We planned to visit five apartments yesterday. We always plan what we hope for, and prepare for what may happen! So, we had addresses for the five programmed into David's Garmin, and set out confidently. After forty-five minutes or so, we arrived at a street we knew to be significantly northeast of our apartment, and we thought we were heading southwest. Hmmmm. Reprogram the Garmin. Told to go somewhere else. Do we trust it, even though it was just crazy? Tried programming in cross streets. Yes, that was better. Just an hour later, we have arrived at streets that seem to have the right names! We turn down the street, park, find the apartment, surprise some untidy missionaries, and come to find the next apartment. It is only a few streets over; yea!!
We arrive at the next street, turn down, go to the cross street, start looking for numbers, and what the heck!? The numbers jump up and down from door to door and across the street! We stop and talk to some helpful people, and they ask, "Old number, or new number?" Apparently they had renumbered the houses, but people did not take down the old numbers. :) This is life in the Philippines. After looking more minutely for cross streets and landmarks, we find the number engraved on a gate, and soon locate the sisters. By this time it is 11:45, and we have had it! We come home, eat, and rest a bit.
We have until April 26 to finish these apartments, and right now, don't have quite enough to do to fill our time. We decided the Hiatts are helping us so that we can get settled, so decide to drive in the afternoon to a new mall we learned of, called Market Market, to pick up some more necessities. Do you know it, Maria? It's HUGE, about six stories tall, circular around a central opening. Perhaps as in the States, Friday afternoon is NOT the ideal time to visit a mall. There were literally probably 10,000 people in the mall, and we could hear all of them! We bought our things, making several trips to the car to deposit them. We had planned to eat dinner there, and had been told to cross the street by the mall and look for several American style restaurants.
Now, you need to understand that right now we are working as support missionaries. We do everything we can to help the young missionaries, but we are done when we are done, or by about 4:30. We don't have rules. We can go where we want and do what we want. So, there are some deprivations we suffer, mostly of seeing grandkids, and of a few comforts, but there are perks, too. One perk last night was that the first restaurant we saw was Lartizan, a French bakery and dine-in restaurant owned by a Chinese-Philippino man. We were very tired and didn't really want to look further, and it looked delightful, so we stopped there. Oh-my-goodness, it was exquisite. Dad had three-cheese mushroom ravioli in cream sauce, and I had flank steak, fries and a mesclun vinaigrette salad. They gave us a very generous bread basket with samplings from their bakery. It was so good that we just sat there like Mr. Collins--"Mmmm, mmmm,mmmm." For dessert, I asked for creme brulee (surprise, surprise) but they were out. Instead I had a mango crepe. Again, words fail me. It was just so good. By the time we left, night had fallen, the day had cooled, and we had a nice walk back to the car to begin our forty-five minute drive home, started by just getting out of the mall, which was like coming out of the Super Bowl. Bumper to bumper traffic for a long time.
Since it was Friday night, we watched Louisa May Alcott's The Inheritance.
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