(For this post, assume today is Saturday February 13th)

A lot has happened since my last post (my bad). A week ago (Saturday the 6th) our NSE coordinator planned a volunteer activity for us to do. She thought it would be meaningful for us to feel like we were giving back to the community. At 8:30 in the morning we headed off to Brewer's for a beach clean up. It lasted about about 3 hours, which I felt like was entirely too long, but they fed us at the end of it so I didn't complain. The beach was surprisingly clean. I maybe found two or three big items, the rest was small stuff that didn't even fill up the trash bag. We were supposed to record all that we picked up so someone could go back over the data and find out what the biggest problem was. After that we made plans to hike to the rock for the sunset, but it got terribly cloudy and we ended up not doing it. We did do about an hour or two of snorkeling and again saw many turtles.

Nate and me

Sunday (7th) was the Super Bowl! A small group of us went to this bar called Tap & Still where I won a bunch of free stuff. They had the game projected on a screen, but the volume wasn't very loud so I couldn't really hear the commercials or the halftime show. Tough night for the Panthers, but I still had fun watching it. I hope Peyton hangs it up this year. I got to watch it with Nate, one of the other two NSE guys, who is from colorado and a huge Broncos fan. The rivalry was fun.

Top: Rachel Nate Will
Middle: Sam Anna Lucy Hannah Emily
Bottom: Me!

Tuesday (9th) was my 21st birthday!! Here it isn't quite as special since the drinking age is 18. Nonetheless, the friends I've made here all went out to celebrate. I met a guy at the bar named Bobby who I probable talked to for about two hours. He was this old friendly man who lived on the island and imploded buildings for a living. He was so nice, and he ended up picking up my tab. Earlier in the week my friends FaceTimed me to give me some exciting news. They all pitched in money to buy me a plane ticket to fly me back home to celebrate my 21st with them. I cannot tell you how happy I was. I love it here, but every time I have a good time I always think of them and wish they were here because I know it would be just that much more fun. No one has better friends than me. I've been blessed.

Today (13th) our NSE coordinator planned another volunteer activity. We gave away bags of toiletries to the less fortunate at a park in the center of town. Apparently this park is a known place for churches and organizations like the Salvation Army to give food away, so there were a bunch of homeless people there already waiting. There were very appreciative and it felt good giving back, but I also had this weird feeling. It felt like we weren't doing much t all to impact their lives, and it made me want to do more.

Here's an explanation on why this post was so late. I was going to post it on the 13th, but I realized I mentioned me going home for my 21st. Not everyone knew I was going to be back, and we wanted to keep it a surprise. I had to wait until I came back to post about it so I wouldn't ruin the surprise. Now, (or sometime within a day or so) I'll post about what happened since the 13th.