The joint is jumping!

Friday is the sabbath around here, so I was awoken with an exta special long call to prayer. There were also a seemingly random series of other things blasted out of the loudspeakers at different parts of the day. The weird thing was that the different mosques did this at verey different times. That makes sleep rather difficult. At least when they all start at the same time they all end at the same time too:-)

Went out and got my first breakfast. It was an egg on a really thin (tortilla like) bread. It was pretty good and cost all of 25 cents. Finished it off with my now usual Limon drink. That brought the total to 35 cents, not bad! I was just foraging for lunch and I think I got ripped off at another juice stand. I got an orange (fresh squeezed) and instead of the 30 riayl total I was expecting, he said it was 200! Granted, that’s still just 1 dollar, but he refused to budge. Haggling is expected at most places, but I could tell he was in no mood for it. He did say that the Limon is only 30, so either the orange really was 200, or maybe he just doesn’t like westerners…

Lunch is proving tricker than breakfast. The breakfast guy only made one thing, so it was easy to order. All the places that I can find for lunch serve different stuff. The trick is that there are rarely menus posted, even if there were, I would have trouble figuring out how to get it. I’ll figure something out.

Most of the internet cafes appear to be closed on fridays, but I managed to find this one. It is much slower though. I was thinking about posting a few pictures, but with a line this slow, it would be pure toture. It’ll have to wait until the next time. Luca (a fellow Apple user) says that there is an authorized Apple dealer in the city, I’m hoping that they will be able to tell me a place that I can use my laptop instead of these sub-optimal machines I’m finding at the cafes…

The weather here is gorgous! It is between the mid to high 70’s during the day and the mid to high 40’s at night. In the summer it is supposed to go to the mid 80’s during the day and down to the low 50’s at night. It’s like that all year round with some brief rains in the spring. Love it love it love it! The air is really dry, it’s actually a lot like southern Utah as far as the climate goes.

As I was wondering down one of the main drags around here, I was caught off guard by several “Good Morning!” and “Hello!” from the locals. I kind of stand out in the crowd. Not only am I the only white guiy around, but I’m at least a head taller than the vast majority of people here. Still, most people seem pretty friendly, and surpringly low key in the markets. I have only had the hard sell put on me once so far, and by a 12 year old at that! The markets are going to take some getting used to, it’s a little different than going down to Giant, that’s for sure.

The drivers here are completely insane. They weave in and out of the traffic and pedestrians like they were in a video game. The only ones crazier than the drivers are the pedestrians of course. We have to watch our backs and pick our spots carefully in order to cross the street. Even in the narrowest passages, the cars and motorcycles zoom up and down them, the walkers better get out of the way! It is every man for himself on the roads, there are no traffic lights that I can see and the roads vary from pretty good asphalt to a rocky, clear area that can be traversed if necessary. All the streets in the old city are made up of an interesting cobblestone type of construction. I’ll post pictures soon!

I’ll be back in a day or two to post some more. In the meantime I’m going to try to get a skype account so that I can talk to people for a reasonable amount of money. I’m also going to try to set up somew regular time that I’ll be on the computer so that people can IM with mew if they’d like. I’ll talk more soon!

Isaac