It has only been a day into my Peace Corps adventure and it’s already been interesting. The night before my flight to the staging event in Philadelphia my parents hosted a “last supper” for me. It was a true Mercian meal consisting of steak, potatoes, beans and greens, followed by plenty of ice cream. After dinner I played with my nieces and drank some wine as I did one last rundown of what I packed (wine is a necessity when packing).

As I was getting ready for bed and thinking about what tomorrow initials I don’t know what was more difficult for me to imagine, leaving for 27 months or that I would be waking up at 4:00 AM to get ready for my flight. Even though I had been sick all weak and exhausted, nerves made it difficult for me to fall asleep. My parents wonderful snoring across the hall couldn’t even lull me to sleep.

In case you didn’t know 4 AM is never a good time to wake up, it just sucks. It’s cold, dark and your mind just keeps on asking WHY ME?! Good thing my parents are awesome and gave me words of encouragement like “keep your eyes open”.

After checking my bags I had some extra time to sit and talk with my family. Robby and Lauren were amazing enough to be there with the girls in hand to see me off. Saying bye to my family was impossibly difficult and I did not succeed in holding back my tears.

Trying to board my flight is where the fun begins. They overbooked my flight and because I was flying on a government rate I was the fist to go. However, they did not tell me this until after I was on the plane and there was more people than seats.  As the flight attendants were going seat by seat seeing how they got too many people on the plane I knew (they just assigned my seat at the gate) that it was going to be me to getting the boot. As they walked down the aisle, I could hear Jaws music playing in my head as they got closer. Ddduuuunnnn duun, ddddduuuuunnnnn duun “sorry ma’am we are going to have to put you on a different flight”. I offered to sit on someone’s lap, but there wasn’t any takers. The walk back into the airport seemed extra cold, but maybe I was just a little bitter.

They ended up getting me on a Delta flight an hour later. But because I was still marked as boarded on the earlier flight they had to call whatever magical person that controls the all flight itineraries and mark that I was not mile high and in fact still in Pasco. This takes awhile and is a big fiasco. This is extra confusing to my mind that was still shouting WHY AM I AWAKE. The attendants eventually get everything worked out, it does slightly delay the flight. I walked on to the plane as the jerk who held everyone up and an extra jerk because I was sick, sneezing and coughing. I ended up getting an exit row, so it worked out for me suckers.

The rest of my trip getting to Philly went pretty smoothly. Except for one flight where the man next to me decided to start singing, not exceptionally well or quiet. I was also entertained when the teenage girls behind me were enamored with the voice of the British pilot (it was very smooth).

I was very impressed with myself getting all my bags from the airport to my room.  I was so tired by this point I could have made a bed out of my bags and be okay with it. After checking in with the Peace Corps I grabbed a quick bite to eat with a couple other volunteers then I passed out hard my bed.