A Week Later……

 

Hi Everyone – well it’s hard to believe that we have been here now for almost a week it feels like forever. I am getting lots & lots of sleep day & night as I think my body clock is still on Melbourne time. It’s 3pm here now but 11pm in Melbourne…… Well that’s my excuse for being so lazy anyway :)

Jesse gets home like clockwork everyday at 5pm which is a first for him and then it’s the decision of do we go on the 5pm free bus to Rashid huge mall to look around for 1 1/2 hour or free bus to the local Panda supermarket if we need foodstuffs – Usually we need foodstuff so the decision is easy. They give us an hour at the local which you might think is a long time but…… with Jesse hobbling around like the hunchback of Notre dam and trying to decipher what we are buying an hour goes pretty quickly.

Me shopping at Rashid Mall at Lebanese sweets booth – the guy was great I was buying toffee peanuts and he gave us a sample of lots of his wares which were all delicious – a wise decision for him as I came away with more than toffee peanuts ;) I got pastry covered dates & sesame seed biscuits – and next time will get the dates with nuts in centre which are really yum! They come on the coolest decorated plastic (glass like) plates that will be kept for use at home. It was really great having free dessert after our dinner at food court.

Me coming out of local Panda supermarket after getting aforementioned food requirements – bread is safe, milk is safe, and the rest will be decided as we go. Bananas seem to be really soft so I don’t like but Jesse eats like a monkey :) They have a whole DIET section there so makes it easy for sugar free treats without too much fuss. Jesse didn’t get into Panda this time shopping as he is trying to get his feet in ship-shape so he sat and had a cup of coffee at the MEN ONLY coffee shop in front. After we finished on this our first free bus trip – we were sitting out front with our trolley and the next moment a strange man came & grabbed the trolley and started to make away with it – we literally jumped to our feet asking what he was doing and after much hand waving etc we established he was our bus driver – he recognized me (I wonder why as I am only white haired person around) and was merely taking our shopping to the bus for us :)

I prefer to go to Panda coz they have packers there that pack your groceries for you as they are going through the checkout – Carrefours you have to do it yourself – and me being lazy I give that one a miss :)

My first trip to supermarket was a bit strange as you have to line up at the bakery for loose items and the fruit & veg stand to get your stuff weighed there – as you can imagine I took mine up to register like at Safeway or IGA and caused a mini EGAD what are you doing??? moment

All the restaurants and food courts have 2 registers – one for women & one for men and women can’t go to men’s and there is total freak out if a man goes to the womens. Yet what I find it strange is that there are only men serving, as women aren’t allowed to. Even buying an Abayer it is all men that do the selling and ordering of sizes. Even in lingerie shops etc it is all men which is a bit strange seeing as women are so shrouded in mystery! The range of Abayers are amazing – you can certainly be a little bit individual if so desired. The special occasion ones are certainly something.

There are some pretty weird sights here as far as scenery – you see very new (I won’t say modern) buildings next to empty blocks piled up with rubbish from the block that was just built on. They clear the block they are building on by dumping it all on the block next door – then if the owner of the block wants to clear and build something on his block he clears & dumps it on the next empty block – imagine doing that at home – we get put in jail for throwing a can out the window of the car. When we were going to medical centre on Sunday we drove past what looked like a proposed future housing estate – it was huge with roads set out in a very precise square formation with funny light poles & fittings everywhere along – but the building blocks were hollow rubble filled holes much lower than the road surface – it was a really weird sight and once Jesse gets his licence & car we will try to find and take pictures – only a picture can describe it. There are no footpaths anywhere – even the one in the compound that leads to front entrance ends at a bush and you have to get off and go around on roadway for the rest of the distance.

Well that about raps it up for today……… after all I have the monumental decision of where to go shopping tonight :) Glad that everyone is reading and following our blog coz it makes it so much easier than e mailing everyone individually :)

Love & Miss you all :)