Don'tcha just love surprises?!

Here are some big and small surprises that I have had here. Some good, some not so good. Listed in no order. What do you think...surprise! or duh, Laura, you should have known that.

• Pepsi is more common than Coke here. I though Coke was more international. While you can get Coke here, (and its many different flavors, I find Pepsi more)
• You can use US dollars here
• It is humid in this part of the Middle East. Yah, I knew that coming in, but still, it is a surprise!
• There is not free wireless internet everywhere. yah, I knew it would not be the same as home, but you would think with so many people living in apts so close together in a big city would could pick up someones' unsecured interenet somewhere, but it is hard to come by.
• You have no central heat and air? Huh, did not know that that was not standard, like putting windows in a building. I have never lived somewhere where a couple of small gas/electric heaters are my heat source. Can't wait till summer, to see how cooling works, we don't have ceiling fans, so we will just have to see!
• My skype won't let me call people, because of the internet connection
• Almost everyone here speaks some English
• There are 3 Arabic langauge: the common spoken, the religious, and the one used in news and media. I am learning the common spoken (which includes slang). But every country has its own dialect, so good luck when visiting other countries.
• They conjugate both nouns and verbs
• Even though they don't write the vowels in print media and signs, there are still vowels, and I should know what they are, where they are and if they are long or short. huh?!
• Everyone here that I have talked to watched the inauguration and is hopeful that the new administration will be better for them, and they want my opinion. Just smile and nod! Also several people here have mentioned JFK.
• In Arabic class, I was learning how to ask and respond to who a person is and their name and nationality. All fine and good, except when my tutor pulled out cue cards to use. I knew Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson, George Bush, but did not know some of the other more local political figures that she put up. So I need to do some homework! I look like a stupid American who just decided to move to a foreign country on a whim!
• I don't have a tv or microwave. (and that means no dvd player, tape player, or wii---Tyler)
• I have not found in lunchmeat in the stores or cheddar cheese. I made a quesadilla today with mozarella. But hey, I found tortillas and salsa!
• I have concrete walls, so to hang things we use these mount things, instead of nails. And we broke at least half a dozen of them today, while trying to decorate.
• One of our neighbors that we meant has a lot of furniture. She invited us in and her living room, which is about the size of mine in Oklahoma, maybe just longer shaped, and it had 3 sitting areas. Each complete with a couch and 2 chairs all that matched, but each sitting area was a different color. Imagine trying to decide where she wants you to sit! But after a tour of her apt, she told us she had 5 salons (living rooms), because there is a bedroom also converted into a salon and a seperate tv watching room by the kitchen!
• A can of Dr. Pepper is 75 cents and a bag of imported Tostitos (my fav) is $6.
• We can rent the newest American TV shows by the episode here. Oh course, I don't because I don't have a tv, but I have watched some at other people's places.
• What do you do when you have a break at your business training? Everyone goes and smokes outside.
• It is not rude here to light up while sitting next to others, or even at the same booth in a restaraunt. Even before the almost complete no smoking laws in OK, we always sat in nonsmoking. So to have the people across from you or next to you smoking is a little different.

I am sure I have been surprised by many other things here, but I think this list is rather long so far. I will let you know other surprises as they come along.