As I wrote before, Addis is a city that is becoming more developed every day. A lot of this effort is driven forward by Ethiopians returning from other parts of the world, and bringing with them businesses or ideas that they have observed being successful elsewhere. When I was in India, I saw a lot of businesses that bore a striking resemblance to businesses I had grown up with in the States, and I'm starting to see the same in Addis. For example, the current local rendition of Starbucks is Kaldi's coffee.



Apparently copyright laws are not in quite as full force here as they would be in the US…. Kaldi's is extremely popular, and was totally packed on the Saturday afternoon when we visited. It could actually be considered payback for Starbucks' lack of profit sharing for so long with the Ethiopian farmers that produced their coffee (they're doing better now, but the yearly revenue of Starbucks, one company, is $6.4 billion compared to the GDP of Ethiopia, an entire country, which is $74.9 billion, so clearly there is more to be done).

For those of you who have traveled to Hyderabad, remember the Olive Garden there? Well, there is an "Olives garden" here in Addis.



I haven't tried it yet, but if the imitation in India is any indication, I probably won't. I mean, why would I travel several thousand miles to eat in an Olive Garden?

I've only got a few more days left in Addis, and as with the other parts of my trip, I'm wondering why I didn't budget more time here. There is so much to see and do in this world and so little time. I'm going to have to figure out how to be reincarnated as a travel writer…