The Weekend

I'm normally a homebody, so this was my "going out" weekend. I went "out" everyday from Friday through to Sunday - and by "out", I mean I went places that required me to be somewhat social, and not just to buy my weekly supply of yogurt and snacks for work (which I also did, BTW).

On Friday, I had dinner with friends at Yellow Chilli. This restaurant is tucked away somewhere behind Bar Beach Towers in a very low-key area. I had heard good things about the food there and was happy to discover that they were all totally warranted. The menu was Nigerian and my food was off the hook, so I will be back there. Afterwards, it was off to Thistle Bar for drinks and music. The crowd was somewhat older than I expected, but also far less pretentious. The bar obviously has its devoted crowd, who return there week after week - or at least so it seemed. The easy camaraderie was unlike anything that I had seen in any other Victoria-Island establishment. Aside from having to fend off a couple of slightly inebriated admirers and being subjected to deafening arguments about the energy and telecommunications sectors and (what else?) politics at the next table, I enjoyed the vibe there.

Saturday saw me attending an afro-salsa concert put on by the band Salvador Sango at the Goethe Institute. Salvador Sango, as the name implies, plays a fusion of African and Cuban beats and is led by Sotiris Papadopoulos, a Greek musician who has lived in Nigeria for the last 17 years. (This is totally off the topic and deserves it's own post, but foreigners who choose to live in Nigeria really intrigue me – particularly foreigners who are not making boatloads of money here. Nigeria is a beautiful country, with great weather and, mostly, friendly people, but it IS a tough place to be. Consequently, I have always thought of Nigeria as a place that only a Nigerian could love enough to live in, but of course I know enough people to disprove that notion.)
Afterwards, at Prime Chinese, I got an eyeful of something that I REALLY did not need to see: a girl wearing her jeans so low that her butt crack was in plain sight for all to see. Now WHY did we need to see that????

Moving on very swiftly .... on Sunday, courtesy of friends, I discovered an oasis of Indian food in Lagos. Hmm, the name fails me now, but it's called Bombay something or the other. I’m a big believer that all-you-can-eat offerings are usually not as well prepared as dishes that are specially prepared for you, but this buffet was actually quite good, so I can only imagine how good their food would be were I to go there at any other time. It was, all in all, a great weekend, though it felt very weird to have barely touched my computer or a book.