First Couple Days

hola todos!

I'm now in the D.R. and I'm experiencing culture shock. I have a lot of learning to do. I'm proud of myself because I've been speaking spanish (broken spanish mind you) all the time. I like my family and my roommate (Yisette) is a life saver. She is bilingual and helps me with my spanish. It's hard to understand my host mom but it takes time (or so I've heard...) There's actually 3 other students --not host brothers--that live in my host house but we haven't met them yet. They are Dominican students studying medicine at PUCMM (my university). Wow, I really want to be back home. It is SOOO difficult to understand the customs in another language. But my family and friends are flexible with me. And for all of you who are interested, Pedro (my host brother) is engaged, lol. He's off the market.

I took my placement exam today and I will find out the results this wed. Classes start next Mon for us but tomorrow for the Dominicans. Let me just say, I have the WEIRDEST cat at my house. He has two names: Fifi and Mimi and for some odd reason he thinks it's fun to suck on my shirts when I'm wearing them. He'll just attach to my side and try to eat my clothes. It's so strange! Also, his favorite game is to hide underneath the bed and jump and attack your feet. It scared Yisette and me a lot the other night. Stephanie, you'll appreciate this: in order to get him out from the bed, I dangled the toy stephanie in front of him and he likes to attack it. lol. It's the only thing that works to get him out from under the bed.

I love my house. It's really spacious. I love the food here too! It's weird because we have a maid named Angela that makes our food, cleans our laundry, and cleans the house. We don't have to do any chores. She even brought coffee and tea up to our rooms. It feels like we're famous or a celebrity! I even have a T.V. in my room--granted all the stations are in spanish. But, last night Yisette and me watched "Criminal Minds" in english with spanish subtitles.
It's weird for me to write in english because my mind is thinking in spanish right now. It's weird to think that I could be at Fox right now taking classes in my own language. It sounds a lot easier than here but I'm enjoying it. It's weird because it's raining here. Apparently it rains during Nov and Dec. It makes me feel at home.

I will post some pictures later. I'm in the biblioteca right now (the library).

Prayer Requests:
-confidence with speaking spanish. I need to stretch myself by initiating conversations which is VERY intimidating here, esp with other Dominican students.

-I need to ask the Verizon store (it's called "Claro" here) if I could buy a chip to use my phone here.

Gracias todos! Ciao! -Natalie (or Natalia here)