Wow... what a different world

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Sorry it has taken so long to update! We ahve been VERY busy with orientation during the day and internet is very difficult to find at night when we have free time so I haven't been able to get on here yet. Wow... Where do I even begin?

First, it is a very good thing I came with no expectations because it definately would not be what I expected. We got here late sunday night after 30 hours of traveling and that was an experience! We walked into the hostel (dorm) and it was very welcoming. When you walk through the lobby you enter into a courtyard and the dorm is like a quad around the courtyard with 4 floors. The doors to your room open up into the courtyard, very similar to a motel. The rooms are a very good size. they are about the size of the Laville dorms for you LSU students who know what I am talking about. Plenty of room for 2 people. I share the room with another american girl named Megan. She was very quiet at first but shes starting to open up and we get along really well. There isnt any AC in the rooms and in fact I have yet to be in a room that has AC. I dont know what air less than 85 degrees even feels like anymore! Its no joke, its rediculously hot!!! the bugs arent bad at all, Ive only gotten 1 bug bite and that was because I forgot to put bug spray on one night (oops mom...) But the rooms are pretty rough... the furniture isnt very nice and the windows are either cracked or missing panes and you have to keep them open all the time just to have some airflow. The mattresses are about 4 inches thick and kinda dirty, but I just put my sheets on and hope for the best. I havent been able to sleep well and have to wear earplugs, an eyemask, and take a benadril just to get 5 or 6 hours. hopefully its still jet lag and will get better.

Weve been really busy with orientation. The first 3 days we just walked back and forth between the hostel and the orientation classroom and that got old really quickly! We try entertaining ourselves but we arent familiar with Accra so we dont really want to go out exploring by ourselves at night, its just not safe. Luckily there are 2 girls that were here last semester and they are taking us out tonight to 2 places. This sports bar called Champs (I know! I feel at home already!) for karoke and to try Ghanaian beer, and then to a dance club called Tantra. I am really surprised by the music here, they love American rap. Its so fun to hear Lil Wayne or T.I. or Kanye as someones ringtone. The music is very current too!

The food is INCREDIBLEE!!!!! I think Ive gained some wait already. The plantains make me so happy and women walk around selling them for about 40 cents!!! O budddyyyy I am a happy girl! I miss coffee really badly already. They only have instant!! We went into the city and they showed us where we can get basics like food or household items and I found a coffee shop. I didnt care that it was 100 outside or that a latte was 6 bucks, I hadnt had coffee in over a week and wanted it soo bad. It was delicious, every last penny was worth it. Diet coke is pretty close to American diet coke so thats nice!

campus is BEAUTIFUL!! once I am able to bring my laptop to one of the internet cafes I will be able to upload pictures onto here so you can see. There are some of the neatest plants that have the prettiest flowers on them! We saw a bird the other day that was so bright blue I thought it was fake until it started flying off. Accra (pronounced ah-craw) broken up very similar to like New York where there are like litttle regions like Brooklyn or Queens. Legon (pronounced lay-gone) is one of the regions within Accra and is just campus. Its huge and basically its own little town with restaurants and stores and everything you would need. The faculty and staff also live in houses that are technically on campus. One house LITERALLY has a monkey as a pet tied up to a tree. I took a picture and I will have to put it up here just to priove it. I'll go pet it tomorrow mom 😉 It is nice to get off campus though. I am going to spend the next week exploring the town more and then after that I will venture out more around the country with friends.

besides orientation we did a few little things. Today we went to a market which was an experience. People kept grabbing me trying to get me to lookat their stuff to buy and they kept telling me that my dress was pretty. Thanks Casey for taking me to that lilly sale! Ghanaians love lilly pulitzer lol! one guy asked if he could touch my arm because it looked so soft... Very strange..no not strange... INTERESTING! I am trying to get out of the habit of saying something is weird or strange when its different than I am used to

I only have 15 minutes left on the internet that I paid for and it will definately take that long to upload this to the internet so i will have to write more later. Just a lil factoid for someone who asked me to check for them. You know how toilets flush one way in the states and the other way in austrailia? Well someone asked me how they would flush here since were on the equiator. Wee believe it or not, but they make the toilets deeper here because it literally goest STRAIGHT DOWN! HA! told you so

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