Miami, aka little Colombia

Thanks to my new roommate, I have successfully created a blog. I promise to try and keep this guy updated; however, you, the reader, should also promise not to set your expectations of my blogging abilities too high.

I flew from Denver to Chicago to Miami, where I will be until tomorrow morning. Highlights of the 7 hours it took to get here include: sitting next to a 400 pounder with BO, eating lots of American food and speaking English to my heart’s content, and finally Peter Forsburg!... yes, he was on my flight from Denver to Chicago. And despite urges to shove his fiance out of the way and scream "I love you", I settled for a classy "congrats" (on retiring his career/jersey #) as we passed each other and made eye contact for 5 whole seconds.

Part of me really cannot believe that I am doing this whole moving to another country without knowing anything/anyone again... however, I am so much less nervous than I was for Turkey (talk about taking a random chance). It wasn't really until yesterday that I started to think about how long 27 months seems. At the same time and despite momentary insecurities, I know that this is really what I want to do and I am SO excited to begin! Colombia will be my 17th country I've visited in the past year; how lucky am I!!! There is definitely a now-or-never type of mentality.

Evidently Spanish has taken over Miami, or at least the mile stretch from the airport to our hotel. People evidently assume it is my first language as I have been addressed in Spanish as much if not more than English, all signs have Spanish before English, and I just had brunch at "Cafe Latina" across the street. If the flight attendant hadn't announced "Bienvenidos a Miami" when we landed and if I didn't know any better, this could be Colombia.

I've only met one other volunteer (although creepily stare down everyone in the hotel wondering if they also might be with the Peace Corps), who is my roomate. Jessica, UCBerkely, from LA is super nice so far (and blog savvy) and it's been great to adjust with her before meeting the whole group--in an hour!