Somewhat Simple Summer Days

Well, we have reached the end of an era. For the past year we have always had a full supply of Changi airport candies in our candy bowl (thanks to the enormous bag of candies the immigration guys gave Atticus while Sam was escorted though the airport by an armed policeman). It has been an ever-present reminder of our glorious and adventure-filled 18 hours in the Singapore airport. Today, we have only one left. How we will miss you Changi candy.


We’ve been filling the days of Summer vacation with keeping things fairly low key so far. Sam has finished up teaching her classes (a post on that experience will follow soon!) and we have been hosting a guest researcher here in our apartment for the last week. She is a fellow graduate student and doing some work on NGOs here in Dhaka. It is nice to have someone to share Dhaka with, and Atticus has really enjoyed learning about her home country Poland. Next week we are all going to make a vegetarian version of a traditional Polish meal together, which Atticus and Sam are especially excited for .

A nice thing about guests is that it gets you to re-visit the places you may have been forgetting. For example, since our guest had never had never eaten phushka (delicious Indian street snacks), we made a lunch trip over to get some from a little restaurant we hadn’t been to in a while. It is also across the street from Club Gelato, which is always fun! We ordered up a smorgasbord of delicious snacks and had fun remembering the delicious Dhaba phushka.

Of course, sometimes our guest leaves the house, and Atticus and Jon immediately lose their shirts and start with the rowdy fun. We had a Thursday afternoon dance party (afternoon dance parties are another long standing, but recently forgotten, tradition of Sam and Atticus actually)and Jon and Atticus worked on their air guitar moves. Jon also taught Atticus to skank, since Atticus has been into the ska lately.

Below is Sam’s favorite picture of the afternoon though, because A) Jon is concentrating so hard on his air guitar that he even has his tongue out and B) Atticus has crossed into angry punk rock mode in the background.

Other time fillers have included listening to Atticus sing off-key to the ipod while he wears headphones and staring wistfully out onto the horizon. At least this photo proves Jon does occasionally wear a shirt at home.