Okay, now we're getting to the good stuff- robbery on several counts

Tuesday was by far the most...interesting day we've had yet. We got up early and went to school for 930 again, this time to take a biking tour of the city. We went to a bunch of places, many of them repeats, but visited a few new places as well. About halfway through, Ann got sick and fainted in the entrance of a hotel when she tried to go inside to get a drink. After she had been checked out by the EMTs and brought home, the rest of us biked through the ecological preserve close to our school. We actually got to see the water for the first time since we've been here, although it definitely was not the same as the beaches back home. We took some goofy pictures and went back to school, where we ate lunch in about five minutes in order to be on time for class.

After class, the boys and I took a cab home because it was pouring by that point. We hung out at the house for a while, and when Gladis called us in for dinner we walked in and were greeted by Patricia and Luigi, who had stopped by to make sure we hadn't burned their house down yet. The dinner started off with Patricia yelling at Joe to take his hat off at the table (which he had put on to cover up his bedhead since he has just woken up). She then yelled at me for passing the plates all the way down to the end of the table when she was serving food, and told me that when she hands me a plate, it is for me and I am not to give it to anyone else. We endured an awkward dinner, and then she yelled at Joe for not finishing all of his food. When she served dessert, I put my plate in front of me as she had told me to do, and she immediately launched into a lecture about how it is polite to pass the plates to the person sitting furthest away. She then proceeded to tell us that we use too much electricity (keep in mind, we are home only to eat and sleep and cannot possibly be using that much), are not allowed to use the air conditioning even though it's in the 90s fairly often, and have to pay $50 (US dollars, btw- approximately $175 in pesos) PER LOAD OF LAUNDRY even though when we moved in we were told laundry was included. She also reminded us that we are not allowed to use the main entrance of the apartment building but have to use the service entrance and elevator instead, and told us that "our" fridge (she has four- the one designated for us has bread, jelly, milk, and bottled water, and is the only one that we are allowed to eat anything from) was broken, so the milk would have to be stored in her fridge. She made it clear that if anything but milk was missing from the other refrigerators, she would know who was responsible. She also let us know that the other food would be fine in the broken refrigerator and she didn't feel the need to move the rest of it.

Needless to say, after that interaction, the boys and I had a powwow in Joe's room and spent the rest of the night looking for apartments.

On Wednesday, we went out to lunch like we always do and then went to class, which was even more brutal than usual. We decided to go to TGI Friday's afterwards for drinks and dessert to kill time until dinner. After we had been there for a little while ("we" being me, Joe, Stephen, Lis, Robin, Anne, and Kela, our new friend from class), a man ran into the restaurant and up to our table and asked if any of us had a grey and blue backpack. Joe looked down and saw that his was gone, and went outside with the man to find out what happened.

Apparently, a Chilean woman and her Brazilian friend had been walking back and forth in front of the restaurant looking in the windows for a few minutes, and an off-duty cop noticed that they were foreign and acting strangely. He then saw them go into the restaurant without a back and emerge a minute later with one, got suspicious, and confronted them. He held them there until the police got there and then came and got us. After about four hours of standing around watching the cops take statements and document everything, including the contents of Joe's backpack and the Chilean woman's bag, they asked Joe and I to go to the police station to give a formal statement about what had happened.

We called Silvana, who came right away, and Joe, Stephen, Silvana and I went to the police station. They spent about two hours interviewing Joe while Steve and I tried to entertain ourselves in the very cold waiting room. We built coin sculptures, went through each others wallets, tried to read the same book, took pictures of random things, and put deodorant on our tongues...oh wait, that one was just Steve. After a few hours, it was my turn, and at that point I was so tired that Silvana basically had to translate everything for me because I wasn't making sense in any recognizable language. We then tried to get the ride home that we were promised and were told that we would have to catch a cab. Silvana threw a fit (very politely) because we were in one of the sketchiest areas of town at three in the morning, and the police refused to let us use their phones or their phone book to call a cab. After arguing with them for a while, they finally sent a cop outside to find a cab for us, and we FINALLY went home.

[Side note- it's now a week later and Joe still has not gotten his bag back. The police apparently lost it and now he has to file a petition through the American embassy to get it back. Lame.]