Well, today, I invited my new friends over for morning coffee. We are such an “international group”. To the left is Pilar from Chile. Pilar and I mee,t a couple of times a week to help each other with English and Spanish. Pilar’s husband works for AMEC. Next, is Megha from Phoenix, AZ. She is an accomplished harpist and her husband is the Project Manager for the whole project. In the green top, is Olga and she is from Mexico. She has a daughter, 11 years old and boy triplets, 6 years old. Can you believe that they all traveled from Mexico, in a van,, to Canada? Her husband works as a contractor for AMEC. I just met Tania on Monday. She was walking her little dog, Cosmo, outside of our building. As I walked up, she introduced herself and said that she had just moved into the building….oh, me too! She is from the Toronto area and her husband works for Hatch, the “competition”. Finally, Donna is from Trail, British Columbia and her husband John worked in Peru with David. In Peru, John actually lived in the same apartment building that David and I did. Donna had made plans to join him in September. However, in May, the project ended and she wasn’t able to come. It was a warm way to spend a cold morning. Temperature today was -2 with the wind chill about -19. It is suppose to climb to the 30s over the weekend….that will be t-shirt weather!
On Sunday, David and I discovered what farmers do during the winter. They build amazing mechanical farm toys and farm layouts. We went to a farm toy show that was advertised. I wish I had taken my camera, but I thought that it was going to be just new farm toys for sale. Instead, there were beautiful farm lay-outs and incredible toys that farmers had built. One toy, that had been built to scale, was a rock crusher, another was a harvester. I was amazed…me, the “city gal” thought toys came from the toy store!!!
Last night was my first Spanish class. It is an “adult education” class, one night a week for the next ten weeks. There were about 15 people in my class. The teacher is from Chile and she is very good. I think I will really enjoy it.
I am sorry to say that my Uncle Larry, whom I wrote about in my last entry, passed away last week. I love our vagabond lifestyle, but when things like this happen to family and we are so far away, it is very difficult. They had a memorial for him in Florida and are planning another memorial and interment in Maine, in the spring. I do hope that I might be able to make it to Maine for that. My step-father and our dear friend, Barbara are both doing much better. Thank you for your prayers.
I understand that most of the US is in a cold spell…trust me, you all have my sympathies. Stay warm and thing spring!!!