Anything for a Sleepover

Before the actual events update, you need to know what amazing weather we are experiencing. I'm sitting on our balcony in a t-shirt and jeans while writing this, and I could wear shorts and still be comfortable. The whole town is taking advantage of these cloudless days by sitting outside at cafes along the streets (mostly just men do this), and venturing out instead of bundling up inside with a roaring fire in the woodstove.
Ok, now for more interesting topics.
On Friday, we went to one of the most dangerous cities in Europe for a sleepover. We took a bus to the neighboring city in order to take another bus (that's what the picture is of) to the dangerous city. We could have simply taken the bus to the next town, but then we would have had to wait along the road and flag down a bus, and we didn’t feel like taking any risks.
The three daughters of an American family invited us to their house for the night to do girly things and to get out of our little town. I had to keep reminding myself that the girls were only fifteen, eleven, and nine because they acted like they were around our ages. Once we got there, they took us on a tour to see a certain special bridge and to eat toast and ice cream. Toast here is really a sandwich that’s toasted like a Quizzno’s sub, and our ice cream sundaes beat Friendly’s classic Reese’s Pieces (only in style-not taste).
After seeing the riot police (don’t worry, they were just sitting around drinking Coca-Colas and talking to pedestrians), we went to a center that the family runs for teenagers. They meet once a week for a meeting and then hang out and play games. However, the kids and teenagers here don’t know about discipline and the concept that cheating is bad, so we ended up playing a simple, cheat-proof game we learned from our days of training. Afterwards, the five of us headed back to the house to make pizzas. We painted our nails, watched a movie, and stayed up until 4am.
The next day, there was a social for people like us who live in this country (mostly Americans showed up, but some English people came too.) I didn’t realize how many other workers are in our area of the world.
Thankfully, the two families we live near came to the social as well, and our ride home with them went smoothly.
-Jin