And On The 3rd Day She Rested

The third day in Dhaka was definitely the least eventful.
I started the day with a nice breakfast our cook had prepared, and about 4 cups of nescafe instant coffee which I am becoming addicted to. I spent the rest of the morning watching a mix of BBC / CNN / Al Jazeera, all of which seemed to be in agreement about how things would never be the same after the tragic death of Gary Coleman. (I feel bad making that joke but I couldn't help it.)

Around 1:00 Alizeh came by with her driver to take us to lunch. Alizeh is my law school friend Faizah's friend from college who is from Bangladesh but has lived in Saudia Arabia, Canada and the U.S. It turns out she lives very near to us, just down the road, and is currently working on a development project for U.S. Aid She was wearing jeans and a sleeveless tank top, which made me feel better that I had decided to forgo the Salwar-kameez for today, and was just wearing a short-sleeve black t-shirt and very baggy khaki pants, and a scarf.
Alizeh was incredibly nice and very helpful. We went to a sushi restaurant that she really liked (yes, I realize having sushi here could have turned out horribly wrong...).  I, of course, asked her a million questions about life here. One thing that surprised me was that she never really leaves the Gulshan area because she lives here, works here and all of her friends are here, and because traffic is so bad it takes about 2 hours to get anywhere else in the city.
A few other things:
-The transportation system is as bad as I thought, it is basically impossible to get anywhere at night if you don't have a personal car / driver. Taking a rickshaw, CNG auto rickshaw, or taxi after dark is basically just asking to get robbed. I thought originally this only applied to single woman, but it sounds like it is the same for everyone. Not sure how people socialize after dark.
- Joining a club is a important way to meet people. We can join either the International Club or the American Club, although the American Club is harder to join as you need a diplomatic sponsor.
-There are some restaurants that serve alcohol (a very few) and there are a few places that foreigners can actually purchase it for themselves.

After lunch she had her driver take us on a little tour around Gulshan, which was really helpful as we saw a few nice parks (that I had no idea even existed) and some cafes.

After lunch I basically slept for the rest of the night, only waking up to eat the dinner our cook had prepared. It was a chicken curry with rice that was pretty spicy but completely delicious.

I probably got 16 hours of sleep between yesterday and this morning, which I think I desperately needed. I feel a lot better now, although could use another cup of nescafe.

On a side note: It is going to be hard for me to post pictures with the internet connection I have at the apartment, because it is so slow. I may have a better connection at work, and I will also try to check out some internet cafes.