Okay, I got a little out of order because of my rant about the internet... Sunday night (Monday morning) about 12:30 was when the flame went out of the furnace, and it was also my brother’s birthday. That also was the day the internet was not working, at all. Sometimes it is inconsistent, or on-and-off, Monday I made a point of trying to call him on skype. Which I actually did--in my haste I mis-calculated the time-difference by eight hours and called him at 1:00 in the morning his time! But in the afternoon (which would have been his morning) the internet was dysfunctional.
So, Monday it was cold and we stayed around the house most of the day, working on projects for The Bank and our language lessons. We went out to the market in the afternoon, which is actually a walk to three different places--the market, which is a small neighborhood store--more like a convenience store but you can’t buy gasoline there--where we can buy toilet paper and soap and rice and noodles and tea (actually you can buy tea about anywhere here) and potatoes. We walk to the bread bakery to buy hot, fresh out of the oven bread, which is why we walk there! And we walk to one other shop to buy meat. Actually this is the first time we have been to the butcher’s shop.
Note to visitors--the word for “shop” (butcher shop, shoe shop, tire shop) is pronounced seh-hee. It is spelled sexi. And you see it all over, so try to suppress all giggles--thanks.
The woman at the shop is very nice, we laugh about how much to purchase and the fact we don’t we speak each other’s language. The exchange is quite pleasant, although if you’ve never been to a third-world butcher shop it’s not for the faint of heart. Or stomach. (rabbit head on the floor, wood chopping block beyond description, plenty of blood. Sorry.) We asked for our meat to be ground, which she did right in front of us. We finished our transaction and headed home mouths’ watering in anticipation of our first Hamburger in more than three weeks.
We get home. I cut the bread for buns. Beloved is delicately fashioning beautiful patties. The stove is just the right temperature. The burgers are sizzling. The onion and mayonnaise and ketchup is ready. The burgers are really smelling bad. Bad bad. Like a cross between old shoes and burning tires. We open the window, surely our newly acquired ground beef cannot be making this hideous stench. Hmmm, what did we get anyway? Beloved, the brave one takes a couple of bites. It doesn’t taste any better than it smells. We need some more language training before we try that again...
Tuesday we have language lessons so we are reading through our lessons in the morning and preparing for that. We get out about 11:00 AM, I want to get to the Training House a little early to do some email, it is snowing as we walk. Take care of some business online and then language lesson. Afterward, discussing what may be the issue with my internet I figure out how to pay for it, so we’re off to the bank. It’s possible that the bill needs paid and it is shut off from the provider. We walk to the “UniBank” downtown and find a very nice young lady that speaks pretty good english, and she takes us through the process of paying our internet provider bill. Which, I find out, they do not send a bill for, and, if you wish, you can pay ahead for a couple months or six months or a year if you want. So, we pay for two months, and leave the UniBank wiser for the moment... “Internet will be turned on after one day”
On the way back home we decide to stop by Elegance Restaurant for dinner. We’ve been there twice now and had a great time both times, however, this time we do not find our friend, Farshid the head waiter, so we have to muddle through on our own with a young man that speaks no english. The food is good but not what we were expecting, Pita with cheese only--no meat or vegetables. Oh well.
The rest of the evening is quiet, I fire up the hot water heater and we will have hot baths tonight. While waiting for the water to heat up our landlord arrives to collect the rent--his name is Farid, which sounds like ferret.
ps. now I am up to date on the blog and will be able to post in real time. Yay!
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