hollyw

Same here. When I was in Algeria and it was about 100 degrees out my husband's mom used to get upset when I took water directly from the fridge to drink it. She said it was bad and would make me sick (upset stomach? sore throat? i dunno) and I needed to drink warmer liquids. I was like, I'll do a lot of things, but one thing I won't do is drink room temperature water when it's 100 degrees out. I'm hot. And if i get sick - so be it!

ALSO... I like this one: I really like popsicles. And those are cold. So my husband says not to eat them/eat them too fast because they're so cold. But when he gets out a mixing bowl full of ice cream and shoves it in his face everythings fine!

you guys are funny. lol

I was thinking more along the lines of expressions though rather than english screw ups, but these are kinda funny.

Yesterday he texted me "the gays think I should go to Alex Friday"

hahahaha that's great.

i can't think of any expressions that my husband uses..... but does anyone know the restaurant California Pizza Kitchen?

Well, he thought it was California Pizza Chicken for about 8 months

I've never been worried that my husband would find other women in the US attractive and leave me for them. Actually, the thought never even crossed my mind until I read this post. I guess I would have been worried about our relationship if that was an issue and wouldn't have filed the visa in the first place. Not picking on anyone, that's just my personaly opinion...

Before we left to visit his family in Algeria my parents (and some extended family) were worried about my safety - but then again, so was I. They didn't want me to go, even though they had been right next door in Morocco the year before. I think it had a lot to do with the terrorism that plagued Algeria when they were children. I think that image is set in their heads. Of course everything ended up being fine, but with all the bombings in Algeria lately I don't think I would go again any time soon... I'd like to wait for it to calm down a bit. That being said, I do think my family/friends would have had a MUCH bigger problem with my husband if I had met him on the internet or if he was still unemployed here (he's been here since November) and I was supporting him. The fact that we met when I was in France and he came here and had a job within a month and a half have made a BIG difference (in my opinion).

Everyone that my husband has met in the US has been nothing but nice to him. My family and friends welcomed him with open arms and everyone at his job loves him. His employer knows that he just came from Algeria and they have been wonderful to him. He was employee of the month in April and was chosen as employee of the quarter this past weekend and won a iPod shuffle and a weeks paid vacation!! He is 1/2 italian and he looks very much italian, perhaps this has something to do with the way people treat him - would people on the street treat him differently if they knew where he was from? Maybe...

I just texted my hubby and told him "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!!!"

and he wrote back

"you eat horses there?????"

My husband made horse for dinner one night when we were living in Paris. He got pissy when I told him it tasted like a pork chop.

I've felt bad ever since for eating horse... but it was right after I told him that I was an adventurous eater and would try anything. I should have said "not the cute animals"

I don't really eat pork anymore. I'll eat it if I'm out in a restaurant, but we don't cook it at home. I had to get used to checking on ingredient labels for pork. I also don't see my friends as much, but I think that's mostly because they're all in the city and I'm outside of the city. i still see my guy friends, although most of them are gay.

I think the biggest adjustments for me aren't cultural, just adjusting to married life. i have had to learn to COMPROMISE

Last night I went to look at the apartment we'll be moving into in Somerville (MA).

What neighborhood? I used to live in Teele Square... I miss it! The Somerville Theater, the library, Sound Bites (if you don't know about Sound Bites send me a PM and I'll tell you where it is; the owner is totally the Breakfast Nazi, he has all these rules lol!)

Today...going to the gym after work. That's my grand plan. It's still HOT here!

I love Sound Bites!!!! One of my friends used to live on Winter Hill and we used to go there allllllll the time.

We're going to be in Davis Square, so really close to Teele. It's going to be such a great change from being in the suburbs (don't people usually want to move OUT of the city?? I want to move back in!!!). I used to live in Coolidge Corner in Brookline so I'm excited to try out another part of Boston.

Last night I went to look at the apartment we'll be moving into in Somerville (MA). It's my mom's house that she bought after law school (a two family house) and my husband and I are going to rent the downstairs and my brother and his girlfriend and maybe a roomate or two will rent the upstairs (because it's a 4 bedroom). The downstairs apartment is a 3 bedroom and it's two stories... it's pretty nice!! The tenants there now haven't taken very good care of the outside of the house (the backyard that used to be very nice and green is all dirt.... the driveway is a two car driveway, but they've made it a three car by parking one in, what used to be, a garden.... etc) so we'll have some work to do. I can't wait to plant some flowers! The only nice one i saw was a red trumpet vine that had winded it's way along the front porch. They've also painted some of the rooms a very obnoxious shade of yellow, so that'll have to be painted over. But I'm really excited!!!!!

Right now we're living outside of the city and we only have one car at the moment, so it's pretty hard for us to get around, especially because we go in different directions to work and have different schedules. I have to drop him off early at the train and he has to wait for two hours at starbucks before work and i have to wait at night until 11/12 or later sometimes to pick him up. So it will be a breath of fresh air to have the T within walking distance and be able to go out and do stuff... right now all we have is the woods

So much stuff to do before the end of August! The summer is going by so fast

Wow what a great investment your mom made!!! I can't imagine living away from busses/trains, etc. Even though I never use them I still would feel suffocated due to the lack of options!!! I"m on the north shore in a wee little town on the water so it feels like I'm far away from the city but you can see it from the beach and we have a train station and busses and the t is closeby.

Near Ipswitch by any chance?? One of my older brothers and his family moved up there about ten years ago - I love it!

My husband loves 24, Prison Break, Lost, Heroes, anything on the National Geogrphic channel, the Planet Earth series, most stuff on the history channel, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the Cosby Show, aaaaaand the Girls Next Door................................. although he says he doesn't

PS my husband has decided that to watch all of this fabulous TV we're going to have to buy a HD LCD TV, at least 42 inches..........

Last night I went to look at the apartment we'll be moving into in Somerville (MA). It's my mom's house that she bought after law school (a two family house) and my husband and I are going to rent the downstairs and my brother and his girlfriend and maybe a roomate or two will rent the upstairs (because it's a 4 bedroom). The downstairs apartment is a 3 bedroom and it's two stories... it's pretty nice!! The tenants there now haven't taken very good care of the outside of the house (the backyard that used to be very nice and green is all dirt.... the driveway is a two car driveway, but they've made it a three car by parking one in, what used to be, a garden.... etc) so we'll have some work to do. I can't wait to plant some flowers! The only nice one i saw was a red trumpet vine that had winded it's way along the front porch. They've also painted some of the rooms a very obnoxious shade of yellow, so that'll have to be painted over. But I'm really excited!!!!!

Right now we're living outside of the city and we only have one car at the moment, so it's pretty hard for us to get around, especially because we go in different directions to work and have different schedules. I have to drop him off early at the train and he has to wait for two hours at starbucks before work and i have to wait at night until 11/12 or later sometimes to pick him up. So it will be a breath of fresh air to have the T within walking distance and be able to go out and do stuff... right now all we have is the woods

So much stuff to do before the end of August! The summer is going by so fast

Girls Next Door! We were watching that on Sunday night and Moh turned it off. He said the girls were too stupid for him to continue watching. I, personally, get a kick out of that show.

My husband loves 24, Prison Break, Lost, Heroes, anything on the National Geogrphic channel, the Planet Earth series, most stuff on the history channel, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the Cosby Show, aaaaaand the Girls Next Door................................. although he says he doesn't

haha, so do i!! it's pretty entertaining if you don't take them very seriously

i'm not sure if this is relevant because i'm not living in a muslim country, but i'm not muslim and i don't cover here. I don't really cover in Algeria either, but i did find that whenever i started to feel uncomfortable with the people staring, i could just throw on a djleba/abaya and no one gave me a second look. it was nice sometimes to feel like i blended in with everyone else, but most of the time it was too freakin' hot! i though it was interesting that people didn't notice me with the djleba because i'm still a strawberry blonde with hazel eyes and freckles, but i guess my husband said that people probably thought i was berber. i haven't ever worn a head scarf, it makes me feel very self conscious for some reason, even in a muslim country where half of the women you see are wearing one.

This makes me so sad ..... it must be just devastating to the algerian people

My husband loves 24, Prison Break, Lost, Heroes, anything on the National Geogrphic channel, the Planet Earth series, most stuff on the history channel, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the Cosby Show, aaaaaand the Girls Next Door................................. although he says he doesn't

anyone have a cold stone creamery near them?

Apple Pie a la Coldstone is BETTER THAN SEX!!!!

http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/icecream/..._creations.html

oh man... i have purposely never been to a cold stone because i know that i would never be able to stop.

each year i get closer and closer to caving in...

Have you ever tasted Ben and Jerry's Holy Cannoli? Yumm! I dunno if they still make that flavor or not as it's been a few years since I've eaten it.

Looks like Holy Cannoli is in the Ben and Jerry's flavor graveyard

http://www.benjerry.com/our_products/flavor_graveyard/

They have some other yummy looking flavors in there... i wonder if they'll ever bring them back from the dead

They've got some good ones out there still though! Brownie Batter, yummmmmmm..... their flavor generator is fun too!!!

Man, i don't know if i could handle teaching my husband to drive, i'm glad he already knew how! in fact, he's a valet here

One thing i was really surprised about though, when my husband went to take his drivers test, he decided to take it in french and it was a realllllllllllly old photocopy of a test that looked like it was from the 80's! remember when xerox machines used to print in that awful chunky purple ink?? it looked like that! so not only was it hard to read, but all the questions were about cars with manual transmissions. of course, he had only ever driven stick, but there were still some questions that really had him stumped. luckily the woman that was monitoring him was really busy and didn't notice that he went about 25 minutes over the time limit for the test or else he would have failed. and we would have had to pay the fees again!

Also, his driving test was really funny. it was pretty easy, but at one point the police officer in the passengers seat yells "STOP THE CAR!!!" he scared the sh!t out of me and my husband. i guess he had seen someone driving a car that he had FAILED earlier that day (imagine failing your driving test and then driving past the RMV later?? ballsy). he gets out of the car and makes the man call someone to come pick him up. the police man gets back in our car and rants about it the whole way back to the RMV, but thankfully passed my husband...

I'm counting down the minutes until i can get out of this office... have to be on the road by 4 to drive to the cape, I'm trying to make the 6:00 boat to the vineyard! woohoo!

yay for the weekend!!!

I'm bored.

Me too. It seems like half of the office took the week off and the other half is out on maternity leave.

Last night we walked to the esplanade in Boston for the fireworks - I haven't done that since I was a kid so it was a lot of fun and the fireworks were AMAZING!! Sooooo cool.

Sooooo instead of doing what little work I have, I'm planning our summer vacation - we've decided to go to Mexico. I've found a fantastic deal at a resort in Playa del Carmen, so hopefully we'll book the tickets tonight. I've been there a bunch of times with my family so I know it'll be a good time. Can't wait to get some sun, I was stuck in the office the whole month of June!

Oh Mexico sounds fun!!!!!!

I watched the Pops last night. I wanna be the cymbal guy. That guy looks like he has fun smashing the cymbals together!!!! My little daughter wants to be the t riangle person. lol

Yea I'm super excited. And my husband has been working days AND nights since he got here, so it'll be nice to spend more than an hour with each other.

When I was little I always wanted to be the conducter and whenever we used to go to the Pops or symphony hall i used to pretend to conduct the music.. in fact, i think i might have done a little conducting last night too

Tonight I'm going out for the first time in a LONGGGGGGG time to get sushi with some friends... can't wait!

This last hour of work has been dragginggggggggggggg....... 39 minutes!

I didn't really do anything different either. We spoke daily on the phone and occasionally online.

For those of you who are still waiting, I know how rough it is but believe me when I say as soon as your SO gets here the bad memories of waiting will fade quickly. Moh and I will talk about how it doesn't seem like it took that long once everything was said and done.

I don't remember doing anything different in particular. Although we were lucky to only be separated for about 5 months. He was not very internet savvy at that point, so we didn't chat or anything like that.

I was able to catch up on a lot of American TV and movies that I had missed though after being out of the country for 3 years. That was crucial for me.

Same. I think the only thing I did differently was spend more time on the computer using skype and more money on calling cards. We did long distance for about a year (but saw each other about every two months) and it took about two months to get our visa, so we didn't really have it that bad. I ordered a lot more take out food before he came. I spent a ton of time with my friends. I visited my grand parents in florida. Mostly I just tried to keep busy because i found that when i sat around the house the time passed much much slower.

When he came, i shoved some of my clothes over in the drawers. I might have cleaned. I can't remember. I did get my old desktop computer from high school out and set it up for him so he'd have his own computer and not have to use mine (he likes to use the computer and eat at the same time and it just drives me NUTS). Then my brother gave him his old laptop and xbox so he was alllllllllll set.

I'm bored.

Me too. It seems like half of the office took the week off and the other half is out on maternity leave.

Last night we walked to the esplanade in Boston for the fireworks - I haven't done that since I was a kid so it was a lot of fun and the fireworks were AMAZING!! Sooooo cool.

Sooooo instead of doing what little work I have, I'm planning our summer vacation - we've decided to go to Mexico. I've found a fantastic deal at a resort in Playa del Carmen, so hopefully we'll book the tickets tonight. I've been there a bunch of times with my family so I know it'll be a good time. Can't wait to get some sun, I was stuck in the office the whole month of June!

That is my #1 reason for not wanting to try Alli. No thanks on the ####### leakage.

i bought that new diet pill, alli, today. feel the burnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

Keep me posted about how that works. I've been thinking I might try it too.

Watch out for the ####### leakage!

ok i'm intrigued..... i took a look at the site. very interesting.

maybe if i was scared i was going to have "treatment effects" at work i would stop eating the cookies they put out at meetings.... ####### leakage is probably the best incentive i've ever heard of for cutting the fat outta my diet.

That's interesting, I've never heard of that... there is no state/city stamped on my husband's visa.

FYI my husband went through customs in Boston and it was great - fast and easy. He was out in the same amount of time as the rest of the flight.

yay congratulations!!!!!

pretty soon there will be so many of us in boston someone will have to organize a little get-together!

we tend to split everything since we're both (pretty much) in the same financial situation right now. When I was going back and forth to visit my husband in Paris for awhile, I would buy my plane ticket (which, at student prices, was dirt cheap) and he would pay for meals and things while I was there. it was pretty even. i paid for his plane ticket here and he paid all of the visa costs.

but if you're going to keep calling him your husband, you might try to keep in better contact with him...

i reallllllly hope my fiance is like you both!

also, would you be offended if you went to a dinner at your inlaws or friends and there was pork (but also other things to eat?)

yea, it's all new for me because we never ate halal meat in Paris (where there are tons of really nice halal butchers), but all of a sudden now we are just in our own house though, we don't worry about meat served in restaurants or other people's homes. either way is fine with me, except that it's a little out of the way to go to a seperate place to buy meat. but it's really fresh and we get these HUGE chicken breasts... my husband and i can split one for dinner and still have some left over! it's great.

I'm not muslim, so pork doesn't offend me. My husband just eats around it. A lot of times in restaurants i have to point out the dishes on the menu that contain pork because sometimes it's cleverly disguised as pancetta or prosciutto or chorizo pork isn't served a lot in my family though besides bacon (and we're never at my parents house early enough to catch that), so we never really have to worry about it.

Does anyone in the Boston area buy halal meat?? We've been buying meat at Zamzam Foods in Norwood which has been good, but we're moving to Somerville in September and it'll be pain to drive all the way out there... I've been looking at reviews on zabihah.com, but I'm just curious if anyone has been to any of the halal markets in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville area and liked what they found.