A link to civilization

Yesterday, I decided I'd had enough of not being connected to the outside world from home, and my roommate Tara and I went to the superstore here, La 14, and bought a TV, a TV stand, and a DVD player. This story gets a little more interesting I promise. The idea was to buy these items, go upstairs to meet some friends for dinner, then get a mani/pedi, which only costs $15 by the way. The way electronics work here is you tell the salesperson what you would like, they take it out of the box, plug it in to make sure that it works, and then they repackage it all. As they were testing the TV, I decided we probably needed a DVD player as well, so the saleslady told me all about this one that was on sale. I decided to go for it, not really looking at the box, even though I hadn't entirely understood all the bells and whistles that were explained to me. As they were testing the DVD player, they also took out of the box two microphones. So, I guess I just bought a DVD/karaoke machine! Bonus. I haven't hooked it up yet, but it was another language barrier moment that was awesome. So, we left our purchases downstairs and went to meet up for dinner. Tara and I decided to split what we thought was a salad/appetizer/fried plantain thing that we saw the chef making. What we didn't realized when we got the food, was that it was a plate with a piece of lettuce on the bottom, deceiving tomatoes around the sides, and plantains on the top. The inside was a monstrous pile of different kinds of meat. So, it was essentially a meat salad of some sort. It was good, but way too much for even 2 of us. The best part is that, we had also ordered 2 pinchos de pollo, which I thought was just chicken on a skewer. The waitress then brought out the pincho de pollo, another side salad, and a potato...for each of us. It was the most food I've ever ordered, ever. The waitress brought it out, struggled to find room on the table for all of it, then must have looked at our horrified faces, then said to us, "para llevar?" which means "to go?" Of course we said "si." So, now we had a huge bag of more meat with us, but we decided to get our nails done anyway. This all seemed like a great idea at the time. I basically felt like I had to do it last night, because we have the second grade Open House with the parents tomorrow morning (yes, a Saturday) and I'd heard that the parents are kind of into making sure you're well-groomed, that it's a bit more important here than what I'm used to. So, after getting my nails done, I took the bag of leftover meat, went back downstairs, paid for our TV, TV stand, and DVD/karaoke machine and left to hop in a cab home. The next part is just ridiculous. The TV of course did not fit in the trunk or the back of the cab, so we decided to take it out of the box. The only problem was, we had just gotten our nails done and they didn't have those little dryers, so they were still wet, mine were at least. Luckily, everyone around us came to help out, the cab driver, another cab driver, the workers at La 14, and even someone just passing by. I told my roommate that I felt like such a princess, having everyone do all of this for us...untape the box, take out the TV, unpack it, take off the plastic, break down the box, load it all into the cab, etc. It was pretty ridiculous. I'd love to know what these helpful people were all thinking about Tara and I. So, tonight I'll be setting up all my new stuff, although it's not that exciting because we STILL don't have the internet or cable or any real link to civilization at home. That's why I'm writing you all from work right now. Way to use my time wisely, I know.