Safe and Sound in the City of Brotherly Love

First, let me thank everyone for coming to my going-away open house on Saturday. It was great to see you all again for one last time. And if you were unable to attend . . . . Don't worry. Maybe you can just plan a trip to Moldova to make up for it ;-).

Now I'm in Philadelphia, at my friend Michael Fabiano's house. I arrived today at 2:00 in the afternoon, after an hour delay in Chicago. There, I met up with Claudia and Jacob, two other volunteers - one is from Omaha, the other from Rockford, IL.

And after landing, we had to wait 30 minutes for a van to come and pick us up and bring us to the hotel, which was tight too because training started at 3:00. When the van pulled up there were actually two other volunteers who had just come in from Kansas City were aboard. Introductions basically took up the whole trip, so after we were all dropped off the five of us scrambled to check in and get together with the group.

We then spent the next four hours in training - nothing too special. Just about expectations and concerns and what not. Overall, the group is very interesting, from a wide geographic base and with different backgrounds. There are only three volunteers who are older than thirty or so and there are two married couples, although both are in their early twenties. Tomorrow we've got more training all day, starting at 8:30 AM. And on my lunch break I have to run to a Kinkos to print out loan deferment documents that I forgot at home . . . Should be fun. But of course, if I don't get those in, then I'm not going anywhere. So wish me luck.