day 8

another lounging day, and perfect since i've been feeling kind of crappy. next weekend i will be in lagos so i need to feel good then! but i got up at a nice time (0830) and read a bit before heading off to the gym. i swear, the only place i feel totally at home in this country is in the gym! so i spent like an hour and a half there. but here's a sad bit; so i thought "wow, i'm running really fast and it feels so easy! woo-hoo for me!" until i saw the treadmil flash KM/hr instead of MILES! doh!! so i totally was running at a really easy pace which is why it felt so easy! boo. but it was a nice workout anyway.

and then it was laundry time! before i hopped in the shower i started some clothes soaking in shampoo and bar soap (nice, i know) and then once i got out, i rinsed and hung up all my stuff. i did 2 "loads"; lights and darks. it was super-sweet. the picture is of in my shower where the towels normally hang. now all of my stuff is spread all around the room though because there's not enough airflow in the bathroom (no fan). some stuff has dried and some probably will be another day. no wonder they said bring synthetics! i'm glad most of my stuff is. so that was my exciting morning which was topped off with a breakfast/lunch of yogurt, banana and peanuts. and then i ventured down to the pool. i picked a nice lounge chair far away from the pool where i could read under a wooden umbrella. the chairs have these big cushions that are really comfy! so i read a bunch and snapped like a pic or 2 and debated about my bowl. so i had a plan; at home at an art festival the bowl i wanted would cost like us$12 so i decided i wouldn't pay over N1500 (which is equivalent). woo-hoo! i'm so prepared with my bargaining plan! so i'm walking down the path (and drenched in sweat! it's 3pm and i swear the other 2 hours i was out here were fine, breezy, almost cool!) and as i get to the "village" i run into this skinney, tannish-but-not-black guy who sticks out his hand "hi! are you staying here?" so i shake and chat and find out his name is kahlil (and he's annoyed that no one in nigeria can make that kghhhgh sound that tom makes when saying things in hebrew) and he's just finished his master's degree a month ago in lebanon and is here looking for a job. huh? yeah, he says the job market is much better here than in lebanon. wow, that's pretty bad. but he's staying with his sister and her husband and kid in wuse 2 which is a nearby district of abuja (3min by taxi). so he offers to walk with me as i look for my bowl so i'm not alone and he can help me haggle, if i need it. i am thrilled! it's so nice to be able to look around with someone else so i'm no a lone target! i tell him that my husband is here with me but that he works all the time so i rarely get to see him. white lie but i think it's a reasonably appropriate one.

so i find my bowl! and get this, we ask how much and the answer is only N700! so we say no and drop it lower and he goes to N500 and we push a little more and he doesn't give. apparently that's how you know if it's a good price; if they let you leave after the last offer your price was too low. so i'm totally happy to pay 500 (us$4 or a little less) and practically skip outta there! and kahlil thought it was too much. so we part after i have my bowl (i'm so happy!) and he gives me his number in case i get bored since he doesn't do much during the days without a job and all. so i walk. i go the other way on the gravel trail hoping to find a long, interesting walk and am disappointed because it ends into a spread of red mud at a huge concrete structure which probably houses the millions of generators or something. i think about just stepping over the puddles and continuing on sans trail but then decide it's just not how i should do things here. so i snap some pix of the pretty flora and make my way back to my room with my treasure. and seriously, that's about it. i read more, take care of rearranging my laundry for better dryage, and make a cup of tea. and the evening wears on and after surprising my mom with a phone call from NIGERIA!! (onesuites's soft phone which is downloadable and only costs like 1 cent per min!) i decide that rather than be more adventurous it's time to make use of my purchase. yes! (fist pump.) so i warm up with an orange for an appetizer (they have too many seeds though) and then open my envelope of minestrone soup with croutons. so fancy! after reading that it only has like 100kcal i decide to chuck in a mini can of chicken for good measure. so this is kind of funny; the name on the soup package is "CUP of soup". i didn't need a bowl afterall! yeah right. i couldn't fit a whole delectable meal in a tiny 6oz tea cup. and anyway my bowl totally rocks! so after a few minutes of soaking in the boiled water, i taste. get this; the croutons are totally crunchey in the middle! i'm sure that means they're loaded with some horrible, cancer-potentiating perservatives but i think it's fun! and my spork is awesome because i can jab the chunks of chicken with it or just scoop up some of the salty broth.

it's funny, when i opened the package there was this scent and i totally was like 19 again and living off various "add water and eat" foods like ramen and lipton soups and whatnot. the company that makes this soup is "batchelors" which makes it extra amusing. so my dinner cost like us$1 instead of $25 if i went downstairs to a restaurant where it's not authentic anyway (c'mon, chinese? really). but i'm on the "phone" with tom and he's having a beer so i check out the mini bar and a frosty brew is just N500 which is only about us$4. that's less than what i'd pay at home in a bar! so i think it's reasonable and grab a legend extra stout, which is locally brewed (hinekin and guiness are also VERY popular here) and it's pretty good. a little sweet compared to a guiness extra stout but still, for $4 and i didn't even have to get out of the chair? tastes better already! and that's that. so i just hung out all day and did me stuff; reading, gyming, pool, bowl, soup, beer; is there any more a girl could ask for? maybe a super target. kidding. not really, because most of them house starbucks. but then it wouldn't be nigeria in 2007 would it?