our boss and report the numbers for the day and debrief. In the evenings the schedule varies.

On Monday, in the evening my roommate (Karen, a great gal from Kansas, who has been volunteering for the last 9 years) and I and a few others decided we needed to go to a real grocery store to buy some food. The store also had a cafeteria, so we went there for dinner. I was ready for some familiar food, so I bought a small hamburger. It was good and filling. The time is all twisted around here. We eat lunch after 1pm, the conference doesn't end until 6pm, and by the time we're all done and back home we don't manage to eat dinner before 8pm. By the time we returned from the store and cafeteria, it was past 10pm. We finally got to bed around 11:30pm and were very tired.

Madrid Day 4

2009-04-19T23:10:00.006-04:00

Today is Sunday. I awoke at 8:30am, got ready for church, packed my bags, and left with our friends to go to their church. The service was in Spanish and I understood about 80% of it until about half way through and I was just too tired to pay attention. Then I basically stopped trying and didn't understand more than 10%. I hit the wall. There's only so much Spanish my mind can handle on too little sleep. Then there was Sunday School. Also in Spanish, but the teacher spoke much more slowly (although with a thicker accent) and I understood about 70% of it (when I was trying). My friend dropped me off at the big conference hall where we will be meeting all week and I got to work helping with the setup. We took a break for lunch and continued with the setup for about 4 more hours. Then, everything was done and we had the evening to ourselves. We're basically all staying in the same hotel, so we rode the metro to the hotel together and checked in. My roomate is a great gal from Kansas. She's been coming to the WWW conferences for years, but I didn't meet her at the last one because there was a devastating hurricane in Kansas right before the conference. Several of us hung out for awhile and then went to a store to buy food for breakfast. I returned to the room for a light dinner and some time on the internet to write my update for the past few days. The internet wasn't working, so I just wrote the update so I can send it from the conference hall tomorrow. Now I'm ready for bed and it's barely 10pm. The week is looking up! Hopefully I'll be getting more sleep than I have for the past few days!

Madrid Day 3

2009-04-18T23:05:00.002-04:00

When talking with my friends last night, they mentioned that the young people from their church were going to take a day trip to Toledo. I was assured that while Madrid doesn't seem like a very Spanish city, in Toledo, you feel like you're in Spain. So I woke up at 8:20am so I could get ready and be at the church by 9:30. About 25 people from the church went. We car pooled down there (it's about an hour or hour and a half drive). When we drove up, we saw an amazing fortress which is the old town. It's a walled area of the city with really old looking buildings. I was so excited and assumed that we would park and I would get a chance to come back and explore and take photos, etc. That didn't happen, so that was a bit disappointing. We arrived and parked and regrouped. I assumed that we would break up into smaller groups, explore, and meet back at the cars at a specific time, but instead we all stuck together as a massive group. That arrangement had its benefits as well as its drawbacks. Main benefit: I could talk to all of the people in the group rather than just get to know the small group I ganged up with. Main drawback: it took forever to get anywhere and I couldn't explore the things I wanted to. For example, according to Rick Steves, the only really interesting thing in Toledo is the Cathedral (which is the first cathedral built in Spain). We walked to the outside of it, but didn't get a chance to go inside. As for the benefits, I met lots of great people. One gal is teaching English here. She's from LA and went to USC. One fellow knows four languages (including English and Russian - he's originally from St. Petersburg) so we talked a bit. There were three other Russian speakers who were originally from Ukraine. We talked a lot in Russian - two of them hardly speak any Spanish at all even though they have lived here for 6 months. About 5 of the people spoke English well enough for them to converse with me in English and the rest was in Spanish. Unfortunately, talking in Russian completely confused me so it made it very difficult to think of Spanish words when I wanted to talk, so I didn't do much talking in Spanish. Who knew that I would come to Spain to practice my Russian? It's actually a good thing, because in a few days Ivan's dad is coming to NYC to visit us and he'll be there when I get back. I was concerned about switching immediately from Spanish to Russian, but now it's like no switch at all. I'll just keep talking in English and Russian!

Back to the recap of my day: we returned from Toledo very late. I had a quick snack and went on the computer to write my recap, but then remembered that tomorrow is my last day with our friends and I wanted to try to transfer their e-mail contact list from one computer to another, so I did that instead. In the process, I managed to break a few things (now an error message pops up if they click on a certain folder). Eventually I discovered that the problem is one computer has Outlook 2003 and the other has Outlook Express 2002. And they are not compatible. I finally found a website explaining what I needed to do and in the end got it working, but then it was 1:30am. I was exhausted and decided not to write the recap and instead went to bed.

Madrid Day 2

2009-04-17T23:59:00.003-04:00

I decided to do my best to overcome jet lag and set my alarm for 9am. Wow! I thought my alarm clock at home gave me a heart-attack! This one is much worse! I won't be sleeping through that! I opened the blinds to let the sun in so that I would wake up better and ended up getting out of bed at 9:20. I was a slow-poke and dawdled around the house until 11:30am. I opted to skip out on the family meal at noon because it wouldn't allow for much sight-seeing time for the day.

I decided to start out with the Rick Steves' Walking Tour of Madrid. We did his walking tour of Berlin when we were in Germany and it was great. This one was rather mediocre. I'm not sure if that means that Madrid is a mediocre city or if Rick just didn't do a good job. I'm inclined to think the former. From what I hear, Barcelona is really the more popular tourist destination anyways. I started at Puerta del Sol. There's construction there, so I didn't even realized that I had arrived. I took a picture of 0 km - the place where every distance in Madrid is measured from. That and the Palace, which is where the tour ended. There wasn't really much interesting in between. So at the Palace I decided to buy a ticket for the tour. Since I got the student discount (thank you, UCLA) I splurged on the audioguide, which was totally worthwhile. I learned in Russia that it's really helpful to get the auidioguide in English and I wasn't disappointed this time. Relatively little of interest in the palace is translated into English, so without that guide it would have been a pretty boring visit of 20+ rooms.

Time goes by so quickly here and I'm not using a watch so I had no idea that it was almost 7pm by the time I was done and leaving the Palace (during the walking tour I had stopped to eat some sandwiches and fruit that I had packed for myself, but I was getting a bit hungry by then). I took the metro home and was back by 8pm. I visited with the friends I'm staying with for awhile, ate dinner, and went to bed around 11:30pm.

Madrid Day 1

2009-04-16T23:47:00.001-04:00

Here I am. Safe and sound. In Madrid, Spain.

My flight left Newark airport at 10:30pm (delayed by half an hour thanks to mechanical difficulties). I must say, as far as international travel is concerned, it was one of my best trips (it helped that it was only 7 hours of flying rather than 9, but also the timing was phenomenal). As soon as we took off, they started serving hot dinner (I had a very delicious chicken and pasta dish with salad, roll, and brownie) and then they served drinks. Each seat had a personal screen on which you could play music, movies, tv shows, games, etc. After dinner I watched a movie and then went to sleep for the night. I usually have a horrible crink in my neck after sleeping on an airplane, but before leaving NY I picked up one of those inflatable neck pillows and it was great. I slept soundly until they woke us up for breakfast. It was mixed fruit and a croissant. And then they brought drinks. And we were on the ground within an hour. We landed at noon on Thursday. I was semi-rested, fed, and ready to face the day. I couldn't have asked for better timing.

I had intended to read the tour book of Madrid on the plane, but I watched a movie instead, so after our friends (I'm staying with missionaries from our church in CA until Sunday) picked me up from the airport we went home and I took some time to plan out where I wanted to sightsee. We ate "dinner" (they have their big meal of the day at 2pm) and I did some more planning (struggling at times to stay awake, but I did!). Eventually I set out around 5pm. I decided to do some shopping rather than real sightseeing, but I did manage to see the bull fighting arena (bull fights are on Sunday, so I won't be going to one). I took the metro to the arena. Took photos. Shopped. And then took the metro closer to the center of Madrid and walked around a lot looking for stores that I thought would be good candidates for souvineer shopping (hoping to avoid the souvineer shops in Plaza Mayor, where the crush of tourists - and pick pockets - are more likely to hang out). However, those shops weren't as promising as I had hoped, so I'll go to Plaza Mayor today (and do the Rick Steves' Walking Tour of Madrid).

I came home at 8pm and was ready to fall over. My shoulders ached because I brought too much stuff with me on my walk-about. My knee ached because that's what it does. And my feet ached (I guess I'm not used to walking). I came home and ate yummy, homemade chicken soup, and saw Ivan was online so I chatted with him for awhile. I eventually went to sleep around 10:30pm.

My initial thoughts about Spain: Most people start their day late, have a huge late lunch, take a siesta, and go to bed super late. I need lots of sleep, so all of that sounds good except the staying up super late part. The metro system is fairly recently built, so it's very clean and modern. During rush hour, the metro is almost as crowded as Russia, but somehow it seems as if you can't squeeze another person on, but they do and still manage to not touch each other. Very different from Russia where you're pushed into other people and squeezed together so tightly. Also different from DC where if it looks like another person won't fit then they don't even try getting on. A beautiful "invention" they have here (actually, I've seen it in several European countries) are these wonderful blinds that are installed outside your window that can be pulled down and literally black out your room. My sister needs to get these installed at her house so she can sleep during the day after an over-night shift. They are incredible. They also help eliminate ambient noise from the street. The elevators here are very small. They say the capacity is 5 people, but I don't know how you could fit more than 3 in there. There seems to be no such thing as an obese Madrileno (person from Madrid). In my walk-about yesterday I didn't even see someone I would call fat, much less obese. Perhaps it's because 1. no fast food (it's being slowly introduced, but the locals only go there as a novelty - most people eat home-cooked meals) and 2. their big meal is earlier in the day, providing lots of time to work off those calories. That's about all of my thoughts for now. The weather is very similar to NYC right now. Bright and sunny outside (although it rained yesterday) but still very brisk and downright cold - especially when the wind blows.

My volunteer responsibilities for the conference begin on Sunday, so after Saturday I probably won't have as much time to dilly-dally on the internet, but until then I intend to send you regular updates. Partly so you can keep up with my goings-on and partly so I can easly copy and paste these e-mails into blog postings (I don't like to blog about trips until I'm back from them, just so the crazies out there don't know I'm gone).

If you think of it, you can pray for Alberto, one of the men in the church here who had a kidney transplant last week. At first his response looked favorable, but then his body started rejecting it. It's still too soon to tell what will happen, but we're praying that his body would accept it and that his doctors would have wisdom and we're praising God for Alberto's confidence in Him during this difficult and painful time (his body is all swollen and he's on cortisone for the pain).

That's it for now.

Easter Surprise

2009-04-14T23:22:00.005-04:00

Another bi-monthly update. Since our last update, not much has happened. We've had friends from church over for dinner a few times and the Discipleship Groups from our church had a get together for dinner (we were the purple team). This weekend was Easter and we got a great care package from Susan's family (thanks, guys!). Of course, Claire was involved so it was very nicely decorated. What a blast from the past! It was filled will those plastic eggs we used to use as kids for the Easter egg hunts. Naturally, there were a few filled with chocolate, other candy, and (of course) money - that's a dentist for you - don't rot their teeth: buy their happiness :)

Tomorrow Susan leaves for a week and a half - she's going to a conference in Madrid to help give her an edge in her PhD research. We'll see how that goes...

Hangin' with the Homies

2009-03-31T23:13:00.004-04:00

Alas, Claire has departed. It was so nice having her here. Now it's time to return to "normal" life, whether we want to or not. We managed to take Claire to the tofu restaurant while she was here and now, as of last night, we've tried another ethnic local favorite: Korean BBQ. We went with some friends from church as they give you a lot of food and it's not exactly cheap. But boy was it delicious! Each table has essentially a BBQ pit built into it. They bring out about a dozen "side" dishes and then they start BBQing deliciously marinated beef right in front of you. I guess it's so expensive because there were literally 6 waiters hovering around us at all times making sure the beef was cooking to perfection and keeping our plates full. Susan brought her camera, but, alas the batteries were dead, so we didn't get any pictures to document the occasion. If you're ever in NY and have $25 per person to spend, consider some amazing Korean BBQ.

On other fronts, Alexei and his girlfriend left a few weeks ago. Andrei came back and left again last week, and now we have our house all to ourselves. The guests were actually a very good thing for us as it forced us to unpack more boxes to make room for everyone to sleep somewhere. So now the floor is clearly visible in Susan's office and the bookshelves are more full than ever!

Last week Susan invited the pastor's daughters over for some girl time and they had fun eating Subway, baking cookies, writing card to some ladies in the church, and just hanging out. The week before that we went over to the associate pastor's house for dinner with Andrei and we all had a great time, enjoying delicious food and friendly company.

Russian Relatives

2009-03-02T23:08:00.005-05:00

What a busy weekend it's been! In addition to Claire visiting us, last week Ivan's brother, Alexey, and his girlfriend came to visit us and then on Saturday Ivan's friend, Andrei, arrived. This is the most people we've had staying with us in all 5 years of our marriage! Andrei and Alexey and sleeping in the gym (aka Ivan's office) while the gals are sleeping in Susan's office. It's worked out pretty well so far. Andrei is leaving on Tuesday to go to the Shepherd's Conference in California and the rest of the guests are staying another week or so.

For the most part, Alexey and his girlfriend keep themselves occupied with the typical touristy things during the day, so Claire and I get to hang out, run errands, play games, etc. With Claire's help, we've managed to buy some frames and hang some pictures and art that I've been meaning to hang ever since we moved here 6 months ago!

Hurrah for sisters :)

Oh, and here's a photo of the Russian chocolate that Ivan's brother brought us from Russia!