Philadelphia

Tomorrow I am meeting the rest of the education volunteers in my group in Philadelphia for a short staging/orientation before we fly out, but I figured since I've never seen Philly why not come a few days early and make a vacation out of it. My mom, Stephanie, and I flew to Philly on Saturday and met my cousin Molly for a final family trip and farewell. We have spent the last three days touring the city.

We did the typical touristy history things; saw the liberty bell, independence hall, and toured the US mint and old houses. 

We had Philly cheesesteaks! (Mine was tofu)

And we mostly just walked excessive amounts and saw some really interesting stuff and buildings.

Overall it was a really great trip. I'm really glad I got to hang out with mom and Stephanie and especially see Molly before I left. I'm completely terrified about tomorrow and the next couple weeks, but I think I'm getting a little excited too. I don't know if I'll have internet access while I'm with my host family, so I might not be able to post for a while.

Two days left!

Well I am not a great writer, but Stephanie set up this blog for me so I'm going to do my best to keep up with it as much as I can.

After an almost two year process of applying and preparing for the Peace Corps I'm finally leaving for my service to Malawi, Africa in two days! I will be there for two years and three months. The first three months I will be living with a host family in Kasungu, Malawi and training for my job while learning the language (Chichewa) and about the culture. After those three months I will move to my own house in a different town (I don't know which one yet) and begin my permanent job teaching high-school science.

So on Saturday I start the first part of this crazy adventure. Me, Stephanie, and my mom are flying to Philadelphia where we will meet my cousin and hang out/ sight-see for a few days. On Tuesday I will say goodbye to them and meet up with my group of trainees in Philadelphia for a short orientation. The next morning we wake up at 2am! to take a bus to New York airport. We then take a 15 hour flight from New York to Johannesburg South Africa. Once there we take another flight from Johannesburg to  Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, and stay in a hotel there for a few days before moving on to Kasungu to meet our host families. After almost two whole days of travel I imagine I will be pretty much exhausted at this point.

The last few weeks in America have been consumed with paperwork, packing, buying supplies, repacking, and saying a lot of very emotional goodbyes. I'm going to miss everyone so much! but I finally feel almost ready to go. I'm equal parts excited and completely terrified but I'm trying to keep an open mind and have no expectations so I can get the most out of this amazing experience.