Headin' towards the weekend

Happy Thursday everyone!  We are winding down the day and avoiding the cold.  I'm not sure how much research I did on the cold here but I'm afraid Julie might locked down in our apartment a majority of the winter.  We looked at the weather for this weekend and the high for Saturday is 28 - Julie wanted me to ensure you knew that was 28 Fahrenheit - with a good chance of precipitation. 

No worries we got invited to a co-workers house to make dumplings tomorrow night.  Not sure I've shared this but I love dumplings.  While I was eating ravioli last weekend I finally realized why I love dumplings so much.  They are just oddly shaped ravioli with more filling.  It turns out one of our co-worker's has a sister-in-law that is an English teacher.  This sister-in-law was at our school today and came by to say hello to us.  One thing led to another and we were invited to go make dumplings.  A good day.

We have been attempting to workout for 30 consecutive days.  Today finished off our first seven days as we missed Thanksgiving.  There were extenuating circumstances that included being forgotten, a big celebratory dinner, and a cop car, but no excuses.  Since we have dinner plans that means we need to get up and workout before work.  That should be fun, but for dumplings it's worth it.

-Ryan

Weekend: Italian pasta, Doritos, New Orleans' po boy, and Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate. I almost thought I was in America.... then I remembered I spent 7-8 hours on public transportation.

Ryan waiting on our meals to come out.  He ate all the bread... j/k. He is a nice fellow and let me have half.  I am more likely to eat more than my share than Ryan anyways. 

Me trying to wait patiently. Olive oil is so yummy.

 My pasta with basil and tomato sauce.  Look how tiny the portion is.  I am used to American portions.  After I saw it, I was thinking I should have ordered the large.  Then I decided that this is how much a person should be eating.  Since we were on a hunt for Doritos that afternoon, I decided not to order seconds. 

 Ryan's spinach ravioli.  It's no Maggiano's but I'll take it. 

 Yeah, that's me stuffing my face with Doritos.  We had to find an international grocery store fulfill my craving.  We saw all kinds of wonderful things in the international grocery store.  Frozen pizza, granola, cereal (but no regular cheerios), and Valentine's Day Butterfingers.  Ryan bought a Valentine's Day Butterfingers.  We we kinda wondering if it was from Valentine's Day 2012 or for 2013.  Ryan said is tasted a little old.  :o( 

 Then we headed over to see the Olympic Park.  Me in front of the bird's nest.  (BTW, if you want to buy a kite, this is the place to be.  There were dozens of people selling them).

Ryan in front of the bird's nest.

 It must of gotten cold.  Me in front of the water cube.  Later we found of it's has been turned into a water park inside.  We might need to go back. 

 Ryan in front of the Water Cube. 

Me at Starbucks drinking a peppermint hot chocolate.  We headed to Beijing on Sunday to meet up with a friend of a friend of a friend.  Super nice family.  They are from Rhode Island and made us feel right at home here on the other side of the world.  Since we made it to Beijing in record time- less than 2 hours we walked around and found the beloved Starbucks before meeting our new friends at a New Orland's restaurant.  The food was good but I wish I had ordered a Cuban like Ryan because his Cuban was much better than my po' boys sandwich.

Hope everyone had a good weekend

Thanksgiving ends in the back of a police car

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Julie and I are back home and wrapping up our first non-US Thanksgiving and don't worry we are  very  full after a big meal featuring poultry.

Holidays have proven to be good teaching topics, so we have been teaching Thanksgiving all week.  It has been an unusual week.  Monday started off with our afternoon classes being cancelled, but we didn't know they were cancelled until we got to our empty classrooms. That was fortunate for us because we both needed to spend more time on our lesson plans for Tuesday as we were going to be observed by all the English teachers from the main school and our branch schools.  Well that is what we thought.  Later that afternoon we were told our classes were being pushed to Wednesday as most of the teachers needed to get physicals on Tuesday, and then I lost my motivation to work on the lesson plan.

Tuesday started off normal with my two 6th grade classes.  Those lessons were very good learning opportunities for me.  Judging by my track record I have very little ability to fully appreciate my students level of English.  Isn't it better that I keep over estimating their ability than underestimating it?  After the first class I had ten minutes to simplify the lesson for the next class, I was mildly successful.  I taught it for the third time today and I am starting to get there.

Well after those two 6th grade classes I was told I would only be teaching one of my afternoon classes because Julie would be teaching that class on Wednesday morning (for her observed class) when that class normally has math, so they would have their math lesson during my class.  Thanks Julie!  I was teaching 4th grade for my observed class so I couldn't return the favor.  Sorry Julie.  Don't worry she is letting me go standout in the cold tomorrow morning to greet the students for her.

Come Wednesday (my easy day) all the teachers observed Julie teach Grade 2 at 8 am.  This is my class normally and we were later informed that the students like Julie better, when asked why they said because, "she is beautiful."  Smart kids, they must have a good teacher.  I was up next in my 4th grade class which I normally teach on Wednesday afternoons but it was moved up so all the other teachers could observe at the 8:50 class period.  Both our lessons went well and the other teachers gave us many compliments.  As we have said on many occasions they are very nice to us.  It was by far the best behaved class I have ever had.  It is amazing how those students transform when certain Chinese teachers walk into the room.  Julie tells me that that is how the students always behave at her branch school but given how my students at my branch school behave, I just can't understand.

Since my 4th grade class was bumped up my teaching day ended at 11:45 am on Wednesday.  It's been a rough week.  Oh yeah, and I was told my two afternoon classes on Friday would not be held this week either.  I have an ominous feeling they are setting my for some terrible task.

Thursday's bring our weekly trip to the branch schools.  Julie teaches little angels, so she says, and I have delicious food with something different every week.  We are taken to the branch school by an administrator and so far someone from the branch school brings us back.  This has occurred without failure every time we've taught at the branch school, so why would one worry about.  Well I wasn't until at 4:45 one of the teachers ask who was coming to pick me up.  It is times like these that not being able to speak the language really makes you feel borderline helpless.  Luckily I am well taken care of here and they arranged for someone to come get me before too long.  This was crucial because one, we were headed out for a Thanksgiving feast and two, I didn't bring all my warm clothes and it's kind of a long walk and today was not warm.

We made it to the restaurant and had decided that we would feast on duck as turkey doesn't seem to be available in Mentougou.  We also feasted on squid, fish, spicy hot pot, some sort of eggplant dish, a cold gelatin with hawthorn berries, spinach and about ten other things (including corn) that I can't remember.  It was fun sharing some of the history of Thanksgiving with our fellow teachers and we all took turns saying what we were thankful for.  After dinner we head out the door and there was a police car.  Julie was instructed to get in and was mildly curious about what was going on as no one else was getting in.  I had quickly walked down the street to get my brief  case from another teachers car so I couldn't tell us that the man driving us home (the boyfriend of one of our co-workers) was a police officer.

We pulled up the school with the lights blazing and I'm sure the security guard (if we haven't mentioned there are gates on the school and we have be let in an out by a security guard, which can be problematic if they have left the gate for some reason) was quite surprised at the sight.  Some good pictures were taken at this point and we'll be sure to share them once we get them.

Happy Thanksgiving and eat a little extra  for us.
-Ryan

Thanksgiving Eve

Thanksgiving Eve is here! Happy Thanksgiving.


It's very different awaiting the holidays here.  I haven't seen any Black Friday sale ads.  That's one thing I won't miss: the crowds on Black Friday-- not that I would have gone shopping anyway.  And shopping here seems to be as busy as Black Friday any day so I don't plan on shopping. 

Well, now that I'm finally feeling better, I'm back to work.  We thought we would be teaching a full week with all of our classes but things are always changing around here.  On Monday, Ryan and I went to our afternoon class and there were no students to be found.  I've never heard the halls so quiet.  Apparently, our students went on a field trip and Ryan and I didn't connect the dots.  We saw some buses taking some children and didn't know they were students from our classes.  The students went to see a play.  Good thing though, Ryan and I needed to work on lesson plans. We were told last Friday that we would be teaching an extra class this week and the other teachers would observe and give us feed back.  We were told it would be Tuesday but it ended up being Wednesday. They gave us a lesson plan to use which we have never had before. In the past, they have just told us to teach whatever we would like.  The class went better than normal.  Having 10 or so teachers in the classroom makes a big difference on the student's behavior.  It was nice to see one of Ryan's classes.  I have never seen him teach before.  He did very well and the students think he is funny.  Ryan watched 2 of my classes this week.  In the first class, it was just Ryan watching, not the other 10 teachers, so I pretended Ryan was a student and called on him.  The student's got a big kick out of that.  We've had some other classes moved around to different times and skipped this week.  We just never know.  We always try to have our lessons planned the day before because we never know what activity might come up during our normal planning time.





Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  I can't allow myself to look at turkey day stuff online because it makes me a little sad.  I'm also a little sad that I will be working on Thanksgiving.  At least I am teaching about Thanksgiving.  Trying to teach the 3rd and 5th grader about being thankful.  Not sure if they understand.  Ryan and I were planning to go out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate.  We were thinking duck.  Turkey is hard to come by in this part of the world.  Ryan asked one of the teacher's today where we should go.  They said they were planning for us to go out to eat.  Not sure what food we will be having. I'm sure it will be a nontraditional Thanksgiving feast.  We will let you know how it goes.  Hopefully we will remember the camera. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Rest and recooperate

This was an interesting week.  Julie only taught two and a half days and I only taught three and half days.  On Monday it was business as usual, except Julie was fighting off a cold.  On Tuesday the cold was starting to win but we had our normal schedule.  On Wednesday morning it was time to see the doctor.  That meant we were headed to the hospital.  Apparently, their are doctor's offices but those doctors aren't held in the highest esteem.  After I went downstairs to get Julie breakfast and headed to office to tidy-up.  (On Wednesday's it's Julie and my day to clean-up the office and get the hot water containers filled.  The other teachers were initially concerned about asking me to help but Julie quickly told them that it would be my pleasure.  She's always looking out for me.)  One of our bosses (Ms. Wang) had received my text that Julie needed to see a doctor and told me stop cleaning and go get Julie as a car would be waiting to take us to the hospital.

A fellow English teacher (Ms. Liu) and an administrator (Mr. Wang - no relation) drove us to the Mentougou Hospital.  We walked in the door and headed to the registration counter where they quickly got Julie's information.  Julie was given a card to carry in her wallet and a small notebook that doctors wrote all their notes in so should she need to go to the hospital again she can bring her records with her.  Make the patient take more responsibility for their record keeping, I like it.  After registration our Ms. Liu led us to the instructed department where Julie was able to meet with the doctor (I guess) in about five minutes.  (While the US medical system is well ahead of what we've experienced in China, in the aspect of time waiting by the patient the Chinese are lapping us.) The consult took about three minutes and we were sent to have some blood drawn at the rapid body fluid testing center that was located in the ER.  They had one window for blood and one window for other body fluids.  There were very specific instructions about when some other fluids could and couldn't be accepted translated into English.  It was reassuring that I didn't notice any translation errors on the signs in the hospital. 

It only took another five or ten minutes to wait for the blood to be drawn and then a half-hour to get the results.  We waited in the hall of the ER.  there wasn't an ER waiting room that I noticed but two rows of seats down the center of the ER hallway.  We got a seat right outside of the emergency surgery room.  One lady came in with a pretty nasty looking bandage on her arm and fortunately they closed the door - not always the case.  Privacy is a bit more of a luxury than Julie and I had grown accustom too.

After we waited our half-hour is back upstairs to take the results to doctor Julie had seen earlier.  The doctor (again I am assuming) took a look at the results and after a discussion about any medicines Julie had taken and some other things I am sure but can't confirm, we were given three prescriptions and sent to the pharmacy. A quick trip to the pharmacy an we were out the door and headed back to school.  Julie was told to take the day off and Wednesday's are my easy day - as I only have two classes - I was promptly told to go take care of Julie after the second. 

Julie and I are very lucky to have wonderful hosts.  They take very good care of us and refused to let us pay any of the bills at the hospital, which came out to about 150 yuan ($25 - $30).  Then on Wednesday evening we got a visit from Ms. Wang long after school hours as she was worried about Julie and I had not noticed the text message she sent us asking for an update.  She also brought us a thermometer.  

Come Thursday things had not gotten any better.  Upon this news I was told that we (Julie and I) would not be going to branch schools and I was to stay home and take care of the patient.  Ms. Wang asked what Julie wanted for breakfast and while I had already gotten her something from the dinning hall downstairs I did let her know that Julie wanted either an orange or a banana.  About an hour later two of our fellow teachers stopped by our room with a a bag full of bananas and a bag full of oranges.  By the end of Thursday it was appearing as if the worst was behind us and Julie fought her way in to work Friday morning and survived Kindergarten.  When we got back from Kindergarten we were told that their was an activity on Friday afternoon so we wouldn't be teaching those class and we could have a rest.  This phrase (we could have a rest) must be a close translation to some time off, otherwise Julie and I must always look like we need a nap.

With the weekend upon us hopefully Julie can get back to 100% but she has definitely turned the corner.  Now if we could just get the construction site next door to let us sleep past six.

Have a wonderful weekend,
Ryan

Around school

For the past few weeks I've been meaning to get some pictures up of the area surrounding our school.  Our school is called the Yongding branch but from what I can tell we are located in Feng Cun (cun is Chinese for village).   Julie works at the Feng Cun branch on Thursdays which is about a quarter of mile down the road.  Over our two plus months here it has been fascinating to see the rate of development in 'our' little slice of China.  Within a half-mile radius of our school their are seven cranes putting up residential buildings.  Three of them are for luxury apartments.  See here:

If you were looking down at the school from at satellite this development would be to the right.  There is a giant metal orb skeleton over this luxury development.  The tower on the right-hand side sticks out pretty noticeably and the top of the orb is near the center of the picture with the crane on the right pointing at it.  This has been an object of my intrigue since we arrived and it will be shame if they don't have it completed by June.

Below you can see a very large residential building which is over twenty stories and the exterior was just finished a little over a month ago.  Whether anyone is living in it yet I do not know.

 Directly behind the school was an open area when we arrived two months and stayed that way for about a month.  It was a grassy area with a large hill of about twenty to thirty feet in the center and sloping up (from the left to the right in the adjacent picture).  It has changed dramatically in the last few weeks.  You can see some of the earth moving equipment and the hill is now gone.  I've asked a couple of people but they either don't understand what I am asking for don't have a clue what this land is being prepped for.

I spent a few minutes watching the large pole looking contraption work this afternoon.  It appears that is a large drill and works as a giant post-hole digger.  They lower the drill bit and casing into the ground then retract and dump a big pile of dirt on the ground and then repeat.  It kept my attention for five minutes.

 Above you can see the serious earth movers at work.  Below is the view from the a hallway on the second floor of the school.  The classroom area of the school is made up of a three story building that is shaped like an 'E'.  You can see two of the arms, one on the right and one on the left.  In the center of the picture are two twenty story residential buildings.  The one on the right was just topped off last month and the brick facade is still being finished.  The one on the left has been topped off since we arrived but I do not believe it is occupied yet, but it is close.

Below the building on the left you can see the green coverings of a luxury development, I am not sure if it is related to the one you saw above.  It looks like that project has been stalled for a while as a large concrete wall was built, it appears, sometime ago.  Just the other week a crane was added over this development so it appears things are headed in the right direction.

 At the bottom of the picture you can see the school's track with several basketball courts in the center.  Just beyond that is a road that in the last month has been resurfaced and cross-walks and school zone signs were added which Julie greatly appreciates. 

 You can see the other side of the 'playground' here and beyond the road is the Feng Cun town square.  There is a large wall (you can see in the middle of the picture from the center towards the right) that divides the larger section of the square from a smaller area, for some reason.  The square has gotten a major up fit as it used to have a dirt road running just to the left of the wall which has now been covered with pavers to match the rest of the square.  We walk through this square almost everyday. In the evening large groups of mainly women will dance while other people talk, play card games, badminton, and a variation of hacky-sack There are almost always some vendors selling food, clothes, toys, etc and once in a while what appears to be a mobile bookstore.

Across the street you can see a playground.  This playground belongs to the kindergarten we teach at each Friday morning. 

Hope you've enjoyed the pictures and here is a view from above the school if  you'd life to explore. Map

Till next time, Ryan.

rainy weekend

Last night we went to Ryan's branch school for dinner. Before dinner, they asked us to play a game. The game invovled a rope that was a large circle big enough for 4 or 5 people to stand inside of.  So 5 people stood in a row with the rope under their feet and the rest of the rope in their hands above their hands making a circle.  Then, the group walks sideways in a line moving the rope little by little trying to get the finish line first.  Well, needless to say, our team finished last being our first time playing.

They were having hot pot for dinner.  So now I know what sheep tastes like.  I only had one piece. As with most meat around here, there were lots of bones so I opted to eat mostly bread and vegetables for dinner.  Spanish, lettuce and noodles were very tasty.  If you have never had boiled lettuce with seasoning on it, you really should try it.  It is surprisingly delicious.  I also got to see where Ryan teaches his large classes.  The room is giant with enough room for 60 or 70 desks and chairs.  I teach one class with about 60 students but they are all crammed into a normal size classroom with lots of chairs. 

After dinner, we walked to the bus stop to go to Wu-Mart.  We bought everything on our list: lotion, chapstick, mouthwash, and ziplock bags.  I think that's a first.  There always seems to be something we can't find.  And then we bought things not on the list, peanut butter and German beer.  Well, I think it was German.  It cost about 4 times as much as the Chinese beer but well worth it.  It tastes much better.  I think it was a special so I hope other people liked it so they keep it in stock.

We came home and stayed up late playing monopoly deal, a card game.  Best card game ever.  Stop reading and go to Target and buy the game now. 

This morning, I woke up with a sore throat.  I'm not sure how I am the one getting sick when I'm always telling Ryan to wash his hands and use hand sanitizer.  He says he's just building up his immunity. 

For lunch, we walked to a local restaurant.  We have been there before so we knew they had a picture menu.  Well, today they has a special menu written in Chinese.  I'm sure the food would have been good if we could have ordered it.  We decided to leave and go to our usual place.  Since it was raining we thought about ordering extra food to take our room for dinner but we forgot the translation book.  So that would be a little difficult to explain.

Since need dinner and I'm feeling a little under the weather (and it's raining), Ryan decided to celebrate international food day.  (Which we celebrate just about ever weekend).  He is on his way to McDonald's right now. 

Tonight is going to be movie night.  Since the internet it slow, we started downloading movies this morning.  We think the internet is slow because they are doing more censoring because of the congress change over.  We will be watching Aurthur Christmas and Gone with the Wind. 

Political week

Now that the US elections is behind us I'm sure everyone's attention has turned to the 18th National Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.  What!  This isn't the case. Okay so I am not that informed on the meeting either but given that we are in the country it seems like a good idea to get educated. Here is the Wikipedia write-up if you want to learn more yourself: 18th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China

For streaming information from the Congress (in English) you can go to this website: 18th National Congress. Also, here is a funny link I came across this morning: Chinese Electoral Map.  If you want to get an inside perspective on and about China the Sinocism daily newsletter is a good resource.  I attempt to read it everyday although it can be extensive, however I always learn something.  You can find it at sinocism.com.  No link, I know you can make it if you want too.

The Congress will consist of 2200+ of China's top movers and Shakers gathering in Beijing's Great Hall of the People to elect the top leadership of the Communist Party set policy for the next five years, as the Congress is held every five years.  This has been taking place every five years since 1977.  The first Congress was held in 1921 when a very few members of the Party met (including a 21 year-old Mao Zedong).  At the time the Party had only about 60 members in the whole country.  Today membership stand at just over 82 million, which in a country of 1.3 billion seemed a little low but I'm still learning about what party membership means.  All told it should be an interesting week and I'm looking forward to learning more about how politics work here in China.

We were asked not to venture into the city as the Congress will last through the weekend and most likely most of next week (if not longer).  Our hosts are very protective of us, so please do not be alarmed.  From one of my co-workers I was told it's no big deal you just need to make sure you carry your ID.  Leaving the city is especially not difficult it is entering the city that there is extra scrutiny to ensure one's identity.  On that note, I have been quite surprised with the ease of movement in China.  On our fall trip to Shanghai we even traveled under a false name because train tickets are bought up early by travel agents so they can re-sell them, which requires the travel agents to buy the tickets in names other than the end user.  The only time we need our ID (passports) was to check into hotels.  We were told we would need them to leave the train station in Beijing but this turned our not to be the case.  Not sure what I was expecting but it has been a quite pleasant.  Just don't get Julie started on the mosquito's that have managed to survive the first freeze.

-Ryan

Julie's write-up

Hello All,

So Halloween was pretty fun.  We were able to share our American traditions with the folks here that knew very little about the holiday.  People were very interested in the Jack-O-Lantern that Ryan made.  They asked if Ryan and I were going to take it to class and share it with the children because if we were, they wanted to video tape it.  Neither of us did so there is no tape.  Some of the children picked up on the trick-or-treating concept.  The kids would come to the teachers' office wanting candy.  Luckily one of the other English teachers bought in candy to share.   I ended up being the go to person.  It worked ok for a little while then it ended up being a little chaotic. The other English teachers ended up sending the kids away.  Probably was a good thing.  I don't think I had was enough candy.  

So when I tried to toast the pumpkin seeds, I decided I will not be cooking anymore.  While I don't have a kitchen, I will only assemble food items, not cook.

The Jack-O-Lantern didn't last too long.  The day after Halloween, Ryan tried to put it in the window sill.  Well, the window sill was not big enough.  It fell and broke into 2 pieces. 

On Friday night, we decided to make (assemble) a nice breakfast for the morning. We had toasted corn pancakes with peanut butter.  It tasted better than it sounds. We had them with apples and mimosas.  The mimosas were good.  I think we need to make that a tradition.  The champagne came in the largest bottle ever.  We had trouble picking it out though.   The wine selection is a bit different here. 

After finishing breakfast, we packed for our weekend in Beijing.  After getting our room, we tried to get a cab.  It's a bit difficult to get a cab when you don't speak Chinese.  So we ended up walking in the rain.  After we got our feet wet, we went to the bar, Sex and da City.  After that we went to buffalo.  I told Ryan he needs to pick my drinks out from now on.  His beer was much better than my martini.  The pizza I picked out was awesome though. 

After finishing up dinner, we walked and walked and walked in the rain.  We got a little turned around.  It's pretty hard to ask for directions when you don't speak Chinese.  We were pretty happy to get back to the hotel.  Oh yeah, the hotel was pretty nice however there was no toilet paper.  So we bought some toilet paper at a little convenience store when we asked for directions. 

While we were sleeping it snowed.  Cold.  We needed to plan indoor activities for Sunday morning.  We decided to go to the Charlie Brown cafe that we walked by a couple weeks ago.  The coffee was good except it was strong.  I didn't notice how strong it was until after I had finished 2 cups and I was wired.  After coffee, we did a little shopping.  I found the mall when I was looking for the bathroom.   I bought some make up.  I didn't following the proper procedure though when buying it.  I don't know what I did but I had to wait about 5 minutes at the counter while the staff figured it out. 

This month they are changing over the government officials in China.  The school has asked to stay close by the school and not travel for the next month because they believe there will be increased security everywhere.  We believe it is just a precaution because they always seem to be a little overly protective of us.  Hopefully our blog will continue to be interesting as we stay in Men Tou Gou for the next few weeks.  Ryan and I always seem to find something interesting to do.

Have a great day,
Julie

Some pictures from the last week

We're back!  Had some computer problems last week so getting on the blog was problematic.  We took a few pictures over the week and wanted to get those up here.  I'll have my lovely bride do a write-up later on.  

Here we go:

Getting the insides of our pumpkin out.  I had an audience as a couple of our dorm neighbors had never seen a jack-o-lantern being made.

Julie had great aspirations of toasting the pumpkin seeds.  We did this last year and it was delicious.  She had great aspirations!

Now enjoy several pictures of my freehand pumpkin carving skills.

This is our version of a fancy breakfast.  Corn meal pancakes we bought at the store the night before with peanut butter and then some apples.  We were given a big box of apples a couple weeks ago and have almost eaten them all.  To drink we had mimosa when we found some champagne the night before.

Champagne!  In the morning!  We don't have very many cups.

For our anniversary we went to the Houhai district of Beijing and enjoyed the rain and the wind!  Houhai is along a series of small lakes and has a famous bar and restaurant street.  We found this bar and were glad to get out of the rain.

Julie got a mocha martini.  She wasn't a big fan of it.  I tried the last sip and thought it was pretty good for a martini.

Our next stop was Buffalo.  It had the best pizza we've had so far because it had the best cheese we have had in China.

Nothing like a Mexican beer on a cold raining Chinese evening.

This is the courtyard at our hotel when we woke up on Sunday morning.

The rain turned to snow and then back to rain.

We made our way to the Charlie Brown Cafe which Julie loved, until she drank too much caffeine and now she has mixed feelings about the Charlie Brown Cafe.