happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, anniversary! happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, anniversary!

if you know what movie this title comes from--please leave a comment and i if you get it correct you will get something sent to you from me here:)

anyways. wow, wow, wow.
this day has been incredible. i mean. wow.
so, i had a great lang lesson, in which i learned body parts. then i had a great Chat with my lang helper. she is such a doll. so passionate. and she is a great lang helper, so i am oh so grateful. i am excited as she will teach me the real way to make mint tea later this week.
e-wa (anyways), i decided to go by this book/school supply/office supply store on my way home from the lesson that is just a block away from the dar (house). i hadn't been by there in a while, so i felt like it would be good to go and greet the ladies in the shop. well, i was immediately invited to sit where she was sitting just outside the shop and was asked if i had been sick since i hadn't been by in a while. that made me laugh inside cause it is so descriptive of the culture here. relationships are everything.
so, from then on we were communicating shwiya b shwiya (little by little). and turns out i was going to spend the rest of the day with my friend!
we started out by going to the m'dina to purchase veggies from several different vendors, then even stopped off to chat with some of her buddies that have shops in the m'dina as well, and even grabbed some fresh fish that the man would gut for us. it was such an interesting chain of events. my friend, La, was such a great bargainer! and she even had me drop off my lang book at a random (to me at least) shop-keeper to hold on to while we were shopping around in the m'dina getting the needed food. then we went to her place (this whole time walking around with arms interlocked--as done here) and cooked up and prepared the food. it was fun to be in her home! these folks here are just so together--i mean, i had a dude hold onto my book for me for like a 45 minutes or so, and got to go into a gal's home after seeing her only several times. i want to practice hospitality like that (that reminds me--i will have to write about my lunch with girls that i hosted another day).
so, from there i hadn't truly figured out what was going to happen next. i wasn't sure if just she and i were eating alone or if we were taking this lunch back to the bookstore. well, i soon figured out that we were talking this lunch (well late lunch) on the road. we walked ourselves and the food back to the shop to share with the other employees. it was way cool. so, then we ate (and they insisted that i ate more) and cleaned up and took the pan, plates, forks, etc. back to her house, to then make a carafe full of hot milk (which the milk was purchased on the way back to her place). this was then taken back to the shop (en route we stopped again in the m'dina to say hey to some of her buddies and even sat a spell and was served hot mint tea!) to be served with a bit of instant coffee and sugar. it was great. truly.
so, then i decided i really needed to get home since i hadn't been back home all day. i walked in the door and realized that it was just after 7pm--whoa! 7+ hours with my not-so-new-anymore friend! what a pleasure. i listened a lot and tried to practice the little Arabic i have learned thus far and try to piece together sentences. it was fun, really fun.
so, just thought you guys would enjoy that. i sure did.