Another email to Linda!

The custom tailoring in Hong Kong is a brilliant idea. As you know, I've never been there, but I had a dress tailored for me in Thailand, and they're pretty good at it too. So cheap...

Sounds like your summer plans are shaping up nicely! Have you been to Turkey before? I was there for 2 days and 1 night (which hardly counts) but in that short time I was incredibly impressed by the friendliness of the people there and their willingness to help (as in using their personal cell phone to calling a friend who speaks English to translate while we're trying to buy train tickets), and also very much by the delicious food and the HISTORY! We visited Ephesus, which I super highly recommend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephesus. That was literally the place where I became interested in historical facts, and now I can't understand why I never paid attention when learning about all the dead guys in school. :)

Email to Linda

Life here is good. T is stressed and working too much, but this weekend was Carnaval, so that was lots of fun. It's basically just Halloween in a colder month but without the candy and not so kid friendly. The costumes are also way better here. The point isn't to just wear as little as possible, it's really to have the BEST costume. Most people get very creative and make these incredibly elaborate costumes. It's definitely a good time.

Email to Mom

This weekend was SUPER fun! Fri we just went out to dinner and to bed,


Sat we went out for Carnaval from 2-midnight and again yesterday from

2-9. There should be some pics on fb you can see. It was great! T is

stressed (as usual), and my hair still smells like smoke from the

parking garage party yesterday, but other than that, it's just another

Monday morning.

Email to Aunty Pat about the Valentine's Day package she sent us!

Hi Pat! The package came! Thanks so much!! As I mentioned we were going to do, we went out and bought each other some yummy goodies to fill the plate with, so that was perfect - thanks! Also, the shower gel is ideal because we don't have a bathtub, and I've been using Terry's manly Sport shower gel because I'm too cheap to buy some of my own. :) So now I'll smell much nicer. You're so thoughtful!!

Today was really nice - it was a beautiful day, but it was only 12 degrees!! We didn't have any food in the house, so we went out to get paninis at a shop called The Sandwich - yep, that's their specialty! I had one with brie, bacon, onion and tomato, and Terry had salami, aged cheese, onion and paprika. Yum!! Then we went and bought ourselves dark chocolate covered marzipan, chocolate tea, and some really yummy jelly candies. Then we came home and took a nap! :)

This evening we're going to cook lemon grass salmon for dinner and watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That's a great idea to watch the academy award nominees! Which ones have you seen so far? It's legal to download movies here in the Netherlands, so we've already downloaded The Descendants, but haven't had a chance to watch that yet. I saw The Help, Harry Potter, Drive, Transformers (I think) and Rango back in Madison, and we downloaded and watched Moneyball here, and we watched Hugo last night! I HATED Drive - WAY too violent for me. I just didn't like it at all.

We also downloaded and watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but neither of us enjoyed it. It was way too confusing and hard to follow. What have you thought of the ones you've seen? There, now I've been through the whole list of nominations! :) Will you watch the Oscars? Do you ever guess which ones will win?

I've attached a few pics for you. The first three are of our town after it snowed! The first two are looking up and down the street that our street comes off of. The third is looking down our street. The fourth is of this yummy icing/cream/pastry frog that I ordered and brought home on Thursday, because Carnaval is coming up here and the frog is the mascot of the event, and the pastry shop is making these to be festive. I couldn't resist! The last picture is of course the dish you gave us with (what was left of) our Valentine's Day goodies on it!

Thanks again for the package. That was so sweet of you! Have a wonderful Valentine's Day, and give my mom and dad and Grandma big hugs from me!!

xx

Email to Aunty Pat about upcoming plans!

Its been like FIVE degrees here. But it's warming up a bit!

Yep, we're really excited about Prague. We also just booked flights to Berlin for Easter! We have a friend from the US who is going to be there at that time, so it will be perfect!! Have you been to Germany?

We're finally planned our Valentine's Day! We bought a groupon for a really nice restaurant in town that we can't usually afford, and we each get a 5 course meal! We're going this Sunday, and we're really looking forward to it!

Work is still going well, but i'm more tired now at the end of the week than I was at my last job! More thinking required at this one. I think we'll just stay in and watch a movie tomorrow night. The last movie we watched was Sherlock Holmes, and that was pretty good.

Email to Aunty Pat about my new Job and some plans!

I actually really really like my job! In addition to the people and the environment, I like the work as well, which I was not expecting! It's a lot of problem solving, so you really have to understand what's going on and why you need to do everything you do, and for each case you have to think hard to decipher what happened, so it's not just memorization and repetition, it's like solving puzzles all day, which I really enjoy!

Our next trip is booked for the weekend of March 3rd. We're going to Prague! We're leaving after work on the Fri and flying back Mon evening (taking Monday off work), so T will be able to knock Prague off his list!

We don't really have any plans for V day, but we will probably go out to dinner one evening next weekend because weekday nights are tough for us since I have to be up at 6:15! We're not going to get each other much - I've been craving marzipan and T of course loves chocolate, so we'll go to a shop here in town together and buy each other some goodies.