Let me start by talking about what has happened in the past two days. I flew out of grand rapids at 620 yesterday morning to milwaukee and then to philly and then i took a cab to the hotel in dtown to the hampton inn. I met other volunteers right away at check in and Alex (here aunt is my neighbor and we met before this) got there at the same time so it was nice to know someone. then we have STAGING. between noon and 7 we did icebreaker activities, we went over policies, and even did skits!! It was a very long day of information. But it was nice to finally be there. All the anxiety i had before went away when i met everyone and realized that we all were worried about the same things. Did i bring the right stuff? did i bring to much? how am i going to learn arabic? we all were worried but it was nice to be able to share the worries. After staging we were given our extra money for travel and food and broke up to go to dinner. i went with a group of eight and we went to a nearby Italian restaurant. The restaurant took great care of us. we want to sit outside but the said that they didnt have it open but i told the manager we were going to Africa with the Peace Corps they set up a table for us outside. They then continued to hook us up with food and wine. Our dinner was really nice. we got to know each other better and just relax before our long day of traveling. After dinner some people went back to the hotel, but some of us decided to continue our night and enjoy the nightlife in philly. we also ran into more volunteers so we all spent the rest of the night enjoying beverages and laughing!

we are all ready to get there and find out what were are going to be doing for the next couple weeks. once we land in casablanca we will be getting on a bus and traveling a couple hours to a beach town and spending 5 days there learning what is going to happen and going over more policies.

So now we are at the gate just waiting. But this is going to be awesome!!!