A Day at the Beach Day

SCUBA

Today I went SCUBA diving for the first time in quite a while. It was a blast. It was my first time to dive in salt water. The water was the most clear I have ever dove in. There were so many fish. I saw a Napoleon Wrasse. I saw Clown fish hiding in the sea anemone. I saw an eel swimming among the coral. We dove to the ship wreck which is massive as you are swimming beside, and under it. It sits on two reefs and there is a spot at 25m down where you can swim beneath it. It was incredible. My favorite was that I got to see an octopus which was a brilliant crimson color settle upon the coral, settle into itself and change color and textures, matching the coral around him. It was incredible. It was definitely a day of firsts for me. I cannot wait to get my wife certified and take her down there with me.

The Infantry and the Pedi

Yesterday afternoon we spent at the beach.  When we returned home, all seemed well and good.  We unloaded our stuff, skyped.  It was after the skype call that we noticed it...an army of ants were moving through our apartment!  I have never seen so many ants in my life.  They were coming out of the floor at the door of our bedroom, moving through the hall, into the kitchen, around the floor board, up the cabinet, across the counter and going down behind the counter right by the sink.  There were millions!  They were not getting into anything, not even looking at the food, just were just passing through.  Once they realized that we had discovered them, they rapidly began to decrease in numbers.  By the time we got our cameras, their line was not nearly as thick, but we were still able to snag this photo of their masses.

We quickly grabbed our highly toxic cleaner and sprayed them with it.  Hundreds died on contact.  We then ran to our local market and bought some bug killer (and some falafel while we were at it).  We returned, cleaned up the dead ants and sprayed their entrance and exit in case more decided to show up.

This morning Andrew went scuba diving.  He has been wanting to go since we arrived here.  He finally got the chance, but this left me all alone for the morning.  I slept in, cleaned up the house a bit and then decided to take my first outing by myself and go get my nails done.  My heart was racing as I walked up the street to hail a taxi.  When one arrived, I could barely slow my breathing enough to tell him where I wanted to go, "Burger King" (not really where I was going, but easy enough to say and close to my final location).  I made it there without a hitch, but the lights were off at the salon I wanted to go to.  I had made it this far, might as well try the door.  It was open!  See, here at the female salons, they black out the windows, either with tint or curtains or even newspapers, so people cannot see the women inside and I could not tell if they were open or not.  I got across that I wanted to get my nails done.  I guess usually people make reservations, so they were a little confused that I wanted it done now.  I got the lovely blue taken off my fingernails and got this pink put on my toenails.  

Unfortunately I did not meet any women in the salon like I had hoped.  It was such a big salon, they have different rooms for each thing.  Like a room for nails, a room for massage, a room for hair cuts, etc. There were other women there but no one else getting their nails done.  I was able to talk with the lady doing my nails which was fun, but she was from another country and basically works 24-7 while she is here.

It was a fun experience.  There is a salon very close to our apartment that I will probably go to next time.  I wanted the experience of taking a taxi by myself and going to a nicer salon for the first time.  

Language

To help us in learning the language, we use these things call lexicarrys.  Basically this is a book with lots of comic strips in it, but rather than have their words in the bubbles, it is blank so our language helper can fill in what local people would say in that situation.  In theory, this sounds like a great idea.  Unfortunately, I do not believe that our language helper has ever seen a comic strip so he really does not understand the concept.  This morning our lexicarry strip was of a person who said something that the other person could not understand.  To fill in the bubble, one would need to say..."I do not understand.  Please repeat."  or something of that nature.  This was a disaster!  We spent over thirty minutes trying to explain to our non-english speaking helper what we wanted.  Rather than telling us how to say "Please repeat that," he would simply just keep repeating himself!  He understood that we wanted the words repeated, but he just could not grasp that we wanted to know how to say "please repeat."  To add to this mess, script is read from right to left here unlike in the States where we read left to right.  These comic strips are drawn out left to right but our helper kept trying to look at them right to left.

A tiring day with a few tears of frustration shed, but in the end, I think we have the word for "repeat."

First Impressions

After three days of attempting to get this online, I finally present to you our first video.  Still haven't quite figured out how to get it on my video page, and I am not sure that there is any volume.  None the less, I hope you enjoy and get to see a few of our first impressions.

Time

Today we found out the time changed.  Except it changed on Thursday night/Friday morning and it is now Saturday evening.  We didn't find out that the time changed until after we arrived an hour and a half early to dinner at some friends' house.  Guess we'll have to stay up an hour later tonight to get back on schedule :)

More Like Home

Since my last post, I have been pleasantly surprised by a few great finds.  I have found two table runners, one for the newly purchased coffee table and one for the dinning room table.  Still need other things to liven up the tables, but they are looking better already!

Coffee Table - Runner with Lantern and Basket

Dinning Room Table Runner

I was incredibly encouraged and blessed this afternoon!  I posted last about how I forgot my measuring cups and did not think I would be able to find any here since they use the metric system.  Well, to my surprise, without even looking I found two different places that had measuring cups, actual cup measurements!  These are not like the cups I forgot back home, but they will work just fine.  :)  I am so excited.  I bought both of the ones I found.  One measures up to 1 1/2 cups and the other measures to 4 cups.  I think I'm going to try to make cookies tomorrow!  Nothing like a good cookie to go with your language learning.