Spaghetti

The nurses have been cooking for me non-stop, so today I promised that I would cook them a spaghetti dinner. I went to Dennis (the local grocery store) in search of some spaghetti, sauce, bread - the works. Dennis is a very large store - two different levels - with tons of groceries and merchandise, so I assumed that finding spaghetti would be no problem. I walked around the store a few times (both levels), but was not successful in finding the spaghetti. Mind you - I feel like a celebrity in Dennis because all the customers and employees point, stare, and carry on when they see me because they are not used to westerners in Luoyang. I have noticed that some people will even follow me around a bit to get a better look - haha. I finally had to ask one of the workers at the store if they had any spaghetti. So - I walked up to her (which was very exciting for her and her friends) and said "Spaghetti". They stared at me and then gave me a piece of paper to write it down on. I wrote "Spaghetti" and they again stared at me. Then, one of the girls had the bright idea to type it in her phone which apparently has a "translate" function. They translated the word and said "AHHH" and shook their heads no. I later found out from the nurses that spaghetti is a "foreign" food - not available in the regular grocery store. Needless to say, the nurses cooked for me again tonight :-).