a random list of various things

• On Saturday I'll have been here a month. This is amazing to me. 
• On Saturday I am also moving to a new town and house and family where I'll be staying for the next two months. I'm not ready to leave this place that I've just started to get comfortable in. 
• I have my routine. I know where some things are in the grocery store. I've explored a little bit. I now know what my host parents are asking me when they say ¿Cómo ameneció?
• I'm no longer asking myself "What are you doing with your life?" when I think about the fact that I'm living in Central America. 
• Time zones are dumb. And I still don't really understand them. 
• I really have no concept of what snow is at this point. It's just white stuff in pictures, when I'm here in the 80s every day and have started to agree with the locals that temperatures in the 60s are "cold."
• One girl was complaining about having been here for three weeks and not having had, in her words, "big life experiences." But I disagree. I may not have climbed volcanoes or gone to the beach or traveled the whole country or partied hard or whatever else one might consider "life experiences," but I think I've done plenty. I've lived in another country. 
• Every program, every experience has issues. I'm working on finding the balance between acknowledging that and giving myself space to complain and commiserate with focusing on the good stuff that is also very present. 
• Like the fresh strawberries I have every day for lunch. 
• Or watching Disney movies in Spanish. 
• Or how exciting it was to help my host brother with his English homework and not feel completely incompetent for once. 
• Knowing the buses is such a cool concept to me. I've never lived somewhere with any legitimate public transport system. Knowing my stop and how much it will cost and feeling, just a little bit like a local is a wonderful change. 
• And finally, a joke from another student's host mother: What do you call someone who speaks three languages? A trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? A bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? A gringo.