What a week!

MarHaba everyone! I apologize for not posting updates this week. The main reason is because our internet has been out in our apartments. Hopefully that will be fixed soon!

So for THIS WEEK.....starting with Monday. We have arabic class every Monday & Friday for two hours each day! Class on Monday started off by our instructor telling us that we must study for 3 hours each day or she will find new students! We were like "oh goodness." At first, I thought she was just kidding, but no...it was no joke! Let's just say...that is an impossible task. We are trying to study every chance we get, but it is not possible to study for 3 hours each day with our schedule. Later on Monday, I spent time on campus trying to meet girls and I was able to meet a few people. One of my goals has been to get involved on our campus as a way to meet people. So on Monday, I walked around looking at the posters that gave information about clubs & activities offered. I was able to meet a couple of girls when I was reading a sign posted on the gym door because I asked them questions about the activities. So, guess what I found......drum roll.....a hip hop dance class!!!! : ) I was very excited to see this because I love to dance. One of the girls I met was thinking about going to the class, so we walked together to the room to see when it started. So on Wednesday I started the hip-hop dance class! I had fun and was able to meet the girls in the class. I was glad that I found something that I enjoyed as a way to meet people. I was a bit nervous at first--but I absolutely LOVED it! For the rest of this week, we have definitely ran into alot of frustrations. The first being our internet. One of our priorities this week was to do get our year long visa's. We were able to get a month long traveler's visa when we arrived in beirut at the airport, but that will expire soon. Yesterday, we had to go to campus to get some documents as proof that we were students at LAU. Then, we had to take a taxi to go to General Security and the Ministry of Education office. Of course, we went to both and they were closed. So today, we had to scratch some things on our schedule to go first thing this morning. The first obstacle was when we got in the taxi and the driver took us to General Security, but we needed to go to Ministry of Education first. We decided to go in and attempt to get done what we needed to get done, but we were turned down after being there about an hour! There are alot of details to getting a visa and residency card--and everything has to be done in a certain order, but we were doing it all backwards. So we got a taxi to go to the Ministry of Education first. We got out the taxi, walked up to the building, and then Marcus realized he didn't have his wallet on him! He had accidentally left it in the taxi. Just as an fyi...taxi's in beirut all look the same. They do not have company names on them or anything. We all just sat down and thought about what we should do. I was thinking--how in the world are we going to find this taxi out of ALL the taxi's in this huge city! Of course, its not possible. So Marcus decided to get a taxi to go back to our apartment so that he could cancel his credit cards. Brandon & I were still sitting there thinking what we could do to help! So, I called our national friends for advice on what to do. She told us that we needed to go to the nearest police station to let them know. We waited at the Ministry of Education building for Marcus & Mimo (our national friend) to come meet us, so we could walk to the police station. It was extremely helpful that Mimo came with us because sometimes it is hard to communicate-especially with people outside of our neighborhood. Basically, the police told him that he probably would not get it back--but his identity would not be able to be used. In his wallet was his license, international bank card (that he is living off of), bank card from american account, and $400.00. We had to have a large amount of money on us to pay for our visa's. So, basically we got nothing done today! We are really hoping that his wallet will "show up" but it is very unlikely. Brandon & I will be spoting him financially, until he gets a new banking card. You can definitely be praying that the process will not take long and that we will be able to get our visa's tomorrow. Of course, stuff happens, but it is definitely challenging at times to be "thankful in all circumstances!" We are all still loving it here despite the challenges that we have faced this week. So, I will be in touch again soon, but remember...if you don't hear from me as regular--it is because of my internet connection at my apartment! Much love : )

Tiffany