Stupid lack-of-internet...

Well, the internet stopped working yesterday around lunchtime and I haven’t been able to find another signal yet. As you can imagine, I am pretty much dying. Heh. It was bad enough trying to adjust when I did have access, now I can’t talk to my family either. Not good news. :(

Anyway, So what I decided to do was to write anyway and then just post it the next time I have access.

Last night Stu, Kaden, and I, and two other “new” guys to "the job", Shane and Nick, went to this resturant called the Lebanese Flower. I’d heard good things about it before and then Stu went there for lunch a few days ago and came home and said it was the best food he’d ever eaten. So I had to see for myself.

We ordered the Flower Grill, which is basically just a spread of a bunch of Lebanese-type food so you can get a taste of it, and, since I’ve been wanting to try one since I’d heard about them, I had to have a Shawarma too. The Shawarma was every bit as good as they say, and since it is Arabic, it is a very cheap option if you are going to get something to eat here. Not that we have found that ANY food is very unreasonable, in fact, we’ve been thrilled at the prices we have found. Especially since the presentation and service here are like NOTHING you’d ever find in the States, even if you did pay top dollar for it.

After the meal, Shane ordered Shisha. It is flavored tobacco without all the chemical additives in it that normal cigarette tobacco has. We had Grape flavored. It is smoked out of a Hookah, which, for those who haven’t been to a college Frat party, is a two-foot tall slender vase-like stand made of glass or metal or a combination of both and it has a long tube that comes out of it with which you inhale the smoke. The tobacco is heated by coals that are placed in tin foil. Anyway, it is just one of those things. We were sitting there at dinner and Shane pointed out that here we were dining on traditional Arabic cuisine, in the Middle East and that we were doing something that 95% of the people we know would never have the opportunity to do. It’s easy to forget that we aren’t just hanging out in a heavily Muslim-populated American city.

I miss Boise though. I miss our friends and family, my job. I miss being able to drive and feeling safe doing it. I miss our carpeted apartment. And conversing with other Americans that I can understand easily. Between talking to Kaden all day and then with the Arabs that come in to fix things in the apartment, when I do finally see a person who speaks English well, I find myself talking to them in broken English. With Kaden and the Pakistanis, you use just as much English as you need to get the point across, then here comes an American and I say, “You want drink?”

Sigh…

It feels better the more I get out. It’s less scary every day. I still don’t feel good enough about being out that I can actually do much with just myself and the baby, but it will come.
In other news, my son just got a black eye… yeah. He started pulling up on everything but hasn’t mastered “balance” yet. He was up on the coffee table and went to reach for something and slipped and cracked his eye right on the edge of the table. You know, the sharp part. So he screamed his head off and then wouldn’t let me hold an ice pack on it. It has swelled up already. Poor baby. So we cuddled and then he promptly decided it was time for a bottle and to relax.

As for me, I am working on my teeny tiny cup of now cold coffee. We have no TV still and I finished the book I was reading, so it is time for something new. Love you all!