Meanderings of an idle mind

My pc is being formatted! I feel as though my left arm has been cut off. Please note its the left and not the right. Thankfully, I can use Tatiana's pc or it would have been my right arm. I have so many projects that I've been putting off that suddenly became 'very urgent' when I couldn't do the. This formatting business is seriously getting in the way of my creativity (like I needed an excuse). Jorge has done a format that writes zero's to the disk down to 7 layers. Please, please, do not write and ask me what that means because I'd be obliged to quote Jorge and it won't make sense ;)

Last night, we bussed into town, so that Jorge could rent a car. We ordered a cheapy - without aircon or electric windows, etc, but got an upgrade because they didn't have a cheapy in stock. Nice little car. We were rather amused by the sales lady, "Don't you miss electric windows? I can't imagine having to wind up my windows... and no power steering!?" We just looked at each other and it was quite clear that memories of our first pride and joy, our canary-yellow Toyota hatchback corolla came to mind.

Jorge went out early this morning to a meeting at the Lithuanian consulate to discuss the itinery for the upcoming Lithuania tour. Apparently, they'll be stopping off in Amsterdam for 6 hours and are trying to fit in a tour there on the way. That will be nice. The main tour will be in Vilnius, then on to Trakai, and from there around Lithuania, border to border. Jorge will then go to Vievus, which is between Electrenai and Vilnius, where his family is. Its strange planning his trip while Tat is still away.

After the meeting at the consulate, he gave one old lady a ride home. She was going to take a cab. Chuckle for the day. She lives in the South zone and the consulate is in the south zone too, but some distance away. Not being a driver herself, she suggested that Jorge take the road he knows to her neighbourhood. At the end, she thanked him for the tour of the city, saying she hadn't had so much fun in ages and actually saw parts of hte city she hadn't been to for many years. Jorge had gone from an area in the south zone, all the way through the centre to the north zone and then back around the city to the south zone!

This evening, we went out to dinner. At 6:30pm, the traffic was moving at a crawl. We eventually got to the shopping center to find queues of cars waiting for parking. Ok, so I needed to get some exercise before supper. Fortunately, the queues for tables at The Outback were only starting, so we had a short wait. The pina colada I ordered was awful, but the Wallabee Damned (I'm sure the wording of that drink was lost on the locals) was very tasty. We ordered the dipped onion (I'm sure it had some Aussie name), which was scrummy. For the main, I ordered ribs 'n chips (so this one probably also had some appropriate title), of which I managed to finish maybe up to a third. Jorge got the Drover's something-or-the-other, consisting of ribs and chicken breasts! Needless to say, he declined to help me finish mine, so we'll be having an Outback lunch tomorrow. The doggy bag we brought home looked a bit like our week end grocery shopping in quantity. Oh, we asked the waiter, they don't have a term for doggy bags here. You just ask for your meal as a take-away. How boring. We were busy with coffee when the lady at the next table chimed to her waiter, "Does this restaurant only serve Australian food or can we order Brazilian food?" Its not as though there's a shortage of restaurants serving authentic Brazilian food. I guess she was being adventurous ;)