Friday night already. This week has flown by.
Mary and I seem to retire to our rooms earlier and earlier each night. She reads and I get on the computer and then read. It feels good to stretch out on the bed.
We had a good day today. We caught the 9am bus into León. It was a not-so-old retired school bus. The seats were pretty much in tact and comfy. It always feels so good to feel the wind coming in the windows as we travel down the road. We make a lot of stops to pick people up and there is usually a ton of people standing in the aisle, so the wind doesn't come in constantly, but it's nice when it does.
People carry all kinds of stuff on the bus. Big plastic tubs of food to sell, bags and what looks like 5 gallon buckets of food items, produce, fish, etc. It's always fun to people watch. Mary especially enjoys watching the kids. We've seen some really cute babies!
We rode the bus in to town, grabbed a taxi to take us to our favorite block of retail; La Unión grocery store (although we didn't buy any groceries this time), Tip Top Chicken restaurant, central park with lots of vendors, and the blocks in between that have more vendors everyday as we get close to Christmas. We walked around a lot. German called to meet us so he could give us come money that was wired down from the US. He asked if we wanted him to drive us around. We said no, we are ready for the adventure of shopping. It was nice to take our time and just walk the streets and see everything. We ran into Pastor Miguel on his motorcycle at one corner. It was good to see him. He was wearing a t-shirt from Mary's church. We chatted very quickly and then we were on our way to the park.
The stores were interesting. Many small stores (just one room) and a few big ones. One store had tons of toys and clothes and household items. The strange thing was that everything was priced in US Dollars. Mary and I bought ourselves some Christmas hats to wear on Christmas. They are like elf hats, except they are blue sequined with battery operated light up stars. They were only $1. We'll take our picture and post it on fb as our Christmas card photo! We saw lots of little Christmas trees, plastic decorations for the walls and doors, lights, etc. It was sooo much fun to look around. I was quite pleased to buy a measuring cup to use when I make my instant food that I brought from the states. I got home and realized it's all metric. ha I'll have to convert it and mark the side with measurements for cups, etc.
We ate lunch at Tip Top and took advantage of the restrooms before grabbing a taxi back to the bus stop on the edge of town. We were so proud of ourselves. ha It reminded me of NYC, except I can actually understand the drivers here since they speak Spanish and who knew what language your NYC taxi driver would be speaking! All in all, we were gone about 6 hours.
We snacked for supper and Mary got on the computer to catch up on facebook. I sorted through my precious purchases for the day, while Mary studied a little more on Spanish. Then she came up to her room to read and I'm back on the computer. I'm listening to Christmas music on my iPod with my little portable speaker. It's rather nice.
I've done some correspondence and now I'm going to study a little bit and then read and probably go to sleep early. My tooth was hurting really badly last night and it has been hit and miss today. At the moment, it's okay, so I hope I can have a pain-free night.
Mike sent a couple of emails tonight. We got confirmation on how many are coming on the next team Dec 28. There will only be 6 people, so we'll only need 1 van and just a couple of translators. Beth won't be coming down afterall, since she has a student visiting her until mid-January. She's changing her ticket to fly down in March when the Spring Break team from FBC Rogers (my home church) comes down. Tomorrow, Mary and I will discuss with German the plans for the team. Mary and I have things pretty much ready for them already. It will be an easy week. Then we all leave on the same day, Jan 4. It will be here before we know it.
My friends, the Caubbles, will be leaving for Dubai in about a week and a half. I said my goodbyes to John before I left for Nic. They will be gone when I get back to Rogers, but the plan is for me to get to go to Dubai and serve with them in 2011. I'm looking forward to that. I'm so excited for them. I'm praying for these last days in the US as they spend Christmas with family and friends.
Going to bed now, even though it's before 9pm. Going to relax and read. And count my many blessings...
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