Just, getting to Suriname was quite an adventure, but I will tell you about that later.  Right now, I have to tell you about our adventure last night.

First you have to realize that we basically do not know where we are in the city.  A taxi brought us to this house and I have driving directions to the school, which is about 7 minutes away along one street.  If we get off of that one road, we have no idea how to get back home. 

Just stop and ask someone you might think.  Let me explain the problem with that.  This is a very ethically diverse country.  Everyone here seems to speak Dutch, which of course we don't.  Then everyone has a second language which is either French, Hindu, Chinese, Papiamento, Arabic, and I could go on and on, and we don't speak any of them.  Very few speak Spanish.  OK, many of them speak English but there is another problem.  The names of the streets are unpronounceable, at least by us.  The street we live on is Andreastreaustrautt and it is only a few blocks long.  The corner street, which is much longer has a name that I can't even attempt to write down.  So, if I get lost I ask someone what? I had somewhat the same problem in Bolivia, but could get by with Spanish.

So, the first night here, Saturday, we go out to eat.  There was a Chinese restaurant very close to the house, so no problem.  On Sunday for lunch we started driving around looking for a different restaurant.  We tried to stay on the same street and then if we had to turn off we made careful note of which way we turned.  There is a Chinese restaurant, and usually at least two on every block.  I have never seen so many.  But, we drove for over an hour and never saw anything but them.  We ended up eating Chinese at a different one for lunch.  For dinner we drove even longer and again ended up with Chinese.

Monday I went to work at 6:00am and came home at 6:00pm with nothing to eat during that whole time.  So, we went out driving and again ended up with Chinese.

Tuesday night I was determined we were going to find something else, so we risked it,took many turns on the roads,and drove miles. We saw a place that looked promising so we pulled in.  Turns out it was a Bakery.  The guy working there spoke very little English, but Joeline did well by pointing to the chocolate covered donuts she wanted.  I asked him if he knew where we could go to a restaurant that served good steaks.  He said NO.  I said, come on, surely  you know where we can get a steak.  He said, I am Hindu, we do not kill or eat cows.  It was time for us to leave.

OK, big faux pau for me, right.  Joeline did worse later.

We have not been eating at home because they do not sell meat at the local Chinese markets.  To get meat you have to go to a Slaughterhaus, (meat market).  As we were looking for a restaurant, other than Chinese, we saw a meat market.  We pulled in and talked to the guy there quite a while.  He was Hindu, but spoke a little English.  Joeline asked where he got his beef and if he killed it himself.  He got excited and smiled, sure enough he owns a ranch outside the city and raises and kills is own beef.  He was thrilled to tell Joeline all about it.

Then Joeline says, and I quote:  "Where do you keep the pork?  We need some bacon.

His smile was gone.  He said, "I am Moslem, if I raised or sold pork THEY would kill me."  As he said that, he ran his finger across his throat.  His meaning was very clear.  We decided it was again time to leave.

It's always an adventure when travel with Joeline.  Course she could say the same about me I suppose.