Ha.

Posted in Overall, RPCV by Dom on October 19th, 2008

Alright so I’m back. Been back for over 24hrs now. I think it’s going pretty well. I haven’t had diarhea yet. Only solids and pretty regular at that. I’m impressed if I do say so myself. I know I’m back in the states now so I should probably stop discussing these things but old habits die hard.

I decided not to hang out in Amsterdam airport. I had like a three hour layover so I bebopped it out into town. It was a bit hairy but I handled it. I first had to figure my way around this, the busiest, whitest and most first world place I had been to yet. Fortunately Dutch people tend to speak English like they were English. I found a forex and learned a little about the Euro. So I had a $20. Pretty good I thought. Nope, there was a $5 fee for exchanging money and it cost like 3.20 one way to or from town. So I changed $15 and got like 7.10 in euro coins. As most can tell, that barely covered me. the train was more like 17 minutes to town; when I was told it was 15. The ticket kiosk was a bit confusing. They had special English ones for tourists people like me, but wait they didn’t take coins and so I had to go to the Dutch ones that I found had an English option but not an easy ticket option. I almost bought tickets to belgium or prague or whatever a few times. I got it figured out though and made it into town with like two hours to spare. So I just picked a road and walked down it. Took a few photos and headed back. I was there at the convenient time of like 6-7, when pretty much everywhere was closed. The architecture was nice. I think I found the redlight district. It all worked out thought. I made it back with like 10 minutes to spare. Until the official boarding time that is. However I did just sit there for another hour or more. I wasn’t aloud to take the Nali I bought at the Lilongwe airport and had in my carry-on, they took it. Annoying. Anyway, I got home. Atlanta kind of sucked. I’ve heard it does that though. I had the gate changed on me 3 times, we were told the plane was on the ground 5 different times, and it was delayed so much they just stopped alerting us via intercom. Oh and they downsized the airplane and had to take 20 volunteers to wait until the next day to take the stupid half hour flight. I was suppose to arrive at 5:18pm I think I arrived around 8 or 9pm. Most of the family was there. That was nice. They had a pretty sweet characature of me drawn on one of the posters.

In terms of my first foods…I did eat moe’s. Except after Amsterdam I could only afford the vegetarian burrito. It wasn’t bad though, don’t be mislead. At the house I had two or three different sandwiches. I dipped them in mustard. Mom made pans of little ones. Some little reubens and little ham and cheese ones and I think there might have been others but I forget. Had a blue moon and some champagne and some seasonal pumpkin brew. All quite excellent. Tried some cheesecakes too. They had bought a variety one with like chocolate and carmel and regular and swirl. Oh yeah, she made potato salad too. Quite good. For breakfast I had a ham and cheese omlette, pepperjack cheese that is and a bowl of fruit. Strawberries, kiwis, grapes, cantelope, bananas and oranges. Pretty good. Left over sandwiches for lunch and went out for Mexican for dinner. I got the chicken chimichangas and a huge strong margarita and a glass of sweet tea. I pounded chips and salsa before hand and pretty much just drank cheese dip. I appreciate that my stomach is treating me well so far. Hopefully it will continue!

I got my electric guitar up and running yesterday too. Thats nice. Haven’t really got the feel of it again yet though. My fingers have no precision and while power chords sound good tuning the amp to the tone I like to get the notes hearable too while still liking it has been difficult too. I’m so used to playing the acoustic it’s got me biased on what my electric should sound like I think. Not a bad thing though, just something to get used to.

Anyway, it’s four am and I’m hungry, enjoy that sima! Tumbuka4Life!