A Letter Home

Dear Pappy, I miss you you so much. It's so different here. Not bad, but different. I still don't have a roommate but Miss Peale, the housemother, says that sometimes they get new students from other countries in the middle of the term. One of the girls in the next room is from France. And one girl's father is the ambassador to Spain. She stays here while her parents travel all over.

Every morning we have to go to chapel. They kneel in church here, Pappy. They don't make me kneel but I feel strange just sitting there while everyone around me is on their knees on these little padded benches. On Sundays, if we want, we can go down the street to mass at the Catholic mission. Some of the girls go, but I haven't yet. Don't worry about me, I'm still a Calvinist, but the mission is so pretty and I love the candles and the incense.

My best friend is a girl from a Californio family named Reynaldo. Her name is Elena. The way Elena explained it to me, being a Californio means her family was here after the Indians but before the Americans and their rancho was a land grant from some king. Elena's English isn't perfect and she has a little bit of an accent so sometimes I don't understand what's she's saying. And she says I have an accent too and sometimes she doesn't understand me! Imagine that!

The classes are hard. I have a lot more homework than I did back home but I don't really mind. When I don't have classwork to do, I have chores and chapel, and riding lessons. Sometimes they allow us to go shopping in town if one of the housemothers chaperones us. Santa Barbara is a short drive into town and you can see the Pacific Ocean from the road. It's beautiful and enormous. Elena says sometimes she and her brothers go swimming in the ocean. She says they'll take me next time they go. Won't that be fun?

I have to go now, Pappy, lots of reading to do. And an essay for English class. I love you and I miss you so much. I'd love to be able to come home for Christmas. Do you think I can? I know it's expensive but I miss you and the farm. Please?

Love, Regina