Over the years some of you may have spent time pondering the very question that I found myself thinking about this afternoon…’How many games of FreeCell can a girl play in one afternoon?’ Today I had the chance to discover the answer. I play about 29 games an hour (with a winning streak, I might add). That means that if I played from the end of my lunch time until we leave in the evening for dinner I could play about 150 games if I didn’t take any water or bathroom breaks. Amazing, huh?
On a positive note, I was allowed out of my room to play this afternoon. I was able to spend the entire time (almost) downstairs in front of the fire. Not that I actually socialized with anyone. It turns out that the only way computer scientists communicate at conferences is through instant messaging and I’m not privy to their secret chat rooms, but at least I was warm!
Yes, this is my life in Africa. Some people thought I was so adventurous and wild running away to another continent. And it’s true; I’ve had the chance to experiment with all kinds of new things since I’ve been here (such as long hours of silence and FreeCell). Try not to worry about me too much. I’ve heard that on Friday there’s a chance that they will be taking a half-day. Those CS-ers are a wild bunch.

Here’s my attempt at a quick update. The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful and actually passed pretty quickly. We got to our hotel in Amsterdam (which was fabulous), took a nap and then ventured out into town. We were given a map at the hotel to nearby restaurants which made us pretty brave. We walked a very long way in our flip-flops and after circling the block several times found a cute little Italian restaurant. The food was great and our waiter spoke wonderful English and had visited to the US before. He told us that since it was getting late it would be best for us to take a bus. He assured us that we could just hop on the 198 route and take it to Station NS. We confidently went out (because we’re such world travelers) and found the bus stop. The ride was uneventful and the driver told us when to get off. The problem occurred when we got off the bus and realized we had no idea where we were or which direction our hotel was in. We walked a very long way aimlessly heading towards the one building that we recognized as being near our hotel from our shuttle ride from the airport. We laughed at ourselves the entire way which helped the walk go quickly.

The next day we got up bright and early and headed to the airport. To our surprise it turned out that 3 guys from the Boston group were on our flight and it was really nice to see familiar faces! The flight was almost 11 hours which was just WAY too long but I walked a lot and bothered Ben a lot so it wasn’t too horrible.

We got to the Monkey Valley Resort last night around 11:30. It was really dark and it was raining. Our house is very nice but I had no idea what the world outside looked like. Ben did say as we were going to sleep that the sound which I thought was a heater (in my dreams…the place was freezing!) was the ocean.

I was SHOCKED when I woke up this morning and looked out the window. We are practically IN the ocean! It’s beautiful even though it’s been cloudy and rainy today. We’re not exactly roughing it here and I’ve spent a very romantic morning by myself watching the rainbows, breaching whales and horseback riders on the beach from my balcony.

I’m including a couple of pictures of our ‘master suite’ and our view. I’ll work on getting some better pictures of the whales but with the clouds my pictures weren’t turning out. Ben will post our other pictures tonight.  We miss you all and appreciate your comments and emails!

Well, we leave in a little over 3 hours. We are all packed and ready to go. I can’t believe the day is finally here. It seems like we have been planning and getting ready forever!

Here is a picture of my massive belly at 16 weeks! We will keep posting pictures so that you can watch my belly grow.

Thanks for all of the prayers and words of encouragement that you have given us. Keep us up to date on what is going on in your lives while we are gone and we will look forward to seeing everyone when we get back!