Lost in translation

I can't go any longer without drawing attention to the terrible language barriers still in existence between US and Queen's English. I have desperately tried to fit in and use the appropriate local expressions but so far with fairly disastrous consequences - I had to ask 3 times where the diapers were at the drugstore before the assistant understood what I was asking for. Same when asking for a strawberry ice cream. I was almost laughed out of town when I tried to buy a verruca sock for Is to wear when swimming - they don't exist here so I guess everyone just shares them. I thought I would summarise a few known and more unusual differences I have come across. There are a couple too rude to mention (but you probably know them already!)

sidewalk = pavement
bathroom = loo
faucet = tap
diaper = nappy
stroller = buggy
soccer = football
chips = crisps
fries = chips
bangs = fringe
candy = sweets
pants = trousers (this one makes the kids laugh every time)
wifebeaters = string vest (!!!!!!)
muffler = exhaust
'No solicitors' = no junk mail but makes me laugh when you see it written on doors!
Mom (don't even get me started but thus far my kids (aka children) haven't dared.........
And of course the ubiquitous vacation (holiday is just not understood)

The worst to stomach is when Americans teach their children to go to the loo they ask to 'go pee' which I just find too vulgar!! If my children need to blend I will just about allow them to 'go to the bathroom'.

And I think the most bizarre one I have come across was today when I was helping out at the Vineyard Summer Bible camp. They were doing the story of the 10 lepers and were referring to their sores as 'Owies' - it took me most of the day to work out what on earth they were talking about but I guess it's the equivalent of children talking about having a 'baddie' or something - ie 'Ow' because it hurts.

............Kooky!!! Or should that be goofy?!!!

Laters!

Just got back to the Windy City

It's so easy to get behind on this blogging business - amazing how out of touch with the world we felt without the laptop for 5 days in St Louis!

D and I had a fab weekend, sans enfants, and are eternally grateful to the Steinkes as it seems our children were menaces! It's good to know that after 11 years of marriage we still enjoy each other's company and it seemed we had plenty to catch up on. Actually, I read a fun article in a magazine the other day which asked couples what they considered to be the secret of a happy marriage. One couple said 'Never fight with your clothes on!' They had a rule that they only allowed themselves to argue if they had first gone home and got undressed, by which time most of the tension had naturally dispersed.... Another man who had been happily married for 35 years said, " We decided a long time ago that I would make all the big decisions and my wife would make all the small ones. So far there haven't been any big decisions"!!!

We had a very interesting meal at Charlie Trotter's on Sat night. He's supposedly the top chef in Chicago and does a 'tasting menu' inspired by international cuisine. It's definitely more a case of quality than quantity - after 7 courses we weren't exactly hungry but by breakfast on Sun we were ready for the full works!!! We also opted for the wines to match each course and for the first time actually enjoyed dessert wines ... though I was intrigued that none of the wines were American.

On Sun afternoon we headed to the Oak Park district of Chicago and went on a walking tour of some of Frank Lloyd Wright's early works. Interesting even for the architectural ignoramus, but we were glad to be free of the children for that one!

On Monday, we headed down to St Louis, Missouri where we spent the week with Bryan & Rachel Mowrey (Bryan leads Jubilee Church, the Newfrontiers offering there). It was really refreshing to get away from the city and once out of the Chicago sprawl it was a straightforward drive down Highway 55. It took us about 5 1/2 hours' driving - slightly less on the way home as I wasn't very good at respecting the 65 mph speed limit!!

We really enjoyed spending time with the Mowreys and their 20 month old certainly kept us entertained! Our children were rather challenging, esp on the food front and I think we realised that we have been asking an awful lot of them to be so adaptable to different surroundings. Is enjoyed attending the art camp Jubilee Church were running and we visited the famous St Louis arch. The weather was actually unseasonably cool and a little drizzly; really refreshing after the heat here. We really enjoyed heading for the Missouri Botanical Gardens for an open-air concert on the Wed night.

We also spent some time with John & Linda Lanferman (John leads Newfrontiers USA) which was very helpful as we consider whether or not we may come back out to Chicago for a longer stint in the future.

The journey back was fairly uneventful though after stopping for one of many loo breaks, we discovered we were metres from the old Route 66 highway. We thought it would be rude not to travel along it for a few miles as it ran parallel with our route. When googling Route 66 when we got home it just struck me how enormous the US really is - this route used to run almost 2,500 miles from Chicago to California. I worked out that I've visited 7 States which leaves so much unexplored! I hadn't realised before that the river running through St Louis was the Mississippi which was pretty awesome in itself but then when looking it up I read that the Mississippi's flow is only 9% of that of the Amazon!! Wow! Though I have to say that, having visited the Insectarium at St Louis zoo and seen some of the bugs they have in the rain forests, I think I may steer clear of South America!

I am doing Sunday School tomorrow at church (some of you will appreciate the irony of that). We will be trying not to think about the fact that we should have been in Paris watching the final of the Tour De France. It's a funny old life!

Summer in the city

We have been 'holidaying at home' this week, catching up on some of the museums we haven't had a chance to see. Sun started us off well with D & I catching a great lunch while taking a break from serving at the booth at the festival. We went to a local Mexican joint and had the most delicious lunch. The restaurant was v unassuming from the outside (and inside!) but had a lovely garden out the back. The food was so fresh, really cheap and there was so much of it! A good start to the week!

On Tues we headed to the aquarium and were v grateful to be out of the sun as it was a complete scorcher of a day. We have hit an interesting quandry this week - how to find indoor solutions when it is just too hot to be outside! It hit 102 degrees F on the car's thermometer when we came out of the aquarium!! The kids really enjoyed it tho we all found the dolphin show a bit too worthy and responsible - not enough balancing balls on their noses and jumping through hoops!

Wed we started off at the local Pancake House for a late breakfast and, after chomping our way through mountains of pancakes & maple syrup, went to the Children's Museum. We had to drag the children out after 3 hours because D & I were too exhausted... Then on Thurs we headed back downtown, this time to the Museum of Science & Industry. This was absolutely fascinating and contains so many interesting exhibits we will have to head back at some point. Particularly of note was the U-505 German submarine captured by the Americans during the war. It was moved to the museum completely intact and then a special hall built around it. The tour was very interesting and even managed to keep the kids' attention for 20 mins!

Today was a quiet day closer to home. We stocked up on DVDs from the library (they are only $1 a week) and reading material for Is to keep us going for our trip to St Louis next week. I headed off for some retail therapy this afternoon and was delighted to stumble on the end-of-season sales. I bought some clothes for the girls at ridiculous prices - $24 for 7 items! Then I treated myself to a manicure & pedicure in advance of our anniversary meal out tomorrow. Really looking forward to our weekend without the children though we must make sure we don't just end up sleeping the whole time!

Fusion in the Community

As promised, I thought I would let you know about the festival we were involved in at the weekend............. Clark Street is one of the main North/South thoroughfares in Chicago and the synagogue where Fusion meets is just off it in a district called Rogers Park. Rogers Park is the most diverse neighbourhood in Chicago and a real melting pot - it couldn't be much more different to Wilmette where we are staying. The street festival is an annual event attracting thousands from the local community, particularly the Hispanic population. We repeated the formula Fusion had used last year and ran a stall offering free fun photos and also gave out free bottles of water. Basically, people dressed up in feather boas/funky hats/wigs, etc. and had their photo taken which we then printed out and gave to them with church details printed on the back. It was certainly one of the most popular stalls, not least because it was pretty much the only one just giving things away.

We had a team of young and not so young (!) people from St Joe's, Missouri who drove 8 hours to help us and the stall was run from 11am-11pm. Throughout this time we We handed out 2, 200 bottle of chilled water with flyers, used up more than 50 bags of ice to chill the water! We took, printed and distributed exactly 738 photographs and saw between 2,000 and 3,000 people come through our booth! It was lots of hard work, lots of fun and I thought just such a wonderful way to bless the local community and raise the profile of the church.

Navel-gazing

Sorry! Have been a bit slack about keeping this up to date. Partly because I have to confess to rather a lot of navel-gazing and feeling homesick this week. Whilst I realise that, to a certain extent, the whole essence of blogging is navel-gazing, I thought I would spare you some of it! Suffice to say, I am missing you all and all things familiar. Fortunately this has coincided with D's two weeks' leave so we are going to do some more Chicago sight-seeing this week and then we are off to St Louis the second week after a night on our own to celebrate our anniversary next Sat. We had an amazing but tiring day today as Fusion ran a stall at the Clark St Festival just around the corner from where we meet. It was a fantastic example of community outreach and lots of fun but demands more than a few words so will try and blog about it tomorrow. Meanwhile I am off to bed for some kip............

Procrastination

This is a bit bizarre - I am putting off writing a proper, pen-to-paper letter to my mother and have ended up blogging instead! Why is it that it is so much easier to type than commit to paper? I have to admit the delay is partly inspired by 'I told you so'-ness as I did implore Mum to at least try and use email for the sake of keeping up with her grandchildren before we left. She assured me that she would (a) write, (b) phone and, in any case, felt that 3 months wasn't very long not to be in contact......... Hmmph!! Needless to say, Isabel's 6-year old school friends have proved more regular correspondents and the phone remains silent. I really will write - I had considered emailing a letter to my sister and asking her to post it because for some reason I now find it much easier to write with the help of technology but no, I will try and write a 'nice newsy letter'!!

Of course, it is true that there is nothing like receiving a crisp, hand-written letter through the mail. Interestingly enough, when I asked at the post office, they no longer sell the pre-paid aerogrammes I remember from my student days, so I guess I am not alone in my lack of epistolary communication.

The week is going by and this week, E & M are the summer campers so we are still doing a lot of driving, but they are having great fun so it is worth it... It's so hot and sticky we are struggling to sleep and then it's so light in the morning E is waking up at 5:30. He seems to have a cough that only bothers him early in the morning (read completely fake) which is so annoying. I think this at least in part answers the question of what Chicago locals do all winter long when it's too cold to go out - I bet they sleep loads!! Tomorrow I have promised to take Is out for a girlie day with her new BFF, Masha. It's going to include lots of craft, pizza and ice cream so doesn't sound too bad at all!

I realise that probably no one is reading this as most of you are in Brighton for the Newfrontiers conference. If you are around, do say hi (I'll accept emails or Blog comments in lieu of letters!), am starting to miss home and friends a lot.

Independence Day

We really enjoyed the fireworks on Friday night - it was a lovely summer's evening and so nice to be able to sit outside and not freeze half to death like we do on Nov 5th. Such good-natured crowds, too - we all crowded into a local golf course with blankets and camp chairs and everyone behaved impeccably (and no, I'm not just talking about our group!) It was the best display I'd ever seen live and it was free which was a bonus. The fireworks were preceded by a band playing patriotic tunes and the actual display was accompanied by the likes of 'America the beautiful' and 'God bless America', 'I'm proud to be an American', etc. Initially I was quite caught up in the whole patriotic thing and thinking maybe it would be nice if we had more national pride at home. Don't worry, I'm not thinking of joining UKIP or the BNP! But actually after thinking about it I just realised how sad it is that people put their faith and meaning of life onto something ultimately so transient - the only one I pledge allegiance to is the Lord of lords and King of Kings!

We just hung out locally in Wilmette yesterday as the kids were understandably crabby after getting to bed at 10:30pm on Fri night. I'm also limited by horribly swollen ankles -an allergic reaction to nast mosquito bites. We did make a quick trip to the beach yesterday evening but the water was closed due to 'high bacteria' so the kids could play on the sand but not paddle. They didn't seem to mind too much and setteld for running in and out of the cold showers on the sand.

Hopefully back to the zoo later on today - let's see if the kids can manage to behave as we only made it for about 40 mins last time before having to take them home due to bad behaviour!

I seem to have spent most of this week driving back and forth through the Northern suburbs taking Is to summer camp and trying to squeeze in as many activities with the other two until it's collection time again - a true American mom!!! I must say, though, that I have been so proud of her going off and having a whale of a time and making new friends - she knew no one when she went for the first time on Mon. She has raved about camp all week and has done so much - swimming, sport, going to a baseball game and water park. Only trouble is she's desperate to do it again now....... It will be interesting to see how the younger two get on next week, though it is much lower-key for them - E goes 5 mornings 9-1, M just Mon, Wed, Fri from 9-12 so it will be even more ferrying around. I guess it gives me more chance to go to the gym and perfect my Step moves, though.....!!

It was whilst wasting time in-between camp drop-off and pick-up that I ended up introducing the younger two to the concept of retail therapy! We have been employing a dreadful parenting technique which I may have previously mentioned - of rewarding a day's good behaviour with a dollar. This, in turn, is followed by a trip to Target which has a $1 section perfect for the kids to buy the kind of 'toot' that builds up and gets really annoying - you know, light-up pens, mini torches and the like which always require batteries costing 4 times as much as the original purchase...... Anyway, they'd both chosen their rewards and then I stumbled upon the beachwear section and for some unexplained reason decided that I really needed a boob tube so I can tan evenly without strap marks. What was I thinking??? i don't even tan anyway because I am (a) so pale that I either burn or nothing (b) I am so paranoid about skin cancer that I always wear at least factor 25 (c) I hate being in the sun so always head for the nearest shade. Need I go on..........? So, the beaches of Chicago are in for a treat this year. I will at least have a nice tanned decolletage while my white varicose-vein ridden legs are firmly hidden under the longest skirts I can find! In any case, I digress - the point of this is that, once they had seen I had a new top, both children decided they really needed new tops too and so, by the time we hit the beach later that afternoon, we were all happily clad in our new gear, feeling cheered and trendy.

Whilst you pay for the privilege, I have to say I have been won over by the private beaches - we had such a lovely time on Wed with some friends. The grown-ups sat and chatted and the kids just ran around and we essentially had the entire beach to ourselves with 3 or 4 lifeguards keeping a watchful eye on the kids, too. Because there's barely a tide on the lake, you can sit virtually on the edge of the water and not have to move all day. It's funny how quickly we have settled into life here - tonight we had 'carry out' from a local restaurant and it was so nice not to cook after a busy day. D was the perfect boss this afternoon, sending all his team home early to enjoy the holiday (but really because he fancied the afternoon off!!) so we headed up to the Botanical gardens for ice creams after picking Is up.

Looking forward to the fireworks tomorrow night - in fact we can hear loud blasts from various public displays and the downtown Chicago display is on TV. D is engrossed in his Tour De France guide so I shan't expect to hear much from him for the next 3 weeks - except perhaps bemoaning the fact that we should have been in Paris for the finale on July 27th!

No Fusion this Sun so we thought we would check out the North shore Willow Creek church - will they walk across the room to talk to us????!

Happy 4th July to you all - we will be waving our 'Stripes & Stars' flags, as E calls them!