Goodbye San Diego, Hello Peace Corps!

We woke up this morning around 5am and said our good-byes to San Diego. Our dearest friend, Emily, drove us south down the 5 and waved at the concrete complexity of the freeway system and said good-bye to Clairemont Mesa and Pacific Beach. We nodded farewell to the 8 and to Sea World, and blew a good-bye kiss to the San Diego downtown cityscape.

Officially, our Peace Corps adventure begins.

We felt quite foolish lugging our bags through San Diego airport. We had our travel backpacks on our backs and our personal bags on our fronts. We each had a rather large duffle in our right hand, and I had my guitar in the left, while Chelsea had a heavy bag of books in hers. Shuffling through San Diego Airport we checked in and meandered to the gate.

The flight was fairly uneventful filled with fitful naps and crinked necks, but eventually New York came into view and we landed quite softly.

Again, we gathered our things, ridiculously looking like tropical campers in 30-degree weather, then made our way through JFK airport. We took a train to the front of airport then took the shuttle to the hotel. On our entrance to the hotel other volunteers spotted us immediately. The bags were a dead give away! It was great to finally meet some of our future companions face-to-face and our excitement swelled. It is definitely real now.

Our room is pretty spectacular with its king sized bed, flat screen, and computer desk. However, I am not too attached to it because we’re only here for one night. I will mention though, that our fellow PCVs are pretty awesome. We’ve met about half of them so far after the first evening where we had to fill out paper work, get H1N1 shots (our arms are still throbbing), and get our stipends for the first few days. We’ve talked of our possible jobs, of our expectations and anxieties, and simply about ourselves in general. It has been pretty surreal experience, but one I am eager to continue.

We have so many more days with all of these volunteers and we’re looking forward to them. It’s our last night in the States, but I am not sad. I am ready to move on to our next adventure. We have been planning and talking about the Peace Corps for so long now, that it will be a pleasure to describe our moments in the present, rather than future tense.