I can't find my room key (again), holy nakedness batman, and a intimatelook into a DC cabbie's psyche

Saturday began in the same fashion as every other day here, I couldn't find my room key. Shockingly it was also in the same place as it had been every morning since my arrival (one would think I would learn). It was in the holder thingy right beside the door, which is genius for two reasons. 1. You should always know where your key is (yea yea pipe down peanut gallery) 2. If it is not in it's little holder thingy, nothing and I mean nothing in your room works (i.e. there is no electricity). You may be asking the question, "Is there electricity to be had anyway?" Yes in fact there is. And though you may not be jones-ing to catch up on your African CNN, you likely want your AC to be cranking out that  balmy 19 degree  Celsius air (plus or minus 20 degrees, interpret as only plus. It's no 66F that I have ever met, unless of course my roommate had nuclear hot body heat radiating off of her thus offsetting any chance of chill that the air conditioning might provide, a distinct possibility.) In all seriousness, I love this idea, because it does not allow you to be wasteful of energy and in a place like this it stops the ferenjis (Yes I now refer to myself as this frequently) from wasting a resource (not that Americans/ Westerners would ever do such a thing.

After breakfast today I went and got an Ethiopian body scrub and oil massage. The good news is I had been warned that towel coverage for this experience would be minimal (picture yourself with a wadded up crotch towel and nipple coverage) and modesty would be nonexistent. Those things being said my skin has never felt so amazing. I had to resist the urge to run around asking people to feel me (likely not appropriate in a very religious country where the women cover everything). After my 60+ minutes skin softening I had to run to the lobby so I could make the market trip we had scheduled.

Be warned I am going to rant and if you are the type of person that speaks louder and slower to people who do not have English as their first language, speaks baby talk to them, or are otherwise completely offensive when you travel; you are exactly the person that should read on.

I hate to say "every trip has one" because that seems like a horrible cop out excuse for any who is a jerk, but by and large unless I am traveling alone or with a carefully selected few it seems to be the case. We had one. And everyone else knows "that person". Oddly it's usually the same person that has the most problems, gets robbed, etc (karma will get you). Are "one" had been absurd since I initially met him in Dubai and today was no different. Our driver picked us up and the first thing he said as he climbed in the front was "You clean car?" Several sentences followed all missing articles until I couldn't take it anymore (a combination of being generally offended for our driver who speaks amazing English and my incredible enjoyment of diagraming sentences and their articles in 6th grade.) so I said something. Something being "you know I am pretty sure (insert drivers name here) can handle the, an, or a or is it just that enjoy sounding like a complete idiot?" He barely spoke for the rest of the day, but when he did he used articles and as an added bonus stopped the bad pantomiming.

Ethiopian Fact of the Day:
Most nurses make about 100 dollars a month. They are relatively well paid when compared to many occupations, but interestingly not as well paid as they would be as cleaning staff at our hotel. There are several nurses that have quit their jobs as nurses to come and work at the Sheraton.