A (Very Long) Breakdown, Day 1

On Monday, December 4, I finally arrived in Vilnius, armed with my warm hiking shoes and prepared to grab my winter coat out of my checked luggage at the first sign of cold.

It was cold when I walked off the plane and into the airport terminal.

It was cold while I was waiting for my luggage to arrive.

It was cold as I stood in a line outside the lost luggage office and hoped for an employee who spoke English.

It was colder than my Christmases spent in Colorado and that week I spent snowboarding in Utah and how it feels at the top of the Teleferico in Quito and jumping into the ice cold pool after bathing for hours in the hot hot one in Papallacta ALL PUT TOGETHER.

It. Was. Cold. To be perfectly honest, the huge white blanket I saw covering the entire country from the window of my airplane seat should have warned me.

But anyway. Shivering and hopping from one foot to the other, I tried to ignore it while I searched for my luggage (my last piece arrived yesterday, thankyouJesus) and walked into the exit of the airport, prepared to begin another searching quest for the director of the study abroad program who had come to pick me up. I was totally expecting him to have some confusion about which person walking out of the airport was the student he was looking for, but no. Dalius spotted me right away, leaving me hoping that I'm not that recognizable as an American tourist. (Apparently it was my big smile that gave me away. Americans are known [and mocked] for their wide, toothy grins here. Note to self: please just try to adopt that unconsciously cool European attitude during the next few months so during next European adventure, will not stand out as much.)

For the rest of Monday, I hid out in my hostel (hostal?) room and made use of the WiFi to Skype my family, making the miles and miles and miles between us, as well as the 7-hour difference, feel like nothing.

Because I had arrived a day early, I had the hostel to myself until another early study abroad student stumbled into my room around 8 pm. Her name is Matea and she is from Bosnia, but has spent the past couple of years studying in the States. "Coincidentally" enough, Matea went on a mission trip to Quito a few years ago and so right away we had something to bond over. Her intimate knowledge of the city I grew up in isn't that big of a thing, but when you're in a country where you don't speak the language for the very first time in your life, it means something. God is really really cool in the ways he works little reminders of his love for us into the small details of our lives. This is a characteristic of his that I've always been aware of, but experiencing it now, as a result of my own connections and not those of my parents or grandparents, makes it feel more real.