Hi everyone! I made it safely. I slept for at least 36 hours once I got here. I feel that I lost a day in the confusion. People from the school picked me up in a bus from the school (not a long orange one). It was a wild ride from the airport. I'm glad I won't be needing a car here. People are crazy drivers. People also park on the sidewalks and anywhere else they can find!!

My luggage arrived with me! (Which is a happy note for me since I once spent an 8 day vacation w/o my luggage and had to buy clothes to wear.) I had a bottle of shampoo leak. The 5 articles of clothing that soaked it up are all things that have to washed by hand. What fun.

My apartment is very nice and bigger than what I had imagined. I have three porches; two are narrow and the other one extends out. The apartment faces west and has big windows. The cielings are high. The toilet is in its own seperate room. The living room and bedroom are very spacious. The kitchen is good sized.

I have been out for groceries once. You have to pay for the plastic grocery bags to put your groceries in. I'm glad I am somewhat in the habit of bringing my own cloth bags. Ice cream comes in bags. I can't quite figure out their cheese. A woman from the school says there cheese is much stronger tasting than ours so I haven't bought any yet. A person has to buy big jugs of water since you can't use the tap water for drinking or cooking. I use bottled water to brush my teeth. And whatever you buy you have to carry home so you have to be conscious of how much you buy at one time. There are little stores all over for buying groceries. Next week the school busses the teachers to a shopping area to do major shopping and then drops everyone off at theei apartment so you don't end up making lots of trips carrying lots of things home.

The toilet paper that was in my apartment is like the brown paper towels in the dispensers at schools. I bought a package of other stuff and it is so full of perfume it almost makes me gag.

I have been staying in my apartment mostly due to the heat and I do not have fans or A.C. I can work up a sweat sitting in my apartment w/o walking around outside. I have also been sleeping lots. It is hard to adjust to the time change.

I have noticed that people have house plants so I am on a quest to find some. The west windows in my apartment are perfect for plants!

There are many fresh fruit stands around the city. Today I am going to get a watermelon and see how it is.

There is some kind of woodpecker in the pine trees outside my apartment.

I was told that it doesn't rain here in the summer. The only "lawn" I have seen is the sports field at school. It is very dry and lawn areas consist of weeds. Flowers are planted but not given any upkeep.

Some negative things I have noticed so far are:

There are lots of stray dogs everywhere. You don't hear them much in the day but come late afternoon and early evening they start roaming and then they bark all night and get into fights.

There is garbage every where! I'm shocked! And dumpsters are full and some overflowing.

That is going to be it for today.