Material Girl

The beds here are incredibly hard. Think, sleeping on box springs and you've pretty much got the idea of what my bed is like. I have a thin comforter under my sheet to add a layer of padding, but Mo suggested that I get some padding to put on the bed to soften it up. So, we struck out to go shopping with one of the other teachers around town. Our original plan was that it would just be "the whities", but the other teacher invited some of his students to come along and so we invited a student from Saturday E.C. to meet us in town. Another American joined us as well. She is planning to open a coffee shop across the street from the school. If the coffee is good, it would be a welcome addition.

Anyway, we struck off and headed to the foam shop. There were huge blocks of foam of various densities and such all lined up. The only problem was that I don't have a tape measure and so did not have the dimensions of my bed. Oh well, at least I know where to go now! Yes, I did think of that problem before hand, but I thought that I might be able to just say that it was a queen size bed and get by, but that plan didn't work.

We went on to "foreign street", so named because it apparently looks like a foreign street, but I think it looks like all the others. The only difference is that there is a western cafe there and a western bakery. Mo goes there to get her bread and showed us where it was. I took the opportunity to use the bathroom at the cafe.

After the cafe and such, we went on to the "old street", but first took a detour through the bird and flower market, which is more like a fish and fake flower street. The old street is where the market is happening and where to go to get local handicrafts and junk. We stopped at almost every stall to look at anything that looked authentic and walked very S-L-O-W-L-Y. Most of you who know me well know how much I dislike crowded places with people all up on me and walking slowly. Needless to say, by the time we crossed the main street to continue on to the second part of the old street I was over it! I decided that I was just going to explore the market on my own because I might say something not nice as my patience wore thin. I found some ice cream, which was chewy, and got my blood sugar up again. However, my mood was still that of irritation. Mo and I left the others and went back to the fish street with a detour through the old market and bought some peanut brittle. I decided not to get any fish for now and we returned home.

I had not planned on spending the whole day shopping, but such as it was, I decided to give myself a break and returned to the western cafe for dinner. Feeling like I have been on display and performing for the past week straight, I needed a break from being a foreigner. I don't know what it is, but it is like we are a side show act here. Anyway, I got a quiet table in a corner, positioned myself to face the wall, and ordered a steak. It was...interesting. The steak was good, but not like a steak in America. They aren't so big on "cuts" of meat here, just cut the meat. It also came with fried spaghetti, a fried egg, a fried potato, two sprigs of broccoli and some carrot slices. Fried spaghetti is kind of unusual, but not bad. I went to the bakery to get some bread and got a free egg tart, since I had eaten at the cafe. Thank goodness for leftovers! Then on to Wal-mart for the rest of the groceries for the week. When I got out of Wal-mart it was dark, and then I remembered that I am not supposed to go out alone at night. (I'm not sure how I could have forgotten this important piece of information since I was told the first day I arrived in Va Beach not to go without a posse at night. Yes, those were the exact words! Having lived there for the past 4 years, you would think I would be accustomed to taking someone with me.) I hurried to the minivan and got back to school.