April snapshot I

this dish was really delicious. it was a mixture of sweet and savory as there is actually a chicken hidden inside of that mound of pasta and sugar and raisins. my friend is a fabulous cook! she even made the delicious salad in the background--super yummy!

finally we heard whether or not my friend would get the scholarship to the States and she did! we met up to celebrate this exciting news and later we went for a really fun sunset boat-ride on the river here. the city scene here is my favorite view of the city--this is the second oldest part of the city. it was really pretty and our rower was nice.

here is Sally opening up her congratulations gift for getting the scholarship! i knew she would get it!

here is a great new friend that i got to hang with for the month she was here. she was so sweet to take me out for one year anniversary here in NA! i really enjoyed getting spend time with this lovely lady.

another fun thing i got to go do is have a jellaba made for bonnie, my dad's lady-friend. i was so happy to get to go back to the tailor in the city across the river. he is a really nice man and does an incredible job. he was so thorough and wanted to make sure i was getting what i wanted. i really, really, really appreciated that! i think it turned out really nice! i hope she likes it.

celebrating Life everlasting

i was excited to celebrate R-day and decided to make up another round of sweets to hand out to friends in honor of this special day. i found a couple of recipes i wanted to try and both turned out pretty well i think. here are the lemony sugar cookies i made and i also made some cocoa-chocolate chip merengues (not pictured). i think they went over pretty well.

so, our Int'l fellowship had a sunrise service at the local Roman ruins. it was so beautiful and really neat. it felt like a scene or two out of the film, Pride & Prejudice. it was really neat to see the sunrise and sing together. mmmm. i also got to share a little about my story later that day with the group. that was a really great experience, too.

i was really excited as earlier that week i went to a friend's house and she gave me this gift bag full of goodies you see pictured here. i was so excited to get the bunny as it felt like an E basket! it is also funny to say that i got a set of unmentionables and some exciting perfume as well in the bag. i just love NA'cans:)

we were asked to bring flowers with us on E morning in order to put them on the cross to celebrate new Life. i had picked out the bouquet to the left and after i told the guys at the flower place why i was buying them, one guy insisted on giving me a "gift" bouquet you see there to the right. it was cool. a very beautiful day indeed.

later that day i got to spend the afternoon with a very fabulous NA friend. it was so great to see her as i hadn't seen her in quite some time. she is a gal that i met like my first month here, so it has been so amazing to get to the point to be able to communicate much, much better with her. and i just really appreciate that she makes a concious effort, i know, to speak slower and to even use words that i know:)

so, needless to say, this day celebrating new Life was an incredible one. wow. yeah.

march into april

so, i got to experience a weekend like i never have before. growing up, i didn't participate in youth stuff really, so it was a really neat opportunity for me to get to hang out with some youth from our Int'l fellowship here. i think the kids had a great time and it was fun to have this weekend to build a relationship with them that will continue to grow. here is just one moment from the weekend below. i chose this photo as i feel like it captured a lot of movement as that was something that was happening all through-out the weekend: these kids love to have fun! we did some good times of study, chatting, a scavenger hunt around the old city here (which they did an incredible job at), ate well, and just spent time getting to know one another better. cool.

so, later i had the great opp to go back and visit this beautiful city here in NA. i went to this place back in 2005 when i was here before and was curious of how it would play out this time as now i am able to communicate and exist here. i went with a new friend and we enjoyed taking a fun day-trip there. above is the cistern in the old city. it was more magnificent than i remembered. there was this great layer of water to provide for some really beautiful shots. wow! totally amazing.

we had a great day of mozying around this small vacay spot and timed it just right as we went during pre-tourist season. it was beautiful to walk about the ramparts and take in the breeze. it was definitely a great day away from the big city. one thing that was really cool though: was that i totally had many opps to practice my language. it was cool to be able to be there and communicate with people. i felt like it was a great trip to sorta come to a peace about my trip here in 2005. check out the great view here to the left.

so, going to this city also provided for amazing seafood! we were excited to grub down on all this deliciousness. we had sole, calamari, sardines, shrimp, scallops, and our favorite: eel! yes, the eel was amazing, with great flavor and so much meat suprisingly.

we also had this great spread of veggies. yummy!

so, yeah. it was a really neat day to be somewhere else and just explore. like i mentioned a little before: it was cool to be able to kind of see how far i have come in the last several years. i guess we are always growing and moving and developing. thankfully.

thanks for trekking with me and i hope you had a great March into April, too.

more of march

so, i went to go grab some shoes from under my bed and noticed that they had mold/mildew on them. oh, i was suprised, but not terribly actually cause i figured that my long-lasting "cold" probably had something to do with some type of allergy or reaction to something in the house since my symptoms cleared up even while i was on the plane home. so, i did a complete cleaning of the underside of the bed frame and found all kinds of funk under there and even between my matress and the boards on the frame. i let the bed sit out on the balcony for a while to get a sun cleaning. i was so happy to find the culprit of my sickness! i have recently started to have some cold-ish symptoms and checked my bed today and there isn't anything under there or in the mattress. i think the massive amounts of rain helped with all the funk thriving...it was just so wet this winter.

and then i got introduced to these lovely things: navajo tacos. oh my. a gal that used to live here came in for a visit and wanted to make dinner for us one night and now i know why the others here wanted these so bad. they were darn good!

while walking around with the spring breakers we went up to a lighthouse here. i hadn't been over there yet, so it was neat to check it out. pretty.


so, history was made this last month when i ate my first omelet ever. strange things happen when you live in another country:) my roommate was gracious enough to make this yummy creation for me.

it was good, but not sure if i would order them all the time. i am still a big fan of hard-boiled eggs now though.

this is another one of those laughable moments that come along in living here. we were walking around downtown and came upon this man that decided to take a dip in the big fountain there. it was quite funny. it attracted some attention. when we walked by again later he was no longer in there. not sure if he left voluntarily or not.

fun!

march was great. it was crazy to come back and feel like my trip to the States was like a dream or something. thankfully the weather has been really nice since then, so i am really happy to leave the rainy winter behind.

spring break visitors

so, the rest of march was quite full here. we had some students in town to visit during their spring break. it was fun for sure to have them. i love being able to take people around the city cause i end up learning something (many things) new, too. so, here are some photos of our adventures around the city:

here, i got to help them shop in the market. we try to go back to the same vendors as to build a relationship with them and give them business. i have gone to this scarf store ever since i got here. many of you have gotten scarves from this very place. this day the owner gave us all these knitted hats as gifts. it was really neat.

here's the crew with the tower in the background. i really enjoyed spending time with these guys. it was fun to mindfully walk the city. they were always ready for an adventure:)

we had breakfast here one day and these ladies were great. their pastries are really good and totally cheap! this is right in the m'dina from my house. we even got fresh squeezed OJ from here, too. i think for all five of us it was maybe $4 or $5 for our pastries and OJ. yummy!

as i said in the beginning...it is fun to have groups in to visit cause it helps you see the city in different ways than maybe i would see it. like getting asked questions that i may not think of or even go into parts that i wouldn't necessarily walk around in by myself. it is cool, cause you come upon great photos like this one with this man and his little gal.

so, this is like my favorite shot from our city. and thankfully i can go and see this view as often as i want as it is only a 10 minute walk from the apartment. awh.

while they were here, i know they walked at least 20 miles as they checked out our city! it was so fun and such a treat to have them. i actually didn't take these pictures (except for their group pic), but was there for each one of them. one gal is a great photographer, so we let her take all the photos:)