Mystery in the bathroom

Thursday, June 18 - Ghana Adventure Day 13
More of today's photos in slideshow section 2 - click HERE to view.
(back-dated post completed December 30)

Uncle P came this morning to take us to Accra. We had a long breakfast with him, then hit the road. It looked much nicer this time, without the heavy rain. It was a very pretty day. We arrived at our hotel, the Regency, around 2 pm. Oh, my gosh – it’s so much nicer than Crystal Rose! It is a lovely set of brick buildings, with 2 HUGE courtyards – one just plants and patio/courtyard area, one with the beautiful, sparkling pool. It has a restaurant AND a separate bar and grill, a salon, and a beautiful reception desk area. Everyone is so attentive – feels as attentive and more friendly than a Hilton, etc. The staff rushes to open doors for us, and brought us glasses of fresh juice as we checked in. Wow! We’re in Room 1 – the kids like that – I think it’s kind of neat, too! We have a big picture window that looks out right into the beautiful courtyard.  Our room has a huge bathroom, with a large storage chest, a shower with bathtub, attractive tile walls, and a fixture we weren’t sure what the heck it was – a urinal or a bidet, or what? Turns out it’s a bidet. Never seen one of those before – the girls and I watched videos online of how to use one. Funny! And just how did we watch those videos, you ask? Woo-hoo!!! We have fast, consistent, strong-signal internet right in our room!!! I’m am unbelievably excited about it! It’s the first time in Ghana that I can do my online things without dragging the kids somewhere to sit with me.

We went down to the restaurant and had a nice dinner. Akos had fried rice and chicken – the first thing she’d eaten all day. A couple of hours earlier, she started compaining that she was hungry, but of course she was – she had refused to eat at breakfast! I told her all the snacks we had in the room, and she refused all of them. So I told her that she wasn’t really hungry – if she was, she would eat. So, she waited until dinner. She initially refused anything but plain rice, but the waitress talked her into some chicken. It was GREAT chicken – I actually may order some next time. I had grilled prawns in garlic butter (which also had some other spicy stuff in it) – YUM! They had a nice white wine, which I hadn’t had since being here – the hotel in Elmina had wine that was not too good at all. This one was smooth and pleasant. Lydia had an egg and cheese sandwich – they use hard-boiled, sliced eggs here instead of the “pancake eggs” they had in Elmina. We did have to move tables when the waitress brought over a bowl of peanuts – we quickly had her take it away, but the other tables near us had them, too.

At dinner, there was one song playing over and over the entire time. Thankfully, it was a really fun song. It got Lydia in a dancing mood – she started dancing in a really fun and funny way. Akos was just cracking up and grinning from ear to ear (for the first time today), and she finally started dancing, too! They had a great, silly time, and so did I. The silliness continued into the night – well past bedtime. Oh, well. We watched an old video of Lydia as a toddler, and her 4th birthday party. After that, Akos kept saying to Lydia, “Lydia, how old are you?” No matter what Lydia answered, Akos laughed and said, “No! You are four!” It was funny at first, but Lydia got tired of it after a while. I thought it was great that Akos was speaking in an audible voice, and that she was feeling carefree enough to crack jokes! Probably our best night yet…