Bad Day for Food

Another weekend has come to an end.

It began with a nice Friday evening at home.  I just relaxed, which was exactly what I needed.  I had the house to myself since Pavol and Maria went to a resort for the weekend and David was at a party at the MC.  Our only issue was that we ran out of gas for our stove.  There I was trying desperately to get the stove started so I could heat up some food.  Then I realized that we had no more gas.  Of course, I had no idea how to get more gas.  David was able to ask his boss (who lives in our building) the process and we found out that we had to order some more.  As of today, we still haven't done this.  My little kettle has been the only form of cooking we have.  Saturday, I had to work and the day was quite slow until I got given a whole lot of work about an hour before I was supposed to leave.  Luckily, it didn't need to be done that day, so I'll be able to finish it up this week probably.

After work, I picked up a few groceries at Super Pola.  The bag boy wanted to help me out with my groceries even though I told him, "I'm walking, it's fine."  I had brought one of my reusable bags so it was just one bag in total and it wasn't that heavy.  He insisted on helping me with the groceries out to the street.  I had a quick carrito ride home where I met up with Paula and Manuel.  Manuel took us to a vegetarian restaurant/yoga studio.  It was a yummy meal and a cool atmosphere.  After that, we decided to take Manuel to IKEA for his first ever IKEA experience.  We had a lot of fun and Manuel decided that he really liked the place.  I splurged and got a jade plant and two really cheap green pillows.  They have made quite a nice addition to my room!

After IKEA, we picked up Zak and went to Beer House.  It was a lovely little rooftop patio lounge/bar that carried a wide array of beers from around the world and made pretty decent cocktails too.  I was a little sad to see that their Canadian beer representation consisted of only Molson, but was impressed by their overall variety and selection (including Guiness).  I was feeling like a beer at first, but then decided to have a cosmopolitan instead.  Manuel and Zak stuck to Presidente and Paula had a pina colada. They also played excellent music (jazzzzy goodness)! After the drinks, Manuel took me home so I could have date night with Bart.  Once again, we played monopoly and had an overall score of 1-1. 

On Sunday, the plan was to meet at the MC at 9:00am as AIESEC had rented a guagua to take us all to the beach.  I got up early to ensure I'd be ready in time.  David added a bit of excitement to my morning when he decided to light our sink on fire (with a lighter and air freshener spray) due to the presence of a centipede.  With the centipede gone, we headed to the MC, arriving just after 9.  I always hold out hope that when we're told that we're meeting to leave at 9, that we will actually do so.  When we arrived, most of the people that live at the MC weren't even up.  Sandwiches hadn't been made (which was supposed to happen the night before) and we were the first ones to arrive.  Slowly, the more timely people showed up.  After sitting around for over half an hour we decided to go and get some breakfast since there was no way we'd be leaving by 10 even.  I had a really yummy breakfast of mashed potatoes and some baked cheese (and a juice box which had an interesting straw - a closed end but three small holes to let the juice out.  I think I prefer it to the regular straws!).

 We finally got going and headed out to Playa Caribe.  We made a quick stop at a gas station to pick up some ice and a big bottle of Presidente which we enjoyed along the way.

The beach was quite lovely.  I enjoyed the stronger waves and the more natural setting that surrounded it (instead of having large condo buildings to look at).  One of my favorite parts of the day was watching the pelicans dive into the ocean.  I was surprised by how near they got to the humans and how they were fine to just float along with us.  It was a pretty amazing sight though!  For the most part, we just bobbed up and down in the waves and chilled on the beach.  We had some fun with Manuel's new camera, which is waterproof, and were propositioned by a seedy looking lady claiming to read palms.  I ended up having to pay RD$15 to use a washroom that didn't have running water, no toilet paper, and you couldn't even flush the toilets.  It was disgusting.  But I didn't have any more appealing options.  I mean if I'm going to pay to use a washroom, I expect it to be half decent... On a more positive note, I indulged in a little beach fare consisting of a very sweet pineapple and coconut treat.  Jakub had a sort of peanut brittle that I tried as well. 

Once I was back home I ran into some problems with my food.  First of all, I went to make some pasta.  It was a bag of pasta I had bought less than a week ago and that I had rolled up to seal.  I guess this wasn't good enough because as I poured the pasta into the pot, I saw little bugs falling in too.  Gross.  So I ended up throwing that pasta out.  My next try was with some pasta I keep in a tin.  Now this tin is tightly sealed.  But, you guessed it, bugs in here too.  But at least they didn't end up in my pasta that I was cooking this time, although I was sure to keep the water on boil the entire time that I cooked it.  And now, I need to buy more pasta, and some Rubbermaid containers to keep it in...  Then I went to cut up a mango and realized that the mango I had bought the day before had broken skin and had started to rot.  Ugh.  Seriously.  So I threw that one out and cleaned up the other two.  When I went to cut up one of the other two, it had a hollow bad spot inside (you couldn't tell from the outside).  It wasn't that big though so I was able to cut it out and still eat the majority of the mango, however, it was a very frustrating night for food.


The day at the office has been alright so far.  I'm busy working on a project that I've had for over a month (but haven't been able to work on due to lack of approvals for the past 3 weeks).  Spent most of the morning without air conditioning but when J came in, somehow he was able to get it to work (this boggles my mind since O and I, along with various other coworkers, spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday struggling unsuccessfully to get it to work).  Not that I care, I'm just happy to be cool.