Awesome weekend!!

First thing’s first. New video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTIXqpyv7s0

So I have officially survived my first earthquake!! That’s right. Saturday morning was absolutely beautiful!! I woke up around 9 and sat outside to drink coffee with my host dad and study a bit. I’ve been teaching him how to speak some English phrases, using the Macedonian alphabet, since he doesn’t know how to read the English alphabet. It has worked surprisingly well for us!! Anywho, we were sitting outside, eating grapes. He was gardening, and I was studying, when all of a sudden BOOM. I thought there had been a bomb!! I was so confused!! I quickly turned around and caught my father looking at me with wide eyes. All the neighbors came out of their houses and started yelling at one another to see if everyone was ok. I ran inside and grabbed my dictionary and found the word “earthquake.” My mom said “Da, da, da,” which is “yes, yes yes.” She got a phone call, and the earthquake was apparently felt in Skopje and Veles, which are both somewhat close to us. I called Cliare, who is staying in another town nearby, and she said she hadn’t felt anything, but that everyone was calling her host family about it. Long story short, it was a crazy experience!! I think I may have felt it more, because I was sitting outside in a cheap plastic chair on the ground when it happened. Pretty exciting!!

Anywho, Chris has been in town this weekend. Chris is the volunteer my host family had last year. He came into the village with a real awesome girl named Jori. From about 10-1, my house was filled with guests!! Me, Andres, and Kenzie walked home after having a couple glasses of wine with Kenzie’s awesome family. Then Sarah and Julie showed up with their host brothers, who are also really nice guys. Then Chris, Jori, and Ricky (the volunteer who has lived here for 2 years) came by for endless snacks and drinks. My family doesn’t really drink at all, so it was nice to be able to have a couple beers over some really nice company. It was also nice to have Chris here to help translate some miscommunications and questions I’ve had about living in this house. Apparently, my mom thinks I do not know how to take food out of the fridge. She’d bought a whole bunch of food, and I didn’t realize she wanted me to take it to school with me, so I haven’t been. She was disappointed, so it was good to have Chris explain I didn’t know. Hahaha

I was also able to ask about expectations at home. In the week I’ve been here, I still don’t know when I am allowed to just have private time, when to have quests over, when to have quests leave, when I can go out and come home, etc. Chris basically said my mom may act indifferent about me leaving, but to just tell her what I am doing and to just do it. Apparently, she got onto Chris for hanging out with Ricky on a Friday night, because she wanted him to stay home. Ricky called her and explained that Chris was an adult and it was ok for him to do things on his own. Since then, she mellowed out. That being said, I am a YOUNG WOMAN, so she is undoubtedly more protective of me. I’m just going to have to figure it all out step by step with her.

So Saturday night we went into Stip for a food festival. It was AWESOME!! We ate a bunch of food, drank some fantastic local wine, and listened to Macedonian hip-hop. It’s was such a fantastic time. And Sunday was spent eating lunch at everyone’s houses, watching a local soccer game, and editing the video (seen above). I have’t have much time to write more about the weekend, but I will give more of an update tomorrow. 

Thanks for everyone who have emailed me so far!! SEND MORE EMAILS I LOVE YA’LL!!!!!!