first few days in Tanzania

we made it to dar es salaam. our flight here was fine - incredibly nice airline with our own tvs! - but we were completely exhausted by the time we got here. i couldnt sleep much at all on the plane. but we got here and went out of the airport to look for niwas family. we didnt see any signs with our names so after a while we decided to take a taxi to the youth hostel downtown. we stayed there overnight and then yesterday morning sandy bought her sim card so i called charles. he said he will come to our hostel before noon - so we waited for almost an hour but he didnt come. then we went around the city ourselves and came back around 5. all of a sudden he called us on the cell phone and said he'll be there in 10 minutes. and guess what - it turns out that they use a different time system here!?? everything is shifted by 6 hours. so when you say noon it means 6 (!!?). crazy crazy place. but its really great so far. the city is not really our favorite place - it was incredibly loud all night and we are dripping in sweat all the time. its very crowded and the people drive like crazy. but they are also extremely friendly and everyone always tries to talk to us (mostly trying to get us to take taxis or buy stuff from them, but first we have to exchange greetings, etc). the coolest thing yesterday was when we went to the fish market on the beach - very stinky but incredibly lively and colorful. all kinds of fish, people scaling them, frying them, etc. it is weird though because we stand out so much and everyone always stares at us. also its unfortunate because then we dont feel comfortable pulling out our expensive cameras and taking pictures. which means we really havent taken many pictures at all. i think most of my pictures will end up being of nature rather than cities/people. so anyway, last night we went out with charles (giovanni's friends brother) and it was really great. he was sooo nice and even paid for us!! we actually wanted to pay but we didnt have enough shillings with us, so we said we would pay next time. and it was funny because i told sandy that he doesnt drink because i thought they were religious since giovanni's friend doesnt drink - but after we all ordered juice, he asked us if we drink beer and i said yes, of course, we're german after all. so after that he ordered beer for us. then he took us to another place (by the way, these were all fancy touristy places that he took us to - i guess he wanted to show us the "nice" places in dar) and we ate at this next place too. our first time eating ugali!! it was awesome. well it doesnt taste like much but its nice with different sauces. i had it with beef stew. but anyway, since it was kind of a touristy place, they really didnt have ugali on the menu, they usually have fish&chips, pizza, etc. on the menus - i guess also because everyone eats ugali at home so they dont usually want it when they go out - but the chef made it extra for us since we asked for it. the portions are huge though and i couldnt even finish it. ok so now we are going to catch the ferry to go over to zanzibar.