Our addiction...

Hello Friends and Family,

I am still trying to play a little catch-up with this to show you how our life here is going. To tell you of some of the differences we experience here, I thought I might share with you the "10 Things I Never Expected."

Before I share with you the first thing, I want to explain something to you. We live in the suburbs of Shanghai. It is a unique area. The apartments we live in are filled with mostly Middle-Class Chinese. However, when you walk down the road in one direction you will pass a VERY fancy compound (housing complex) for Ex-Pats and then a few steps later another compound which is in disrepair that houses Chinese. In the other direction, we are close to Zhu Di Zhen, which looks a lot more like traditional Chinese living. There are older apartments that have drying racks with clothing an meat hanging from them and markets with tons of people and street food. So, in our little area, we have access to so many different experiences.

So here we go with #1:
I never expected to miss espresso so much.

This sounds pretty ridiculous when I think about it, but I have grown rather accustomed to it. At home we had an espresso maker, and I would make lattes for Justin and I every morning. When we got here, we began to drink coffee that we brought from home and some that a lady from the church graciously purchased for us. It is just not quite the same, though.

After a few days, Justin and I decided to check out the local Starbucks (in the Ex-Pat neighborhood). We were rather disappointed, because although it was delicious, it was more pricey than the U.S.! Later, we heard about a place called Cafe Crema and we decided to try it, after John and Megan took a visit. We went for Justin's birthday because we can not afford a super nice dinner, and we were excited to try it. It was wonderful!

Enjoying the time with Justin, coffee, and atmosphere.

My beautiful and delicious coffee with a sip from it.

My handsome hubby on his birthday! :)

It was a very pleasant lunch and we had some awesome roast beef sandwiches, too. This will be our go to when we are suffering from espresso withdrawals and want to have a nice lunch together. (P.S. My pictures in order say Blythe <3 Justin)

The Cafe also has a Jazz night which John was asked to play at. Below are some pictures from that evening. You can enjoy them as the close of this post.