PANCAKES + per diem

can't find the picture i'm looking for now, of Claire at the Artisan. I'll find it later.

The Artisan coffee shop, one of my favorite places in town, is kind of struggling lately and started a great thing: staying open 24 hrs/day and serving all-you-can-eat pancakes & sausage & bottomless coffee from 11pm-6am for $8.60. Just for this week and next week (finals week). Awesome.

I inherited my Mom's body in many ways, but one of them is that we're extremely affected by caffeine. I forgot about this and got overly excited about the bottomlessness of the coffee and had two cups tonight and this is why i'm up at 2:40am instead of asleep for my 9am class tomorrow. Sigh. I am just as affected by beer, except in the other direction. (depressant vs. stimulant, thank you, two years of D.A.R.E.)

But I'm here to tell you about something interesting I learned today in my Global Perspectives class. Also, my professor is a total badass. Why? One reason: we didn't have class the last two weeks because he was in Bolivia. Cool. Another reason? Even when in Columbia, MO, he carries a copy of his passport and a $100 bill in a secret compartment in his belt, as well as carries his wallet in his front pocket to avoid pickpockets. Hilarious. This is probably only funny if you have his class, my apologies.

We talked today about planning our sojourns in countries and how to plan them out financially. In the military (mostly) they have calculations for this based on a 'per diem' rate, which is kind of a daily cost of living which takes into account lodging costs as well as meals. Here are a couple cities' per diems (per day):

St. Louis - $162
Kansas City - $145
Columbia, MO - $99
Seattle, WA (for Ailsa) - $216 (Tacoma is $167, Mexico City is $273)
Sao Paulo, Brazil - $251
Hong Kong (for my friend Caroline studying there this fall) - $361
London, UK - $336

Ouch.