Qǐng, méiyǒu kāfēi (June 9th)

I didn’t wake up until 10:15 this morning for my 10:30 coffee with Tom. I wasn’t quite ready when he knocked on my door, so I told him I would meet him there. It’s a short walk (about 7 minutes or so) so I thought I would be able to catch up quickly. When I arrived at Amy’s Coffee, Tom had already ordered a coffee for both of us. I wanted my favorite breakfast sandwich and it was quite different to try to order without Erin. What do we always do? Charades of course was the answer. I took it a step further this time and went to find a menu. As soon as I picked it up, the lady knew I wanted the sandwich. She said something to me – who knows what it was. I do believe it was something about an egg sandwich and one. We sat and talked for a long time. We made it back to the apartment in the humid mist and decided on meeting for dinner around 5:30 – 6:00ish.

I spent some of the afternoon doing much of nothing – I’m really feeling quite lazy some days! I read some of Falling Star, a novel about a female news anchor going through a divorce and becoming “too old” (per industry standards) for her evening news anchor job. I played some games online – it’s really hard not to have Facebook! I have spent some time on Pinterest pinning some new places that I have been and looking around at different things during my time here.

Dinnertime rolled around and Tom and I headed to the “noodle place” where we were greeted by the same lady who is always working at the counter. She smiled at us and knew exactly want we wanted. She played charades with us about eating at the restaurant or taking it to go. The restaurant is quite small on the main floor. There are 5 tables with brownish tablecloths with a glass top each with four chairs. The place is always busy! Tom and I sat at our usual table under the TV and closest to the air conditioner. When our food came out of the hole in the wall (literally, the kitchen is seen through a hole in the wall), Tom’s was spicy and mine was not! This chick is good! It was a little different again tonight. It’s always a surprise whether we’ll have cucumbers or not. Tonight there was no garlic and very few cucumbers. Rice, some carrots, few cucumbers, chicken, more peanuts than usual, green peppers, and onions! It was almost like having a green pepper and onion pizza. Ok, so that might be a slight stretch – ha! It was delicious and my most favorite of all the times I’ve eaten there.

Oh, so the title of this posting is, “Please, no coffee”. Oh my goodness, I don’t know if it’s because I’m not used to having caffeine or if they put cocaine in the coffee (KIDDING) but I cannot sleep after I’ve drank it. It was 1:30 in the morning and I was still not tired. It wasn’t that surprising since I didn’t wake up until 10:15, but still. I read and played solitaire online which usually makes me beyond tired in an instant with no luck. At sometime after 3:00 a.m., I saw Sis was on Skype so I talked to her and she was quite confused as to why I was still awake – me too! We talked for nearly an hour when I thought maybe, just maybe I might be able to fall asleep. The clock read 4:47 when I felt as if I was going to drift off. Finally! I thought. Three minutes later I jumped as some fireworks were shot off that made it sound as if I was in a war zone. They went on for probably two minutes, which doesn’t seem like a long time, but it is when you have been awake ALL night and just want to be able to sleep! After the fireworks, I was sleeping in no time! Needless to say, I never need to drink that coffee again!