SECURITY: A reminder that we are securing this blog up soon, so please send me your email to littlefieldsabroad@gmail.com so that I can register you. Don't be afraid - we welcome everyone we know, and even some friends of friends.
What a day! Woke up a bit late at 4:45 and got in the car at 5:30 to get to the airport by 7:00... Leave any later, and you're hooped with all the back up. (By the way, yesterday was a new record for the commute home...close to three hours... we stopped at a bakery (Pastelaria Vanan) for a bio break, but still a long trek).
I picked up Pablo at arrivals, and then we went to the customs office to claim his computer (not new, but it had to be inspected as if it was). This resulted in the conclusion that the monitor was new, but the desktop wasn't (even though the customs lady was suspect that all the dust inside the case of the computer could have EASILY manifested itself while wrapped three times in bubble wrap and in a box on the plane from Houston.)
So... Paul goes off to pay 14,820 kzs (Kwanzas - exchange is 100kz = $1) for it, and as I wait, the customs lady started asking about my iced tea cups....
Being the nice wife that I am, I loaded up a bottle of Veronica's iced tea (obrigada) and hit the road with thermo cups full of ice for el Pablo and me (those from the office know that I rarely part from "the cup.") Paulo was pleasantly surprised to receive it - more because I talked my way back into to baggage claim to meet him, but still a nice refreshment for an arrivals area with no air con.
So, I'm with the customs lady, and she starts asking whether the cup is new, and did I bring it with me, and I said no, no, and the she asks whether I bought it in Luanda...reaching out for it to take a look, and I hand it to her, and she says... Is this for me? Cute move lady.
NOTE TO SELF: don't bring stuff that's cool to the airport - it makes for awkward encounters.
Anyway we got home, met our new gardener - his name is Lisboa, and he is AWESOME. I am 100% doing before and after pics. Then we hit the stores to shop for a bit more food. Paul is a fan of the boutique shops that are analogous to Whole Foods, and he is a little freaked out by the chaotic Kero - he doesn't much like the chaos of Costco or SAMs or anything that spikes the barometer of calmness, so this wasn't a surprise.
MONEY EXCHANGE: During the adventure we traded out $200 USD for kzs at the Kero for about a kz103: $1 rate... When we got the the amount in 500 kzs - like $5 bills this stack of forty bills doesn't quite fit well in a wallet, so we decided to get our relief driver Alberto to trade the rest. He got the street rate of kz102:$1... He also made a tip of $4 since anything over a kz100:$1 rate is bonus for me.
RELAXING WITH MY HUSBAND: And now after unpacking, we are enjoying some patio action with a little BellX1 as back up music (along with the sound of tennis balls being hit - solidly, I might add) and some queijo (cheese) and chorizo. (The 2,650 kz cheese that I thought was $2.50 but is actually $25...oops!) here are some pics!
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