Happy Birthday, Clate!

It was another fun weekend for the Casa Benny 5. On Friday night we had birthday party for Clate. His real birthday is this coming Thursday but we know lots of the teachers have plans for next weekend so we went for it early. Katie made a fabulous cake...I did, however, put the sprinkles on top! We, for some reason or another, decided to cut the cake together so Courtney got a picture of that. Katie and I have had our picture taken together at every party we've had so we had to have some Friday. I didn't bring my camera out so I had to steal these photos from Katie's BLOG. Brent took what I thought was a great picture of us but Kate thought her chest showed too much. That would be the reason for the picture that I have up here now. I'm a good friend so I was trying to hide her...are you singing "That's What Friends Are For" now? It was the least I could do! Kate and Brent met a guy at the mall several weeks ago named Hans. He saw them and just ran up to them so he could talk. I guess that's what you do when you see other Americans down here! He and his girlfriend, Kristy, came by. They seem like nice people. They're from California but Kristy's job transfered her here. Hans is working but is looking for a more stable job because they bought a house. It sounds like if he doesn't find something better they're going to head back to CA. I can definitely understand how living here would be (is) hard. Saturday Clate went to Old San Juan for the San Sebastian festival but we didn't want to mess with the crowds. Good thing we didn't go with Clate...he just got home at 7:00 am this morning! Instead the 4 of us went to see "Blood Diamond" and today's being spent watching football.

Well folks, it's officially happened...Kelly's going through some cultural difficulties. Since we've been back from Christmas break things have been a little strange here. I never really felt weird or uncomfortable here but I do now. I am now noticing the stares from people, the looking at you then talking about you then looking at you again. They aren't shy and won't hide when they're talking about you because they don't think you can understand them. It also seems like people think we're pretty stupid. Last night we had that issue twice at the movies. The worst one was when we ordered at Burger King. Courtney ordered a large combo so we could share the fries and drink. The lady then had to "explain" to Courtney that just because he ordered a large didn't mean his sandwich would be any bigger...just the fries and the drink would be. REALLY?!?! We had no idea! Then, I wanted a whopper jr. with cheese, sandwich only. They refused to give me cheese because I wasn't getting a combo. You can only have cheese with a combo meal. WHAT?!?! I thought it was funny because on the 99 cent menu you can get a cheeseburger but they can't add cheese to a whopper jr. It made no sense to any of us and we stood there talking about it...which made the people behind the counter mad so they were rude to us for the rest of the time we were there. I also had an issue with a parent this week at school that was/is (I think) absolutely ridiculous and I don't feel I got the backing from my boss that I think I should have received. But, you'll be happy to know, for once in my life I stood up for myself. Courtney was pretty proud of me. When I told him what I said he asked, "Did you really say that to her?" Sure did! Maybe things were the same when we first got here but I was so excited to be here that I didn't pay any attention to it. Hopefully that's the case and things will get back to "normal" soon. We're still happy down here. We love the climate, our friends, the beaches, even the heat but I'm finding it hard right now to love the people. Anyway...I'm venting... We might be going to a surfing competition this weekend which would make for some awesome pictures. No, neither one of us surf but it would be fun to watch! We're still waiting to see some whales and manatees. Who knows maybe that will happen this weekend. Have a great week!