What an expat couple buys in bulk before returning to Saudi Arabia

Starting as early as March, the Mister and I were compiling a list of the things we needed to stock up on before returning to Saudi for our second go around. We were hoping to pride ourselves on being the Americans who didn't move overseas only to become mega brats because they couldn't find the modern conveniences of home. But by the middle of our second semester, we came to terms with the fact there are just some things we don't want to compromise on. So within a few days of returning to Nashville, I was hitting up my local Target and Costco and buying so many of some of the things we can't find here that we actually had to bring back two more suitcases than we left Saudi Arabia with.

Here's a peek into our luggage.

Greeting cards!! I know, right?! What a weird thing to need to spend more than $50 on! (oops, yeah...sorry honey! We spent $50 on greeting cards...)

It never occurred to me that I would need to buy a card for every possible holiday and a few blank ones for the holidays I forgot, but it is so hard to find a greeting card in this country! I thought there might be a Hallmark store or something at one of the malls, but I was sorely mistaken. Eventually I found a pitiful little card display at the grocery store on one of the local compounds, but the selection left much to be desired.

In Saudi Arabia's defense, there is a Hallmark store in Bahrain (yeah, I don't get how that defends Saudi either...just go with it), but there's not much to choose from and they're crazy expensive. I found some postcards, but they were 1BD ($2.66)!! And that didn't even include the stamp!

Instead, I chose to wait it out and hit up the card stacks when I got home.

Sunscreen. I live in the land of endless sun, and I haven't been able to find an affordable bottle of sunscreen the entire time we've been here! Don't let me mislead you: There is sunscreen available for purchase here, but I haven't been able to find a bottle of SPF 15 for less than $20, and I could only find the small bottles.

I mean, I guess it has to be imported? Or maybe there's limited demand since so many people just stay indoors or only go out at night? Or perhaps it's because Arabs just don't seem to suffer the same ill effects of the sun that the Pale Ones do.

Doesn't matter because I've now returned back with 4 different varieties, and I got them all from the clearance shelf at Target! Ah, the benefits of not returning home till after the beginning-of-summer sunscreen rush.

...or something like that.

Several seasons of a few different TV series. Again, don't be misled: There is plenty of programming in English here. And most of it consists of modern(ish) American shows. They're just not the shows we watch...or they're so censored that they're not fun anymore. Also, TV programmers seem to specialize in all the shows that were cancelled in the States a few years ago.

Let's just say we wandered around Best Buy for a while and tried to show some self restraint.

Tampons. 324 of 'em. Thank you, Costco!

Let's move on.

Vitamins and painkillers. Sometimes you'll get lucky and find the random pharmacy that sells more than Flintstones-esque daily vitamins, but they require a lot of money for not a lot of product. And Panadol, the popular pain reliever around here, does absolutely nothing for me. I have no idea why.

So I went to Costco and got 2 bottles of the daily multivitamin pictured, 2 similarly sized bottles of calcium plus vitamin D supplements, and the mega bottle of acetaminophen you see before you. I think the total cost was less than fifty bucks. Yes. Less than the cost of our greeting cards.

I never thought I'd see the day that I would need to find a place in my luggage for more than 300 tampons and an oddly large amount of greeting cards, but apparently moving overseas has that effect on people.

Vicariously yours,

The Definition of Irony

This is what I wore to school today. My outfit consisted of a grey three-quarter sleeve sweater I bought at Forever 21 before we left, a brown pleated polyester skirt I bought at some souq here in Saudi, and my TOMS.

It was 109 degrees outside today. And I was wearing a sweater.

The full length skirt is a requirement. I'm also required to cover my shoulders and my elbows. The sweater was all my choice.

I chose to wear a sweater because, if there's one thing the Saudis do right, it's air conditioning! It is the ultimate irony that I am in the middle of one of the driest, most sweltering regions in the world, and I spend 85% of my day shivering from cold!

Our school is freezing cold all the time...Well, except for when the air conditioning breaks down. Then it's ridiculously warm. But I would say 9 times out of 10, I'm going to be blue from frostbite by the end of the day.

Unless I wear a sweater to school. In Saudi Arabia.

Who could have predicted?!

Vicariously yours,

The Top 4 Things We Learned in Costa Rica

1. We like eating our food out of convenient packets. I'm not talking about those wonderful ketchup packets we discovered at Chick Fil A this summer. I'm talking about unexpected condiments packaged in unexpectedly large, screw-top packets.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

When I first spotted them on the shelves of the local grocery store, I was a little grossed out. There's just something off-putting about your jam being of a squeezable consistency. But food items like these were either the cheapest or only choices we had, so we purchased them. And boy am I glad we did!!

You know how annoying it is when you get down to the bottom of the jam jar and you've got to really work the knife around to maximize the fruit preserve removal? Inevitably, you get that crusty, sticky jam from the jar opening on your knuckles and it takes a 15 minute surgery-style scrub session to get all that crap off your fingers!

Such is NOT the case with the squeezy goodness of the jam in a pack! All you have to do is roll the packet bottom-up, like you do with a toothpaste tube and you get all the product out and you don't have to worry about the mess!

We loved it.

2. The locals often use ATVs to get around and don't even own a typical family car. On our ATV tour, we passed through a few small towns. I would even venture to say these were just villages by American standards. One village only had a population of THIRTY NINE people! As we were chugging along I was thinking we were riding on ATV paths that had been cleared by the government or the tour companies and that the locals used some paved highways that we couldn't see to get around. After a bit I noticed there were houses along these rough 4-wheeler paths and I asked our tour guide if they were inhabited or abandoned. He explained that yes, these were people's homes and we had been driving on their local roads.

I was flabbergasted! Paths like the one pictured above would suddenly have a little ramshackle house with a fence around it and peeking through would be a little kid waving to the friendly tourists. I asked how they got around, cause there was no way a regular car would be able to get through here in the rainy season. He explained that most families use ATVs or dirt bikes to go from place to place--they don't even own a traditional vehicle! Sure enough, a little while later we saw a guy driving his ATV, his little girl sitting on the gas tank between him and the handlebars. It appeared that he had just made a food run because she was holding on to a plastic grocery bag.

Crazy!!

3. The simple life is taken to a whole new meaning in Costa Rica. One of the things we loved about our vacation was the laid back pace of everything! Not just because we were on vacation, but because the whole country is a lot more chill than America or even Saudi Arabia. Things move slow in Costa Rica because they have to!

We visited during the rainy season, so the roads were usually wet and we often passed newly-cleared mud and rock slides on the roads after a hard night's rain. If you try to move fast during the rainy season, you're likely to go right off the road, into the back of another car, or drive right into a massive mudslide. You're forced to slow down.

When we were on our ATV tour, we stopped at our tour guide's mom's house for some coffee. I was LOVING getting to actually see how and where real Costa Ricans lived: there wasn't a single gringo for miles! After our guide showed us his mom's farm and gave us a quick tour of his hometown (we stood in the middle of the road and he pointed to places as we rotated in a circle. The town was that small), I started riddling him with questions.

"Do you have internet up here?" I asked.
He quickly put down his coffee cup and excitedly said, "Yes! The school just got internet this year! But we don't have internet in our houses. Only at the school."

The school just got internet this year. It's 2011. Al Gore invented the internet in 1997.*

*not entirely true.

"Well, what about television? Do you get local TV stations? Cable? Satellite?"
"No."

"What about mail? I haven't seen any mailboxes, so how do people get their post?" I asked, trying my hardest not to be patronizing. I was genuinely curious because we don't have at-home mail delivery in Saudi Arabia, and I'm pretty sure it's just because people are too lazy to try to figure out a system.

"We have mail, but it goes to the city." The "city" being Jaco, where we were vacationing. It was approximately 45 minutes to an hour away, down a mountain path that was currently a caked river of mud. And I would use "city" as a very loose term. It's a medium sized town by American standards. "The mail goes to the post office in the city and we have to go pick it up. Usually if I know I am coming to see my mother, I will get her mail and bring it to her. Or if someone in the village is going to the city, he will go to everyone's house and ask if they need him to pick up anything while he is gone."

Volunteer mailmen/errand boys. That's how people function in these tiny mountain villages!

"What about hospitals? If you're pregnant, do you deliver at home, or do you go to the hospital?"

"Well, if there is an emergency and it's really bad, someone will call the Red Cross, then put you in their truck and you go meet the ambulance. If it's not that bad, you can wait for the Red Cross. If you're pregnant you have to go to the hospital in Jaco or San Jose, but you have to go 1 week before you are supposed to deliver. Two weeks if it's the rainy season because you might not be able to drive on the roads."

Whaat?! That was so interesting to me! He clarified that if you go into surprise labor you just have to deliver on your own or hope the Red Cross gets there in time...but if it's the rainy season they probably won't come.

I was fascinated by the fact that this was how these people lived day to day and they were so incredibly happy! No one grumbled about how inconvenient it was to get anything done, or that there wasn't even television to fill the time. Because the roads are so bad, most Costa Ricans are subsistence farmers. They live off the land and if they need to purchase anything, they'll sell a cow or a few chickens and get what they need. And they seemed perfectly fine with that.

The whole thing made me so humbled.

4. American tourists are obnoxious. Granted, this is a lesson we learn (and I'm sure contribute to) everywhere we go, but there were little things in Costa Rica that made us not so proud of our fellow countrymen.

We noticed that most of our waiters and tour guides had very Anglo names. One night, Henry served us a fantastic meal at a beachfront restaurant. I remember thinking, "Henry...really?" Then our ATV tour was guided by Alan.

I mean, come on. Alan!? A Costa Rican native named Alan!?

The jig was up when we were having coffee with his mom and she kept calling him Alejandro. That's when our suspicions were confirmed.

People Anglo-fied their names, we assumed, to make it easier for the American tourists to pronounce and remember!

That made us so upset! It's one of mine and the Mister's biggest pet peeves!! Our students do it too. I went the whole school year last year calling a girl by the name she told me she goes by, only to get laughed at by her friends when I called her that same name in the hallway. When I asked her why she told me to call her by a name her mother didn't give her she said, "Well, teacher, it's easier for you to say."

BUT IT'S NOT YOUR NAME!! I guess I should be--what? honored? glad? I don't know--that she was trying to make things easier for me, but IT'S HER NAME! Tell me how to say it correctly and I'll try my darnedest to pronounce it that way.

I felt the same betrayal by our tour guides and waiters! Your name is your identity, and you shouldn't change it because of the pale faces that have taken over your local economy! We are in your country, we should be inconvenienced and taken out of our comfort zone. That's why we travel: to experience local culture!!

I understand that the majority of the American tourists who are vacationing in Jaco probably don't have the same attitude. They're probably going down for a little tropical solace from the corporate grind and don't want to have to worry about sounding like a buffoon when they say Jaco with a hard "j" instead of Jaco with a Spanish "j" (that means it's pronounced "Haco"). I just hated that the locals had to change their identity to mollify my people.

Vicariously yours,

The second time I almost died in Costa Rica

It was a harrowing vacation, to be sure, but even weeks later Costa Rica still holds its place as Most Likely to be Visited Again in my yearbook of life. Despite repeatedly brushing with death while there, the Mister and I are shopping for schools in Costa Rica so we can be surrounded by beauty 24/7.

Anyway, I need to tell you all about the second time I almost died in Costa Rica. This particular instance was significantly less drawn out and exponentially less terrifying than the Waterfall from Hell. It was one of those moments that I didn't realize was super dangerous until hours later, sitting at dinner with my husband and thinking, "Whoa. That was a close call."

A few days before we left the rich coast, the hubbins and I took an ATV tour. Neither of us had ever been on a 4-wheeler--we both have nurses for mothers who had taken care of ATV accident patients a few too many times--but we were super excited for the adventure that awaited us. Thankfully we'd inadvertently decided to vacation during Costa Rica's wet season, so we were the only 2 tourists on this particular excursion. I had read a review on TripAdvisor from an avid ATV'er who complained that the beginners on her tour had made it boring for her. I didn't want to be that person, but I also didn't want to take my ATV'ing experience from 0 to 11 in the matter of a few minutes. So I was more than happy to poke along on the mostly paved, completely cleared paths we were told we were going to take without ruining the vacation of more experienced fellow tourists that could have come along on our tour.

Doesn't he look intrepid?

The trails ranged from this....

...to this!

Unfortunately, we'd inadvertently decided to vacation during Costa Rica's wet season, which meant the paths were deeply rutted by the mini-rivers created from the rains of the past few days. Being that I'd never been on a 4-wheeler before, I had no prior knowledge of how to handle it when my wheels tried to follow the rut instead of going in the direction I wanted. Luckily, I got the hang of it relatively quickly and was blaring up and down those mountains, tongue sticking out of the corner of my mouth, with a maniacal grin on my face.

I even got confident enough to snap a selfie while operating my all-terrain vehicle.

Don't tell my moms.

Let me pause the story to let you all know that my machine pulled to the left, but it was only really noticeable when we were on the asphalt surfaces. Obvious foreshadowing is obvious.

So we're trucking along passing by some of the most astonishingly breathtaking vistas I've ever seen in my life.

Like this one.

This was the view out one of the windows at a little restaurant at the top of a mountain where we stopped. The owners lived in an attached building. THIS IS WHAT THEY SEE EVERY DAY!!

This was a much less terrifying waterfall. I liked this waterfall. We were already at its base.

This is a Costa Rican farm. The cows say "Los Moos."

The tour was perfect for two beginners because we would be on a semi paved, mostly smooth path/road for a while where the biggest obstacle we had to worry about was mega pot holes for about 45 minutes and then we'd turn onto a super rutted, mostly uphil, narrow ATV path of awesomeness!! It was the best combination of adrenaline, culture and nature. We were often times riding on ridge trails: look to the right and see nothing but a sheer drop, look to the left and see nothing but a steeply sloping mountain face. It was terrifying and awesome at the same time.

Anyway, about 5 hours into our 8 hour day of awesomeness, we were blazing our way up a trail that was wooded on the right and the other side had tall grass, a bit of an embankment and CERTAIN DEATH! The path was also pretty vertical, which I had learned that I enjoyed. I loved being able to just open up the throttle and bump my way up the side of a mountain, spraying red mud up my leg all the while.

So much fun!!

As I said before, the path was deeply rutted and, as ruts will do, these mini ravines led right off the trail and down the mountain. I hit a rut which wasn't all that deep but for some reason my 4-wheeler headed left, in the direction of the embankment. That's when I had a very Rob Dyrdek kind of moment. Because I was going along full speed ahead, my ATV treated the embankment as a BMX ramp and I was on my way to becoming airborne. In the split second it took me to realize my current trajectory was going to send me flying down the side of a mountain, I let off the throttle. Only thing is, in that same split second, my front wheels were already on their way into the air and when they lost all their oomph, they started to somersault backwards taking me and the rest of the ATV with them. I was about the be crushed by an ATV in one of the most beautiful placed on earth.

Directly behind me, also going full speed ahead, was my husband. I think he was watching this whole thing unfold and had come to a stop so he could watch his wife almost take herself to her grave for a second time in a week. I had also come to a stop but because I was flustered, I hadn't put on the brakes yet so I started rolling down the path. I didn't want to collide with my husband, so my old bike-riding instincts kicked in and I promptly put my feet down. Experienced ATV'ers know that putting your feet down will do nothing but scratch your legs up and possibly get your feet tangled in the snowballing mess that is you and the ATV. But what did I know!?

Eventually (and by "eventually" I mean .25 seconds later) I came to my senses and threw on the brakes. Now I was very nearly vertical on an ATV that was halfway up the embankment. I was afraid that if I kicked the throttle into full speed I would end up finishing the trip down the face of the mountain I'd very nearly started.

But I had bigger things to worry about than that!! On the muddy trail in front of me, right in the middle of an imprint of the tracks of my tires was OUR BRAND NEW CAMERA!!

Yes, the one we had accidentally dropped down the side of another mountain during the hike back from the Waterfall from Hell (I didn't tell you guys about that part of the story, but there's the short version). Today, I had been riding with it between my legs so I could snap quick shots without having to fiddle with trying to get it out of my pocket.

Somehow in all the confusion, I had come off my seat, the camera had flown through the air, my front right tire had landed and skidded on the camera and then rolled backward down the path just enough to reveal my pitiful camera barely peeking out of the mire.

Now I had to get off my 4-wheeler...but I couldn't do that without risking sending my machine into my husband behind me. Our guide was trying to tell me how to get myself out of my current situation, but that entailed me running back over my camera, possibly killing it for good this time.

Long story short, our guide got off his ATV, we wiped off the camera and continued on the trail.

Here's a grainy webcam shot of the scratches on the screen of our camera. Our souvenir from our awesome day of ATV'ing in Costa Rica.

Moral of this story: 4-wheeling is awesome, even when you almost die in the process...and Olympus Tough TG-610s really are tough, even if they don't take the best pictures in the world.

Vicariously yours,

The first time I almost died in Costa Rica

After we spent time with family in North Carolina (on the very barrier islands that are being rocked by hurricane Irene right now), visited with family and friends in Nashville and South Carolina, and been to Portland and San Francisco, we fled the country and went to Costa Rica for two weeks. Two blissful weeks of nothing but lounging, sleeping in, reading multiple books and enjoying time with one of our closest friends in the world and his significant other.

This. summer. has been. awesome.

That said, there were a few instances where the Mister and I had a closer than comfortable brush with death.

Lemme preface this story by explaining that months ago, when we first invited our friends to join us on our vacation, we immediately started scouring TripAdvisor, finding the adventures we were going to share. We decided that during the week we would all be together, we were going to take surfing lessons and go on a hike to a waterfall.

That hike turned out to be the most terrifying experience of my life.

My first near meeting with my maker came toward the end of our guests' stay with us in Costa Rica. We had already enjoyed our surf lessons together and were excited to have another leisurely day of making memories before they had to pack up and head back to the States.

The waterfall, before the rain ever started.

We met up with our tour guide, loaded up in his Land Rover and hit the road to the park with the spectacular 600 foot waterfall we were going to view. As we had come to find out, the rainy weather we were experiencing that day is pretty typical for Costa Rica at this time of year. We had dressed accordingly and were ready to get wet. So when it started to sprinkle not long after we started our descent down a jungle covered mountain, we weren't alarmed. By the time we had reached where the trail came to the river, in the valley, it was raining pretty hard.

You can't tell very well from this picture, but the downpour had just started. This is the pool into which we were asked to jump and swim across. to the other bank, right where that little water fall was emptying ...and picking up speed.

At this point, our tour guide told us to stash anything that couldn't get wet because we were getting into the river.

At that point I said, "Say what now?"

By the time our backpacks, a camera, and walking sticks were stashed in a nook of a tree to keep them from getting wet, the small shower had turned into an all out downpour. I mean buckets. It was hard to see across the small river because the rain was so thick. It was raining so hard that, even though we were in the tropics, closer to the equator than I have ever been, the Mister was shivering from the cold. ...or fear.

Our guide told us that, even though it was raining, and the river was turning muddy from all the soil it was carrying down from the top of the mountain, we were going to jump in, swim across the current to the other bank, and head up the river...off the trail.

Dear readers, I can honestly say I have never genuinely hyperventilated from fear, but as I climbed into that muddy eddy and watched as members of our 5-person hiking party made their way across the current--being sucked downriver for a half a minute as they quickly paddled across--my vision got blurry, my heart raced, and it was not possible to get enough oxygen into my body.

I. was. terrified. Genuinely terrified. Memories of news footage from the Nashville flood of May 2010, showing cars, HOUSES and ant-like people being washed away in a river not unlike the one I was climbing into at that moment were coursing through my head.

I searched my years of Girl Scouts, minor canoeing trips, and hours of Discovery Channel watching for a plan B course of action should I not make it to the other side of the river and instead found myself pinned against a river rock. I came up with bupkis. Adding to my terror, I was realizing that I had absolutely no clue what to do if things didn't go as planned. I was about to become on of those stupid American tourists you hear about on the news. The ones that make you smack your forehead and say, "DUH! Don't get into the river during a rain storm!"

The water was rising quickly. Literally before our eyes. I stalled as long as I could, letting everyone jump in ahead of me, but the Mister wasn't falling for it. He would only go in after he'd watched me make it safely across the river. Such a gentleman.

I cursed his name as I just jumped before I had time to change my mind.

At this point, I'd like to say that I took a few summers of swimming lessons at my local YMCA when I was a little girl. I'm very grateful that my parents decided I should learn these valuable lessons, and I'm sure they were hoping I'd become a little Michael Phelps in the process (at least I was kicking myself for not doing so when the scholarships did NOT pour in during my senior year of high school). However, the only thing I learned from these swimming lessons was how not to drown. I can tread water and do a mean doggy paddle.

And ladies and gentlemen, I doggy paddled like there was no tomorrow across that raging river. I can only imagine the horrified look of panic that was on my face as our dear friend--someone who had stood by the Mister as a groomsman on our wedding day--reached out to take my shaking hand when I finally reached the other shore. The hubbins later admitted that he guffawed as he watched me swim like a poorly-bred Newfoundland, floundering through the water, my butt bobbing at the surface of the river. Now that we all survived (spoiler alert) and are safe, he claims that was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen. I believe the words he used were "drowning rat."

But I digress. Where did I leave off?

Oh yes, I survived the first test. Now we had to climb up the river--IN THE WATER--to the bottom of the 600 foot waterfall. "It's only about a kilometer more," our tour guide said. Like it was a friggin' walk in the dang park!

That's me, straddling a fallen tree over and under which the water is flowing very quickly, resulting in ABSOLUTELY NO WHERE FOR ME TO PUT MY FOOT WITHOUT IT BEING SWEPT OUT FROM UNDER ME!

At this point I was quickly coming to learn that the Reebok running shoes I'd purchased in Dubai were NOT designed for wet river rocks. I had zero traction, which only added to my sense of panic as I clung to the rock wall that formed the right bank of the river we were trying to conquer. Keep in mind that the rain had not let up and the current was only getting stronger. In addition, the water level was rising very quickly, and the river bottom was quite uneven, resulting in several adrenaline riddled moments of terror when I tried to place my foot on what I thought was a stable surface, only to have it plunge into the muddy abyss. There was a moment when I turned to the Mister and, in a sad attempt to make it seem like I was ok, said, "Bear Grylls makes this all look so easy!"

I kept telling myself to stop freaking out and stay in the moment as opposed to wondering how long it would take the embassy to notify my parents of my watery death. After I had composed as really moving obituary and climbed up another couple small waterfalls, our tour guide declared that it was in fact too dangerous to continue up the river and we were going to have to head back down to where we left our bags and continue on the trail.

YOU THINK!? And why wasn't that PLAN A!? I hadn't realized that the trail continued alongside the river!! I thought the only option was to dive right in! But I didn't have time to think about that. Now I had to head back down the small waterfalls I had just trembled my way up and not get swept away in the process.

By now we could no longer see the little pool where we'd left our stuff, only a raging river that was swiftly picking up the pace. I managed to make my way down one or two waterfalls (I think I blacked out because I can't remember exactly how far we had gotten) and we got to the second of the small monsters I had to scale, right after we'd initially jumped into the water. The rain was still pouring down, the water was rising alarmingly fast, and we could no longer see the rocks we'd used to guide us up the river. Our guide turned to us and said, "Ok, from here we just have to jump down this waterfall, into the current, go with the flow [let me repeat: GO WITH THE FLOW] and swim as hard as we can to the right before we get to the next waterfall."

GO WITH THE FLOW! The man literally said go with the flow. And by "flow" he meant "the rapidly quickening current of a muddy tropical river that wanted to take us all to our instant death."

As the words were coming out of his mouth and I was realizing what he was asking us to do, I thought I was going to pass out. The tears were threatening to overflow and as I looked at the Mister, shaking my head, covering my mouth to hide at least part of the horrified expression on my face I admitted defeat. There was no way I was going to do this. I was no Bear Grylls, and I knew my limits. I was going to hit that water, feel the pull of the current sucking me toward the rocks and I was going to instantly panic and eventually drown.

Our tour guide sensed my fear (perhaps it was the whimpering squeak I was inadvertently emitting) and said, "Or we can go up the mountain."

Yes. Let's.

This was no easy task, but at least it didn't involve several pounds of pressure trying to suck me down to my demise. We slipped and crawled our way up the hill to where the trail was and we headed on to the big waterfall. I apologized to everyone throughout the whole ordeal. I was embarrassed that I had actually burst into tears for a few seconds in front of everyone when I was the one who had booked this stinkin' tour! I was sad that my husband and friends hadn't gotten their chance to be Bear Grylls for a moment. I was remiss that I was so muddy from scrambling up a dirty hill in the rain forest of Costa Rica.

The rest of the trek was actually pretty cool. I was very happy to be back on semi-dry land and the view of the waterfall was astounding.

In Spanish, this waterfall is called "Angry Water." You can see why.

This was the top of the 600 foot waterfall. We couldn't see the base because of the mist.

When we got back to our bags, this is what the little pool we'd jumped into had become.

Because of all the rain, all the water looked like the chocolate river from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

aaand as a result, this was the first thing I fixed when I got back to our house.

Now that I'm sitting in dry clothes, on a comfy couch, I can laugh about this whole experience. But even as I was typing up this post, my heart started racing again at the thought of how close we all got to sleeping with the fishes.

Vicariously yours,

Summer reflections, part 2

So, after Portland we went to San Francisco to hang out with a friend from my Charleston days. I had been to San Francisco to visit Shannon before, and the Mister had been to the City a few times as well. We were in no hurry to get up and at 'em most mornings and were more than happy to just laze about and enjoy each other's company.

I have loved all the travel time this summer, mainly because it has afforded me TONS of time to read!! I've read 6 books already and have started 2 more. I've got 2 more lined up to go after that. I. am in. heaven.

I'm actually reading so much that I had a dream last night starring 3 of my favorite authors. It was very bizarre, but a much welcomed respite from the Saudi teacher dreams I've been having for the past week.

It's the plight of every teacher in the world. Two to three weeks before the start of the new school year, the teacher dreams return. My teacher friends will understand what I'm talking about. Friends who have worked in the food service industry can also relate.

In my teacher dreams, it's 10 minutes before first period, my students have all shown up early, my principal is demanding I do a million tasks, and I still have to make my copies for the day. I had a similar variation of these dreams when I was in high school and worked at a 50s diner. I was swamped, in the weeds with more tables than I could handle and co-workers that wouldn't pick up any new arrivals because they weren't on the floor anymore.

I usually wake up from those types of dreams more tired than when I went to sleep.

It's been interesting, however, to see how my teacher dreams have changed since moving to Saudi. Last night's dream (before the dream about my favorite authors), for example, involved the addition of male students to my classroom. I was about 3 hours in to the school day before I noticed. And when I did comment on the fact that there was suddenly a surge of testosterone on my class roster, I was blamed for letting the boys enter the school at all! I was immediately told by my principal to cover up and get the boys out, and apparently I was the only person responsible for this task.

What would Freud have to say about that?

Vicariously yours,

Summer reflections, part 1

As I have done several times before on this blog, I apologize for the extended silence. It's been about 2 weeks since I've posted and I have no good excuse. There have been several times that I've gotten on the computer with the express purpose of busting out a post, but Facebook and online shopping have won out instead.

A thousand apologies.

Here's what we've been up to since we left Nashville:

We went to South Carolina to visit my grandparents. And by "visit," I of course mean "get spoiled by." I only mentioned the Southern foods that I missed in passing over the phone a few months ago, but my grandmother took it as a personal mission to stuff me full of the BEST foods she could come up with. I think it was probably a thinly veiled ploy to bribe us into coming back to the States, and it almost worked.

What I loved the most was the amount of pork products that were part of our diet during those 3 days we were with my grandparents. Granny found a way to sneak the other white meat into as many meals as possible.

Case in point: not one, but 2 of the mornings, Granny made country ham, grits with red-eye gravy, scrabbled eggs (scrambled in the ham fat, no less!), and biscuits.

Hello heaven!!

Other than fattening up on Granny's fantastic cooking, the hubbins and I got to spend time with my aunt and uncle and their children, and just hang out with the old folks. I love getting my grandparents all to myself because I get the chance to talk one-on-one with them and hear their stories. Before we left the country last year, I quizzed them on their childhood and I quickly realized there was a LOT about my grandparents I didn't know. So many family members I never met or even heard of...and my Grandaddy has got some stories to tell on all of them! It was so nice to just sit in their living room and exchange stories and soak up their love.

We left South Carolina and went to Portland, Oregon to visit a friend of the Mister's from college and his girlfriend. We arrived with the sole purpose of just hanging out with friends and we left having done that AND discovered a super cool city we hadn't expected to find. While Portland doesn't have all that many major landmarks that immediately come to mind when the city is mentioned, the hubs and I, with the help of our hosts, found some fantastic restaurants and breweries.

The porkapalooza continued at the Bones and Brew festival in Portland. Barbecue and Beer...we belong in this city!

We also were introduced to one of the coolest establishments I have ever seen. If any of you plan to be in the Portland area any time soon, you have to go to the Kennedy School.

Yes, I realize how fantastically nerdy it sounds for a teacher to suggest an elementary school as a tourist destination, but hear me out.

The Kennedy School was built in 1905 and served its educational purposes until the 1980s. It was then shut down and fell into disrepair until the McMenamins corporation bought it and turned it into a hotel/bar/restaurant/movie theater. It is the coolest place we went in Portland, hands down.

The old classrooms are now hotel rooms, chalkboards and everything. The old boiler room is now a bar, with old radiators as a main feature of the decor. But the coolest part of the building is the movie theater. It's a "brew and view" concept, so you can order food and beer (and non-alcoholic beverages) and then you go into a theater with big comfy armchairs and watch a movie while you nosh. There are several other theaters that follow this concept around the country, but the Kennedy School really does it right with the armchairs and friendly service.

It's hard to tell from the picture but that's the old chalkboard serving as the marquis for the theater. They were all second run movies, none of the newest releases, but a ticket only cost $3 so it was totally worth it!

We've since moved on from Portland and I'll share details about our latest adventures in another post. I just thought I should let ya'll know that we're still alive.

Vicariously yours,