Monday, December 3, 2012

Dutch and Dear Mr. Brown

Sunday November 18th, 2012

Let’s get to it!

Breakfast at home. Whoo! Milk and cereal I think it was. Another whoo! Yum!...whoo!

Off to church. Oh snap it’s raining! Break out our trusty friend the umbrella! Problem solved. Thanks umbrella! But a new problem arises. Oh no! The travel time from new house to church was underestimated. I’m late! Quick! Power walk! Power walk in the cold, wet rain. Sorry umbrella but you can’t protect my feet from puddles. I need to make rain boot friends for that. XD

Oh look! We arrived just before the first church song. Phew that was too close for comfort. Note to self: leave even earlier next week.

Pardon that bit of Taffy. It’s a result of wanting to be random and also being mentally dead. I’ll try and be more normal now.

As usual Beta Groups followed the church service, which consists of lunch and discussion. The food was in a Taiwanese family style to be shared between seven chicas and the talk over whether or not people can distinguish you as a Christian. It got kinda keep in a good way. ;)

It was before 3:00PM when we finished and I had a meet-up with a friend at 8:00PM. Going home would be a waste of time and money so I decided to just stay where I was as a time filler. That’s why I brought writing materials to work on catching up on Taffys. (I’m so far behind!) The plan was to go get a drink at Mr. Brown’s Coffee and just chill there. But a pleasant surprise hatched and Will (Dutch chica) joined me for a bit with a chocolate frappe. We chatted about things here and there though the highlight was a much anticipated Dutch lesson! Finally we snatched an opportunity to do so. It’s been very hard to get together when schedules clash and other issues collide.

The entertaining lesson covered the numbers 0-20 and the Dutch alphabet. The hardest thing to pronounce is “nul” (zero), “h” and “w.” The language is so different in sound that I haven’t got the ear for it yet. I mean, I’m still working on my Chinese ear. ;P Learning some Dutch with Will was tons of fun and I look forward to the next session! Until then, practice is necessary! Nul, een, twee, drie, etc…twinty. I can count to twenty in Dutch! Fear my knowledge! >:D

Eventually my teacher had to leave so good-byes were bid. But we noticed it was still raining fairly hard outside and Will didn’t have an umbrella. So as a way to show my thanks for the Dutch lesson, I walked her to the MRT station with my trusty umbrella friend. It’s only a small one meant for a single person but it was better than nothing, which Will appreciated. I’m sure glad I brought it today!

Going back to Mr. Brown’s Coffee, it was too early for dinner but I figured I should buy something if I was to use their facilities and didn’t want the risk of being asked to leave if I didn’t. Though I didn’t mind getting something because I fully support the café in all its loveliness. The food I settled on was a ‘cream puff’. Thinking back to the cream puffs at Ruddock’s Bakery in Louisiana (Go there if you’re ever near!) a craving surfaced and I just had to try it out.


Puffy little bugger ain’t it? It ended up being more bread and air than cream. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of cream, it just means the ratio wasn’t equal. The cream itself wasn’t very sweet or savory. It tasted as if a dash of sugar was added to butter. Nothing compared to Ruddock’s but there’s nothing to be done about that. Next time I’ll stick with Mr. Brown brand ice cream. That stuff is pretty good.

Taffy writing was commenced and when the clock reached 5:45, I went down to order dinner. Twenty minutes later, I was carrying a tray of food upstairs. On this tray was a mushroom cheese casserole, soup and orange juice. Oh darn this was more than I thought! Sure it would be just dandy on a hungry stomach but on a stomach still satisfied from lunch…too much! The juice and soup were fantastic as always! The casserole was basically a dish of rice coated in cheese with a few mushroom bits inside and two broccoli pieces tucked on top. The rice alone was ok but with a bit of cheese thrown in the bite, yummy stuff! When a mushroom graced the spoonful, twas even better! The attractive meal gains my approval! *Mr. Brown logo thumbs up* ;D

Soon after, the time to leave for meeting my friend came around. Brittany and I went to go browse a store she converted me to. With jingles and jangles up the wazoo, a lot of fun was to be had at the belly dancing clothing shop. That’s right! You heard/read me correctly. There is a belly dancing stand to go crazy at! It had so many different styles of outfits that we spent over an hour just looking at the more conservative ones. Brittany may have got me into belly dancing but she can’t get me to wear those skimpy bits of cloth and string. But I’m happy to say that the shop had many lovely pieces of clothing that covered up. We determined that I was the long skirt type with blue being one of the best colors. So basically the same ensemble Brittany lent me at the Halloween party. I did run across one top that caught my interest. It was a pretty purple shirt with gorgeous fan-like sleeves. Other than the sleeves it was kinda plain but we still searched high and low for matching skirt and belt. The result? Zlich. There was noooooooothing. Since it’s pointless to buy a top with nothing else to wear with and wearing the skirt alone would be…out of the question, no transaction was made on my part. That blue outfit is my best bet but right now I’m just sitting on the matter. There’s at least six months left after all.

The shop visit was a blast but can’t really be explained in words. Pictures would be best. Unfortunately I got too caught up in browsing to remember the camera. Sorry. Next time though, the camera shall be used!

Problems have been occurring with my phone (the one lent to me for Taiwan) as of late. No calls or texts in or out. Not good at all. Thinking it was a credit problem that theory was exterminated because they couldn’t find the number in the company’s system. Turns out my first host father discontinued my phone without telling me. That would explain the ‘No Service’ display on the screen. Thankfully my second host father was kind enough to lend me his son’s old SIM card that still works, meaning functioning phone again. Yay!

Ok this post ends NOW! I’ve been stuck on this for several days. It’s 11/28, 12:40 in the morning. Yeah, it’s about time this ends. So…BYE! ;)

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