Spiders!

OK, there is actually a good side and a bad side to this blog post. However, they both involve spiders.

First, the good side...my friend Stephanie's daughter, Sophia, is just adorable. Here is a recent photo of Sophia dressed up in a spider costume.

There is a link in the right hand column to Stephanie's blog about her life and experiences living here in India. She has been here a little over a year (unfortunately, just started writing her blog), and she is living, breathing proof that someone who has lived in central Illinois can survive here in Chennai. I am so fortunate that our husbands work for the same company, and even though our friendship has just began, I know it will be a friendship for life. That is one of the awesome things about being an ISE or ex-pat...you meet wonderful people from all over. Just in the last year, I have met numerous people from every nook and corner of the world...I now have friends scattered everywhere and with the internet and e-mail, it is possible to easily stay in touch with everyone...both old and new friends.

Well, I'm sure you all remember my post about my friend with the gecko on the lint roller. If you are new to reading my blog, look under July's posts and read the post titled India Wildlife for the story about the gecko. Anyway, a link to Danie's blog is also in the right hand column. Danie was the first person I met after moving to Chennai. I will forever be thankful and grateful to her that she decided to stay around this summer. If it wasn't for her, I'm sure that my first couple of months here would not have gone as smooth. Anyway, she is definitely another friend for life.

However, on to the bad side of this post...this friend Danie has dedicated her most recent post on her blog to Steve. If you have been following along, you will know that the snakes...but especially the geckos have just about freaked my husband out (side note...we haven't had any geckos in the house for about a week now...I think that they were just all in here when we moved in and now that we have got them all out...or killed them...that maybe we now will only have one every now and then). Anyway, the latest thing for my husband to get freaked about (and OK, I must admit, I'm freaked about this myself) is GIGANTIC spiders. Gecko/Snake Danie (by the way, last time I checked she was up to 14 snakes on her property since March) had this spider in her house.

So now Gecko/Snake Danie will be referred to as Gecko/Snake/Spider Danie. I think I'll just shorten her nickname to GSS Danie. Anyway, back to the spider. She said that this thing was almost as big as her hand (you can all read her blog and send her comments about why her hand wasn't in the photo as a reference to how large this spider actually was). Anyway, if it wasn't for the fact that I can see the eyes glowing in the photo, I would just think GSS Danie was just starting to decorate a little early for Halloween. Our Australian friend wasn't at all fazed by this...she says that giant spiders are common in Australia. Yikes, and I always thought that Australia would be an easy place to live.

Anyway, all of this is once again one of the reasons why we get paid extra to live here, and why we get paid to go on vacation out of India...or at least that's what I keep telling myself over and over and over and over and over again. Anyway, the countdown has begun...Steve and I are leaving in a couple of weeks to go to Dubai for a few days. For those of you who are not so good with world geography...Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates, which is in the Middle East next to Saudi Arabia. In recent years, Dubai has become a big tourist destination and is famous for building their own islands shaped like palm trees in order to give themselves more coast line. Their mall also has an indoor snow ski slope. Anyway, we are definitely looking forward to getting away for a few days!