Staging!

HOLA! I've never "blogged" but I thought this new journey was a good excuse to start one - more specifically an easier way to communicate to everyone I want to share with thoughts, pictures, etc with!

Currently, I'm sitting in Caribou Coffee in Washington DC after my 2 days of staging, getting ready to get up at 3:30AM to depart for the Dominican Republic to commence with my Peace Corps training. Technically, I am still a trainee and will not be a true PCV (peace corps volunteer) until I am sworn in on May 8th 2008 after 10 weeks of technical, community, and LANGUAGE training! The past two days have been long BUT very, very exciting and invigorating! The other PCTs (peace corps trainees) totally surpassed my expectations. To quote my friend Claire "Yea i was really scared everyone was gonna be really hardcore." As was I, beyond other weird, unfounded expectations. Everyone here is smart, idealistic, thoughtful, energetic, and much more. It is so invigorating to be around people of this ilk. ALSO - I am not the only one, not even close, to not being a full on Spanish speaker, which makes me feel really relieved. ALSO - I am not the only one whose baggage was overweight - shocking I know.

So funny story #1: Overweight baggage. So, as I said, one of my bags was overweight (by a whole 7 lbs). Rather than going inside, I did curbside and the skycap promptly told me how much overweight it was and that if I went inside they would charge me $50. "But you know, if you take care of me -I'll take care of you and let you slide?" Me: "Both bags?" Skycap Johnny: "Yep, so what are we talking here?" Me: "How's 30 bucks?" SJ: "Cool."

While, it may not be the funniest story, I was "proud" that I "greased" the Skycap successfully and went on my merry way to wait in the seemingly endless line that is security!

There is so much more to say and relate and its only day 2 and haven't even left the States yet...I will say that I genuinely feel very proud my myself and almost all of my reservations / anxieties have (for the moment) been dispelled.

OK - a a bit of housekeeping. For the first few days I will not have access to a phone or internet BUT Peace Corps will know where I am. PLEASE send me snail mail letters as it is always fun to get snail mail and I don't know how much access I will have to email on a regular basis. Thanks for everyone's well wishes and support!!! Lot's more to come...

cheers,
~A