For most blood drained in a single evening...

Happy Halloween!  Ok, so it's not Halloween just yet, but seeing as I am miles away from crunchy orange and red leaves, haunted houses and candy corn, I had to get into the holiday spirit by watching The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Halloween is obviously not a big holiday here in Nigeria, and I never really thought about how much I would miss it, but turns out I really do miss the spooky decorations and costume revelry.  I guess I'll just have to save all the partying and such for the Marine Corps Ball next weekend :)

Unfortunately, since my last post, I spent the majority of my week nursing this wretched cold that I developed... I felt well enough on Tuesday to go to work and then head over to the Hilton gym for a quick workout, but it took a turn for the worse on Wednesday, and my lymph nodes/tonsils/general throat-neck area were so ridiculously swollen that I could barely swallow my own saliva.  One of my co-workers at work had me try this local homeopathic medicine, called "bitter kola"--it looks like a giant Brazil nut, tastes way way worse, and as the name indicates, incredibly bitter--which is supposed to help soothe my sore throat and cough, but didn't really do anything...

Only a few events worthy of note this week, aside from the fact that I sound like death right now (or according to Phoebe from "Friends", I sound quite sexy with this raspy hoarse voice):
** Got the go ahead from my mentor to come home for interviews in December, so I will be taking off a few days early to tackle some schools in the Midwest (Chi-town, I see you soon!!)
**Received my first care package from home on Friday!  Now I can finally use the wifi on my iPad!  It took me a while to figure out how to set up this wireless router, but I was somehow able to get it to work, yay!  I'd say I knew I what I was doing, but... I didn't :P
**Friday night, went to the local Italian Restaurant, Da Maria's, with our new flatmate and her expat friends.  Unfortunately, I didn't think it was worth how expensive it was... seeing as I can make pasta at home too for way less.  At least the cheese and cured meats platter was delicious.  I probably will go back to try their desserts, but don't anticipate going back any time soon for their main courses.  Still need to try the grilled fish at the local beer gardens and shwarma.

Tonight Jess and I are going back to the Chinese restaurant for dinner and then tomorrow, Uncle Pig will pick us up early in the morning for a breakfast party (? Didn't know those existed...) at the Philippine Embassy.  Not sure how that is going to turn out, will post on that later. 

Last tidbit: The next week is the Ramadan holiday Eid... and with Veteran's Day at the end of the week, looks like the work week will only be 1 or 2 days... perhaps a hop and skip over to somewhere fun?  We shall see...