I know it seems like I’m blogging a lot, and I am doing so a lot more than I have lately, but it will come to a standstill this next week. We are finally, reallyandtruly, moving into a place of our very own, and our land line and DSL isn’t connected yet. So… who knows when we’ll have internet again. Our new mattress will be our 26th bed since October 9, 2006. Hooray! It will indeed be a big day.

The following are random tidbits that I know I’ll forget in the next few days if I don’t write them down. So here I am, writing them down:

1. Yesterday we pulled into a gas station, and while the man was filling us up, a younger kid (about 10) came up to our window to say hello (it’s a very friendly culture here). When he discovered we were Americans, he attempted to ask us a question of which we could not understand one bit. He thought for a minute, then said, “Los Angeles?” We said, “No – Texas.” “Ah, Texas!” he replied. “Cowboys!” (said while making guns with his fingers). We’ve gotten this response most times when people hear we’re from Texas. Have we not yet broken the international stereotype? Apparently not. We probably never will.

2. Our friends picked us up at the airport when we arrived and they took us straight to their home. Their househelper was there (who also happens to be the sweet woman who cleaned our home so we could move in), and she was the first local person Chickpea had met. Our friends introduced her to the three of us, and Chickpea said, “Hi, Snowman!” I tried so hard not to bust out laughing. She proceeded to call this lovely woman Snowman all day. “Look, Snowman – a tree!” “Snowman, what’s that?” Her name sounds NOTHING like Snowman. I mean – nothing. It starts with an ‘F’ and has three syllables. And to this day, she is still calling her Snowman. I tell Chick what her actual name is all the time, but apparently, in her noggin, it sounds like Snowman. Thankfully, as a mama, I’m the only one who truly knows she’s calling her Snowman, because it doesn’t even sound much like Snowman in English. But you know how they say little kids learn second languages so much faster than adults? Maybe we’ll have an exception here.

3. Yesterday Chickpea fell asleep on the way to IKEA. She woke up as soon as we pulled into a parking space, and as she looked around and realized what store we were at, she said, “Where’s Brooke? Where’s Corin? Where’s Ari?” I told her they were in their home in Austin. But she was insistent – she kept wanting to know where they were. Most of the time we were there, she’d randomly say, “Where’s Ari?” or “Brooooke! Where are you?” Apparently they live at IKEA, and simultaneously at all IKEAs worldwide. We’ve been to the IKEA in Round Rock with them once, out of the several times we’d been there on our own. Crazy girl. (She also calls every male child under 2 in the entire country Baby Josh.)

4. Speaking of Brooke and the Gang, we have our coffee hook up! There’s a German woman here who works as the coffee distributor in our city for expats in another city who are roasting coffee as their local business. We asked her a few questions regarding the process of their roasting, and it sounds pretty much like our many friends in Austin who roast their own coffee at home. Hooray! If you personally know our prerequisite for survival love for coffee, then you know how great this is for us.

Alright, the randomness is over. I’ve got umpteen jillion things to do before we start day 2 of the shopping extravaganza… Have a happy Sunday for us.

(Oh, and by the way, my ankle is doing just fine. It’s still in an Ace bandage, but it feels much, much better.)

posted: 07 March 11
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