Last Sunday, Kris told us it'd be easier to ride bikes into town than take the bus. Like idiots, we believed her. She neglected to mention that she is like super hero mountain biking woman. The ride into town wasn't so bad, except for the traffic. In this city, you drive on whichever side of the road you want, in whichever lane you want. Sometimes you don't drive in a lane at all, and sometimes you drive in two or three lanes at the same time. There are cars and buses and taxis and bikes and small children and dogs and people hauling carts and pedestrians in the street all the time. And the rule for crossing the street is that you cross one lane at a time, and you have to keep walking because people drive like you are going to keep walking, so if you stop, you'll get hit.
It's much harder to be the person trying to steer around all of these wackos crossing the street than it is to be the wacko crossing the street. We had several close encounters with buses and taxis. Then we had to wheel our bikes through the outdoor market, which was an adventure in itself.
We survived the market and put our frozen chicken breasts and vegetables and spices in our backpacks and headed home. The ride home is uphill. For someone not used to riding bikes (aka Liz and me), this is rather difficult. Halfway back, we decided to walk before we passed out and fell off our bikes. We caught up with Kris at the corner store right by the school and stopped for popsicles. We then rode our bikes up the road and to the gate at the school. I think I know how Lance Armstrong feels when he sees the finish line at the Tour de France. It was one of the most victorious moments of my life. We put the bikes away and I hauled my very sore behind up 106 steps and flopped on the couch for half an hour before I remembered that the chicken was still in my backpack. Oops. My rear end has recovered, and I have vowed to never ride a bike again.
As for my cockroach issue...shortly after I got here, I'd see a cockroach in the back hallway where half of my kitchen and my bathroom are. There is a door, so I figured that I'd just shut the door and leave it alone and it'd leave me alone. I only ever saw one at a time, so I thought it was the same one who came to visit me.
Well, one night it was heading through the door toward the living room so I slammed it shut. It crawled up onto the door handle. I waited for awhile, and prayed for awhile, and it didn't move, so I hit the door right next to it with a chopstick. It still didn't move, so I crawled through my little decorative windows that connect the part of my kitchen with the refrigerator to the part with the stove and sink.
Later, I had to go to the bathroom and I noticed that the window had swung open. I went to shut it and the roach fell off onto my arm and then onto the floor! Of course I screamed. Then I sprayed it with hairspray until it was paralyzed, and I went to the bathroom. Upon coming out of the bathroom, I noticed that it was nowhere in sight. The darn things are indestructible!
The next night, I found one on top of my bed! This is when I decided that the roaches had to die. I hairsprayed it enough so that it held still, and I swept it up into my dustpan and threw it out the back window. Then I saw one in my study the next night, so I squashed it with my shoe and threw it out the window. I probably keep hitting the same poor guy with dead cockroaches, but I always look first and I never see anyone down there, so I hope I just hit pavement.
Then there was a baby cockroach by the hole in my floor. I squashed it and threw it out the window. That was my breaking point. I went to the campus store and bought Raid and sprayed around all of my baseboards, windows, drains, and holes in the tile. When I started to feel a little faint, I realized that perhaps spraying an entire apartment at the same time is not the wisest idea.
However, I have not seen another roach, so keep your fingers crossed! Furthermore, I find dead bugs everywhere now. Spiders, rolly poleys, bees, flies...I killed 'em all. That's what they get for messing with me.
posted by Sara @ 6:07 AM
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