Soul Lounge

So I finally 'bubbled' oh!. Last Friday I went to Soul Lounge, which is a teenie, weenie bar/lounge at the palms. I went with my 'socialite' cousin (that's a topic for another day) and her soon to be husband. The place was surprisingly packed, it really wasn't much different from the NY night scene the key differences being, people smoking inside (I have gotten used to the no smoking inside), a lot of older men with small small girls (I mean it's not even shameful anymore oh! these girls were comfortably walking around with their 'daddys') and the music (a lot of Nigerian songs mixed with the regular US hits - it was quite good). There were also plenty little girls with their boobies and booties hanging out, but then again that's not really a Nigerian thing, it's universal.

Funny enough, one of the things a lot of people (5 different people told me this) told me to be careful of in Nigeria were the Nigerian girls. They said they are really agressive and they don't really give a hoot if a man is married (even I saw this for myself). I mean, even when my husband goes out and I don't follow him (I can't follow him everywhere now!, me too I have things to do), everybody is like,".....this is Lagos oh!...you better follow your husband..." which kin wahala be this? I don't want to breath down anyone's neck.

Anyway, I had a good time at soul lounge, but I think I will be laying off the night scene for a while, it doesn't look like I'm missing much, plus I don't like being squished in one corner while people are stepping on my feet.

I am miserable

I feel miserable, I look miserable. I have malaria, I have a cough and cold. My husband is sick, my baby is sick. We all have to fly to Port-Harcourt this weekend I am meeting my in-laws for the first time, I'm sure they are already cursing me out for not seeing them all this time. The airport in PH is closed, so we have to fly to Owerri and then go by road from Owerri to Port-Harcourt. What kind of sufferhead is this?

Web Woes

Nigerian ISPs have been a frequent blog topic and now I understand why. Since I arrived, I had been waiting on a particular company to install our "faster" connection. It's been about a month and a half and they only just installed on Tuesday, this is after many frustrating calls from my father, and listening to stories of their dishes being on some container that needs to clear or, them looking for one signature or the other to release equipment or, all their engineers being occupied because they were upgrading from one standard to another, I mean these people are very creative story tellers... Anyway finally they installed and so far I have been pleased with their service.

Now, while we were waiting on these first guys to install, we decided to get "broadband" service from another company that is relatively new on the scene. Their sales people were rather prompt in coming to collect their checks and promised to install within 72 hours, they installed within 96 hours instead, not bad considering I had been waiting 5 weeks for the other guys. Then after they installed everything was fine for the first day and then things came to a grinding halt the next day, the speed really really slowed down, I mean I might as well have been using a dial-up connection complete with modem sound effects. Again the endless cycle of phone calls started, "oh ....we mistakenly put you on the wrong plan, we will upgrade your account, try again in 30 minutes...",..."oh...it's still not fast? ok try again on Monday..." on Monday, "oh ok, disconnect from your router connect directly and try again"....I was supposed to try again today but I've given up, maybe over the weekend when I don't have much to do, I'll give it a try.

So presently we have 3 connections in the house, the original one which was here when I came, main problem with that one was that we were constantly losing connection and had to call them, each time I called, the lady at the other end would put me on hold (and I mean just put the phone face down on her desk or something, no hold music, hell... no mute button) and shout in yoruba to some Taiwo to restart the router. The Swift connection, which is anything but swift and the DOPC VSAT connection which is actually quite good so far but "fades" when it rains.

Random Pics

Whhheeeee!!!

Ok *** just called, he is on his way back home, so I'm going stop hating, now I can be the giggly one....heeeeyyyy!!

Unrealiable

So do you have any friends that cancel plans as soon as their boyfriends/husbands snap their fingers? Ok fine I know sometimes I cancel plans as well for the same reasons, but all the same not all the time. I have a girlfriend who constantly does this, infact I know 2 of them who do this. They could have been calling you all day bored as hell looking for something to do and then you make plans with them. As soon as the Mr. calls them, they call you all giggly "...sorry oh (laugh laugh) I don't know if I can come again..." it's not so much that it's annoying it's more irritating than anything else. Whatever...

Untitled Post

So did I tell you nothing is straight-forward here? well of the 3 things I have been trying to get accomplished since I arrived, 2 are complete!!!! I now have a bank account and I have a registered company, yey! the third was internet access, my dad had been working on this before I even arrived and guess what? still no access, each time I ask, if it's during the week, the response "it will get done between today and friday" if it's a friday or over the weekend then I hear "it will get done between today and tuesday". This is what I have heard 5 weeks in a row on getting a VSAT connection. It is just ridiculous, how can you practically beg to subscribe to their service? it makes no sense.

Anyway moving on, I noticed a trend in Lagos anytime you pay for something they never seem to have change. At first I thought it was just a couple of coincidences but then every where I went they came back with some story about not having change and I end up leaving my change with them. So last weekend I went to soul lounge (or is that what it's called?) at the palms with 2 of my girlfriends, after we paid the guy was like the bartender doesn't have N150 change, so I'm like no sweat it's not like we're leaving anytime soon, whenever he gets it he should give it to us. So when we ready, we couldn't find the original waiter then we called another guy and asked him to bring our change, he was like the original waiter collected the change from the bartender and has left for the night.....WFT??!!!....Hell No!!!.. So my friend is like "That is not our problem!! go get the change from the bartender and collect it back from the other guy when he gets to work tomorrow!!" Can you imagine?...so to cut a long story short the guy sheepishly went off and came back with our change.