Officially trainees!

Hi from LA!

I arrived here yesterday at 11:30 after a very smooth plane ride, which included opening all the wonderful notes (thank you Fran and the cross country crew!), a singing card (thank you Christy!), and other wonderful letters. I was waiting for the shuttle to get to the hotel when I saw that the guy in front of me had a Peace Corps keychain on his backpack, and so I met a fellow volunteer!

We arrived at the hotel, and had a little time to relax before beginning training. Such wonderful people with so many life adventures---volunteers who have traveled to China (two in fact!), Honduras, all around Europe, Austrailia, and the list goes on. We have 4 girls, and 12 guys in our group, each from a different state. Every one is extremely friendly and cool. Training consists of getting to know each other and general Peace Corps information.

This afternoon we have more training sessions and then fly out late tonight and arrive in Samoa early in the morning. We will be staying in a hotel for the first 10 days and have what seems to be a pretty intense training schedule, filled with language, safety, and medical training. We learned that there 2 tea breaks a day, so I guess tea is a big thing there! After the 10 days, we will be moving in with our host family (who may or may not know any English!), where we stay until we swear-in to service, in mid-December.

All has gone very well and I am happy that we have such a great group, to support each other through this adventure.

Hope all is well at home and thanks for all the notes on the blog!

Love you all!

Sally