Last night, we were in search of the best pizza place in town. Since the inauguration coverage started at 7pm here, we initially decided that we would order our $5 pizza special from Debonair’s and enjoy watching from our living room couch, but read online that Debonair’s pizza is quite disappointing. Therefore, we decided to grab a quick dinner out (still had our hearts set on pizza though) and then head home to watch the coverage on tv. Since we were also running out of water at home and desperately needed a wine bottle opener (ok, some of us were more desperate than others, and tried to open the wine bottle with various dull knives in the house, but don’t worry, there were no injuries as a result), we decided to head to Arcades where we could stop by Spar, one of the large South African chain grocery stores in Lusaka. On our way there, our cab driver started talking about Obama and was asking us what we thought about him. It has been amazing to see how in Zambia (and we hear most of Africa) the citizens are so proud to see an African-American president of the US.
At Arcades, we had several dinner choices, including Rhapsody’s (where we have become frequent guests), The Ocean Basket (which Ron nixed, he’s not a seafood fan), Arabian Nights (a bit pricey) and the infamous Subway. We finally settled on an inexpensive Italian restaurant since they served a wide variety of pizzas. We ordered dinner and a basket of bread (for Ron, our anti-Atkins teammate). The server took our orders, and we were leisurely enjoying our glasses of wine and good conversation. (We have learned here that most everything runs on “Zambian time.” This means that a 9am meeting might start at 9:03, 9:33, or 11:33. There’s not much of a rush for anything, and the same goes for dinner.) So after “a while” our server returned and said, “We have a problem with the basket of bread. We do not have any bread” which caused us to immediately burst out laughing, for several reasons. #1: There is a grocery store at the other end of the strip mall, where I’m sure that they have ingredients such as flour and yeast. #2: Isn’t bread made out of the same ingredients as pizza dough? #3: We were the only people at the restaurant. Anyways, we finally received our pizzas (and Ron received his spaghetti Bolognese, in line with his anti-Atkins diet) and everything was quite delicious.
In other news, the rainy season is officially in full swing. It has literally rained here for the past 5 days. Now I know that all of you surviving the -50,000 degree temperatures and 12 feet of snow are thinking, “we have no pity, it is freakin’ cold here and we have been shoveling for the past 3 weeks” well, I don’t blame you for hating us. But you must also keep in mind that there are no “sidewalks” here, and so the ground becomes a muddy mess everywhere we go. I am amazed that people make it to work without ruining their suits. When we first arrived we were wondering why the locals carry umbrellas everywhere they go, and now we totally understand. We’re just hoping that it clears up before we leave for safari this weekend!
At Arcades, we had several dinner choices, including Rhapsody’s (where we have become frequent guests), The Ocean Basket (which Ron nixed, he’s not a seafood fan), Arabian Nights (a bit pricey) and the infamous Subway. We finally settled on an inexpensive Italian restaurant since they served a wide variety of pizzas. We ordered dinner and a basket of bread (for Ron, our anti-Atkins teammate). The server took our orders, and we were leisurely enjoying our glasses of wine and good conversation. (We have learned here that most everything runs on “Zambian time.” This means that a 9am meeting might start at 9:03, 9:33, or 11:33. There’s not much of a rush for anything, and the same goes for dinner.) So after “a while” our server returned and said, “We have a problem with the basket of bread. We do not have any bread” which caused us to immediately burst out laughing, for several reasons. #1: There is a grocery store at the other end of the strip mall, where I’m sure that they have ingredients such as flour and yeast. #2: Isn’t bread made out of the same ingredients as pizza dough? #3: We were the only people at the restaurant. Anyways, we finally received our pizzas (and Ron received his spaghetti Bolognese, in line with his anti-Atkins diet) and everything was quite delicious.
In other news, the rainy season is officially in full swing. It has literally rained here for the past 5 days. Now I know that all of you surviving the -50,000 degree temperatures and 12 feet of snow are thinking, “we have no pity, it is freakin’ cold here and we have been shoveling for the past 3 weeks” well, I don’t blame you for hating us. But you must also keep in mind that there are no “sidewalks” here, and so the ground becomes a muddy mess everywhere we go. I am amazed that people make it to work without ruining their suits. When we first arrived we were wondering why the locals carry umbrellas everywhere they go, and now we totally understand. We’re just hoping that it clears up before we leave for safari this weekend!
We have a car wash right outside of our workplace:
Here's the fruit stand that we stop by each day during our lunch break:
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