Spaghetti Surprise

It was looking to be an uneventful Friday night and so I had Johan drop me off at Carrefour to buy some groceries.  I snapped that picture of the Tuna (previous blog) and was on my way out the door home when I saw Jeremy walking into the Carrefour.  I said hey and we chit chatted a little bit and he invited me over for diner!  What a nice guy!

Jeremy is the guy who has been leading all of the bike trips that I've been on.  He's from Buffalo and has cycled over 1/3rd of the globe.  He says he's forgotten how many countries he's been to but the number he suspected was around 40.  He's been all over the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and North and South America.  He's in the progress of publishing his own book about his travels and perspectives.  I'm looking forward to reading it when it's finished!

Jeremy lives about 10 minutes walk from my house and we share the same Carrefour.  He'd made some delicious spaghetti and meat balls for dinner with a nice salad and garlic bread.  He says it's difficult to find tomato paste here in Taiwan so he boiled these tomatoes down quite a bit.  The flavours of the sauce and the meatballs were great!

Left to right: Steve & Jeremy

Jeremy and his roommate Zane have a pretty large apartment on the 5th floor (top floor) of their apartment.  He tells me they pay 11k NT ($370/mo) which is a great deal considering it's split by 2 people.  It has two bedrooms, a living room, and a really nice sized balcony.  Part of the balcony is covered and the other half is open air.  It was really nice sitting out there because it had cooled down considerably (it was 10pm).

We chatted for a few hours and then headed to the Green Hornet Bar close to the Xindian MRT station (Bitan).  The bar is owned by a Canadian and I could see it was a regular haunt for many xpats because more than half of the people in there were white.  Most people also appeared to know each other.  The Green Hornet makes all sorts of food including Mexican food (great nachos!)  I'll probably be taking Eliza here sometime when she's over here because the Bitan riverside area is quite beautiful.

Got home a bit later than expected (3:30am?) but had a great night!  Thanks for hosting Jeremy!