The best times of my life go by too quickly.

Happy some-sort-of-Catholic-Holiday Day! Apparently this country celebrates all of the Catholic holidays, and today happens to be one of them! Unfortunately, my knowledge of Catholic holidays is extremely limited-- with the exception of Carnival (thanks to my time in Europe), which I will also be here for, so I'm unable to give more information about the specialties of today. On the agenda for the day: plan a cumulative review for my little first grade children, begin reading the story I will be teaching next week, and teach my host mom how to bake an apple pie! Hopefully my baking skills followed me overseas...

This weekend has been so much fun! After finishing a long week of student teaching (I think it's because I knew I had a long, fun weekend ahead of me), I went shopping with one of the sisters and the other teacher. Successful evening full of shoes and accessories. It's weird-- people here care a lot about what they wear, like a really unhealthy amount and worse than most Americans I've met, and yet their stores are mostly full of shoes and jewelry. So what I want to know is where all these clothes they own come from, because I hardly saw any in the mall.

Saturday I woke up around 8:30, thought about taking Kelly (the pug) for a run, looked outside and saw rain, and re-considered. Around 10am, Audrey and I were picked up by a few of the other teachers to head to the beach. In total, there were 6 of us North American teachers. It's a little over an hour to this particular beach. When we got there, we made camp in front of some of their favorite pizza lady's restaurant. It wasn't the warmest, clearest, rain-free day at the beach, but compared to the water of Capris last spring break, it felt pretty good. Plus I got a little bit of a tan-- on my way to blending in with the locals! Saturday night I pretty much just vegged the rest of the night; laying on the beach, drinking fresh pina coladas, eating Dominican french fries, and snapping photos really takes it out of a girl.

Yesterday I went to church with my family again. Yes, it's all in Spanish. No, I don't understand most of what's going on there. So why do I keep going? 1) I am a part of this family, and I love spending the time with them. 2) Cultural experience. There's nothing cultural about going to a church that caters to my North American needs. 3) I love the people. The fellowship and community of that church is so great. 4) So this is how all of my ESL students feel...
Besides, soon enough I will be in the comfort of the Sioux Center URC. It's not every day that I get to experience this type of church. And whether it's my "style" of worship, my language, or whatever else might be "my type," it's a group of believers joined together for worship-- and to me, it's pretty special to get to enjoy that here.

It's hard for me to believe I'm in my third week here already, and it's hard for me to imagine having to go through all those goodbyes I hate so much about spending time abroad. Developing relationships in my time overseas is such a huge blessing and so valuable to me, but it sure makes going home even harder. For now, however, I'll focus on the positive: I have 5 weeks left, full-time teaching to look forward to, and so much more to do and see before those dreaded goodbyes come along.