Treaty of Rome 1957

Happy Independence Day!  As I've been listening to the soundtrack of "Hamilton," and get more interested in seeing it someday (when the price of a ticket won't cost me my firstborn), I have been reading more and more about that period in our history.

The Declaration of Independence I have heard of, but have you ever heard of the Treaty of Rome?  Maybe some of you history buffs have, but I never had, so I was curious as to why the UN was having a big 60th anniversary party for it in the park.

If you are interested in what it is, read the following quote from Britannica; otherwise, skip to the following paragraph.  

"It established the European Economic Community (EEC), creating a common market and customs union among its members.  The Treaty Establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, for the purpose of developing peaceful applications of atomic energy, was signed by the same countries (Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) on the same day, and therefore the two treaties together are often called the Treaties of Rome."

I looked up "Treaty of Rome" on wikipedia and found this quote, "It remains one of the two most important treaties in the modern-day European Union (EU)."  So there you go. 

Anyway, one of the ladies in the girls' ballet class is from Japan, and she was going to be a part of organizing this celebration.  She asked the dance teacher to choose three girls to perform at the park during the ceremony.  Kylie and Karis were two of the three.

There were a lot of dignitaries and cameras present.

There was a cake cutting, some elementary school singers, and then the balloon release.

Well...some of the balloons released.

Others just laid down because they were tired.

 However, they made a lovely backdrop for the girls from where I was sitting.

 Caleb videoed them on a camera that I don't know how to download from, but if you are interested, I have a video of them performing the same dance at a local mall a few weeks later.  They were asked, along with some other performers, to "open" a fashion show at the mall.

However, some man steps in front of my camera near the end of their dance as he tried to figure out where people could find seating.  But you can still get a gist of the dance :)

Click HERE to see the video.

💥💥Happy 4th of July!💥💥

Candy from a Stranger

The people here love Keira.

She is always getting her cheeks pinched or kissed.

People ask if they can take a picture with her or of her.
(For example, I have no idea who this lady is)

She gets free fruit at the fruit stand, etc.

They love her.


Story:

Most Saturdays, we have lunch at a sandwich shop near the girls' dance studio.

Kylie co-teaches Keira's class on Saturday mornings, and when it's over, we all meet for lunch, and wait the one and a half hours until the big girls' class starts.  When we were taking taxis (we're not anymore - more on that at another time), it was too expensive to go back and forth to the house.

A certain delivery driver for the sandwich shop took a liking to Keira, and he would just walk over to the grocery store two doors down and buy her chocolate.

He never spoke a word to us or her.  He just went, bought chocolate, set it in front of her, and walked away.  She always said, "Thank you," in the language, but nothing else to egg him on.

After a collection had amassed over a month, I took a picture for you.

We're talking good stuff (as you can see, Santa's head had already been eaten).

We don't ever think about eating it, so it just collects.

When Ramazan started, our sandwich shop closed down during daylight hours, so we haven't been there since the end of May.  I'll let you know what happens in September when dance classes start again, but for now, I think I'm going to go hunt down a truffle.

Dinner at Surprise's Mom's

Our language helper had our family and another over for dinner at his parent's one night.

It was quite an affair, like most dinners hosted in this country.

Biryani, dolma, greens, cabbage salad, eggplant salad, okra soup, smoky yogurt water

The husband of the other family is also a teacher with Doug, and he introduced us to Surprise.

Surprise's mother is sitting to my right.

She raised 10 children.

Here she is smiling at some pictures.

The men visiting with Surprise's father, a retired teacher.

Life in a Taxi (Vol. 3)

Welcome to "Life in a Taxi."  

If you want to see the previous posts, you can see them here:  Vol 1, Vol 2

We always feel blessed if the taxi drivers run the air condition in the summer or the heat in the winter.

It doesn't always happen.

No seat covers in this one.  Impressive.

 Furry grey and black.

Nice fringe on the dashboard.