Saturday in Addis Ababa

I remembered last night to remind Paul to turn off his alarm.  The dulcet tones of his alarm are reserved for Monday to Friday, but hello, weekend sleep-ins.  It's not like Paul ever over does the whole sleep in thing, but even waking at 8:30 is infinitely better than 6:30.  We had our morning coffee on the porch and it was bright and sunny.  Yes, this is still wet season, but the sun does try and make a daily appearance.  We decided to do our morning workout since after all we had lugged our elliptical bike, yoga mat (still in it's original packaging) exercise tapes courtesy of my nephew Barrett all the way from Ottawa.  Our house in Addis has a large room on the top floor which could easily accommodate a Good Life work out class, but alas, it's just me, Paul and Lexxie.  We have a TV up there and we set up our Sony sound system which aside from sound has a DVD player.  So we climbed the 3 flights and began our work out.  Paul followed along with the stretching warm up while Lexxie lounged on my yoga mat.  As I moved into the routines that target those oh so fun areas of the body that love to accumulate fat and rolls and other unpleasant evidence of the fact, that, yes, it's true I never work out, but now that Paul has prepared this room for me, it's the very least I can do.  Paul got on the elliptical, a discipline, that he has really maintained because it helps strengthen his legs and keeps him from stiffening up.  I gained a healthier husband, but lost a clothes rack (elliptical).  So here I am hitting the mat and doing the exercises (2 more, breathe, breathe, almost there) and the power goes off.  Is this a sign?  You be the judge.  I've been doing the routine twice a week over the last few weeks so I knew enough of the routine to continue.  The power goes off daily, but not usually for long stretches.  It came on again after about 5 minutes and I re-started the routine.  I completed thighs, abs and was into my third routine (butt) when the power went off again.  Oh well you can only be given so many signs.  We decided to take advantage of the sunshine and take a walk around our neighborhood. Lexxie has not been beyond our fenced and gated yard so this was a nice morning to do some exploring.  Our neighborhood is a variety of big houses, some row houses (apartments) and a number of houses that are under construction.  All the homes are gated and there is lots of activity on the streets.  As we were passing by a group of boys, kicking a ball around, they called out, seemingly interested in Lexxie. We stopped so they could get a better view of her as I rarely miss an opportunity to show off my dog.  They gathered round her and one boy asks, "Is it a sheep?"  What?  No!  So, perhaps Ethiopians are  not that familiar with poodles. I decided to take the high road here and we continued our walk, but decided against further conversations with bystanders.

After brunch we went out to get groceries.  Everything is readily available in Addis, but you have to know where to go and it takes a lot of time and numerous stops.  Parking is not always convenient and now that it had started to rain, needless to say my earlier choice of strappy sandals no longer seemed like such a good idea. It was going fine until my right foot stepped ankle deep into a mud puddle.  Nice!  Not that little entrepreneurial shoe-shine boys weren't immediately at my side, but at this point, embarrassment prevailed and it was time to head home.  Once home I switched to more suitable footwear (boots) and it was now time for my manicure and Paul's haircut at The Oasis Spa located above Oh Canada.  The service is excellent, the staff wonderful and I'm sure we will be back to experience their other spa services. How can you beat paying under $5.00 for a wonderful manicure?  We finished the experience with dinner at Oh Canada.  Girls, you will be pleased to know that they offer poutine.  It was pretty good, despite the fact that they used shredded mozzarella, rather than cheese curds.  Oh well, pretty close! TIA

We're back and the rain is coming down hard, but it feels good to be safe and dry in the confines of home.