This Year's First Ceremony of Carnival

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I slept 16 hours last night. Totally crazy, yea? I went into my room at 6 to do homework, but instead I fell asleep. Four hours later Monika came in to make sure I was o.k. I told her good morning. She had a good laugh at that one. I woke up for about 20 minutes then decided it that it wasn't worth it so I went back to bed and didn't wake up until 10 this morning. I've been sleeping a ridiculous amount lately and I'm pretty sure it's because I'm flexing so many of my brain muscles. It's physicall and mentally exhausting trying to adapt to such a differnt culture. Dispite this though, it's still much easier than I expected. Not knowing the language is frustrating. Everthing is more expensive. I have to do a lot of things myself that I never had to do before. (Such as handle my own insurance and financial stuff.) Yet I find myself enjoying every minute of it anyway.

Besides sleeping away half my life I also participated in one of the dorkiest activities on the face of the planet. As is the tradition of Carnival, we formed a small procession from some obscure parking lot to a shoooting gallery about 2 blocks away. Every year a new king and queen are appointed for Carnival and to be appointed you had to be the one to shoot the wooden bird to the point of it falling from its perch. The procession was the only really dorky part. Not that I minded at all. I frequently entertain myself and my peers with my loser-esque antics. All the women wore white haz-mat looking body suits (please don't ask me why) and were carrying primitive looking musical intruments made of tin foil and card board. Laura and I carried the cd player. It was really quite a hilarious evening.

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Photos

Laura and Sarah
My host sister and a friend from my dance group.