Until this morning, I was living in the SIM guesthouse, which was really convenient because it was attached to the SIM Office, where I work. But now I'm living about 1-2 km away, in a more rustic neighbourhood (I forgot to take a picture of what it looks like outside my gate... my house definitely sticks out among the rest of them, and you'll see what I mean in my next post). Well, it's definitely a lot nicer than I expected.
I had to wash/dry all the dishes....
And finally... I have a dog. His name is Buddy. He's supposed to be a guard dog, but all he does is lie down and sleep in the corner of my living room... occasionally he'll get up to eat food. He's really really mellow.... all that i know is that he's a cross between a lab and something else..
In terms of fitting in and adjusting to the culture, it's been going well. It's been helpful having all the SIM people around, because they've been bringing me around everywhere and introducing me to a lot of people around the city. The SIM family is great here... they're really caring, and they've really helped me settle in. But now that I've moved in to my new house, I'm going to have to go to a lot of places by myself (until my roommate arrives in October)... and it's kind of awkward because everyone stares at me. I expected that, but it's just a really weird feeling when everyone looks at you as you bike down the street. Half the people say "bonjour/salut", so it's definitely a lot more welcoming than I expected. Almost everyone here speaks French, so I can communicate fairly well with them... I can understand things really well, but my spoken French is definitely a pretty rusty.
Anyways, that's a long post. Keep checking every week for updates...
