Thanks, Google maps

For some odd reason, this map from Google was of NO help whatsoever to me this morning.... !?!?

proud to be an American?

One of the beauties of dating a non-American is that you get to have your country poked fun at all the time! Andrew's aunt in particular likes to forward amusing emails about my countrymen, and you can bet that these find their way into my inbox as well. Perhaps I'll share a few of them with you! This is the most recent, and I have to say that my mouth and nose were turned up almost immediately and I think I felt sick by the time I got to the bottom. Some of the things we come up with - sick!!! ... Enjoy! ;)

American cuisine at its finest
Americans wonder why they're dying earlier .....

Corn Dog Pizza The Double Bacon Hamburger Fatty Melt Three bacon-stuffed grilled cheese sandwiches for buns, cheese, bacon and two four-ounce beefs patties. French Fry-Encased Hot Dog On A Stick Turbaconucken A chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, all wrapped in bacon The Hamdog A hot dog wrapped in a beef patty that’s deep fried, covered with chili, cheese, onions, served on a hoagie bun topped with two fistfuls of fries and a fried egg. Tombstone Deep Dish Pizza Vending Machine Bacon Shell Tacos The Meat Ship Made from bacon, sausages, pastry, franks and pork mince. Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Gregory’s 120 Ounce Steak In-N-Out 100x100 Burger Bacon Donut Tongue And Pastrami Sandwich Waffle Couch Waffle fries with gravy and mozzarella The Bacon Explosion Two pounds of bacon woven through and around two pounds of sausage and slathered in barbecue sauce. Bob Evens Sausage Gravy Machine Baconnaise

Thanks for asking.

Today, running an errand for Andrew at the hardware store:

Me: "Hi, I'm looking for drop sheets."
Hardware store guy: "Over here...clear or blue?"
Me: "Clear, please."
HSG: "We only have blue."
Me: " ... I guess I'll take the blue, then."

new habits die hard

I picked up a couple bad habits in Greece, like staying up too late (comes with the job - and the culture). Seeing as how it's currently 1 am, that one has stuck around. :(

Another bad habit is one that I just noticed Sunday. I knew I did it, but I realized that it has quite unfortunately carried over to Australia. In the car on the way home from church on Sunday, Andrew asked what I thought of the sermon. "It was fine," I answered. Truthfully? I had no idea. He asked me about some specific points and saw right through my generic responses ... I wasn't even listening to the message.

After two years of sitting through Greek services and meetings and artfully tuning out that which I did not understand, it is going to take some retraining of the brain to focus and actually listen to a sermon! No longer do I have a good excuse to use the time to think through my week's workout schedule or whether I should go back and buy that dress that I saw on sale a few days ago. It's in English now!

Don't get me wrong - I WANT to listen! There have been a few really good ones that have actually held my attention in the last couple months. But in general my attention span for anyone speaking in front of a group probably doesn't exceed 5 minutes at the moment. After that, I just can't help it! No matter how hard I try and focus, the wandering begins. Blame it on the Greeks who natter on incomprehensibly (to me, anyway) for three times the necessary time duration. Or blame it on my laziness. Whatever.

Bad missionary.

(I should have made a "bad missionary" label for this blog years ago - I would have so many awesome entries by now.)

I've found my calling

It's to save the Australians from eternal grammatical condemnation.I am manning a booth and doing a workshop at a missons conference in Canberra today ... get a proof reader, people!!!

What should I call my newsletter? Also, pesto is a very dangerous substance.

I am working on my monthly update letter. What should I call it? Like "The Sydney Scoop!" or "Aussie Update" or something much more catchy. (But not "Kangaroo Krack-Up," which was Janell's suggestion.) I don't even know if there's a real job for me here yet, but clearly this is an important aspect of my ministry! ;) Suggestions???

Andrew finally got my stuff out of Adelaide customs yesterday. Took a whole week; they ended up charging me tax on some items that was 4x what the items were worth, throwing in a whole load of additional charges, and taking my Knorr pesto sauce mix packets. You know the powder kind that you mix with milk and olive oil? So yummy. And also, clearly, a hazard to the whole country of Australia. They were "seized for destruction." Who knew powdered pesto was such a dangerous contaminant! Thank goodness, they saved us all.

Rent a friend?

A friend posted this article ("Is a rented friend a real friend?") on his blog about a website where you can "rent" friends. I eagerly checked it out, wondering if this could be an option for me in Australia.

Um, just kidding! What a strange - and depressing! - way to have to meet people! How bizarre.

new shades

I lost my sunglasses last week, and just haven't had the time to go out and get some new ones yet. A couple days ago the sun (and resulting squinting) was getting to me so much that I stopped at a corner kiosk, grabbed a pair of 5 euro shades and put them on. Relief! I carried on with my day, feeling much better.

When I got home I tried them on in the mirror. Gales of laughter ensued as I not only saw what I looked like, but realized I had spent my day walking around Athens like this:
(Thanks Janell for taking the photo on Skype, haha. Peekaboo!)

recovering...

My least bad owie. You can see it's faded quite a bit; two days ago it was twice as big as my palm. I don't know how I got a puncture wound on (and possibly destroyed the inside of) my left knee, had both knees swollen like golf balls and all scraped up, AND managed to do this to my right thigh. And all through my pants - which have no holes! Talent.

Oh, thank God for free American health care.

View from the hill

When I told my sister yesterday that I fell while running, she laughed at me. Cruel, I know. But she was thinking of that stretch of time a few years ago when I stabbed myself, flipped over my bike handlebars and landed on my head, and Nick broke my rib, and perhaps another incident, all within a month or two. I guess it didn't seem that long ago to her and she still thinks I have a death wish.

Anyway. I did. I was running around Philopappou Hill like usual. It's pretty dry up there now and very rocky, and on a little downhill stretch I tripped and had a long, hard fall. Somehow I ended up with swollen, puffy knees and a thigh (as if I needed more puffiness there!). I staggered all the way home, about 25 minutes, glad that my pants were at least hiding the blood running down my leg, but not so much the dirt that covered over half my body and wouldn't wipe off.

I cleaned it all out with the shower head, and discovered this strange, deep, puncture-like hole in my knee. It's pretty gross. And fascinating; I spent lots of time yesterday gazing into it, trying to figure out why it was there and what was inside. And why it kept oozing. By the time I finished some meetings and was able to concentrate on it, the pharmacies were closed, and the one doctor I knew of nearby refused to speak English to me on the phone (jerk!). I was frustrated that I didn't know a few of the vital words I needed in Greek for that conversation.

Neosporin and bandaids were about all the supplies I had on hand, although after applying I read the Neosporin tube and it said "consult a doctor before use if you have ... deep or puncture wounds..." I wasn't sure I wanted to brave the public hospital just yet, and besides I didn't know which one was open that night, so I just hoped last night that it wouldn't get infected and tried not to let panic set in. :) Did I mention I couldn't walk by last night?

Anyway, to make a long, painful story short, I was asking a friend last night if she would still be my friend if I got gangrene, lost my leg, and ended up begging on the sidewalk in Omonia, and she told me that they had a visiting team with a doctor on it. She works for ITeams' refugee ministry here, and said that this woman had actually done a minor "surgery," as she described it, on her that morning. The prospect of a nice American lady fixing me up sounded almost blissful, minus the pain part, in comparison to some of the other options I have available to me in this country!!!

So this morning, I got up and hopped/staggered/limped to the refugee center, occasionally gasping when I took a wrong step and my leg felt like someone had just shot me in the knee. I waited for the doctor to arrive, and it was like I was at home. She cleaned out my wound, called it "impressive" even, and gave me everything I need - peroxide to clean it out regularly, neosporin (guess it's ok to fill my puncture wound with it), big bandaids, and antibiotics, because it was starting to get infected already.

And I was so thankful for this seemingly simple solution. It was a big deal to me to have it taken care of so easily, when nothing is easy here, the medical system is quite plainly traumatic, and I don't have a grasp of the right terms in the language. I am laid up for a couple of days, but I have plenty of sympathetic attention (hee hee :) and I have enormous amounts of relief to have it taken care of and have everything I needed provided, free, in English, and by a nice Christian lady who wrote "God bless" on my antibiotics bottle. :) SO thankful that God made that easy today.

awkward!!

I was just looking through pictures and had a laugh. Here are two very awkward photos from a few years ago that I didn't realize were awkward until I saw them (after the fact). Guess I should be more conscientious in my posing!(Shame on you Jorge for taking that second one without telling me what it looked like!! Ha ha)

shocking!!!

I spend lots of time in brothels and bars and red light districts. I'm not exactly shockable. Try me. Good luck.

Today, I was shocked. :) Stacie and I are back in Amsterdam after our meetings out in the (beautiful) Dutch countryside. This afternoon we were sitting in a square on a bench eating waffles and watching people. There was this lovely building across from us:Please notice the bottom right corner of that photo. Let's take a closer look:Public urinals. Very public urinals. The thing is, it wouldn't have even caught my attention if I hadn't seen a guy walking away from one zipping up. It's one thing I guess for them to be there, but it's another thing entirely for them to be USED!!!

And they are! Just while we sat there for under ten minutes, we saw these three (just call me a voyeur, I guess...I couldn't help it! Stacie said I should title this blog "Peeping Kelsey." I was really just in disbelief and had to document this newest form of public urination, which is actually more shocking to me than actual public urination)...
This guy was looking around and giggling nervously the whole time as his friends stood at a distance and laughed at him. Now I have seen everything. And I am disturbed that I can sit on a park bench, eat a waffle, and watch people urinate, shake, zip, and walk away like nothing happened. Am I on Candid Camera?

The prayer summit was great. Pretty life-changing, actually. I can tell you that some really exciting things have come out of it that I am going to get to play a significant role in on a global scale. Stay tuned... ;)

guess where I am?

(not fair if you already know)

Transformation Vacation

I'm trying to figure out the next visa trip (this is getting old, fast), and was looking at the Black Sea Coast in Bulgaria. It's close, cheapish, there's a train, and I've heard good things. (By the way, Sharone, since you started me on this, do you have any suggestions for WHERE? All the options are mildly overwhelming to someone who doesn't know a thing about the place.)

Came across a website called Bulgaria Vacation. Ok, good start. But I started reading: "Sun, Fun & Plastic Surgery - Bulgaria" ... hmm.

Then: "A growing number of people today prefer to have plastic surgery procedures at facilities far from their homes. They are seeking out 'destination' locations where they can wrap a little shopping and sightseeing around their recovery time. BULGARIA Vacation Plastic Surgery, introduces a 'transformation vacation' to help jump-start the recovery process after they undergo plastic surgery in Bulgaria."

So I guess this isn't quite what I'm looking for... On the other hand, I wonder if anyone would notice if I came back looking a little different??

Super.

Here.

Vasilopita

It was a beautiful day today...I went on a walk since I can't run because of my knee, saw several dead birds including one, a pidgeon, whose death by speeding taxi I witnessed, and sprained my ankle. Gotta love the pot-holed streets here. The best part is, I can hardly walk at all, because one ankle is sprained, and the opposite knee is crap. How old am I?!?!

Ok, returning to regularly scheduled blogging, Happy New Year!!! I went to bed at 4am. So did the kids (and the other adults). Today both sets of grandparents came over, and I went up again for more eating and just fun time with the family.

This is vasilopita, a traditional Greek cake made on New Year's. We had one last night and one today. It is baked with a coin inside, and the person who gets the coin in their slice has good luck for a year. I didn't get it last night, which is obviously why I sprained my ankle this morning. I didn't get it today either, so I wonder what is going to happen tomorrow.

I hope you had a great new year's eve and day - ever the anticlimactic holiday if you ask me. :) Not here though; it's the day when Santa comes, and more presents are given. Anyway, I am supposed to go to Delphi on Saturday - pray that my ankle heals enough so I can walk!!!

Never thought I'd say this...

...but I am actually missing preservatives right now!!

It's so great they don't put as many preservatives in food here, the food is so fresh, it's so much better for you, blah blah blah. I bought a whole bunch of fresh pita bread FOUR DAYS AGO and I just discovered mold through the whole stack. UGH!

I wonder what you're eating in your food, you over there in the States!?!?

Doh!

My friend Nick got me 15 minutes this morning in the main service at his church, where he is the youth pastor, to talk about myself.

So, that was fun.

A few days ago he emailed me for some information because he was going to be introducing me in the service. I wrote back, gave him all that required information like studying at Talbot, working for the Salvation Army, my position with Lydia Today, etc. etc. Then, at the end of the email, just for fun, I wrote:

Uh...what else would you like to know? I am a GREAT friend, full of life and love and encouraging words. I have brought light into your life like you've never known before. You'll never be the same. I like doing triathlons and eating pinkberry frozen yogurt. I am a natural blonde but feel that people take me more seriously with dark hair. :)

Guess which part good old Nicky decided to read to his whole church this morning!? :-/

stop the rain!

This morning I walked into work with my keys in one hand and a granola bar wrapper in the other (eaten on the drive in). Arriving at my desk, I threw my keys in the garbage.

I warned you.

Ok - I am supposed to graduate today, outside. It needs to stop raining!!

beautiluf.

It's the new word. Look for it popping up in vocabularies near you.