What's A Bracket?

Seriously, you asked, I'm telling.  No one here gives two shits about college basketball.  That's just the way it is. I've seen a couple of games on the tube this weekend, but that's it.  No 24/7 bracket coverage here.  It just doesn't exist.  If I didn't listen to Dan Patrick on podcasts I wouldn't even know it was going on.  (Besides the fifty invites to fill out a bracket I've gotten)  It's sad really.  But here football season has just started so we've got that going for us.

I was looking at the calendar today at work and I've almost been there three months.  It's amazing how time flies!  That would mean we have been here nearly FIVE MONTHS.  Wow, that's a shocker.

So how do I feel about that?  I've been giving it quite a bit of thought lately and I didn't realize I was until Sunday night when we went out with some other internationals from Leah's class.  The truth is I feel pretty good.  Looking back on it now, there was some definite culture shock moving here.  Things are different and in some pretty obvious ways.  The climate, the wildlife, the plants, even the grass is different from Colorado.  We had some moments at first when we wanted to ditch the whole plan and jump on a plane home.  But lately, the strangest thing has happened; it's started to feel like home.  I mean, we still miss our families and friends something fierce, but on a whole the normal times greatly outweigh the times when we feel like aliens.

Take the accent as an example.  I'm so used to it now that I hardly hear it anymore.  Or rather, I actually hear it now in a way I couldn't before.  The first few weeks at work on the phone I was really struggling to understand what people were saying.  Now I rarely have any problems at all.  And it's really rubbing off on both of us.  We use words and phrases now that we didn't even know existed before we moved here.  It's funny how your brain can adapt.

I'm not going to claim that I understand what it must be like to move to a country where you don't speak the language, but I'm more sympathetic to it now.

I had a cold over the weekend.  Actually it started on Thursday and only today did I feel normal.  We kept the weekend antics to a minimum.  We did go next door and I helped Melissa make pasta with her new kitchen aide mixer.  We made a huge batch of fresh noodles and they put us up for a fantastic feed for Sunday lunch.

After that we went to a pub and met most of Leah's class for a birthday celebration.  Someone pointed out to me recently that the blog revolves a lot around drinking but in all actuality we've only been out to an actual bar here three times.  That's three times in five months, and those of you who know us, that's way below our average.  So don't worry about us becoming alcoholics just yet.  That will have to wait until we get back home and the beer is cheaper.

Leah and I were both whinging about not having enough time in the day to get our stuff done, but I'm motivated to write this week and will try and check in every day.  Thanks for sticking with us even when we don't update every day.  We're getting several hundred hits a month and we appreciate it.