Sept 21

Sept 21 Thursday, first day of the weekend, but I arranged with Ismail to have class again at 10 that morning. I woke up at about ten and started to scramble so I wouldn't be late, but then remembered that I was meeting Ismail who would definitely be late. So I ate my breakfast and drank some juice and got to the institute at 10:30. The crazy old groundskeeper had to let me in, since the gate to the institute was locked. The institute is walled off, inside there is a nice small garden, and the building itself, with seating areas around the garden for study or whatever. Then there is an outdoor 'kitchen' with a roof, and a bathroom, as well as a small shack built up against the wall in the garden. It is really small, but I guess that this groundskeeper lives there in that little shack. I'm not sure what his story is, he seems a little crazy. Maybe a relative of the director. He waters the plants in the garden and locks up the place as well as feeds a number of cats who are always in the garden. I can't really understand him when he speaks... Anyways, I sat in the garden and then Ismail called at 10:30 and said he's on his way and would be there in about 20 minutes. So of course he arrived at 11. We had class until 1 though, and it's nice to have class six days a week, it keeps me very busy. After that I rushed off to Bab Al-Yemen which was the one spot where Hassan and I could find to be mutually known, he called me again and said him and his brother were running about 20 minutes late, so I wandered up into Souq al-Milh to buy something to drink. It was funny this little kid just took it upon himself to get me my drink. He took my 40 riyals and went from store to store to buy find it. I was a little mixed up on direction so I asked him where Bab al-Yemen was and he walked me to it and said bye. Talked with someone selling stuff on the street for a little bit and then saw Hassan and his brother walking through the gate. It was really strange to see a familiar face from UW all the way on the other side of the world. Very strange! He stood around chatting for awhile and then Hassan realized he had forgot some clothes in the taxi they took which he had just purchased. We went over to the place where the taxi dropped them off and they were optimistic that he would return, and sure enough about 10 minutes later the taxi driver pulls up hanging the bag of clothes out the window for him. He said that once they had left a camera in a taxi here and the came right back and returned it also. After that we debated about where to go to eat, whether to go 'authentic Yemeni' or to a nicer sit down restaurant. We opted for a nicer sit down restaurant on Hadda Street, and took a taxi down there. They knew a nice Lebanese restaurant and treated me to a great meal. Turns out that Hassan was just here for three months but his brother would be staying in Hadramaut in the east for another year, so he gave me his contact info in case I ever traveled over to that part of Yemen, then I'd have someone to show me around and everything. They dropped me off back at Tahrir Square and set off to try and sort out the situation with his missed plane ticket. It was good to see a familiar face here in Yemen though. Headed back to the house for a little and at 7 I went to the internet cafe to call my Dad for his birthday, he wasn't home then so I left a message. Haven't been able to talk to him since I arrived, communicated via email and whatnot, but it is difficult to coordinate times. Then at 8 I met up with Markus and Matt in Tahrir Square near this strange changing color light column (I has told it might be intended to be a palm tree) and we were soon joined by Ben, an Aussie who is working at Yemen Language Center in exchange for Arabic lessons and other perks and I had been reading his blog back in Seattle, and Frank, a Brit also from Cambridge in the year below Matt who had been here for about 2 weeks. We had planned on meeting up and heading out to dinner together, so we walked out to the northern part of Hadda Street to a restaurant that had been recommended to Ben by others. It was a pretty good restaurant... My fish was great, and the juice drinks are always amazing here. I thought the menu was really funny though because it had English translations of things such as "Pipsi Can" "Frying Meat" "Wet Bread" also "Wet Brea" and other strange things... But the food was good. It was fun meeting up with some other Western students, since there are so few at my school, SIAL. After that we parted ways and planned to meet up the next night for some bowling and pool at Fun City.