Staging in Chicago!

Hi All!

I have made it to Chicago and survived my first day of staging with Peace Corps. :) My day started out a little rocky-saying goodbye to my family and Michael was harder than I could have imagined it would be. We took plenty of pictures (I'm sure I'm crying in each one) and said farewell for good around 7:30AM. I walked to my gate, sat down, and promptly fell asleep for the next 1.5 hours. I think I was emotionally drained as well as physically tired...good thing I woke up when boarding started! We all boarded the flight, and the next thing I know (I was sitting at a window seat), there are mechanics walking all around the plane, looking at the wing and scratching their heads-NOT something you want to see before take off. Long story short, there was an issue with the flaps on the wing getting stuck (still not something you want to see or hear before take off) and luckily everything was worked out. We ended up getting to Chicago on time and I slept for most of the flight.

I arrived at the Hotel and started to see all the faces I had seen for months on Facebook-it was really great to meet everyone finally! We settled in for Staging which was from 12:30-7:00PM. The Staging consisted of turning in forms, playing some ice breaker games, and learning about what is expected from us during our service as well as what we should expect in Romania. Overall there was alot of information but we ended up doing several group activites as well as skits so it went by fast. We finished up and went to dinner--I got a nice, juicy burger for my last dinner, appropriate American meal right? Right now I'm back at the hotel, getting ready for bed. Tomorrow we leave at 10:45AM for the airport and then at 3:40PM-off to Romania!! 8.5 hour flight to Frankfurt, then 2.5 hours more to Bucharest, Romania.

I miss you all already...This past week of goodbyes was so hard but I am so appreciative of all of you who are so incredbily supportive. Love you, will post as soon as I can from ROMANIA!!