Well here I sit in Atlanta airport waiting to depart to Guatemala... I arrived yesterday to Atlanta and tried to follow the directions on how to catch a shuttle to the hotel. As I walked through the airport I kept an eye out for anyone who looked as though they might be gearing up for 2 years in Peace Corps as well...
I waited for a bit by the hotel shuttles but was unsuccessful in finding the Wingate so I called the hotel. They advised me to take the MARTA train to Buckhead and said they would send a driver to pick me up. On the train, I watched as two girls wrestled two huge suitcases each, and giant backpacks, and I knew they must be PCVs. They were very nice and it was refreshing to be around people who were preparing for the same adventure.
We got off the train and waited for our hotel pick up. A shiny black Cadilac Escalade pulled up and turned out heads and continued gazing down the road, watching for our ride. A moment later we realized that the Escalade was our ride and a the driver came collected us and our luggage and whisked us away to our hotel.
The Wingate hotel was beautiful... The lobby was slowly filling with Peace Corps volunteers and we mingled and introduced ourselves. Our rooms were not yet ready so we put our luggage in a conference room and made plans to find something to eat. As it turned out, the hotel offered a free shuttle service to anywhere within 3miles so we asked to go to the market/deli just up the road.
6 of us piled into the Escalade and sat waiting for the driver. In a few minutes, our driver Ferris poked his head in the car and said, "I'm sorry for the confusion but we won't be taking this car. I'll need you to please get into this one" And he pointed to a monstrous, 10 passenger stretch Escalade. I think we all just laughed until we realized he was serious... I think we all felt silly because we had all been spending the past few months trying to mentally prepare for a much less luxurious life in Guatemala and here we were going to buy groceries in a limo.
When we got back to the number of volunteers milling about had increased and we all made ourselves busy filling out paperwork before registration began.
We started the day with our Peace Corps staff at 12:30pm and finished registration relatively quickly. The rest of the day was made up of information sessions, introductions, team building activities, and Q&A. While were all quite tired from our travels, the 6 hours we spent in the conference room were need and appreciated.
After the staging event had ended we all went our separate ways to get food, call home, take a shower, and finally get some much needed rest. We all had to meet in the lobby at 4:30am this morning to catch our bus to the airport. At check-in there were a number of people who needed to take things out of their luggage because the bags weighed too much. Airlines charge something like $100 for every 10 pounds over the 50lb limit so people were frantically trying to redistribute and even put their belongings in others' bags who were not as full. I ended up buying another bag last night because I originally packed only 1 and it was quite overweight. With my new bag though I had tons of room so I was able to take some clothes of my roommates since hers was overweight.
And here we are, about 4 hours early, waiting to get on the plane. It looks a little like a refugee camp with the 52 of us camped out (many sleeping on the floor) waiting to go. I am really looking forward to everything. I don't really feel any extreme emotions which I guess is a good thing. Perhaps it just hasn't hit me... but I feel like this experience is just another part of my life and I want to enter it with a level head. Of course I am excited for this new adventure, but I don't want to have any expectations...
Here we go!
