The famous anamarie has arrived!

It's such a joy to have her here! How cool is she for coming all this way to visit?! It actually was the perfect time for her to come. I'm just starting to get a grasp on things here and we took a trip this weekend! Classes start this week, but everything is pretty crazy with "African time". Everything takes longer than it should and it's pretty chaotic. Therefore, we don't actually have a schedule for our classes because the professors haven't actually committed to the course at all. This life takes a large amount of patience when coming from a rushed and orderly American perspective. It really forces you to think outside of the box as well as your comfort zone. People in my program are getting pretty uneasy about it. They keep asking, "when are our classes?!!" and our director responds with, "I'll let you know when I know." It doesn't bother me too much, but it is just different, like so many other things here.

I'm currently sitting on my balcony, where the internet is at its fastest. Anamarie is asleep on my floor and my room mate also is attempting to catch up on her internet life. Oh Millenials... I should go to sleep to be fresh for my first day of school, but I want to update on the past few days before I begin to forget.

My good friend Poly is one of the student leaders for ciee. He is just fantastic and a wonderful hhuman being. He helped me find a good taxi to pick up Anamarie in. Her flight came in at 11 pm so I wanted to make sure we'd be safe. He actually even came with me and stayed with me while we waited for her flight. She arrived, safe and sound, full of life and vigor as usual. It was nice just to see her smiling face in a land that is so far from home. We chatted the whole way home while I heard her stories about Corsica and France and I relayed some of mine from here. When we got back, we simply crashed. Both of us were extremely exhausted. I feel bad because I don't have good accommodations for her here, but that's just me being a silly hostess and I know she's doing just fine.

Anywho, the next morning we rose early and boarded a bus with the rest of my group to a town called Bagomoyo, which is about an hour north of Dar. This town was a huge trade post back in the day and is also the home of the first church and mosque in Eastern Africa. We visited both, which of course was a highlight for me. We also visited a museum about the slave trade in Eastern Africa, which is not often discussed but is very important to this area's history. I recommend doing some research on it if you aren't familiar with the history. It's truly fascinating.

We also toured around visiting various German forts and even a compound where rebel soldiers from Mozambique once were housed during its revolutionary war.  We also visited a mosque and a graveyard from a 14th century village that has been preserved all these years. Super cool. The architecture was very interesting because it was a definite mixture between Tanzanian, Arab, and German. I was nerding out because I love history stuff like this, but I think others thought it was pretty boring. I bought a poster at the "first church" which has all of the golden rules from every religion around the word and their scriptures in swahili. I'm very excited to own it. Following another long day, we returned to a very nice hotel where Anamarie and I got to share a room of our own and have girl's night. We watched the only thing on tv, which were Mexican telenovellas dubbed in English. What's pathetic is that we were actually getting into it.

The next day we rose early (they never let us sleep in here) and drove to a gorrrrgeous hotel with a wonderful beach. Now, I'm not usually one for beaaches, but we've been to two since I've been here and I'm in love. I spent the whoooole day in the water. The sand bank was shallow enough that we got walk out a long ways and jump through the waves. There was also a buffet which was, by far, the best buffet I've ever seen. Yeah, I know you're all jealous. Why don't you just hop on a plane to visit? :)

I'm going to head to sleep now and I know I haven't posted the picture website yet, it just takes a long time with African internet. I am working hard on it. But here's one! LOOK HOW TAN I AM IN TEN DAYS!