My first 2 days here were pretty laid back to help get me over jet lag. Sadly, I have not been doing a good job of adhering to the suggestion of going to bed early or not taking a nap-I keep falling asleep in the afternoon! My first night here I got 12 hours of sleep but I hope the afternoon naps don't do too much harm!

After I finally got up late my first morning here, I met one of Joey's coworkers who took me to the local market and we had the most delicious ravioli lunch at her favorite restaurant. Then she showed me the grocery store where I picked up a few grocery items and this amazing little frozen food store that Joey introduced everyone to. I came back to the apartment and tried to figure out what to do with myself for the next 5 hours before I should go to bed. I knew that I would be schooled on the basics of the language that I would need here but since I've been feeling a bit frustrated at not knowing or understanding the language, I decided I would keep myself awake by working on the basic conversational phrases. Somewhere in between "My name is" and "I would like." I fell asleep and had a lovely 2 hour nap. At some point I had a conversation with Joanna who was more successfully fighting off sleepiness on her journey back home.

I then attempted to make dinner that night but unfortunately, I have had no previous experience with European microwaves and after about 5 minutes of trying to figure out how to make the menacing thing work it seemed that the microwave might have defeated me. Not one to be easily overcome by inanimate objects, I loudly proclaimed that I'd rather have a granola bar for dinner anyway and called it a draw. I included a picture of it so that all others can beware. Do NOT be fooled, it's not as harmless or easy as it looks- it put up quite a fight! I retired to bed but I think the jet lag and nap did me in because I wasn't able to fall asleep until around 2:30 after I took Benadryl.

DEFEAT OF THE EUROPEAN MICROWAVE!
This morning I spent some time in the Word and got caught up on e-mailing, blogging and language practice (during which I again fell asleep). At lunch time after attempting to decipher cooking instructions in an unfamiliar foreign language, I returned to face that antagonistic microwave and am happy to announce that I have subdued said appliance and used it to prepare a tasty lunch of ravioli bolognese.
Me-1, microwave-0!

Shortly after Joey arrived home we headed out for an evening meeting. I was looking forward to finding out what my first assignment would be. After briefing my supervisor on my recent daily activities, I was surprised to be given another day off with the wonderful suggestion of exploring, sightseeing and observing. He told me that a lot of frustration is due to lack of knowledge and that it's always a good idea to observe the people and their routines and how they do things that I too would have to do when going somewhere knew. Like riding the metro and observing how people get on and off or just riding from one end of the line to the other and getting off the stops to observe and familiarizing myself with places I would be frequenting or watching how people order items at local shops or just observing the prices of grocery.

I met another young lady who arrived the day after me and we plan on meeting up tomorrow to do this together. After arriving home late and making a quick meal, I'm heading off to bed to prepare myself for my big day tomorrow.