How are you? How are you? How are you?

Last night we meet with some friends at a lounge downtown to hear a blues/jazz band. The singer was an adorable Norwegian girl and, before the night was over, we heard a song in Dutch, Norwegian, Slovak, English, and Russian. This evening we met with Tina, a co-worker and old friend, and went to the mall to see "Yes Man." The main characters went to Lincoln, Nebraska in the movie and even attended a Huskers game! SO surreal. I was expecting to hear cheers, then realized: "Um. I'm in Slovakia."

Mike is making himself very at home. Whenever we are in separate rooms, I heard thuds and clunks and shuffling in the next room as he fixes or organizes things here and there.

I've been walking around telling everyone in Slovak "It's nice to meet you," only to discover that I was really asking "How are you?" Which, sure, makes me sound friendly enough, but the mix-up explains why I got strange looks the second or third time I said it to someone, particularly while they are walking away.

Please be praying about the conflict Russia is having with Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe. Slovakia gets all of its natural gas from Russia through Ukraine, and we heard today that Slovakia has eight more days of natural gas in reserves before they run out. How strange for a second-page newspaper headline to be so pressing to our daily lives. I caught myself thinking "America will save us." I just know that the Western World wouldn't let everyone freeze in the dead of winter, but I still felt strange thinking something so-- I don't know. I asked Mike if that thought made me sound very American or very unamerican. He said "very American" after thinking about it, and I think he is right. Of course, shouting "Go Big Red" at a Slovak movie theater probably wasn't fooling anyone anyway.