Somehow, this blog is smarter than I am . . .

It knows I'm in Venezuela. The little blog tabs, front page, everything, is in Spanish. How does it know this? The computer I'm on doesn't have the language formatter to Spanish, nor is Firefox installed in Spanish. Hmmmm, Google????

One week has passed. It still hasn't quite sunk in yet. I was glad to hear that culture shock sometimes hits later than earlier for people with a longer term commitment. (Sometimes the shock of realizing your in a different culture can take a year.)

What's happened in a week? A lot, and also a lot of nothing. The main story started before I got here and I have nothing to do with it, but it's really cool none the less, and it will have to wait. But as for some of the highlights:

Spanish is a whole heck of a lot better know than in April. Praise God for that (and also for that school on the links page.)
I've been sick! One a day and a night with some "big D" (as christened on the Global Urban Trek to Peru) and fever.
I've been shopping in a crazy Saturday morning market.
I've been overwhelmed by the generosity and helpfulness of the Venezuelans and am truly indebted to them.
There's a chance the guy across the street will show me how to weld tomorrow!!!
I've been to the hospital (not related to being sick)
Through mild trial by fire, I can now navigate the metro, bus, and jeep system to get away from and back to home.
I've had a lot of cold showers. (there is no such thing as a warm one here, unless you heat up water on the stove, but I guess I'm too lazy for that.)
I've spent at least 6-7 hours waiting to meet people or for something to happen, mostly in two hour increments.

But it's good to be here. We had a huge rainstorm the other day and I figure maybee I can post a video or two of it. (At least a video of the river(street) in front of our house.)