So you say, "What are those crazy missionaries up to now? Venice? Do they ever study?? What about French?"Well, not that particular weekend. But we have come to know very clearly the meaning of the expression "J'ai un fromage dans la tete." Literally, that is "I have a cheese in my head," but it actually means, "My brain is fried."
I think we've made definite progress in French - a few nights ago, I woke myself up speaking two words in French distinctly out loud, and Eric has been the subject of much praise lately. But while we try to speak until 5pm Mon-Fri only in French to one another, by 4:55pm each day we are ready to be done with that! (However, I no longer use the afternoons for sleeping in the hopes of avoiding those hours of French, so things must be getting better. :) )
Anyway, we have been blessed to be able to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a little of Europe during our time here, and recently we took a weekend to travel by train to Venice. It was about an 8-hour train ride, and we found a modest hotel to stay in near the train station.
Venice is a town that you can (surprisingly) see all of on foot, but the main streets are generally at least somewhat crowded with foot traffic, so if you want to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, you take the vaporetti, the boat buses. They hold about 80-100 people and are about $30 for a 2 day pass, whereas if you want to be privately catered to in one of those sleek black gondolas, it's more like $65 for 20 minutes. Needless to say, we opted for the vaporetti - we might have gone for the gondolas out of sheer romance, but actually it's kind of cold now, in the middle of the winter. Our last day it even snowed!
Nonetheless, we had a great time and enjoyed visiting San Marco Square, with the Basilica and the Doge's Palace. We even went to an opera one evening....I thought my mom would be heartbroken if we had the opportunity to see "The Barber of Seville" in Venice and didn't take it. :) It was really a neat experience, as it wasn't held in a standard theater at all, but in an old palace with an audience of only about 35 or so. Each time a new scene started, the audience all stood up and walked to a different room. The performers interacted with the audience, once dusting Eric's head and once putting an old-fashioned white wig on him. (We wish we had a picture of that!)
The food was good, too...ah, Italian ice cream!
In our spare time, when we're not galavanting around Venice or studying French, these last 2 weeks I've been spending about 3-4 hours a day on email. Most of this time is with the intention of equipping the eye clinic to be functional by the time I arrive in Gabon in June 2009 (Eric will get there 1 month earlier, in May). With financial restrictions and difficulty in transporting needed medications and other equipment, as well as lack of workers and difficulty in communication/lack of email, this has been quite a challenge. Nothing in my formal education has prepared me for the administrative challenges that this work will entail, but I am thankful that I have many willing and wise advisors, and a powerful and good God who is able to use even my weaknesses to accomplish amazing things. I've also had the opportunity to spend some time with a French-speaking ophthalmologist in his office, which has been helpful for acquiring medical French; thanks to many who have prayed for this opportunity!
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While I've been hacking through my email, Eric has been mainly studying French, but he has also been working on our US taxes, coordinating our luggage for the trip to Benin and later to Gabon, and cooking dinner (lately - we alternate on that task). But I generally restrict him to 1 frozen pizza per week.
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