Wow, what a week that was! I know I still have one day to go but it will be chill compared to the last 4. I have loved every moment of it though. I spent my time working with SMEs to develop presentations for our Monday workshop and designing training aids for Moodle. Good stuff. I have met all of my deadlines so far and there is only one workshop left to finalize tomorrow. I am also applying for my resident visa tomorrow. The good thing about that is when it is granted I will get resident prices on all kinds of things.

Well I had a good dinner on Tuesday. Rudy, Beth, and I went to the Taj Samudra to their "Mexican" buffet. I got a good chuckle out of that. Their idea of Mexican food is fried zucchini, crab bake, mixed veggies, Castillian Duck, and a host of other interesting dishes that are never served on Mexican tables. There was not a spice in the entire meal! 0 Chile! They did have Tequila Mousse though! Crazy stuff. One of the local consultants put it best when he said that no food here is truly ethic because it is, in this case, Sri Lankan Mexican. I guess we can relate since we often have Mexican Chinese, Mexican American, and Mexican Italian food on a regular basis in NM. I think the Mexicans blend in better! It was a great meal at the Taj Samudra though. Speaking of food, I also had dinner with my driver at a Thai place called the Siam House. Very good stuff. The cuttle fish with red curry was awesome. The atmosphere was really nice and the price was great. This is a high end restaurant but my meal only cost $10 and I had plenty of leftovers.

So I found out why there are so many fences here. Apparently there is some insane squatting law that states if one person is in a single place for about 7 days they own that property. The fences are made to assure nobody steals property by pitching a tent for a week! I was quite surprised at this.

I found out quite a bit about shopping in Sri Lanka this week. The garment industry is very good. However, the best thing to do is buy your own fabric and other materials and have a seamstress make you custom stuff. For that matter, there are also a number of great places to get tailor-made suits. Jewelery is very big here. Blue Sapphires, Topaz, and Amethyst are very common and there are still tons of active jewel pits here. Buying is a relationship based endeavor. If you know someone, you will get a good price. If not, you are SOL. I already know about 3 people