I left my heart in Texas

So I finally get to post a blog!!! Hopefully I'll be dedicated enough to write at least a couple each week... There's a lot of stuff I could write about, and have been wanting to write about. I don't even know where to start.
I guess I'll start at the beginning and work my way up to the here and now :)
I got to Angola on Sept 10 around 10 a.m. and immediately realized how ineffecient certain things are outside of the U.S. For example, baggage claim was an absolute mess, to put it kindly. Basically I stood around waiting for my bags to make it from the plane to the "Baggage claim" area for about 3 hours. No lie. And they never got there. I had to fill out a missing baggage report and wait 4 days (driving back and forth to the airport all the while) before I finally got them... Fortunately everything got here eventually. Tia Sao picked me up from the airport (shout-out! lol) and my dad's brother, who happened to work at the airport, met me there as well. It was so cool to meet him, but I chose to stay at Tia Sao's house at the time. So off we went.
The day was a blurr: Seeing Luanda for the first time, running around doing errands with Tia, observing the people and the customs. So interesting, so much to take in. If I were to describe my first impression of Luanda, I'd use two words: Chaos and Contrast. It's so chaotic! The traffic is always jammed. And I mean ALWAYS. From morning til night. I don't know what kinda rules of the road there are, but there didn't seem to be any. People do anything they want to do in order to get from point A to point B. The fact that the same one-lane road is used by 18-wheelers, cars, motorcycles, scooters, bycicles, pedestrians, and dogs does NOT help the situation. Oh, and when I say one-lane, that's just depending on who's on the road at the time. Many ppl decide to make it a two or three lane road if it so pleases them. To top it all off, everyone honks and yells at everyone, as if to blame everyone else for the chaos they so readily contribute in creating.
The contrast was also surprising. There are mansions next to huts and Beemers next to beat up old Corollas at any given main road. There are some beautifully paved roads that connect to the most dusty, pot-hole-ridden roads, all in the same neighborhood. Oh, and dust is everywhere. That's just a fact of life here. And I don't mean that light little layer of indoor dust you see on your furniture if you go two weeks without dusting it. I mean the kind that gives you a raspy throat by the end of a long day of driving around. It's crazy.
So since then, I've grown accostumed to those things that shocked me so much that first week. I don't even notice how dusty my shoes get anymore. I don't even notice when we come thisclose to getting in a car crash (it happens at least once a day, but we never actually crash. Somehow, this chaotic system works). I've also gotten used to other random sights that used to puzzle or shock me (people peeing out on the street, disabled people walking with their hands for lack of a wheelchair, little naked children playing in a puddle, emaciated dogs struggling to stay awake while prancing around, etc...)
But there were some good shocks too. For example, I live super close to the beach. So anytime I wanna go, I just grab my towel, my flip flops, and go. I love that! Also, it's summer here. It's so weird to see Christmas lights and decorations lighting up downtown while it's 106 degrees... lol. Yeah, that was the temperature today, and summer is barely starting :S
And the fruits. Oh, I could go on and on about the fruits. They have so many fruits here I had never seen before. And of course, I'm on a quest to try all of them! The ones that I've tried so far, have been absolute bliss :) The mangoes are SOOOO good! The strawberries are super sweet. And of course, juice at the grocery store comes in like 10000 flavors, all natural and organic. Made with locally-grown fruits. Yummy!
Anyway, I think that's enough for one blog... this pretty much covers my first impression of Luanda. Pictures coming soon. Thanks for reading!