Ellie's Hunt for the Illustrious Fairy Penguin: Problem Solved

On Saturday, while the girls were at the beach I got Skype to work in my room, which is incredibly exciting. I feel a bit left out that I didn't get to go to the beach, but overall I guess its a good thing, and knowing that I finally got the change to use Skype really makes it worth it. I also accomplished something by deciding that after no one had followed up on taking care of my broken bed that I would take care of the problem myself. I moved the bed frame into the hallway and situated the mattress on the floor. A while later two boys whom I have met and discovered are related to David (the head honcho) came to move it away. I assured them I didn't need them to find another bed frame and was fine with the mattress on the floor. One was quite relieved, while the other a little unsure. I convinced them though.

I met the girls in the city to have supper around 7/7:30pm. This meant that I took my first independent bus ride. I am a bit proud of myself since it was entirely successful. We found a restaurant called Primo to eat at. Before choosing we read menu's in the front of restaurants all down a more popular street, and settled on this one since it seemed to have the most options. We sat at a table to check out the menu and observe how the ordering process worked. Eventually we discerned that we needed to go up to a counter and order (and pay) for our food. I tried a lemon/lime bitters to drink (pictured below), which is actually quite popular here.

As we read through the menu we also discovered that at supper time customers receive a free pancake with their meal. We spent a bunch of time taking pictures of them since they were so interesting. They are much thicker than those that we are used to at home, but they are almost like a doughnut. They came with a bit of cream and a bit of syrup. They were DELICIOUS.

After supper we headed back to Hosanna Heights. The girls were tired from their day at the beach, and I didn't have anything more to do in the city. I actually made it to bed pretty early and was excited to sleep on my non-slanty bed.

This morning (Sunday) we went to church with Helene again. Hilary stayed home because she got sunburt at the beach yesterday. The service was good, and we actually sang two songs that I knew. One of them was called "Days of Elijah," which I used to sing at camp, so it took all restraint to keep from doing the actions with it. We also did another that I only vaguely remembered from Holy Trinity (the church we went to in Milwaukee). After church there was a meeting about plans to start a youth group at Glynde that we were invited to attend and talk about our experiences with youth ministry in our lives. It was fun to use what I'd learned from experiences at Holy Trinity and to hear about how they are going about their process. They also had dominoes pizza to eat there which was actually yummy. I'm eating a lot of pizza here it seems. Helene invited us to come have coffee/tea at their house after the meeting. It was nice and it was far less awkward to sit around and talk with their family than it has felt in the past. I hope this is because we are getting more used to each other. I know I really like their family, and appreciate their hospitality. Besides that they are all fun and interesting people. Helene was ready to us back to Hosanna Heights after tea since she needed to get to the grocery store before it closed at 5pm. She also wanted to check in on Hilary and her sunburn. It took a couple minutes for Morgan and I to understand that she wanted us to come with her. We kept saying we'd just walk to the bus stop so she didn't worry about us and she kept responding that she wanted to go check on Hilary. Eventually we just got in the car, and upon later thought and discussion figured out what was really going on. Helene spent some time mothering Hilary and then dropped Morgan and I off at a shopping center so I could do a little shopping. I had an slight wardrobe malfunction during this experience. A hem on the shirt that I was wearing began to unravel and I was messing wiht it trying to figure out how I would fix it later, but instead it just unravelled more. Like the stupid person I can be I just decided to pull it. This actually meant then that the entire cuff on the top of the shirt and the straps came apart (it was a knit "spaghetti" strap shirt, but not really spaghetti, more like fetuccini since they were thick straps). By this point the shirt no longer looked like something I could wear out of the bathroom. It was lucky that I just happened to have purchased a shirt at the store so I coudl put that one on. Morgan and I found a rather reasonably priced Sushi place which was actually open later than 5pm so she and I got some shushi and ate it outside. I tried sushi with cucumber and avacado in it, a vegetarian one, and a prawn and avacado one. They were all really good. Morgan even liked them (better than the others she's tried here so far) and she is practically an expert at Sushi. I was super amused by the soy sauce packets that were plastic and looked like fish.

After we finished I was all ready to catch the bus, but Morgan was planning to walk back to Hosanna Heights. Of course in the process I missed the bus so I got to walk back too. This is about a 2 mile walk, which feels like it is uphill most of the way. And I might add that it was hot and I was now wearing a black thick T-shirt rather than my light tank top, had an extremely full stomach, and was wearing flip flops. I thought I was going to die and had to stop to buy some water on the way. I did make it though, and am quite proud of myself. I marched right up to my room to sit in air conditioning for a couple hours before I emerged. The rest of the night has been spent chilling out. I borrowed Hilary's memory card so I could grab some of the pics that she took for me when I couldn't get them right on my camera. I am going to put them down at the bottom the page here so it is clear which ones are from her camera. (Thanks for letting me put them up Hil.)