So, about this “dry season”

Ah, Saturday. It’s nice to have one consistent day off during the week, even if the other one floats around.

I pretty much keep the same schedule, only it tends to start a tad later than usual. Last night, for whatever reason, I got no sleep so I slept a bit late before starting the routine, which began with making pancakes. Mmm….

For whatever reason, they’re not as good as in Morocco, but they’re still fine. The margarine I use, though, doesn’t really melt well. It’s pretty greasy.

After doing a bit of sink laundry, I grabbed by cloth bag and headed to the grocery store. Clouds loomed on my walk, but it’s the dry season now, right?

Well. Sometime while I was in the Giant in the basement, the clouds opened and holy cow, it rained. Badly.I did not have my new, frou-frou umbrella with me, as it's SUPPOSED to be the dry season. Liars.

When I got out of the store, completely oblivious, it was still raining cats and dogs. I hung around awhile and thought maybe it was clearing up so I set out.

Mistake. Fortunately, it being my day off, I was wearing Chacos and capris instead of tennis shoes and long pants, because the water just flooded. By the end of the 15-minute walk home, I was, quite literally, as soaked as I was after my post-workout shower that morning.

But it’s water, not napalm, so whatever. Everything’s drying on the balcony, including the morning’s laundry, which of course hasn’t had a moment to dry.

Nothing’s jumped off the railing, though. That’s a plus.

While at the mall, I had a major disappointment in my clothing quest. I’m hoping to find a new sports bra or bathing suit top suitable to work out in, what since my venture for a new T-shirt isn’t going so well.

Happily, in the department store where I bought my shoes, I found something appropriate – I think it was a dance top. It’d work, and it wasn’t too pricey.

It was, however, WAY too small. I picked up a large and an XL to try, and I gave the XL a shot first.

Perhaps my workout routine is far more successful than I noticed, because I couldn’t get the thing past my elbows. I heard threads popping. And that was the XL.

Thinking maybe they were different brands, I gave the large the ol’ college try. Barely made it to my forearms, and I’m not Popeye. I’m just glad I was able to get it off before it looked like something a tranny Incredible Hulk would have shed.

Yeah.

It’s tough to buy stuff in another country. Food is fun. You take a lot of risks, whether it’s making sure the powdery stuff really is baking soda for the pancakes, if that A&W can *really* is root beer or when choosing candy.

The fake M&Ms I think I’ve documented. Pretty darn good. It’s possible, but tough, to go wrong with chocolate. Cookies and things like that, well… there is a lot more room for misinterpretation.

All apartment buildings, as well as practically every kind of business, have some form of minimart in it. Mine’s called, for some reason, 5-11. I think they pulled that out of a hat because it is NOT open until 11. I have been getting home around 10:45 lately and it’s clearly been closed and abandoned by that time. I cannot verify the “5” part. Nor do I want to.

But when I was down there dropping off my laundry, I hoped to get some kind of non-sugar snack. These days, I don’t mind rewarding myself with sugar because according to the little workout machines I’m doing away with about two Snickers bars every morning and I don’t actually eat Snicker bars here, so I feel I can treat myself.

But sometimes you want salt over sugar. I am not a big fan of the flavored chips here – I mean, I can do BBQ, but “chicken BBQ”? Salt chips exist, but are hard to find. We have Pringles and even a fake Pringles, but my particular 5-11, my only option at this craving attack, didn’t have them.

So I looked at the crackers. Not a package in English, so, like PCVs and expats everywhere do at times, I took a stab based on the picture.

It looked good. Really. Kind of orange-y and welcoming, like a Ritz with salt sprinkled on them. They were big and rectangular, though – pretty hearty-looking.

And cheap. I guess crackers are cheaper than sugary things, and you get more of them. So, sold.

God help me. I was an ad major; I should have known better.

I sort of chickened out immediately and didn’t bother trying them for a few days. Eventually, I decided I needed a cracker and tried them.

Oh, man. Nasty stuff. I couldn’t place the flavor, but it was nowhere near a Ritz, and definitely not even one of those Cheetoh-colored ones that have the peanut butter inside.

No, this was some flavor I couldn’t place, and I think the reason I had a hard time placing it because it was *sugar,* not salt, topping it. That’s just wrong.

Still, I had a whole pack and wasn’t going to waste them. I took them into work to eat in case I got hungry.

And, eventually, I got hungry. I thought maybe the second one would be better.

No.

No.

NO.

It’s grimacy bad, really. So not what a cracker is supposed to taste like.

But really, I was unsure of what, exactly, it WAS supposed to taste like. I mean, perhaps that head-shaking taste with the sugary bite at the end was exactly what it was supposed to be.

In this lovely Google age, and especially at work with a computer sitting right there, I figured I had the power to find out.

I typed in the words on the package, and, to my horror, learned I was eating “beef-flavored” crackers.

My God. We have those in America. They’re called "dog biscuits."

I swear. I’ve been eating Scooby Snacks for people.

YouTube amuses me

I’m a week removed from the Fourth of July, which obviously isn’t a big deal here. As you’d figure, it’s a regular workday for most, but somehow I managed to get off.

That itself was a tad annoying. We got our June days off list at the start of the month, and I realized I had a two-day weekend during the last week, with ran into July. My days off fell on July 2-3, which would have been really cool IF I had my passport back. I could have gone somewhere, but since I wasn’t in possession of it, nothing was in the cards.

So I had a nice Saturday, doing pretty much absolutely nothing except this:

(Photo of Gracie Bulldog courtesy of Wendy. I love that dog. Do not tell Kocur.)

My Saturday goal, though, had been to finish my scrapbooking, which I’ve been doing online lately. It’s not the greatest creative outlet, but it’s possible to get it done remotely, which is kind of key when you’re half a world away.

I didn’t want to not meet my goal, so I started doing my “Westward Ho” scrapbook (from Laramie River Ranch to Denver, St. George and eventually Palm Springs) at 11 p.m.

I finished at 2 a.m., so I wound up sleeping late on Sunday. Woke up at 11, checked my email and went to the fitness center.

There, I have started a trend, I think. It’s been *far* more busy lately. Today, for example, five people went in and out in the hour and a half I was in there.

Someone who is shorter than me comes in and uses the bike after me and leaves nasty sweat drops all over it. Disgusting. Other people, such as the ones who came in today, leave the door wide open even though the AC is blasting. I just don’t get it.

Anyway, back to July 3 – I did my little routine and then went back to my hotel room-sized apartment and logged on again. Had a note saying “Sorry for the late notice, but your regular day off is tomorrow.”

So, a day and a half into it, I found out I had a three-day weekend. Drat.

At that point, there was just no way I was going to do anything like go out of town, so my big thing was Skyping a friend for three hours.

However, I decided to go ahead and do the American thing and get a burger, fries and a Coke at Wendy’s.

Yes, I have a Wendy’s. If I exit my apartment and turn left, there is a huge compound across the street named, eerily enough, the World Trade Center. I go through that complex, turn right and it’s there in some building.

As to which building it was in, I had no idea. The way it’s set up here is odd to me. You have McDs and KFCs, but they’re not freestanding necessarily. (I haven’t seen a freestanding one, anyway). They’re hidden in office or apartment buildings.

In Wendy’s case, it’s in the basement of a bank building. I wasn’t sure which bank building, as the sign is smack dab between two of them, but I took a chance and went in the right one.

Another aside: you don’t just wander into any buildings here. You ALWAYS go through security, whether it’s your own apartment and they just wave, the mall and get wanded down or other places where you walk through a metal detector.

But no one questions as to why you’re entering such-and-such building. You just get checked extremely briefly and walk on in.

The Wendy’s was in the basement of this particular building, and I found it pretty much right off and went through an additional metal detector down between the convenience story and the fast-food place.

Ah, it was such an American-type fast foot place, and not even five minutes from my house. I got there quicker than we get to Granny’s in Havana!

I noted I can get a Frosty, and they have chicken noodle soup, which is good to know. Also baked potatoes, which I crave – but those seemed a bit pricey in comparison.

But I ordered my No. 1 combo and waited on it a bit. I have to say, even sitting there, I realized how badly I was craving an American burger and sat there wondering if it could live up to my expectations.

It’s not inappropriate to use the word “lust” to describe how I was feeling for that burger. I even thought “Man, I am setting myself up for disappointment here” and laughed at myself for looking *so* forward to it.

But you know what? It lived up to my expectation. Fabulous burger, nice salty fries and a fountain Coke with *ice cubes*. I am not sure it can get better, honestly.

The rest of my Fourth weekend was quite boring. There’s no way I can sit out three days again, but I amused myself with YouTube.

From there, I’ve been stalking the writings of Scotty Emerick, who is the guy who wrote most of the good stuff that Toby Keith’s done. Apparently he’s done more than that (Emerick, not Keith) and is sort of a beachy country writer, which I like.

So I spent the better part of the Fourth watching several videos repeatedly. The most fun one is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhTweJ3mDKs

In this case, it’s not Emerick singing it but Billy Currington. Apparently it’s on a CD of his, but it’s on the Currington CD I own, which is sad because I adore the song.

The gist of the song is basically that dogs are superior to dates and why. The video isn’t official; it’s just some guy who’s pulled random photos off the Internet in a slideshow. The lyrics alone crack me up but the photos whoever it was pulled down are just hysterical.

Three favorites:

The “I iz trin 2 explod ur hed wit mai brain” Chihuahua at the “he don’t look at me like he hates me” line, the growly pup on the “when I say her sister is a bitch” line but my absolute favorite is the “he don’t play dead when I try to pet him” puppy. It’s at the 1:20 mark and I cannot get through the video without cracking up.

It’s not Emerick’s best song, I suppose – there are much “deeper” ones out there – but man, I absolutely love that one.

Billy Currington reminds me of a hockey player, but I can’t pin down which one.

Gone With the Wind

Not talking about Margaret Mitchell’s finest work, which turned 75 this week. I’m talking about my T-shirt, the Hockey Ministries International one I got while working for a camp in Windsor.

I think in all, I volunteered there for three camps, and it was a lot of fun. I was the “tuck lady,” which meant I was the much-loved person who showed up in the afternoon and sold them candy. Good times.

For this I got a T-shirt, and that navy blue shirt was the only one I opted to bring with me to Jakarta. Honestly, the selection was kind of slim. Since I made (or, let’s be more specific – had made) three quilts made up of T-shirts (for those keeping score: a hockey one, an FSU one and a Hard Rock one – and no, I will not be purchasing a HR shirt ever again, even though I now am in need of a T-shirt and live within a few miles of one) my selection wasn’t the best.

Honestly, I have very few T-shirts at this juncture. I wasn’t about to bring the newest one, which is a Bobby Bowden appreciation shirt. (Kind of demonstrates how long it’s been since I bought anything new, doesn’t it?) That one is long-sleeved anyway. And I can’t didn’t want an easily-stained white one, while ruled out the only other FSU shirt I had.

So anyway, the HMI T-shirt made the cut. I figured it’d last the 6-12 months I’m here.

And perhaps it will, but not on my watch.

I’d been wearing the shirt every single day when I worked out. The navy looks just so great with the shorts, which are also navy. I look like some kind of color crayon.

Anyway, post-workout, I’d either rinse it or actually wash it with soap, and then hang it over the balcony to dry. Then, when I got back to work at night, I’d do my nightly routine: head to the balcony door, pull the stuff of the railing, close and lock the door, pull down the blinds, hit the AC on, strip and jump into the shower. I swear, sweat comes easy here.

One day, walking to work, I was surprised at how nice the weather was. I mean, it was darn balmy – even pleasant. A nice breeze blowing and everything. I tried to prop my back door open to let it in. That didn’t work, but it was still so nice I decided I’d even wear jeans to work instead of the usual Columbia pants. I love the jeans, but usually it’s just too darn hot to walk to work in them.

So I headed off to work, jeans, Chacos and whatever the heck shirt I had on, and left the stuff on the line. What a nice walk, too. Just probably the best weather day I’d had since I arrived.

Even the way back was nice – no humidity, no rats.

But when I got back home and started the routine, I realized there was no HMI shirt to be found. Stuff has dropped before, but on my side of the rail. There’s a little ledge on the other side, but my shirt wasn’t there. Mchat. It was gone.

I guess the wind blew it from its little 8^th floor perch. I kind of intended to look, but once I thought about what I might find, it turned me off a little. Think about it. I’m in a residential section, and had it fallen, it would either be swooped up and taken to a better place or left to die alone, run over by motorcycles, discarded food items, rats and liquid things I prefer not to think about. (Public peeing is big here.)

So now I’m down a shirt and having to work out in one of the two tank tops I brought. Not ideal, considering the culture here, but I’m dealing with it until I find an appropriate (code for “cheap but not lewd”) T-shirt. Another not-so-ideal deal with the tank is that when I wash it every day, it tends to stretch. I have serious issues with it staying on my shoulders.

Obviously it’s a slow news day when it’s all about kamikaze T-shirts, but that’s not the only clothing item I’m down: I finally sacrificed my tennis shoes to the Jakarta street gods.

They were really wearing down, with holes in the back where my orthotics stabbed them and the tread on the bottom was pretty much trashed.

Poor little things. They weren’t even a year old, really – bought to work at the ranch only last July or something. Or maybe I bought them for the Y, which would put them at a year.

But whatever, Zippy hated them and threatened to burn them even before I came here, so they kind of knew they were on their last legs. Does that cliché work for shoes?

Currently, Jakarta is having its 484^th anniversary and lots of places are having sales. I’d been stalking the only tennis shoe place in my nearby mall for about a week and thought I found some likely replacements, but once I actually brought socks to try on potential candidates, I learned that they didn’t have any in my size.

So I went to the department store-ish place there and found a couple more options. Neither was overly attractive, but since I had taken the oldies for their last walk and left them on the side of the road, I didn’t have a lot of options. I guess it never occurred to me my size would be hard to find in a non-tacky item.

Once the sales guy and I were on the same page as to the size – for some reason, the other guy told him I wanted a 43, and I wanted a 40 – I did find a pair. It’s a little too white for me, but I figure that’ll likely change as soon as I start to wear them on the streets.

They’re mid-cut little Reeboks, white with red trim. It’s not blood red, but it’s not pink or fuchsia, either. Or maybe the red pales because the white is so white.

They’re OK, I guess. I’ve been wearing them a couple of times in the mornings. I do still have another pair – the one I found at camp. They’re all right, too, but they are pretty ugly and a little small. I can either walk to work in them or wear them to work out, but I can’t do both in the same day.

Other than food and household items, that’s really the first purchase I’ve made here. I’d kind of hoped it’d be a little more exciting – I really do want some of the batik shirts – but it hasn’t panned out just yet.

Perhaps the quest for a new T-shirt will be a little more exciting, but I’m not holding my breath. This is me we’re talking about: possibly one of the most boring people ever.

Gender Confusion

I enjoy my walks. Now that the dry season is sort of here, there’s a lot less humidity and it’s not the sweat-inducing trek it was previously. There’s sweat involved, but it’s not too bad.

It’s also not the only minor annoyance. I’ve become pretty familiar to most people along the walk. Some of them, I think, take a little joy in the fact that I speak and understand no Indonesian.

There’s one guy who, without fail, asks if I want a motorcycle taxi – an “oh-jet” – and I always smile and shake my head. He tends to laugh and then shout the same thing at me as I continue to walk. I’ve no idea what he says, but it brings a hearty laugh to the other guys sitting with him.

It’s all harmless, but sometimes it can be annoying. I met some children the other day and after the routine “My name is” and “How are you?” they started chanting “money, money!”

Again, though, it’s harmless. I never break stride, and there’s always more people in sight.

On my errand walks – when people don’t know me – I’m starting to he hassled for money, but it’s not like in Morocco where kids chase you and chant “un dirham! Un dirham!” Or “Une stillo!”

No, I don’t remember if it’s “un” or “une.” Darn gender-oriented nouns.

That’s not my only gender-oriented issue these days, either. Seriously, on any given walk, I am “Meester,” “Meessus” and “Meece."

It does get confusing. I mean, granted, I am taller than about 90 percent of the population, but I am clearly not a “Meester.” Except, I guess, to people who are as knowledgeable about their English pronouns as I am with the darn French ones.

Today’s a day off, and I had to go to immigration this morning. I thought this would totally complete the process but I still don’t have my passport back so I guess it’s not done.

The visit was, shall we say, overwhelming. My God, there were people everywhere in this building. Nothing in English whatsoever, which I thought was a little odd because a good chunk of people in there are English speakers who haven’t a clue as to where to g or what to do.

I had a name of a guy I was supposed to me, and I was thinking it’d be like the Singapore run, where I walked into a hotel lobby with eight people and I could pick out the one I needed. (There, to be honest, Mustaza was my second choice, but I did find him.)

This time, there were just so many people it was insane. I couldn’t tell who was there working, who was getting paperwork done and who were the go-between people who were basically doing the legwork.

That’s the kind of person I was looking for. After showing a helpful employee my note, he shuffled me to the third floor, where another guy took a look at my paper and pointed me to a guy sitting in the crowd.

“Globe” meant nothing to him, so I showed him the paper and he promptly called the guy listed, told me to sit down and a few minutes later, another person appeared and asked me if I was “Jakarta Globe.”

Happily, I was, and he took me back down a floor, told me to wait in the corner, where there were fewer people and then he delved into the crowd.

A little while later – I’d brought my MP3 player and was listening to something – he appeared again and told me to stand in something between a line and throng. When some doors opened, he indicated I was to move on through with another group of people, who were very clearly either as WASPY as I was or very much sub-Saharan African.

We waited around again in the mug shot and fingerprinting room to get our info taken for whatever step is next in the whole process.

It very much reminded me of PC, when you have the staff there doing all this stuff on your behalf and you very clearly have no knowledge of what is happening. I remember in Ras Lma thinking I could very be being sold into slavery and I’d have no clue. Today, it was quite the same.

But quite entertaining, once you got over the stifling heat.

The throng is by no means limited to English-speaking (and mostly Australian) WASPS. There were tons of Indonesians there, I guess either renewing their passports or seeking visas or something, and they were also being herded into small groups to get their pictures and fingerprints taken.

It seemed each group had a designated mug shot/fingerprint taker, and the “clearly not Indonesian” photographer was right next to the unfortunate soul who drew “kiddie photographer” for the day.

This poor man spent about a full five minutes trying to take the photo of a boy who was maybe 10 or 11 and kind of husky. The kid never uttered a word – I wondered if he was a tad slow – and wasn’t crying or anything but he just didn’t get it.

He was with his dad, I think, and between the dad and the photographer, the WASP/African group was pretty much ready to crack up.

The boy had a hard time with understanding he needed to keep his head level and have has face pointed at the camera. But that was nothing compared to the “look here, not at the computer screen” command. Every time the photographer would get him in the right position, his eyeballs would dart to the computer screen so he could see himself.

He never made a sound, but he just kept doing it. Our photo guy even came over to help and try to get the kid’s attention, and his father tried to hold his head in the right spot while the other two were snapping their fingers to get his attention so kiddie photo guy could take a picture.

It didn’t work. I guess they don’t allow parental hands in official photos.

Finally, once they decided to turn the computer screen away from the child so he couldn’t peek, the photo guy figured he got it won. Not so. About the time the photographer finally caved and not only turned the computer screen but pulled back the camera physically, the kid decided to slump back against the wall.

It was just so hard not to completely bust a gut laughing.

At some point, the photographer finally got his photo, and man, did he earn his paycheck today

Ace is the Place

I’ve now made it halfway through June, which is a nice personal milestone. For some reason, anyway. I’m not really sure.

My goal is to make it to the 29^th, and then I feel like I’ll be just fine. There are reasons for that, but it’s best to leave them unblogged.

This week, I have a real weekend – two days off in a row. It’s always welcome, although honestly, it’s kind of nice to work three days and then get a day off, too. Tough call on which is actually nicer.

Last week, I really only had one day off because I had to go to Singapore, so today I ran the errand that got waylaid last week.

Again, I just walked. For some reason, that just shocks everyone here. I was talking to some people at work and when they found out I walk over 30 minutes to and from work, it just stunned them. I guess there aren’t all that many people who actually walk here – most people are on the overcrowded roadways.

Me, I’d just prefer to walk if at all possible, and it seems that we might have come into the dry season, which means it’s not quite as humid as it has been before. It’s hot, though. I checked the forecast and it lists 92/77 every single day. Compared to the 105 that it is in Florida right now, it seems like it’s not such a big deal, but remember right now I am on the other side of the equator, so technically this is my winter.

If Wendy wants to move to Jakarta, here's her place of employment.

Really, though, there are only two seasons here, wet and dry. And although I think we are finally entering the dry season (it’s running late), I still felt the need to hunt down an umbrella. I’d bought one before, but it pretty much crashed and burned the first time I used it. I still have it and will keep it as a backup, but it’s not that great.

And this week, it did rain lightly on the way home once, so even though it’s going to be dry I wanted a decent one.

Now, you’d think in a country with just “wet” and “dry seasons,” umbrellas would be easy to find. Not so. I’ve had a devil of a time.

And the selection – God, they’re ugly. All the fold-up ones are just so frou-frou. I mean, my other one is pink.

I didn't lie, did I? Just as I describe.

But I found one. It’s pretty horrible. Little green hearts and lace on the ends. But it seems to be well-made. I hope it lasts.

And I got it at ACE Hardware, really. Our ACE is just awesome. It’s like a Bed Bath and Beyond on steroids. It’s got absolutely everything, from custom insoles to these cute little kitchen spoons that have faces and feet.

The only other thing I did in the grand mall was hit up Pizza Hut. I had a free coupon for what I thought was a personal pan pizza. I figured I’d just get a cheese one, but for whatever reason that wasn’t even on the menu.

This is the statue at the roundabout that's pretty much a landmark. I don't see the big deal, although this is a bad photo.

What I got wouldn’t even be considered pizza in America. It did come in a little pizza pan, no bigger than a grits bowl, really. Four little pieces, but they were little BIG pieces.

That’s mostly because it was almost all bread. Not pizza crust bread, but almost just roll bread. The topping was a thin bit of cheese – not even a real layer. I got the “Idaho,” which was a snap judgment mostly because I didn’t recognize the names on the three other options. There was no pepperoni, no sausage. I went with what I knew.

And, as you might expect, the Idaho had potatoes. Now, not a lot. I figure each piece of pizza – there were four, it wasn’t even 6 inches across – had about three little squares of potato about the size of an individual hash brown piece. And there was a tiny dab of what I am guessing as hamburger, but if it was something more evil there wasn’t enough of it to worry about – not quite the size of a regulation marble.

The parking lot in the area where the Hard Rock is. Mostly, judging by the lunch crowd headed there today, these belong to people who work across the street, not to patrons of the Hard Rock.

But it was free, and it came with a pony can of hot Coke. The coupon was from two Coke bottles, which is kind of odd since Pizza Hut, so far as I know, is a PepsiCo holding. Maybe that’s old news. But hey, it was free. I have another coupon for tomorrow, too.

My splurge after lunch was a Magnum bar. For those who don’t know, this is an amazing ice cream bar. It’s just plain old vanilla ice cream wrapped in chocolate, but it’s REAL ice cream and REAL chocolate. They had them in Morocco and I was pleased to find they’re here, too, although I did learn today they’re considerably smaller than they are in Morocco.

We have Hagaan Daaz here, too, but it’s incredibly expensive. And I’ve learned that my freezer doesn’t do such a fabulous job of keeping things frozen, so it’s best if I stay away from buying larger containers of ice cream.

My other splurge was some beef. It’s very rare for me to cook beef. Not sure why, other than I guess chicken is cheaper. I think I bought beef a total of three times in Morocco, and this purchase is my first here.

I am varying my regular meal and trying to make a little roasty thing tonight. I’ve encountered some problems already, such as first of all, not really knowing how to make a roast without a Crock Pot, and not having cream of mushroom soup, which really holds it together.

But another issue is my potatoes. I buy about 6-7 a week and I was going to use two. Well, I cut up two and they were pretty darn nasty inside. I did eventually get enough taters to cover, but then I pulled the frozen veggies out of the freezer and they don’t look so good. I’m going to pick through them and use them anyway.

Fairly typical of traffic. I make more progress by foot than people in cars.

Thanks to my previous splurge, I do have some spices now. I was getting tired of salt and pepper, so I bought some Louisiana spice and some chili spice. The former is for special things, and the latter I’ve been using on my hash browns that I make pretty much 4-5 times a week for breakfast.

The other night, I finally caved and placed an order when people at work ordered. Every night, someone from the crew takes orders and calls it in. Consistently, there’s an Indian place, and Italian place and this burger joint called Fat Burgers.

Thursday, it was Fat Burger, which is owned by Queen Latifah (I think I told someone Aretha earlier – I messed that one up). I had a milkshake from there once and it didn’t turn out so nicely but yesterday a burger sounded really good. And I figure I do need to order now and then or they’ll stop asking me!

The burger was pretty darn good, too, though again the milkshake was a bit runny. I have no idea where the restaurant itself is, but I’d definitely go in and order. It’s not 5 Guys, but it’s a really good burger.

(Aside: I did learn that I have a Wendy’s just across the World Trade Center from me, but I haven’t been there yet)

In the FB bag, they had some “chili sauce.” I am considering putting that in my roasty meal this evening, too. I have no idea what it is, but garlic is listed as an ingredient. That’s usually right in my book.

And in all the excitement of having a burger, I realized on the way home I left my PB sandwich in my desk.

That’s going to be a nice surprise when I go back to work on Sunday.

Back from the Little Red Dot

So, as most reasonably intelligent people have surmised, I’m back from the city-state, Singapore, S’Pore, the Lion City and the Little Red Dot. I’m sure it has more nicknames but so far that’s all I’ve learned.

Quite a long day, but mostly things went well. Both my flights – Lion Air – were late, which put me in at the meeting spot about an hour late, but machi muchkil – no problem.

Surprisingly, the flights themselves went well. LA is a LCC – low-cost carrier – and had no food, but I was tired both ways and just tried to sleep anyway. I got good seats on the plane, which was the surprise since my ticket had only been purchased the day before.

Once in Singapore and after meeting the visa guy, I mostly just walked. I failed in my attempt to see “Pirates” because it was only showing at 10:30 at one theater – I got there around 1 – and then the other theater had a showing at 2:50, but I had to pick up my passport at 4, so that didn’t work either.

As a result, my entire spending came to a $2.50 magnet, a $2 Pepsi, $1.40 for tea, $1.20 for milk, $2.80 for a Coke, $2.05 for a litre and a half of water and $1.45 for a Hershey bar. That’s Singapore dollar, which is close to the USD.

The place is freaking expensive. All I did was the Orchard Road, or whatever the name of the tourist street is, and it’s like Rodeo Drive, except instead of single stores there are malls. With all the same stores, I might add. I can’t tell you how many Louis Vutton stores I saw.

Sightseeing was brutal because it was just malls. Next time I go – and since my visa is only eight months, there will be a next time – I’ll skip the shopping area and head to the zoo or something. I just wasn’t into the shopping at all. Beyond the fact I don’t need anything, I just wasn’t about to fork over $250 for shoes, even if they were Timberlands.

I had a nice lunch (paid for by the company) at some place touting itself as an American burger joint, but was really much fancier. I didn’t see many good burgers on the menu, so I got the special, which was cream of carrot soup, baked fish with some kind of cheese sauce and cauliflower, broccoli and carrots in some kind of sauce plus carrot rice and a Coke. It was very good. Even the soup, which I was a little leery about.

Met a nice Croatian-Australian fella who was working on one of the escalators. I didn’t have a lot of information about S’Pore and had to ask where the hotel was. Fortunately, he knew and then I ran into him on the way back from my little errand, too. His name was Stan.

A couple of other new-to-me things I saw: a urinal in the women’s bathroom – do not even begin to ask me how to use it; I wondered if it was a foot-washing thing but it had a urinal cake in it – and a mashed potato dispenser at the 7-11. That thoroughly disgusted me.

Toward the end of the afternoon, I started developing one of those I-didn’t-drink-enough-water migraines, hence the purchase of the litre and a half of water.

Unfortunately, I got it right as I was headed back to the airport on public transportation (Yay! Public transportation – Jakarta has none!) and they don’t allow eating or drinking on the trains or in the stations.

This being Singapore, land of caning, I didn’t risk it and as a result my headache got worse until I got to the airport. I pounded the entire thing of water but it was too late. The migraine set in and it was brutal.

My flight home was about 45 minutes late, and I thought I was going to die by head explosion in the airport. I just wanted to sleep so the headache would go away.

After waiting a while in the airport, I got up and walked around. When I got back, my seat was taken so I had to sit somewhere else. By this time, it was much closer to scheduled takeoff and there were lots of people around. I had to sit directly between two men, or at least men-children.

Oh, my God. As soon as I sat down, it I realized it was a mistake. Seriously bad BO hit me from both directions, and the talkative man-child on my left started flirting with me. Not only was his BO compounding my migraine nausea, but his breath almost killed me.

And he wanted to chat and chat. We’d both done visa runs and therefore he just bonded. Oh, man. How does this happen to me?

My head about to explode, I tried hard. He couldn’t have been over 24. Nice enough, but I can’t describe accurately how bad I was feeling at that time.

Finally we got on the plane and I managed to nap enough to get the headache to subside a little, but it didn’t go away.

Back in Jakarta, I cleared immigration quickly (although I’ve since learned I have to go into some immigration office soon to do more paperwork) and got a cab to get home.

The guy drove like a bat out of hell. On the one hand, I was thankful because I felt like my head was going to explode, but on the other, a speedy cab ride does not help migraine-induced nausea.

Fortunately, I didn’t leave anything in the back seat and got home and to bed. I took a RelPax, knowing it was probably too late for it to do any good but figured once I woke up it’d be gone. But no, I woke up at 6 with my head still pounding. I took what I think was an ibuprophin but I’m not sure – it might have been Sudafed. I dozed back off until 10 or so and then was absolutely fine.

Headed back to work Friday and now I’m off today. I’m headed back into the fitness center in a minute to get back on my routine.

On this lovely day off, everything else is domestic. I’m going to do laundry (sink) and then head to the grocery store.

I’m so glad Singapore is over. I’d go back for fun or a doctor appointment, but I’d like a little advance notice so I can bank up on the rest. The whole day I was just dead on my feet.

It's a retail center. What more did you expect?