Have no Fear!

To all of you who thought we were homesick after reading my last blog, have no fear. We are not homesick, these are just humorous observations we’ve made so far. We love living here! (Although Christiaan really misses our big yard back home...) When you move to a country such as this one, there is very little that is the same. You must adjust or go bust. (I just made that up…) And all the things that, when you first arrived, you thought were gross or weird, just become normal.
Yes Nicole, most people in Canada buy No Name ranch dressing, and if they had it here I would gladly buy it, but Kraft Fat Free is the absolute only kind of ranch dressing they have. There is just simply no other choice. It’s also about $2.50 for a tiny bottle… so we don’t buy it very often. That’s part of life here. You just make do with what’s available and hope your taste buds (and those of your kids) eventually adjust… That’s the same with the milk here. Yuck in general. But there is a kind of fresh skim milk you can buy that’s drinkable. It also costs $2 for 1 litre! Thankfully most of the kids are happy to drink the UHT milk which is a little cheaper. Again, thankfully, take-out pizza from the local Pizza Hut is much cheaper than back home (although again, it doesn’t taste nearly as good as Panagopolis…). Generally though, we eat a lot of Indonesian food as it is cheaper and we really like it a lot. There are times though, when you just want a good baked potato instead of white rice… Potatoes are available (one variety only), but again a lot more expensive than rice…
BTW, apparently today is the first day of the muslim new year. We thought that maybe last night there would be fire works etc, but nothing of the sort. Just a nice quiet night…