En Merida!!!

Well I guess this is my first blog post and unfortunately it will be filled with lots of complaining about the length of my travel. Oh well. I left the Milwaukee airport safe and sound at around 5:30. Tiny little continental plane that actually really smelled. Arrived at the Houston airport around 8:30 and had lots of time to kill until the midnight flight. I ended up walking around the airport aimlessly in search of a McDonalds and finally found one. Pretty awesome that a lady gave me a free meal voucher and ended being the last one to be served before mc ds closed. I went back to the gate and ended up meeting up with Steve, a fellow american studying in Venezuela and we played cribbage(great packing idea) and talked. From there we met up with others flying from Houston and boarded the overnight flight.
The flight itself was only 5 hours but was longer because of the time change. Needless to say I did not get any sleep. The group finally entered Venezuela to extreme confusion on what to do about bags, customs(which were seriously a bit too easy), etc but eventually found our way into the airport. Thus began our 10 hour layover in the Caracas airport. There was five of us in the airport and one (Adam) turned out to be my roommate in Merida. The layover was really long and consisted of telling plans for the trip, cards, and trying to get some sleep( still on about 30 minutes of sleep the past day!) We had our first sketchy experience with exchanging money illegally to get a better rate under a staircase while one of our friends who was good at spanish translated and helped us change money.
After the exchange, it gave us local Bolivares for money and now we could buy a celebratory beer. (little bottles like half a regular one!) We ended up leaving caracas at 4:30 PM that day and took the hour flight to El Vigia, a city close to Merida. I slept a little on the flight and am learning that my spanish is terrible! it is so hard to communicate and understand because everyone speaks soo fast!
After the plane landed, it is another 2 hour bus ride to Merida in the dark. We can see the shadows of the mountains in the background and the lighted up houses on top of them. It is soo beautiful already. I arrived at VENUSA, the school we will be studying at in Merida, to host parents awaiting their students. Adam and I are fortunate to have a wonderful host mother who is so energetic and full of life. Even though it is hard to communicate sometimes, i already find myself becoming better and better at it, even after one night!
Now off to bed for much much needed sleep and an eventful orientation tomorrow morning at 9!