Two Weeks In

Once again, this post isn't chronological but rather divided by sections:

1. English Camp, covering the experiences of myself and the other three interns teaching English at a summer camp, 
2. Almaty Adventures, focusing on our general activities in the city, 
3. Further Travels, focusing on our trips beyond the usual parts of the city, in this case to Kok Tobe and the mountains near Madeu.
4. Dorm Life, focusing on the other interns and our interaction

English Camp

This week was half spent wrapping up work with our first group of students in the English camp. The last few days were both the most exhausting and the most fun days of the camp's experience thus far. On one end, the kids were more restless than ever, and it was much harder than usual keeping their attention and keeping class productive.

On the other hand, we had some of the most fun activities this week, including an activity where groups of students set up shops to sell products and services for fake money. These ranged from sodas and cookies to nail painting and hair service.

Marko just couldn't resist

If I haven't mentioned it before, know that there are few things these children are more passionate about than the possible coupling of Marko and MJ. Thus, Marko and MJ were rather forcefully sold an arranged marriage carried out with tin foil rings and everything.

Showing off their purchases (And their "engagement rings", courtesy of the students)

The last day with this batch of students (Tuesday, June 24), was spent planning out a concluding performance for the rest of the teams. Thus each of the four teams (The Unicorns, Sparta, Crazy Rabbits, and Coca-Cola) came on stage at the end of the day and performed a range of skits from traditional instrument performances to modern pop dances.

A member of "Sparta" team performing on the Dombra, a traditional Kazakh instrument

Members of team "Coca-Cola" with a dance routine to "Lalala" (Brazil 2014) by Shakira

In conclusion, the teachers were presented a cake complete with names and faces (And the flag of the United Kingdom on the cover). I have to be careful in the future as my 'Merica jokes were almost taken seriously by the teachers when I jokingly asked why it wasn't an American flag instead (Needless to say, the English camp made a reasonable choice).

'Merica?

The following day, we received our new groups of slightly younger students. The difference between teenagers and pre-teens was, in a word, beautiful. Every intern, including myself, couldn't help but talk about how much they were able to teach with kids who respected them and followed their instructions.

Look at all of them doing worksheets without playing on their Ipads. It's beautiful.

After realizing how much they loved "Crocodile" (their name for charades), we created a game they can't seem to get enough of. Taking the concepts of Simon Says, rather than saying "Touch your toes" and other more basic actions usually involving basic body vocab, they had to act out any verb commanded (Note that my concentration when teaching is verb vocabulary and structure). So, I would say "Simon says, swim!" and the kids would need to act out the verb "swimming."  Just as in Simon Says, if the full phrase isn't used, or any other name is used, you can't do it.

After a while, it became clear that the reward for winning every kid wanted was to be "Simon" in the next game, so I had the pleasure of simply moderating them as they practiced English with each other. All in all, it's been quite good.

On the second day, their names came in. One can see they were more than a little influenced by media in their team name choices. (My first and thus far only team of this student group has been the Minecrafters)

The Simpsons, the Minecrafters, the Titans, and the Minions 

Almaty Adventures

Two weeks in, Almaty is still becoming more and more understandable. The four of us English camp interns, Marko, MJ, Bretislav, and I, have become seasoned bus veterans from our daily commutes.

Behold true mastery in waiting for bus #99

The buses continue to be interesting. The best story for this week was when, in a particularly crowded day, the bus driver and a car next to the bus at the stop light got into an argument over each other's driving. The result?: The bus driver got out of his seat, opened his door, and while still standing in the doorway engaged in a small fistfight with the man before realizing he left the parking break on and returning to his seat. Then, without ranting or comment from anyone, the bus continued along it's planned course.

Still, I hadn't yet experienced one of the public transportation structures in Almaty: the extremely new metro system. On Wednesday night, as a group we used it, and I must say it is one of the most beautiful systems I have seen.

This was how empty it was when we used it.

Each station in the Almaty metro has a different theme, ranging from apple orchid to spaceship inspired. Still, it seems buses are vastly more popular in Almaty as they offer a larger variety of stop locations. While the metro was largely empty when we used it, the AIESECers leading us explained that in rush hours it can become fairly crowded.

Regarding food, I have found two trends in Almaty in my time thus far. First of all, their equivalent of a Starbucks or McDonalds (IE: A restaurant found on every street corner) is a chain restaurant called "Kaganat" which sells a variety of fast food. While I imagine their ingredients are more legitimate than McDonald's, the fact that they do not prepare your food upon ordering there but rather simply reheat the food in the microwave has made this restaurant less than appreciated by me. Still, it is good for a quick meal when us interns are in a rush.

Regarding the taste of the locals, however, the type of food I have seen the most of is the Turkish cuisine "Doner." While there isn't a single dominant chain restaurant for these, one cannot throw a stone in Almaty without hitting a Doner joint. We've had them a few times and, though I can enjoy them, I personally vastly prefer the delicious shashlik we've had.

In Almaty, no one can hear your trademark scream

On Thursday, in celebration of the completion of our first batch of students as mentioned, the teachers in charge of the English camp invited us to join them in the morning at the "Americanskii Grill." Needless to say, I was more than excited to see how American cuisine was portrayed.

"American Breakfast" menu, focused mainly on pancakes and eggs.

Before switching to the breakfast menu, I was able to look at the dinner menu and judge it from an American view point. Honestly, it was almost identical to a Chili's menu, with the same format and everything. Ribs, fajitas, steak, and, of course, burgers were the central items. The breakfast menu was more like I-Hop with a specific focus on pancakes with syrup and eggs. Our meal was immense and delicious, including both American and Russian pancakes. While it's expensive and I will probably lack the time, if I ever feel particularly homesick I'll probably order a rack of ribs here and take a seat near the American flag hung inside.

Further Travels

On Saturday, after teaching our lessons to the classes (the English camp is 6 days a week) we headed for the mountains of Almaty, particularly a high point in Almaty called Kok-Tobe. At 1,100 meters high (3,609 ft), the "Green Hill" isn't very high compared to the mountains beyond Almaty, but it certainly offers a spectacular view of the city itself.

Kok Tobe is actually more than the high point of Almaty city, it's a sort of amusement park complete with carnival booths, a zoo, and even a roller coaster down the mountain. The zoo at Kok-Tobe was rather desolate though, and one couldn't help but feel bad for many of the animals clearly in sub-par condition. The carnival booths were all too familiar, with familiar faces from media such as Shrek, the Despicable Me minions, and virtually every super hero displayed. Still, we focused mainly on the view and stayed until sunset.

Marko & MJ at one of the viewing points in Kok Tobe

Almost an entire week later (the day of this posting), we left for higher altitudes once more, in this case being the further "Madeu" ice rink, the highest ice rink in the world. 

As you can see by the foliage, the season isn't quite fit for its use.

Have you ever had that nightmare where you're running up a never ending staircase? In our pursuit of a viewing spot on a ridge, it wasn't the distance or height that made the climb exhausting so much as it was the fact that it always looked like you were about to reach the top until the last few steps revealed two more flights. 

One can see the starting point from which the first picture was taken in the distance

 Finally, after many false hopes, we reached the top of a nearby ridge from which we could clearly see the ice rink and the mountains beyond it. As would be expected, the view was spectacular and absolutely worth it.

Interns and members of AIESEC Almaty at the ridge

After spending a good amount of time at the top, we departed for the much easier trip back down and towards the city. One bus ride and a quick dinner at Kaganat later, we were done with the day. I had the pleasure of practicing some of my Russian with a lovely individual from northeastern Kazakhstan, and ,though it was clear my Russian is rudimentary, I'm glad I have opportunities to improve it.

Dorm Life

Group photo of interns and AIESEC Almaty from last week (before the arrival of Eva, Saber, and Tom)

This week was quite a rush, as the size of our group grew significantly with Eva arriving from Macau, Gao Zhi ("Saber") from China, and Tom from the Netherlands.

We're still divided when working, as Marko, Bretislav, MJ, and I work at the English summer camp while the rest (Grace, Martina, Eva, Tom, and Saber) work at an orphanage, but we've still spent a great deal of time with each other every day after work.

One of our best experiences this week was the celebration of Martina's birthday on Monday, during which we went to a lounge and played board games.

Time at Некафе

Still waking up around 5:00am every day, I moved to the empty room next to where Marko, Bretislav, and Tom stay as to not disturb them each morning. While I had the room to myself for a few days, a German and a Dutchman who are not part of Shine Bright but are affiliated with AIESEC have moved in.( I would include a picture to show you how short I feel when they are in the room, but I haven't had the opportunity. Let's just say they accurately display the Netherlands and Germany as the world's tallest and fourth tallest countries, respectively.) However, they were quite shocked by the prospect of an 11pm curfew, and it seems clear they will not be staying in the dormitory for long as arrangements are made with ISL (AIESEC Almaty's other major current project).

In conclusion, there are, of course, things that I miss from the United States: Being able to ask for something without being nervous about language barriers, ice-cold drinks, my mother's cooking (and of course my family's love. I need to add that in before I'm accused of only missing her cooking =P). However, I'm glad to say that any culture shock has not yet been severe, and I'm still having the time of my life in this wonderful experience.

One Week Concluded

This was horribly delayed, mainly by my own use of time rather than a lack of it. Seeing as how this is supposed to be a blog and less of a journal, I'll be writing posts out based on subject rather than a chronological walk through.


English School

As we learned, our groups of students actually switch every 3 days in the English school. Thus after Monday, I said goodbye to my old classroom and transferred into a new group of students.

This class was extremely different. While more shy and less understanding of English, their behavior and participation was impeccable. This made setting up lessons and, estimating how long they would last, much easier. During the first break I learned Marko had now been assigned my old class, as he came in with the conversation opener of "How on earth did you survive them?!"

Bretislav & Marko taking a break in my classroom

All that time playing 2048 in university wasn't wasted after all. Showing the kids I could beat 2048 gained more respect from them than any lecture could xD.

Still, with more experience under our belt, the four of us in the English School, Marko, Bretislav, MJ, and I, tended to do far better each time around. (So long as we didn't have that one group I started off with). I myself took the time to write down what I would focus on for each day, making things much easier. The first day would always be focused on verb vocabulary, with games such as charades and pictionary, the second day reviewed different types of verbs (continuous versus simple, past and future tense, etc.), and the final day involved verbs regarding travel, concluding with my own presentation on the United States of America.

I asked the kids to write everything they think of with the USA on the board. This is the unaltered result

Beyond classes, there have been multiple particularly interesting activities based on the day. Apparently, Saturday was a sort of "Love Day" which meant that the classrooms were decorated with hearts and the teachers were dressed in red. The kids were given strings to pass out to people they cared about, and thus naturally Marko ended up with both of his wrists sufficiently covered, with MJ not far behind. Every poster which talked about couples would have at least three instances of "Mark + MJ = *heart*" on them written by the students. Other activities were more interesting:

All staff kissed the paper, even us male interns. Can you guess mine?

 Now, on this upcoming Monday we will transfer to our last group to conclude the Summer Camp program.

Sharapat:

On Monday, we were introduced to Sharapat, the Youth Organization for Disabled Peoples. This was an additional part of Shine Bright added in later for us to assist in. The organization focuses on promoting professional knowledge among the disabled, giving them a better understanding of what their prospects are, and even assisting them in practicing some English.

Unlike what we have done in the past, past the introduction day we will never be together at Sharapat. Rather, each of us has a three day section in which we give three presentations. The first one is an introduction of our country and ourselves, the second one is a focus on cultural and youth organizations within our country, and the last one is an overview of opportunities and laws concerning people with disabilities.

I'm the last person to go, so I won't be started on Sharapat until June 30th. Still, I'm excited to share about the United States and get to know the people involved better.

First President's Park

On Tuesday we had the pleasure of going somewhere I had been eager to see since first arriving in Almaty: The First President's Park. After a photo shoot with the other interns in a smaller park nearby, we headed to the major location, passing some interesting buildings along the way.

The glass industry in Kazakhstan must be going very well.

Finally we arrived to the spectacular view of the park's entrance. Despite clouds somewhat depreciating the view of the mountains, the location was still wonderful.

While waiting for others to arrive, a celebration began at the base of the entrance with various people dancing to a wind instrument and drum. Apparently, this location is (understandably) very popular for wedding celebrations and photos. This particular case was an Azerbaijani celebration.

Finally, when the rest of the group arrived, we headed up the park to for activities at its highest location. The sights were absolutely incredible.

Interns and AIESECers at our meetup point

After tons of photos, some games, and even some dancing, the group dispersed so that us interns could return back to the dormitory before curfew.

Other Activities:

Since, our days have been fairly simple. In the morning from 10 - 2:30 we work at the English school. Afterwards, one of us goes to Sharapat while the others return for rest and preparation in the dorm. Once the person at Sharapat is done ( 4-5 pm), we head out for an activity, usually including dinner.
That covers the first four of us, Bretislav, Marko, MJ, and I. The rest have an orphanage they work in instead, which us four will be joining once our projects with Sharapat and the English summer camp are completed.
While our work is divided, we keep together for later activities.

Our group trying Shashlik

Trying desperately to get to my lamb, with MJ's help

We've had many new faces over the week, from Thailand and Macau with expected additions from China and the Netherlands at the time I wrote this out. So far every new person has been wonderful and interesting, so I'm very excited to expand the group further.

In conclusion, the week has been wonderful, and I'm excited to continue the work we have started.

First Weekend

Saturday


Much to my chagrin, despite going to sleep at midnight, I woke up at 5:30 on Saturday. After many hours, at about 8:30 am we departed for the school. Instead of being driven to the school, we used Almaty's buses.

The buses in Almaty work in an incredibly rushed way.  Tickets are not bought upon entering the bus but rather after you have jumped on and the bus is already moving again. Due to this, taking a guitar on these buses proved to be rather difficult for this day.

Still, we arrived at the school in good time, and were much more prepared to give the kids a solid plan. Each of us printed out paper activities for the first hour, prepared projects for the second hour, and planned on uniting the kids outside on the third hour.

Marko, Bretislav, MJ, and Grace preparing for the day

In my own class, the first hour consisted of a fill out sheet on action verbs followed by a game of Bingo. Bingo was played somewhat differently here than what I have seen in America. Rather than a 5 x 5 grid of words that one announcer presents,  each was given a single straight strip with only 5 words. Instead of a single announcer, each kid would name one word from their sheet until someone crossed out his or her entire paper. Bingo seemed too easy in the first game, but I soon learned that if you had them tear the  writing off their strips, the game became much more challenging.

Examples of the sheets used

For the second hour, the students had a project. The day before, we passed around the "Question Ball" asking which country each student would like to visit. As Saturday was "Flag Day," the second hour project was for each pupil to draw the flag of the country they want to visit most and add sentences about what they would do there.

To what I saw for the next hour, they loved this activity. The complexity ranged, from one who simply filled the paper with the Russian colors and wrote haphazardly on the back "I want go to Russia. I want see Moscow," to a girl who wrote out how she would try sushi in Japan and see all of the exotic traditional dresses. Though I allowed them to use their phones to look up the spelling of the country and the design of the flag, some were less than accurate.

Close Enough

One girl drew the Austrian flag, and rose her hand for me to come and help her with something. She then asked about how to properly spell a word I couldn't understand. She kept repeating what I understood to be "I want to see where 'Moter' is from." Clueless and somewhat confused, I asked her to write it the best she could and I would come back to check it later. Every kid around her looked at me like I was primitive for not knowing what 'Moter' is. I realized why when a few minutes later I checked back on her to see this on her paper:

"I want to see where Motsert is from. He is towering harmonizer." 

After the project hour and break, the groups of all four of our interns (and Grace, who was joining only for this day) took our groups outside to play. During this time outside, I played guitar for them on the grass. Unfortunately, I did not have Disney songs or any other easy to sing English songs, so it was mainly just entertaining them with classical songs. Still, when I played "Poker Face" I could hear muttering in Russian with interjections of "Gaga." We stayed outside until a picnic afterwards in a nearby park.

Grace (far left) and MJ (second on the right) with some of the students

Playing guitar for the students

MJ & Marko playing volleyball with students during the picnic

After an intern meeting, meeting yet another lovely new intern, Martinka, from the Czech Republic, we left for a nearby park where we had the usual ice breaker and team bonding games, including "Ninja," "Smile," "Hugging," and "Crocodile" (Charades). It is worth noting how confused I was when Friday, after trying to explain charades to my students, they all started shouting "Crocodile" when I was using the example of a penguin. Suddenly, that makes a lot more sense.

Apparently the story, or at least the name of "Jack and the Beanstalk" is not common in their countries,  because by far the most stressful part of the last game was me trying to get them to finish "Jack and the Bean..."

Pictured above: Desperation

Close to the curfew, we afterwards rushed to the dorm where, using eye covers, I desperately hoped to gain more than 5 hours and 30 minutes of sleep.

Sunday

Naturally, that meant the next morning I would get less sleep. With eye covers and everything I woke at 5:00, despite having gone to sleep at midnight. As the day was generally free, with nothing planned until 2 pm, at 10:00 am or so later my room decided to go to the mall. Of course, we knocked on the other interns' room, waking them up to ask that they join us. They weren't too pleased at the wake up call, but agreed.

After one hour of preparation we headed to the mall which was hardly a fifteen minute walk away, seeing a quite beautiful monument above it.

The mall was surprisingly empty at first, with us being almost the only ones there. At a food court, I had the pleasure of trying "SFC," "Southern Fried Chicken" with Marko and Grace. Much to my joy, the water from SFC was as cold as the norm in America (ice is rarely put in drinks in Kazakhstan, and water and other drinks are usually just served somewhat cool.)

After the food court, we joined Marko in his search for flip flops to buy, finally finding a suitable pair in a womans' store.

Hey, if it works.

It started raining, so our planned event at 2pm was cancelled. To pass this time, the group decided to go to a major mall closer to the mountains. However, MJ learned about a major opera performance happening in the city's oldest theatre, the Abay Opera House, in celebration of its 80th anniversary. She decided to go there instead with another AIESECer and his sister. Not one to pass on such an opportunity, I joined.

The Abay Opera House, founded in 1934 (Wikimedia Photo)

The opera was rather a compilation, alternating between dance routines and individual opera performances. The show ended with an opera duet between a woman and a man playing a forbidden relationship between a woman and a priest, followed by an amazing traditional Kazakh dance.

No pictures were allowed in the theatre, but this online promotion matched the final dance

After the opera, we went to the "Esentai mall", which the AIESECer that joined us explained was largely for rich people. There, we actually caught the end of an orchestral flash mob there.

 The mall was incredible. I have never seen a so modernly designed and technological mall in the United States or any other country. It was clearly designed to look bright and futuristic, with smooth lighting, curved pathways, and incredible amounts of tech, including a section of dozens of Xbox Ones, PS4s, and gaming computers set up for children to play in as a sort of technological playground.

Also, other activities such as this "astronaut simulator" for kids

After eating at the food court and resting some, we finally walked back to the dormitory and arrived at 10 pm, wherein I immediately collapsed onto bed, hoping for a much longer time of sleep.

It is clear that this internship will be exhausting with the English school and other duties, but it's certainly going to be exhausting in the best way.

Notably, this post was fairly late, due to a constant tiredness on my part. However, even in better circumstances I don't believe I will be posting daily, but rather expect to post every three or so days. 

First Day

Part 1: English Camp
Today was my first day teaching English at the summer camp. The project leaders were fairly surprised that I was capable to go to work, having only slept 4 hours since my arrival. Still, I pushed myself, with Marko & Bretislav's encouragement, out of my bed and into the shower.

Joined by the intern I did not wake up at 3:30 in the morning, Ming Jia, we took a taxi to the school campus, arriving two hours early. Before the kids even arrived, I noticed many references anyone from the USA would get quickly.

Left without further comment 

While waiting for the classes we got to know each other, and one of the teachers brought us some mare's milk to try. I was unaware that the milk was fermented, however the taste quickly made me aware of the fact.

Photo of my facial expression after taking a sip not included.

 Many that know me know that I've never had alcohol before. I've always known that eventually I would have something alcoholic, however I don't think I expected my first drink would be fermented mare's milk. It wasn't disgusting, but it was so bitter and strong that I couldn't take another sip beyond what I had. A fun experience, but not something I expect to touch again.

Marko, Ming Jia, Bretislav, and one of the teachers at the English camp

We talked with the teachers over how we were going to work as they gave us suggestions on structure and working materials. At 10 am, we were each sent to a separate class group to work with students.

The level of respect I have for language teachers is enormous. It was incredibly difficult just to keep their attention, let alone get them to talk in full sentences. They knew vocabulary well, and it was clear they knew enough to make sentences, but it was almost impossible to keep their attention off of their own smartphones and stop talking to each other in Russian.
Still, here were some of the most interesting aspects I learned from the first day:

1. They share many media ties with kids from the West. When I asked the kids what their favorite game was, three responded with "Minecraft." (One of the 12 year olds responded with Outlast, a brutal horror game, much to my surprise). When I had them playing charades for English concepts, when one of the girls was trying to act out "Lazy," two of the students at the same time shouted "HAKUNA MATATA!"  
2. They had a larger scope of global experience than most kids I've met in the USA. When I asked the question "Where have you been?" and had them pass a ball to answer, not one student hadn't been to Europe.  The most common responses were Turkey, Italy, and Russia. Many had been to the Americas, though more commonly the smaller nations in the Caribbean than the USA.

After an exhausting time of looking for ways to keep their interest, jumping question passing, Jeopardy, hangman (Which they spent ages arguing over whether you first draw the man and then add the structure hanging him, or the other way around), I finally found them most interested in charades to practice their English, adding in the clause that they could give hints if they said them in English.

With just one day, I honestly believe that my Russian will improve significantly with this job. There were very few times that I DIDN'T understand exactly what the students were saying to each other in Russian, much to their dismay. When we set the chairs in a circle to play charades, one of the girls laughed and said "Здравствойте. Меня зовут [her name] и я алкологик!" After I replied, in English "This is not Alcoholics Anonymous," her face drained and she tarted muttering to her friends and the rest of the class "Он понимает русский язык!" ("He understands Russian!") The amount they talked to each other in Russian after that dropped significantly.

Still, as part of the camp I won't speak to them in Russian at all, so if I want to practice speaking in Russian I will need to find other means.

Part 2: Almaty Trek & Beauty Contest

After an exhausting first day of work,  we decided that, rather than wait for the confusing bus system, we would see the city and walk through Almaty back to our dormitory. While I was tired and exhausted (I had hardly gotten more than 2 hours of sleep yesterday due to my late arrival at the airport), this was still a fantastic choice as we were able to see much of the everyday city. Unfortunately, due to my tiredness I don't have any photos from this journey. When we were reasonably close to the dormitory, the other interns decided to buy a watermelon from a vendor on the street who was selling them. What followed was one of the most amusing experiences of our stay as multiple Kazakhs on the sidewalk would come up to us as we walked and try to explain that it is not watermelon season, and that those melons were not good. With the language barrier, these conversations were comically confusing, but the message still came across. Despite this, from what I heard after we finally reached the dormitory,the watermelon was still good.

After relaxing for a few hours in the dormitory, a new intern joined us from the airport: Grace, from Hong Kong. We talked with her for some time before learning that one of the organizing members of AIESEC Almaty was competing in a beauty contest (University Lady), the winner of which would be given a slot in competition for Miss Kazakhstan. What followed was over an hour of attempting to get a taxi for our trip across the city, with the added frustration of people coming visibly in front of us in the street to signal taxis before they reached us. While this was frustrating, we did finally get a Taxi which took us to the center hosting the event. Arriving to a girl on stage performing Pharrel Williams's "Happy," we stayed to watch the competition till its conclusion.

I don't know if you've ever watched a beauty competition in a foreign language before, but frankly it is one of the most confusing things I have ever seen. Every time we thought it was over and the winner was chosen, it would turn out that was some for of secondary prize that actually eliminated them from being a finalist. Finally, with a former Miss Kazakhstan reading the final announcement, the AIESECer (Number 4) came first in the competition.

Part 3: A Kazakh Dinner

After cheering her and taking pictures, our group proceeded to a restaurant where we had reservations. Here, we would get a traditional Kazakh experience. We all started laughing from the start when we found ourselves at a table with no chairs but instead cushions to sit on.

The meal started with tea mixed with milk, served in bowls for us.

Please disregard the Estonian

We were also served Baursaks to compliment the tea, while waiting for our main dish. We took this time constantly shifting seats and taking various pictures of the setup. Finally, our main dish was served: Besbarmak. This dish consists of boiled horse meat with pasta, and is called "five fingers" as it is traditionally eaten with your hands.

I tried eating it by hand for about 2 bites before switching to a fork like everyone else

After finishing our meal, we crammed into a single car (stored Marko in the trunk, in all seriousness) and drove back to our dormitories where all of us immediately collapsed into sleep.

Grace, Bretislav, Ming Jia, Myself, Marko, and Marko's AIESEC Buddy

In conclusion, this was an excellent first day to what I expect is going to continue to be a fantastic experience.