Leaving The Mitten

Yesterday I left my favorite mitten of all, Michigan.  Leaving my home state proved to be more difficult than I thought.  I tried to keep a stiff upper lip and tried not to think about how long I would be gone or what I would miss while away or any of a number of other concerns that come with going abroad.  But it was difficult. 27 months is a long way to be away from your home.  That's over 800 days or just shy of 20,000 hours of being gone.  That's a long time time for sure.

One thing I'll really miss about Michigan are the early summer months.  Nearly perfect weather.

With that being said I'm still very excited about this new adventure - it's my personal version of the space program or something.  Where everything I see and do will be completely new and, hopefully, exciting... or at least interesting.


Last night when I got to my hotel here in Washington D.C. I was informed by the woman working the front desk that the Peace Corps had put another future volunteer in my room for these two nights.  I had my first new roommate and she told me his name was Alan.  So I went up to the room, dropped my bags off and he wasn't there.  No worries though, because I went out to eat with my good friend Jeff.


When I came home I walked in and there was Alan sitting in his bed, reading.  I said hi, introduced myself and we talked for a while.  I kept calling him Alan because that's what the women at the front desk said his name was, or so I thought.  After about 8 - 10 minutes Alan informed me that his name was not actually Alan and he didn't know why I was calling him this.  His name was Aaron and he would really appreciate it if I got his name correct (he didn't say this last part, but I'm sure he wished it).  I felt like an idiot.


What a great way to start off my Peace Corps endeavor.  Today is the first day of registration and a bunch of other busy work here in D.C.  Worst of all, today is when I meet all the rest of my group's volunteers.  Usually I would be excited about this, but after the whole Alan incident I'm just not sure I can trust myself to get their names right.