What you get when you’re expecting something else….

….. A smile!

I was so excited to get to spend some time with my friend Sawsan, who recently moved to Indonesia.  One of the lessons I’m starting to learn, as an ‘expat’, is that friendships away from home are forged quickly and strongly.  As I’ve been recently informed, I’ve noted a couple of times on my blog how Sawsan took me under her wing when we both first arrived in Singapore – she was the ‘experienced pro’ at the expat life, me the brand-new newbie.

Anyway, she came back in town for just a couple of days, and I was able to spend some coffee time with her and Ginnie, another wonderful expat friend.

We walked over to Tanglin Mall, looking for a café where we could just sit and catch up – just a good old coffee shop.  We stopped in Caffe Beviamo (which I decided must be Australian in nature – I’m probably wrong, but they have ‘flat whites’  and ‘rocket salad’ ….both of which we were introduced to when in Sydney last year visiting friends).

I was excited to find that they had a flat white, which I promptly ordered.  (Singapore coffee is ‘kopi’ …. kopi c, kopi o, etc….another blog topic.  But it’s NOT a basic black coffee with cream.)  Sawsan did the same (once she confirmed that it was just coffee and milk, no sugar!).  Ginnie ordered an iced mocha.

Pretty basic drinks….and our flat whites were what we expected.   Ginnie’s iced mocha?  It came to our table.  I took one look at it, and knew it wasn’t a flat white, so I just directed the waiter to Ginnie – this must be hers!  Her look (and ours, I’m sure) was priceless!

 

This doesn’t look like any iced mocha I’ve ordered in the past!

Iced mocha…..with a (large) scoop of ice cream atop a very strong coffee and cream below.  Yum!

It’s nice to be reminded that surprises happen all the time – even when doing ordinary things.