Acclimation

Well I'm getting started on the second week of living here and I thought I'd share some new random things. First, let me praise the Lord in this smooth transition I've had over the past 7 days. (In fact it's almost to the minute that I arrived a week ago!). Physically, I'm very thankful that my jet lag and sickness only lasted about 5 days. I'm finally waking up at a normal hour, though I still haven't gone a whole night without waking up early. I'm such a light sleeper that a car starting or cat meowing 7 stories down can wake me up!

Mentally/Emotionally things are going well. I don't believe the reality of me being here has actually hit me yet! So for now I'll bask in the naivety of this honeymoon stage :) I was thinking the other day that I spent so long preparing my mind for living here that this transition of living in this country has been really smooth so far. I, for the most part, had a good idea of what I was getting myself into so it wasn't such a shock.
There are still some lingering things that I'm really not used to yet- some good, some bad. It's still a shock that it's completely dark outside by 5 pm, and starts to get dark by 4:30 or so. That is so strange! In January I hear it gets dark by 4, and starts to get dark before 3:30! It really messes with my internal clock.I'm not used to walking everywhere I need to go. I like this though- I enjoy it now. However, I like it more when I can walk by myself at my own pace. People here walk sooo fast so my short little legs are struggling to keep up. It hasn't been too cold yet, which I'm actually kinda thankful for, in regards to my transition. The problem though, is that because I'm walking (and sometimes fast) I get hot by the time I get to my destination- and the buildings are so well warmed that I end up sweating much of the time (something I didn't expect). So there's a lot of putting on coats and hats and gloves and then taking them all off, etc.
I walked around Trnava with my trusty mini camera the other day to take pictures and figure out my way around. I love the size of the city- not so big it's impossible to find your way around, not so small that I feel claustrophobic. I was about to take a picture of a sign near a pedestrian area and this man came up to me and motioned his hand towards the nearby benches and said, "Sandwiches? Sandwiches?" and I said "Nehovorim po Slovensky" (I don't speak Slovak) and he kept asking me so I just left. I really haven't had too many awkward stranger encounters so far, which has been nice! (Had a lot of those in Ethiopia...)

This is my new Slovak teacher/old friend Miska. This was the friend I visited up in Ohio when my car broke down, yay! We had our first lesson yesterday and it went well. We'll start out with 3 lessons a week, then eventually taper down to 2, then 1. I'm glad that I tried to learn some SK words when I was home. It hasn't helped my conjugations at all, but has helped in other ways.

Anyhow, that's about all I can think of that's worth talking about at the moment. Feel free to leave comments on this blog with questions too! Let me know if you DON'T have Facebook and still want to see my photos. That's where I'm posting them.