Philadelphia Freedom

A fresh brewed pot of hotel room coffee is the only thing keeping me going right now. These past few days have been frantic and stressful yet some how still enjoyable and oddly peaceful. Non the less, I am in Philadelphia and I am tired. I am trying oh so hard not fall asleep early so I won't be wide awake and miserable at 2 in the morning. My goal is to make it till at least 9 if not 10, but these sheraton beds are looking pretty comfy. Yesterday and this morning were hard, but not as bad as I thought they would be. I guess it all starts back on saturday though. My grand going away party. I wanted to it be as stress free as possible, which is hard when you have over 30 guests coming to your house while you are trying to get ready to move to a foreign country. I wish somebody's going away present to me, would have been the planning of that party. But it was wonderful. It was really low key but lovely. It was hard in the sense that I couldn't just sit back and enjoy, I had to make sure I talked with everyone enough, because it was going to be the last time I saw many of my family members and friends for a long time. I cried a lot after the party. Saying goodbye's is one of my least favorite activities in the world. I think I would rather hold a snake than have to say goodbye to my whole family and all of my best freinds.
One of the more shocking things of the evening, was that I didn't want to go out. Me, miss social, Miss never says no to a drink. Well, for some strange reason the thought of alcohol makes my stomach turn. Anyways, instead of staying up all night with my friends and partying till the sun came up, I went home at midnight and went right to bed. I felt so sad that night, I needed to go to bed and wake up refreshed. And I did.
Sunday morning, me, Eric and my family all went to my favorite breakfast place in Winters "putah creek cafe". It was really nice. I did a fairly good job the next two days of not being sad. I really feel ready for the peace corps, this is something I've wanted for a long time, I just get sad when I think how long I have to be away from everyone I love so much. The rest of Sunday was made up shopping with my family and dad for some last minute things like shoes. Eric helped me pack up my room and my bags so I wouldn't be freaking out come Monday night. He was definitely the biggest help in getting me organized. Monday was mainly tying up loose ends. I finally finished packing and cleaning out my room. I think I deliberately left that till the end cause when I was all packed up I was really sad. It hit me that I was leaving and not coming back for a long time.
Monday night, my last night, I spent with my family and Eric. We ordered food from four seasons and ate it out on the back patio. It was weird. The light heartedness of family dining was gone and there was a somber sense that I would have rather ignored. I wanted my last night just to be like any other night. But it was sad, we all new the inevitable. Amber and Dave came over and visited for a few hours. I didn't want to have the whole of my friends come around one last time. I did all of my goodbyes Saturday, and it would have been too sad and overwhelming to go through them again. I had an hour of panic when I was making sure I had everything for my departure in less than 8 hours, not so much in the sense I wasn't ready, but in the sense that I was ready and it was almost time. I went back to Eric's and planned to be up all night. But to my surprise I was tired and I feel asleep and at midnight and didn't wake up till right before the alarm at 3:30. I don't think Eric slept as well as I did. I don't really know what was going through his mind these past couple of days, I just know he was sad. I was sad too. We had a very teary goodbye just before 4 am, and I drove to yet another teary goodbye.
After a shower, I crawled into bed with my dad as my mom strangely was putting curlers in her hair, even though she said she was going back to bed at the airport. I talked to my parents for a half hour, about nothing really. The puppy was up and so excited that everyone was awake so early and he was racing around and chewing on everything in sight. I woke my brother up and hugged him goodbye, but my sisters door was closed so I didn't say goodbye to her. Lastly I said good bye to Berny, I'm gonna miss that dog. He took a break from his racing around to sit on my lad and let me cuddle with him while I said goodbye.
The trip to the airport was surreal, as I was trying to take in that those were actual last moments with my parents for a long long time. We waited in a much longer than usual security line at the Sacramento airport and a man who felt the need to talk to my parents about his stupid kids in New York was waisting the my goodbye. All the sudden I got to the front of the line and had to do a very quick goodbye and didn't feel it was adequate. But maybe it was better that way, like riping off the band aid. Ouch. I only cried a little cause it was so sudden and then I was along, and I didn't want to look super lame crying all by myself at the airport, so I quickly sucked it up.
My flights were good, I slept most of the way. It felt so good to get off the plane, my whole body was stiff from sleeping in the same upright position for 6 hours. I felt a little queezy from all the stress of being gone and all the sudden being in a new city all alone, but I made my way through the very large Philadelphia airport and quickly got my bags and found stop for my shuttle. There were two people standing there, a man and a woman about my age, both with a lot of luggage and travel back packs. I met my first fellow PCV's (peace corps volunteers) wes and cass, a married couple from billings MT. We ended up splitting a cab to the hotel. After getting settled in, Cass called me and invited me to grab a bite to eat with them. We had pizza and beer and talked for long time exchanging stories, questions and fears. They seem like such wonderful people and I am so looking forward to meeting everyone else.
I feel great. Though I'm still very sad and missing everyone from home. I am happy and excited. Wes was telling me that all the returned volunteers he's talked to say that PC training is crazier than living in the dorms. I can 't wait. Philadelphia seems like such a great city. I'm staying on the 16th floor of the Sheraton in university city and have a wonderful view of the pen state campus. I've decided to take it easy tonight though I'm quite tempted to go out and explore. I haven't had a down evening in a long time I feel I won't have another one for while as well, so I'm forcing myself to stay in the hotel and relax. I'm gonna take a hot bath and watch some TV. Hopefully my roommate gets here soon so I can meet her and talk to her before I got to bed. I feel more awake that now than when i started writing this. Maybe it was the emotional retelling of the past three days that woke me up, oh well it worked and it is probably very therapeutic. And on that note, I miss you all and to hear from you!