Here we go

Oh my goodness!! I feel like the last 36 hours have been a crazy, exciting, wonderful whirlwind of new things. After leaving my house at 4am yesterday, and two painful layovers in LaGuardia and Miami airports, I am finally in Honduras! I flew into San Pedro Sula, which is the second largest city in the country. I was amused by the lack of security at customs (they didn't even look at the paperwork I filled out on the plane) and was also amused at myself because I literally wandered around the baggage claim area for a solid five minutes because I couldn't figure out where the exit was. However, when I finally did find my way out, three awesome guys from Abundant Life were there to meet me! Their extremely kind demeanor immediately put my nerves at ease...I was so nervous. I had actually wondered in Miami what would happen if I just flew back home to Cleveland, because it's really scary, moving to a foreign place for ten months. But as soon as I arrived here and met the people I'll be spending my year with, I knew that this is exactly where I want to be right now.

The guys took me out for lunch, where I had my first official Honduran meal, which consisted of chicken, sweet corn, and plantains! Totally delicious (para chupar los dedos...finger-sucking good!!!) :). The other teachers arrived later (I absolutely love them, they are wonderful!!) and we spent the night in San Pedro Sula. San Pedro Sula wasn't what I expected. It is very industrial, and although there are a lot of stores and restaurants, it still looks extremely impoverished, with trash and graffiti everywhere. I was unhappy to see all the American chains there; we noticed that TGIFridays restaurants are everywhere in the city! Obviously we avoided all of those and only ate traditional Honduran food yesterday.

This morning we woke up early to drive to Tegucigalpa, the capital! The drive was long, but the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. The mountains here are so beautiful, like straight out of a picture book. The tops of them are impossible to see because they are covered in clouds. Honduras is so lovely, but it's hard to watch the poverty. Most people seem to live in shacks, and when we drove up here we encountered several people, children and adults, coming up to the car windows and trying to sell us food. It's hard to say no to begging children.

Anyway, I feel extremely lucky (and moderately guilty) because we have only been given the best hospitality here. Right now I am staying with another teacher in a woman's house here in Tegucigalpa; we'll be here all week before heading to Gracias. Her house is really lovely and she has been so kind to us. Tonight we're going to watch the Honduras-Costa Rica soccer game, which should be really fun. I'm so glad we're going to have a chance to explore the city before heading to Gracias. We are already devising plans for travel, too. It seems pretty easy to travel to Guatemala and Nicaragua, and it's possible to take a boat to Belize. I hope we actually do everything we are saying we want to do!

I am so happy and excited; even though it's only been a day, I feel like I've already had so many amazing experiences! I'm pretty happy also because I'm going to be forced to learn how to speak Spanish properly here...it's not like Europe, where everyone speaks English.

Sorry this is so long; they won't all be like this! Everything is just so new and exciting right now! Send me emails or post comments, I would love to hear from all of you.

Hasta luego!
xoxo