My New Ride

Here is a picture of me in my new electric ride. I can now be considered the village idiot. My ride is similar to the gas-powered carts that the community trash collectors and workers drive. I am waiting to come out one day and find the back filled with trash or recyclables. Hey, it beats lugging my groceries around on the bus.

I have no clue how to get places since I am the worst with directions. What little powers I did have were severely diminished by the constant use of my Garmin. So I have been offering rides to teachers who know their way around; they sit in the back calling out the upcoming turns. Sad….but true. Next I will need to find a Garmin to attach to my handle bars.

I bought my ride for 2300 Yuan (just shy of US$400). Little did I know there is nowhere to charge it since I live on the 8th floor. I was told when I bought it that there were charging centers in the community. This turned out to be completely false. I frantically tried to find a teacher in my area who lived on the ground floor, but no luck. Then I went into a store to see if they sold long extension cords. The owner had no clue what I was saying and called a friend who spoke English. The friend came to the shop and took me to a store to buy the cords. As it turns out, she lives on the 1st floor of my building and is willing to let me charge my scooter at her place through the window. She says she will not charge me anything, but I will insist on giving her something. She was sooooooo kind. So I bought 2 10-meter extension cords and will be able to charge my ride when needed.

Couple things: A former teacher at the school opened up a local bar. He is from the US (Utah) and his wife is from Russia. It is a regular hangout for all the teachers. I went in there one night with my Mickey Rourke sidekick and the bar was filled with locals getting trashed. The strangest was this one woman who had been way over-served. She was drinking beer from a shot glass, but at the bottom of the glass were these large brown pods or seeds. They almost looked like locusts at the bottom of her glass. I kept asking the owner what was in her glass but he just kept saying she was drinking beer. Finally his wife acknowledged that there was something else in the glass and she told me it was some type of local drug that is like cocaine. The woman was out of her mind. She kept pouring other people’s drinks into her glass; hitting people; and spitting on people. No one challenged her. Then they all left the bar and she picked up the tab for everyone. It was really odd. Later her friends came back for her and carried her out. After she left, Mickey Rourke fished the pods out of her glass and put them in his beer; they started to fizz. He gave me one of the pod halves. Never one to shy away from a drug, I scraped a bit of the inside out of the pod and tasted it. It had no real taste but it made my tongue tingle. I threw the rest in the pod in the ashtray. Mickey drank a few sips and then scooped the pods out saying he did not like the taste.

Last night the school sponsored an evening out for the old and new teachers. It was sort of fun…but mostly boring. We went to a pretty good Italian restaurant. The most interesting person for me was the waitress. She was a tall cute sprite of a girl who flitted around as if powered by fairy wings. She was bubbly and giggly and constantly apologizing for the slow drinks and food. I found her quite charming and a real character. One minute she was smiling and leaping about and the next minute I looked up and dear, sweet Tinkerbelle was in tears. These annoying drunken teachers were demanding their bruschetta that they had ordered an hour ago. It was quite amusing, because after the tears flowed the teachers started apologizing profusely and saying it was ok. It reminded me of how I used to tell customers it was my first day or my birthday when I worked as a waitron and was the worst ever. Go fairy go!!!

Today, I went to IKEA with two other teachers to get a few things. The store is about 35 minutes away by taxi in Guangzhou; it costs 120 Yuan each way (US$20) to go — not bad split by 3. Ikea is just the pits. I now remember why I have avoided that place like the plague. Besides the fact that the furniture always falls apart, the store is designed like a maze and it is hard to figure out how to get out. I bought some dishes, glasses, cups, and a mattress topper so my back will not give out sleeping on a board. They also sell frozen salmon and it was on sale at a cheap price so I bought a bunch to keep in my freezer. I also got some smoked salmon, which I am eating as I am typing. If you ever hear me say I am going to Ikea – just beat me to a pod. BUT the greatest part (besides the cheap salmon) was the Starbucks across the street.

Well gotta go and finish my stuff for tomorrow. First day of school and I have a full class schedule on Mondays (6 classes), Tues. (2 classes), Wed. (2 classes), Thurs (4 classes), and Fri (4 classes). So I have a total of 18 classes.

School starts tomorrow so adios.

Goodnight!