Hear me whine!!

Hello all!

So, my flights were alright, San Francisco to Chicago was fine, then I got to sit in Chicago for a while. I was starving, so I had some pizza. I figured that was a good thing to do in Chicago. Once I found my gate, I happened upon a bunch of others who are in the program. It was nice to know for sure that it was real, or at least that ten other people had been similarly hoodwinked. We flew the eight hours from Chicago to Amsterdam, and then, since that flight had been about and hour and a half late, we had to run from one gate to the next. We ran through customs, and a bus took us out on the tarmac to this rickety little plane. It was awesome. I sat next to a guy who is in the program, and he is from Atlanta, Georgia, US. I thought that was cool.

I had a few hours of insanity at the end of the flight. I kept falling asleep for twenty minutes at a time and waking up, thinking I must have been asleep for hours. This drove me completely nuts, and to add to that I had no concept of when we would start our descent. Just when I was about to either force my way out the window, or start doing flips down the aisle, the Pilot told us we would begin our descent and land in twenty minutes. As if on cue I passed out for the last twenty minutes, and my little bout with crazy was over.

When we arrived in Georgia, we were met by the woman who is head of the program. She also has some fancy title in the ministry, but it was confusing. She told us that our luggage was lost, and we most likely won't get it back until Saturday. But, lucky me, I will wait even longer because in Amsterdam when we were rushing through customs, the lady at the desk never gave me my luggage tags back, so my lost and found paper work is incomplete.

We drove from the airport to the Bazeleti Hotel. It is very fancy. I took what I think may be the best shower of my life. And then we had dinner. There are about 50 people with the program here right now, and we all ate and chatted together. Then the woman in charge (I will tell her name when I find it out) informed us that we are meeting the Minister of Education and Science, at a formal reception tomorrow, so could you all please dress nice, except those of you who don't have any clothes. So I get to meet a high ranking government official in a pair of running shorts and my favorite green t-shirt. Cool!

This has been a very whiny post, but I want every one to know that I am having a great time and I am thrilled to be here. I love you all so much!

Katie

PS, Danielle, I don't know how to reply to you, but thanks! Can you give me any tips on this blog?