Hotel and lunch

Hi Everyone,

I've been told this blog is potentially being read by my very sophisticated quilting and world traveling friends in California. A big shout out to everyone at BACK PORCH FABRICS - the best quilt store west of the Mississippi. It really is. All you Florida and New Jersey people need to put it on your "To Do" list if you are ever in the Monterey area. They have a Kaffe ("like safe") Fassett selection that will knock your socks off.

So, with the varying interests of my readers in mind, I will try to keep things (hopefully) interesting for everyone. "Try" being the operative word because sometimes a girl just needs to get a little excited about Star Trek casting. I mean really isn't the guy from Heroes just perfect for Spock? But I digress again...

So here's a few more pictures to help our mothers relax a little more. This is the hotel Lance and I are currently staying in. The rooms are comparable to a Holiday Inn Express with full size bed, kitchenette, western style glassed-in standing shower and separate bathtub with a handheld showerhead.

Across from the Hotel is the Cafe News where we have enjoyed a few meals. I took the this photo this afternoon when it was warm enough to eat lunch outside. Our first night in I had the Basalmic Seafood and Rocket Salad. Rocket is a salad green, looks a little like raw spinach but is much more bitter.

The other morning both Lance and I had low fat muesli pancakes which are 2 rolled crepes filled with strawberry yogurt and muesli mix. It was pretty close to this with grapefruit instead of bananas. Very crunchy. This evening, Lance had a hamburger (I think it had some very mild sausage in it) with onions and mozzarella, I had "rump prepared in a mediterranean meat rub sauce with mash. This was essentially steak alongside mashed potatoes though I was hoping for something a little more exotic as the menu photo looked like this:
It was ok. Lance was nice enough to switch with me half way through the meal. This is why you travel in pairs. In fact, remind me to tell you the story about our first night in Paris when I thought I was ordering a Steak Tart and ended up with Steak Tar Tar instead. Whoa boy.

Here is the check for all you math whizzes out there. The Botswana currency is the Pula which is roughly 6:1 dollars. 3oo P is $50 and so on. It was an expensive meal for us but was the main one for the day so it evens out. I'm hearing Americans are the only ones who tip and very little at that. We are sticking with 10% for now. It's not much considering whoever serves us has to laugh at Kristin's dumb jokes and teach a word or two in Setswana. : )


After dinner we walked around a local shopping center. All the stores were closed as today is a national holiday, President's Day in honor of the current president rather than presidents in general like in the U.S. We initially hoped to go a public ceremony of some sort for the holiday but got conflicting info where it was being held and whether or not it actually happened yesterday. This would be the proverbial "starting point" from which all FAO spouses grow.

For all the Sells and Coopers out there, Lance is great and doing a fantastic job driving stick shift down the left side of the road. No cow casualties thus far. : )

Hugs to everyone,

K