Metal scaffolding is apparently a first world luxury. All the buildings around us are under construction and all of the scaffolding is wood. It frankly doesn't look very reassuring. Then again cranes are toppling over in New York with some frequency, so who knows. Construction also appears to be very simple - concrete core and concrete slabs. In almost every hotel we stay in throughout Ethiopia the bathroom floors are elevated. I assume this is to accommodate pipes which would be built into the floor in the US. With concrete slabs I assume they just run it straight up through the building in a stack.
We check into our rooms. Dan has his own; Scott and I are sharing. The room is large and nice enough. We drop our stuff and quickly head out for lunch. We take a taxi over to the Hilton. The Hilton doesn't look like much of an upgrade over the Beer Garden. It looks like it was built a while back and hasn't been well maintained. We have lunch down by the pool. Scott recommends and we all get the sizzling fajitas - where better than Ethiopia to get authentic Mexican food? These fajitas are, in fact, so sizzling that waitresses tie bibs around our necks prior to the fajitas' arrival. The fajita stuff is fine - the tortillas are stiff.
We retire to the ping pong table so that Scott and Dan can relive an epic rivalry. There is agreement that they played about 50 games in a single night. There is disagreement about whether Dan slaughtered Scott or merely beat him. There are some tween boys at the table and they seem willing to play in rotation with us. Fortunately they are soon called to lunch by their father. Unfortunately, they own the good paddles and the only ball that isn't cracked. They agree to let us borrow the equipment while they eat. Dan proceeds to beat each of us repeatedly in turn. In our defense Dan has the better side of the table. The boys come back from lunch just in time to see me collapse late to Scott - his only victory.
We head over to the convenience store to get some gringo supplies, but they have no hand sanitizer or sun tan lotion. Oh well. We get into a taxi and head back to the Beer Garden. Dan and I want to see the sights, but Scott isn't confident there are any. We settle on a large Ethiopian Orthodox church near our hotel. We get out of the taxi at the multiplex and in a flash of anti-tourism brilliance Scott suggests we go to see the Batman movie. Sure enough we're just in time and after a little searching we arrive at the movie theatre. Everyone is frisked as they enter the theatre and we are forced to relinquish our cameras and Scott's computer. This induces anxiety which is eventually solved by the manager assuring us it "guaranteed" that we will get our belongings back. I would like to say that I was able to enjoy the movie knowing that our electronics safety was guaranteed, but, alas, the movie sucked. Too long, too overwrought, too complex - in short completely overrated. All three of us hated it.
Dan headed over to the Sheraton right away to meet someone and Scott and I followed an hour later. The Sheraton is gorgeous by any standards. We have a good Indian dinner. Scott uses the wireless to do some work while Dan and I chat. We head back to the Beer Garden where we each have a glass of the house beer. It's pretty bad. Then off to bed.
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