The First Day

So, I was originally planning on waiting a week to write my next blog, but I suppose I have enough experiences to share with everyone to write this blog post. It is currently the end of my first official/full day in Slovakia (and I am not tired in the least since it is only 2pm back home :P). To tell you the truth, I don’t know exactly how to feel at the moment. The good news about that is that I am not completely depressed; I should thank God and everyone else for that. I spent about 99.8% of the day being confused, which is truly a terrible feeling.

However, the hardest part of the day was going grocery shopping with my host mom. Don’t get me wrong, food is great and my host mother is truly the sweetest person on the face of this planet, but I was extremely overwhelmed by all of the questions, and my very little understanding of the language most certainly does not help. We take it for granted in our own countries when we can understand 99% of the food labels (unless you somehow find yourself in the international aisle, but even then, you just turn the corner and BAM- native language), not being able to understand exactly what it is that you will consuming is a little frightening. I felt terrible too, since my host mom kept asking what I would like to eat and I just had to keep saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t care”, I felt very rude. I wound up grabbing some food items that I have very little idea of what they are…wish me luck.

I also wound up sleeping until 2pm today…I felt awful for that as well. I would’ve slept longer too if it wasn’t for a thunderstorm that woke me up, fortunately. I am hoping that I sleep better tonight, it is hard to adjust to not being able to sleep in a cold bedroom at night (I think I need to find a small fan that someone can ship over to me…-yes that was a hint parents ;)-), and I was terrified it would start raining and cause a flood in my room. In order to keep the house cool we have to keep the windows open (also, the windows are odd?? More on that later though), so my room has a window that is also like a daylight, which rain can easily fall through…hence why the thunderstorm woke me up earlier this afternoon.

So, the doors and windows. Both of them are very weird to me and it is difficult to explain, but I will try my best. Most doors back home you have to turn the handle to open and pull/push it open, and usually it is the same to close it (or if you don’t turn the handle, you at least have to push it a little bit). WELL, both Czechia and Slovakia have doors that just close. They can stay open, but when you want to close them you have to be super gentle about it otherwise it will just pop right open. It is way more frustrating than it sounds. The windows, however, are just cuter than back home. They open like doors and all of them have soft mesh screens so you can use them without worrying about the bugs (but unlike the screens at home, these ones actually look nice and they fold up like blinds!). The window in my room is probably my favorite since it lets the perfect amount of light in during the day and at night I can see the moon, it is quite adorable.

I also made dinner with my host mom today (and actually did good at cooking? I know my whole family was shocked with that statement :P). We made risotto and it tasted pretty good! I even ate the mushrooms in it (my family has probably fainted now). I am doing my best to not be picky with foods. However, I think the hardest part is uping my portion size. Typically, I eat in small portions anyways, but when I am stressed I tend to eat even less. The good news is that with my candy stashed away, I am still eating fairly well (unlike back home where I would have eaten all of that candy PLUS some by now, and probably some pickles as well). My host mom showed me liver today though, from a pig, and said that she loved eating it and that one day she will make it for me…I am not looking forward to that day.

All in all, though, everything is actually going quite great for me. I was told that I will for sure only have one other host family (and I will be meeting them soon, plus I will see them quite often) and I already have a friend my age here that I should be meeting probably Monday at the latest. There are two exchange students in my city, a boy from Taiwan and a girl from Argentina. Both will attend my school and the girl lives in the same housing area as me (which is extremely exciting). I am looking forward to meeting some more people (not that my host mom/grandparents aren’t fun :P), and I am especially looking forward to my orientation at the end of September.

Everything is new and very exciting, and I can’t wait to share more of my experiences soon!

-Haley