It doesn't look like mom and I are going to be traveling much this summer with my dad.  Because of that, we are reflecting on the past year of travel and the things we've learned.

- Because Latin America is predominantly Catholic, we have had the opportunity to visit many Catholic churches.
- We learned that Catholic churches are built in the shape of a cross and are much more elaborately decorated than churches we're used to seeing.

- Because my mom drug me to a grocery store in every city we visited, we learned that Coke is universal, as is rice, bread and pasta.
- My dad loooooves tortilla soup and would order it at every restaurant we went to in Mexico.  He even had a rating scale for the different places.  I enjoyed ordering spaghetti, and of course my mom ordered nachos every chance she got.
- I enjoyed drawing on napkins on the plane flights.  Some napkins even had Sudoku puzzles on them, which my mom loved!  She also liked doing the Sudokus in the airline magazines.
-I learned how much I loved big cities, especially Mexico City, Madrid, and Istanbul.  My parents didn't like them as much as I did, probably because they were envisioning trying to drive in those crazy conditions.
-We visited about 15 museums, everything from stamps (the picture I'm looking at is made entirely of postage stamps) to Alaskan wildlife to ancient sarcophagus to intricate wood carvings.

-The different currencies we used on our trips were: pesos, dollars, euros, lira, and nuevo sol.
- We have done school everywhere from on the hotel beds to the Bible Society offices to tables to libraries.
-We spent approximately 65 hours in buses and combis (mini buses).  We haven't figured out how many hours we spent on airplanes, but we did have over 40 flights.
- We learned that some airline personnel are very friendly (like this Alaska Airlines employee who volunteered to take my parents' picture), and others weren't so friendly.

-We have gone through airport security more than 30 times.  Sometimes we had to take our shoes off; other times we didn't.  I got searched once even though my parents didn't!  I almost got in trouble once for having my school scissors in my carry-on.  And my mom got yogurt and my contact solution taken away on different occasions.
- With all of our traveling, we never missed a flight, but we did have to run through the Houston Airport once.  We never lost any luggage, but somehow my mom lost her computer cables, my dad lost his nice headphones, and I almost lost my iPod.  I left it in the seat pocket, but thankfully that plane was still at the gate and my dad could run over and get it before our next flight left.
- After going back to Oaxaca in May, we realized how much we miss Mexico!
Thanks for being our faithful readers!  We've really enjoyed writing about our adventures.  Rachel

Highlights of Oaxaca

Last week, we had the privilege of going back to Oaxaca. We had been there in January when Brian worked with the Mixe translation team. This time, it was the annual meeting of the Bible Societies of the America Region. We got to stay in a hotel very close to the downtown. That was fun and convenient because we could walk to different places after we finished our school work. These are a few of the things that we did:
- went to the Zapotec ruins Monte Alban. It was a very different visit from when we went in January. That time it was just Rachel and myself, and it was a cool and rainy day. This time Brian went along and it was hot and sunny (as you can tell in the picture above!)
- visited the Cathedral, Santo Domingo Church, Zocalo, and a former convent turned into a museum
- shopped at the Benito Juarez indoor market for souvenirs like leather goods, bags, and food
- saw a demonstration of beautiful black pottery being made by Don Vicente (see picture) who has been working on this craft for 60 years.
- enjoyed the Cinco de Mayo festivities happening throughout the week including speakers and singing groups.
- ate at several different restaurants serving traditional dishes like tlayuda (Oaxacan pizza), tasajo (beef), and salsa de chapulin (grasshopper salsa).
- celebrated the 60th birthday of one of the Bible Society Consultants, complete with a mariachi band
- Rachel got her daily fix of frozen coffee to offset the 95 degree daily temperatures (sometimes even drink two at a time)!
Brian enjoyed the meetings during the week. He was in charge of several hours of Paratext training, and he felt that it went well. He also gave a report on Paratext deployment in the Americas this year. It was exciting to report on all of the places we had gone the past 10 months to help get this software to the various translation teams.
We don't have a lot of travel planned for the coming months. Brian will be going to Panama in June for 10 days, but Rachel and I won't be accompanying him. It's a relief to be "home" again, but a bit sad to think of our year of travel coming to an end. Thanks for coming along with us on this journey! Donna and Rachel