Amerikkalainen*

* Finnish for American.

Drew wanted to go to Captain Hook's ... so that's what we did. It's an American-kitsch place based on the Disney movie Captain Hook, but with posters of Johnny Depp's pirate movies and others around. They're reputed to have great ribs, but last night were out of them, so I took Drew's suggestion and had the fissherman's platter ... lots of fried shrimp and calamari, with coleslaw and cross-cut fries. I had Finnish beer (amber, very smooth) to wash it all down.

Drum lesson was fun ... Drew's teacher is a young music student who has played with some of the Finnish jazz greats. It was even more interesting to hear/see Drew and his teacher converse and interact in fluent Finnish. Barbara and I just sat over to the side (with headphones to dampen the sound) and watched.

My sleep cycle is still outta whack, and I found myself wide awake at 3am again. So I got up and reviewed German grammar for an hour or so, and read a little bit before dozing off again. Around 7:00, I heard the family stirring so got up to see Drew off for school.

This afternoon, Steve is having two Vietnamese students over to go through some photos he has from when his father was in the Air Force during the Viet Nam war. One or the other of the students is from the area of the Air Force Base, and Steve is curious to see if they can identify some places and maybe even people ... it is kind of a "small world" situation.

It has gotten cold (around Zero, Fahrenheit) but is not supposed to snow again till next week. I'm told we may see some sun today, but it's only Noon and it just got really light a little bit ago, so I'm still waiting.