I´m here! Safe and Sound!

My apartment is very nice. Way not third world country style, but that´s okay! I have a microwave, cable TV that I´m not paying for, and an AC unit in the bedroom (but I do pay the electricity). From what I´ve seen around here, it´s gorgeous! I haven´t ventured and explored very far, but this weekend I will.

There are lots of palm trees, and though it´s raining now, it didn´t rain at all yesterday until it got dark. How nice. The weather was even a little chilly today believe it or not. Well, okay. probably not actually chilly, but I was a bit chilly from time to time.

I live in a Barrio called Solares Nuevos. I do not know my way around yet, but it´s near a soccer field of one of the local teams, and everyone says it´s pretty centered and nothing is too far. If I walk down my street a few blocks, I´m downtown. I´m told that I can walk to the mall even, and my school is only about 4 short blocks away.

The school is nice, but they are doing a lot of construction on it right now. I finally figured out my class schedule today, after spending 6 hours there yesterday not really doing anything, but that´s okay. Today, the teachers kind of sat around all morning waiting to find out where our rooms were. When I finally figured that out, I took my stuff in there, but then had to write my own class schedule! that´s right ladies and gentleman, I had to get together with the ciencias sociales teacher, espanol teacher, and the math-science teacher so that I could write my English classes for 1st and 2nd. Then, I had to fit in gym, religion, home ec, caligraphy, health, social studies (in english, which i´m teaching in 1st and 2nd), and music (which i´m also teaching in 1st and 2nd, hahaha). The second grade homeroom teacher is only teaching math and science in 1st and 2nd grade, in English, and then teaching computacion for all the grades 1-6. geez. But at leas the schedule is figured out. It will be an interesting first week to say the least. And besides all that, I need to go back in Sunday morning to decorate my classroom because by the time I finished with the schedule it was already 4pm!

So, Veronica - the woman that works at the school and set this all up - and her mom, who lives a block from me, both have vonage phones. That means that they have US (Boston) phone numbers. So, not only call people call me there for free (if it´s arranged), I can call people there for free too! Since it´s a US number, it´s a US call. Cool, huh? However, the bad thing is that it works through the internet. Tried to call TACA today to fix my freakin plane ticket, and well - the internet wasn´t working, so the phone didn´t work either.

It gets dark here by 5:00. That will take some getting used to. I guess it´s been getting dark that early at home lately, but I think it´s an all year round thing here.

Ok, the ac is blowing right on me and I´m freezing. Plus, I still have to go make myself something to eat.

By the way, another random tidbit of information. My bed is on wheels. So, I roll around particuarly when I get in and out of bed, or sit on the bed, or roll over, or .... I´m going to try and put it up against the wall, so hopefully that will keep it less mobile and more stationary.

Oh, and I´m going to meet Bound for Ceiba and La Gringa tomorrow!! We´re going to dinner somewhere in Sambo Creek. How exciting!