Eating Ethiopian

Tonight for dinner I went to an Ethiopian restaurant, Cafe Abyssinia, here in Auckland. Apparently it's one of kind - no other Ethiopian restaurants to speak of. The food was good, but very different. I had a chicken dish serves with Enjera, a type of bread that you use as your silverware and plate. Click here for a photo of the Enjera and an explanation of the bread off the restaurant's website. There are no forks and knives at this restaurant, you eat with your hands. The chicken was tasty as was the bread, but the bread is definitely an acquired taste. It's a sour bread - like sour dough but maybe a little more intense. It wasn't bad but I can't say that I'm in love. I'm sure the quality is very good as all the reviews I read online before going were good, but I think I'd have to eat there a few more times to decide if it's really for me or not.

I spent the morning today catching up on my SVU. I was tired from work and felt like lounging in bed so that's exactly what I did. I watched the last 5 episodes off nbc.com. What a nice morning!

Yesterday I met with a girl Anna that I met on meetup.com about starting a book club. She posted something on a meetup group I'm a part of saying she wanted to start one but didn't know how. I met with her, told her what I did when I started my book club - what worked, what didn't, what to expect, what you need to think about - and helped her get the ball rolling with ideas at least. I think she'll probably organize a first meeting soon that I'll try to attend if possible. Ladies back home, this does NOT mean that I am leaving my American book club, just that I need another one while I"m on the road. Don't take it personally, you're not being replaced, it just appears that I may have room for 2 book clubs in my life right now.

I worked again last night - nothing too much to report there. It looks like that might've been my last shift as well. It's currently 9:40pm on Sunday night here and I still haven't heard from my boss about a schedule for this coming week. One of my co-workers told me I'm not on the roster but I haven't actually heard from my boss yet. In the interim I e-mailed my new boss to tell her to put me on the roster with some training shift this week any day she'd like. Looks like I've moved on from York Street to the Hipgroup. Exciting changes!

One observation I've had but have always forgotten to share with you about the road names/signage here in Auckland. Most roads here in Auckland, especially the big main roads that traverse the city, change their names about 5 times. For a comparison in Minneapolis, imagine Lake Street changing it's name 5 times between Lake Calhoun on the West side and the Mississippi River on the East side. Sure, if you'd lived in Mpls you entire life you'd know the road well and know the name changes but imagine how confusing this is to an out of towner when a road doesn't keep the same name for more than maybe 10-15 blocks. I've started to learn which roads turn into which other roads but it's still a work in progress. These name changes, however, lead to very interesting road name signage. All the road signs here in Auckland list the name of the road and then have "arrows" pointing to which direction(s) that name applies. By "arrows" I mean they use little signs like this: "<" or ">" so here's a few examples of road signs you might see:

<< Green Lane West >> (meaning Green Lane West is both to your left and right)

<< Balmoral Road Dominion Road >> (Balmoral Road to your left, Dominion Road to your right)

<< Green Lane West (Green Lane West to your left)

Green Lane East>> (Green Lane East to your right)

I'll try to take a few picture for read tomorrow to show you.

It's weird signage though. The first few times I saw it I didn't understand that the "<" and ">" were referring to direction, I thought it was just decoration or something. 

Now that I'm learning it it's not that bad but it had been very confusing to me in the past. You'd think they could just pick one name and stick with it for the length of the road. Essentially, with each new neighborhood everything must be renamed. 

Okay, that's all for tonight.

Best!