First day at the office

Can I just say that I'm exhausted? I spent all day talking, trying to go into as much detail in what is a vast and fairly complicated work load. I don't think I'm allowed to go into anymore detail, so I won't, but I can see it's going to be a looooooong nine weeks.

After work I was picked up by the cab service, along with four other Company employees staying at my hotel. There was an Irish dude, a guy from Singapore, one from Australia and an American girl. They seemed nice and invited me to go to dinner with them, but I really wanted to get that DVD player over and done with, so I opted to go to the SGS Mall instead. The mall turned out to be about a 15 minute drive away, not very big, but very light and airy, with some nice shops. I spent a long time at one in particular, which sold all kinds of stuff in the vein of toys, books, movies, music and electronics. To the untrained eye (i.e. mine), the set-up looked pretty chaotic, almost like a 99 cents store, but the sales people seemed to know exactly where everything was. There was very little choice in DVD players: A state of the art Sony DVD/Blu-Ray/engraver/magic genie, which was way too rich for my blood, a pink Disney Pricess DVD player, which I might have bought had the box not been extremely old/battered/torn, and a PS2 package. I ended up with a PS2 for more than I would have liked, but eh. As long as it works (which remains to be seen), I'm happy. I also got Prince of Persia on DVD - not sure why, I suddenly feel attached to that movie. I may watch it tonight.

The streets around here are pretty much what I'd been told to expect (people milling everywhere, shacks made of all kinds of stuff selling pretty much everything to anyone, etc), but not as bad as I had thought they might be. The people I've spoken to back home who have stayed in this hotel all say they felt perfectly safe wandering around, so tomorrow I may venture out for a walk. For tonight, I am exhausted, and debating between ordering room service or going downstairs to the Italian restaurant for a pizza. I hate to admit it, but I'm sick of Indian food already…