First post!

Hey hey everyone! Welcome to my blog. My name is Sophia. I will be a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua from January 12, 2011 to March 31st, 2013. I'll try my best to write entries as often as I can to let all my lovely friends and family know how I'm doing.

My trip began when I woke up yesterday, at 6 a.m. My parents drove me to the airport. Halfway there, as the car is skating over the ice, I get a warm, friendly call from AA that my flight got cancelled. So I arrived at the airport and booked a flight in the afternoon instead.

On the plane, I passed out and dreamed that I was eating pizza. The pizza made me really thirsty so I asked the flight attendant for a cup of water, and then fell back into my dream.

I arrived at orientation, late of course, but with no regrets. I recommend that all Peace Corps volunteers arrive late to staging orientation, because, well... The orientation was fun because we were told that we should post nice comments on our blogs, but the event was really optional. Some people were lucky and came even later than I did. Out of the 45 volunteers scheduled to leave Nicaragua, 44 showed up. There are only about 5 guys in our group, I guess because most of us are working in Maternal and Child Health Promotion. I believe we got assigned to our country based on the program we will be working for. The 45 leaving for Nicaragua today are all in Health Extension. There is a group of 41 leaving for Panama today, and most of them are going to be teaching.

So orientation pep talk ended at 7. I was STARVING because the pizza on the plane obviously had not filled me up. I went to dinner with a few other volunteers and decided I wanted this dinner to be as American as possible. I ended up getting burger and fries, since I already had pizza on the plane. I also drank a cocktail and realized that vodka is stronger than wine. The Peace Corps gave us a stipend of $120 to spend during staging, which is definitely more than enough to cover all our expenses. Plus all the cash I brought with me from home, I had never carried around so much in my wallet before, so it makes me feel insecure. I decided that the best solution would be to get rid of it. There is only one thing I can buy here without adding more weight to my already overweight luggage: FOOD. So life is good right now.

Anyway, after dinner, we headed back to the hotel and I got the best news I have heard all day--our flight for today was cancelled. The original plan was that we would all wake up at 1 a.m., get on the bus and leave by 2 a.m., and reach the airport at 3 a.m., before any eateries open. I was absolutely thrilled to hear that now we get to sleep in until 10 a.m. I know, we were all super excited to leave for Nicaragua, but a starving, sleep-deprived Sophia would not make a good first impression on the Nicaraguan people. I hope we will be able to leave today though. And it's almost 10, so we'll have to go down to the lobby and meet up to hear the game plan. Bye bye for now.