het gaat goed met mij

I'm in Amsterdam! Let me paint a little picture of what my life is like here. First of all it is so beautiful here. There are bicyclists ALL OVER And They do not care one bit That You're new and do not know the rules. I have only crashed once. The flight was smooth and I managed to buy a ticket for my self and get on the right train from the airport to Amsterdam. From the train station I overtook a taxi Because The bus system was a little hard to navigate and I didn't want to be forever lost in Amsterdam with a suitcase as large as a small playhouse.

(A word on the street names and bus stops in Amsterdam: They are hard to read / Recognize. Imagine someone fell On Their keyboard and then was like "yep that looks like a good street name." It's super challenging.)  

I have a bike That the hostel has given me to use. It's pink and I found out yesterday it's a child's bike (the daughter of the community house parents used to ride it). I also got my first flat tire yesterday on the way from the community house to the shelter, and had to walk my bike the rest of the way to the shelter and walk it back to the community house after dinner (about a 20min walk ).

I share a room with two girls: Theresa from Austria and Martyna from Poland. They are really nice and conversations are mostly spent trying to understand each other or asking what the word in English is for * insert word or saying here * or comparing the ways we Grew up.

I wanted to share this update and prayer requests quickly. This morning is the first bit of time I have had and I do not know When the next one will be.

1.     To get over jet-lag Because it's the literal worst. I am tired. More tired than I have ever been. It's 11:08 pm in California, and 8:08 am in Amsterdam. I want to sleep all the time during the day and night is when I am awake.

2.     Giving grace to others and myself. There are about 10 other new people who arrived the same time I did and it's nice to all be learning together, but I'm getting frustrated That I am not at the level of training or understanding of people who have been here for months ... ridiculous but true.

3.     Health J

I'll be posting more soon and hopefully some pictures. Thank you all for your prayers. Please send texts, emails, face books, etc. with any questions or words of encouragement.

ps sorry if the format is weird or the sentences don't really make sense or if a random word that doesn't make sense in context appears... I copy and pasted from a document and the website translated it into Dutch then back into English...