The Long Way Home!

Upon arriving in Philadelphia after some sad goodbyes I struggled with my 4 bags from the luggage pick up towards ground transportation.  Thankfully Sean and 3 other new volunteers were there and he quickly jumped to help me and kept from looking like a fool!  After a short ride to the hotel we moved our belongings into our room and prepared for staging.  My roommate for staging and a couple of days in Bishkek would be David.  It was really neat to finally put faces and personalities on all of the people I’ve only seen on Facebook! Staging was pretty lackluster and in my opinion was a necessary but annoying Peace Crops propaganda session.  We did some overview of safety, what to expect, teamwork etc.…  For out last night in America we set out for a sports bar with all 38 of my fellow trainees.  I of course had to have a Philly Cheesesteak!  Afterwards some of the group headed back to get some sleep, but the rest of us headed over to a fun little Irish bar to have a few last American drinks!  Bonding with people who were mostly strangers, but knowing would be my new best friends and support group, sucked any awkwardness from meeting new people out of the room.  It was a great last night in America!!!  Unfortunately we lost one trainee during staging, for reasons unknown.  It was not her choice, and Peace Corps made her leave immediately, which is sad, and I only hope they will follow through with her with an explanation. 

The next morning we boarded the bus and headed to JFK in New York to catch our flight!  It amazes me how big New York City is when you are in it, but is just as breathtaking from afar.  We boarded our flight for Germany around 4 pm and took off shortly after.  Peace Corps is smart enough to book our seats in a block so we A) don’t drive others crazy and B) actually have people to talk to on our 15 hours of flights.  The flight to Germany went by quite quickly and I ended up sitting next to Britta and had a weird seat in the back of the plane, which even gave me extra legroom!!!  We had a 4-hour layover in Germany and it went by rather quickly.  The next 3-hour flight to Istanbul while shorter seemed more painful, due to exhaustion.  After Istanbul we finally got onto our last flight to Bishkek which lasted 5 hours, and I popped a couple of Benadryl and passed out for most of the flight!  It was the worst flight of them all!

We arrived in Bishkek around 3 am local time and after successfully getting our luggage we ventured outside to be greeted by a sleuth of current Peace Corps Volunteers and Peace Corps staff.  The exhaustion was overcome with pure excitement and adrenaline.  We boarded the buses and took a 30-minute bus ride to our hotel where we would stay for our first 2 nights in the Kyrgyz Republic.  I was thrilled to be at my new home!