I think I deserve a clap. A pat in the back. A freakin’ award even.

Five weeks in a new country and I’m already going out with technically total strangers for a movie and drinks/dessert. Without Lokes.

W00t!

Not that I’m antisocial but there are more enjoyable things to do than be all awkward and self-conscious. But not only did I survive an evening with people who behaved, spoke and thought differently (I felt like one of those Globetrotting travellers!), I actually became one of them.

Now how about that? It’s truly a big step for me, because I’m not much of a socialite, as some of you may know. My hobbies involve sitting in front a computer or curled up to a book. True that I spent more than ten years partying my socks off after secondary school, but my last day of drinking, smoking and basically enjoying my youth, came on my hen’s night five years ago. And five years is a lifetime when you have kids.

Tonight, as I sat talking and laughing with eight other mommies, learning so many things about Americans and parenting, I felt oddly (but pleasantly) at ease. I should be all nerves and wondering if I’m somehow rude or offensive by eating or drinking a certain way, you know, just being myself, but I was okay. Even for me.

Certainly, it’s not home. But I am finally liking it here.

Look at me. I’m growing!

Thanks, mommies of the 3’s AM class of the Redmond Cooperative Preschool (especially you, Nikki), for making me feel welcome. You don’t know how comforting it is to be in the company of friendly faces.

And what I hope will be friends in time to come.