December 2, 2012

 

December 2, 2012

The pictures is just all the "green" along the street.  Remember, it is December!!!

 

Christmas season is upon us.  Wow, just seems really strange.  Wearing shorts and tank tops just doesn’t seem seasonable.  Our church looks beautiful with all the decorations.  We finally put our little 4 foot tree up today but still……  doesn’t seem like Christmas, since it is 90 degrees outside in the middle of the afternoon.  Not a lot of outdoor decorations like in the states.  The mall is exactly like the states, though with Christmas music, decorations, etc.  But not the light displays that you see in the states.  No constant TV ads like in the states. Hum, maybe there are, just that we can’t grasp the language enough to know what they are saying.

I have to get my passport renewed. I ran out of pages for visa stamps.  I am within a year of renewal, so figured I might as well just go ahead with it, while at a point in immigration where it makes sense to do so.   Went to the store to get my passport picture taken.  Pointed to the example photos in the “book” that said USA passport.  Went through the process, paid, took them home and they were totally wrong.  Ahhhh…I do believe I have mentioned customer service before (or the lack of).   But, thankfully when I went to the embassy, they had plenty of vendors outside the gates of the embassy taking photos!  They did a super job. Getting my passport renewed so far seems like a piece of cake when you are out of the USA.  In ten to twelve days, I go back to the embassy and pick it up. 

Today, going to church, there was road race for runners.  In our little city (community) in which we live, there are lots of races, but this one was on the main highway (one of two roads going to one of only two bridges going over the canal, so it can be busy).  This is a two lane highway (fast driving when there is no traffic, which usually only happens on Sunday morning).  But people were running on the road (with no shoulders), sometimes two or three abreast on the highway.  Talk about gutty people.  The way the locals drive that would be totally scary.