WELCOME!!!
This is my new blog! It's so I can share my crazy adventures and international experiences with you all so thank you for joining me here :)
I'm so excited to be on this adventure and I hope I'll continue to have amazing stories to share with you.
Now the pictures!!
Being away from home during the holidays can be challenging. For now, I'm living in a major city to learn the language. This is a very touristy place and I live with several people from North America. So, luckily I had friends to celebrate Thanksgiving with. They gave me money and I cooked all the food. First time to ever cook a turkey and it turned out beautifully! What did people do before the internet??? I'm mean.....REALLY!
I am so blessed to have friends and family who helped me through the holidays by sending care packages. Thank you.....you know who you are! One group sent a bunch of cards. Each person sent a personal note to me so I'm keeping them on my door. As I see each name, I think for them. I also got grits, coffee, and an awesome hand Yahtzee game from my family and another friend. You guys are AWESOME!!!
My roommate thanks you too because she tasted Pop Tarts for the first time :)
Being in a non-English speaking culture can be quite amusing. You will see English cards and shirts everywhere. However, the way they phrase the sentences is hilarious. Here is an example of something you'll see often. It says
"Happiness is just on my hands and even lost sense of direction, but still I not afraid"
Because I live with several Western people, it's easy to stay with them all the time. So I'm trying to hang out with local friends more. This is an amazing group of girls and WOW!!! are they loud and fun!!!! JUST like me :)
One of the things I'm NOT crazy about......the amount of insects I see here. This gal was hanging over our front gate. The picture doesn't show it but this lady was HUGE! Her body alone was bigger than my hand. I wasn't sad to see it disappear a few days later.
Because my visa expired, I had to fly to a close-by country to apply for a new visa. I saw more fun things there. Apperently, they are going high tech here. This mannequin guy was cautioning people of construction. What the picture doesn't show was that his hand kept going up and down. I died laughing when I saw this.
The country I was in is highly Muslim. So, instead of finding a Gideon's Bible in your hotel night stand, you'll find the Qur'an
If you go to Asia, don't expect to have ANY KIND of personal space
Happy New Year!!!
I was able to celebrate it with the only other American here. We have bonded over our love for baking and love for movies. So, we ate, blew our horns, watched movies and slept. She also loves the classics like I do so spent the first day of the year right.......watching the 5 hour version of Pride and Prejudice. Oh yeah!
Here, New Year's is a big deal. Every few blocks, you'll see major sound systems set up and they play dance music all day......and ALLLLLLLL night. So, IF you're lucky to sleep, you'll still feel the "BOOM BOOM BOOM" being played next door. Then the "POP POP POP" of the fireworks (you can buy any kind so our neighbors were shooting off the big kinds....the kind you would see at shows". I got the pleasure of an extra sound of the guy throwing up outside our gate.
It's very sad as what happens is that the music is playing, the guys (don't know what the women do) sit around the sound system drinking. This begins early New Year's Eve so by the time night comes around, they're nice and drunk. They're either dancing in the streets, throwing up, or passed out . It's not a very good time to be out. Luckily, we had locks on all our doors so we were safe (my Mom is probably nice and worried now :)
That's it for now. I'm excited to see how this blog will progress. If you want to know how to think for me, here are a few ways:
1) This year I'll be moving to another location. I want to experience the rural cultural and help if I can (English teaching, run a cafe/bakery/ etc). At the moment, I don't have any options for a visa. I need a visa to go there and stay.
2) As always, language. You'll hear this a lot because it's an ongoing thing. I want to relate to people in their own language so I need to pick it up (the faster the better).
I love you guys!!!
