More Stuff and Nonsense

Raindrops keep falling on my head!

So, this morning dawned (slowly brightened through the clouds) much earlier than I might have liked. I had the alarm set for 6:30, on the mistaken belief I'd haul myself out of bed, and have a little extra time in the morning to drink a glass of Coke before going to breakfast. I usually start my day with some of Atlanta's finest carbonated beverage, but it's been difficult down here. They don't serve Coke at breakfast, and the pop machine at work is out. I bought a couple of 2 liter bottles, but that's hard to take to work without a travel mug. So, I woke up just before the alarm went off, turned off the alarm, and proceeded to lay in bed, dozing, for another 15 minutes. By that time, I had enough time to drag myself out of the comfort of my bed, dress for work, and head to breakfast. Our driver picked us up this morning at 7:30, so we all met at 7 for breakfast.

The fresh fruits of the day today were pineapple, watermelon (these 2 seem to be the standard), and kiwi fruit. Mmmm! All the fruit is so fresh here. When the kiwi was gone, they brought strawberries, but that was about the time we had to leave. We're all rather hoping tomorrow's fresh fruit will include mangoes, but we'll see. I also sampled fresh squeezed starfruit juice this morning. It was delicious! Not as tart as eating starfruit, but quite wonderfully refreshing.

After a rather exhilirating ride to work (almost run over by a bus, nearly flattened by a semi!), we settled into another day of side-by-sides. The person I sat with today was more difficult than the one yesterday. Today, the big problem was making everything more complicated and difficult than it needed to be. The first issue we worked on this morning should have taken between 15 and 20 minutes; it took nearly 45. English didn't seem to be much of an issue this morning, but as the day wore on, it got much more interesting. He seemed much more interested in explaining and justifying his method of problem resolution, than actually just doing what he needed to. It made for a really long day; he didn't seem to notice gentle direction, and I'm not really in a position to be able to say, "Just do it this way!" I prefer not to train that way, because without a rationale to explain why it's better to do it "my" way, there's nothing to motivate the person you're training to do this in the future.

For lunch, the mangers took us to the mall near work. There'd be a couple of blackouts at work this morning. When we got to the mall, there was no power, and it took a very long time to get lunch. It was good, as we really had time to talk. We discussed the people Michelle and I were sitting with today; I mentioned the problems I was having, and both managers nodded, and said, "You're telling us what we observed, but we really wanted a second opinion." So, we'll see how it goes. I'll turn in my written eval tomorrow, and let them take it from there. This person had been in another position, and had so many problems, and made so many mistakes, they moved him to the easiest job they had, in hopes it would help him become more productive; no dice.

After work, we decided we would try the Lebanese restaurant in town. We asked the front desk to call a cab for us, and we ended up with a private driver, who knows the hotel staff really well. He was introduced to us as "very reliable". He drove us to the restaurant, and then waited in the parking lot until we were done! All that, for $12. Dinner was fantastic, 'though it was the first meal we'd been at where we didn't speak enough Spanish, between the three of us, and none of the wait staff spoke much in the way of English. Made ordering interesting! The menu had great descriptions such as "house special, in the style of my father" or "just like home, in the style of my mother". Another said, "Great to share with all your friends". So, after much guesswork, and some strategic smiling and pointing at the menu, we had fabulous food. Quite by accident, all three of us ordered beef dishes; I had a shishkabob, and it was deliciouso! I also ordered what I thought was iced tea (te frei I think), but turned out to be tea with some kind of juice in it? I don't normally like sweetened tea, but this was wonderful! For dessert, we ordered baklava, because we knew was it was. The waiter also suggested something else, almost like a very finely milled cornmeal polenta, with honey over the top. Imagine our pleasant surprise when we got the bill, and it was only $42 for all three of us, including meal, desserts, beverages and the standard 30% tip!

Once we got back, we changed into our swim suits, and headed to the pool and hot tub. We started in the hot tub tonight, and it was blissfully warm, much hotter than last night. After about 10 minutes, we had to get into the pool to cool off! It's such a wonderfully relaxing way to wind down, relaxing in the pool.

Oh, and one quick note about the rain. It started raining pretty hard just before we got off work. At one point, we drove past a drain; there was so much ground water, it was fountaining out of the drain like there was a broken water main under it. A few miles further down the road, we drove under an overpass that had a very impressive waterfall draining off the other side of the overpass, from the water collecting on top! The water collects so quickly, it just amazes me!

posted by Serena @ 9:06 PM