Why Oh Why
Hello everyone. As you can see from the pictures above, we were treated to the sight of a gorgeous rainbow on our way home from Sunday lunch yesterday. One thing I will say for Cyprus is that it has some pretty amazing meteorological scenery. Rainbows, cloud formations, lightning storms. . . the sky here can just be magical.
In other weather-related news, summer has finally changed to winter. What about fall, you ask? Apparently there's no such thing over here. It went from being shorts and sandals weather to "Quick, where are the extra quilts?" weather in the space of about a week and a half. Which is ok when you have central heating and proper hot water heaters, but not so fun when you're depending on a kerosene heater that's locked up in a central storage room and a roof-top hot water heater that only heats the water when the sun's out. So we've been walking around the apartment draped in bedspreads and blankets for a couple days.
By way of a brief update:
Friday we took the youth group out bowling. Needless to say, Leia and I suffered humiliating defeat at the hands of our teenagers. The whole evening proved eye-opening in terms of Cypriot youth culture. The bowling alley was full of probably 100-150 kids (many of whom were just sitting and eating, not bowling), with nary an adult in sight. Apparently, parents just drop their children off in droves and leave them there for a few hours, at which point the kids proceed to wreak havoc and drive the employees completely insanse. We saw one kid who must have been twelve or thirteen stroll in the front door with a big smile on his face and a pair of brass knuckles on his hand. Craziness. After bowling, we took the group to McDonald's, where the scene was disturbingly similar–dozens upon dozens of unsupervised pre-teens running amok. I guess bowling alleys and fast food restaurants are where gangs of kids spend their free time when there are no malls. . . it was just a very weird experience.
On Saturday Leia and I enjoyed a nice, relaxing day at home, apart from the fact that I gashed my finger when a glass I was washing at the sink broke in my hand. Needless to say, I acted like a complete baby and let Leia make a big fuss over me. That's one of the great perks of being married. Saturday night we went out to our favorite Chinese place and had a lovely dinner, followed by a quick stop at the nearest bakery for a couple of mini chocolate cakes. Not a bad way to end the week.
Thank you for your prayers for Leia. She's been much better this past week or so. We are both still dealing with a lot of fatigue and the mid-semester blues though, so please keep holding us up. We'd love to hear from you either by comment or email. It's so wonderful to have such a great group of people continually reminding us that we're gone but not forgotten.
I hope everyone has fun dressing up, carving pumpkins, and trick-or-treating tomorrow. Eat some extra candy for us. Talk to you soon.
–John
Random Happenings
Not much has been happening around here lately, but I thought that in the interest of keeping our promise to provide more regular updates, I should at least write a little something.
Leia and I have been extremely busy with our respective jobs, as well as youth ministry stuff. I think we're both going through "half-way between summer and Christmas burn-out" at the moment. We really need a vacation, and there's none in sight.
We enjoyed our night out last Tuesday, although the Asian fusion restaurant proved to be a bit of a disappointment. The sushi was very nice, but the hot dishes were nothing special. We're eyeing a Polynesian place for our next "month-iversary" dinner.
On Thursday night three of our good friends visited the apartment and Leia made a lovely chicken curry. We had a lot of fun talking and laughing with them (although the girls did most of the talking whilst I struggled to keep up with a running stream of inside jokes and allusions to people they went to high school with). :-)
Some friends of Leia's family visited from England this past weekend, and we enjoyed chatting with Leia's good friend Irene for a bit. She had missed out on our wedding because of her job, so Leia got to show off wedding pictures, which always makes her giddy.
Tonight we're taking a group of Leia's Media Studies students to see the new M. Night Shyamalan film, Lady in the Water. Leia and I are pretty big fans of his, but we've heard very mixed reviews on this one, so we'll have to wait and see. At any rate, it should be a fun evening out.
That's about it I suppose. Nothing too remarkable. Still, it's nice to have a group of people who care about what's going on with us, even when nothing is going on. Please feel free to give us updates on the minutiae of your own lives any time.
Here's your quote for the day. I'm going to try to get back to doing more of this kind of stuff:
"Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things . . . as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value."
–Teilhard de Chardin
Until next time . . .
–John
Reconnecting
Well everyone, after uncounted delays we finally got our DSL installed yesterday, and are back in cyberspace where we belong. This means that you can now expect much more regular updates on the happenings in our lives (and yes, we really mean it this time). I know, I know.. you can barely contain your excitement right? And rightly so.
So today is our four month wedding anniversary, which also means that I've been in Cyprus now for a shade over six months. Pretty weird stuff. We've established a tradition of going out for a nice dinner every month on our anniversary, so tonight we're going to a new, funky Asian fusion place that's within walking distance of our apartment. It's nice to have one really special date night to look forward to every month.. we both appreciate that break in our hectic schedules.
Leia's been battling some minor health problems recently. She has had to miss a couple days of work because of stomach troubles, and we think she may have developed some sort of dairy allergy. Anyway, I've been trying to nurse her back to health, and she's been much better the past few days (since we realized that dairy seemed to be the common denominator and cut most of it out of her diet), but we would still appreciate your prayers.
It's so bizarre to think that the holidays are just around the corner. Of course, "the holidays" here consist of only Christmas and New Year's — no Halloween, no Thanksgiving. It was strange recently to walk into a store and see Christmas merchandise out already, but then I realized that when there's no other major fall holidays to prepare for — no reason to stock the shelves with plastic jack o' lanterns and witch costumes, cans of cranberry sauce and bottles of pumpkin pie spice — then you can start selling Christmas stuff as soon as summer ends if you want to. Kind of made me feel homesick in a weird way. This year is definitely going to be very strange because Thanksgiving and Christmas are such precious times for me, and I've never spent either one apart from my family. Of course, I'm looking forward to my first holiday season as a married man, but it still seems very surreal to be here far from so many people I love at my favorite time of year. Anyway, now that you all have our new address, feel free to send us Halloween candy, pumpkin pies, and Christmas presents. I'm sure that will make everything seem more familiar.
That's all for now, but I promise you'll hear more from us in the next day or two. Please leave us a comment and let us know how you're doing as well. We love you all.
–John
