Nothing to report for Monday. I had a long leisurely breakfast, but something didn’t agree with me. I went back to bed for a while. Then I got up and walked around the area for a bit. I wandered over to an upscale neighborhood where the A list folks live. There was an US embassy property there as well. I didn’t video any of that since there was security all over the area. It started to rain fairly heavy, so I get out of there by taxi. A 1 mile ride cost 32.50 pesos (about 72 cents!).

We started our new shifts this week. Today was 4am to 1pm for me. Next week we’ll swap schedules and I will work 8pm to 5am. Everything went well although it was very quiet. It was a nice introduction to the agents. They were stressing this day a lot, so the easy breaking in suited them just fine. We faired a lot better than the first group; which had a lot of technical problems.

A big problem for me was how to get coffee in the morning and what to eat for my lunch break. Most places don’t open until 10am and there’s nothing open at 3:30am. When I got home I decided to stay up until about 7pm or so tonight and then try to sleep straight through until I have to get up for work. We’ll see how that goes.

I did get some good news from my doctor. I emailed him a while back asking for help to sleep when I got home. His reply said he would have some sleeping pills waiting for me at my local pharmacy when I got home. That will be my last stop from the airport. Ah sweet sleep!

Tonight I had some dinner at a local restaurant. I tried some more of the local cuisine. I need to write down the names of the stuff I eat. I can never remember what it is. I did have a drink called Galumat a Sago (or something like that). It’s a kind of sugar drink with tapioca (sago) and a jelly that’s in pearl size balls. It came with a real thick straw. It was an odd sensation slurping that up. Then I had a dessert called halo halo (pronounced hollow hollow). It’s an odd mix of shaved ice, evaporated milk and all kinds of fruit and beans on top that have been dried or boiled. It’s served by itself or with ice cream. Both were very sweet.

Now I’m back at the hotel sipping my chamomile tea as I type this, before I call it a night.