Stacks

I am officially living in my new apartment, and it is AWESOME!!

I moved in two days ago now, and I still have not hardly had any time to settle in. After getting everything moved in, Arnaud and I walked into the center to get some food. We ended up running into some of his older local friends who INSISTED we join them. Upon sitting down and saying my name was Morgan, one of the men who owns a few businesses in the area said "Morgan Paige?" HAHA I was like "Yea, but how do you know me?!" Turns out the first internet I had (the bad one) was another one of his companies, but there were no hard feelings. :D
It turned into a couple of hours of rakija, salads, pizzas, and some new local friends!! Everyone was so nice. There was a mixture of Macedonian, English, and French being spoken, but we all managed to have a hilarious time. Im looking forward to seeing them all again.

After getting home, I "na gostied" with my landlady. She is so nice!! We talked for almost an hour, and she said I spoke excellent Macedonian, which really made me feel good. Later, I began to finally unpack my belongings, and wait for Rachel (a friend I grew up with from Hendersonville) to arrive. Her bus was supposed to get in around midnight, and her phone has internet, so we figured it would be easy to get her once she was in.....well it wasnt.

I was watching the clock...
midnight passed.....1am passed....1:30 passed.....nothing. I checked my email a million times and tried to call her cell phone A LOT, but it kept going to voicemail. I began to get worried, but tried not to be. 2am passed....2:30 passed....by 3:00 in the morning, I was really worried, and I sent her another email. By 4:00, I decided something had really gone wrong, so I set my alarm to go off every 30 minutes to check my phone. By 7am, I had Lilika start calling the bus station in an attempt to find her. By 10am, I was desperate to find her, and I tried called her phone again, and it FINALLY RANG!! Finally, Rachel had made it, after falling asleep on her first bus to Kocani. She'd gone THROUGH Kocani and made it all the way down to Bitola (near the Greece border), and had to catch a few more buses back!! Poor thing....she was just as stressed and tired. But she was one hell of a trooper, b/c as soon as she got it, we went to work!!

Rachel got to see so many things and meet so many people in the one day she was here. She observed Zumba, went shopping in the bazaar, hung out with Bill, met a new local friend, Kosta, ate fresh fruit an veggies, which we'd bought at the bazaar, met my landlord, Emilija, Lilika, and a lot of my students and teachers....Later, we went to a nice dinner with Arnaud, where both of our exhaustion was kicking in heavily. Sadly, Rachel had to get in a car and ride back to Bulgaria at only 10pm, but I must say her trip here was fantastic!!!!! I LOVED seeing her, and I hope she comes back for a longer trip next time.

As far as work updates go...I've got a lot in motion. We've still got the Zumba classes going, which have had around 30 or more girls in each class. I think the Easter show has made more girls interested again :D The dance crew also began learning their new dance last night. Taking the time to properly choreograph a dance is hard work!! Furthermore, I will begin my new BALLET class next Monday night. I think we will have a huge turn-out. Let's see.....oh, and I'm still doing Model UN with my kids. We are going to another workshop out of town tomorrow, and then they compete next Saturday. I'll be glad to have one more thing done. I think by Tuesday, I'll have a little time to breathe and get settled in my new awesome home. Once Ive got it set up more, Ill post photos.

That's all I've got. I hope all is well at home!! My momma comes in 3 weeks!!!! Cant wait!!