Double Time

Wow, the past 3 months have flown by! I can't believe that three whole months ago I was on my way to Aruba at this time. I had been in Venezuela for what had probably been the longest three months of my life. That isn't to say they were the worst three months of my life, but that they seemed like the slowest because I had thrown myself into a completely different way of life and I was surrounded by complete strangers. I was SOOOOOO ready for our visa renewal trip when we went to Aruba. Like Keith said, and everyone here agrees with, we NEED Aruba. It was absolutely the best vacation I've ever had, and I'm sure every first-year STINTer also thought so. We are SO blessed in Venezuela to get to take our visa renewal to Aruba. I've heard about places that other people go to for their visa renewals, and I'm sure they're great, but at least for me, Aruba was perfect. I could go on and on about that (in fact, I did - check out my entry about Aruba if you want to read more), but my point is that I was in desperate need of a vacation after my first 3 months here. I couldn't WAIT for Aruba.

In contrast, I haven't anticipated this upcoming visa renewal trip (to Curacao, another Caribbean island off the coast of Venezuela) nearly as much. I am certainly excited about it, especially since it was my top choice of where we should go (I won because it ended up being the cheapest by far - we are getting flight + housing for less than the cost of a plane ticket anywhere else), but I hardly even feel like we're leaving in the morning because I just don't need it as badly (whereas I started packing for Aruba probably 2 weeks in advance!). Which is great - I have had a great past 3 months. The first two months were extremely relaxing (and included a trip home to the US to see my family and Whit!), and then when we started getting back into the swing of things in February, I was way more prepared to engage and felt way more comfortable here. Praise the Lord!

It's crazy that when I come back from Curacao and spring break is over, I'll only have two more months left here! I can't believe where the time went! In September, it felt like this year would NEVER end, but everyone warned me that it would go by really quickly. They were right. The stages of this year have been interesting, and I think I could measure them by the visa renewal trips (every 3 months) - the first was entirely adjustment and learning about Venezuela, the second was relaxing and becoming more comfortable here, and I hope the third will be a time where I'm fully engaging in life here. So, that is a summary of my year - what has yours been like?