Got up early and went to the U.N. with Dawn. I left my Ethiopian Objects d'Art there and headed off to see the Mer&cced;ato. Decided to stop for a quick breakfast and a cafe and then got side tracked into an Internet place. The internet wanted 30 birr a minute - about $225 / hour - obviously they weren't really interested in having people use the net! I went up to the Sheraton and checked their business center. Even there it was 27.5 birr for each five minutes (> $40 / hr). I sat down for about forty minutes and got a nearly %50 discount just for asking.
On the way to the Mer&cced;ato I decided to stop at Tekle Haimanot Church as I had heard that was the place to find lots of farmers selling traditional goods bought in the country at very reasonable prices. I didn't find any such people but I did find a couple large stores with manager who would at least talk about prices. Spent nearly an hour in one negotiating for five icons but finally walked away when we stalled over 50 birr. By this time it was nearly time to meet Dawn for lunch so I headed back to the U.N.
My original plan had been to go to the Mer&cced;ato in the morning then the National Museum for an export certificate in the afternoon. Well I hadn't made it to the Mer&cced;ato so I decided to put off getting the export certificate until tomorrow - in case I buy anything at the market. Headed off to the Mer&cced;ato again, but took shelter in a cafe when it started to pour rain. Spent the afternoon in the cafe until it was time to go meet Dawn at the Hilton for pizza.
Ran into Stewart again while waiting for Dawn. When Dawn showed up the three of us sat in the bar forever talking, then moved to the restaurant for diner and more conversation. Once again we were the last people out of the restaurant - it was another good diner.
