2 Days of Nothingness

After a week of slavery....and the Ericsson Day event now history, I thought a weekend of doing nothing would be the perfect ending!!!

My Workmates, a good mix of Ethiopians, Swedish, Lybians, Romanian, Egyptian and Maltese

On Friday night, Jens, Femi, Sjoerd, three colleages and me decided to use the last bit of energy we had, after the long week, at Memos ( nightclub)!!! I needed to show the boys the 'picking up' process here in Ethiopia. The night did not last long though, as our energy ran out pretty early, so after a last drink outside the nightclub to recount the night's events.... we headed to bed.

Satruday morning was productively used, by waiting in a long queue at Ethiopian Airlines to confirm my ticket to Lalibella and Barhir Dar, and doing some grocery shopping. The rest of the day was used reading, eating pringles, and watching movies, until the boys rescued me from laziness and took me out for coffee at the famous Kaldi's (total starbucks look alike - logo and all - but cannot guarantee the same coffee).

Yens then left Sjoerd and I to wander around the streets, where we ended up buying loads of bread and bananas and giving them to the poor!!! We spent 7Birr ( 0.80$) and bought 25 buns and a kilo of bananas with which we fed a little kid and a family of six - probably their best meal of the day!!!! Sjoerd got so excited by this that he wanted to feed all the poor that were in that street (we were right next to one of the biggest churches in Addis, so you can imagine that there were loads!!!) - but that couldn't happen!!!

We ended the day in a very typical Ethiopian restaurant (we were probably one of the very few faranjis that ate there as everyone was staring at us as we walked in!!!). And I tried the famous Kitfo (raw meat) - not bad!!!

Femi and I after the big Ethiopian Dinner

Sunday was another non-productive day. I woke up and headed straight to church where the Maltese in Ethiopia met up. Frank, Fr Morris and I planned my trip to Lalibella!! Can't wait!!! I think I've seen enough of Addis and cannot wait to go out, besides I can't wait to take two days off work and relax for a bit....... Work has been very tiring, adapting to the company, self-learning new things, developing myself and learning more about cross-cultural communication, and thus a lot of internal battles, and sometimes unhappiness.

I then prepared a nice lunch for Femi, Sjoerd and Yens and the afternoon was spent lazying by the Hilton pool until there was the daily rain shower, then we headed back to my apartment were we sat watching soccer and laughing at the silly programmes on T.V.

Sunday Lunch at my place!

Sjoerd Satisfied!

Another week of work coming up..... I can feel the end of my stay approaching, only 7weeks left, and still a lot of work i need to do, and a lot of Ethiopia I need to discover!! This month is going to fly can't wait to see more of Ethiopia.... Next blog will definitely be full of beautiful Lalibella photos!!!