In Lala Land...

Brian just finished up two weeks of cultural and technical training while I had one week of cultural and technical training and one week of Spanish classes. After our first week of training at different volunteer sites I went back to Santa Clara and stayed with our host family. It was really nice to be back in a home with showers and a bed. Our host family takes good care of us. My Spanish teacher came to my house everyday for 5 hrs. I had no one to speak English to so I think I learned a lot.

It has been one year and almost a month since Brian and I got married and were unable to celebrate our anniversary on the real day as we were at opposite ends of the country. Finally we were able to plan one night in the city together. I had been counting down the days until Brian and I were to meet in the city on Saturday and I was VERY pleasantly surprised to see him a day early in Santa Clara!! He told our family that he came to steal me away a day early. So he whisked me away to the city.

Friday night we ate cheese, bread, and sliced apples while sipping on wine and listening to live jazz music. Yesterday we slept in, had a restful day to ourselves and went to a very romantic candle-lit Japanese/Italian fusion resturant. Afterwards we went to another great restaurant and shared cheescake and martinis. It was so much fun to get dressed up and wear makeup; I felt like a women again. Brian and I have really appreciated this time of privacy, HOT showers, a comfortable bed, being in airconditioning, having no adjenda and just having some quality time together. We will stay at our hotel until our 3pm checkout time and then head off to the mall to enjoy a little more airconditioning, phone/computer time before we head back to Santa Clara (our training site).

Next week we will have more technical training and Spanish classes. The second week we will be visiting our Kuna site for the first time to see what our future community will be like. The third week we will have more training in Santa Clara and finally we will be swearing in on our fourth week as official Peace Corps Volunteers!! (On the 26th of October)