My "Ethiopian" 4th of July!

I was so excited to go to work yesterday morning! It was the 4th of July!!! A day my whole country celebrates! I was slightly disappointed because I couldn't celebrate this holiday with my family and town of Belle Plaine, but it still turned out to be an amazing day! There weren't any fireworks or parades or 5K "Fun" Runs or activities like that. Of course, I still had to go to work, but Millie and I wanted to do something special to celebrate. I know I already mentioned this in my post on Thursday, so I won't go into too much detail about them, and if you want to see a picture of them, look at that post. So.... as you already know, we decided to make no-bake peanut butter thumbprint cookies with different jams in them!

It was so funny! At around 9:30 Paula and Edwin walked into the herbarium and shouted, "Happy! uhh.... Day! What do you say on this day? What's it called?" So we told them you can say "Happy 4th of July" or "Happy Independence Day." It was so unexpected for them to come in there, but it meant so much to me that they thought about us and knew it was a holiday for Millie and me! :)

I carried them into work, and as always, stopped to talk to Dr. Jean when we walked into the Genebank. Of course she noticed the cookies on the tray I was holding and asked about them. We explained that we wanted to do something as celebration and were going to put them in the meeting room for people to eat as they please because we know everyone goes in there at some point during the day. We were going to put a note by them explaining them and that they were free to eat as they please. Nope! Dr. Jean decided she would tell everyone to come in there late morning, have someone make coffee, and we would all gather in there to eat our cookies! :) It was so neat to walk into the meeting room and everyone in the Genebank was gathered in there already! They were smiling, laughing, and clapping when we walked in! We put our cookies on the table for everyone to see our attempted American flag, and then the tray was passed around for everyone to try a cookie. Coffee was handed out, and we all started talking about America's history as well as Ethiopia's, Portugal's, Mexico's, and Peru's. I learned so much about all of those countries! Everyone was talking and laughing and having a great time! It was so great. It really meant so much to me seeing how supportive and caring all of the staff is in the Genebank. After a while, they all wanted Millie and me to sing our National Anthem! We decided that wouldn't be a good idea... Instead, we said the Pledge of Allegiance. :)

Everyone laughing at our attempted flag

Getting ready to say the Pledge of Allegiance

After all the cookies were gone, our discussions about all the various countries represented in the Genebank, everyone's coffee was gone, our laughs were worn out, and our recipe was explained to some individuals who wanted it, it was time to head back to work! I worked on my lab report some more, continued research, and worked on staining my flowers again!

I can't forget about lunch! It was sooooooo extremely delicious today! Oh my goodness! The Special of the Day was baked fish with an amazing sauce on it. The baked fish just melted in my mouth and the sauce was sweet yet very flavorful! So delicious! It was also served with assorted vegetables and potatoes! Yumm!!!

Such a delicious lunch!

On Thursday, I talked about how I fixed the pistils in the 95% EtOH: glacial acetic acid solution. Now it was time to soften the pistils. For this, I have to put it in NaOH solution for 24 hours. This solution burns skin, so while pipetting the solution into the microfuge tubes that the pistils are in, I had to wear gloves. I did this early in the morning so that I could perform the next step Saturday morning and not in the middle of the day Saturday. The purpose of softening the pistil is so that when I place it on a slide and put a cover slip on top, it will flatten. As it's softening, the pistil gets very fragile, so working with it from now on is slightly challenging. Good thing there's only a few more steps! But I'll talk about those later because I did that on Saturday.

Dr. Jean thought that just that coffee morning with the staff wasn't enough of a celebration for Millie and me, so she decided she would take us and some other colleagues out to eat tonight for pizza! She knows this really good restaurant that serves some of the best pizzas in all of Addis, so that's where we went! I have to agree! This pizza here is definitely, by far, the BEST pizza I have ever had! There were 10 of us total that went out to eat last night, and we ordered 6 pizzas! Talk about a lot of pizza!!! (Sadie Andersen, you would have been on cloud 9 if you would have been here:)...) We ordered 6 different pizzas, so everyone could choose from a large variety. I'll try to remember the different pizzas...

• Indian-- onions, green peppers, cheese, some type of spicy sauce
• Chef's-- beef, mushrooms, onions, cheese, sauce
• Margarita-- cheese, oregano, sauce, garlic
• Vegetable-- spinach, avocado, tomato, cheese, sauce
• Chicken-- chicken, cheese, sauce
• Four seasons (I think)-- salami, ham, bacon, beef, cheese, sauce

I know I missed a lot of ingredients, but I can't remember any more... Also, I tried a few new beverages! One was one that I've wanted to try ever since I've gotten here. They serve a pineapple Fanta! I've never heard of it before, so I put that on my list of things to try, and I got to last night! It's very very sweet. It was certainly a different taste, but I like it very much! They should totally sell that in America! (Or maybe they do and I've just never noticed...) Also, every restaurant serves Ambo, which is sparkling water. I've already tried this, but I found out they also serve flavored Ambo, so I decided to try that last night as well! It was tropical flavored, and was so delicious!

Pineapple Fanta!!!

When we left the restaurant, we decided to go to a club to watch some more of the World Cup games and so the adults could have a few beverages. The club was packed and blaring with music the entire time! Almost everyone was dancing to the music while still watching the games! It was such a cool environment to watch the games in! It's so neat to be around people who show so much enthusiasm in it! I love it! Again, I'm sorry Mom and Dad... I stayed out past 12 AM again... We got home after 1 AM... Sorry! I'll make up for it when I get home I promise! :)

Waking up was a little rough this morning... I had to wake up early so that I could go to work for a little bit and work with the staining process again. When I got to the office I saw that Dr. Jean was there, so I poked my head in to say I was here and would be in the back in the lab working on my staining of the pistils. We talked for a while about various plans before I leave. The main one was about traveling to Sodo! We're traveling there during our last full week here, and it's a 2-day trip beings it's a 6 hour drive to get there. I can't wait!

On to my staining! So when I got into the lab, I had to gather all of the supplies I would need: pipette, Aniline Blue solution, distilled water, my 2 pistil samples in microfuge tubes, lab coat, and gloves! The first step this morning was to pipette the NaOH solution out of the microfuge tubes and gently wash the pistils with distilled water 3-5 times. This way I would wash all of the NaOH solution off the pistil. Then, it was time to put 0.2 mL of the Aniline Blue solution into the microfuge tubes with the pistils in them and store them in a dark area for about 24 hours. The longer the sample stays soaking in the Aniline Blue solution, the brighter it will fluoresce. Because the directions say soak it in the Aniline Blue solution for 24 hours, I asked Dr. Jean if I should observe the pistils under the microscope tomorrow morning then, but she said just wait until Monday. It'll just give the pistils more time to fluoresce. I'm so excited to observe them on Monday!

After I was done with all of that this morning, Millie and I walked to Bilo's Pastry to have a glass of Spritz Juice. All of the pastries at the counter were so tempting to try, but our plan was to go to the Zebu after we had our Spritz Juice for some samosas. I didn't want to ruin my appetite! I will try a couple of the pastries here before I leave though. They're too tempting not to! Our Spritz Juice drinks here contained mango juice, papaya juice, and pineapple juice. I consider it more of a happy medium between a smoothie and juice. It's thick, so it's not exactly juice, but the fruits are the only ingredients, so it's not a smoothie! So confused! Don't know what to think!

Yumm!!!

When we got back and headed to the Zebu, they were cleaning the entire inside, so all of the furniture was in the outside eating area and the doors were blocked off. Guess we're not getting samosas for a while... That's okay... We purchased a delicious-looking watermelon on or way back, so we can snack on that for the day! We'll get samosas one of these days!

Other than that, the rest of my Saturday was spent relaxing, reading, experimenting with my new flat-screen 32' TV they put in this morning!!!!!, sending some emails to my family, and playing cards! Can't get much better than this! :)