One Month

A few days ago held my one month anniversary in Slovakia--
Its actually a pretty crazy thought. Ive had a few thousand transitions already. My initial excitement lasted about three days, then I went into crisis mode for the next three days, then came grudging acceptance, and finally, after a night out on the town, a new kind of happiness.
During crisis mode, I desperately needed my one month anniversary. I needed to be able to count the year- a marker. But now that I'm really liking it here, dividing up the year is kind of scary. I'm 1/10 done. That can't be right...
One thing I really appreciate about my exchange is that I have real friends here. I have a best friend- I go to the gym with him twice a week and talk to him every night, another close friend who is studying in Bratislava (Matus- he is wonderful. I wish I could see him more than once a week), my host sister Veronika, my English teacher Eva, and a group of fantastic guys that I go out with on the weekends. But what really strikes me is that the friendships are genuine. I talk to the same people every night, and hang out with them regularly. I feel very accepted by them.

Almost all of my friends are guys. This is actually perfectly fine with me- I only need a few female friends (which i have in veronika and eva), but i love having a big group of boys. Generally all the IMs I get are from the guys at my school, and I'll talk to several of them at a time on any given night. I love them.
Another trend is that almost all of my friends are not at my school. They are all studying in Kosice- this means I don't get to see them during the week, with the exception of Zoto (gym-buddy), who commutes to Kosice, Veronika, who is in another high school, and Eva (I see her every day in class, and visit her on the weekends- tomorrow morning I'm going grape picking with her family). I like the kids in my class, but I generally don't see them after school, and I am beginning to make friends with a group of guys that arent in my class. Tomorrow I am going out with everyone, including those guys, so I am incredibly excited.

One side effect of not having any homework besides studying Slovak, is that all my free time ends up in very long, routine weeks, spent longing for the weekend. Going out on Friday or Saturday is the high point of my week- it's absolutely fantastic, I love my friends, I'm even starting to like dancing. Sort of. But at the same time, if I can't go out one weekend, it's devastating. I have to go two weeks without seeing the people I love, and the days begin to look the same... I really hope I can become good friends with this group of guys, so I can hang out with them during the week instead of just going home...

My host family is fantastic. Extremely nice, and definitely take an interest in me. It is a little bit hard living in a village, because I have to rely on them for transportation, and I always feel bad asking them to drive me somewhere. But so far there haven't really been any problems.

My slovak is coming along... I know more than some of the other exchange students I've talked to, but that is not saying a lot. i usually speak more slovak when talking on IM, because i can think more about what im saying, and i can understand their slovak because i can look at it. naturally, i am much better at reading slovak than understanding it. Im having a contest with Eva's boyfriend tomorrow- English vs Slovak.. who knows more? He's going down.