Long week, long weekend

First of all I never wrote a blog about last weekend.

Last weekend I went to Ada. It's a gorgeous beach area about two hours out of Accra. What makes it unique is that it's where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean. So if you saw the pictures on facebook, you might have noticed two very different beaches. In between the two was beach and a camp ground with huts.

Unfortunately it wasn't the best weekend to go there. Saturday was kind of dark and gloomy until the Sun broke through mid afternoon. Sunday was even worse, we left really early because it just rained all day. But I found it pretty relaxing. I slept a bit on the beach, listened to my iPod in a hammock for a while and we all just talked all night. It wasn't quite paradise as it had been explained to me before, but it was still really nice to get out of Accra. The air quality in Accra is just laughable.

This weekend should top last weekend though. I'm going to Cape Coast, which is kind of the #1 tourist attraction around this part of Ghana it seems. Among other things, it has the slave trading forts that you may have heard about if you read Zach's blog last year. I'll definitely take lots of pictures and write about it.

I've also realized there are lots of funny little anecdotes I haven't yet written a blog about, so here are some funny ones that pop to mind.

For one thing, the interns keep coming. We have 22 this week or something. One new one who showed up last night is from Toronto. Within a few hours, he suggested the Sens choked in the playoffs. I can't believe anybody would seriously suggest that, but whatever.

On a less frustrating, perhaps funnier note, I've begun to almost enjoy bantering and bargaining with taxi drivers here. Sure they are relentless, honking at you whenever they can see you. And I mean that's kind of funny in itself. I mean the other day, I got out of a taxi and immediately other started honking at me. Like, do they not see I just got out of a taxi? Perhaps I don't need another. It's funny.

You develop your own techniques for bargaining as well. I often just use the line, "no, no, it's 20, I take it every day, no more than 20". Or one of my new ones, "I only have 20, so I can't pay anymore, sorry, I'll just find another one." Almost all the time, unless you're being really cheap, if you threaten to walk away, they'll cave. Most people ask how much to pay, but I personally just tell them. "Osu, ok, 20, ok?". They'll almost invariably say, "no, 25", maybe throw in a couple, "I beg of you" if they're going to play the beggar card, but not always. I find it pretty funny though, even if some find it infuriating.

Anyways, it's been a long week at work. None of the work I'm doing is overly taxing. It's not really more complicated than the stuff I did last summer for whatever reason, but I'm pretty busy, so the day usually goes by alright. But the problem is that lately I've been responsible for sending out lots of e-mails and attachments. Now, our internet is amazingly slow. So I can literally spend all day sending out a handful of e-mails, because that's actually how long it takes. Sending an attachment is a minor miracle, because it times out at least a few times before it finally works. Nana blames the internet company, but it's more just because there's so many freaking people connecting in the office. But it's actually made my days extremely stressful and frustrating because it's important, often urgent stuff that I need to send out, and I can spend an hour trying to send a 50 word e-mail. In fact I'm writing this as it tries to send one now.

Also, my adoptive Canadian diplomat family took off for their summer holidays back in Canada last weekend. So I've got a kind of big house to myself. It's weird, sometimes nice and sometimes boring and lonely, though half the time I don't get home until almost bed time anyways.

For the weekend I'm heading out to Cape Coast. Among other things it has the slave trading forts left over from obviously the slave trade. Should be really interesting and kind of surreal. Plus it's a holiday on Monday. I don't know what, so I'll just pretend it's Canada day. There's no Canada Day party at the High Commission though because everybody's busy with the African Union summit next week.

I'm gonna take lots of pictures this weekend, so check for pictures on Tuesday. Also, my e-mail doesn't work at the office because the internet is SO slow (sorry, but unless sending an e-mail is part of my job, I'm not going to spend an hour clicking Send, being told it timed out, pressing the Back button and going through the thing over again). If you need to get in touch with me by any chance, you can call me or text me. A few people should have the number.