Staging update

Taking advantage of free hotel wifi to bring you a short update. Staging was yesterday and went well. All of Peace Corps' expectations were emphasized again, and we talked alot about our aspirations and anxieties as volunteers. There are 39 of us - 19 girls, 20 guys, 1 married couple, mostly people that graduated college in the last couple of years but probably 3-4 older people (in their 50s?), from pretty much all over the country. And guess what, 2 of us are from Austin! The other girl graduated from Westlake in '06 (but she said not to judge) and seems really cool. There's also another girl that has lived in Austin for the last 6 months. I'm sure we'll all bond over our love for Austin, and we'll try and test our tex-mex cooking skills in Tanzania! I got to know the table of 8 I was sitting at the best, and everyone seems really cool. As for the other 30 people, I'll have to work on learning everyone's names, but I'm sure there will be plenty of time today travelling to get to know more of them. A group of us went out last night for Philly Cheesesteaks, which were delicious! Then we headed to a bar to enjoy some last cold American beers. The bar tender ended up getting our group 2 rounds of shots, and we even played a little beer pong and flip cup. Welp, I've gotta get packing - we'll be checking out of the hotel in less than an hour, then onto buses to NYC. Adios!!