Sight-seeing

The last two days have been filled with sight-seeing for Rachel and me. Yesterday we spent the morning at the Archaeological Museum. It's amazing to see things that were around 2,000 years before Christ was born. We saw dozens of sarcophagii (the picture is Rachel standing in front of one of the largest), the Tiled Pavilion, and the world's oldest surviving peace treaty, carved in stone in 1269 B.C.
After all of that ancient history, we took a lunch break of bread and roasted corn bought from street vendors. Yum. Then we hit the Basilica Cisterns, begun by Costantine in the first century. The roof is supported by 336 pillars, all beautifully lit in the underground cavern.
That night the three of us went for a walk to find a restaurant for supper. Finding one isn't a problem, since this part of the city definitely caters to tourists. There are hundreds of restaurants within walking distance. You can't walk past a restaurant without someone "encouraging" you to look at their menu and have dinner there (Brian's learning all about this restaurant's menu). One restaurant caught our attention and interest when they offered a free appetizer plate (hey, we're still Dutch even though we're in Turkey!) The food was delicious, as was the traditional apple tea we enjoyed after the meal.
Today Rachel and I took off again for more sight-seeing. I thought we'd hit Topkapi Palace first. This palace was built by the Sultan Mehmet II in the mid 1400's as his residence, seat of government, and college for soldiers. Unfortunately, several dozen tour groups also thought this would be a good time to visit the palace, so we constantly fought crowds of people. Despite this, the palace was incredible, especially the imperial wardrobe, jewel-encrusted dagger, and Spoonmaker's Diamond (all 86 carats of it).
After the palace, we found a place for lunch, then headed to Suleymaniye Mosque. On the way there, we walked through the Grand Bazaar. Or at least one tiny part of the Grand Bazaar (the picture is one of thousands of shops). The Grand Bazaar is one of the world's largest buildings, covering an area of over 3,000,000 square feet. We basically just stayed on one street so we wouldn't get terribly lost (as I'm good at doing). It was quite the place and just a bit overwhelming.
After seeing the mosque, we headed back to the hotel. Our route took us to the outskirts of the Egyptian, or Spice Market. We decided to save this market for another day. So we hopped on the tram and got back to the hotel, tired but full of images of our day. Donna

Turkey!

  Yeah, we are in Turkey!! We got here on Saturday. The flights went very well (we were quite tired, but all the same, well). After about an hour unpacking and stuff like that, we went exploring. Our hotel is right in the middle of the Old City. It is also right in the middle of a lot of tourist attractions. The people who work in the restaurants really want you to go there. They will, at almost every resturant, ask if you want to go in or if you want a menu to look at. There is also a lot of rugs here. We saw things like the Blue Mosque, AyaSofia, Topkapi Palace, and other thing like that. We fell asleep very well that night.  :)
  Then yesterday we went exploring the town again. We had a better grasp of Istanbul now, so we kind of knew where we wanted to go. (only a little bit though.) Then we went walking around by the water. They had all kinds of things in little street side carts. There were things like popped corn, chestnuts, pretzels, fruit juice, and finally corn. Yes they have corn, they roast it and it smells really good!   After looking around, we (mostly my parents) decided that we would go on a one and a half hour cruise. It was very fun! The boat was a two story one. It cruised around the Bosphorus. The rocking of the boat was very calming. For the first half of the ride, we were on the top part. The second part was in the bottom part, which was inside so it wasn't very noisy in there.
  After that relaxing ride, we went to a restaurant that had really good wraps! They had french fries in them!! I loved it. My dad got pomegranate juice. Wow!! It was kind of sour! Then we rested at the hotel for a while. We were fully charged then, so we went walking near the place we went in the morning. I had a very good supper, chocolate milkshake and a chocolate cookie, yum! My dad had an ice cream cone and a cinnamon-brownie sort of thing. We didn't have the healthiest supper ever. :)  The best part of the day was that we didn't get lost. Yeah!!

TURKISH WORD OF THE DAY: Dur
Dur means Stop or halt.
Sentence:
The police told Brian "dur!" when he tried to climb the Blue Mosque to take a picture (just kidding!! We would never do that!).

Pictures from Spain

Here are a few pictures from our trip to Segovia with the Spanish Bible Society Director and his wife.







And a few pictures from our visit to El Parque de Buen Retiro in Madrid.

Final Spain/First Turkey

Thursday evening the General Secretary of the Spanish Bible Society, Jose Luis and his wife took us to the historic city of Segovia. We drove through the mountains and enjoyed gorgeous scenery. The city of Segovia was incredible - buildings hundreds of years old, a castle complete with moat and towers, a palace based on the palace in Versailles, the historic Plaza Mayor, streets so narrow we weren't sure his compact car would even fit, even ancient aqueducts!

On Friday afternoon Brian finished his work with the Spanish Bible Society. He was very happy with what they accomplished this week, as were the individuals he worked with during the week. Their work revolved around four different editions of the same Spanish translation. One is an interconfessional version for Spain's Protestants and Catholics that includes the Deuterocanon. Another edition is the same Bible for Latin America (the Spanish is somewhat different between the two areas). The other two editions are primarily for the Protestant churches - one for Spain and the other for Latin America. These versions do not have the Deuterocanon and have about 90% less footnotes than the others. This reduces the number of pages from 2,000 to 1,500. Brian's role in all of this was to get them ready to be printed (or reprinted, in the case of the two of the translations).
Today (Saturday) was travel and transition today. The taxi picked us up at 4:00 a.m. to take us to the airport. Our first flight was to Rome, where we changed planes for our flight to Istanbul. After getting visas, waiting half an hour to get our passports stamped, picking up our bags, changing money, and catching a cab, we were finally on our way to the hotel. The taxi driver didn't know where the hotel was, so after a few detours and the help of some very friendly waiters at an outdoor restaurant, we finally checked into our hotel at 3:30.
This afternoon we walked around some and got a feel for the old city. I promised not to write about food, but if I did, I would have to mention the phenomenal shish-kebabs we ate at a neighborhood restaurant. We're planning on resting tomorrow, possibly doing some more sight-seeing, and then getting ready for the week. Please pray for our time here. Donna

More Madrid

It's hard to believe we've been in Madrid for four days already. Things have been going well and the time has really gone by quickly.
Monday morning Rachel and I went with Brian to the Bible Society office so that we could meet everyone. The people were extremely friendly and immediately made us feel right at home. That's one of the reasons Brian was particularly excited about our coming along with him this year - so that we'd have a chance to meet the incredible people who work for the various Bible Societies.
Brian got right to work with Ricardo and Gisela, and Rachel and I did our school work in one of the open offices. For lunch we walked over to a cafeteria that served the menu del dia, or the menu of the day. This is very common in Spain, and we've seen the same sort of thing in many different restaurants. You get a first course (usually some type of salad), a main course, bread, a dessert, and something to drink, all for about 10 euros ($15). Not exactly cheap, but a lot of food, much more than we typically would eat for lunch.
Tuesday evening we had quite the adventure as Ricardo and Ines, two employees of the Bible Society, gave us a tour of downtown Madrid. It would take too long to write all of the information they told us about the Royal Palace, Plaza del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Cathedral de Almudena, Gran Via, and so on. It was fascinating not only seeing the historical buildings, but hearing the stories behind them as well. It definitely made us want to go back downtown again!
For supper, we stopped at two different restaurants for tapas. Typically in Spain, breakfast is quite small, lunch is a very large meal around 2:00, then tapas around 7:00, followed by dinner at 9:00 or 10:00. The first place we went to for tapas was called El Museo de Jamon - The Ham Museum. It wasn't really a museum, but a chain of restaurants that has more kinds of ham then you could ever imagine! (see picture) We stood in front of the meat counter and had a delicious ham sandwich on a crusty roll.
We walked around some more and then went to another place for more tapas, again sandwiches with various kinds of meats and cheeses. I don't know how they have dinner after that because at that point we were already pretty stuffed. After walking around a bit more, Ines brought us back to the hotel.
Today Rachel and I did go back downtown and got to revisit some of the sights we had seen last night. But the first thing we did was go to the Chocolateria San Gines, which supposedly has the best chocolate in all of Madrid, Spain, and possibly the world. We each ordered a cup of hot chocolate and churros. The chocolate is so thick you really can't drink it, you just dunk the churros in it. It was incredibly delicious.
With all of that sugar surging through our veins, we had plenty of energy for shopping. And I think we managed to hit most of the souvenir shops in Madrid. What fun.
Sorry about all of the food references, but tonight around 7:30 we went to a restaurant for what we thought would be our dinner. The waiter asked if we wanted the regular menu or the snack menu, since it really wasn't dinner time yet. So trying to be good Madrilenos, we each ordered off the snack menu and got 3 tortitas (pancakes) with chocolate. Yes, we had chocolate again today! With all of that sugar in our systems, we walked around a local neighborhood that had apartment buildings, a movie theater, restaurants, and some high-end shops.
Thanks again for following us on our travels. Next time I'll write more about the projects Brian's working on here in Spain. If you ever have any suggestions or recommendations about what you'd like us to write about, please let us know! We'd love to hear from you. Take care, Donna

Monday in MADRID!!

Madrid is going very well!! We went downtown yesterday for the first time, exciting!! We took a train that's very close by our hotel. It took about half an hour to get there. It was quite fun. The first part you could see the city, but the second part was mostly tunnel, very scenic. :) After the train ride we walked around a little, then we got to see all these bikers passing us. Apparently there was the Festi Bike competition going on. They went by really fast!
We went to the Prado Museum, and it was very interesting. We were there for about 2 hours. It was awesome because at 5:00 pm, it was free to get in. Outside, it seemed like a lot of people were there, but it was actually quite nice. Not everyone was at the same place at the same time when we were there, so it was good. It was really amazing because the museum has about 8,600 paintings!! But it only shows up to 2,000 of them because of limited space. They not only had paintings, but also sculptures. They have painting made by people from Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. All in all, it was very fun.
The Retiro park was the next stop. They have tons of low bushes, flowers, and trees. It was very pretty. There were a lot of people when we got closer to the middle of the park. They were selling things like ice cream, DVDs, jewelry etc. Some people were playing music. They have a good diversity in age; young couples, families, and older couples (you get what I'm talking about) After that, we went to McDonalds. :)

Here is a fun factoid about Madrid, try to figure it out! (by the way, the language it's in is Catalan)
Abans de Madrid es diu Madrid es Ursaria, que significa "Terra d'óssos".

Pictures

We thought we'd post a few pictures we've taken the last few days. We'll try to take some more today when we go to downtown Madrid.

In Madrid

Hola from Spain! After nearly 23 hours of travel from home to hotel we made it safety to Madrid. The flights all went well. Alec and Becky took us to the airport in Sioux Falls, and were able to have lunch with them and Lori. It was Becky's birthday, so that was fun to be able to celebrate with her before we left. We had a 3-hour layover in Minneapolis, so Brian got is in the Northwest Airlines lounge. He's only supposed to have one free guest, but they made an exception and let both Rachel and me go in with him. Those lounges are great - so much more relaxing than sitting at the gate. Plus there's coffee, juice, cookies, TVs, work areas, comfy chairs, etc.
The 7:30 p.m. flight to Amsterdam took right at 8 hours. Rachel was all excited about having a personal on-demand entertainment center to watch movies, TV, play games, etc. Well, it didn't work very well and was out of commission for about 3 hours of the flight. But she was still able to watch a movie and some Disney Channel shows. I think we each slept 2 hours at the most, so we were dragging when we got to Amsterdam. Our layover there wasn't very long, so that was great. We were all pretty much wiped out for the 2 hour flight to Madrid.
After a short taxi ride to the hotel, we rested (again!), and then went for a walk. There's a huge department store, Carrefour, close to the hotel, so we checked that out and got some bread, water and pastries. Rachel felt so European walking out with two baguettes sticking out of her bag!
Now, even though it's 2:00 p.m. "body time", it's 9:00 p.m. local time, and I think we'll head for bed soon. Brian doesn't have to work or meet with anybody tomorrow, so we have a day to catch up on sleep and get prepared for the week. We may take the train into downtown Madrid as well.
Thanks for your prayers for a safe trip. We're excited to go to the Bible Society office on Monday morning and see what the week holds for us! Take care, Donna

Back from Alaska

We're back in Iowa for a few days between trips. Our time in Alaska was fantastic. Someone asked Rachel if she had learned anything, and it was hard to even think about all of the things we had learned in our two weeks there. Here are just a few of our discoveries:

- We can have school almost anywhere - on the bed at the B&B, at the desk, in the hotel's breakfast room, in the library, etc. As long as we have the computers, textbooks, and a pencil, we're set!

- People not only survive, but thrive in places with what we would consider less than ideal living conditions.

- Alaska is amazing and the land of superlatives - biggest state, 3 million rivers, most shoreline and volcanoes of any other state, northernmost point in the U.S., and so on.

- Going along with Brian to a translation project is nothing like him going alone and hearing about it later. What a blessing to be able to meet the translators, hear their stories, share their concerns and frustrations, and pray with and for them.

- Just because a particular food is new or different, doesn't mean you won't like it. Moose, Eskimo ice cream, caribou, reindeer, salmon jerky, even road-kill ptarmigan are all quite tasty!

- I really can't sleep that well on an airplane, even when it's a red eye flight. I hope that changes soon, because we have lots of long flights coming up soon.

- It would be hard to get used to paying $9 for a gallon of milk, $7 for a bag of potato chips, $6 for a box of cereal, and $3.50 for a dozen eggs. I can see why they hunt, fish and eat road-kill!

It was a great couple of weeks, and we look forward to the upcoming trips. This Friday (Sept. 18) we leave for two weeks in Europe. The first week will be in Madrid, Spain, followed by a week in Istanbul, Turkey. Fortunately we know some Spanish, so that should make communication go well the first week. We don't know a word of Turkish, so that may be a bigger challenge. We'll let you know what happens! Thanks again for coming along with us as we visit and help as many translations projects as possible. Donna

People of Barrow

The Inupiaq translation team that Brian has worked with this week consists of all women. They work in the public library, and every day the women bring the necessities - bagels, fruit, doughnuts, muffins, eggs, bottles of water, everything they need to survive the rigors of translating!
On Wednesday we were invited to eat lunch at one of the translator's houses. Ida and her husband Nate graciously welcomed Bob, Brian, Rachel and I, along with another one of the translators, Molly, into their house and served a delicious caribou and rice soup. The caribou head and antlers were right outside the window for us to enjoy. At one point during the meal, I asked Ida if I could take her picture. She said that was fine. She told me I could take a picture of the caribou too because he wouldn't care. She assured me he wouldn't charge me!
The most enjoyable part of our time together was the fellowship of these dear people. I keep thinking how I would live or survive in a place where the sun never rises for 3 months every year and the cold is so ever-present. But if I was expecting a sad, depressed group of people, I certainly didn't find it! The stories and laughter shared around the table were heart-warming.
Molly entertained us with stories of when her children were young. In those days they lived across the street from a cemetery. Every few days, her kids would bring her beautiful bouquets of flowers. They were so proud of their gifts, and she was mortified that they were borrowing flowers from someone's tombstone! She also told of a time when her kids caught a whole box of lemmings. She immediately made her kids release the lemmings back to the wild. Later that day at the dinner table, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and, you guessed it, one of the lemmings had gotten in the house.
After eating, Nate brought out several examples of native artwork made from whale baleen and animal skins. The artwork was beautifully done and excellent examples of the traditional Inupiaq way of life. When we were leaving, we saw 30-some baleen drying on their porch. Most of them were quite light-weight but measured at least 9 feet tall. The baleen will get sold to artists who will etch on the black surface and then sell them.
Today we went to a restaurant with 4 of the translators and were once again impressed with their love of life. Ida told a story of a time when she was sure she was drowning and needed her husband to rescue her. Only after he jumped in to save her did she realize the water was only 3 feet deep!
We deeply appreciate your prayers for both the Yup'ik and Inupiaq translators. They take this important ministry very seriously and want to get the best translation into the hands of their people as quickly as possible. Most of the translators are volunteers and need to find time to fit translating in with their regular job and family responsibilities. We also appreciate your prayers as we head back to Iowa today and then on to Spain and Turkey next week Friday (Sept. 18). Donna

Inupiat Heritage center

We went to an Inupiat heritage center yesterday.  It had tons of interesting things there. They had an model of a whale that was its actual size! It was huge!! There was a whole room with displays explaining about whale hunting, and they showed some of the clothes that they wore. They had a water bag made out of swan feet! On every woman's coat or dress, at least for those who make their own clothes, there is a different design.  So you can tell the difference between different women's clothing.
Hunting for whales is a very delicate process. They must not wear bright colors or else the whales will be alarmed, and the hunters will never see it again. They mustn't wear strong smells, or have a messy camp either. They must use boats made of animal skins. It has to be very quiet. Then one of the men throws a harpoon (like an arrow) at the whale, then they attack it more just in case it isn't dead yet. The motorized boat comes and drags the whale to shore.  A lot of blood is spilled, a lot! Every part of the whale is used.  They have a big celebration when they catch a whale. They also share it with everyone because that is part of their culture.
 We got a chance to feel and hold a whale ear drum. It is really heavy! It weighed maybe a couple pounds, and that was our guess.  We also got to hold a baleen.  A baleen is really just whale teeth. It is the same material as your fingernails.  They can grow up to 12 feet long!!  The one on the right is maybe 9 feet long. It's not even propped all the way up.  This is how the whale eats with the baleen. A whale does a kind of filter feeding with it. The whale opens its mouth widely and catches fish (such as krill, copepods, and some more small fish).  Large amounts of water come in with the fish too.  The whale almost shuts its mouth and presses the tongue up. It then forces the water to go out sideways out the baleen. Then the fish is swallowed.  I found it very interesting.  Only native people can sell baleens. They carve and make very beautiful etchings on them. 



Did you know........
that the pipes that heat the buildings (like a furnace) give off so much heat and are so hard to control, that they have to open the doors or windows for it to be comfortable inside the buildings?

Sunday in Bethel

What an enjoyable day we had this past Sunday in Bethel. Our plans were to go to the Bethel Moravian Church in the morning, then relax at the Bed and Breakfast the rest of the day. It didn't turn out quite that way, and we're so glad!
We did worship at the Moravian Church in the morning. This church was established by missionaries back in the 1800's. The original church building was built right on the tundra (oops) by well-meaning by unaware outsiders. That building eventually began to sink into the permafrost and had to be condemned. A new, raised church was built, and that is where Brian and Bob Bascom (the UBS Translation Consultant that we've been traveling with this trip) worked with the Yup'ik team all week.
The church service was in English, but over half of the worshippers' first language was Yup'ik. The worship leader, several members from the congregation, and pastor did a wonderful job of leading us in worship, even including Brian and Bob in an impromptu church choir.
After the service we visited with several members of the congregation who were incredibly friendly and welcoming. A former pastor of the church and current university professor, Will Updegrove, invited us to his house for lunch. We had a great time visiting with him while he shared his experiences of more than 20 years of living in Bethel.
After lunch we spent a few hours relaxing at the B&B. Then Will picked us up for a very special occasion. He had been invited to a wedding celebration feast, and he asked us if we wanted to go along. Of course we said yes! The couple had gotten married the day before at the family's fish camp. The bride was Yup'ik and the groom was gussik (non-Yup'ik), so the celebration was a beautiful combination of the two cultures. The food included salmon caught just hours before, German potato salad, rice, moose stew, chicken and stuffing, ham, Eskimo ice cream, brownies, as well as many other dishes.
At first we felt like we were crashing their party since we didn't know either the bride or groom, but everyone made us feel welcome and invited. I chatted with Martha, the pastor's wife and aunt of the bride. She filled me in on most of the people who were there, and I had a good time playing Dutch Bingo (or should I say Yup'ik Bingo).
After watching the bride and groom open presents and cut the wedding cake, we said our farewells and headed out for a tour of Bethel. Bethel isn't a very large city, but for the next two hours Will showed us every part of it, giving us a history lesson on how certain sections of town got their names, which buildings used to be owned by the Moravian Church, who owned particular pieces of land, etc. We also saw the Kuskokwim River and not only the area where barges bring supplies into the city, but also the good salmon fishing spots.
So our day turned out quite differently than expected, but what a great surprise! We got in on a cultural event, learned more about the town, and met some great people. It was a great way to spend our last day in Bethel before moving on to Barrow. Donna

We're in Barrow

We started out today in Bethel, trying to get some school work done, packing up, and finishing up last minute work. A little after lunch we started our 1160 mile, 3 plane ride journey to Barrow. We first flew to Anchorage, switched planes, then had a layover in Fairbanks en route to Barrow.

After walking the two blocks from the airport to the hotel, we took a stroll to the Arctic Ocean. Rachel wanted to dip her toes in the water, but she may need to settle for sticking her fingers in the frigid water. It's quite cool here (36 degrees) but no snow! Rachel is disappointed, and I don't blame her because snow would be preferable to the mud.
We had supper at Pepe's North of the Border, a Mexican restaurant. Yes, our first food in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the U.S., was chili con queso, frijoles, arroz and flautas. And boy, it tasted good (but not necessarily better than the moose, caribou and salmon we had in Bethel).

Rachel and I took quite a few pictures today of the changing landscape. Bethel was fairly flat tundra with some shorter trees and bushes. Anchorage had a mountain range on one side and a peninsula on the other. Fairbanks had gorgeous tall pine trees all around it that were in varying shades of green, orange and yellow. And Barrow is as flat as imaginable with not a tree or shrub to be found.
Tomorrow Brian will meet with the 5 or 6 Inupiaq translators and see what assistance he can provide. Rachel and I will try to have a normal school day and then do some exploring later in the day. We'll let you know what sights we see in Barrow this week, as well as explain a little more about our last Sunday in Bethel and the events we were able to participate in. Thanks for joining us on our journeys! Donna

FOOD!!!

  We have had many different foods here in Alaska. Yesterday we went to a wedding celebration dinner for a couple that had gotten married the day before. They had some of the same food you guys would have like corn, potato salad, rice, chicken, and brownies. But they also had moose, eskimo ice cream *, and very fresh salmon. The salmon had been caught just a few hours earlier!   
   Some of the other unusual food that we had was caribou, ptarmigan, salmon jerky, and reindeer sausage. Yumm!! I tried everything except for the salmon and jerky. Most of the meat tastes the same as ¨normal¨ meat, because I didn´t know intil later what it was. Moose was probably the best. :)
   Soon we will be leaving for our flight to Barrow. We will probably get the oppurtunity to eat whale blubber there . I really don´t know what to think about that!
Answer to last question!! Houses are on stilts because of permafrost (it's called that because the ground is always frozen). The heat from the house would melt the ground. The house would then sink into the ground. :( That's not good!

*Eskimo ice cream is usually made of whale oil (or crisco), water, and berries. It´s not even frozen, almost more like a salad. Even though it sounds weird, it was very good.

I learned my first Yup'ik word this week - quyana (thank you)! As a linguistic, I know that learning one new word in five days isn't exactly amazing, but it was fun to hear it used and know what it meant. Actually I had seen that word several times before as it's the name of one of the taxi companies here in town.

I learned the word when we went for lunch at Peter Green's house. Peter is the translation coordinator for the Yup'ik project. He lives here in Bethel and is joined this week by Jones, the translation co-coordinator and 2 translators, Elsie and Alice. The Yup'ik New Testament was finished in 1956, and they have been working on the Old Testament for approximately 20 years. The translators are determined to finish the Old Testament translation and the New Testament revision by the end of 2010. Hopefully Brian's help during this visit will help them reach their goal!

Peter had invited us to his house for lunch, along with Alice, Lilian, a woman who runs the church's bookstore, and George, the groundskeeper for the church. We enjoyed salmon, rice, fresh blueberry coffee cake, and minestrone soup. The interesting thing about the minestrone soup was that the meat in it was caribou. So now Rachel can say she's eaten, and enjoyed, caribou and reindeer. I don't think she had any of the salmon, but she definitely should try some before we leave.

Not only was the meal delicious, but the opportunity to meet with these dear people was so special as we visited and they shared stories from the past. A particularly touching moment was when Peter's 19 year-old daughter gave Rachel a beautifully beaded key chain that she had made herself. Rachel was quite touched, as we all were, by their generosity. She carried the key chain in her hand the rest of the afternoon, treasuring the precious give that it is. Donna

A Sunny Day in Bethel

Yes, we saw the sun today! It's been so rainy, windy and dreary the past 3 days that we weren't sure the sun really did shine here. But it did and we were able to enjoy lots of time outside.
Let me give you a overview of the city of Bethel. Approximately 6,000 people live here, the majority being Yup'ik. This isn't exactly a tourist town, but there are a couple of museums covering the culture and wildlife in this region. Bethel is really more of a commercial center for the area, with a campus of the University of Alaska, Wells Fargo bank, grocery store, hospital, airport, churches, and several small restaurants. There are many small lakes throughout the town, as well as the Kuskokwim River. Every February they hold the Kuskokwim 300, a 300-mile dogsled race similar to the Iditarod. The ground is permafrost, and the soil is silt. So even though it's been raining a lot, there really isn't mud, just a wet sandy mixture. The temp right now is in the 40's and 50's with no snow - yet. That will come in a month or so along with frigid temperatures. I think we came at the perfect time.
The place we're staying at is called the Grr8 Bear Bed and Breakfast. It is run by a retired couple who have lived in Bethel for several years. When their children moved away from home, they added on to their house, and two years ago opened the B&B. Downstairs there is a family room and kitchen that we can use at any time. Upstairs there is a bathroom and 5 bedrooms of various sizes. Rachel has her own room - the economy room. It's pretty basic, just a bed and table, but she loves the privacy. She's also really put her own personal touches on it, including a "Caution: Rachel's Room" sign. The owner didn't think that room had ever been decorated as much as it has been this week! Our room is quite a bit bigger, and it's where we have our classes everyday.
The owner makes us a delicious breakfast every morning of fruit and meat, and either pancakes, french toast, or omelettes. This morning we had reindeer sausage with our french toast. For lunch and supper we either go to one of the restaurants in the area or fix something in the kitchen. It's very expensive to go out to eat here. Anywhere from $12-20 for a meal is not uncommon, so we try to buy groceries and make as much of our own food as possible. Tonight we're having blueberry waffles (there was a sale on Eggo waffles at the grocery store), fruit, yogurt and toast. Hope no one minds having breakfast foods for supper!
I hope that this helps you get an idea of where we're staying. Tomorrow we'll write about the special lunch we had today and the Yup'ik translation project Brian's helping with. Take care and so long for now. Donna

Little of this.....Little of that.....

Up until today, Bethel's weather wasn't looking too good for us. It had been very cold, windy, and rainy. My mom and I go walking after lunch everyday. Lately, we have been going to a library close to where we are staying. We went for a nice walk yesterday, and we decided to go to some museums around here. Well, the first one was closed :( so we walked to another one that was a little farther away. But it was pretty muddy, so our pants and shoes got dirty, and it was also sprinkling, so our glasses, hair, coats, and purses got kinda wet. The other museum was a nature one. It had tons of different models of animals. (like the snowy owl, beavers, birds, etc, etc...) It was interesting. It had information you could listen to in either English or Yup'ik. Cool, right?
Today we tried to find the public library (we had been going to a library in a college before) but alas, no luck. Tomorrow we plan on going exploring more. We saw that houses here in Bethel are built up on stilts or platforms. Why do you think that is? (The answer will be in the next blog post from me.) Sincerely, Rachel

Did you know..........
if you cut Alaska in half, each half would still be bigger than Texas?
Alaska's flag was the design that a 7th grader made for a contest in 1927? (142 entries were made for the contest)
More to come later!!