A Rainy Day

With just 10 days remaining until I return to the States for the holidays, my life has become very, very busy. Yesterday was probably the last real quiet day I'll get until I get to Florida. And it was wonderful. I slept in. Then brewed some coffee, cleaned up the kitchen, baked blueberry muffins and made cheesy scrambled eggs for breakfast. I may or may not have consumed the majority of the muffins. I spent the rest of the relaxing with a book, watched a tv episode, then headed off for choir rehearsal. Afterwards, I watched some football (and kept track of the Eagles game, which wasn't being shown, but they won!!!!) and saw the Dolphins beat the Patriots. Whodathunk?

Anyways, the concert starts on Wednesday. As in, the day after tomorrow. And I have no clue how it got to be December 7th. Where did the days go? It promises to be a long week, with more rehearsal tonight, tomorrow night, then 3 concerts in a row. We're also preparing for Bethany to leave (she leaves the day after I do), but because she's not coming back next semester, there are all these people she has to see and things she has to do before she leaves. We're doing a dinner with a bunch of the usual football crowd on Sunday, learning to make some Chinese food with some classmates on Wednesday (yes, right before the concert), visiting other classmates... Somewhere in there is school, eating, packing, and sleep, if we're lucky.

Today, however, looked like it wouldn't be too busy, so Bethany and I took the opportunity to get some shopping done. So we went off to the mall, through rain, got ripped off by the cab driver (he rigged his meter), then enjoyed a hot chai tea latte from Caribou. Ok, so I splurged a little. But it's a yucky day, and I rarely go to the mall, and I needed something hot and delicious. Turned out to be a great decision, because we spent close to an hour walking all over the mall, back and forth, looking for this store with a particular gift I had seen earlier for one of my sisters. We finally found it, thanks to Bethany, and then went to Al-Afgani, THE tourist shop. They've got all sorts of cool stuff. I somehow managed to avoid many tempting purchases, and only bought the gift I intended to buy. Pretty good for me. We rounded the evening off with fried chicken sandwiches from KFC, then got in a cab to go home.

About this cab. I have heaps upon heaps of creepy cab driver stories. I've been locked in cars, asked all sorts of inappropriate questions, had several proposals (including one guy that said "I have Jordan passport, you have US passport, our children will have US passport too! It's perfect!). So I'm used to sleazy guys. Our cab driver was pretty sleazy. He claimed to have 2 wives, in 2 different countries, one in France (apparently a drunk with a crazy mother), and an Arab wife here. He kept trying to ask our ages. I had a feeling he would ask about our marital statuses next, but we got out just in time. Far enough from our apartment that he couldn't possibly follow us home. The stories you hear in cabs these days...

Needless to say, it was a successful day. Now I get to go pick the local shop owner's brain about local idioms and sayings, and go sing for another couple hours. I quite enjoyed one of the sayings we learned in class today (literally, it means "the monkey, in the eye of his mother, is a gazelle.") :

القرد في عين أمه غزال

And I shall leave you with that.