The day we discovered the ants and the cockroaches

Sunday, August 18.
Waking up this morning, the wife of the owner took us to our first small shopping! We go easy on the food items taking "safe" things: bread, jam, pasteurized milk. For fruit and vegetables, we will wait 2-3 days. After a quick little breakfast we then left with her to see clothing stores. We still have to buy some clothes since we didn't bring that much. Anyway we prefer to return
Later for a quieter shopping experience. I noticed that in a lot of stores, prices are not displayed. So we will therefore have to negotiate! Something not so simple when you have no idea of the value of things... And you hate arguing at all, but apparently the whole process is supposed to be a fun experience between the seller and the buyer... We'll just have to wait and see for that!
As a westerner, I might pay a "high price", but I'm hoping after a little time I will find the nice equilibrium where both can leave happy.

Then we went to SocialTours, Tiphaine's new job: We were introduced to the team (only Nepalese, a Dutch and Finnish perhaps will be added to the workforce soon). And then we talked for 2 hours with the chief and a colleague. The working atmosphere seems relaxed and efficient at the same time, the job will be great and the values seem to fit Tiphaine completely, I can see she is eager to start.
As we were still there at lunch time, we ate with everyone; it was the famous momo, absolutely delicious! A vegetable one with a tiny tiny bit of spice and a delicious cheese and spinach one which both could be dipped in either a tourist-friendly peanut sauce or a local "little" spicy sauce :p Meaning 50% of it is chili.
Then we called the airport and a colleague decided to get them the morning after because the plane arrived too late that night. The chief asked if we wanted to join the "Splice of Kathmandu" a 3h-ish walk around Kathmandu's different markets for everything. We went and we saw lots of stuff more or less foolish all around in the muddy streets, buying prayer flags, drinking Nepalese tea served from a broom cupboard that needed a bit of cleaning, hmm 0.59 kr or 0.07 € for a good tea strikes my Norwegian values as a bit underpriced.

We learned the easy lines to say "how much does it cost?" in Nepali, etc ... Very useful for the days to come! We were still a bit tired from travelling, having slept nothing in 29 hours and then just a normal 7 hours sleep weren’t enough. Tiphaine was still a bit sick from the air conditioning of the plane, but without a huge belly pain due to radical changes in food, well we still felt that we functioned pretty well...
That night we tried a new restaurant: the Mitho. Sincerely, it may be our headquarters for quite some time. Hygiene is very limited, but the service is great, you can buy takeaway, the menu is super rich and varied (Nepalese, Chinese, Indian, Italian, etc.) and unbeatable prices! Incidentally, it tastes great too.

Back to the apartment and a nice discovery, any food item/anything wet that isn't water attracts a whole colony of ants!  As soon as we leave anything on the table, f.e. our empty glasses of juice, it's time to clean it! Note to self: do not leave anything anywhere close to where you plan to sit/lie down. Oh and while picking up some fresh water from the fridge I discover there are relatively huge cockroaches that come at night to dance in the kitchen and hallway. Once past the surprise (not funny), they were given pet names: Juan Araya, José and Fernando, at least for the three we saw. It doesn't make them cuter but easier to live with at least. New mantra, ADAPTATION is the key !