Adventures In Lithuania: First Week.

So I survived my first week here in Lithuania. Haha. Actually, I am really loving it. The first few days was hectic and scary and sweaty. But as we've continued to teach, it's been a lot easier to figure out lessons and teach them correctly. I really enjoy teaching the older kids, the ones who can already speak english pretty well, but are now learning more advanced english terms like in math & science & social studies, etc. They are really fun! I like that I can actually carry a good conversation with them. Finding activities to do that the kids will actually like has probably been the most challenging for me. You can only make so many catapults and paper airplanes before they start to get bored of it. You need to be creative which...well, I've never really mastered that skill. But from what I've heard, it gets easier and you get used to it. So hopefully that will be true for me. I haven't been getting a lot of sleep because our teaching schedule is from 3:30pm-7:30pm and then we either go to the apartment with the other girls and talk about lessons, or we go home, have dinner with the family, and then go straight to our room to work on lessons. We are usually working on lessons until about 1-2am. Then we are waking up at 8 or 9 to finish our lessons! So I'm still getting about 6-7 hours each night, but seriously, this lesson planning and teaching really drains you! It's exhausting! Here, for those of you wondering exactly how my days go here in Lithuania, I will enlighten you:
8-9am: Wake up, plan lessons, shower
10-11am: grab a slice of bread or something and walk to school. Our walk to school takes 15 minutes
11-2pm: Prepare activities for lessons, set up classroom, etc.
2pm: lunch at home or iki, which is a very nice grocery store by our house. I usually have a couple croissants (SO GOOD!), some grapes or a peach, and a Majiga bar. A Majiga bar might be the greatest thing I've had in Lithuania so far. It's a miniature, cold cheesecake bar covered in chocolate. It's to die for. I really need to settle down because I want multiple every day!
2:30pm: back to school to prepare for lessons.
3:30pm-7:30pm: Lessons!!
7:30pm: Clean up classrooms, and go either to the apartment or our host family's home. Have dinner.
9pm-1 or 2am: Plan lessons
Then sleep..
So as you see, my schedule is just a little crazy. I know that as time progresses and I get more used to making lesson plans, I will have more time to do other things. It's just difficult to get the hang of. But I'll surely tell you I'm so sick of being cooped up down in the basement working on them rather than taking a walk outside or even reading or exploring old town. We do get to explore old town on the weekends which is great, but I would love to do more. And I didn't really expect 5 out of the 7 days a week to be sitting in my room all night. It sort of bums me out. They really didn't prepare us much for any of this! Today was my first day teaching the older elementary kids, and I literally just learned how to teach them today!! Because no one has communicated to me how to do it and it really upsets me. I don't want to look like a failure teacher to these kids. I want them to have fun and enjoy having me as their teacher! So I'm really hoping things get more organized. It will help so much.
I got really home sick on sunday. I was really hungry and wasn't feeling like eating anything at my host home, and I didn't want to spend money on anything. So I was in a really bad, annoying mood. I was starving and tired and I really didn't want to go to church but I felt obligated since all of the other teachers go. I actually am glad I did go, because it was just so interesting to see other members of the church this far away from home, but..I fell asleep during sacrament. So really, I didn't absorb much. Hopefully in the future I'll have more sleep and can enjoy church. So we leave church and I'm still grumpy and tired and hungry. And then our host family is like "Oh, we're going to take you to Trakai." Trakai is a BEAUTIFUL lake side town 30 minutes away from Vilnius. I have seen pictures but they don't even do it justice, just like pictures often don't. It's like, the most european place you can think of. Bright, colorful log homes. Flowers everywhere! Green as can be, large lakes, canoes, people playing guitars on the docs, tiny winding streets. It was just pristine. I was smitten the moment I laid eyes on it. The main attraction in Trakai is the very large castle right in the middle of the lake. Way way back from medieval times. Our host family took us to this little, cozy restaurant on the lake. I can't remember what it was called but they really wanted us to try authentic lithuanian cuisine, since every restaurant we had previously eaten at had been just McDonald's, Hesburger & pizza restaurants. Hahaha. Typical american. So we had this drink called Gira, which is basically fermented rhye bread. It was very interesting & sour and..well, I didn't like it. I'll be okay never drinking it again. Then we had chicken soup which was just chicken broth. Literally nothing else. Good though! And then Kibinai, which is a very yummy, buttery pastry with pork and onions inside. It tasted just like a pot pie! I was really into it. And then the main dish was called Cepelinai. It's like ground beef with potatoe wrapped around it. I was excited I love potatoes and ground beef together. But it was wretched. The potatoes were like bread, and the ground beef just didn't look cooked to me. So that wasn't exactly the greatest meal, but it was amazing to try the authentic lithuanian food. That is a large reason why I'm here. To overcome my fear of strange food and customs. I have always been curious about how the rest of the world lives, and it really has been crucial to my spiritual growth. I love Lithuania :)