It's getting so hard to think of blog titles

Ask me if I woke up on time.

Yes, EARLY. So early, in fact, that after eating breakfast and getting ready, I left in time to WALK to school and even got THERE early. I think it's safe to say that today got off to a nice start.

My classes today consisted of Conversación with Virginia, Composicón with Edu, and after the break, Historia with Adela. During the break, we had to take our progress test to see how far we've come since we first arrived in Valencia. Also, we had to do teacher evaluations. Our directors, Manuel, Sara and Rosario, also talked to us about the finishings up of the program and the night bus for next Friday. It made me sad. I went over to the ISA office after our little meeting and fiddled around on the internet before coming back for my 3:00 history class.

Class let out late, around 5:00, and so I caught the bus home. On my way to the house, I stopped in the Óptico to buy some contact solution. That's one weird thing - every product is separated according to it's category. For example, you can't buy contact solution from the grocery store, only the eye store. You can't buy shampoo from the grocery store, only the peluquería. You can't buy medicine from the grocery store, only the farmacia. Even the Carrefour, which is like Wal-Mart, is limited. Mercadona and Consumo and OpenCor, all of the grocery stores, are only food things. It's actually kind of cool, although inconvenient at times.

Nevertheless, I finally got home around 6:00 and sat and had coffee with Matilde while watching some news. I came up to my room after to relax, and then at 7:30, I had an early dinner so I could be on my way to Mendiguear. She fixed salad: lettuce, potatoes, pineapple, crab meat, and the main ingredient, corn. It was delicious. She also set out jam and cheese, bread, cake, strawberries. What a sweet woman she is!

I headed out around 8:00 and walked the hour to the Cabañal to meet up with my friends. We were a small group tonight: in one car, Miguel, María, Alison, and Samu; in the other, Dovis, Markos, Dabid and me. My group went to places I'd never been today. We spent awhile in the park by Misión Urbana, a homeless shelter in town. There were at least 15 homeless people laying in this one nook. We met Javier and Miguel, two sweet sweet men, and talked to them for two hours. Afterwards, we made our last stop by the Torres de Quart, and then Dovis took us home. It was sad, more so than it usually is, but worth it.

Also, Markos told me tonight that he is going to quit smoking. He said he'd really been praying about it, and knows that the Lord is calling him to do it. He's going cold turkey, which will be hard for him. Keep him in your prayers!

Leigh