staging!

FINALLY after five months of waiting, the staging email came this morning! We were teased a couple of weeks ago with two emails, but they were just welcoming us and asking us to fill out a host family questionnaire. I really hope the host family situation is more like Mexico and less like Denmark. Best part of the questionnaire is the question asking if we're over six feet tall - can't wait to see why that's important. But of course, me being me, I neglected to save my edits to the form before I sent it in so I'm already making a fabulous impression on the staff.

Anyway, staging! That's important. Ever since those emails a couple weeks ago, I've been stalking my email. Yesterday a couple of us apparently developed an illness where we were unable to be too far away from email access because we were so anxious. It's like RAS was back and let me tell you, did not miss that at all. I set the evil Blackberry to ring whenever I got an email when I went to bed last night so I could book my ticket the moment that email came. I've been waiting too long for this. Luckily I only had to be on hold for a couple minutes before getting through. The man that answered was much nicer than whoever I talked to in December when I had the visa issue. When I gave him my address he asked if I'd be flying out of La Guardia...... noo, there's more to New York than just the city, thanks. Not long after telling him Rochester, he decided that none of the flights would work and I'd have to fly out a day early (1 June) instead. I was talking to another girl in my group via Facebook chat at the same time and that made things even more exciting :) So after the nice man hunted for the cheapest ticket, we decided on one - I almost flew Continental with a layover in Newark again, don't think I could have handled that, but for some reason he passed that one up. Good. So I will be saying goodbye to Rochester around noon on 1 June and hello to San Francisco at 5:20. Then at 11:00AM on 3 June, I will be saying goodbye to the US for a couple years. Unreal.

A couple people have looked at me like I'm a crazy person when I tell them I'm going to San Francisco for a couple days before leaving so I figure I should explain what I'll be doing there, at least as far as I know. Since I'm getting there early, I'll have awhile to play around and explore the city by myself or possibly with a couple other people also arriving early. The next day, I have the morning to sleep in or explore some more until registration at noon. This is when all 79-ish of us will arrive, turn in paperwork, and start getting ready for the day. From 2-7 it looks like we have some "getting to know each other" things and information sessions to get us ready for the real training that we'll have in Mongolia. We then have the rest of the night off and some people are talking about more exploration of the city by night (apparently Alcatraz does night tours - awesome) and hanging out all night to get to know each other. We'll see how grumpy / tired I am. Then at 5:30AM the next morning, we check out of the hotel, head to the airport, then catch a very long flight to Mongolia (with a layover in Seoul, South Korea!) and arrive at 11:20PM local time in Ulaanbaatar. I'm sure I'll know more when the time comes, but hopefully this will stave off the crazy looks.