myretroperspective

It's rare that I talk too much about R's work because most of it is not all that interesting, and it's a bit grey as to what is cool to talk about on the internet and what's not ok when it comes to the issuance of US visas so it's easiest to avoid it all together.  However last night R gave his first Public Affairs lecture. Each week the consulate hosts English lectures on different aspects of American culture. Can you guess what R chose to speak on? What else? COFFEE. doesn't he look so... representative? The title of his lecture was: "America's Coffee Culture: Why Americans Love Coffee." Starbucks has over 850 stores in mainland China and has decided to continue to expand their business here. While China is a tea culture through and through, coffee has a definite presence in China's cities. The lecture drew the largest crowd yet with what I'm guessing was about 100 Chinese -mostly students, young adults and other community members. There ...

So I am a delinquent blogger, I know! It's that catch 22 I told you about- when there are things to blog about, you don't have time to sit down and write. I might try to do some post-dated posts to catch you up on what I've been up to, but I figured I'd start by posting some fun pictures from our anniversary weekend. We celebrated ONE WHOLE YEAR yesterday and as I posted on twitter- if I'd known anniversaries were so much like birthdays (you DO know I love birthdays, of course), I would have gotten married younger. Not really, I think the Lord's timing was perfect and I really enjoyed my single years, but it was a SUPER fun weekend. Thanks to friends and family who celebrated from afar with us! I know 1 year is merely a milestone before many more, but we still made it special. R drove us down to the home of my Alma Mater- Gainesville, FL. On our way home to Indian Shores, FL from ATL in the past, I've required a stop-over for sushi or Satchel's ,...

R thanks to his siblings has always appreciated good coffee. In fact he had a .pdf explaining step by step instructions for using a french press. When we lived in Asia, R was first introduced to coffee roasting by a good friend who with the absence of decent fresh coffee took it upon himself to provide for himself and his family. While on the employment search in the fall R embarked on this new hobby and our household has been ever so blessed by it- not to mention those who engage in gift exchanges or do us favors (we tend to bring mason jars of coffee beans as gifts now). This weekend R's brother J is in town for Easter and yesterday I got some great pictures of them roasting. J has also started roasting in his college dorm. green coffee beans before being roasted J measuring out green beans to take back to school He buys green beans from a website called Sweet Maria's- they go all over the world building relationships with coffee bean farmers, purchase their crop and then ...