Just another manic monday...Wish it was Sunday....

Well-today is the beginning of my 4th week here in Mauritius and time has really flew by. I am finished with the design portion of my questionnaire and am in the testing phase this week and deciding what the sample size will be. I promise to keep you updated.....

As this has not been updated since Friday afternoon, this might be a long one so be prepared...

On Friday after I left work, I went home to shower and eat some dinner. I left the house at about 9:15 and drove the hour up to grand baie (the north) to go out with my friend jean-christophe and some of his friends. We went to the banana cafe first. We left after only a few minutes-and in the process of walking down the two stairs I tripped and fell (I was wearing heels) and skinned my knee 5 year old style. I think that my heel got caught in one of the cracks because I had only had 1 drink.

We went to zanzibar (the techno and strobe light place) until 5 am!! As per usual, I met lots of people who couldn't believe that I was an american who could speak french. When we left-I slept over at Jean-Christophes because it was WAY too far to drive all the way home.

I left Saturday afternoon to go home. I finally made it to the internet cafe but I was only online for a little bit as they were about to close. I was finally able to get on facebook briefly for a few minutes-there was only so much I could do with the slow connection-so to those of you and didn't get back to I will try again sometime this week!!

Alain arrived on Saturday evening. He is somewhat older (60s probably) and is staying at Audrey's for 2 weeks or so. He is Mauritian but lives in South Africa and comes back here periodically to see family and vacation. I have only known the man for 2 days and he has already told me that I drink way too many diet cokes-frankly, why does he (and so many others, my boss Paul included) care so much?

We had a quiet dinner and I went to bed early-around 10 or so. I woke up on Sunday morning and decided to go to the outdoor market in Quatre Bornes (on thursdays it is a spice market and on sundays it is everything else). I bought a fake burberry towel and these extremely cheap bracelets (about $2 each!!)

Once I became too claustrophobic (as there was very little personal space) I left to go and spend the afternoon at my favorite beach-Le Morne. I like this particular beach because this is where all the kite surfers and wind surfers go and they are fun to watch!

I ran into Alex from work for a brief second before he ran off to windsurf. I stayed at the beach until around 4 and then left to go home. I went over to Stephanie's for pizza as she only lives 5 minutes from me. We watched some movie with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis that I have definetly heard of but forgot the title-quite an experience as always to watch an american movie in french.

I was home and in bed by 10 or 10:30.

Some little things:
-no one know the names of the streets here at all-for example when I talk about the A3 (the main drag near where I live) no one knows what I am talking about
-Paul (my boss) wonders why I just dont go by Elizabeth instead of Kallay because its easier to say
-I get insulted when people hear one mistake i make and then speak to me in english-it feels like a regression (in reality my french is much better than their extremely broken english)
-Alain told me that if Obama becomes president he is going to change the name of the White House to the Black House......ummmm ok not sure about that one
-everyone is impressed with my knowledge of celebrity gossip as well as the back stories on olympic atheletes (Laura Manadou for example)
-everyone knows that the US is big-but they really seem to grasp it when i explain our time zones (had an argument with nicolas the other day on whether or not california was ahead or behind the east coast)
-not having been to south africa for a mauritian is like not having been to disney world for an american-almost unheard of

More later....