off to denver i go.....

As many of you know I spent this past week at Coldwater ( our family cabin outside of St.Louis) relaxing and visiting with family. It was nice to know my biggest worry was what time was I going to get to the pool to work on my tan? I had a lot of fun visiting with cousins and aunts and uncles that I do not get to see very often. It is always amazing how fast times flies when you are on vacation. Before I knew it it was Saturday and it was time to head to Denver to start the trip.

Friday night I did not sleep at all because I was nervous, excited, sad....all those feeling. Nervous because I was meeting all new people and did not know anyone. Excited because I was starting an adventure that I knew would probably change my life and sad because I was getting ready to say goodbye to family. Even though the trip is only 5 months long it is hard to think of not seeing your family for that long. I guess I was spoiled living at home and getting to see my mom and dad every day.

So Saturday morning I was up bright and early at 715 to take a shower and start the day... we closed up Coldwater and were out of there around 830. Arrived to Emma and Carter's house at 1045 to pick up my luggage ( didn't fit in the car so we had to leave it in St.Louis). I did some moving of things around to make sure everything fit and then we were off around 1145. Once we were at the airport it was all about goodbye and making sure my luggage cleared the weight limit. I was fine!! Whew! ( I was a little worried about that). I said bye to Jim, Julie, Mom and Dad...and then I was by myself.

I grabbed a pizza at California Pizza Kitchen and then caught up on all the Hollywood gossip I missed the previous week. I had to buy the trashy magazines because that is what you do when you have almost 2 hours to kill in the airport. I boarded the flight and someone had taken my seat....he wanted to sit near his family so he asked if I wouldn't mind swicthing seats. Of course I didn't mind until I got to the seat and noticed I was in the second to last row of the plane. LOL.

The flight was pretty uneventful....just listened to my now fully loaded ipod and read my book.
I landed in Denver at 315 and went to find my group. As I entered the terminal I saw a bunch of people with Up With People signs....went over to introduce myself and they seemed really excited that I was there. I went to get my luggage and easily spotted the blue bags. Went to meet the other students.....my first meeting was with Erik from Boston. We rode in the van together over to the rec center. We had a fun time talking about everything that we were thinking ..( Are you nervous, excited??? You quit your job too?? How old are you?? Where are you most excited to go to?? What are your plans after this??)

Once we arrived to the rec center we were greeted with smiles from the upw staff and then all of my fellow travelmates. I had to check in ( make a copy of my passport, get my info packet, make sure all my form and money is turned in)....after that we were free to hang out and meet everyone. I met Yamil ( he was my partner on yahoogroups assignment. He is from Mexico). I also met Julie, Neil, Olga, Roberto, Nicolina, Deka, and lots more. It was fun to meet everyone face to face since we had talked some on yahoogroups. We then decided to play some card games and then some basketball. I think we are going to get pretty good at basketball since that seemed to be an activity that everyone knew how to play. We had about 5 countries represented in the game.... around 615 we all decided that we should stop playing and cool down so we were all sweating when the host families come to pick us up.

Deka ( from Caracuao in the Caribbean) and I found out that we were going to be roommates and we were to look for a family that would be wearing orange and black. Well as were were looking around we spotted out family. A couple that both had on orange shirts and black pants/shorts. Deka and I walked over and introduced ourselves. I found out that I would be living with Val and Derek Flockhart. Derek is originally from Scotland and Val is from England. I thought it was pretty cool that I was living with such a unique group. :)

We loaded all the luggage in the car....the big suitcase got to ride shotgun since both of us had big suitcases and they both wouldn't fit in the back seat. On the ride home we all started to get to know each other. Val and Derek have 2 kids....one in Colorado Springs and the other in Boulder....so hopefully we will get to meet both of them. I was excited to hear the Colorado Springs since Bill lives there and now we can get together. We had a good time in the car getting to know each other. Val has just retired from teaching and is looking forward to having this fall off. Derek works in telecommunications at Avaya. And they both love to travel. They have also been a host family 3 or 4 previous times so they were excited to get to know us. Deka has never been to the United States except for a visit to Miami. She is pretty excited to see everything. She use to work at a dive shop but quit her job to go on the trip.

Once we got to Val and Derek's house we decided to have some dinner and then sit around and get to know each other some more....It is fun to talk with people you just meet because you want to share everything and they want to share everything about their lives too. At around 1030 we all decided that we were kind of tired and we had lots of time to get to know each other. We decided to call it a night. I was amazed that when I went to bed as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out.

I guess when you don't sleep a whole night you do get pretty tired.....Overall a great day and it makes me excited to start this journey.....will keep everyone updated as much as I can....