So, what should I do first here... always a dilemma. I guess I'll start with the good news, because that's what we do here at DAA (Dubai American Academy). This morning I got my very first phone call from friends or family! I was sitting at work and my phone rang (have I mentioned that I am required to have my phone on all day just in case they are looking for me) and it said unknown number. At home, I never answered those calls, I would just let it go to voicemail, but the Dubai Lisa has to answer all phone calls during work hours. It was Troy.
Now for the bad news, I pick up the phone and at the same time I am looking at my hotmail inbox and see a message from Progressive about my recent claim and a message from Troy with the subject line Please call me asap... I mean, I'm not a genius or anything, but between Troy calling and those messages, I'm imagining there was a problem with my car. While this is happening my boss is coming in and out of my office telling me there is going to be a fire drill, he is telling me which area I should go to and then I mention that I have to "sweep" the upstairs and he seems pretty confused, as he walked out he said something along the lines of, so we might need to rethink this if you are running towards the fire. Huh, good idea! So, back to the car, which I have been paying for each month as it sits at Troy's, was involved in a 3 car accident. Troy said he'd send some photos but it might make me cry.
Now, for more good news Dubai has been so stressful, that I cannot even be bothered to worry about this. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, the only part I feel bad about is that I can't take care of it myself and instead Troy is left to deal with the whole car, insurance, etc. Fun. I'm sure he misses me more and more every day.
I do have even more good news, Jessica and I rented a car for a month! This may not seem like a big deal, but the option of feeling somewhat independent is life changing. Last night we drove to the mall, yes the same on that is a 5 minute walk, for dinner. And, even better news, I found a salad that is similar to the 6th St. Pear and Walnut Salad. Fruit, nuts, cheese, add chicken and dressing on the side. Good times. The bad news with that, the place isn't attached to a hotel, therefore, no wine.
Back to work.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Mars? Coke? Anyone?
Yesterday I started my day at 5:45 roaming the streets searching for a taxi to drive me to the starting point of the Dubai Creek Striders, a running club in Dubai, that I wanted to try out for the first time.
When I arrived I was instantly intimidated, these were runners, not people that enjoy running, or casual trainers, full on Dubai Creek Strider Jerseys, heart monitors, you name it. I showed up right as the people were about to start running, I did a quick stretch (just kidding...) and joined the first group that was taking off. I read about the weekly run and e-mailed Malcolm, the group leader, and asked about the distance and the pace, he said we would be running 22km-24km's and people varied from sub 3 hour marathoners to people that work towards 6 hour marathons, so people of all shapes and sizes. Uh, right. So we take off, I have on my Nike iPod thing that I'm addicted to and we're running maybe 8 minute miles or so. Which is way faster than I would run 22kms, but I wanted to keep up with the group. So every so often we would stop at these water stops and somehow there were people that I never saw pass me already there, but I just sort of ignored it and thought I was just going a little crazy. At about the third stop, an hour into our run, I'm starting to feel pretty tired, we are at this little market and everyone walks in and buys Mars bars and I look over to where the drinks are being poured, it's Coke! So, apparently, here in Dubai it's not Power aid and gels, it's Coke and Mars bars to energize you....
At this point, I finally ask someone how they are getting to the stops in front of me, it was driving me crazy! And this woman looks at me sort of funny and says in her Australian accent, "Are you meant to be in the farther, faster group mate?" Uh, no. But at that point I felt so dumb that I just decided to stay with the "farther, faster group." So apparently how it works is, there are two groups and they do different routes to meet at the water stops at the same time. Needless to say the 22 km - 24 km turned out to be closer to 32 km - 34 km. Let me just tell you, the difference between running at 6:30 here and 9:30 is unbelievable! The heat and humidity go up so fast and with the direct sun, it feel as if you might die. I did get a great tour of the city, I saw the creek for the first time and the Souk's I'd like to go back. When I got home, I was too exhausted to do much more than quickly eat a few bites of an apple, a spoonful of peanut butter and a glass of water, take two Motrin's, throw myself in the shower, put on my robe and collapse into my bed. Around 11:30 I woke up to a bunch of texts from friends wondering if I was alive... which I was, barely. We went to lunch at Lime Tree Cafe, the best place ever it feels like a cafe that might be at home, and then to this beach resort to play volleyball and hang out. It was a great day... we followed up a great day with an evening out for a bunch of October birthday celebrations. I thought it was at a night club place, which I don't like, but found instead that it was more like a lounge bar on a cruise ship with live music. Ah, life in Dubai. Today I am hosting a "wine and cheese" social to ask new teachers how I can better support them as a counselor. Fun times.
When I arrived I was instantly intimidated, these were runners, not people that enjoy running, or casual trainers, full on Dubai Creek Strider Jerseys, heart monitors, you name it. I showed up right as the people were about to start running, I did a quick stretch (just kidding...) and joined the first group that was taking off. I read about the weekly run and e-mailed Malcolm, the group leader, and asked about the distance and the pace, he said we would be running 22km-24km's and people varied from sub 3 hour marathoners to people that work towards 6 hour marathons, so people of all shapes and sizes. Uh, right. So we take off, I have on my Nike iPod thing that I'm addicted to and we're running maybe 8 minute miles or so. Which is way faster than I would run 22kms, but I wanted to keep up with the group. So every so often we would stop at these water stops and somehow there were people that I never saw pass me already there, but I just sort of ignored it and thought I was just going a little crazy. At about the third stop, an hour into our run, I'm starting to feel pretty tired, we are at this little market and everyone walks in and buys Mars bars and I look over to where the drinks are being poured, it's Coke! So, apparently, here in Dubai it's not Power aid and gels, it's Coke and Mars bars to energize you....
At this point, I finally ask someone how they are getting to the stops in front of me, it was driving me crazy! And this woman looks at me sort of funny and says in her Australian accent, "Are you meant to be in the farther, faster group mate?" Uh, no. But at that point I felt so dumb that I just decided to stay with the "farther, faster group." So apparently how it works is, there are two groups and they do different routes to meet at the water stops at the same time. Needless to say the 22 km - 24 km turned out to be closer to 32 km - 34 km. Let me just tell you, the difference between running at 6:30 here and 9:30 is unbelievable! The heat and humidity go up so fast and with the direct sun, it feel as if you might die. I did get a great tour of the city, I saw the creek for the first time and the Souk's I'd like to go back. When I got home, I was too exhausted to do much more than quickly eat a few bites of an apple, a spoonful of peanut butter and a glass of water, take two Motrin's, throw myself in the shower, put on my robe and collapse into my bed. Around 11:30 I woke up to a bunch of texts from friends wondering if I was alive... which I was, barely. We went to lunch at Lime Tree Cafe, the best place ever it feels like a cafe that might be at home, and then to this beach resort to play volleyball and hang out. It was a great day... we followed up a great day with an evening out for a bunch of October birthday celebrations. I thought it was at a night club place, which I don't like, but found instead that it was more like a lounge bar on a cruise ship with live music. Ah, life in Dubai. Today I am hosting a "wine and cheese" social to ask new teachers how I can better support them as a counselor. Fun times.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Dog River in Dubai...
For those of you that know my Saturday lifestyle in HR, you'll be happy to know that last night I found the Dubain version of Dog River, the local coffee shop. Linds and I would wake up nearly every Saturday morning, daily during the summer, head to Dog River, drink our coffee, talk to everyone that wandered in and eventually leave when we got hungry for lunch. Hours and hours of endless entertainment, internet surfing and parallel conversations. I think the most common comment was "it's so nice, we should do something outside" which somehow led to wine tasting... the black and white party, etc.
Anyways, yesterday after work, I asked a friend of mine to take me to the Dubai Central Post Office to pick up a pkg from my sister, I was so excited to get it! I actually made a birthday list for the first time in maybe 20 years and Kristin sent it all to me, Luna Bars and Conditioner, I know, exciting! I can't even explain how happy I was to get a few things from home. So, after we did that, we decided to go down to the Marina, which I have been to one other time, but it was during Ramadan, and just seemed like another row of restaurants, coffee shops etc. It was also about 8 zillion degrees the last time I was there, so I was irritated in general. Well, last night I actually felt like I found my favorite place in Dubai. It was just like Dog River, well, like I said the Dubain version of Dog River. You just have to exchange the palm trees for fir trees, buildings for mountains, sea for river, yachts for kayaks but, you get the idea. First we had dinner at this little Japanese place then we went and had coffee at Starbucks (Starbucks is the only place that always has soy milk) and sat by this fountain and watched people and talked for hours. I really never wanted to leave. It almost reminded me of the fountain in college where I used to go "study".
So, it's taking forever, but I am finally finding things about Dubai that I really like. The weather is finally cooling down and I'm also one step closer to getting my Resident Visa, which means nothing to me except, then I'll be able to get a car. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to do daily, little life tasks when you don't have a car! I mean, when's the last time you've tried to steal a grocery cart only to be caught at the exit and asked to return it... I think it took us 20 minutes to walk home, less than 1/2 a mile, and I'm not exaggerating. We were carrying a blender.... The other ridiculously annoying thing about Dubai is that we have no internet at home, the companies are supposedly fighting over who gets to supply internet to our building and it will all be settled in about two weeks. Right. Same story since mid-August and no progress has been made.
I'm also becoming a bit more confrontational in this town. A few weeks ago I had this small leak in my bathroom. The water was just dripping down, so I asked our building manager to have someone take a look at it. Three days later I had an AWFUL day at work, and by awful I mean worse than usual, they are all really, really, really bad. So I walk in ask if it's fixed yet, just like I had been doing every day, and he says yes. I grab my keys, say thank you and go up to my apartment. I walk in and hear this sound, so I go to the bathroom and there is literally water pouring out from the bathroom and into my bedroom. I just stared at it for a second and then went out to the other room and called a friend of mine and told him he had to come up right that second. He comes up and he just looked at me, he knew I'd had a horrible day at work, and then I just walked him back to the bathroom. He immediately asked if they were coming up to fix it, of course I hadn't bothered to tell them yet.... Instead, I let the water run all over while I opened my last bottle of wine and poured myself a glass. Even though it was Ramadan, I had my glass in hand and instead of being nice at all, I went down there screaming like a crazy person and he says he'll send up someone to fix it. The security guard shows up, apparently he is also the plumber, with some guy, they look at it, move the ceiling tiles around and then turn off the water. They leave my apartment an absolute mess with water everywhere, mud from their shoes etc. I go back down and am again, screaming at the building manager that he needs to have someone come and mop up the water, clean my floors and oh, I don't know, get my water turned back on? He says no, the cleaners have left, you'll need to do that yourself ma'am. I think I said something along the lines of "I don't care if you are personally mopping up my floors with your own clothes, I expect that somebody is up there to clean this up right now." Then I stormed off. Again, the security guard is apparently also the cleaner, he showed up and miraculously found a mop, bucket and was able to clean it all up. My friend's comment was only, uh, for tonight, you're on suicide watch. Within days.... I had my water back. Nice. I hope when I get home I am able to remember that you can actually ask for things to get done and they do, as opposed to this constant bantering that seems to be normal here, acutally, not only normal, but expected....
Ahhhh, the joys of living abroad.
Anyways, yesterday after work, I asked a friend of mine to take me to the Dubai Central Post Office to pick up a pkg from my sister, I was so excited to get it! I actually made a birthday list for the first time in maybe 20 years and Kristin sent it all to me, Luna Bars and Conditioner, I know, exciting! I can't even explain how happy I was to get a few things from home. So, after we did that, we decided to go down to the Marina, which I have been to one other time, but it was during Ramadan, and just seemed like another row of restaurants, coffee shops etc. It was also about 8 zillion degrees the last time I was there, so I was irritated in general. Well, last night I actually felt like I found my favorite place in Dubai. It was just like Dog River, well, like I said the Dubain version of Dog River. You just have to exchange the palm trees for fir trees, buildings for mountains, sea for river, yachts for kayaks but, you get the idea. First we had dinner at this little Japanese place then we went and had coffee at Starbucks (Starbucks is the only place that always has soy milk) and sat by this fountain and watched people and talked for hours. I really never wanted to leave. It almost reminded me of the fountain in college where I used to go "study".
So, it's taking forever, but I am finally finding things about Dubai that I really like. The weather is finally cooling down and I'm also one step closer to getting my Resident Visa, which means nothing to me except, then I'll be able to get a car. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to do daily, little life tasks when you don't have a car! I mean, when's the last time you've tried to steal a grocery cart only to be caught at the exit and asked to return it... I think it took us 20 minutes to walk home, less than 1/2 a mile, and I'm not exaggerating. We were carrying a blender.... The other ridiculously annoying thing about Dubai is that we have no internet at home, the companies are supposedly fighting over who gets to supply internet to our building and it will all be settled in about two weeks. Right. Same story since mid-August and no progress has been made.
I'm also becoming a bit more confrontational in this town. A few weeks ago I had this small leak in my bathroom. The water was just dripping down, so I asked our building manager to have someone take a look at it. Three days later I had an AWFUL day at work, and by awful I mean worse than usual, they are all really, really, really bad. So I walk in ask if it's fixed yet, just like I had been doing every day, and he says yes. I grab my keys, say thank you and go up to my apartment. I walk in and hear this sound, so I go to the bathroom and there is literally water pouring out from the bathroom and into my bedroom. I just stared at it for a second and then went out to the other room and called a friend of mine and told him he had to come up right that second. He comes up and he just looked at me, he knew I'd had a horrible day at work, and then I just walked him back to the bathroom. He immediately asked if they were coming up to fix it, of course I hadn't bothered to tell them yet.... Instead, I let the water run all over while I opened my last bottle of wine and poured myself a glass. Even though it was Ramadan, I had my glass in hand and instead of being nice at all, I went down there screaming like a crazy person and he says he'll send up someone to fix it. The security guard shows up, apparently he is also the plumber, with some guy, they look at it, move the ceiling tiles around and then turn off the water. They leave my apartment an absolute mess with water everywhere, mud from their shoes etc. I go back down and am again, screaming at the building manager that he needs to have someone come and mop up the water, clean my floors and oh, I don't know, get my water turned back on? He says no, the cleaners have left, you'll need to do that yourself ma'am. I think I said something along the lines of "I don't care if you are personally mopping up my floors with your own clothes, I expect that somebody is up there to clean this up right now." Then I stormed off. Again, the security guard is apparently also the cleaner, he showed up and miraculously found a mop, bucket and was able to clean it all up. My friend's comment was only, uh, for tonight, you're on suicide watch. Within days.... I had my water back. Nice. I hope when I get home I am able to remember that you can actually ask for things to get done and they do, as opposed to this constant bantering that seems to be normal here, acutally, not only normal, but expected....
Ahhhh, the joys of living abroad.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Tan = Happy
So, as I previously wrote, or at least thought, I will try not to be too much of a bore with lots of details and pictures of all the cool things I saw in Sri Lanka... instead, I'll share the parts of the trip that were the most interesting. I'll start by saying that when I booked my flight, I checked and rechecked the flight I was supposed to get and still managed to book the wrong one.... A friend of mine did eventually convince me to change it, something about landing in Colombo alone in the middle of the night and hiring a driver and going through the jungle to meet everyone else just seemed like a bad idea. Especially with the whole fighting thing going on. There was a group of about 10 of us that loaded into a school bus, were dropped off at the Sharjah airport and boarded a middle of the night flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka.
When we arrived, after quite a bit of haggling, we ended up on this Vegas Style bus with all our luggage shoved in, girls dancing around, hanging out the windows, camera flashes every two seconds and all I could think was really? How am I ever going to survive a week of this? People are way, way, way too excited. I just put on my sunglasses and closed my eyes. We did have the opportunity to use the classy bathrooms on the side of the road, yes, it was just a hole in the ground. We arrived in Kandy, this crazy little town in the hills, I wasn't too impressed. I did get to lay by the pool and saw a few cool Buddhist temples, but I was ready to leave the next day. We stopped off at the Elephant Orphanage, which was basically too depressing for words.
Five of us hired a driver to take us to Adam's Peak and then on to Unawatuna, a beach town on the southern coast, we did decide to avoid the east coast, you know the risk of dying and all. Adam's peak was amazing, my packing job was not. I brought all this random hiking gear, winter clothes, head lamps, etc. to Dubai just in case I decided to hike. Well, in my haste of packing for my trip in under 10 minutes (I chose to go to Ikea for the day instead of pack my backpack... which, for those of you that were in Florence would recognize...) I didn't bring ANYTHING to hike in. It was unbelievable, if I was at home, I would have been so prepared for an international trip, but the Dubai Lisa doesn't seem to know how to be prepared for anything anymore, I was lucky I had my passport. The hike was literally 4800+ steps up to a well, peak, and another Buddhist temple. This girl Michelle, aka Irish, and I decided it was necessary to practically race to the top, because if we did, the sun would totally come up earlier... we were the first ones up, along with this 20 year old college guy we met on the plane, and were freezing as we waited for the sun to rise, I didn't have a melt down as I did at Kilimanjaro, so that was nice.
The road to the beach was ridiculously windy and the driving was a slow go, except that it felt like we were going a zillion miles an hour, on the wrong side of the road, passing vehicles and getting passed and basically narrowly avoiding head on collisions at every turn. It was sort of like an out of body experience watching it all happen from above, it wasn't until I realized I was actually in the van that I began to get scared for my life. We saw tons of tea plantations, locals, tiny towns and the VIP rest stops, they were nice, kind of like the equivalent of finding a McDonalds bathroom in Europe, very exciting.
We then went to the beach where we basically stayed at the nicest resort in town (amazingly cheap) and lounged around for 4 or 5 days eating buffet meals, a typical breakfast consisted of an omelet, french toast, regular toast, some fruit, coffee, and that was just round one, seriously? Dinner was the same way, I basically ate more than I thought humanly possible. A couple of nights there was this band, which was awesome. We sat around singing and cracking up for hours. Even in the nicest of places, we were still in Sri Lanka, and there were creepy bugs, a spider that literally terrified me to the point that I thought my throat was closing and then the cockroach incident. So, Michelle and I were sharing a room and had the funniest time. One night I was sound asleep and she basically punched me and said, oh you are still here, I screamed like a crazy person and then was up forever laughing. I woke up a few hours later being eaten alive by mosquitoes and really, really hot. I basically threw a fit right then and there. The next day we got one of those mosquito net things and as I was all tucked into bed, she was still getting ready for bed and saw a cockroach. She was outside the net so I just sat up and started directing her what she should do to make sure the cockroach didn't get into any of my things. I was saying things like, if you'd put up my shoes, that'd be great, could you close my backpack?, will you lift up my clothes and shake them out? I think she was so freaked out she just did it. Lucky for me since there was no chance I would be getting out of my bed.
The weather was both really hot and really rainy. One day when half the crew decided to head out snorkeling at this private beach and it was just dumping rain, a friend and I decided to hang back and just lay around. Eventually the sun came out and he wanted to start drinking, it was way too early in the day, but eventually I agreed, I know, shocking. I ordered a vodka soda, again surprising, and he ordered a Strawberry Daiquiri, figuring, hey we're on the beach get something tropical, the waiter did what we started to call the head boggle, and said oh yes, sir, no problem sir, we can do that. Next thing you know this yellowy colored icy drink comes out in a martini glass, my friend tastes it and says "Yes, very good, this is perfect." while I am thinking it looks like the worst drink ever. Once the waiter goes away, my initial thought is confirmed. Terrible. But, really, if that's the biggest complaint of the trip... I managed to burn myself so badly on the last day that it seriously hurts to sit down or lean back, which made for a great flight home. On the way to the airport we stopped in this town, I can't remember the name, to check it out and have some dinner. Every restaurant has the same menu for about the same prices and we're sitting at this one overlooking the beach, umbrellas in the sand, the whole thing and I look over and there is this creepy mural of the tsunami and people swimming in the ocean and standing on the roof tops, eerie. We decided to go to dinner someplace else. While we were sitting at dinner in this open air restaurant type of place that was pretty sketchy, rain was dumping down and the facilities left a lot to be desired, a friend of mine said "You might want to just lean forward a bit, there's a cockroach right there behind you and I ate my meal there anyways." Let's just say the expectations for cleanliness are at an all time low.
In my typical shopping style, I avoided the bargaining, cheap clothes and jewelry that everyone else purchased, and instead bought overpriced souvenirs at the Colombo airport after eating a snack and having a drink at 2:00 in the morning at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
At the end of the day, Sri Lanka was a great trip, good people, ridiculously inexpensive and a great tan. The surreal part of the trip was that when I got off the plane, I thought, ugh, it's so nice to be home...
I hope to add some pictures soon!
When we arrived, after quite a bit of haggling, we ended up on this Vegas Style bus with all our luggage shoved in, girls dancing around, hanging out the windows, camera flashes every two seconds and all I could think was really? How am I ever going to survive a week of this? People are way, way, way too excited. I just put on my sunglasses and closed my eyes. We did have the opportunity to use the classy bathrooms on the side of the road, yes, it was just a hole in the ground. We arrived in Kandy, this crazy little town in the hills, I wasn't too impressed. I did get to lay by the pool and saw a few cool Buddhist temples, but I was ready to leave the next day. We stopped off at the Elephant Orphanage, which was basically too depressing for words.
Five of us hired a driver to take us to Adam's Peak and then on to Unawatuna, a beach town on the southern coast, we did decide to avoid the east coast, you know the risk of dying and all. Adam's peak was amazing, my packing job was not. I brought all this random hiking gear, winter clothes, head lamps, etc. to Dubai just in case I decided to hike. Well, in my haste of packing for my trip in under 10 minutes (I chose to go to Ikea for the day instead of pack my backpack... which, for those of you that were in Florence would recognize...) I didn't bring ANYTHING to hike in. It was unbelievable, if I was at home, I would have been so prepared for an international trip, but the Dubai Lisa doesn't seem to know how to be prepared for anything anymore, I was lucky I had my passport. The hike was literally 4800+ steps up to a well, peak, and another Buddhist temple. This girl Michelle, aka Irish, and I decided it was necessary to practically race to the top, because if we did, the sun would totally come up earlier... we were the first ones up, along with this 20 year old college guy we met on the plane, and were freezing as we waited for the sun to rise, I didn't have a melt down as I did at Kilimanjaro, so that was nice.
The road to the beach was ridiculously windy and the driving was a slow go, except that it felt like we were going a zillion miles an hour, on the wrong side of the road, passing vehicles and getting passed and basically narrowly avoiding head on collisions at every turn. It was sort of like an out of body experience watching it all happen from above, it wasn't until I realized I was actually in the van that I began to get scared for my life. We saw tons of tea plantations, locals, tiny towns and the VIP rest stops, they were nice, kind of like the equivalent of finding a McDonalds bathroom in Europe, very exciting.
We then went to the beach where we basically stayed at the nicest resort in town (amazingly cheap) and lounged around for 4 or 5 days eating buffet meals, a typical breakfast consisted of an omelet, french toast, regular toast, some fruit, coffee, and that was just round one, seriously? Dinner was the same way, I basically ate more than I thought humanly possible. A couple of nights there was this band, which was awesome. We sat around singing and cracking up for hours. Even in the nicest of places, we were still in Sri Lanka, and there were creepy bugs, a spider that literally terrified me to the point that I thought my throat was closing and then the cockroach incident. So, Michelle and I were sharing a room and had the funniest time. One night I was sound asleep and she basically punched me and said, oh you are still here, I screamed like a crazy person and then was up forever laughing. I woke up a few hours later being eaten alive by mosquitoes and really, really hot. I basically threw a fit right then and there. The next day we got one of those mosquito net things and as I was all tucked into bed, she was still getting ready for bed and saw a cockroach. She was outside the net so I just sat up and started directing her what she should do to make sure the cockroach didn't get into any of my things. I was saying things like, if you'd put up my shoes, that'd be great, could you close my backpack?, will you lift up my clothes and shake them out? I think she was so freaked out she just did it. Lucky for me since there was no chance I would be getting out of my bed.
The weather was both really hot and really rainy. One day when half the crew decided to head out snorkeling at this private beach and it was just dumping rain, a friend and I decided to hang back and just lay around. Eventually the sun came out and he wanted to start drinking, it was way too early in the day, but eventually I agreed, I know, shocking. I ordered a vodka soda, again surprising, and he ordered a Strawberry Daiquiri, figuring, hey we're on the beach get something tropical, the waiter did what we started to call the head boggle, and said oh yes, sir, no problem sir, we can do that. Next thing you know this yellowy colored icy drink comes out in a martini glass, my friend tastes it and says "Yes, very good, this is perfect." while I am thinking it looks like the worst drink ever. Once the waiter goes away, my initial thought is confirmed. Terrible. But, really, if that's the biggest complaint of the trip... I managed to burn myself so badly on the last day that it seriously hurts to sit down or lean back, which made for a great flight home. On the way to the airport we stopped in this town, I can't remember the name, to check it out and have some dinner. Every restaurant has the same menu for about the same prices and we're sitting at this one overlooking the beach, umbrellas in the sand, the whole thing and I look over and there is this creepy mural of the tsunami and people swimming in the ocean and standing on the roof tops, eerie. We decided to go to dinner someplace else. While we were sitting at dinner in this open air restaurant type of place that was pretty sketchy, rain was dumping down and the facilities left a lot to be desired, a friend of mine said "You might want to just lean forward a bit, there's a cockroach right there behind you and I ate my meal there anyways." Let's just say the expectations for cleanliness are at an all time low.
In my typical shopping style, I avoided the bargaining, cheap clothes and jewelry that everyone else purchased, and instead bought overpriced souvenirs at the Colombo airport after eating a snack and having a drink at 2:00 in the morning at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
At the end of the day, Sri Lanka was a great trip, good people, ridiculously inexpensive and a great tan. The surreal part of the trip was that when I got off the plane, I thought, ugh, it's so nice to be home...
I hope to add some pictures soon!
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