Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Well, it finally happened.... I got sick. Phooey. BTW, Rachel, much love from both of us and Happy Birthday!

Being sick is way less fun that I had imagined it to be... however, on the upside though, you can just cruze over to a pharmacy and purchase cipro over the counter. I was kinda surprised by that, but hey, it's their system. Yesterday my temp was 101.4, but its down to 100.4 today (maybe lower now). I'm on my third dose of cipro, so hopefully it beats the snot outta whatever made me sick. On a serious note, thank God, literally, that our host fam has a clean, well maintained bathroom. So, so, so nice.

The Ukrainian TP takes some getting used to - sort of an acquired taste, if you will. The consistancy is roughly 1000 grit sandpaper - I remember using sandpaper in autobody class that was softer. I kid you not... :-) Its surprising how used to it all one becomes over time. America has a lot of creature comforts that seem to not matter nearly as much as they did 5 weeks ago.

We've been here almost 5 weeks now. It's hard to imagine that we're almost half done with our training schedule - our mid-training language proficiency interview is on thursday. I have a test in my BSE (business and social entrepreneurship) material tomorrow as well (it was today, but I had to skip class).

This weekend we find out our permanent site, visit our new host family, and meet with our counterparts. We're going to be dropping off as much stuff as possible at the new host fam, as we go directly from swear-in to permanent site. The public transportation here is a little tight, so the less you have to carry, the better. That, and pickpocketing is endemic, so there you go...

Much love to you all,

brenden