Rats and Mystery Meat

Not getting to celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional way really sucked.  In fact, I would say that it even left me a little depressed.  Of course, I had to work yesterday but I decided to try to make the day sort of special.

The carrito ride to work was quite enjoyable.  When I first got in, I was in B4 and when I looked over, I saw David sitting in B2.  After he got out and another girl got out, we picked up two more girls.  All four of us in the back were quite tiny, in fact, I think I was the biggest out of the 4.  We didn't even have to do the B3 squish up!  When I arrived at the office, I found two canvases, some paints and paintbrushes sitting on my desk.  I wasn't sure if Sr. S would follow through on his attempt to get me supplies, but he did!  This was definitely a great way to start off a Monday!  I still don't have my laptop back, so I spent the morning working at J's desk doing some translation work.  I also got a chance to talk to Sr. S again about my November vacation plans.  He approved the time off!  And I was sure to mention to him that my family would be coming to the DR again soon.

Canvases!

Brushes!

Paints!

Since I didn't have a lunch buddy, I decided to finally check out the lunch fare at Sweet Bakery.  I wanted to have their Mexican salad, but they couldn't make it for some reason, so I opted for the caesar salad, with chicken but no bacon.  It was really good!  I spent the lunch hour sitting there, eating and reading a book (Find your Strongest Life by Marcus Buckingham which I also ended up finishing yesterday).  It was really enjoyable.  Back at the office, J had finally arrived so I didn't have a computer to work on at first.  Then he remembered (I had forgotten too) that I could use his laptop.  This worked out well because it was at about that time when I needed to book my flight to Turks and Caicos.  I ended up getting the flight for less than I had seen on my usual flight search website.

Chicken Caesar Salad

Lostania cancelled on our mentoring session, so instead, Ozumy came to meet me at the office.  She had suggested that we go out for dinner to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving since she had learned on twitter that it was happening.  She was kind enough to help me carry the painting stuff home too!  One funny sight on the way home was a bus that was so packed that people were literally hanging off the side of the bus.  When we were nearly at the apartment, we were getting ready to attempt to cross the street when all of the sudden, a giant rat ran past us, like a foot away.  Ozumy freaked out a bit more than I did, I think this was because I took slightly longer to realize what had just happened (I'm not used to rats yet, especially not live ones.  We decided to go to the little Italian restaurant near my house that I had yet to try. The place was a bit pricey so we decided to share a plate of gnocchi.  This turned out to be a good decision since it was a good sized portion and very filling.

Hanging on!

Ozumy

Me

Today's carrito ride was the exact opposite of yesterday.  I was stuck in-between two rather large women.  I was quite worried when the carrito driver was waiting to find that fourth person.  I didn't think I would survive that.  Robert is back now so I was able to go for coffee with him this morning at Sweet Bakery.  Since he had been gone all weekend, we hadn't spoken in a while and when it came time to go, without thinking we just got up and left.  We were not far away when Paula, our favorite employee, came running out.  We had forgotten to pay.  I was so embarrassed.  Anyway, we apologized profusely and went in and paid.  I felt like the other customers were looking down on us.  It was kind of funny, except not.  We went back again though after lunch, and remembered to pay.  Speaking of lunch.  Robert and I went to Pola.  I got my usual rice and salad.  When he sat down he had this weird looking meat stew, except the meat, well it was not clear what exactly it was.  In fact just looking at it was starting to make me sick.  Then Robert thought he figured out what it was, he was so disgusted that he had it packed up and he gave it to one of the workers at Pola.  I wouldn't let him tell me what he thought it was.  I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it.  Even just thinking about it now makes me a little queasy, in fact, I can't really look at the picture.  I think Robert learned that the cheapest meat dish is probably not worth it. 


Mystery Meat

The afternoon at the office was spent mainly in the dark.  Since I was working on J's laptop, I had a nice and long battery life so was able to continue working on things.  Erin, the previous auditing intern from Canada, stopped by.  She was in the country for a week long vacation to visit her boyfriend.  It was nice to see her again.