Ethiopia - Day 2

We both woke up really early, but refreshed after the first night. After the sun finally came up we went to eat breakfast. The hotel breakfast is okay, but nothing to get excited about. Amazing coffee, of course! The one thing I can't get used to is the juice. I think it's Papaya or mango...but it's super thick, almost jelly-like. I can't do it.

Anyway, after breakfast we headed over to the care center. It was Saturday so all the kids were there (the older kids...4 and up I think...go to school during the week. I knew it would be crazy, but I think I underestimated just HOW crazy. We thought we'd be able to play soccer or games with the kids, but every time we took a ball out of our backpack one kid would grab it and refuse to let go. Even bubbles...no one wanted to chase the bubbles, they all just wanted to be the one to get the bubble jar. So, we utterly failed with the older kids! In our defense though, we are the only family here from our agency right now and we had a baby in our arms too. They're all amazing kids though and when we got to spend time with some of them in smaller groups you could just see their personality come shining through... I think it would have been a lot easier if there was at least one other family to help appease the masses. Next Saturday we'll get to test out that theory. ;)

Did I mention the nanny knew we were coming and did M's hair all fancy? It was so cute, parted to the side and all flattened down. Anyway, after we had to say goodbye we had our favorite hotel driver, Benyam, take us to lunch at Top View. As the name implies it has a great view over the city, and some fabulous pasta dishes! (A remnant of Italy's attempt to take over Ethiopia is LOTS of great Italian restaurants.) Then it was back to the hotel to rest.

For dinner we went to another Italian place called Rico's. The pizza was okay, but we were both wishing we had ordered one of the entrees instead. Ethiopia celebrates New Years in September (haven't quite figured that one out yet), but a couple of the American hotels were having New Year's parties and fireworks. Our agency reel invited us to go to one, but honestly, the thought of trying to keep our eye lids open past 9:00 seemed an impossible task. So, we decided we'd just ring the New Year in mountain time...at 10AM the next day. ;). Had we known neither of us would sleep longer than 4 hours that night anyway we may have just gone to the party!