Flight & Arrival

Welllll...here it goes...my first blog post!  Some other girls on this trip started a blog and inspired me to do the same!  Let my start by explaining the name of this blog.  Chrissy and Melissa (my fellow travelers/teachers) jokingly suggested it as a potential name for their blog.  When they decided not to use it, I knew I had to use it as mine!  For those of you who don't know, "ballin'" is a slang term that means "living the good life."  Which is pretty much what I've been doing here in Belize so far.  I have always wanted to travel out of the country and I absolutely love teaching and working with children...life is pretty good right now!  I also picked the name in honor of my friend, Whitney, who uses the term pretty frequently, because she's cool like that.

So why am I in Belize?  I had the opportunity through my university to do a three week internship at an elementary school here.  I am looking forward to learning not only about the rich culture and history of Belize, but how their education system works.  I hope to glean teaching strategies from the Belizean teachers and most of all, I can't wait to work with the children!

We left Jacksonville around 9:30am on Saturday, November 10.  We changed planes in Miami and continued on our way to Belize!  This was super exciting for me, since I had not only never been out of the country, but I had never seen such brilliantly turquoise water in real life before!

On the airplane, I got a chance to chat with a sweet Belizean lady in her 70s.  She told me that she was a teacher in Belize for over 30 years!  

When we landed, we went through customs without much trouble...except that 3 of the the girls' luggage didn't come!!  From the airport, we took a bus over bumpy dirt roads from Belize City to Belmopan, about a 1 hour drive.  I was staring out the windows the entire time, just soaking up the new surroundings.  It's so different than home. 

Leaving the airport....

Roadside stand

Our "home away from home" for the next 3 weeks :)

The Bull Frog bar and restaurant

Attached to our hotel is a bar and restaurant where the locals occasionally come and hang out.  There are usually two tables of them eating along with us at each meal.  We eat breakfast and dinner at the hotel, and so far the food has been quite good!  

We settled into our rooms and had some dinner.  I ate a cheeseburger.  Lame, I know.  But I was exhausted and not feeling very brave...and I have three weeks to try Belizean cuisine!  ;)