Before I even left for my Kilimanjaro trek, my friends here decided that we would celebrate my attempt whether I made it to the top or not. But since I actually made it to the top, it was an extra special celebration, complete with three nights of dancing, three delicious dinners (and one brunch!), and of course, lots of dessert!
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| A small break from dancing for a photo! |
I wasn’t really planning on going dancing on Thursday night, as my poor legs were really not quite up to it yet, but after a few persuasive text messages from my friend Sofie, I was convinced to start the weekend early. And actually, I think the dancing loosened up my muscles, because my legs were feeling better after about 3 songs!!
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| The boys enjoying tacos! |
Friday night was the real celebration, complete with improvised tacos for dinner and ice cream straight from the carton. Tacos were not originally on the menu for dinner since I didn’t really think that the ingredients would be available, but as we were cruising through the ShopRite on Friday afternoon, we saw both taco seasoning and taco sauce! I was pretty excited since, for those of you who know me well, tacos are one of the few things I know how to make! We came across one major problem, however. No taco shells! After entertaining several options, Sofie and I decided on Doritos as a substitute, and that turned out to be an excellent choice! None of our Tanzanian friends had ever had tacos before, and actually several of them had never had lettuce before either! The tacos were a big hit!
We seriously debated about the purchase of ice cream at the grocery store since the freezer at my apartment is about 4 inches tall, and the power goes out regularly (almost daily!) so it is difficult to keep things frozen! But once we had the cartons of chocolate mint and blueberry cheesecake in our hands, putting them back really wasn’t an option. We figured if they both wouldn’t fit in the freezer, we could just eat one entire container when we got home! Luckliy for our figures, we did squeeze them both in, but she and I managed to eat almost both entire containers throughout the course of the weekend!
After a very relaxing day on Saturday, it was Sofie’s turn to cook us a “traditional” Swedish dinner, complete with dessert! After making a very extensive grocery list, we were about halfway to the store when we realized that the list was still sitting on the coffee table. Good thing Sofie’s memory is excellent! We again had to do a bit of improvising since lots of common ingredients are not readily available here, but Sofie’s meal of pasta, delicious sauce, and chocolate balls turned out wonderfully. Although apparently the chocolate balls didn’t taste anything like they do in Sweden!! And of course, since the boys had never eaten lettuce before, we simply had to make a salad for them to try!
So after our third night of dancing on Saturday night, we almost felt like we were staying at the Hilton, when on Sunday morning, my roommate knocked on our bedroom door to let us know that brunch was ready! We are quite spoiled around here J We were planning on having a very relaxing day on Sunday, and possibly going to the pool to lay out, but another of our friends had different plans! He wanted us to go to the pool, but not by ourselves….with the 15 kids from the Good Hope Orphanage! Not exactly the relaxing day we had in mind, but we couldn’t really say no! And we ended up having a blast with the kids. And we came home to a Tanzanian dinner of rice and chicken and vegetables in delicious sauce prepared by my roommate. It was the perfect ending to our excellent weekend celebration!
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| 1...2...3....JUMP!!!!! |
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| Relaxing in the hot tub. |
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