"Give me liberty or give me death"

Patrick Henry said this famous line to the 2nd continental congress when he was trying to gain support for the revolutionary war. How do I know this? Cause I am a giant history nerd, and I strangely remember my 8th grade student teacher dressed in a minute man militia get up, reciting the whole speech in her best Irish accent. This memory came back to me as I was touring Independent hall, the place where all our four fathers signed the declaration of independence. It's weird how these life changing transitions cause me to have all kinds of flash backs on my life. Anyways, When I first found out my staging event was going to be in Philadelphia, I was kind of bummed. It was either supposed to be in Miami or Washington DC, which in my opinion would have been way cooler. But I guess on any old vacation I'd be more likely to go to either of those cities, so I'm grateful I was given the opportunity to come to Philadelphia, which I may never have come to on my own. And Philadelphia is pretty cool. I only had a small chunk of time to explore the city, but I did my best with out spreading myself too thin.
After having a very low key first night, I got up early on wednesday and fully introduced myself to my roommate who(m?) I first met half asleep just a few hours before. Her name is heather pack and she is from a small town called hughson just out side of modesto. A small town girl from nor-cal, what are the chances?! She went to UCLA and has been living down there ever since and she wants to be a doctor. All and all, she's pretty cool. I met up with some other girls, all from California and we went to a cereal bar. It had so many cool concoctions, but I was boring and got Cheerios with banana. I've totally turned into my mom by eating that, and I guess my oma too. Then we rode the subway downtown (our hotel is in the penn state area). We saw the Liberty bell, independence hall and ben franklins privy. For lunch I had a real philly cheesesteak. Well, from what I've been told, real philly's are made with cheese wip, gross, I couldnt' bring myself to eat one of those.
At 1:30 we checked into our staging event and met every one. It was so excited. Exciting, exciting, exciting! That was the only feeling pulsing through my veins. I was even excited that I was excited. I was unsure of how I would feel. I was expecting I would be nervous or anxious or something else, but not completely excited. It was relieving and did I mention it was exciting? The group is pretty much split between boys and girls and Had the group is youth development and half is small business development. We went through a very basic welcome and introduction. It's all kind of blur now, but I was happy, that's what I remember most. I went out to dinner with new friends and a drink afterwards. Everyone was so tired from traveling, and the day was pretty intense so we were home by 11 and I was up doing girly talk with heather till 12:30 or so.
Today the nerves set in. The welcome faded and the warnings began. I now know about a hundred things I can do that will get me kicked out of the peace corps with out a second thought. things from talking to the media without getting permission from my country director to riding on the back of a motorcycle. No joke, I guess the main cause of PC deaths back in the day were motorcycle accidents, so we're not allowed to go anywhere near them now. It was such an intense day, and I felt like I was back in elementary school at times. I guess it's just a tiny preview of on site training, which is six days a week, 8-5.
I had another miner freak out tonight. But I felt a lot better after talking to my mom. I wasn't freaking out about going to Peru, but just the stress of everything I think. Thanks mom, by the way. So I have to wake up at 3 this morning to take the bus to JFK so I can fly to Miami and then onto Peru where I take a 2 hour bus ride to my retreat. All and all, I'll be traveling for about 22 hours or so. Completely unnecessary, the things peace corp will do to save a few bucks. by the way, it's 10:30 here, I have to wake up in 4 and half hours already. That's it! 4 and a half hours and I'm finally on my way to peru. This is my last blog from the US for a while, so wish me luck and you'll be hearing from me probably after my retreat after this weekend. Should be an interesting week.....