Deep Breaths

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

posted by John and Leia @ 11:40 PM