After getting settled into my room yesterday evening, I took my first stab at sleeping in my new bed. Now I can sleep pretty much anywhere, so this bed will pose no challenge for me, but DAMN is it loud. You can not move an inch on this bed without the wood boards below it creaking like WOAH. Had I been tired this would have been a non-issue, but I was not…so it goes.
Feeling slightly home sick and frankly overwhelmed by this huge and sudden change in lifestyle, I found myself wide awake at 4am. It was hopeless for me to try to return to my slumber, so I made the most of it. God knows there is nothing like a nice P90X core synergistic and ab ripper work out to start your first day in Accra!
As I stood in my room dripping buckets of sweat from my work out ….gross, I realized just what a pain in the ass it is to not be able to drink from the tap. #thirdworldproblems. All I wanted to do was dive at my sink and guzzle some water before collapsing onto my floor, but NO. I had to run downstairs and grab a bottled water from the supply NYU was kind enough to give us for our first week… How much is tuition again?
After talking to two of my favorite loves from home on facebook chat (thank god for the internet and facebook chat), I grabbed myself my first shower in my rooms bathroom. I could not have been more pleased, in fact thrilled, that when I turned on the hot water heater it actually worked. I am sure that will be short lived, but I will cross my fingers.
At just about the time I was getting out of the shower, the sun started to come up, so I grabbed my book and went outside to sit and welcome the morning. I was not the only one welcoming the morning it turns out. There was a chorus of roosters making it known that the sun was up and that it was time to get your ass out of bed.
Later, I enjoyed myself a nice breakfast of toast. There was an array of different kinds of fresh baked bread in our kitchen. I went with a slice of banana bread and mixed fruit bread…neither of which taste like one would expect. I learned the hard way that the toaster here takes less than 30 seconds to toast something. Leave it to me to nearly burn down the place on my first day here…typical.
After listening to a pretty epic sounding stray dog fight outside, we departed for our orientation at the academic center. Orientation was pretty intense, there is a great deal of information to take in and not a whole lot of time for the staff to prepare us to be on our own. Our attempts at learning Twi are pretty pathetic…
The whole group of us, which is about 38 or so in total, all enjoyed a great lunch of Ghanaian food and then began the long process of purchasing cell phones. Saying it was a long process it really an understatement, even for a group of tech savvy students, these cell phones were quite the struggle.
By the time we were done getting everyone settled with their new phone, it was time for dinner, which we enjoyed at a local restaurant that NYU set up a meal plan with.
Tomorrow is an 8:30am start, so it is off to bed for me! Fingers crossed I don’t wake up at 4am again…arg.
P.S. Embrace this constant stream of blogging mom, as I am sure it will not last long. Soon the fun starts :)
The view outside my window... interesting. There is a rooster hiding somewhere in there.
Our dinning area and lounge on the first floor.
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