Another week has flow by! Work continues to be good, if hectic for both C and I. The girls seem to be adapting well to the new schedule and I have finally moved T into her actual crib in the room with K and the transition has been remarkably smooth thus far.
We always try to get out and do something fun during the weekend, and this Sunday our plan was to go to one of the local hotels for brunch. Not just because we like brunch, but because it has a pond in the courtyard with baby crocodiles. I can report that we were successful in seeing baby crocodiles, which was fun, but the brunch part of the equation was less successful. It was a perfect case study in eating out here. We sat down and ordered a smoothie for K and lattes for C and I while perusing the menu. Seemed reasonable enough. We wait and watch the crocs... wait... wait... wait... and finally the server brings out K's smoothie (strawberry instead of the requested banana, but who am I to squabble over a minor detail like that).
But no lattes. Which isn't unusual for a coffee beverage to take so long as the locals take their coffee seriously and take a year and a half to throw together a mocha. Not to say they aren't good, they just take an inordinately long time. And there is no such thing as a coffee place where you can just walk up to a counter, place your order, pay, get your coffee and leave. No. Even for take away coffee you must sit down. Someone brings a menu and then scurries off before you can order. The eventually wander back and you order. And wait. And wait. And then your coffee comes. And then you ask for a check. And the check eventually materializes. And then you wait for them to bring change. And finally, at long, long last, you take your coffee and go. All of this happens on a good day. Wherefore art thou Starbucks!
We continue to wait for our lattes, and the server does swing back by and we ask if they are serving food yet, as it is a bit early. The response C and I both swear we heard was, no, only on the other side of the restaurant and only for the guests of the hotel. Ok, no big deal, we will just have drinks and seek food elsewhere. If our drinks ever come. Finally a different server wanders over and says something along the lines of the handle is broken, so you can't have, would two cappuccino be ok instead. Sure! Anything with caffeine will be fine at this point!
So we continue our baby croc vigil while waiting for the drinks. We also notice that people around us are totally being served food. Er. Um. Ok. Whatever. The coffees finally arrive, and they are beautiful and tasty, I will give them that. But K is getting antsy so we ask for the check. And wait. And wait. And flag down someone else and ask again. More waiting. Finally, a full 30 minutes (I am NOT exaggerating!) later we finally get the check. And this is not unusual. I don't think we have ever managed to have a meal out where everything we tried to order was available. Inevitably there is something they don't have that day, or the cinnamon rolls are still baking (at 9am on a Saturday), or some piece of equipment is broken so they can't make something. It is always interesting to see just which item will be unavailable because it is almost always a totally random surprise.
But the story has a very happy ending because we found the Indian place in town (there are many, all pretty good) that does Sunday Indian brunch buffet. Yummy! And we did get to hang out with baby crocodiles for an hour.
Big and scary looking, huh! Its all about scale, he is really only about two feet long, if that. Baby crocodiles!
K very much enjoyed her reptilian friends. In fact, she wanted to order food for them off the menu. When we wouldn't let her do that, she instead started pointing out potential snacks to her new friends: "look alligator (there was some confusion on this point)! Mr. Froggy is over there!" How quickly she turned on poor Mr. Froggy!
There are four crocs in this photo. Can you find them all?
Gratuitous smiley T! Not rolling over, but almost sitting up, just like her sister at this age.
And K is using a lovely carved thing... vase? bowl? spittoon? as a repository for her play doh. Obviously that is the precise use for which the Afri-crap was intended. A little known fact about Afri-crap: it reproduces spontaneously. Possibly through budding, possibly through some other process, but inevitably there is more of this stuff than you thought you had, and we have only been here a few months!
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