Earline's Big Adventure

Yippee - Myles is here!!!

2008-04-09T20:45:00.001-07:00

Hey guys,

Well, it is official. I'm a grandma, or g'ma as I prefer to be called. That's Geee---ma! to those uninformed in Southern. Myles Griffin was born Monday night at 8:50, and weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs 15 oz, after he'd already peed and pooped! I'm not sure where his little mother put him, but his last ultra sound don just before he was born showed a cramped up mess! Below is a picture of the new grandboy with his Mom and Dad, Nicole and Ryan.

This is dad getting ready to head into the delivery area. She ended up having a c-section, mainly because he was so huge and she was so tiny!
Grandpa Joe, Ryans dad, and his sister-in-law, the new Aunt Hannah. It was really cool. Right after he was born, the nurse wheeled him by where we were all waiting and we got to ohh and ahhh. He's about 5 minutes old in this picture!
We were quite a crowd outside the nursury window. There were about 15 of us!
He seemed to like Ryan's voice. And Ryan was, well, you see, in total love.

Hey, they put GUNK in my eye!!!! GUNK!!!!Gotta pose for the cameras little man.Can't a kid get some attention in this joint!!!
Oh, yeah, that's better. Hey guys!Got to get my close ups done.This bath stuff stinks! He seems a good natured kid, likes to eat like his cousin Jeremy, and has (to his G'ma) his dads features with his mom's expressions. I'm the only one who thinks that though. Everyone else says he's Nicole. But actually...he looks like a pretty cute baby to me. Yep, I'm pleased!

More later, and of course more pictures!

Earline

I'm finally in france!

2008-02-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update on recent adventures:
1. Made it to France where the keyboards are different.
2. Got my wallet stolen in Barcelona...Tony at Merrill is WONDERFUL!
3. Sandy made the trip, and we have been bumming around France for a few days now
4. She leaves tomorrow and the next crew comes on Monday.

Can't type any more. Takes too long to go back and fix every a;m,w! More when I get back to the States in one week

Grenada

2008-02-18T09:22:00.001-08:00

Well, sort of...

The first picture I have is of the monkeys who live in Gibralter. I wasn´t brave enough to drive to the "Ape House" where they live on the Rock, so I figured I wouldn´t see them. Evidently they are the only primates in Europe. Little did I know that they like chocolate like the rest of us, so they come down and scavage, and showed up at my hotel as I was walking out the door. Here is a picture of one of the little guys, chocolate wrapper in hand!

I got to Granada yesterday and just kind of cratered. It took forever to find the hotel. I really have NO sense of direction, and I´m getting tired of being lost ALL the time! I drove to the street, then started looking for the hotel, and of course the map I had showed it on the opposite side of the road AND at the wrong end of the street! When I tell you the streets here all star into a plaza (think the intersection of Main, 20th, and Studemont) and you have some idea of how confused I was. I finally parked, but realized I was too far away, lost the parking card, had to ay for a full day, figured out the map sucked, and finally found the hotel...after driving around for nearly an hour. Did I mention the streets here are about 1 car wide! I was a wreck, and had the migraine from hell. So yesterday I didn´t leave my room. Once I got there, I was done. I took a nap, read, sewed on my fish, and just rested. It was actually hard for me to get out this morning (OK, actually after noon). I´m better now, don´t feel as lost, and actually rode the bus and got to where I wanted to go!

Where I wanted to go was Alhambra, the huge citadel palace here in Granada. Believe it or not, this is something I have wanted to do since I was in university the first time! The history here, and the beauty are incredible. The area started as a fortress, and us surrounded by walls like these...

It was also the main gate into the city, the adminstrative center for the rulars, and the palace. The beautiful plasterwork almost has to be seen to be believed.

At one time it was painted. Here you can still see some of the blue background.

Below is part of a courtyard called "Courtyard of the Lions". In the center it has a fountain surrounded by 12 Lions (these are being restored, so no pictures). The fountain pours into 4 channels, one on each side, representing the 4 heavenly areas of islam, and terminates in a fountain. So, if it were working, the whole area would be alive with the sound of water.

Around the courtyard are 124 marble colums, so delicate, and the plasterwork is incredible. The entire complex is built around courtyards, some paved with patterns of stones, some gardens, and most with some sort of fountain in the middle.

Here are some more views of the beautiful lacework plaster that is over the entire palace...

This special dome has plaster stars, and almost seams to swirl!

After the conquest by the Christian rulars, Carlos V ordered this room ceiling redone to suit his tastes...

Everywhere there is water. Below is a courtyard in an area called the Architects´s garden..

This last picture of the gardens is called the garden of water. It is incredible.

This is a shot of the main palace from the Summer Palace, on a different hill!

I have to say of all the places I´ve been, this is the first place where I wish I had come at a different time. The roses are just starting to shoot out, the gardens are just starting to come alive. This is a place to visit one late afternoon in the summer, when the air is full of the smell of roses and myrtle and the gardens are lit for nighttime, mysterious and beautiful. It was beautiful now, but imagining it like that...wow!

OK guys, enough for now... I´m here one more day, then I head up the coast. I may take off tomorow and go halfway, don´t really know yet, but it´s a long way up to Barcelona, so I may get started. Take care,

Earline

Finally caught up - Jordan at last!

2008-02-17T00:58:00.000-08:00

I've got a couple of hours left on this internet card, so I figured I'd use them...and this computer loads pictures really quickly! So I'm going to catch you up, and show you the last of the pictures from the middle east. You guys have to know that these are only a tenth of the pictures I took, but at least you get the idea!

You know...I don't have to go back to Egypt. There are a couple of places I could go, and would enjoy them (Alexandria) but Egypt itself was not some place I really felt at home. Jordan was different. Part of it was the fact that, for the first time, I sort of knew the history. It's all biblical! It is amazing to travel through the place names you have known since a child!

For starters, I had a great guide. She, yes she, was too funny! She and I drove all over. She definately had a list of things for me to do, and was not about for me to miss one sight that could be found in Jordan! Since I only knew of Petra, this was cool with me! Below is a picture of the first thing she wanted me to see. Unfortuanately, I don't remember the name of the church, but this is a mosaic on the floor of the whole church center, showing all the important places in the area, meaning all the important places in the Bible! This, I think, was my most intriguing thing in Jordan. Petra was incredible, but this, so unexpected, was amazing!

Next we went to an ancient fortress. When you think of the crusades, and you see the movies, you wonder how 2000 people could live in a fortress. Not anymore! It was HUGE! and hallways, rooms, kitchens, chapels everywhere! Below is only a small bit of the fortress. You could see the defensive way it was built, with slits to ffire arrows and tunnels to pour hot stuff on your enemies! It was really cool, especially imagining it teaming with people!

After this, we drove to Petra. We drove in a fog, so that was a little hair-raising, but I think I've already told you about that! So here are some pictures of Petra. The first is the entrance...it's no wonder the place was lost for so many years!

Then of course...the treasury...

What I didn't realize, but should have, is that the city is enormous! The treasury is only the begining. There are tombs carved all over. The reality is that if it was dedicated to a god, or meant for a tomb, it was carved into the stone. The people lived in brick houses, which have not survived. So all we are looking at is tomb and temples.

After this, we went to Wadi Rumm, or the desert. I want to go back and spend the night! There is nothing for miles, and all I can think of is how huge the sky must be. We took tea at a Bedouin camp, and drove a pickup through the desert, stopping for photo opps! So here are some of the photos...

Our driver...

Random bedouins and their transport...

The beautiful desert!

After we went to the desert, I begged. We were so close to the Red Sea and Aqaba, that I wanted to see it...so my wonderful guide took me.

First my great guide...

Then the Red Sea. I know Israel is there, but I had no idea how close. Anyway, in this shot you an just see the sea!

And finally, on of the places which has enabled me to stay in touch with you. Thanks to all of them!!!!!

Hope you have a great week, I'm headed to Granada and a Turkish Bath!

Earline

Egypt...some more

2008-02-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a while now since I could work on posting what I saw in Egypt, but they only had a 4 hour internet card, so I've got the time! After we were in Luxor a few days, we boarded a cruise boat to Aswan. It was kind of a different boat. It is VERY flat. The draft on the Nile is only 3 meters, or about 15 feet, so these boats only have a draft of 2.5 meters. They are really flat. The Nile is low now, so the ship we were supposed to take had grounded, and we were put on another one. We boarded a day before we actually left, and spent the first night tied up to the dock. The difficulty is scheduling the locks on the Nile, and ships wait for hours (as ours did) to be able to pass through the locks. We don't have a lot of room side to side. The ship has about 6 inches clearance either way! Here is our ship.

The Nile is really beautiful to sail down...

You get the sense not much has changed here in hundreds of years.

Once we got to Aswan, we got to sail on a Felucca, which was pretty neat. Again, really old design, but pretty efficient. You know, so often, sail boats have a motor, but not these. No wind...no sail!

I had some fun with T and his new friend the Drom...but then the Drom moved to Sweden, so T is friendless again.

Here is a picture of Ayman sailing the felucca. We took them everywhere. Here's T checking out the Nile...

And also looking at Aswan. There is an upper and lower dam. We could only go to the lower.

This is a view of the first cataracts. We stayed on the island, at the Movenpick, so we had to ferry back and forth to the city.

In Aswan, the last temple we visited was the last temple used...the Temple of Philae. A temple dedicated to the worship of Isis, this temple would have been underwater, and was moved from an island which is now part of the lake to a higher island. Literally, stone by stone. It was cut up, numbered and put together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Here are some pictures.....

This would have been where anyone arriving would have landed. Here's the view from the river of the landing site....

Now for the pictures you have been waiting for! Yes, Virginia, Earline did ride a camel, AND have a live alligator dropped on her head! It (excepting the alligator) was on of the best times I had in Egypt! We took a ferry up the Nile a ways one late afternoon. When we had gone a ways, there were camels...and I rode one to a Nubian village. I can't remember if I told you alread that I'm pretty sure Nubia is where Dr. Seuss got his inspiration. The houses are all arches and wild colors. It was really neat. We had tea there, then of course I had to wear the alligator! Coming back down the Nile after dark was so peaceful. I laid on the roof of the ferry and just watched the stars come out. Now for the pictures...

Me on the camel...it standing was the hardest part!

Me riding the camel...

Me with the *&$#@ alligator on my head... Just a couple more, then I'll post this...of the sunset as we came back down the Nile. It was a great experience.

And I've got to say...it's amazing what you find just sitting around in the desert!
And just so you know it's really me taking those pictures...here's Earline....the fearless explorer!

Bye for now....

Gibralter

2008-02-16T10:50:00.001-08:00

Hello again

Today I'm in Gibralter...as in the Rock of. It's a pretty incredible looking rock! You can see it for miles. Here are a couple of pictures

This one is from my terrace at my hotel! They tell me you can see Africa from my room on a clear day. I would have liked to have seen that!

Now for a couple more driving stories. The first is an honest mistake....anyone could make it! This car is a diesal car. Now in the states, what color are the diesal pumps? Why yes they are green. But not here. Here, yep, you guessed it...the unleaded pumps are green. Who knew! So I wondered why my poor car started running so rough. Fortunately, I only put in a quarter of a tank, and had run a bunch of that out when I figured it out! So I filled the tank and it is MUCH happier now.

Then there is driving in Gibralter. DON'T!!!! The streets are (snicker) 2 way, but only one car width and all up hill or down. If you meet someone, one of you goes back to the nearest wide spot in the road and waits until the other goes past...and this can be a ways down the road! Let's just say I will NEVER drive here again. You'd have to have a death wish! But I did drive up to a lookout point on the Rock, and here's a picture. Not much of one as the day is not clear, but something!

I head to Granada tomorrow, and will be there until it's time to head to Barcelona and pick up Sandy. Just read yesterday there is an air traffic controller's strike possible in Paris (SOMETHING has to strike there or it's not Paris!) so I'm hoping none of you who are joining me get hung! I'm going to post this, then try to catch up the rest of Egypt. Love you guys...

Earline

More about Spain - Toledo and Seville

2008-02-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

Well, the adventure continues....and now I have car stories!

OK, so I pick up my car at the airport in Madrid, and it is great...a small mini-van (for those of you meeting me...yeah!) It´s a standard, which is normal here, and not a problem for me to drive. I rented the GPS, which I learned in Sweden is both a good and bad thing. Good, in that it gives you a vague idea of where you need to go...bad when it INSISTS you need to turn right....into an embankment! I´ve learned when that happens, I just have to get far enough away that it won´t just keep telling me to turn around and go back into the embankment! It actually has to recalculate the route. Of course, this has entailed the thing ¨falling across the car¨ a couple of times!

So now I´m on may way to Toledo, and it is an easy drive, until I get to Toledo and have to find a hotel and a place to park. One person I met wondered how it was that the roads were so exactly designed to be one car width? I´m not sure if I was always supposed to drive there, but at least I didn´t hit anything. So parked the car (whew!!) found a hotel and all was well. While wandering around Toledo, I discovered something else (besides amazing architecture). Dried ham and hard bread BOTH expand when they hit your stomach, something my stomach does NOT like. Oh well, after that, the bartender/waiter and I began talking in some random language that was part spanish, part french, and part english. He told me that the city was only 2KM wide and 2KM from top to bottom, and if I really wanted to see it, I should take the ring road on the other side of the river and go to the terrace cafe on the side of the mountain and get a great view. At least that is what I understood, he could have been expounding on the flat earth theory. So the next day, I´m leaving and I decide to find this great café. OKKKK....

Somehow I had been driving for 2 days and had never put the car in reverse. I´m not sure how that happened, or if I just go lucky once, but anyway, I´m driving on the road up the hill on the other side of the river and pull in to a parking space at the café, only to find that one was closed. But now I can´t back out, because I can´t get the car into reverse!!! So finally, after a few minutes, there was this old guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth washing his car by throwing buckets of soapy water on it. Hey...maybe HE can get it into reverse, on the strange theory that mechanical devices work better for men (?), but he can´t get it in reverse either. OK, so now call AVIS; the car is broken. Only AVIS wants me to call someone else, and the old guy is still trying to put it in gear, when all of the sudden he starts to laugh, and does this strange thing with pulling something up around the gear shift knob and the car goes into reverse! YIPPEE!!! And now he´s telling me the story about how this happened to him once before and the woman (his wife??) laughed because he didn´t know how to put it in reverse and there was a lot more to that story, but I´m pretty sure we went back to the flat earth theory at that point. He talked for a while though! And I did find the terrace, and here are the pictures to prove it!

So anyway, got to Cordoba, and here are some of the things I saw. This is the inside of the mosque there, which has also got a catholic church inside, so you have this beautiful court, with chapels all around and a huge center alter and choir...The main alter, with the cool ceiling that is a combiantion of muslim and gothic design..

One of the side chapels...

All of the cities I´ve visited so far have been on rivers...makes sense for defense, etc. So is Cordoba, and this is an old water wheel that was used as early as Roman times. It´s been rebuilt several times, used to pump water to the city or as a mill, but is now no longer in use. Cordoba had (as so many of the cities here in Spain) a huge Juderia, where Jews lived until they were expelled at the start of the Inquisition. Both Seville and Toledo had synagogues. Toledo´s were closed when I was there, but here are some shots of the one in Seville.

The walls had the beautiful plasterwork, then inscriptions in Hebrew. One that is still visible is the donars´name!

I stayed at a small Hostal in the Juderia, and it was an amazing place, located in an old muslim (mudejar) building, built around courtyards. All of the cities here are built around plazas, where you find cool outdoor cafés and can get a caña, or small beer for a couple of bucks and sit there for hours. I am experienced! The other thing that I´ve tried over and over again to capture in pictures are the fact that the orange trees are FULL of fruit! There are oranges literally dropping on the ground all over the south of Spain! It´s really funny. I haven´t had the guts to taste one yet, because people literally ignore them! I don´t know why..

One night I was having dinner and the couple at the table next to me invited me to join them. What a fun evening! She was from California, a nurse, and he was from Scotland, a psycology professor. They had married, and were living in Scotland but looking for a place to live where it was warmer! We had such a fun evening, and I was reminded again of gifts. It was just enjoyable. We stayed at dinner for over 3 hours!

The next morning I headed for Seville, where I am now. Everytime I think I have found my favorite city, I get to the next one. Seville is just a great place. This area (the old city) is full of little plazas, cafés, small shops, and wandering streets with random fountains! This is the hallmark of the city, called the Giraldi tower. It is what is left of a mosque, which was demolished to build the city´s cathedral. The rumour here is that the city fathers got together and said let´s build something so big, people will think we´re crazy! They succeeded. It took 200 years, and styles changed some, so it has different parts, but it is amazing. You can walk up this tower, and I did this morning. The views are great. I was up by the bells, and yes, they still ring them! Here it is at night....

And during the day!And the front.....with T..

After a refreshing lunch of a caña and paté, yum.. I then went to the Alcázar, where both Muslim and Christian rulars have lived and built. It started as a fort in 913, the was added on to in the 11th and 12th centuries by the Muslum rulers, then, in the middle of the 13th century, the Christians took over and added on in the 14th century. In 1480 Ferdinand and Isabel had their court here, and the gardens were created later. It almost has to be seen to be believed. The best word to describe it is sumptuos! Wow!!! The plasterwork is amazing. Then you get to the tiled and painted areas.

And I think my favorite part was the garden!

Well, I´d better go, before they make me buy this computer! Hope all is well with you guys.

Oh yeah...I forgot one of the best parts of Seville...I got to do my laundry! I have clean jeans. Not that you want to know, but did you know you can wear your jeans for a full month in the winter before they start to get stinky!

Tomorrow I head to Gibralter, where I hope I can see the rock!

Earline

Spain

2008-02-11T05:28:00.000-08:00

WOW! That is what I think of Spain in general. It is a great place to visit. Saturday I wondered through the park El Retiro. Found out this is where the young go to rest, read, draw, and just hang out. The older ones walk their dogs, their kids, or just drink a caña (small beer) in the café. It is cool. In the center of the park is a lake, and there are tons of boats with people rowing (badly) but you´re only 5o feet from the edge at any time. I´ll bet in the summer, people are always ¨falling in¨. Kinda neat...huh!

Sunday I left Madrid and picked up my rent car. I thought it was going to be a small one, but I got the european version of a mini-van, so we should be OK when every one gets here in March. I headed to Toledo, famous for it´s steel swords and it´s (evidently) Marzipan! Who knew. Any way, the city is built on the top of a hill. Lucky for me I´ve been practicing! I´m tired, but still going, and there are about 6 centuries of history here. It was Muslim, had a Jewish quarter, and was and is the seat of the Catholic church here in Spain. El Greco did most of his work here, and I´ve found out our version of the pale, saintly Jesus is actually El Greco´s idea. All of his saints, religious figures were pale and thin...it was his style!

Here is a shot of the main cathedral...and can you tell how lucky I´ve been with the weather! The sky is just georgous!

This is the inside of the synagogue. Wow!
THis was inside a monastary, which is HUGE! Amazing carving. I took a bunch of pictures of the carving on the columns. At first you think they´re all the same, then you realize they are all different! Too cool. They have dragons, wierd animals, etc.

Tomorrow I head to Seville I think. I left most of my stuff in the car and just took a few things up the hill to the hotel. Parking in old Spanish towns is a trick, and I´m still learning it! But it is working, and I do like not having to haul all my stuff on and off trains, buses, etc!

Better go...2 minutes left on the timer. Love you all,
Earline

Last day in Madrid

2008-02-09T09:58:00.001-08:00

Well, I take off tomorrow. This is just an amazing city. Today I walked through the park, had tea by the lake in the park, took the sight-seeing bus around the city, and had a shot of their herbal liquour for ¨warming¨purposes! I´m not sure how Madrid does it, but it is probably the cleanest huge city I´ve ever been in. People take the time to throw those flyers you get handed out in the trash! Not only that, but the air is clean here. I don´t know what it is like in the summer, but it is cool, beautiful and the trees are beginning to bud here now. It should be even more like spring further south.

They also never sleep here! Dinner starts around 10pm, and lasts for a couple of hours. There is a siesta from 2-4pm or 2-6pm depending on the shop, so maybe they sleep then!

I´ve just about spent my two internet cards, but I wanted to let you know life is good. Also, I have a phone again. The number is 617061512. No clue how you would call that from the states, but an international phone card should work.

Take care of yourselves!
Earline

Egypt day 4, etc.

2008-02-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

Let´s start this with one of the coolest things ever...a balloon ride over Luxor! We left the hotel at 5am, and got to the sugarcane field where we took off on the West bank about 6am. Watching the balloons fill was cool. When they lit up it was REALLY cool!
There were several, as you can see. We were in a gondola, or straw basket that holds 24 people in a VERY specific order. The basket is divided into 4 sections, like one of those baskets that holds siver ware for a picnic. The tall people go in the back (facing away from center) and the shorter people go in front. The back people have to squat into a sitting position on landing, and the short people get to sit on their laps! It´s kind of fun...
Taking off..one by one!
And us up in the air just as it gets light. Sooo cooooool!

Here are some some pictures of the temple at Luxor at night. (It´s sort of a random post, but mostly I´m trying to put up picturs in this one!) It is so beautiful. And just an amazing feeling to be there at night! Wow!
Here is the goddess of writing and knowledge, with the papyrus headdresss.
the front of the temple
One of a pair of oblisks at the entrance...the other is in the Place de Concorde in Paris.

Before we go too far, I´m putting in some more pictures of Medinet Habu, one of the best preserved temples in Egypt. I think this one was my favorite. Some descriptions about the temples. They are all configured the same way. The first is the Pylons, or the entrance. It is two big slabs of stone with giant carvings.

This is the entryway to Medinet-Habu. You can still see some of the colors, but the whole thing would have been painted.

Upon entering, you enter the open court. This is as far as most people would get. Cerimonies (this word doesn´t look right, but alas, no spell check avail.), etc. were done here. After the open court, you enter the an area filled with giant colums (can´t remember the name to save my neck!) This area would have been covered, and the columns held up the ceiling. As you go further back into the temple, the floor rises and the ceiling lowers. (This is actually the column area from Hapshepsut´s temple) but you get the idea.)The final area in the temple was what in the tabernacle was called the holy of holies...or the inner sanctuary. Around this were offering rooms with alters for liquids such as the blood of animals or perfumes. Also offered were foods, such as fruits, grains etc. The priests had a hallway on the outside of the offering rooms to collect the offerings.

This is an outside view of Medinet Habu

Outside Hatshpsut´s temple. It´s built into the side of a mountain, so It´s pretty cool!

Here you can see the desert in the background.

I think I´ve run out of patience for the picture uploader. I think of what I want to say, but to get the pictures to illustrate it takes so long that when I read over what I´ve written, it doesn´t make as much sense as I had hoped :)! Hope you can get even a sense of what I´ve seen...cause it´s incredible!

Take care of yourselves...

Earline

More on Madrid

2008-02-08T07:50:00.000-08:00

Wow...Madrid is incredible! I have seen more amazing art in the last 2 days than I have my whole life until now. Yesterday I went to the Prado Museum and today I went to the Sofia Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. I enjoyed today more, because I prefer the more modern and impressionist styles, and the Sofia Thyssen had an incredible collection. I saw Klee, Monet, Pissaro, Picasso, Gaugin, Goya, el Greco, and an amazing exibition on Modigliani long with pencil studies by Picasso, Toulouse-Latrec, and I couldn´t even tell you. It gets to the point where you go "Oh, another (yawn) amazing painting by another (yawn) famous artist!" I saw the whole gallery (better than I did at the Prado) but was really overwhelmed.

After that I took the subway to Plaza dos de Mayo, which commemorates a massacre by the government. At some point I ate and drank a half bottle of wine, so I´m REALLY relaxed right now. Two interesting observations. The first is "Why does this subway system seem to make more sense to me than NYC?¨ The only answer I can come up with is I´m not so tired when I climb up and down the steps, so I can actually process where I´m supposed to go.

Second observation...portraits of "Life on the subway" from both the outside looking through the windows and from the inside looking down the train would really be an interesting study in people watching! It is amazing how some faces just stand out, while others merge into the general whole.

Yep...really looked at a LOT of art today.

I really like Madrid. I´m going to stay here until Sunday, go to the airport and pick up a car, then probably head to Toledo. Kim was not able to come meet me. She just isn´t recovering as fast as she had hoped from some minor surgury. So I will wander on my own until Sandy gets here.

Take care all of you!
Earline

More traveling

2008-02-07T09:23:00.001-08:00

OK...The last post only took and hour and a half...it takes FOREVER to upload the pictures. I´m trying to put pictures on my Facebook account too, but it seems just as slow...so I´m not sure how is the best way to get you guys to see what I´ve seen. But we´ll keep trying.

Before I get too far behind, let me tell you about where I´ve been the last week. I´ll keep putting up parts of Egypt as I get the chance, but let me catch you up. This last week I´ve been in Sweden. Okkkk...first you go to Egypt, that we understand. But then Sweden...in the winter? Are you crazy? Well, maybe, sort of...

But it was a blast! I went to visit some friends I made while I was in Guatemala. It was great! I stayed with Martin. He and I share similar tastes in music, food, movies, and the need to not be in someones pocket 24/7, so it was great! For the first time in a while I felt totally at home somewhere. It was cold, but not miserable (OK, once it was miserable), and it is a really beautiful country. Here´s a picture (bad) of Martin at his place.

Now I want to go back in the summer, when I can only imagine it is amazing! There are small lakes everywhere you turn. It´s hard to drive more than 30 minutes without seeing water.

I rented a car for a couple of days and went glass shopping. Wow the glass is beautiful. There are glass blowers all over the south central part of Sweden. It is called the ¨Crystal Kingdon¨. Martin took me into one place and said ¨should you look like a kid on Christmas morning?¨ But I love all the different things you can do with glass. Here´s a shot of the Orrefors factory, and this is just a random glass plate hanging outside as decoration!

One night we had ¨the girls¨over. It was really good to see them all. Frederica (on the right) has started school again and Maria was finishing her job and getting ready to go to China! She had a new camera, so we played.

Tuesday I left Gothenburg and came to Madrid. My spanish is here...mas o menos! But Madrid is a great place. The museums here are incredible. Yesterday I just walked around, but today I went to the Prado museum. Tomorrow, I´ll head one of the other two huge art museums, and then there are about 10 other museums I don´t think I´ll get to. Talked to Kim today, and she is not able to join me here, so I will be on my own for a few more weeks. It gets old, but I´m really getting used to it.

I´ve got to go...no really...I´ve got to go! More tomorrow, when I get tired of museums!

Earline

Egypt, 2nd and more

2008-02-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

Wow...I´m really running behind. Since I don´t have a computer with me any more, I´m dependant on others, and I´m not very good at begging! I´m in Madrid now, and have a great cafe just beside my hotel...so here goes.

Day 2 in Egypt...

First the weather. Let me just say I was SO glad that I went in January! It was cool, not freezing, and could have been We started off by going to see the Statue of Ramses. He is HUGE!!! All I can think of is ¨no power tools and no hydraulic lifts!¨ But he is really neat looking. Below are some pictures.

There is also a museum there at the statue, and it has a beautiful alabaster sphinx. Alabaster one of the main stones, and this is considered a really pretty specimin.

Oops...sideways...

Then on to the step pyramids of Djosser and Sakkarra. Pyramids started with just a large flat topped tomb. Then Ramses II´s architect (Im in ho´tep I think) decided to build something special...and put 5 flat topped tombs, on on top of the other to form the step pyramids. These later grew into the pyramids we know now. But Ramses II was really fond of his image...or those around him were. You see statues of him everywhere...all over Egypt!

It is so interesting to wander around. Initially, all the hierglyphics look the same, but as you look at more of them, you realize that there are differences all the time! There was a very specific manner and subjects which were almost always used, but the artists managed to very them to make it interesting! In this one, a calf is suckling his mother.

They did this in 3 steps. First the hieroglyph was drawn on (black chalk), then a master artist came and put/fixed anything he felt necessary (red/blue chalk) then the carving began. If there was time, all this was painted, again by an apprentice then the master.

This is a picture of the solar boat we say yesterday...

In every toom/temple, there were these bedouin guides. He needs 1 pound, and let me take his picture!

After going to the pyramids of Ramses and his son, we went to a coffee shop and had ¨shai¨and ¨sheesha¨. This basically means we drank tea made from very finely ground tea leaves placed in a glass and the class filled with boiling water. The Egyptians don´t need sodas. They put about 2-3 teaspoons of sugar in each glass! Sure is good that way¨:) I had innumerable cups of shai, and really enjoyed it! I also had an occasional sheesha. This is a water pipe. You can smoke either apple tobacco (considered female) or regular tobacco (considered male). I liked the apple. It was good! Ayman had to ¨take sheesha¨4 or 5 times a day, so when ever I had free time, he was in the coffee shop. Worked out pretty well. Here I am taking sheesha.

At lunch, we went carpet shopping. This is a BAAADD idea for me, and I did buy one, but ONLY one, and it was for my new grandson. He get´s camel hair/wool fish on his floor, at least if the dogs don´t want to eat the camel!

Last stop was the colossus of Ramses. One of the ancient wonders of the world. That tiny figure at the bottom is a man, to give you a sense of scale!

Lst stop of the day was the tomb of Ptah Hotep in Saqqara.

Then on to Luxor. Probably my favorite temple was Medinet Habu. It was small, but really amazing, built for Ramses III. the colors were still really intact, and it was just beautiful.

I don´t want this to be too long, so I´m going to end this here...and start another one :).

Love you guys,

Earline

Cairo and the pyramids

2008-01-31T07:28:00.000-08:00

Hello all you patient people! I'm finally in a place where I can spend some quality time with a computer...so let me catch you up on where I've been and what I've been doing! I am going to do this in sections, so it's not so hard to read...and write! :)

After spending a couple of days in Amsterdam, I flew into Cairo on Jan 12 at around 3 in the morning. Evidently at that time of day, I can't read! So I missed my name on the little card (I've decided that is one of the most comforting things on earth...seeing your name written on the airport card!) and wandered around the arrival hall for a while. Since I didn't know where I was staying, finding someone who knew and would take me there was sort of important!

Finally did and got to my hotel around 4am. I was staying at Mena House, directly across form the pyramids at Giza. If I remember right, this is the location of the graduation of the American School in Cairo. Anyway, below is what I looked out at that first morning! Well, sort of...I hope I explained about the dinosaur. Anyway...it was pretty cool!

Here's what it looked like at night!
After sort of relaxing (read SLEEPING) for most of that first day, I met my "group" which turned out to be me with a guide. No, this was not how I had planned to see Egypt. I had planned to go specifically with a group so that I would have others to do things with. I had even mentioned this to the tour operator, but somehow he missed this part. At this point in the trip, I was not happy about this at all. (Later I grew to enjoy it, but we'll get to that!)

My guide's name was Ayman, and he was a great guy. He was expecting his first child, set to be born at the end of our trip, and was so excited about this. His english was excellent, and he was so considerate of me. The first day we went to the pyramids in Giza. I've always thought that the pyramids were all around Cairo, but I was to discover this trip that Cairo only has a 3. The rest are further up the Nile. The Sphinx is also in Giza, so that was my view of Egypt.

In Giza there are 3 pyramids, built around 3500 BC in the 4th dynasty. (Egypt had 30 dynasties, and it would take a better Egyptologist than I to explain that) The first constructed, and the largest was the pyramid of Khufu, then Khephren and Menkaure (Mycerinus). Every temple is composed of 4 parts. There's the valley temple, used for something..but I can't remember what, the mortuary temple, where the body is prepared for burial, the small pyramids of the queens, and the main pyramid, containing the burial chamber. You really can't see all the extra pieces anymore, they only have foundations left, but here's a picture of all three pyramids.

Next to the pyramids, boats have been found which were buried to enable the king to travel to the other side. These are called "Solar Boats", because they were constructed to take the king to join the sun god Ra. Here is a picture of Ayman with the Solar boat of King Khufu. This was found in pieces and reconstructed. You can tell it was not made to be really used...it's not pegged together but held together with ropes.
Camels were everywhere, and here is one offering "taxi" by the pyramid of Khephren
I didn't get pictures of the inside, but imagine a long tunnel about 4.5 feet tall and 4.5 feet wide leading about half way up through the center of the pyramid to a big empty room (all the cool stuff is in the Cairo museum). Then imagine 400 Japanese tourists heading up that ramp as you...claustrophobic you...are headed down. Nope...don't ever have to do that again!

Next to the valley temple was the Sphinx. It was too cool. When it was found, just its head was sticking out of the sand. They have it uncovered now, and to me it is still as amazing as ever.

Well, that was just the first day!

More to come...
Earline

A whole new year

2008-01-13T07:02:00.000-08:00

Happy new year to all you guys. Ap0logies to all of you who keep up with me here on this blog. I've been running like a chicken without a head, and now I'm off again.

You last found me in Panama. Well that trip burned me out. I went back to Antigua, spent one of my best birthday's ever at Earth Lodge, and then CAME HOME!!! I was really ready by then to see friends, sleep in my own bed, all of the things coming home means. What hadn't really sunk in was I don't have a home in Houston any more. I stayed with my friend John, but as kind and welcoming as he is (he met me at the airport with a giant Dr. Pepper!) it's not home.

Here's a picture of the Panama canal...just FYI

I was there for about a week, then went to Austin to see some good friends of mine, then on to San Marcos to watch John graduate! It was wonderful. He is officially a college Graduate now. I'm really proud of him. Nicole was there, and on Saturday, Ryan came in, and Sonia. It was good to see then all. The kids and I went to Mexico for a few days R & R, then we got back and Ryan left for Wilmington, Nicole and Jon left for their grandparents in Ft. Worth, and I went to Monroe to visit Sue. She and I went to Tulsa to see her kids and spend Christmas there. We also went out to OKC to see Mike and Linda (other cousins). It was interesting and fun. I came back into Houston Dec 29. After a couple of days at John's, I went to a hotel for a few days. I just needed some time with no one around. It was great.

Here's one of Sue's granddaughters (Carissa) at Mike and Linda's baking Christmas cookies for us. Yumm...she put in M&M's!

This is another of Sue's granddaughters...Brianna, the oldest.

The next few days were a whirlwind of finishing out our corporate books for the year, and figureing out what is next for Mark and I. I'm getting out of the rehab business. Long term, I just don't see myself there. Mark has other plans, and so it looks like that long time partnership is winding down. It was great, and I don't regret anything, but it's time to move on.

Now for the really fun part. On Jan 7 I started traveling again. I went first to NYC to visit a friend I had made in Guatemala, Grace. She took Tues and Wed off, and we had a ball. We walked the Brooklyn bridge into Brooklyn and wandered around, rode a water taxi around the NY harbor, took in an off broadway play called Yellowface and generally had a blast. At 10pm Wed night, I left for Amsterdam. I slept most of the first day there, but then a friend from Houston came in (Stephen) and we went all over. We shopped, went to see the district where there are pretty red lights around all the windows, and ate crokets and frites with sate! I was in heaven. Of course the one picture I manage to upload before my battery goes dead is one of us in a bar near the Cloisters museum. Tee was thirsty.

I left again late at night (10pm) for Cairo, and got here this morning around 3:30. It took a while to connect with my guide, since evidently I'm unable to read my name that late at night, but we are here and in one of the most beautiful hotels you could imagine. It was dark when we got in, but the bellman said I would be able to see the pyramids from my window. Later, when I couldn't sleep, I went out to my balcony just as the sun was coming up and the pyramids are RIGHT THERE!!!! It was beautiful to watch the pink and blue sky around the pyramids.

Our tour starts tomorrow, so who knows what I will be able to see. One comment, you will see a lot of a certain dinosaur in my pictures from now on. One of my friends, Susan, has a nephew with an imaginary friend who is a T-Rex dinosaur named TEEEEE- Rex! So Teeee and I are traveling together. I found him in Grand Central station with his bags all packed :)

I'm going to try to attach pictures, and we'll see how this goes! Love you guys, take care.

Earline

2007-11-21T22:08:00.000-08:00

This has been an adventurous week…..perhaps more than I would have liked. Let me tell you the story of my trip to Panama. It all began Thursday, when before school. I (as I have done EVERY week) dropped my laundry off at the hotel. Then went to school and made my speech and said goodbye to all the teachers there. I was planning on taking Miguel out to eat, so didn’t have to say goodbye to him quite yet. I met “the kids” for coffee, since some of them are taking off (sorry Jon, I may have missed my chance there), and then went back to the hotel to pack. I looked for my clothes, but they were nowhere to be found, so I told someone I REALLY needed them, and then Miguel got there. He also taught my neighbor across the hall (Donald), so we all visited, then left for dinner. Martin met us there, and we had a good time. Around 10p, I came home and tried to finish packing…but NO CLOTHES!!!! I had a few things I hadn’t worn that week, sweat pants, etc. but my nice stuff and most of my underwear is not anywhere to be found! OKKKKK, so I pack what I have, figuring I’ll buy somethings if I need to, and go to bed for the 4am shuttle.
The shuttle didn’t come until 5:20 and my flight left at 5:55. We called the company, a taxi, all kinds of things, but no luck until the shuttle finally arrived…and still had to pick up 3 more people! This was not looking promising. I was just a LITTLE ANGRY, but calmed down, and finally decided I was done with adventure. If I couldn’t get to Panama, I was just going to come home, leaving the stuff I still had at the hotel to be mailed. I can live without that stuff if I can live without underwear! But when I got to the airport, the wonderful guys at COPA put me on the next flight, walked me through integration, and actually put me on a plane that got to Panama only 30 minutes after mine did! Wow!
So I go to the hotel, and it is another nightmare! Only warm showers, no information about the city, no way to find my way around and to top it all off my mini-bar was locked! I finally just went to sleep. I decided to go shopping the next day, since I needed clothes. The people in Panama DRESS!!! They are also SMALL!!! Remember the clothes in Singapore Nicole? All size 12 and below. Well, I’ve given birth to one of the triplets, but no way am I a size 12! So no clothes. I got back to the hotel and my room was still unmade, so no clean towels either. I was a basket case! Did I mention it had rained the WHOLE time I was there?
I called a friend of mine at home and he talked me down from the trees. Reminded me why I was here…oh yeah, to experience life! So the next morning I checked out of the hotel, went to the car rental place, and rented a car. I drove to the Panama Canal, which was really neat, then decided to see the Caribbean side of Panama. Did I mention I got lost a lot going to the Canal? And I got lost more going to Colom…so much so that by the time I got there it was almost dark, not a good time to be driving when you have NO idea where you are going.
The roads in Panama are interesting. The signs usually have an arrow in the right direction before you turn, but no marker at the turn! And the roads are TINY!!! The look like a back alley you are turning down. So I think I’ve missed every turn I was supposed to make so far. Anyway, I ended up in Colom. There is NOTHING to see in Colom. Think Havana AFTER Castro. It looked a lot like Havana, actually. I ended up in the Meryland Hotel, and no, that is not a misspelled word. Wow…I was waiting for the shower curtain scene. So early this morning I checked out and headed to Portofino on the Caribbean coast, which the guide book says has nice hotels. I couldn’t find them. So after getting REALLY lost in Portofino, which is REALLY small, I decided it was time to try the Pacific coast. I’ll bet not many people can say they went from McDonald’s to McDonald’s and coast to coast in one long driving day, but I did!
So now I’m in a Golf Resort on the Pacific coast, debating whether or not to head back to the city tomorrow or just stay here and lay by the pool. I’ll let you know!
Love you guys…don’t you wish you were having this much adventure?!
Earline

A week of family

2007-11-13T16:06:00.000-08:00

Hi guys,

Last week was the family week here. Sue came on Monday, and Jon on Thurs. Sue left on Friday and Jon on Sunday. So really all I did was visit! It was great! We really had a good time. Here are some pictures....

Here are Sue and I at the McDonalds. Yes, I know what you are thinking...why would ANYONE in their right mind go to McDonald's in a foreign country, much less in the US, but LOOK at it. Isn't it beautiful? I go here a lot to study. It's a beautiful garden, and very peaceful in the mornings....

Here's one of Jon at McDonald's as well, since you just have to see the place...and then you have to have a picture.

Sue took this one of my home away from home at Casa Rustica...

Here are Sue and I at my favorite breakfast spot...I study so much here the guys have started correcting my homework!

I took both Sue and Jon to Santo Domingo (you all have seen pictures) and Sue took this picture of Jon and I....

I think I have told you the history of Antigua but here is a quick refresher. Antigua was the capital of this part of Central America, established by the Spanish crown in the 16th century. What they didn't plan on was the city being repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Finally, in the 18th century, Spain moved the capital to the current location of Guatemala City, and it became illegal for anyone to live here. People still did, but the big landowners, namely the churches, all were forced to move. Jon an I visited a church which has been pretty much left as it fell. The rubble tells the story better than I could about why this city was abandoned.

Here is Jon at the entrance to the church...you can see the rubble in the background.

And here is a picture from inside the ruins. Just imagine all this falling down at once!

Pretty scary, huh!

Well, this is my last week here. Today I booked a ticket for Panama City, Panama. I leave Friday. I'll come back next Wednesday and spend my birthday at Earth Lodge. Then I leave the following Saturday for Mexico, where I'll travel around Mexico City for a while. A part of me is kind of sad. I've had a good time here, and made a couple of friends I think I'll keep with me. I don't have firm return plans yet, but I have to be back in Houston by December 10, since Jon graduates on Dec 14 and Nicole and Ryan arrive Dec 12. The kids and I will then leave for Playa del Carmen for a few days to chill and have Christmas together. As soon as I get back, I'm headed to Monroe, where Sue and I will take off for Oklahoma, and the Kouri Christmas. We'll be back just after the first. I'm planning more travel starting early in the new year, so I won't be in Houston long...just long enough to get different clothes!

Let me know when the Christmas party at TWU is.. If I can be back for that, I will!

Take care, all of you.

Earline

Company this week

2007-11-09T08:37:00.000-08:00

Hi there,
This has been company week. Monday my cousin Sue came. She left this morning at 5:00am so I am a little groggy. My son Jon came yesterday and will stay until Sunday. So last night with both of them here we celebrated my birthday, with steak and chocolate icecream! It was great! It has been better to have them here though.

Sue and I went to Lake Atitlan again, just for the day. It was a neat trip. The lake is still beautiful. Jon and I don't know what we're going to do yet.
Love you guys,
Earline

Busy week and Earth Lodge

2007-11-04T15:07:00.001-08:00

Hi there,
It has been a really busy week. I have basically blown off school for the last week. It was a holiday! Tuesday we built kites at the school, and then Wednesday we went to the top of the hill at the north (?) end of town and flew them. One of my friends said I should be an add...get a new hip and get your kite back!!! It was a lot of fun!

Here is the master kite builder, my teacher Miguel, with our kite...did I mention it flew right away!

And here is our kite in the air (I THINK it's ours!)

Here is a view of both our fearless kite-flying leaders (our Spanish teachers on a normal day!) and Antigua from above...

Another shot of the cross and some of the students from the school...

I was wandering around the other day and looked up to see this!

Thursday was a holiday here...Todo des Santos, or All Saints day. The big thing here is kites in the cemetaries, where it is supposed to attract the spirits. Some of the kites are huge! Some of the places have competitions and build these really cool kites. That is why we built kites at school. They are really cool! I was supposed to go see them, but I got the "traveler's disease" Thursday, and spent the day in my room next to the bathroom! Very restfull day, in a manner of speaking.

Friday a bunch of us went to a phenomenal place called Earth Lodge, about 3o minutes up in the mountains from here. This involves meeting in Central park where 2 pickups come for the 15 of us. We climbed in the beds, and flew up the hill. (Our driver was faster, just let me point that out!) We get to the middle of nowhere, and are dropped off by a path that goes downhill for about a quarter of a mile. That's right, getting in is easy...getting out, well let's just say it takes a BIT more effort!

Earth Lodge is run by a couple who have created this place out of nothing. It is on the side of a mountain, has a dorm, cabins, a sauna, and tons of hammocks, games, music, views, and some of the best food I've had since I've been here!!! We had mashed potatoes (of COURSE there was the gravy lake!) salad, roast chicken, cake (warm!), and just really good food. It was so good, we decided to stay for dinner the next night as well. They are doing a Thanksgiving dinner, and if we don't do something here, I may go back, if I can gear myself up for the walk out!

Here's a picture of the main reception area/movie room (behind the green door)/dining area/general cool spot to hang out...A typical seating area at Earth Lodge...

And the view during the day....

And at sunset....

Our crew playing twister...I was the official spectator...The twistermaster is Toby, from England. The girl standing facing the camera (sort of) is Frederica, an MD student from Sweden who will start working at the clinic I was working at Monday. The rest of the group is divided into Swedish and Dutch, but at the Lodge we had French, Spanish, American, Australian, Guatemalan, Dutch, and English travelers. I THINK I got all the counties, but it was hard to keep up. There were more Americans there than I'm used to being around, but it was kind of nice to actually understand ALL of the conversation (OK, well, MOST of it, since when we switched to Spanish I usually got the idea). I'm sort of getting a crash immersion course in Swedish, and it is not taking!!!

One thing I figured out last week...I've got to permanently quit smoking. I start, stop, and start again. But now I have the muscles to do what I want, but not the air!!! It's kind of cool, but it hasn't mattered in several years, so I didn't worry about it. Forgot them in the mountains, and one of the guys said "see...a sign!" He's probably right, so no mas! Now, it matters! I'm amazed. It's funny the little things I notice, like walking past someone on the sidewalk, actually walking faster than someone!!! Wow! And not taking so long to get anywhere. I'm really enjoying this.

Another interesting thing about this weekend is realizing there is a whole subculture out there which has opted out and are doing whatever they want where ever they want. I met a whole crew of people who had been traveling for a year or two...or more! They work when they need to, move when they want to, and just generally live a life far different from any I've ever known. They are not embassy, oil, military, or peace corp. They are just the wanderers of the world, with no more than 2 suitcases of stuff to their names, and more memories made in a year than most people make in a lifetime. It's very seductive to think about doing that. Makes me wonder if I really ever want to "go home"! Home, to these guys, is where you are, and there is always more to see.

Well, I'm going to stop now and see if I can add some pictures. Maybe we'll get lucky.(WE DID!!)

Jon and Sue come this week! Yippee!
Earline

More about the lake

2007-11-01T14:09:00.001-07:00

Here are a few more pictures from the lake. Below is a beautiful house, looked like an Italian villa, but we're somewhere else!
Below is the view around the corner from where we were staying. The volcano is dormant, but wow...how beautiful!
A bride an groom were taking pictures on the dock below us. I'll bet they were beautiful!

This is Santiago. While we were here, we went to see one of the local sights, a "diety" called Maximon. This statue moves from house to house as determined by the leaders. Offerings are made (cigarettes, liquor, cigars, money) and healings are conducted by special healers. While we were there, there was a ceremony in progress, complete with incense, chanting, offerings, etc. But in the middle, the guy who was doing the chanting's cell phone went off! Cute little ring, and then the whole thing was interrupted by "Halo, halo...." It was a really funny juxtaposition of modern and ancient, and for heavens sake...turn off your cell phone in church!!!!
This is my hotel...I mean Elena's hotel...it's casa Elena. Pretty, huh...
I'll post this and see if I can load the pictures from last week and this weekend. Time is just going too fast!!!!
Earline

The city and the Lake (Lago Atitlan)

2007-10-29T17:47:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,

Sorry for not keeping up with the blog the last couple of weeks. The internet refuses to load pictures, and I've been busy, so between the combination....no news!

When I told you I went to the city, I forgot I had taken a couple of pictures! We were wandering around, and here was this random statue of Romulus and Remus! Let's review...where was I again? Evidently one of the past presidents had a thing for Rome, so you are likely to find things like this all over Guatemala City. And of course...there's always time for a Coke!
Random statue in a random circle, but it looked cool so you guys can see it too!
Here comes the good part. Last weekend, I went to Lago Atitlan. It is a natural lake formed when a huge volcano colapsed on it self. The lake is approx 300 meters deep, and since it is on top of volcanic rock, it is crystal clear and a deep blue! It is really beautiful. It is surrounded by dormant volcanos, so it the scenery is gorgeous as well. Here is a shot of one of the volcanoes and the lake.

While we were there (I was on a tour with my school with a couple of other students), we stayed in a place called Panajachel. From there we took ferries, like those pictured below, to several other pueblos around the lake. There are 12 in all. Talk about the slow boat to China! The first was fast, but after that...chug...chug...chug. I'm going to go ahead and post this, and see if I can't start a new one that I can add more pictures to.

More later,
Earline

Musings

2007-10-23T18:36:00.000-07:00

Today I was cranky. It happens...more often lately it seems. Seems everything was bothering me today...being by myself all the time...sleeping in possibly the worst bed ever...having very little music on my computer....feeling really isolated....yep, cranky! Then I got to class and had a blast. I make some really stupid mistakes. Today we were learning the imperative, and I told my teacher to "Share me!" when I really meant to say (HONEST!) "share with me!" Miguel is still my teacher, and he laughed for 5 minutes! I also learned how to say "bite me", which he didn't understand as funny until I explained my tatoo! He's not quite sure what to do with me, but we had a good time, and now I'm only marginally cranky.

One reason for the crankiness may be the weather. Today for the first time in weeks we had the sun in the morning, but by this afternoon it was raining again, and is raining still! Turns out I'm leaving just as the weather gets nice. I told one of my classmates I feel like a duck, growing webs!

I just barely brought warm enough clothes. I'm sitting here in long pants and a sweater. It is in the 60's here, especially on rainy nights! Glad I thought to throw in a sweater!

Enough about cranky...take care of yourselves. Love you,
Earline

The Chicken Bus

2007-10-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

Hey there,
This has been a great weekend. I finally rode a Chicken Bus! Here in Guatemala there is a public transport system quite unlike that in Texas. Old school buses from the states are brought down, painted wildly, named (we rode on "Norma"), have big sound systems installed, and go from city to city. There is the driver, whose whole job is to drive this old school bus as fast as it will go on the roads here, and his assistant, whose job is to yell the destination out the door while hanging out on the last step, take your money, put your luggage on the top of the bus, and drag people in when the bus slows down (it doesn't actually stop very often, just slows down enough for someone to get on or off!) Martin and I decided to go into the city, so found someone yelling "GUATE, GUATE" and away we went! For a whole 25 cents, we rode into the city and back. While we were we wandered around the markets for a few hours. I bought toenail clippers and he bought jeans. We could have bought just about anything! It was a blast!

I'm being introspective this afternoon. Maybe it is having a relaxing weekend (yes, riding the chicken bus was relaxing!) or all the rain, but whatever. Today for lunch I went to a different section of Antigua than I've been before and it was beautiful! Think River Oaks with a spanish flair! I had one of those perfect moments...do you know those? Sometimes they happen so fast it's only later you recognize it for what it was, but sometimes, very rarely, you realize it while it is happening. I had eaten a wonderful brunch, and was sitting in a beautiful restaurant, with an absolutely PERFECT yellow rose on my table in full bloom. There was a pianist and a sax player playing, the rain was falling softly, and it was perfect! I was so grateful that I'm here, learning (slowly!!!) spanish, experiencing life in a way I haven't in a long time.

This is the first weekend I've stayed in Antigua since I moved into the hotel, so maybe I'm finlly settling down. I'm kind of debating staying here until after my birthday. I'm finally feeling "at home", have a couple of friends/acquaintences here, and I'm not sure I want to uproot just yet. I keep looking on line to find a trip I can afford to Argentina, but so far nada! I'd like to see the glaciers, and the Straights of Magellen, but we will see.

I talked to Nicole last night. Looks like I'm going to need to be in Wilmington a bit earlier to get a place to rent for the summer. She's going to look for me a condo on the beach, so you guys should plan your beach trip now! Take care of yourselves....
Earline

Belize with pictures

2007-10-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Hey there.

This weekend, I went to Belize, to go to the reef there. It was beautiful...but I went to Caye Caulker, and I think I found the end of the world. It is an island about 1 mile long and 3 streets wide. It was great! It took me a while to put up the pictures, but here they are! "Brother" John came, and we had a blast. One of the main highlights was eating lobster at every meal! I snorkeled on the reef and it was great.

John and I stayed in this great place called Iguana Reef. Here's a shot of John in his usual spot in the shade.....

We left on a tiny little plane. I was able to catch the shadow! I think I have flown on more small planes in the last year than I have since I was in high school!

If you guys have ever been to Barbados, there is a really famous hotel there called Sandy Lane. It even made it into 1000 places to go before you die! Well, this is the Caye Caulker version!

Here are some views of the island. The first is the main drag...Front street.

Then we have things to do on Front street!

And here is the beach on the island.

Transport on the island was pretty simple....

This is the view of Cay Caulker from the air. It's the back one.

Here are a couple more shots from the air. The ocean is incredible, so beautiful!!! The first is an island golf resort....the whole island!

This is just a picture of the reef from the air... and an island with one tiny house!

I told you guys last week that I decided to focus on my spanish lessons and stop working in the clinic. It is working much better. I'm going much faster, but then I study about 3 hours per day! I'm a bit homesick from time to time, but the time here is going so fast that now I'm just trying to do as much as I can while I'm here. One bit of good news, MY HOUSE IS RENTED! That was really starting to worry me for a couple of reasons. The first is obvious, making a house payment without a job is not really very much fun! The other reason is a bit more obscure, but renting the house from September to September meant I could have 2 full years on a lease and still come back almost directly into my house when I finish school. October to October means I'll be a bit off if I try to go back to work at TWU. Anywhere else it won't really matter, so I guess I'll just play it by ear. Like I'm doing anything else anyway!

Love you guys, see you in a couple of months.
Earline

Tikal and the Clinic

2007-10-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hello again... I'm back in Antigua. I went to Tikal this weekend. It's the site of a huge Mayan temple complex. It was really interesting to get out of the city. I don't really have any pictures of the countryside, but think third world, with the pigs and the dogs grazing outside the houses. And lots of horses and motorcycles for trasport... We (the tour I was on) stayed at the Tikal Inn, pictured below.

The temples are located in an area which does not have enough rain to be called rain forest...it's called a high humidity temperate zone or something like that.,,but that means monkeys! We saw spider monkeys (see the one below) and heard the howler monkeys. We say lots of toucans, and not just on the fruit loops boxes!

Below is a picture of what a structure looks like before it is excavated. It is an amazing site. Probably only a third of it has been excavated. You walk down trails where you feel as if you are alone in the world except for the animals ...oh yeah...and the clouds of mesquitos!

We flew there on a prop plane that was small, but inside it was normal sized. On the way home, we flew in this plane that was probably 40 years old...no armrests, just a double bench seat on one side and a single on the other. There was no flight attendent. Instead, there was a bottle of water (or in our case 2 bottles...there were two seats after all!) It was TINY! But what a beautiful flight home. There was no way to take pictures, but think of the pictures of China where the mountains float out of the haze and the clouds, and you have an idea!

It's really hard to get a sense of how massive Tikal is. This is one view of the main temple square.
Here is a temple with some of the stellae in front. The Maya had one of the most accurate calendars in the world. It was a combination of 3 calendars, and using the combination, each year repeats once every 52 years. The stellae have stories on them that are still visible to some extent.
There is one temple you are allowed to climb. It's Temple 5, and from the top the other 4 temples are visible. Temple is 5 in the back of the park, about a 2,5 hour walk from our hotel. I did all the stairs, walk, etc. fine, but by the time we got there, and had a ladder we had to climb up and down, I ran out of gas. One of the guys on the tour took my camera to the top, and soooo, here is the best picture of the lot as seen by my camera!
Below is a shot of Lord Choco's temple.
All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip. The most amazing thing to me was my ability to do it!

The last two weeks I worked in a clinic. One day this week I took some pictures, and here they are. Below is the reception area....

one of the examining rooms....

La Doctora's office ..... La Farmacia.....
And the "trauma" and wound care room

I decided this week I'm going have to stop working in the clinic for a couple of weeks. They really didn't want me to start so soon. They were worried about my spanish, and they (the folks at school) were right. When I'm working in the mornings, then going to school in the afternoons, I really don't want to study at night. So I'm going to keep going to school in the afternoons and that will leave my mornings free to study. My priority is to learn spanish, so I really need to focus on that. I haven't made much progress in the last week, so I need arrange it so I will.

It was sort of an interesting week. I was so excited when I got back from Tikal. Walking, etc., had been so different from the last few years that I was estatic. Then I got home and was putting cream on my bug bites and realized....I CAN TOUCH MY TOES....EASILY!!!!! It has been years, and wow, I really didn't realize I was moving so much easier. Then....disaster....I fell really hard at school Monday afternoon. By yesterday I was really having problems with my knee hurting and being sore and was really bummed! When you've been hurting for so long, starting to hurt again is scarry, and you wonder if it will stop, or just keep on going like it used to. But today I'm fine, and marveling again at the difference 6 months and a new hip make.

Events of the week: Martin is now officially 32, after having a birthday Monday. A bunch of us went out and celebrated. Then tonight we had a "tour reunion" and Nick from DC and Grace from NYC and I went to dinner. We made a good group on the tour, and enjoyed ourselves again tonight. Tomorrow really early I head to Belize to snorkel on the second largest barrier reef in the world. John Watson (brother John to you who know the confusion) is meeting me there. It will be nice to see someone from home. Miss you guys and love you lots!

Earline

First week at "Work"

2007-10-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Hello again from Antigua!
This has been a much better week. I started working and am a lot more busy. I am a bit confused however. Everyone here says this city is very tranquil. Next to NYC, this city is the craziest place I have ever lived! Maybe it's my choice of living locations, but I am remembering how it is to live in a dorm...remember chaos?! Next door to my hotel is a club called Personnaje or Homeless in Spanish. This club has sandwiches named after the homeless people who live or have lived around the restaurant, and if you buy one, the homeless get a cut. Nice, huh? Well, it is also one of the most "happening" places in Antigua, shutting down around midnight most nights, 2-3am on Thurs, friday and Sat. When a Guatemalteco won Latin American Idol, the country, and oh yeah, the club next door, went NUTS!!!

Then there is the rooster. Did I mention THE ROOSTER??? The club shuts down at 2am, and the rooster, who evidently has no problem sleeping through the music, wakes up, and wants everyone else to wake up...at 4:30!!! I keep having this song run through my head...you may know a little different version..."Kill the roooooster, kill the roooooster, kill the roooooster!" I wasn't feeling good by the end of last weekend, had a bit of fever, sore throat, and REALLY needed to stay near the bathroom, so I was not in the mood for all of this fun. I just wanted to sleep. So....I called a cab, went to the city, and got a room on the 16th floor where there were no roosters or clubs. I literally slept all weekend, and was fine Sunday when I came home. (OK, not all weekend, there was a GREAT pool and hot tub)

This a scene from 5th ave. when I got back Sunday. This weekend was the weekend of the Dia de los Ninos, and there was all kind of stuff going on on the Ave. The lady in the center is dancing, and what you can't see is the crowd of locals cheering her on!

To tell you the truth, I don't know which church this is, but when I have a break at school, this is the kind of scenery I get to look at. This city has pockets of beauty everywhere.....

The other day I was wandering around (I do that regularly here!) and I found this absolutely beautiful Italian restaurant. It was straight out of the movies, with tables set around a beautiful courtyard. The food was great too, but wow! what a location. Hollywood NEEDS this place! Below is the courtyard....
Random picture here, but here are some of my classmates. I think this was after the salsa lesson. I have told them that I love to dance, but dancing does not love me! Actually, the truth is I'm awful at salsa....there are too many steps to make in too little time! The girl in the center at the end of the table pointing a pencil at her head is Hannah. She and I are both working at the God's Child project.

The rest of the pictures are from the school/clinic where Hannah and I are volunteering. It is an amazing place. There is a clinic, dental clinic, school, food and clothing distribution, all located on an city trash dump. When you see what they have created you will be amazed. The foundation, called in Guatemala " La Asociación Nuestros Ahijados" has a little different policy than most organizations. At this school, only one child per family is given free education. That child is paid, based on grades and scholastic accomplishments to stay in school. This gives the family the income that child could possibly bring in elsewhere, and gives them reason to support the child in school, since the better he/she does, the higher the pay. The theory is that the one successful child will then support the others, lifting the family out of what is, by any standard, abject poverty! Their graduation rate is good, and many of their students go on to university, something unheard of in the poor families here. When I say this used to be a garbage dump, look at the pictures below and see what can be created from nothing!!! The first is a walkwa from the front to the school. Beauty is everywhere. Everything is clean, neat, and gives those participating in this organization something to work toward, and an understanding that this is possible!

This is the main hall. It is so like the American school in Trinidad...

My first day was the school's celebration of La Dia de los Ninos. The hall was full of children, teachers and volunteers as we all lined up to play games (don't ask, just know that lots of mud was involved and I decided early on that "Grandma" was going to hold the watches, telephones and anything else that didn't need to crawl in the mud or climb a tree!) We also had pinatas, food and a great time!

A funky trash can! This is the school. Currently there are around 150 children in school here...

The entrance to the school...so pretty!

Artwork on the clinic building...

Just one of the pocket gardens around... The main offices where the clinics and the volunteer coordination are located...

The entrance to a small chapel. Even though this organization is primarily a Christian organization, the family and children's beliefs are respected...

My first week at work is going OK. It is frustrating not to be able to understand, but it gets a little better each day. The first day la doctora told me to go make a copy, and I just stood there having no clue what she said. She finally said it in English, but it is frustrating not to understand the instructions for something so simple. I get weights, BP's, and temps on people. The BP's are manual, good thing I taught it for so long or I wouldn't remember how! Today was a good day...I got to give a shot! Any day with a needle in it is a good day! On that note I'll close.

Love you all,

Earline

Long week and more gifts

2007-09-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

This has been a long week for me. You guys know that, while I do need alone time, 24/7 alone time is more than I can usually handle. There's a difference between being alone and being lonely. This week, I was lonely. I'm in a "group" by myself, get through at a different time from the other students, am the only american in the school at the moment (all Dutch, Swedish and Danes) and now live by myself in a hotel....lots of alone time! School has been difficult for me this week as well. It seems like I hit the wall in what I can learn and now nothing new is coming in and lots of the old stuff has fallen out! I've been frustrated, lonely, felt crappy (unfortunately that is the literal truth!), and just in general wondered if I am really doing the right thing, or just doing the hard thing because it seemed like a good idea.

But that is the frustrated me talking. Deep in my gut, I know that for some reason I need to do this. That's were the gifts come in. I met a couple of ladies, Pam and Mary, from New Mexico the other day and had dinner with then again tonight. I was venting, and they were kindly listening, when Pam said "What do you expect...you've moved, have stuff going on at home, are about to start a new volunteer job, and are in a tough school program...of course this has been a tough week!" Sometimes it takes an outside eye to put things in perspective. What a gift.

Oh, and the club next door is hopping...a guatemalteco won Latin American Idol tonight!!! Fireworks and cheers for HOURS!

Love you guys....more later
Earline

The weekend

2007-09-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday morning and I'm listening to the soundtrack from Rent while the drummer at the club next door practices. Not the quietest place I've ever stayed...but last night I had a HOT shower!!!! It was wonderful!

Yesterday I went to visit Santo Domingo. It is an old convent that has been turned into a combination Hotel/Museum. It was incredible! So beautiful...Below are some pictures....

This is one of the ruins of the convent...

A kitchen in the 16th century!The fountains in the center of the convent!

The convent/hotel is so beautiful and peaceful. I'll go back, just to have a beautiful place to "be".

I still haven't really learned how to upload pictures in any really good order, so here are some random shots of people/things....

This is Miguel...He's been my teacher for the last week. Nice guy, approx 22, and a pretty good teacher!

Last Wednesday, we had "salsa class". I'm not really getting it, but it's fun to watch. Afterwards, the school had a little fiesta for the students. It was funny...they had chips, guacamole, refried black beans, picco de gallo, and rum and cokes. I felt right at home!

The blonde guy on the far right in the picture below is Martin, the girls are from Holland(?) or Sweden....I'm not sure anymore.

Back to Santo Domingo....there were basins with rose petals everywhere, and beautiful, incredible art from the 16th cent. onward. One of the most interesting museums was the class and sculpture museum. I wish I could scan some images I bought in for you guys....they had Mayan sculpture and the beside each there were modern class sculptures using the same theme. The point was (I hope!) that while the expression might be different, people of all times have depicted life.... and life contains music, animals, flowers, ways to keep time, and of course ourselves . It was incredible.

There was beautiful furniture from 16th cent on.....

Fountains everywhere...

Random inserts here...the family I've been staying with also had another family at the school...and I got to practice being G-ma! This is the baby (whose name I can never remember, and who Izzy just always called "Baby!" She is just beautiful!

This is the rest of the family d'Allesandro....Krissy, Greg and of course the beautiful and abolutely adorable and hilarious Isabella (Izzy). I had a blast. It's funny, one of the things I've been a little worried about has been my physical ability to play with my grandkids. But after this last week I think I can stop worrying. I played and played. It was fun! These guys went back to Cuba today. They were another one of those gifts I talked about earlier.

This may well be one of the best cooks in the world. This is Senora Lopez, and it was her house. Wow the soups she could make. She was so nice!
One last picture of the fountain in the courtyard. I looked out yesterday morning and there was a beautiful pink rose on the fountain...just like in the movies.
That's life here. There is a lot going on in Houston...and I wonder sometimes at God's timing...but for right now I'm just trusting that I'm where I'm supposed to be. Love you guys...
Earline

Gifts and Pictures

2007-09-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts of traveling around is the little gifts you are given along the way. I´ve been really lucky here in meeting people. A couple have been true gifts. The first is Martin...who, behind that serious 31 year old (was SOUNDLY corrected) exterior is like the rest of you reading this blog....he ain´t right! We share a like of Galaxy Quest, distaste of stupid people, and so far, very similar tastes in food (I´m REALLY sorry about the awful Chinese restaurante). Pretty regularly I´m threated with death ¨Make your peace with your God....I´m gonna get ya!¨ He helps fill in the holes left by you all not being here.

The second gift this week has been Anita...a woman about my age from Holland. She has been here 3 weeks and today was her last day. She has been volunteering at a clinic for special children, and just reminded me that all over the world there are amazing caring people. The clinic would be impossible for me, and I´m so thankful there are wonderful people like her who can do what she has done for the last three weeks and LOVE it!

Below are some more pictures.....

This is the infamous ¨suicide shower¨!

The garden at my house.....
We went to a plantation...at least that is what I would call it....one of the oldest in the country. This is the central courtyard.
this is a coffee flower...
Antigua is a city of contrasts....and I took some pictures the other day to show just how much!

Here is a picture of a cloister and monestary built in the 16th century.....

and a coffee shop on 5th ave....

Some new Dutch girls at school.....

The volcano is different every day....here it is on a cloudy, rainy day.....

More pictures of the monastary cloister.....

A 16th century version of a stove venti-hood.....

Just thoughts

2007-09-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of thoughts while I'm here at school and the computer is free....

This is both harder and easier than I thought it would be, both mentally and physically. The cobblestones are "kicking my butt". Uneven, different heights, missing...all makes for interesting walking. I'm amazed I haven't fallen, and grateful that my muscles are strong enough to catch me for the first time in years! Lots of stairs...my class in on the 3rd floor...and physically I'm tired a lot but not really hurting like I used to. It's been a long time since I was just "tired". I couldn't do enough to get tired!

Mentally, the courses are so intense that I have to work really hard to keep up. I feel like I take one step forward and 2 back. There is no way to keep up with the vocabulary I learn every day...so I'm constantly saying I forget! But I'm learning a lot!!! I was optomistic that I would be fluent in 3 months...am I crazy?? I'm not even fluent in english and I've spoken it for 50 years! But hopefully I'll know enough to start to do what I need to do.

My ability to talk to a dead stick and have it talk back is still working....yesterday I was in the square and heard a man speaking English on the phone. When he was finished..I stopped him and asked him how to get a phone here. 10 minutes later he's taking me to the phone store and making sure I knew how and where to buy phones and minutes. I've met people in bars (WHAT a surprise), in school, or in restaurants. It's fun. One of my freinds in Houston that I was in school with gave me a couple of names to look up, and I've met them and know if I get in trouble I have a place to go!

I do miss my friends in Houston and at TWU. It's interesting how that works emotionally for me. I miss you all, but I wouldn'tr change what I am doing now for anything. Take care of yourselves...I am. LOL
Earline

Cancun and cranky

2007-09-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

I will freely confess…I was a bad girl this weekend. I went to Cancun Friday, Saturday and came home Sunday. It was wonderful. I had this fabulous room in this wonderful resort (enough superlatives yet?!) and this incredible beach. (Enough!) Mostly I slept, on the beach, by the pool, in the spa, in the 2 person hot tube on my porch…need I say more? It was needed. Here are some pictures....

The beach outside my hotel room....

The wedding chapel...I saw a wedding on Friday!

The view outside my hotel room... on my patio with the 2 person jacuzzi!

I stayed in the tower...only 6 rooms max per floor! I was so spoiled! It was an all inclusive place...so I really didn't leave!

I came back cranky. I’m not sure how that works. I was rested…and cranky. OK, I’am going ugly American. I’m tired of cobblestones (they look great but they are HELL to walk on and really tire me out), damp beds, a kitchen that is closed except when meals are served, and only OCCASIONAL hot showers. Breakfast is at 7:30, even though class starts at 8:00 and it is a 15 minute walk. Lunch is at 1:00, (school is done by noon) and dinner is at 7:30, or whenever it’s done. My family is very nice, and the food is wonderful, but the bathroom thing …. I have decided I am too old to take cold showers using something to warm the water called a “suicide shower.” The heater for the water is attached, electric cords and all, to the shower head. If there is no water pressure, there is no hot water. If there is no electricity, there is no hot water. If you turn the water on too fast and it doesn’t have time to heat, there is no hot water. If you turn it down to heat, there is no pressure…are you getting the picture here? Many of you remember my one request…HOT WATER for my shower. So Saturday I will move to a hotel, where there is hot and cold running water, a shared kitchen, wi-fi, and my own private bath.

Another sign of my move down the culture shock curve to “Oh…NO!” is my purchase of a phone. I bought a phone for and 300 minutes today for approx $35. My new phone number is 57396757. Yes I know that is too many numbers, but I don’t know which ones to leave off! Here in Antigua, you dial only the last 4 or 5. Nice! Today was triple minutes day. Every Monday is. So if I have to buy minutes, I’ll just be sure and buy them on Mondays!

I'm in the wi-fi café where I can load this on to my blog. It takes forever to load picturews...or there would be more.

Part of my quick decent into the "what the &*((**& part of culture shock is the similarity to Trinidad. I've already had that adventure...for 6 years. Hopefully, my next blog won’t be from Earline the cranky! Love you guys and love your comments..
Earline

First Impressions

2007-09-12T19:59:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure where to begin! Arriving in Guatemala City was a lot like arriving in Trinidad in one sense….people and vendors and beggars and taxis were everywhere! The culture here is so different it makes the similarities stand out. The roads are…roads. Not freeways, even the freeways! There was traffic everywhere Sunday since it was Election Day. The cars are usually older, and no one really uses air conditioning. Why would they when it’s only 75◦ outside? The same little shops line the roadways, people walking everywhere, and most of the roofs are corrugated tin. Houses are jammed together, and the humidity is 85% on a good day!

(the fountain in "Central Park")

Then there are the differences….The country is incredibly beautiful. Rivers, mountains, and the beautiful volcanoes in the background. The climate is great…75 for a high in the day and 65 for a low at night. What makes the heat or the cold is the humidity. (the fountain in "Central Park" ) It is comfortable when the temperature is 75 if you are standing still in the shade, but if you walk or do anything, especially in the sun, it is so humid that you begin to sweat just because there is no evaporation. And a humid 65 feels cold due to the dampness that is everywhere at night.

My family is very nice. The mother is Consuela, and she is very nice. Her husband had surgery Monday, so we have not really met him yet. She has three daughters. One is very friendly, has three older children, and does a lot of the cooking. Actually, all the daughters cook…a lot! There is a lot of family around to feed. I’m still not sure who lives here all the time, but the family is very welcoming and nice. They take in several students at a time, and Sunday night an American family (Greg and Kristi) who are living in Cuba came to study as well. The family has two daughters, and they are dolls! Lexi is 2 and a pistol, and the baby is as happy as she can be. Here is my house....I have the room next to the "garage" which is the front door!

School started Monday, and the professors IMMEDIATELY diagnosed me as a beginner….might have something to do with the French words I was throwing in. And that has proven to be a real problem, especially since the student they paired me with also speaks French. He is from Sweden, and is a student of American History (?). His name is Martin and he’s 32. Today, we had a substitute instructor who also spoke French! Martin just looked at him and said “Don’t go there…trust me…we’ve already been!” Martin’s English is amazing. He has just a bit of North Carolina there, since he lived for a year as an exchange student in Raleigh. But if I say anything else in French…he may kill me and tell God I died!

School is only in the mornings, and I’ve found my way around enough that I’ve found a WI-Fi café. So below are some pictures of what I’ve seen so far in Antigua.

Here is one of the most beautiful churches in Antigua, and I live just behind it.

There are many modes of transport here.....

The famous "Arch de Antigua"

More later. Love you all.

I'm finally here!

2007-09-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

Wow...it doesn't seem possible that I'm actually in Guatemala. The last few weeks have been hectic. I closed up my house, packed 2/3's of it before I left for Wilminton to see Nicole and Ryan. Before I had to pack the rest....I would have told you I had packed almost all of it, but it took the whole last 4 days and renting a pickup truck to get all the stuff I had left in the house to where it all needed to go!

The last 4 days have been saying "goodbye" (although not really), and eating and visiting with close friends/family while packing, packing, packing. Jon and John Watson loaded and schlepped stuff all over. And just when I thought all was done, last night at 10:30 I realized Mark still had my passport at his house! It was pretty funny.

The flight was great, and I was met, finally, by a really nice guy who drove me to my family. I'm really just putting this blog up because I'm too tired to do anything else and it's not time to go to bed yet. School starts tomorrow, and I have already taken my first test, which let me know how MUCH I have to learn. Love you guys...more soon.

Wilmington

2007-09-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

The last post was supposed to be up last week. OOPS! Oh well. This week I'm in Wilmington, North Carolina visiting my daughter, son-in-law and grand-dawgs Winston (the toy destroyer) and Chaucer (the "noble" hound). They are (the dogs) beagles, and too funny. My kids are great too. A number of Nicole's friends have relocated here to Wilmington from Harding, so it is kind of a reunion. We've had a great week. I even went to the beach today to see if I could be some other color than "fish-belly white". I get back into Houston tomorrow, then on to Guatemala Sunday. Wouldn't you know it...I'm following a hurricane in. It should be interesting!

I got both my passport and my drivers' license replaced and they were both mailed to me in time! Life is good. Only 5 more days. I still really can't believe it's real, until I look at my empty house. I'm staying with a friend, (John Watson), but part of my furniture is at his house so it's kind of surreal.

So you want to be a citizen

2007-08-16T00:15:00.000-07:00

Today was a neat day. My friend Kim from when I worked in the ED became a citizen. It was a really interesting procedure. You arrive at 7:00am (Yess...I was there...not awake, but there!), and they separate you from anyone who has come to watch you get "sworn in". You stand in line to recieve...I am not kidding....a colored piece of paper with your green card number hand written on it, and an envelope containing a book on historical speeches, a copy of the constitution and the bill of rights, and the forms to register to vote and procure a passport (all of which are available online!) You then go find your "guests" in the huge basketball arena type stands, where you sit for 3 HOURS!!!!! Nothing happens until 9:00am, when they begin making announcements of who's lights are left on, and begin practicing the sound check with the pick-up choir (including 2 children in cut-offs) who will lead the group in the "Star Spangled Banner". At 10:00 am (sort of) the Judge arrives. He introduces those being sworn to citizenship who are already serving in the armed forces, but can't quite grasp that one of them is a woman, so keeps saying "The servicemen and the woman". He and the Immigration authorities read from the script back and forth to each other, then he calls his law clerk up to make a speech. The law clerk had a hispanic name, but as the speech unwound, it was evident his family had been in the US for generations...probably longer than the black judge's family!!! After that , we were all led in the oath, to which the respondents anwered "I will". Then we were led in the pledge by a woman whose mike was turned on half way through. Then the new citizens were dismissed according to their colored paper to go get their naturalization certificate.

The whole process both entertained and apalled me. How could something this important to so many people become such an afterthought to those planning it? But it was entertaining, and Kim is now an official US citizen. I guess we'll have to extend the citizenship to Miss Kitty, who came down at the same time. I'll put up her picture later (when I'm further away from being beaten.)

Last week at work

2007-08-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

So much to do, so many people I want to see...It seems impossible that tomorrow is my last day. I'm overwhelming Kelly (my replacement) with everything, and yet it seems like I'm leaving everything a mess. So much for the idea that my desk would be clean and straight (when has THAT ever happened) and everything would be written down so she will have no problem. Add that to the fact that my passport and drivers license were stolen last Saturday and it has been a fairly stressful week. But a good one. I'm still so excited about what I'm going to be doing that I can hardly see straight. People have asked me if I'm not scared, or nervous, about going somewhere where I know no one and can't speak the language. I guess the answer is yes...but really no...because I'm too excited that I'm able to do this at this time in my life. More later.....

Wow, it's really going to happen!

2007-07-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

You know how they say that today is the first day of the rest of your life...well, I guess I woke up a month ago are realized that "they" are right. For a number of years now, my goal has been to help Impact Church start a clinic close to downtown Houston. To do this I've gotten a nursing degree, worked in the ER, and started on a masters program to get the Family Nurse Practitioner Certification. Along the way, my body decided to give out. I developed severe arthitis in my hip, and had gotten to the point where I couldn't work in the ED anymore, could barely walk down the hall at TWU. I had given up on travel (which I love) and ever being able to more than just barely get around.

5 months ago I got a new right hip. The difference is amazing!! I can walk, bend, move, and even travel like I haven't been able to in years. I also realized that the only responsibility I had in this life was for myself and my behavior. I am responsible for no one else! I initially considered a part time FNP program in Nashville. I applied, quit my job, then realized that if I delayed entry a year into the full time program, I could have a year to do other things!!! Isn't that cool? Other things!!!

So here begins my big adventure. Today I registered at the Casa de Lenguas Spanish Language School in Antigua, Guatemala. I start classes there on September 10. Before that I have to pack, find places for everything, visit my daughter and son-in-law, figure out money, find a home for a 21 year old cat, and ..... and who knows what else. I bought a camera so I could put up pictures, and signed up for my first ever blog! As for what next??? I'll keep you posted...