Things I learned Today

1. While wearing jeans on a rainy day....take caution. The ground is SOOO dirty and muddy and filthy that the back of your jeans will need to be sanitized before coming into the house. It rained all day and I walked around outside most of the day....my jeans were soaked with rain and dirt. Gross!

2. Finding powdered sugar in our city is like finding a needle in a hay stack. Seriously, I felt like I was on the Amazing Race today. I had some extra time, and had heard that one of the BIG shopping centers had powdered sugar on the first floor. (the import store is out of powdered sugar and Walmart doesn't carry it) I had never been to this shopping center so I thought I would check it out and "explore" a little while practicing my language. Let me say....huge shopping area. Row after row after row of food and vegetables then you get to the dry goods....all the while overwhelmed by the smells. I asked and I asked and I asked "do you have sugar, small, powdered sugar, that you use on top of cakes?" No, not here. The best is getting told to go in ALL directions, then backtracking, then retracing my steps. FINALLY I found the one man in the whole place who had powdered sugar!!! YEA!!

3. You never know what a day may bring....for the first time since we have been here, our import store had pop tarts. Rob bought 2 boxes. The joy this brings.....and we never ate pop tarts when we lived in OK. Go figure. Also, the small store in our apartment complex restocked on Cocacola Light for the first time in 6 months. (not to be confused with Diet Coke...not the same!!)

4. It is possible, in this country, to not be able to find any rice. I know this sounds crazy, but I wanted to make something tonight with rice. On my way home I stopped at the local market. No rice. WHAT!?!?! Where are we? The ladies inside kept pointing me to the rice noodles, but I didn't want noodles, I wanted rice. I said, "Tonight for dinner I want to make rice, or maybe fried rice, where can I find the rice?" They pointed me to the noodles. Obviously I had gone wrong in my communication somewhere. You see, there are different words in this language for cooked rice and uncooked rice. Thanks to the nice lady at my apt grocery store for telling me this. Turns out the fruit and veggie market didn't have any rice after all. I had to go to my small grocery store inside my apt. complex to find it. (because the first place has fruit and veggies, not rice)

5. Riding the electric bike in the rain is not fun. Cold. Wet. Rain in your contacts. Stupid rain pancho getting caught in the wind and almost pulling you off the bike....not enjoyable. However, I happened to be riding with a friend, and we stopped for some warm milk tea and a good laugh about how soaked we were....enjoyable.

6. I never knew why string beans were called string beans until I moved here. WOW! I didn't know what to do with them when I first bought them.....now I know.

7. My language is getting better. Tonight I went to the blind masseuse with a friend. (good thing they are all blind huh?....different post) As I laid there, there were 2 or 3 different conversations going on. Instead of the usual drone of the different language, my mind kept processing and I was understanding what was being said....one group talking about their kids schools and tuition, the ladies at the front desk talking about schedules and time, and my friend laughing and talking with her masseuse. The only problem....is now I can understand ALL they are saying. Before I left, one of the ladies in the shop said to me, "you are so beautiful and your face is so skinny, how strange the rest of you isn't." And on that encouraging note......

All in a day....phew, I am tired.