The Ethiopia Chronicles

Already 4 of the team are in Addis: Megha, Neil, Pranav and me. Waiting for Beth and Harsh. 

I think we are all pretty tired and sleepy of the trip but in the afternoon we went to the Mercato. This is said to be the largest market in Africa and it is certainly unique. Blocks and blocks of small shops, outdoors and indoors, with any product you can imagine. Full of people shopping and walking around, some carrying huge boxes on their backs or heads, people walking with a leashed sheep/lamb that they just bought for the coming new year festivities (the new year is in Ethiopia on September 11th, as it is based on the Coptic calendar instead of our Gregorian one). We are here in the year 2000, and on this Sep 11th it’ll be 2001 here.

After we left the mercato we stopped in the Piazza area of the city where we walked around a little bit and had a refueling stop at a coffee shop, where we had a delicious coffee and pastries (I had a croissant..). The pastries look great in this city!. Here we are in the coffee shop, with our city expert and guide, Brook: 

One interesting note: shared tables. When we got into the coffee shop there where not open tables. But the waiter just pulled some chairs around a table where a lone young guy was sitting having a drink and reading a book and we all then just sit down with him. He took it very naturally and was very friendly and we chatted a little bit. He was reading a book on quantum mechanics. It was kind of surprising for me, as I imagined myself sitting in a Starbucks reading at a small table when suddenly 5 guys just sit around the same small table..