Just NB

This is actually my FIRST New Year's Eve in Madagascar! Although I spent Christmas here in 2010, I was in Belgium for New Year's....ridiculously tired...and in bed by...20h00? Wow. I went through a rough time there for a while and it sure showed in my energy levels. Anyway. This year, a few friends got together and decided to throw a party. There is also a party at the Tropical Bar...but we weren't sure how well organized it was and we didn't get the official announcement until the 28th...so we went ahead and planned ours. Today, two friends/co-workers and I went into town to buy MORE alcohol (I think we had enough) and juice, pop, etc. Anyway, there is a Duty-Free store and we went a little crazy. I think we'll have enough for every party in 2013. Then we went to Score, which is like our Walmart, except about 1/214 of the size and 1/4819481934 of the selection. The two friends I went with are guys. Who were not happy to be sweating their b@lls off waiting in th...

I know you're all dying to see my pedicure so here ya go. Hope you weren't eating breakfast while reading this. :) It's a little bit more bright than I'd normally do, but I wanted something different since it's been a gazillion months since I've had a pedicure. You also get a view outside my office. Which I'm currently trying to organize. Beleive it or not...it looked worse than this for the last six months. The pedicure place was awesome, I'll totally go back, especially since they'll take appointments on Sundays. More personal grooming news: It's been at least a month since I shaved off part of my eyelashes. They are growing back...slowly. I'm getting my hair dyed here. I found a place that I'm comfortable enough giving it a try. Worst case scenario is that it looks brutal and I'll buy a box of brown hair dye and ask a friend to help. Well, actually, the worst case is that my hair falls out, but that's a little c...

I'm feeling a little more...restricted than I'd like to lately. It's a bunch of things that have been adding up and this week, especially yesterday and today, it's kind of getting to me. First, I need to make it clear that as far as expatriate "compounds" I think we have it pretty good. There's a pool (and another one in the village down the road), a bar, a cafeteria, and a little store. BUT, Louis and I live in the equivalent of a small hotel room. We have a second small hotel room - right next to this hotel room - and we've asked a thousand times to PAY OURSELVES to knock down the small entry-way wall in between so we could have like....some normalcy (this room is not for two people), but for a number of reasons, that never happened and we aren't able to. It's something I'm going to try to look into again in the new year. Cleaning: Our rooms and shared common area are pretty gross. They are "cleaned" daily, but not actually c...

No, not the Pink Floyd song (although Louis would be super impresed that I know that) album (I just asked Louis who told me it was an Album, not a song. So close), The Great Wall in China. Yah, I kinda just remembered I haven't looked at China pictures or put any up on my blog! It's been a crazy freaking month and I try not to turn on my computer at night. I said *try*. Let's just take a minute here  - this is not going to be a history lesson. This post is going to be crapload of pics that I  like. Sorry, but keeping track of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty and...however other many dozens of dynasties...It's just not my style. And while my geography and history knowledge as exploded exponentially - let's not forget that I still have to think which way is north or south (actually even in my office, I don't have any idea). The day started out pretty early in Beijing, but because of trafic, a 1.5 hour drive turned into a THREE hour drive. I was in heave...

You know that phenomenon where husbands feel like "sympathy pains" while their wife is pregnant? I think I'm having "sympathy temperature pains" for Edmonton. I'm cold. In Edmonton, it's -24*C right now.  In Tamatave, it's +30*C (+44*C with the humidex). Our office is air conditioning is set between +22*C and +24*C, which I think is normal? Like even in Edmonton hot summer weather? I'm sitting in my office in a hoodie. Freezing, drinking hot chocolate. I'm not sick. I've been like this since the summer started. Today at lunch, I took off 1/2 of my sweatshirt (it's a hot look when you have one arm out and one arm in.....) and I only took it to use as a pillow when I laid down by the pool. Like, WTF?!???????? (Also, I am going to die in January).

Show up at work thirty minutes late because Louis and I are both TIRED! (We're so bad....we got to work at 07h00!) Call my mom as I wasn't able to get through the night before (no tears) Work until 12h00 and head to the cafeteria....with hopes of having that amazing cutlery again. Try to hide my disappointment that we're back to the "pretend" forks again. Work until 18h00 (slacker day...get to work early and leave early....) Went for a run Had a quiet supper and went to bed early. Almost slept through the entire night! So, it's like that. Life is back to normal (whatever that means) and the thing that I think kept me going was knowing that I'd see most of my family in January and that I spent two weeks with my mom in November. The tears and the drama pale in comparison to two years ago when I was here around the holidays. Two years ago, it seemed like everything was so chaotic. Now it's even more chaotic, but in a way that's....I don...

DRAGged my butt out of bed. I think we were an hour late for work. Worked until noon, and then go to the cafeteria for A SUPER AWESOME MEAL! Like, this never happens!! To actually ENJOY the food we're provided? Wow! It was pretty funny because there was like a crowd of people surrounding the cutlery area. For Christmas....we got to use...REAL FORKS!!!!!!!! We usually get these forks that look like metal...and feel like metal...but if you use a little too much pressure to pick up your scrambled eggs...either the fork tines fall in weird angles, or the handle itself collapses. Our other option is plastic cutlery. Yesterday, there was this stir around the cutlery area and everyone around was holding up their forks saying, LOOK!! LOOK at the fork I got!! The thing is - I'm not joking. This is both sad...and hilarious. Went back to our place and Louis worked for an hour or two. Watched a few episodes of Mad Men. It's only taken me 3 years to start watching the series...