Finally.
Goodness I don't like long trips. Especially on economy class airplanes. There was a good reason that that flight was cheap. It was an eight hour flight so I expected to get some sleep. Nope. They waited three hours into the flight to serve us supper. We got on the flight at 6pm... I don't want to eat at nine (toronto time). Then the cabin lights stayed on until we were half way across.... its hard to sleep even if you have a sleep mask with the cabin lights on. And then two hours before we land we start flying into the rising sun so the staff decide to serve breakfast. Three hours after supper. I was a little cranky about all of that. Not to mention that this is an old aircraft so there is only one big screen for the whole section of the plane. It made the animated safety video more entertaining though to see it in Polish first and then English. And since this was a Polish airlines flight to Warsaw: everyone was speaking Polish. It was my first taste of not being able to understand anyone for this trip.
Yes that is a little animated arm...
Okay so what else... In Warsaw I ran into my first non english news paper- i still flipped through it to see if I understood anything. All i found was something scooby doo. And there were all kinds of Polish souvenirs in the airport. Very tempting.. but I had no idea what the polish exchange rate was so I didn't get any.
Made me think of the olympics again.
Then off I went from Warsaw to Bratislava. That was a more white knuckle flight. The plane was making noises that I didn't think were good, and you could tell it was an old plane. Although it may have been because it was flying with propellors that it made all the noise? Anyways I got to Bratislava. Was very happy to see my luggage get off the plane and was very blessed to have a former YWAM staffer pick me up and take me to the bus station. She even got me a ticket for the right bus and figured that all out. Then i had to sit for four more hours (it was a three hour trip but the traffic wasn't very good) to get to Banska Bystrica. Steve, the leader of the dts, and his family picked me up from the bus and took me to the place I'll be calling home for 3 months. Its actually a hostel. Its the YMCA hostel to be exact. And we use their kitchen, a few bed rooms, and some lounge areas. It was pretty overwhelming yesterday but today it seems okay. I'm getting accustomed to the fact that I'm sitting in a building that is probably 400 years old.
The closer building is the one I'm staying in. It doesn't look like anything special and I guess it isn't but its walking distance from down town, clean, secure (so many locked doors!), and comfortable. I guess I can call it home for a while.
I'm the first DTS student to arrive. The next guy gets here tonight sometime from Holland (yes Jazz, i should have learnt dutch when i could!). Then there are only two more students! One from Slovakia and one from the states. So all together there are four of us. I was so surprised to hear that. I thought it would be small but I thought 7 or 8. Not less than 5! There also is a married couple from the Czech Republic working as staff. Then the leader Steve is from the US and his wife is from the UK (I already like them because they are so easy to understand compared to everyone else!) And they have kids but I've only met one. (Steve and his family don't live at the hostel but the rest of us do). And then Katie (slovakia) is a former student who is visiting for the weekend who has been a complete God send. She has helped me get accustomed and feel at home and just asks me questions and makes conversation. I don't feel like I'm bothering her if I ask her a question and she is bunking in my room this weekend so I don't feel completely lonely.
And I have had very overwhelmed moments already. Yesterday I was blaming it on the lack of sleep. Today I am doing my best to stay positive and anything that is concerning to me I've turned over to God. I also keep telling myself that it hasn't even started yet. This is nothing like what the next three months will really be like. I probably won't have an afternoon off that I can just sit and type this super long blog entry. So enjoy these long ones while you can.
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