Gentlemen Start Your Engines...

I'm sure you're wondering where this is going. The traffic lights here countdown, and every time it makes think of gentlemen start your engines, which always makes me think of my mum. She's a huge Nascar fan.

Yesterday was adventure day. Jenn needed a bike basket so we biked to the motorcycle shop that sold them. It was quite a ways away. Then we biked downtown. We saw the river, the huge bridge and the German battleship that the Americans sunk in WWII (they left the remains in the river). We wandered away from the river a bit and had lunch at Burger King. The Whopper tastes the same everywhere. We did a bit of shopping. I bought a really cool sarong, and found some art that I loved. I'll go back for that. Downtown is alternately pretty and historical and crowded and dirty. Right across the street from the Burger King is a circular wooden church. A mosque and a synagogue sit next to each other, both beautiful and in between them is this tiny wooden shack. It's not nearly as pretty. The mosque and synagogue neighbouring each is a Suriname claim to fame. That doesn't happen very often, anywhere. But people are pretty tolerant down here; doesn't really matter what religion you practice.

In the afternoon to escape the heat, we went to the private pool around the corner. You pay about $5 US to get in. We were so excited about the water we jumped right in, thinking we'd be cooled down and refreshed. The water was about the temperature of a bathtub. It wasn't quite the cool down we were expecting. That didn't stop us though from staying in the pool for about two hours. It might not have been cool, but it was wet and that's all that matters.

Last night was movie night. Every now and then we get together and show a movie on the outside wall of someone's house. It's basically an outside room and we hook up a projector, gather up lawn chairs and feast on popcorn. It's a fun experience, one I'm glad we repeat.

That was about it for my weekend. Today is work day, and make potato salad today for tomorrow night's BBQ. We'll see if that turns out. I guess I'm going to break my 26 years of no cooking down in Suriname. Oh well, we all have to do it sometime. Cook, that is.

Oh and I'll leave you with some funny quotes from my roommates:

"This tastes awful. Want one?"

This is regularly heard, but in this case Jenn asked me if I wanted some terrible crackers.

"It smells like salt water and animal poop." "Welcome to Paramaribo."

Myself and Jenn, talking about the river.