Today Anna and her friend Stephanie and I went out to the old city shopping area in search of shoes: fancy, formal, all-dressed-up shoes for Stephanie's graduation. We never found the shoes, and at some point, in the heat of the afternoon, all the shops closed for the day. We sat down at ABO's for a bit of a snack, then went home to (you guessed it!) eat lunch....

We ordered long Halloumi rolls: they were filled with grated cheese and mint; wrapped in a chewy yeast dough that tasted something like a thick pizza crust. . . 

After we sat down, pretty much all the pictures are of us with our mouths full... 

Evidence that there's at least one picture somewhere of me taking a picture... :P

Other adventures of the day didn't get any pictures whatsoever. This morning Anna and I went for a jog (the plan is to go for some kind of exercise every morning til she leaves in a couple weeks). We followed a bike trail all the way up to the Presidential Palace and back home again. As we got close to the house, we came to the little stream. The water was cold; our feet were hot and steaming inside our shoes... so of course there was only one logical thing to do... which we did...

and we were sitting there splashing with sticks and in general being quite juvenile. 

Then I saw it--a flash of bright red about the length of my palm streaking through the water, sporting antennae and a hefty pair of pincers. 

The sight was followed up by a shriek, our feet went out of the water. Then the game became trying to find him again--and we did; with another of his kind, speeding through the water, hiding here and there under rocks... the top predators in their tiny ecosystem. Of course, once you start looking for moving things in the water, you start to notice others as well--minnows and such. Although that really spoiled the fun of putting our feet back in, for a brief moment I felt like I was eight years old again, teasing small creatures out of their dwellings and chasing them here and there...