Of Kombucha and playdates.

Today was a very early day for Brenna, she was out by 11:00 which did not leave much time between my morning run and picking her up. Thanks to the traffic it did not matter I was late anyway. (She only panicked a little). I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our cab driver Mr. Zaini, he does things in an automobile that I could not even think to do and seems unafraid of the whole business. So now Brenna is on break fro the next two weeks, and we will have to plan accordingly. We have already planned a prospective play date with one class mate and we have fully met the neighbors on our floor. Brenna decided that she was going to go over there today and ask if Katie wanted to come over, we found out that Katie was at the movies with her grandmother. as this was being explained to Brenna, Katie came home, and was more than happy to entertain Brenna for the next two hours. They seem to get along very well at this time, and have some of the same interests. Nina and her husband seem like very nice people, and they will be traveling to Hong Kong for part of the break. Brenna has made quite a few friends in fact, one of the boys in school, Oliver, acctually got her a little birthday present, so very sweet! I was able to get my Kombucha culture brewing today...not sure what will happen, but I have prayed long and hard to the kombucha gods, so PLEASE let it work!!. Brenna got some McDonald's today, which kills me, to come half way around the world just to get a double cheeseburger a fries and a drink, and the place was PACKED, I mean standing room only. The Asians really seem to love their McDonald's, and full on fat burger McDonald's, not the nambi pambi salad and oatmeal McDonald's...I mean they have the McRib on the menu, in two varieties, and they have a triple burger, triple chicken and triple fish sandwich!! Rox got home and we eventually pried Brenna from the neighbors home, with promises of a short play date tomorrow. We decided to walk down Gurney, and go to the "Crepe Cottage" a small mom and pop kind of place that serves all kinds of Crepe dishes, the woman who owns it is also the chef (I think) and cooks everything right outside the house, there is very limited seating and it takes some time to get your food since everything is made to order. We were there just a bit too early, so we moved on to a new place on gurney that specializes in craft beer and pub food with a Penang twist. It was good, but smoking is still allowed in many of the restaurants here and we got overwhelmed as it got more crowded. On our walk down Gurney to get food, we kept a sharp eye to the shore line to see if there were any interesting creatures about (the rocky shoreline is infested with small brown rats, Brenna thinks they are cute) we discovered a moderately sized and extremely poisonous sea snake on a wooden dock, and a very large Monitor Lizard lumbering up the shoreline, he was very cool!! We returned from our gastronomic delights, to partake in Penangs version of Gelato...it was good, but I am sorry to say it has nothing on Paciugo in downtown St. Pete, which in my humble opinion comes as close to real Italian Gelato as I have tasted. We have now returned to our humble abode. Still without Cable, you all think Brighthouse is bad...it has nothing on Astro, three weeks to get us an extra box and flick a switch, they don't even have to come in and install it, it is already installed!! We will go and pick a car on Monday, that should make for some interesting stories. Happy Weekend everyone. Oh and here is some cultural knowledge...shoes are not worn into the home in Asian society, they are left in the door way ...cool huh.