The First Month

So, I realized that I've been here almost a month. Weird. It doesn't feel like it's been that long. So, I guess I'll just give a little rundown of how everything has been going. For the first 11 days I had a dreadful headache that made me feel really crummy. The after that I got a really bad sore throat for about a week. Unfortunately my thought process at that time was, "I came to Taiwan and now I feel crummy, therefore Taiwan is terrible." After I started feeling better, however, I realized that I really kinda like this place! I love the food, I love the kids, I love the humidity, and I love the trees! Ok, so I love most of the food... And most of the kids... And the humidity makes me want to rip my hair out... but the trees really are amazing! Our backyard neighbors have a banana tree that hangs over our wall and I just adore it!
When it comes to food, there has been a lot of trial and error. The errors include rice that tasted exaclty like the smell of fireworks; warm, pink salad dressing that tasted like hand lotion; something black and jiggly which is yet to be identified; and some kind of orange liquid that was probably a concentrate and should have been watered down. Oops. The food successes include delicious "cookies", which are really like crepes with bacon, egg, and cheese on them; rose flavored soda; garlic bread cubes that are buttered on three different sides (why didn't I think of that?!?!); and bing shas (basically fruit icees...or the occasional oreo icee if you have a sweet tooth...which I do.). I also had a delicious Australian steak and some kind of pumpkin mushroom goodness of love that was served over rice. Just this morning I was tricked into trying mushroom oyster sauce on my "cookie" and I am ashamed to say that I loved it. Weird. I don't usually love anything that comes out of the sea. Unless, of course, it's a family member who just happened to be scuba diving or frolicking with the dolphins, in which case I do love it. (The family member, not the dolphin.)
While I am on the topic of food, (which seems to be all I can think about right now) I want to say that there are a few things that I will never again take for granted. Namely, salt and ketchup. Remember the last time you went to McDonald's? You politely declined their offer to upgrade the size of your order of fries and they still gave you twenty seven packets of ketchup. Not here, my friend. Not here. I went to McDonald's and received one packet of ketchup that was supposed to cover both my Big Mac and my fries. Devastated by the fact that I wanted more ketchup, I started making strange caveman gestures in an attempt to communicate my dilemna. The poor Taiwanese cashier looked frightened at first, but must have finally recognized the look of a soul in need because she finally clued in and gave me...... one more packet. Not that I wasn't grateful, but really... one more packet? I usually need to have at least a 1:3 ratio. One packet of ketchup to every three fries. Exhausted and defeated, I went upstairs (yes, you read that right- the McDonald's here is 3 stories high) and ate my meal. It was good, but I missed my dear, sweet ketchup.
This post is probably too long, so I won't go into all the details about salt, but I do leave you all with one last wish. Please, I beg of you, next time you go to eat out, look at the salt shakers on the tables, or the tiny paper packets of salt that are impossible to open without spilling, and say to yourself, "My life is good" because there are people out there (myself included) who would kill for some tiny salt packets........ If only they knew who to kill.

So, I was going to end my post there, but something about closing with the word "kill" was very disturbing to me, so, umm, I think I will end with a happier word, such as "chocolate". Here it goes: chocolate.