Chiles, Abastos Market
I’ve never seen so many fruits and vegetables in my life! We joined in a CLO trip on Saturday to go to the Abastos Market. It’s like a local market on steroids – rows and rows of wholesalers, selling to restaurants and to the general public, along with little eateries, cheese stalls, etc. It’s huge! To see more photos, click here. We had a lot of fun – the group ended the adventure by stopping at a delicious Korean food stall for some stir fry.
Our market group
Another highlight of the week was getting the 4Runner delivered! It’s been in storage in Belgium since John left Tel Aviv in 2012. It’s wonderful to have wheels again, and not rely on taxis and friends to get around everyday. We were lucky that it arrived so quickly (although we did start the paperwork in late May to move it).
My boss was working out of town this week – I was glad it was a quiet week with no big emergencies in the office. I was happy to see a Facebook post from a fellow we knew in Tel Aviv – he was in town doing some college recruiting. I quickly pinged him, and we had a nice lunch together on Wednesday – small world!
It was a quiet week at home, too. Last Sunday we stayed home and watched “The Way, Way Back” – a really good movie. Flavia disappeared – in the late afternoon, it dawned on us that we hadn’t seen her all day. We searched high and low – I even went outside the building to look, even though we had only opened the door once all day. Finally, as I was searching in the closet, I pushed a drawer closed and she popped out! She had climbed up behind the drawer somehow and had found a nice spot to nap! She seems to have adopted it as her “safe spot.” It reminded us of when we were leaving the house on Saddle Hill in 2007 to drive to DC to join the Foreign Service. The house was completely empty, yet she managed to hide for about an hour as we went crazy trying to find her! She’s a little Houdini.
We got back in the gym grove this week, setting the alarm for 5AM and going downstairs to the apartment gym. It’s small, but does the trick.
Yesterday I happened to look at a couple of golfers on the fairway and noticed they had hit good drives and looked like their second shots hit the green (we can’t see the green from the balcony due to trees). Then I noticed about 20 people standing around the green, heard the polite golfer applause, and realized the golfers and their caddies were walking and not in carts. I Googled it on the computer and realized it was the GCC annual tournament – it will be fun where there is a big tournament here!
Thanks to our friend Petit, we’re now hooked on the TV series “Scandal,” and have been watching episodes at night. Yes, it’s a little trashy and far-fetched, but who cares!