After a year, in which I learned how to sound out Cyrillic and practiced singing at church every week, I worked up the courage to ask if I could join the choir.
I may have rejoiced too soon about how well I was able to talk to the pastor in Bulgarian. With great confidence I told him that I would be early so he could hear my range. With equal confidence I went to my Bulgarian lesson with enough time (I thought) to finish half an hour early and make it to choir without problems. Ironically, I studied numbers that night. And proceeded to be about 25 minutes late to choir instead of the 20 minutes early I thought I would be, as I hadn't understood the time that my pastor said.
The embarrassment of walking in mid-rehearsal was quickly eased, though, as they were singing a song I was somewhat familiar with and I was able to follow the directions pretty well. It's a good think I had just studied numbers with my teacher because I had to find measure numbers during rehearsal! My biggest fear was that I wouldn't understand the technical words relating to reading music. I forgot that we use Italian for most of those words in English. Fortunately, the pastor directed us to sing staccato here and legato there, and that part is piano. My years of choir and violin paid off and I understood exactly how to sing in each instance, even though I didn't quite get most of the Bulgarian!
Between discovering that studying music in English was easily translatable to Bulgarian because we both use Italian words and the joy of finally singing with a choir, I realized that I just completed one of the last steps I seem to take when I move to a new place. One sure sign that I am settling in is when I join a choir. Good thing I know what time to get to rehearsal tonight!