A Trip to Vienna

Last night's "clubbing' did not happen. Unfortunately when the time to meet up and head out came, no one was around. Matt and Kags were left to assume that everyone went out for dinner first and then out to the club. This might have been avoided if a phone were available, but sadly we have no phone. One word of advice for those travelling to Ghana, bring a cell phone. Everyone here seems to have one and if you are worried about the roaming charges, you can always buy a Ghanaian cell phone chip to turn your phone into a local phone.

But Matt and Kags decided to head out on their own for a good time. We headed to Nkrumah circle, one of the roundabouts on the road around Accra. I should say that Accra is full of roundabouts, which I find to be horrible, dangerous, scary remnants of British colonialism. I'm pleased the US never fell in love with them. And whenever I see one, I'm always reminded of the scene from National Lampoon's European Vacation ("look kids, Big Ben, Parliament). The street was full of people enjoying the cool breeze with vendors of food and liquor everywhere. It appears Accra must not have an open beverage container law. The main kind of food stand we've found here (outside of the shacks that serve as restaurants known as "chop houses") serves two kinds of kabobs: one is a spiced type of beef hot dog and the other is goat meat (although after enjoying one, a random bystander told Kags he thought it was dog meat). We weren't really up for drinking in the street (I should say there were some tables for people to sit at so it wasn't like everyone was sipping their 40's out of paper bags). We headed into the Vienna Casino for some pool and drinks.

The Casino part of the Vienna Casino consisted of a roulette wheel and some video poker machines, neither of which Kags and I played. And at the pool tables was an interesting mix of Ghanaians and ex-pats (white guys). We sat and people watched for a while, wondering if any of the young Ghanaian women with the middle aged white guys were escorts. At one point in the night, they handed out raffle tickets and then they would randomly select people to spin a big wheel (a la the price is right) for prizes (e.g. 10,000 cedis free credit at the casino). We didn't really get to "win big" though as all of the raffle tickets they picked were letters ("RF") and I had raffle ticket "436". Makes you wonder if it's fixed. All in all, Kags and I had a nice night and didn't even have to go clubbing (with neither of us really likes, but felt the need to be social with others).