So, this is the last blog that I will be writing from the States for quite some time. I just wanted really quick to give everyone the skinny on what has happened these past 48 hours.
Monday morning 10:30, said goodbye to family and Matt. That pretty much sucked ass...there is just no other way to say it...sorry Grandma. Yes I cried the entire 2 hour flight to Philly which is where I am now.
From Philly caught a shuttle to the hotel was at the hotel by 3:30 local time. I then just hung out in the room until 5:00ish when my badass roommate from Detroit showed up, and thank God we instantly hit it off. 6:00 had a quick Peace Corps registration which was much more like herding cattle than anything formal.
Side note about the hotel: We are staying at the Holiday Inn, Historic District. 400 Arch St to be exact, I think. I say this because they have been the most amazing group of staff in a hotel ever! They have helped with everything we have needed. Been prompt and nicer than necessary, and if you are ever in Philly needing a place to stay, regardless of the cost I suggest you look this place up. It is worth it!
This takes us to this morning...Got up at 6:15 to get yellow fever and H1N1 shot. The yellow fever made me have a fever from 3:00 until current and at times I fell a little like I am on a boat in the middle of a lake on a windy day.
After that went and saw the Philly sights with a few of the girls. Had Subway and a Dr. Pepper for my last lunch. (Shout out Casey!) Saw the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall which was pretty snazzy.
Then at 1:00 we started our Staging stuff at Peace Corps trainees. There was supposed to be 53 of us, 49 made it. So we already have defeated some odds! We felt good about it.
After this got over at 6:00ish 20 of us went to an Italian restaurant for our last supper. I had Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo for my last meal and two beers. Pretty good beer actually...which is why I had two.
Tonight/this morning at 2:00 we leave Philly to head for the JFK Airport in NYC so that we can make our 10:30 flight to Johannesburg South Africa..For those of you that have made the trip from Philly to NYC or visa versa before you know that this leaves a hell of a lot of time to get there...this is apparently how the Peace Corps operates.
So, that is all! I wrote this in a blazing fury so if things don't make sense DON'T JUDGE ME, after all, I am leaving for Africa tomorrow for 2 years! Oh my goodness. And no, it doesn't seem real yet. Thank you again for all of your support and love throughout the past few months...it has not gone un-noticed.
I was never not going to come here...this was never not going to happen. -Unknown (And by "Unknown" I mean to me right now because I don't have my quote book in front of me.)
February 16, 2010
February 11, 2010
A Call From Across Shores
Well, today is Thursday February 11, 2010. And bright at early this morning at 8:21 I got a call from Zambia. Since it was so early I am a little fuzzy on particular details…such as names and job titles. I talked to two people, the first was a male and I think that his job title was the head of the L.I.F.E project in Zambia. His name is something that I am fuzzy on. (They kind of woke me up) Then there was a female Volunteer named Sarah, but I can’t remember her job title. 2 out of 4 ain’t bad.
I have been packing a lot in the past few days and things are starting to get a little sad, but the phone call from two people in Zambia that I just a few days away from meeting was really neat. It was a great reminder to myself of the reasons that I initially applied to the Peace Corps. I am now so excited that I can hardly stand it. I can’t wait to get to Zambia, smell the smells, see the sights, and meet the people.
Find out who you are and do it on purpose. –Dolly Parton
I have been packing a lot in the past few days and things are starting to get a little sad, but the phone call from two people in Zambia that I just a few days away from meeting was really neat. It was a great reminder to myself of the reasons that I initially applied to the Peace Corps. I am now so excited that I can hardly stand it. I can’t wait to get to Zambia, smell the smells, see the sights, and meet the people.
Find out who you are and do it on purpose. –Dolly Parton
These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things
These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things
There is something really amazing about your last days at home before what will hopefully be a very long stay away from home. I am crouching in on my last days at home and so I am trying to get full on all of my favorite things around the house.
Pop: Pepsi. As a female and someone who has spent a large portion of her life running and needing to be in good shape, and having a mom who never let us have pop before noon and never more than 2 in a day, I have never really splurged in this department. But my dad however is a huge Pepsi drinker and because of it my brother and I can’t drink Coke. I know that I have never in my life had a Pepsi and not thought about my dad. And a Pepsi out of a fountain always leads me to think about my brother, my dad and I. You see when we were little my dad would always stop at a convenience store fill up some Styrofoam 20 oz. cup with Pepsi and ice and then my brother and I would try to mooch as much of it off of him as possible. Then when my dad would go to take a drink….opps, it is all gone. This is why to this day I still think that Pepsi in a Styrofoam cup from a gas station tastes better than any other Pepsi in the world. Kind of like how some people prefer beer from a bottle/can/keg. I myself am a bottle girl, though a good tapped keg is pretty swell as well.
Favorite Sandwich: Turkey, onion, avocado, Miracle Whip on wheat bread. My awesome Auntie Cathy made this sandwich a few years ago. This sandwich is what jumpstarted my love affair with avocados in general. Cathy made this sandwich for the 4 of us before our 1st skydiving adventure. When she was telling my friend and I about what she was planning to put on these sandwiches I will admit that I was a little turned off by the idea of green mushy things. But after waiting in line for an hour and then waiting another hour to get up into the air I was starving. I would have probably ate anything put in front of me. But to my delight they were the perfect ending to a perfect day.
Favorite Candy: Reeses Peanut Butter Cups! My momma filled up our candy jar with them yesterday…most are gone as of right now. Keep in mind it is only 10:00, by midnight I am planning on needing her to get some new ones tomorrow, she is pretty cool like that. In fact when my mom 1st brought them home a few weeks ago she had no idea that they were my favorite. It was a habit I picked up my junior year of college during March Madness that year. Not really sure why, but roaming through Wal-Mart one late night they seemed to satisfy some craving deep down inside…after that I never really had the courage to kick the habit. I can in fact, plow through a whole bag by myself and feel completely guilt free. To my delight my mom watched me do just that and never said a word about it being bad for me. She is pretty cool like that sometimes.
Favorite Person: My brother. Ever since I left for college I always told people that he is my favorite person in the whole world. He makes me happier than anyone else in the whole world and I can’t imagine ever loving anyone or thing more than I love that kid. So as of late we have been spending our mornings and nights together. He sings little bits of songs to me, I then download them so that when in Africa I will hear the particular song and think of him.
We had been getting up everyday by 11:00 so that we could catch re-runs of Nash Bridges on WGN for an hour. Then a week ago WGN pulled the rug out from under us on that. When we were little we used to watch Nash as a family every Friday night…at least I think it was Friday, could have been Saturday. I love Nash Bridges, though most people have no idea what that show is these days.
During the 11:00 hour Zach will also cook breakfast for me. He is a pretty darn good cook…especially breakfast food. And then after Nash is over we get our fill of all that ESPN has to offer. Then around noon or later we get started on something…usually it is later than noon. I am going to think of him everyday at 11:00 for the rest of my life I think.
Favorite Show: Sex and the City. Over the past few days I have been trying to get my fill of SATC before Africa. Though I am pretty sure that all of the information that the ladies have to offer will be of little use in the forests of Africa. I started watching Sex and the City in the last few weeks of my Freshman year of college. I had never seen the show growing up because well, we only had 4 channels, needless to say HBO wasn’t one of them. Anyway, after track season was over my friend Randi and I thought that it would be a good killer of time to burn through a few seasons before summer hit and we had to split ways. Needless to say I was hooked. In the years that followed I have used Sex and the City as a way to make sense of problems with friends and relationships. In the past probably 4 days I have plowed through 3 seasons. I love those four girls and have often thought that I was meant to be a part of them, the producers just didn’t think that it was proper to put a minor on such a progressive show.
As I have been sitting here typing, (while watching Sex and the City) I am not sure if all of these things are my favorite because they are my favorite, and I came by it naturally, or they are my favorite because of how they became my favorite. Like nature vs. nurture? Perhaps I was meant to be a coke girl but my dad and everything that he stands for nurtured me into a Pepsi girl and now I just can’t shake it.
But then there is the issue of the avocados, I never liked them until the skydiving incident. In fact they never even looked appealing., but after going through something so amazing with 3 people that I love so much, how could a girl not love avocados?
I think that it will always be hard to know why we are so fond of the things that we are fond of. Is it all predestined? At the end of it all I think that most of the cheesy stuff is bull shit, I know that if my aunt had fed me a seafood salad after jumping out of a plane I probably would have thrown myself from the car. But I know that I am so glad that all of my favorite things remind me of such beautiful memories.
It’s not what your looking at that matters, its what you see. –Henry David Thoreau
There is something really amazing about your last days at home before what will hopefully be a very long stay away from home. I am crouching in on my last days at home and so I am trying to get full on all of my favorite things around the house.
Pop: Pepsi. As a female and someone who has spent a large portion of her life running and needing to be in good shape, and having a mom who never let us have pop before noon and never more than 2 in a day, I have never really splurged in this department. But my dad however is a huge Pepsi drinker and because of it my brother and I can’t drink Coke. I know that I have never in my life had a Pepsi and not thought about my dad. And a Pepsi out of a fountain always leads me to think about my brother, my dad and I. You see when we were little my dad would always stop at a convenience store fill up some Styrofoam 20 oz. cup with Pepsi and ice and then my brother and I would try to mooch as much of it off of him as possible. Then when my dad would go to take a drink….opps, it is all gone. This is why to this day I still think that Pepsi in a Styrofoam cup from a gas station tastes better than any other Pepsi in the world. Kind of like how some people prefer beer from a bottle/can/keg. I myself am a bottle girl, though a good tapped keg is pretty swell as well.
Favorite Sandwich: Turkey, onion, avocado, Miracle Whip on wheat bread. My awesome Auntie Cathy made this sandwich a few years ago. This sandwich is what jumpstarted my love affair with avocados in general. Cathy made this sandwich for the 4 of us before our 1st skydiving adventure. When she was telling my friend and I about what she was planning to put on these sandwiches I will admit that I was a little turned off by the idea of green mushy things. But after waiting in line for an hour and then waiting another hour to get up into the air I was starving. I would have probably ate anything put in front of me. But to my delight they were the perfect ending to a perfect day.
Favorite Candy: Reeses Peanut Butter Cups! My momma filled up our candy jar with them yesterday…most are gone as of right now. Keep in mind it is only 10:00, by midnight I am planning on needing her to get some new ones tomorrow, she is pretty cool like that. In fact when my mom 1st brought them home a few weeks ago she had no idea that they were my favorite. It was a habit I picked up my junior year of college during March Madness that year. Not really sure why, but roaming through Wal-Mart one late night they seemed to satisfy some craving deep down inside…after that I never really had the courage to kick the habit. I can in fact, plow through a whole bag by myself and feel completely guilt free. To my delight my mom watched me do just that and never said a word about it being bad for me. She is pretty cool like that sometimes.
Favorite Person: My brother. Ever since I left for college I always told people that he is my favorite person in the whole world. He makes me happier than anyone else in the whole world and I can’t imagine ever loving anyone or thing more than I love that kid. So as of late we have been spending our mornings and nights together. He sings little bits of songs to me, I then download them so that when in Africa I will hear the particular song and think of him.
We had been getting up everyday by 11:00 so that we could catch re-runs of Nash Bridges on WGN for an hour. Then a week ago WGN pulled the rug out from under us on that. When we were little we used to watch Nash as a family every Friday night…at least I think it was Friday, could have been Saturday. I love Nash Bridges, though most people have no idea what that show is these days.
During the 11:00 hour Zach will also cook breakfast for me. He is a pretty darn good cook…especially breakfast food. And then after Nash is over we get our fill of all that ESPN has to offer. Then around noon or later we get started on something…usually it is later than noon. I am going to think of him everyday at 11:00 for the rest of my life I think.
Favorite Show: Sex and the City. Over the past few days I have been trying to get my fill of SATC before Africa. Though I am pretty sure that all of the information that the ladies have to offer will be of little use in the forests of Africa. I started watching Sex and the City in the last few weeks of my Freshman year of college. I had never seen the show growing up because well, we only had 4 channels, needless to say HBO wasn’t one of them. Anyway, after track season was over my friend Randi and I thought that it would be a good killer of time to burn through a few seasons before summer hit and we had to split ways. Needless to say I was hooked. In the years that followed I have used Sex and the City as a way to make sense of problems with friends and relationships. In the past probably 4 days I have plowed through 3 seasons. I love those four girls and have often thought that I was meant to be a part of them, the producers just didn’t think that it was proper to put a minor on such a progressive show.
As I have been sitting here typing, (while watching Sex and the City) I am not sure if all of these things are my favorite because they are my favorite, and I came by it naturally, or they are my favorite because of how they became my favorite. Like nature vs. nurture? Perhaps I was meant to be a coke girl but my dad and everything that he stands for nurtured me into a Pepsi girl and now I just can’t shake it.
But then there is the issue of the avocados, I never liked them until the skydiving incident. In fact they never even looked appealing., but after going through something so amazing with 3 people that I love so much, how could a girl not love avocados?
I think that it will always be hard to know why we are so fond of the things that we are fond of. Is it all predestined? At the end of it all I think that most of the cheesy stuff is bull shit, I know that if my aunt had fed me a seafood salad after jumping out of a plane I probably would have thrown myself from the car. But I know that I am so glad that all of my favorite things remind me of such beautiful memories.
It’s not what your looking at that matters, its what you see. –Henry David Thoreau
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
