Mail Delivery

One of the things that makes living overseas easier, is getting mail. Sometimes it feels like we are living for the mail. I will order stuff online, just to get mail. We love to get packages and letters.

 

I think one of the reasons that it is so important to us is because we don't get much or any local mail...no letter, bills, junk mail, it just doesn't come.

 

Another reason it is so important to us, is that it helps us to stay connected and feel connected. A lot of times it truly feels like we are living in a bubble, and it is really easy to feel isolated.

 

If you would like to send us a real snail mail letter, our address is:

(any of us) Davis

Unit 7100 Box 45

DPO, AE 09842

 

If not, that is fine too. You can continue to keep up with us through email, texting, Facebook, this blog or however you choose to keep up with us.

 

If you are sending a letter, just put our address on the envelope, put your regular stamp, pop it in your mailbox and it will get to us about 3 weeks later.

 

If you would like to send us a package, it gets more complicated, you have to go to the post office and fill out a customs declaration form. You can be generic on it, toys, clothes, food, whatever. Should you decide to send us a package, the only thing I ask is that you do not send a lot of candy. We love candy, most any kind, but we (me) are trying to get everyone to eat healthy and I am trying to keep a lot of the junk food out of the house.

 

Once we receive a letter we will do our best to write you back...but it will take a few more weeks to get back to you. We have a US post office in the embassy, so if you are looking for something to come with a Greek stamp on it, let me know, otherwise you might be disappointed. It will cost more and take longer to get there, but if you make the effort to write and then request this, we will accommodate you.

 

That's all folks!

Laiki agora

     Today we walked to the local laiki agora or "lie-key." This is a weekly farmers' market and they happen in every neighborhood. Ours is on Thursday's, there is one on Monday's too, but it is further out. I don't think we could walk to it. I've also been told that there are bigger one's on Saturday.
     We met our neighborhood sponsor, Susan on the way to the market so she could show us where it is at.  When we walked up to it, there were beach like umbrellas as far as you could see. The market was on two streets.
     On the first street was fruits and vegetables. We started walking down it and the kids were really impressed with the freshness of the fruits and vegetables. Kayla kept saying that the cherries looked good, even though she doesn't like cherries. Elijah was excited to see strawberries, so that was our first purchase. He also insisted that we get bananas for his daddy ;) There were a lot of people selling the same things, some had different things, but the prices were different for each person you came to.  There were fresh spices, cashews, peanuts, and other types of nuts and things for sale.
     The second street had clothes, shoes, housewares, linens and multiple other odds and ends on it.
      We ended up buying, red, orange and green bell peppers, potatoes, bananas, strawberries, dried pineapples, some candies the kids wanted and onions.
     This afternoon we walked to one of the close parks. While we were there we noticed a path and another park. We followed the path, played on the park for a bit and noticed another path. We followed the path, passed yet another park, and kept following the path. We walked on the path through a really pretty flower sitting area and when the path ended, we are pretty sure we had found the laiki market again. If so, it was a shortcut, with no street traffic, so we will try that way next week.

Picture of the "orange" tree that isn't oranges.

Walking along the path through the pretty flowers....

At one of the parks today...

The Laiki Market...I didn't take close up pictures, I didn't want to offend anyone, but these are the two streets. The top picture is of flowers and the fruits and veggies are down that street. The bottom picture goes down the street to the clothes and stuff.

Last few days

I won't bore you with all the mundane details from the past few days. We have had a lot of ups and downs. Jetlag stinks and when you are so tired everything seems worse. I am trying to keep a positive attitude with everything and not let things get me overwhelmed and down.

Shopping is an experience. We will be shopping at multiple places to get things, including shopping online. We do have a small store at the Embassy that carries American food, and it seems to be well stocked and carry a variety of things, but we won't be able to get everything we need there. We did go to a huge Carrefour (imagine super Target or Wal-mart with two levels), but I was so tired and overwhelmed by the time we got there that I do not have a good idea of what they carry.

Everything is more expensive here, even in the American store. You expect it on the local market, but not in the American store. I will have to figure out which things make sense to get here and what is cheaper to buy online. I don't want to spend all our money on groceries, we want to be able to afford to travel. I am finding that the more expensive items are the same items that were more expensive in Nairobi too. Things like milk and cereal.

Matt has had okay days in the office. He has a lot of paperwork that he has to do to complete his transfer here, but there is a lot of work to get going on here too. He is trying to divide his time between the two tasks, but it is not working well. He will try to complete all his paperwork for the transfer today, so he can really focus on what needs to be done here.

The kids are adjusting well, they also have moments where they love it and where they hate it. They have loved finding new parks and walking to explore, which is great because it means we are getting exercise and getting out. They miss their friends and family, but we did meet a family yesterday and that really made the kids day. It's a lady who has four kids, ages five 1/2 and younger, but the kids were happy to have someone to play with and they got along great with the kids. She also home schools, so a common bond already. We are looking forward to getting to know her family better.

The kids love running and sliding on the marble floors, they love their rooms, they love having a balcony.

We went to Ikea on Tuesday and they picked out small rugs for their rooms, just small things to make it feel more like home to them. I am thankful we packed Legos in the suitcase, they have had a blast playing with them.

Cooking is hard, we don't have very many dishes, just what was in the welcome kit, no cookie sheet (baking sheet), we do have pots and pans and a loaf pan. I am having to be creative with the food stuff I have been able to get, with how I cook it.

Laundry is going to be something I will need to keep up with. We have a European sized washer and dryer, so much smaller loads than we are used to. I did laundry all day yesterday and I was very proud of myself for getting it all done in one day. It truly felt like a major accomplishment. It was interesting learning how to use the machines, but I am thankful the directions are in English because the words on the machine are not.

Elijah and I are adjusted to the time, I woke up at 6 this morning (bummer) and he woke up at 6:30. I am still having to wake Kayla up, but I imagine another day or two and she will be set.

I have not figured out transportation yet, I don't have the number for a taxi, we are about two miles from the metro, we just walk where we plan to go. Thankfully Matt has a work car so we are able to go places in the evening and weekends. We are aloud in the car, but I am not aloud to drive it.

It seems like I am forgetting something, but I can always write more later.

Part 2 of First Impressions

     When I left you we had just gotten to Café Verde (Still not sure if it was Café) and our first impressions of Greece. This restaurant had a lot of outdoor seating and some indoor seating. We walked all around outside looking for six seats (us and our neighborhood sponsors, Eric and Susan). It felt like everyone was staring at us. I may have been a little paranoid and possibly self-conscious. I figured I was under dressed. Susan was in a black skirt and a nice shirt. I was in jeans and a plain t-shirt. The next morning, I asked Matt if he felt like everyone was staring at us (he is almost NEVER self-conscious) and he said "Yeah, but I just figured it was because I was wearing a baseball cap and no one else was wearing any kind of hat." So, we were being stared at, Matt thought it was him, I thought it was me, but looking back the next morning I realized what it was...and I will tell you later, but they were definitely staring at us.
     Anyway, we found a seat inside, where there were a bunch of no-smoking signs. Susan said it was funny that the signs were even there, that Greeks smoked everywhere. It was only a few minutes later that we realized she was right.
     We sat for a while and then the waitress came up and gave us all glasses of water. Susan asked for menus and a while later they brought one menu. Susan told us that some places have menus in English, but this wasn't one of them. Her and her husband looked at the menu and decided what they wanted, they helped us figure out what was most likely a cheese pizza and then gave the menu to Matt. He looked at it and was like I can't read any of this, but I can read club sandwich, so I'll have that. Then they passed the menu to me. I agreed with Matt, we couldn't read anything because we don't know Greek. I didn't feel like trying to figure anything else out and we were pretty wiped out by this point, so I also ordered a club sandwich.
     A while later the waitress brought place mats, silverware out and placed our bill on the table. It was very weird to me because we didn't have our food yet! I asked Susan if it was typical and she said it was. If you order dessert they will bring you another bill, with only the dessert on it and you will have to figure out the total yourself.
     After a while our food came, the kids pizza had tomatoes on it, so we picked them off and the kids ate. I took the cheese off of my sandwich and it was pretty good.
     The waitress never refilled our water glasses or came around very much. Susan and Eric flagged her down when we were ready to pay. They picked up the tab which was very sweet of them.
     After that, we pretty much came home and crashed. I think we made it to about 7:30.
      It wasn't until I was laying in bed Sunday morning thinking over the previous evening that I realized why (or maybe part of the reason why) people were staring at us. There were NO kids at this particular restaurant, at all. It was only adults. So, I don't know if were in a more upscale place that caters mostly to adults or what. But, our kids were the only kids there that night. After talking to a new friend this afternoon, she said it was unusual for there not to be kids. That she sees kids everywhere. It's very common for the kids to be out super late here, it's just part of there culture. So, when we are not so jetlagged, we might try that restaurant again to see if there are any kids the next time, or just ask Susan about it.
     So, between the last post and this one I took a few pictures.
These two pictures are of mine and Matt's bathroom. I was trying to get the angle right so I wouldn't be in the mirror.

 

 

The next pictures are of the kitchen, it shows our counter and cabinet space.

 

For friends from Singapore, does this look familiar?

 

And then I took pictures of our entryway. We have two doors when you get to our landing. The one with the floor mat in front of it is the front door, and the other opens into the kitchen. You can not get in the doors without the keys, there is no door knob on this side. You also need the keys on the inside to unlock the door.

 

Now for some pictures of the elevator. The first picture is the elevator with the door closed. If you notice the little window thing, when it is dark the elevator is not here and you can't open the door.

Once you call the elevator and it gets to your floor you can open it and this is what the inside looks like.

You have to close both doors and then press the button for the floor that you want, otherwise it won't move. The bottom picture is me inside the elevator looking out.

Finally, I took a picture of our entry way, simply because I had not done it yet. The first picture shows the entry way facing the sitting area that is between the dining room and living room. The open doorway is leading into the kitchen.

The last picture shows the entry way from the sitting area. Pardon our junk, we are not quite organized yet. The door to the apartment is to the left of the shoes and to the right of the shoes is the hallway leading down to the bedrooms and bathrooms.

So, welcome home and when are you coming to visit?? ;)

 



 



First Impressions of Greece

     We landed in Athens, Greece on Saturday, May 31, 2014 @8:45am (which was 1:15am on the time zone we had just left). We were a little early, which was nice. We were more than ready to get off the plane. We were exhausted, we had all dozed some, but a medical emergency in our cabin interrupted our sleep and made it impossible to get back to sleep for a long time. We were all dozing when we heard a crash and then an announcement said "If there is a doctor on board, please notify the flight attendants." That is a pretty scary announcement and you start wondering what is going on and are we going to have to do some kind of emergency landing.
    A very long story short, it was an elderly diabetic lady, who apparently hadn't eaten much, but had drank several glasses of wine. She had passed out and they got her conscious again, checked her blood sugar (had another diabetic on the plane who let them use his tester strips) and checked her blood pressure (same man had a blood pressure cuff too!). Once they had her conscious for a little while and talked with her, they had her get back up and tried to get her to walk. She walked the length of one seat and passed out again. They had to get the emergency medical kit and thankfully their were several medical personnel on the plane who were willing to help. They ended up rigging up an IV and getting some fluids in her, moved a row of people so she had a row to lay in and got her back in pretty good shape. When we landed medical personnel came on and attended to the lady, and she was able to walk on her own and seemed to be doing pretty good.
     Once we got off the plane we were met by Matt's boss and a TDYer (the lady who was temporarily doing Matt's job until he got here). They also had an Embassy driver with them with a big van. We loaded up our 8 checked suitcases and 6 carry-ons (seriously a lot of stuff!) and headed toward our apartment.
When we drove away from the airport I was surprised by the out in the middle of the country feel that I got. It was like nothing was around and you seemed to be driving down some country roads. There were a lot of mountains and greenery around, so I was also surprised by how mountainous it was.
     After we got a bit farther out from the airport I was amazed at the contrast in areas. The area we were driving through seemed like a very crowded city, with apartments everywhere, but you still seemed to have a lot of greenery.
Once we got off the highway, or interstate or whatever you call it here, I was surprised by how narrow the streets are. Their are a lot of one way streets and all the signs are in Greek (which I had heard before I got here, but it's different actually experiencing it in person).
     When we got to our apartment we had to wait outside for a bit because Matt's boss had forgotten our keys at his apartment, so he had gone to get them. This was fine because it gave us a chance to chat with our driver (he is native) and get some impressions from him. (I have heard since  then that drivers don't really chat much, which makes me even more thankful for this time)He warned us that pedestrians NEVER, EVER have the right away and cars will not stop for you, even in an area where you are supposed to have the right away. He also informed us that we were on a very busy street (which we had not realized), it is a one way street, but apparently a main street. A ton of cars went by, some very fast, as we stood there and talked.
     He told us that two of the trees in front of our apartment are olive trees, but not to eat the olives straight off the tree. He also told us that there are trees that look like orange trees (we've seen them everywhere),but they are not oranges, and not to pick them either. He couldn't tell us what the English name for the fruit is, but said that if you take it down to eat it, it is very bitter, but it is used in a lot of desserts here. He also pointed out that we were right next door to a dentist and optometrist.
     After we got inside our apartment building, we were very surprised to see how small our elevator is and how different it works. I will have to take pictures of it so you can see it. While it is smaller than US elevators, apparently it's bigger than most here. It will be interesting to see the differences. One of the good things about the smaller elevator is that Kayla doesn't like it, so most of the time we take the stairs, and we are on the third floor, so a little exercise :)
     We had seen pictures of our apartment, so there were not that many surprises. We have three bedrooms, two full bathrooms and a half bath. We also have an office area which will be great for homeschooling. We are the top apartment of our building, which is nice and all the rooms have balconies off of them, which is also really nice. We have a lot of furniture (from the housing pool) and will have to decide what goes and what stays. We are thankful for the excess furniture because we have been at posts where we were not in the housing pool or where there was not enough furniture. We even have patio furniture on the balcony off the living room, exciting stuff!
     The living room/dining area is huge. I am standing at one corner of the room and you can see the china cabinet on the far side of the room. This picture doesn't quite do it justice.

 

 

I took several pictures of the apartment so we could have some before and after shots. Most after shots will be done after we have all our stuff that we have shipped here.

     Just the living room side. For those of you who saw our apartment in Singapore, this corner, with the balcony and bookcase, is set up exactly like the setup in Singapore. This whole room reminds me of Singapore, only inverted...that's not a bad thing!

 

     This is the kitchen, the big window area is a small balcony off the kitchen. The wall on the right of the picture is the only cabinet space in the entire room, and thing at the left is the refrigerator. It's a very small room and I am working on ideas to make it more usable space. I have already removed the table and chairs from the room!

These pictures are of the master bathroom. The doors on the left lead out to the balcony. The doors on the right (bottom picture) is our closet space. The two doors on the left of the closet, top and bottom have rods to hang clothes...and the door on the right has shelves. I am most likely going to be hanging my stuff in Kayla's closet, I seriously doubt we will get all Matt's suits and my dresses and shirts in that space. Our bathroom is on the right. I haven't taken pictures yet of the before or after. It's small and not very exciting ;) But, at least it is there!

 

Pictured below is Kayla's room. The window that Matt seems to be standing at is Kayla's balcony doors. Her and Elijah share a balcony. Where the dresser is on the left, behind that is a wall and behind that wall is Elijah's room. Her closets are also on that same wall. This picture doesn't do justice how big her room is, I had just gotten off the plane and was trying to snap a few shots before we unloaded our stuff.

 

 

Kayla's closets and the hall leading toward the entryway (where the suitcases are sitting)

Welcome to Elijah's room. The dark window looking thing is his balcony, with blinds closed behind the doors. This is a security feature of our apartment and almost all our windows and doors have the blinds, you actually have to open them and then close the doors back. I will eventually have to take close up pictures to see it. His room is also a fairly decent size, I again, didn't get a great picture, but you get the idea.

 

     So, after exploring the apartment a bit, the kids watched a show and Matt and I set about making beds, unpacking toiletries, and making sure everything was set up for bedtime. Then, we took a little walk, literally around the block, we were so tired that was all we could manage, but we were trying to see what was around.

     Later, we called our neighborhood sponsor and had them come get us and take us to find something to eat for dinner. We had a few food stuff in the house, our work sponsor had picked up bread, peanut butter and jelly, sugar, coffee, a little bit of cereal and a few other miscellaneous things. We had peanut butter and jelly for lunch and wanted something a little more filling.

     Anyway, they came and picked us up, brought us a nice little gift basket with a few goodies (pasta and sauce, sunscreen, tiny candles, etc) and took us to Cafe' Verde (I think it was café, it was definitely Verde). It was a pizza/pasta/sandwich place. We really got our first exposure of Greek culture here.

 

To be  continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unreal

I'm sorry, but it does not feel real to me that we are getting on the plane today...and moving to GREECE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It feels like a normal day, but with a little more excitement and it was a bit easier getting up, knowing we had a plane to catch. Which is weird. Shouldn't there be bells and whistles??? Butterflies in the stomach?? Oh well, I am certainly not complaining and I am sure by the time we get to the airport the nerves will set in!

Kayla and Elijah are super excited, as was evidenced by them being up and ready to go before 6am...I mean clothes on, breakfast eaten and teeth brushed, bags packed!! Love their enthusiasm.

I am sure once we get on the plane and start going it will feel more real. And, once we hit Greece reality will set in.

Today, the verse that is going to get me on that plane is "I can do ALL things (yes, that means get on a plane and move forever and a day away from all our family and friends) through Christ who strengthens me." (and I know He is going to give us strength!) Philippians 4:13

Mixed Emotions

It's the night before we fly out and I am a bundle of nerves. I am excited and ready to go, but sad and stressed too. We have been saying "good-bye" to family and friends for two months and that really does take a toll on the emotions. Then, being delayed for minor things has been frustrating, but in a way good, helping us to get more prepared.

We all are feeling pretty ready to go. After living for 6 weeks in suitcases, it's time to get settled again. We've been traveling a bunch too, so it is also time to settle again and get used to being a family again, without living with anyone else. Not that it has been bad living with my in-laws, it's just been a bit hard on everyone. They are used to us not being around all the time too :). 

Time to re-establish rules and boundaries.

We are excited to begin our adventure in Greece. Ready to see our apartment and start getting settled. We are excited to start exploring Greece and taking in all the sights. We are also excited to make new friends and try new things. Kayla and Elijah are super excited to stop sharing a room and space. It has been hard on them, causing more fighting with constantly being in each others faces.

We are thankful for the love and support of our family and friends. We are thankful that they support us in this adventure and we look forward to some of them coming to visit us in the next three years.

We are praying God's will for our family, that other's may see Him in us and that we continue to grow stronger in our faith. Trusting Him for exciting things on our new adventure :)

Stay tuned...I will try to update this blog more often!