Apperently, the sun is hotter in Central America!

So a lot has happened since my last blog entry so bare with me as i write a novel!

Let´s see, Friday we had a group trip to the capital of NIcaragua- Managua where I saw a lot of interesting, sad, and hopeful things.
We first went to the Chureca which is the trash dump where the trash of about 3 million people of Nica goes. We drove on a dirt path lined with small shacks for houses, schools, and churches. The smell was over powering and children were running around barefoot with dirt caked on to their bodies People LIVE in this trash dump...scrounging through the mountains...no seriously MOUNTAINS of trash for recyclable items that they can make money off of to feed their families. Entire families go out into this trash every single day and they only make about enough money to feed their family one meal a day. My heart was breaking as we got off the bus and talked to one of the families. The mother has worked in the chureca for over 30 years and has never been to managua...that is where the trash dump is located. She is a single mother and lives and works there with her sisters and their children. We also talked with some youth who have worked their way out of the trash dump to try and develop a life for themselves- they still live there but work and learn outside the dump to help the other families as well.

The whole experience was very sad and i just wanted to give all my money to the families...but the money will only go so far as they cannot get jobs anywhere else, and they have nothing else to buy but food for their families. Some young boys buy glue to sniff with the money they make because there is nothing better to do with lives. What a sad day....

Then we went on to the Jubilee community which lifted up our spirits a little more! It is a cooperative on the outskirts of Managua that helps farmers with loans and money to start up their businesses. The volunteers also helped hundreds of families during Hurrican Mitch when they were dumped a mile down the road from the Jubilee house. The cooperative is also building a large building so some ladies can start up a cotten spinning business so they can export natural an organic cotten clothes for full price to other countries and actually make money! The volunteers there do a lot of work and it´s nice to see hope for the 2nd poorest country in the western hemisphere...Nicaragua

Then we headed back home after a very long sweaty day....
Then I woke up the next day at 6 for another long eventful weekend with my host sister- Erika!

We left for the city of Leon saturday morning at 6. Leon used to be the capital of Nica and has a lot of historic landmarks and cool things to see. There are also a lot more tourists there so I didn´t stick out so much...it was weird!

We stopped in Managua (an hour away from jinotepe) because Erika had class. Jonna, Jonathon, and I sat in an air conditioned library while she was in class it was awesome! until the electricity went out and we sitting in pitch black with no idea what was going on...so the air conditioning didn´t last long.

Then we left for Leon which is another 2 hours...and it takes about a half hour for the buses to fill...it´s really hard to go anywhere in Nicaragua. Then we arrived in Leon, dropped our stuff off at Erika´s friends house and went straight to the HUGE cathedral in the square. It was so beautiful and i could see 11 Volcanos from the top of this thing! I don´t remember the name...I was a bad listener...but i know it is very old and very important to Nica!
Then from there we went to an art museum which used to be the house of Ortiz himself....there was a lot of famous art pieces in there but i couldn´t take pics...booo :(

THEN we went to the museum of the famous poet Ruben Dario....my family gasped when i didn´t know who he was. Apperently he is the most famous poet of all of Nicaragua and the whole country died when he passed away. The museum was really cool and I wish i could translate his poems because they do seem beautiful!

so that was a lot of walking and the city of Leon is the hottest in the country...i know right.

Then we went on to Chinandega which is about 30 minutes away from Leon for a church service....we really didn´t know why we were there, but apperently Erika is the director of some baptist church group who travels around encouraging youth to come to a weekend retreat. It was cool and the singing at the church was fun...we obviusly didn´t know the words but had fun clapping! we also felt absolutely disgusting after sweating and walking all day.

Then we ate some food off the street when to a hostel (hotel) and slept nice and hard for about 6 hours....yeah that´s right. we got up at 6 to got to the beach in Leon...who does that? we found out why as it takes 30 minutes to get to the bus station in leon...then an hour bus ride to the beach (we were standing by the way) and then you have to walk along the coast a little to find the beach....by that time it was about 10 in the morning...which is also when the sun starts burning the skin to a crisp! let´s just say that i look like a lobster today and can´t really function without pain!

But the beach was beautiful! huge waves...no one around...warm water! We had so much fun getting tossed around in the waves! these are like real waves....some gnarly australian dudes were surfing on them! and there was this Nica guy who looked like he live in this little tiki hut where he sold drinks and surfed all day! what a life.

so we hung out for a while, swam, burned and headed to another part of the beach for lunch. It was an adventure getting there because we got off at the wrong stop and had to wait a half hour for it to come back...there is only one bus that travels the coast....GREAT!

But it was worth it! i had a fish that was pulled right out of the water that day and it was amazing!

then we had to eat fast because the bus was leaving and we headed back to Jinotepe whcih probably took about 4 hours total! GEESH! a long weekend but a lot of fun!!!

Welp´, this week we´ve got a couple more field trips to some farms and Masaya...we also have salsa lessons on wednesday so that should be fun!

My host mothers birthday is on thursday and mother´s day is on saturday! they don´t mess around here on mother´s day! The whole country stops to celebrate! it´s a big deal as it should be!

and friiday is an important date as it is May 29th....the day of my wedding next year! YAYAYAYAYA! I think that will be a very good day for me!

but i have written enough...i love you all and miss you tons!
have great weeks and don´t miss me too much :)

love,
Ash

We Like English

I think one of the greatest things about a weekend trip with the Goshen group is all the english we can speak without getting in trouble! haha

Friday, all 25 of us left for Esteli for a weekend trip. We first drove 2 and a half hours (uncomfortably) to a farm cooperative which grows fruits such as papaya, tomatos, and so on organically. I didn´t know a lot of how the cooperative works but i think the Goshen blog will explain it in more detail. Then from there we continued on to Esteli to Hotel Nicaraou...let´s just say that hotels in Nicaragrua are nothing like those in the states. There were birds and ducks wondering all around the center patio and the rooms were a struggle to figure out. Nicaraguan businesses also like to tell their customers anything to get business....we thought there might bot be enough beds for everyone! it all got worked out but thank goodness we have Delana-our country coordinator- she won´t take crap from anyone!

Then we ate in the hotel for dinner and had the rest of the night free. About half of the group went out dancing for a night out on the town. We practiced our salsa moves and stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of the discoteca! it was fun though! There was also a live band that entertained everyone with love ballads- the people with boyfriends and girlfriends and fiancees back home all had there arms crossed and sulked for a half an hour- missing their sinificant other....it was a funny sight but we all wanted the salsa music to start to take our minds off home! it did eventually!

Then we returned to the hotel and the next day we visited a museum close to the hotel. It was a museum started by the mothers of fallen soldiers during the revolution and wars of the 70´s an 80´s- we had some of the mothers talk to us for a brief 2 hours before emotions started running high. There were a lot of differing opionions about the government aid for the mothers of nicaraguan soldiers and a heated argument broke our between the women. When you´ve lost so much and fought so hard for freedom from the US government (weird right) emotions take over when discussing the difficult subjects. I could try to explain the opionions but it is a long story. if you´re interested- look up the FSLN, Somoza, or Sandino on the internet- these women went through more than i could ever imagine.

After an akward argument where our group sat in silence while they duked it out in spanish we left for lunch and finally was told what happened. Then we left for my favorite part of the day at a Women´s paper making cooperative. A group of women noticed a huge piece of land that was being used as a garbage dump and the amount of trash that was taking over the area. The land wasn´t owned by ayone so they took the initiative to start cleaning and sorting through the trash for recycling. They thoought of a way to reuse the trash and started making beautiful stationary and paper out of recycled materials like paper, onions, pineapple, bannanas, tobacco, and so on!

Someone showed them how to reuse the paper and they experimented with different organic materials that help die the paper different colors. It is a beautiful process and the paper is really beautiful after it comes out. Trash to treasure! It´s also a cooperative for abused and sexually assaulted young girls as a place where they can go for refuge. It was a really cool organization that isn´t a very hard process. It just took the initiave of someone who to want to clean up all the trash that had been piled higher than a house- yeah, can you imagine?

Then the rest of the night we hung out, relaxed, ate ice cream, and watched some movies.
Sunday morning we packed up the buses and headed for a water fall on the outskirts of Esteli. The mountains are beautiful out there and the air got cooler the higher you went. The waterfall was really beautiful but we didn´t swim in the water for fear of contracting a disease from the contaminated water. We just waded in it for a while and skipped rocks! There will be pictures on the Goshen Blog. Then we rode in the bus for a while longer to an artist in the mountains. He is a rather crazy man who has spent about 30 years in the mountains carving into the stone with beautiful pictures and sculptures. He was really excited to have so many people see his work and it was a really beautiful place...we could see almost all of Nica from there- but he talked a lot and we were really hungry from climing huge hills and practically the side of a mountain. it was a long day! Then we left for Jinotepe at about 4 and didn´t get back until around 7! It was a long weekend but really fun!

I got home and was surpised to know that I could still speak spanish after so much english on the weekend!

But overall I am still sweating and the whole group basically either has diherria or is constipated...not gonna lie, i feel great!! but i am kind of getting tired of cookies for breakfast...i´m not sure what my host mother thinks breakfast is like in the states...but we don´t usually have cookies in the states! oh well everyone else has been getting beans, rice, toast, and egg for breakfast! talk about a huge meal! i won´t complain about the cookies!

Oh, I´ve also learned a little more about my service location which will be Jinotega! My best friends alli and lindsey went there last year! what a coincidince! we will have so much to share with each other after those weeks! But I will be there with Jesse Heylery working with Los Pepitos. Those are children with down syndrome....I am really excited! The town is more in the mountains with a cooler, fresher feel and great people! or so I hear! I hope jesse is ready for wedding talk! haha- I´m sure he´s not!

Um let´s see...not a lot of fun things this week. We have a day trip on Friday to the capital city of Managua but I don´t really remember what we are doing there and I think my family and myabe Jonna´s are going to the beach over the weekend! should be fun!

I miss all the family back home and can´t wait to hear about your adventures!

And Whit, I´m sorry I coudn´t be there for your graduation! I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU!

Joc- sounds like mayterm was fun and I love your emails! you are funny and p.s.- a little mototaxi was blaring [yeah] through their speakers and it made me miss you! we´ll dance to it when we get back t school!

Everyone else, I miss you so much and thanks for keeping in contact! I love you all and soak up the sun for me..I am getting a mean farmers tan!

Love,
Ash

Week 2 Done!

Well it officially has been 2 weeks and I am still sweating, don´t worry!

But we had our first trip this past weekend and it was a lot of fun to get out of little Diriamba and see more of this beautiful country. We left sunday morning around 7 a.m. for Mombacho- a volcano here in Nicaragua. It was about a half hour bus drive to the base of the volcano and another half hour ride up the mountain. We took this HUGE truck with all 30 or so of us up these steap hills that tipped and turned to what seemed our death, but we made it up alive. Then we hiked some beautiful trails on the top of the volcano and once we reached the top, we could see for days! It was very pretty and none of my picutres did it justice.

Then from their we went to the Granada Islands which they are about 375 chunks of volcanic rock that were shot into the ocean a long time ago because of a volcano arruption. They were sold to very rich people who built their own little palaces on these chunks of rock. How would you like to own an island? But we took 2 little boats and toured around these islands- it was really really pretty but probably the most touristy thing we will do all summer. We stopped at a specific island who was home to a lot of monkeys! Lola decided to come on our boat and hang out with us for a while. It was so cool! They are going to be a lot of pictures on Goshen´s blog. I think Gwen got about a 100!

Then we got off the boat and were bombarded with vendors trying to sell us neckalces, bracelets, and anything you could think of. It was overwhelming. But nothing beat what happened next. A group of drunk South Africans pulled up in their boat after a long ride with a lot of rum and decided to talk to all us girls- very closely! They spòke perfect english and started to talk of our beauty and such....let´s just say that one of the men bought me a white shell necklace and crowned me the new queen of South africa- forcing me to get in tons of pictures with them. I think they were trying to win me over or something? But what the hey- i got a free necklace out of the deal! Lisa also announced that she was going to take a picture of us for my fiance and they thought that was awesome and proceeded to harrass me more and take more pics! haha, it was really funny but we gave him a false name so that i wouldn´t be stalked or something. So if you see any pictures of me on the blog with a white shell necklace- remember to bow to me when i return to the states, because i am the new queen of south africa! haha

But other than that, I am started to feel like a part of my family here in Nica. I am actually able to incorporate humor into our conversations which makes it easier to feel more comfortable and not so much like an outsider. They still make fun of spanish, but that´s ok because my spanish is awful! They are also starting to feed me more food now that i am feeling better, which is starting to be a lot for my poor little stomach! They laugh and say ¨va a ser mas gordita¨ which means i am going to get fat....how nice of them! haha. that´s one difference that i´ve noticed, Nicas like a little chub- but people hate it in the U.S. - go figure!

But spanish class is going fine of course- i am starting to feel more like i am in school with all the homework we are assigned and the confusion with spanish....i thought i was done with school? NOT! But the lectures this week have been very important and interesting. Monday we had the Nicaraguan equivelant of Obama come and speak to us about his work with the Literacy Crusade in the 70s. This crusade brought irliteracy in Nicaragua from 76% to 14%! and this man was in charge of it! He had done more things in his liffe than i could ever imagine doing in 5! He was truly inspirational and taught us all a lot of life lessons. I really enjoyed his lecture. If you have time- look up the Literacy Crusade of Nicaragua- it is shocking!

Also, sometimes at my house we listen to english praise and worship songs that really keep my spirits up! It is nice to know that these people that i live with praise and worship the same God as I do. And that no matter how strong of a language barrier we have, that God can always connect us together in a beautiful way! It´s like someone told me before I left, ¨Just know that you can not go where God is not¨ and that has become evident in these first 2 weeks- which also gives me motivation for the next 10!

I love you all and keep praying for me! I heard these next 2 weeks are the hardest!

Love,
Ash

As I´m sitting here.....

...I have lost about 10 pounds from sweating alone. It has got to be one of the hottest days since i´ve been here and it is pretty miserable. But it is indeed friday which is a relief....i don´t think i could take another spanish class without a break! Classes this week have been fine....they become longer throughout the day and seem to drag on but i seem to be learning a lot as well. Our teacher is very paitent...and goes very slow....which sometimes get redudant after 3 hours in the morning...but it´s better than being lost and confused right?

Our assignments range from conversations about our host families, written paragraphs over lectures, and random debates where each are student is a different type of fruit and we have to fight over who is the best fruit! haha...that´s been the most interesting so far! We have also had some assignments where we read a newspaper article and spanish and are only allowed to ask our families questions over the words we don´t know....those have sparked some funny conversations. Nicaraguans are very animated and like to act out their descriptions...my host father did some funny things that night.

Let´s see...a typical day for Ashley Nichole....i was called Nichole for the first 3 days because my parents needed to practice saying ashley...i enjoy hearing them say my name everytime...ashwy...kinda sounds like that!

But yes...I wake up for class about 7 or 8ish...depending on how hard i am sleeping. The rest of my family wakes up at 6 every morning which sometimes wakes me up as well...they get up stinkin early here! But then my mother offers me breakfast. I told her I don´t usually eat breakfast and oh did that worry her. she insists i eat breakfast even if it is a little yogurt or chocolate cake. Yeah that´s right, i had chocolate cake for breakfast this morning...it was delicious but very surprising. Every kid´s dream right? Then I head for Jonna´s house...which is approxametly 30 seconds away and then we walk to the park where the buses pick people up for Jinotepe. We ride the bus for about 10 minutes...pay 5 cordobas...and walk about 1 minute to class. Class goes from 9 to 11:30 and then we head out on our own to eat lunch in Jinotepe. We´ve had pizza, shakes, steak and chicken, vegetarian malaysian, and lots and lots and lots of RICE AND BEANS (gallo pinto). No one give me rice and beans when i come home....I might die! Then we have a lecture from 1-3 on various topics. some this week have been on the history of Nicaragua and organic coffee farming. It´s been really interesting to hear about how much influence the United states has had on little countries like Nicaragua...sometimes I feel ashamed and wonder why the people here don´t run me over with their cars. But that just shows their hospitality and kindness towards others. They are so nice here, opening their home and time for me with no complaints. Not to mention they are very patient with my spanish...haha

But it seems a lot of times after lecture some of the girls and I walk around the market, or visit each other´s houses, sip on lemonade and talk to other host families, and etc! I came home at 4 today and my parents were freakin out asking why i was back so early and why i haven´t hung out with my friends. they are funny. But yes, i spend a lot of time talking about random things with my family, hanging out with Jonna and doing homework, or hitting up the cyber cafe for some blog writing :) Jonna and I have become really close...and not just because our houses are so close. haha. I´ve made my first new SST friend!

The weather is hot of course but when you sit for a while in the breeze, it feels amazing! and the nights are beautiful...no sun...cool breeze. oh man! and when it rains here...IT POURS! like golf ball size rain drops. The mosqutos aren´t as bad as i thought they would be...they are just in the house which makes the bites easier to get. I also have a few friends who scurry around my room...some cockroaches, lizards, crickets....we´re best friends now. They don´t bother me anymore...I never thought this day would come :) I´ve also watched more spanish soap operas here than i watched regular television during the year! they are obsessed, not to mention that they are the only things on the 2 channels in my house! i got to jonna´s house to watch english channels!

Now for the funny stories....

1. I have found out what a lot of random things meant a week later. say for instance, my mom gave me a huge wad of toilet paper when i left for the day once and i had no idea why, plus i did´n´t understand her. come to find out, a lot of places don´t have toilet paper...i realized this yesterday and then it all made sense!

2. My parents can leave the house and come back 30 seconds later with toilet paper and cold gatorade for me. I thought it was a magic trick! the closest store i knew of was about 5 blocks away...it was impossible! i found out yesterday that there is a store inside a house on my block...go figure. I am an idiot.

3. a group of us was visiting Bethany´s house and her dad asked what we did during the day. we had cookies so i was trying to figure out what cookies was in my head and i remembered dulces. He asked how our spanish was as I said ¨dulces!¨ but i didn´t hear his other question. so everyone thought i answered with dulces! they laughed a lot at me after we figured out the confusion....also, Dulces doesn´t mean cookies :)

But overall the days seem to be going fast. When i think about how much time is left...i cringe. But when i think about all that´s happened so far...the time has flown! it´s a vicious cycle...slow....fast....slow....fast.

We also talked about control in our reunion session with the whole group on wednesday and how we are feeling with the out of control life-style we are living right now. I am always in control of my everyday in the U.S. and it has been a real growing process for me to let go of the control this summer. I can´t control my spanish and the fact that i am stuck here for a while. But i do have control over my attitude and what i can get out of this whole experience. I know i am getting a lot....but I am gradually starting to find out what that actually is. This week has been hard and mind boggling. I´m just trying to grasp my head around the whole picture...yikes! the sweat is clogging my brain!

But in all my free time to think, i´ve also finally been able to relax (in a new way) and bask in all the glory of the engagement that happened about 4 weeks ago. When asked questions about the wedding and engagement, i remember how blessed i am and what it all means...I´M GETTING MARRIED! I was so busy before i left that i didn´t have time to just sit and dwell on the fact that about a year from now i will be tying the knot with the one i love and spending the rest of my life with him! HOLY COW! I am smiling real big right now! But get excited because i will be so ready to nip this wedding planning in the bud when i return! haha

Well, that was a really long entry, but I needed to update you all!

Nicaragua is beautiful, great, lonely, hard, challenging, blessed, and causing me to stretch my comfort zone to a whole new level!

Thank you all for being that comfort zone....and I can´t wait to experience you all again when I return!

Love,
Ash

First day of school!

Today we had our first day of class and it was really nice to hear some slow easy spanish for once! We went around the room of people, being asked random questions. I guess they are trying to see where our spanish skills are so they can place us in a certain group by wednesday- i can easily say that I will be in the begginner group :)

Then we went out for lunch in Jinotepe on our own and I ate normal food for once! i mean the normal food they have here :) but I didn´t have too much! whoever said that I will probably gain weight this summer is eating their words right now!

Then in the afternoon about 1 o clock we had our first lecture. Let´s just say that history is not my favorite subject so it was hard to follow the loads of information our speaker gave us today on Nicaraguan history.

Then after that me and bethany, John, Casey, Naomi, and Gina all visited each other´s houses. we walked around for a good hour and a half or so...let´s just say it doesn´t take very long to get across town! we lost jonna along the way, she was supposed to meet us at the clock but never showed and my family said they told her to go to bethany´s house but she never went there. so we aren´t really sure where she ended up but she was with her papa. so we didn´t worry too long :)

Then we all parted and have been hitting up the cyber cafes...i tried calling jordan but according to Tim Blaum he is working out...so i´m hoping that by the time I am done on the comp he will answer his phone :)

calling the united states is really cheap here! like one cent in a minute in american dollars. which you would be about .025 cordabas if you were interested.

but i had my first break through with spanish when i cam home from class today! John and I actually understood what my parents said! we both jumped up and down after we left my house! my family likes to slur their words and is hard to understand! well i have to figure out if i can get more minutes here...until then adio!

I need to ask more questions...

So this morning I agreed to go with my host and John Stuekey to an unknown place at 6 o-clock this morning. First of all, John and I thought it was a 6 in the evening and were in for a rude awakening this morning. Then when I woke up at 5 this morning, my nauseousness came back and I started to worry about the trip. We took a taxi to the Jinotepe bus station where John and I found out that the trip would last until four in the afternoon and that the bus ride was 2 hours! I quickly took some Dramamine for fear of throwing up all over the Nicas in front of me and started to figure out a way I could get off the bus before I hurled. John and I talked and started talking to Marciel about it and turns out her phone is out of minutes and none of the vendors at the bus station would let us use theres'. So we talked it over and decided to head towards Casa Verde where Gwen and Lisa live. It was about 7 in the morning by then and I knocked on the door, yelled their names in a little panic. And there they come in their pajamas really confused. So John and Marciel leave for the day trip- poor John and I stay at Casa Verde. I slept for a couple of hours because of the Dramamine I took, which is probably the most I have slept in the last 2 nights.

Now I am hanging out on the internet- eating pan tostado and ginger tea and wishing I would have asked more questions before I left this morning. Oh SST.....

The first couple days...

Well let´s just say that this internet time was well needed!!!

Let´s start from the beginning! I always pictured send off as a more terrible thing than what it was for me on wednesday. i was so tired of waiting around to go that I felt a lot better to leave, of course I cried but with the amount of people there I couldn´t help but smile- they were there for me! As the bus pulled away and everyone waved it was a great sight that I had been waiting for for 3 years! Phew...I was ready to go!

On the bus I read a few letters from you all and talked with the people sitting around me! One of the main conversations as we traveled was...¨what do we say in spanish if we are in this situation¨ Later I came to realize that all of those conversations didn´t help and I knew no spanish at all. even when you tell them to talk slower (mas despasio por favor), they talk as fast as i would in english! GREAT! not to mention that they drop all the 's' in every single word. especially my family....I understand everyone else's family fine- mine is a challenge.

Anywho! It was a 3 hour bus ride to Chicago and then we flew to Miami, about a 2 and a half hour flight. We ate some food in Miami and watched CNN for an hour, updating us on the stinkin Swine Flu that has corrupted our lives! People were wearing masks all over the airport!

Then we rode on the plane for another 2 hours to Managua- the capital city of Nicaragua. But we actually arrived a half an hour later because of the time changes. weird huh! I watched the office and some scary-bulky-man that looked like he could snap me in half sat next to me, but he started watching the movie twilight so i stopped worrying! haha

We arrived in Managua and we felt a nice cool breeze as we met up with Gwen and Lisa- so we initially thought the weather was fine until we were rudely awakened and realized that we were in air conditioning! go figure. it was actually super hot and already dark. we piled all of our luggage onto a small yellow truck and all 28 of us climbed into the smallest bus I have ever seen! it was cozy!

Then we went to a retreat center there in Managua and spent the next 2 days going through orientation and touring a little around the city! there is a lot more trash and pollution here than in the US. you could probably see in our pictures sometime.

Then friday morning we left Managua for Jinotepe which is where our classes and Casa de Goshen (casa verde) is located! It is a sweet little town and we toured around for the day and went on a scavenger hunt for all the places we will need to use in the next weeks .

Then later that afternoon we left with out host families! talk about a scary time! I live in Diriamba which is about 5 minutes away from Jinotepe. I have a father you is a photographer named Magdiel and a mother named Noemi. I have a sister who is 17 named maciel and a brother who is 13 named magdiel jr. They are a really nice family but are already worried about me because I am sick! Go figure i would get sick in the first days. it is a combination of heat, citrus food, and nerves. Mostly diahhrea and i feel nautious! haha great! i will get better soon though. no one needs to worry!

but spanish is hard and it´s hard to talk to people right now! but as soon as i start taking class next week i will be fine! but my hour is running out here at the cafe but i will get on in the next couple of days as well! it is a couple blocks from my house! i love you all and thanks for the emails!

Joc- you´ll be fine without me!
Alli- eat up spain for me and i can´t wait to hear more about it!
hannah- i´ll call you sometime and laugh into the phone loudly- that´s all you need right?

and I miss the rest of you as well! I´ll talk more about my family next time! I´ve only known them 2 days! haha!
I love you all and be thankful you have the weather you have up there!

buenas!!!