Well...there is always some drama I guess...

So...today I woke up to silence! No rain. That's the first time that has happened in about 3 weeks! Marie and I decided to go to "the market" in San Salvador to look for some furniture for her apartment and underwear for me.

I'm telling ya. This country is crazy when it comes to underwear sales. I mean, seriously. Does anyone really buy underwear without trying it on first?? I guess I'm sending this questions to all the girls on the list, because you guys probably settle for the fruit of the loom package stuff. But girls buy underwear separately. And we look for lots of things. Comfort. Color. Fit. Style. Style is very important. Although I guess it is tied to comfort...for me at least. Anyway, I don't want to be spending money on stuff like that without trying it on first. And that's totally normal! I'm not talking trying on stuff totally naked. Seriously. That's disgusting. But trying on stuff OVER the underwear for the day? Completely normal. Well...in El Salvador...apparently, it's not so normal. During the last 5 days, I've visited every major mall in the city, every store I could find that sells underwear, selected a few pairs to try on, and watched EVERY salesperson look at me like I'm crazy and respond, "You want to TRY THESE ON? No. You're only allowed to try on bras." WHAT is that all about?? Maybe if I was like a size 4 or something, I would be fine with that. But since I'm already a giant here, I think I want to make sure stuff fits! Who wants to go home and find out that their new purchase acts more like a thong than the comfortable coverage they were looking for?? Not me. So I've been working off the pair I wore in on Saturday. I'm sure that sounds terrible to some of you clean freaks, but it wasn't so bad. I mean, I was having my period and all, so it's not like anything was actually TOUCHING the underwear I was wearing...just the pad was touching it. So I was using more of like....an underwear "holder" and the pads changed frequently. Anyway, today I decided, that's it. I've come to the limit of how long I can wear one pair of underwear. So Marie and I visited quite a number of stands in the market. And I ended up buying a package of 12 pairs varying from medium to extra large. It was $5 for the package, so I guess when you get to the point of being sick of wearing something, you're willing to buy what you haven't tried on. Anyway. I guess you know enough about my underwear situation now.

Anyway, we also found some great cheap tables for Marie's apartment, so we were happy. Everything was great. I got underwear. She got tables. We had a great lunch. And then we came to the office, where we were checking email. And I thought, "I haven't checked my hotmail account for awhile. I think I'll see if there is anything worthwhile in there." So I went through the 200 messages, mostly junk, and noticed this one that said something about unauthorized usage and thought, "Well, maybe I should open that one up." It was from PayPal and it said that I had added another email user to my account. I used PayPal ONCE like 4 years ago so I was like, "That doesn't sound too good." So I visited their website to remove this so-called user, and was told when trying to log-in that they didn't have a michellegullett@hotmail.com. Funny, since that's the address they sent the notice to. So I went to my US online banking site and saw a charge from yesterday for approximately $200. Again, funny, since I don't have any cards or checks down here. So I called the bank and found out that during the last week, about $1200 has been spent from my account on the internet and $500 more was attempted to be spent, but K-Mart declined the charge since they didn't have the 3 digit code on the back of my card. So...that's going to be fun to fix. If it's any of you, sorry to say the card won't work anymore. :)

So...the drama continues here in El Salvador. It's not so much with the rain and volcano (although the volcano appears to be acting up again), but with my US finances. I never seem to be short on the stories, do I?

Hope you're all doing well! I think hearing about the underwear and money situation probably are enough for you right now....

One more thing...I keep forgetting to tell you this!! If you want to ever read about news in El Salvador in English, you should visit http://luterano.blogspot.com/. It's a blog from this guy named Tim that lives in Wisconsin and he updates it regularly. You can also view it from this blog by clicking on "Other links", then "El Salvador News" (right side of page).

I'll write more later!

Miss ya! :)