Update on my frist night

Here is a letter I wrote to my mum about my awful first day:

It started off when we went to the zoo thus. We went it was great and then we went STRAIGHT to the airport. Waited 2 hours then got on the plane fore 5 hours. We were delivered to our flats with nothing, Mom! It was I think 8p when we got here. No food, no place to get food since we r new and don’t know any close local places. We had no linens or the ability, b/c it was late, and no pillow. Thank god I brought that blanket and I used Steves hoodie as a pillow. To make it worse we didn’t have internet. We have to pay for it via a plan. Well since we thought we didn’t have to pay any bills or what not, Lauren and I thought we would wait and talk to someone from CSI asap and see if they had arangments that the Village hadn’t told us about.

The Village people told us nothing. We had no clue what to do, when we were expected to do anything. Luckily all my email are on my p/c even w/o internet acess and I was able to bring up the itinerary and discover orientation started Fri at 9a. At this point we went to bed and hoped that at orientation we would get food at tea time since we were still starving. The orientation was from 9a to 2p(we did get lunch) and we were planning on catching the bus given by the Intn’l program to go to the shopping center and buy the stuff we need. We some how missed the bus. Don’t ask. So Me, Lauren and Delia (one of my flat mates) tried to walk to the closet strip mall we were told about. Well we got lost, asked an Aussie, and we had to catch a city bus. We finally got there and bought home supplies and a few groceries.

OMG Mom, I can’t believe how different the food is here. They had SOOOO many kinds of jelly, so many, ones you’ve never heard of, like cinnamon and plum, but they didn’t have grape. They didn’t have plain cherios, so I had to get unhealthy fruitloops. It was just hard to find things. I almost started crying in the store. I was having such a culture shock. I think it was the stress of the day that actually made me freak. I know I’m stronger than that.

By the time we got all our stuff, we couldn’t carry it back to the bus stop. Plus since we had walked some distance and then to the bus, we had no clue what bus would take up back to near the campus. So we called a taxi. We call, and they said 10-15 minutes. We waited about 30m and called them back and they said they had no available cabs at the moment and hung up. We then called another taxi. He said I’ll be there asap and didn’t give us a time range. By this time it was almost 6p and the whole shopping center was closeing (I know early!). We just waited and waited with our three shopping carts FULL and then sum. Finally he came and got us. And we were on our way. But he dropped us as close as he could, but we still had to walk into the middle of the village to get to our flats…this time with no carts….so we managed and a skillful use of a cart that shouldn’t have been there and a big box from the trash.