Learning the Ropes

Today started with Belgium chocolate, so it was already better than yesterday.  The team agreed to bring a candy from their country to share with the team and this morning I got chocolate from Johan, who of course is from Belgium.

 

My workspace for now

I packed snacks, brought my own toilet paper to the office and didn't wear high heels - it was a much better day.  I wanted to show you a little of where I work.  The office is about a dozen cubicles and a few desks, but no spare room - so they put us in their president's office where there is a conference table.  The Internet connection is usually better than what I get at the hotel.  Anna and Waya stopped by to check on how we were settling in today and we gave our general idea of the project plan. 





For lunch we went to the mall, where Padma grabbed a salad and I tried a place called Chow King, it wasn't bad.  I had to buy sunglasses, I left home and came to an island near the equator without packing my sunglasses - yeah, yeah, yeah, what was in the two suitcases I brought?  We also stopped in a cute bookstore that had postcards of everywhere in the Philippines, EXCEPT Davao, good grief!

Chow King

After work most of the team went to a Thai restaurant to look for vegetarian food for some of the team, but it was really good food for even the meat lovers.  Some of the professors from the University of Mindanao and some of our client contacts joined us.  We ate family style, everyone trying a little of everything.  We had a good time, the team has really bonded and I'm sure we were really loud, but entertaining.  The bill came and we ended up collecting almost double the bill from the table somehow - the food here is sooo cheap. 

What am I doing now?  Well, I'm sitting in my comfy bed, blogging, while watching Eat, Pray, Love on HBO(yeah, I have HBO here).  A storm is starting, there is a light rain outside with some occasional lightning.