"The Heel"

This blog started out with the intention of simply keeping you up-to-date with things that were going on in our lives overseas.  It has quickly become the idiots guide to living overseas.  I’m giving up on the serious side of things and I’m going to let it all hang out.

So I went to the capital again today. This trip was to turn in application papers for our visas for my upcoming classes.  If you read the blog post about our Amazing Race trip the last time to the capital, it was similar except this time there was a little less than a foot of snow and I made the trip with my friend instead of Stephanie.  We were in the same red conversion van with the curtains swaying back and forth as we danced all over the road (at least I think we were still on the road).  You know me, I love speed and getting my adrenalin flowing, but not when I’m not in control of the situation.  You can’t imagine how many prayers went up that morning. 

After we made it to the bus station I stepped off the bus into a deep pile of snow mush.  Immediately I felt the coolness soak through to my toes.  From this minute on I knew it was going to be a long cold day.  We decided that we would take a city bus to our destination.  After standing outside for about twenty minutes in the freezing cold air I told my friend that I thought we should just take another bus to the metro.

When our bus pulled up, it was jammed packed with people.  We managed to stuff ourselves in the back part of the bus…well almost.  When the door slammed shut, my backpack got stuck in the door.  I had to take it off my back and jerk the rest of it inside the bus.  About 100 yards down the road we stopped again.  You guessed it; we were picking up more people.  It was at this point that I decided I better get out of the way of the hydraulic door opening up…TOO LATE! The door opened so quickly it caught my foot.  My foot was trapped between the scissor part of the door and the step.  It wouldn’t move.  Finally I got my foot un-wedged, but realized something else had happened in the process, my heel (from my brand new shoes mind you) stayed wedged in the door.  The door was hopelessly jammed.  The driver kept pushing the button, but all you could hear was the groan of the hydraulic motor and the people outside who were getting ticked.  Everyone inside kept looking at this little piece of plastic stuck in the door trying to figure out what it was.  Finally a man kicked it and knocked it out so the door would slide open.  I couldn’t stop laughing.   My friend was trying to figure out what was going on.  I told him what happened and he started laughing too.  He then managed to weave in-between people’s legs and feet until he found my heel for me.  So unfortunately the rest of the day I walked around the capital with a peg leg. 

Never a dull moment in my life.