The Things You Can Find...

Saturday my roommate and I stepped into a cubby-hole store in town that was advertising a big sale. Everything in the store for $2. We figured with a price like that we were sure to find something worth dragging home. We dug through flashlights, dresses, action figures, DVDs I had never heard of, and candles celebrating 2009. I considered the solar-powered lamps and "I love Paris" tapistries. Then we hit the jackpot- a board game that seemed to still have at least the majority of it's pieces. Neither of us had ever heard of it and one of the glaringly absent components was the directions, but we figured we could probably find them online.
My room mate tried to haggle with the store owner (since it was incomplete) but the guy insisted that it was complete, so we payed him the full $2. When we got home we started digging around online and figured out that our game was the condensed 2-player version of a larger game. We found a .pdf of the rules for our game in German and an English version of the rules for the other game on another website. Fortunately my room mate speaks much better German than I do. Between the two sets of directions we figured out that we were indeed missing about 20 cards. Fortunately we also got enough information for me to make replacement cards out of an old cereal box. Then we played the "basic" version of the game. It was okay. I think it would be more fun if we played it again because we would have some clue what we were supposed to be doing. And then there is a more complex version which looks like it could be quite a bit more interesting. We'll try that next time.

We went back to the store Monday to look for the missing pieces. We didn't find any of them but we did find a couple of birthday cards. The owner let us have them for free to make up for the missing game pieces. All in all, I would say it was definitely worth the $2.

Scheme to Overthrow Euro-African Culinary Sensibilities

Today was our monthly prayer, praise, and potluck event. I was on the worship team. Fortunately I was the quieter of two guitars and I am fairly certain that nobody  heard me playing. It was better that way!

As for the potluck, I splurged yesterday and bought some special ingredients that I don't usually get - cheese and sliced turkey. The goal was to make a dish that I learned in France. I'm pretty sure it would have been great too except that I accidentally bought sweetened vanilla- flavored curdled milk when I thought I was just getting the plain stuff. The result was vanilla-flavored cheesy potatoes.

I was sitting just down the table from a couple of coworkers as they discussed it, not knowing that I was the one who had baked the wonder dish.

"I think it would be good," said one, "but it violates the categories in my mind."
The other one agreed "Yeah, I just wasn't expecting it..."

I had to laugh. I will admit that vanilla is not what I would expect out of a cheesy potato dish either, but if it's good, why not roll with it? Americans are blessed with a culinary ability that entirely escapes Europeans. You know that amazing flavor that you get when orange jello mixes with beef hotdish on your plate at a potluck? Yeah... Europeans  don't know about that. They would never EVER put jello on a plate along with something "savory" (unsweet). Nor would they defile their "savory" plate with cookies. Or banana bread. Or cornbread. Or fruit. That's right, fruit either. Fruit is dessert and must never, under any condition, be mixed with non-dessert items. All the non-sweet food gets eaten first, then the desert.

*sigh* Ah, cultural differences. But they admitted that it was good anyway! I may have to keep making it deliberately until they get used to it ;-)

I moved!

Yes indeedy, I have moved. I am enjoying the move too. So far I have visited two local restaurants that offer filling meals for less than a dollar and gotten used to buying things from our boutique downstairs.

I am used to thinking that it is always cheaper to buy things at large stores that have a massive inventory. Here that isn't always the case. Our little boutique downstairs, which is half the size of my bedroom, has the same prices as almost anywhere else in town. And the amount of stuff they cram into that tiny room is astounding. It is kind of an game actually, seeing which things appear from day to day. If you see something you want, or may want some time in the next month, you buy it because it might be gone tomorrow and never appear again.

The one downside of living here is limited internet access. Today is the first time I've been online at home since I moved in (I do check my email while I am at work, though). Today my roommate and I went to the local phone/internet place and hopefully we will be getting a new line in on Monday that will allow us to both connect at the same time.

Name Egg

Look at this amazing egg that my brother made!

Nice work on the bananas!

And then on the other side... Oh beautiful, for spacious skies!

and viva la Brazil!