Friday, July 29, 2005 Friday night, Woo! I'm here at the cyber checking the mail. I'm officially going to Kandi next week, which should be fun. Actually, the ride there will suck. It's about 10 hours worth of bush-taxi. That means being squished and uncomfortable in a decrepit car with no AC... but I get to see a lot of the country, so for me it's worth it. I forgot my USB drive tonight, so no updates from the past. I wrote about things that are going to happen, but by the time I update they will have happened... Oh well, ce la vie. I'm actually running out of time, so I better wrap up. I'll be pre-dating the entries to their original time, so they will probably appear before this one. Sorry for the weirdness, but it's a matter of posterity! I'll make sure to make a note when I do post.

Tim, I'm sending a CD of pics on Tuesday or Wednesday... expect it late August =P

Thursday, July 28, 2005 Today hasn't been too much different than any other day in particular, with the exception that the whole family was together today. By that I mean everyone in my host family, as well as the two volunteers who lived here before me. It's fun comparing notes with the other two, and listening to their crazy stories and mistakes. It's sort of like having one more brother and sister. The whole host family dynamic in general is sort of strange. You fly half way around the world (in this case almost literally) and are adopted by people who know they won't be able to communicate with you. I think it takes a very special type of person to do that, so my entire experience here has been very positive.

Regarding immersive learning. Man, I didn't think I would be able to be capable of anything at this point in training. I mean we've really only been in country the length of an average vacation. With the French tapes I did before hand I could order wine and beer sort of, but I would never have though that I'd actually be able to convey half of the information I'm able to. I'm not at all saying I'm even close to coversationally fluent, or even ready to tackle the challenge of giving formations in French. Yet, still I feel pretty confident that if things continue in the way they are I'll be fairly comfortable.

Yesterday we had our last round of APCD interviews. Essentially they were the last step in deciding where we would be posted. It was essentially just a QA session where they had be list and rank my hard and soft skills, and asked if I had any particular needs or desires of note. I'm fairly easy as I have no medical conditions which require special attention, nor have I any real preconceptions about what my post would be like. So essentially I told them to put me where they need me (which is probably what they would have done anyway =P). There has been a little bit of speculation as to where we'll each be going. It's been speculated that I'll be going to Parakou, which is a city about half way between the far north, and the ocean. I have no idea what it looks like, nor do I have any idea what is there. I'm pretty sure it's around the 3rd largest city in Benin, and is a major stopping point for volunteers headed up and down country. I dunno, we'll get our official announcements somewhere around Tuesday.

Next week is our tech live in week, where we'll be taken to a volunteers post so we can observe their daily lives. I think we're there for about 5 days or so, leaving on Weds. I don't know where I'm going yet, but I'm hoping (although dreading the bush-taxi ride) that I'll be headed up for north to the Alibori region.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned this sooner, but I'm not the only one that thinks that Benin is shaped like a 'weiner'. When we arrived in Cotonou one of the volunteers described her post as being up in the "left nut", and a fair number of us confessed to having thought the same thing. So ha, all you nay-sayers.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005 Man, it's getting annoying now. The water at my place has been out for about 4 days or so, I really wish it would come back. Now, i'm not thirsting to death or anything; my family has a cistern that has plenty of supply. It's actually a pretty neat little system. Rather than having rain gutters like in the states that just keep water controlled, these keep the water controlled and into the cistern. The entire house is our rain collector. Of course it's somewhat dirty and bizzare water, so PC has given me a filter and stove so I can filter and boil it. Haven't been sick because of the water yet! The one crppy thing about the cistern water is that since my family doesn't boil, they do bleach the cistern water. That means that even after filtering and boiling my water might taste like pool water... that's kind of crappy.

Since I'm already whining, let me whine about the ridiculous french keyboard layout!!! Gah, I waS at the cyber yesterday, and I was locked out of pretty much everything, so the first 20 minutes I was typing like 15 words a minute. It's not that it's completely different, but weird stuff is moved. For example the q and a keys are swapped, the m is on the home row, and they have a freakin' mu (the greek letter) where the ' ought to be. Now I'm not quite fluent in french yet, but I for one don't know a single word in French with a mu!! The story does have a happy ending though, there is a keyboard shortcut to change the keyboard layout which I looked up after the 20 minutes of frustration. Yay google.

One more point of annoyance is "The Yovo Song". Actually for me it isn't too bad yet, but I can see the point a few months down the line... Essentially people here aren't quite used to seeing us whiteys, so the children have a special song to commemorate the event.

Yovo, Yovo, bon soir
Ca va bien? Merci!

There are other verses, but none of the kids here seem to know them. In any case, it translates roughly to "Whitey, whitey, good afternoon! Are things going well, thank you!". While it would sound persecuting in the states, here it isn't. It's just a thing they do. My one source of amusement in the entire affair is that really small children don't know hardly any of the words, so they crack me up. Usually they degenerate into the proper rhythm with all the words replaced by "yovo". It's extra annoying when older people do it. Although they usually seem to be content to just say "yovo", hiss, or make kissing noises (hissing and kissing are ways of attracting attention here, not at all the same connotation in the states). Some of them are funny though, there is one guy that when he sees me says "Hello White American friend!". All in all it's a minor point of annoyanceMan, it's getting annoying now. The water at my place has been out for about 4 days or so, I really wish it would come back. Now, i'm not thirsting to death or anything; my family has a cistern that has plenty of supply. It's actually a pretty neat little system. Rather than having rain gutters like in the states that just keep water controlled, these keep the water controlled and into the cistern. The entire house is our rain collector. Of course it's somewhat dirty and bizzare water, so PC has given me a filter and stove so I can filter and boil it. Haven't been sick because of the water yet! The one crppy thing about the cistern water is that since my family doesn't boil, they do bleach the cistern water. That means that even after filtering and boiling my water might taste like pool water... that's kind of crappy.

Since I'm already whining, let me whine about the ridiculous french keyboard layout!!! Gah, I waS at the cyber yesterday, and I was locked out of pretty much everything, so the first 20 minutes I was typing like 15 words a minute. It's not that it's completely different, but weird stuff is moved. For example the q and a keys are swapped, the m is on the home row, and they have a freakin' mu (the greek letter) where the ' ought to be. Now I'm not quite fluent in french yet, but I for one don't know a single word in French with a mu!! The story does have a happy ending though, there is a keyboard shortcut to change the keyboard layout which I looked up after the 20 minutes of frustration. Yay google.

One more point of annoyance is "The Yovo Song". Actually for me it isn't too bad yet, but I can see the point a few months down the line... Essentially people here aren't quite used to seeing us whiteys, so the children have a special song to commemorate the event.

Yovo, Yovo, bon soir
Ca va bien? Merci!

There are other verses, but none of the kids here seem to know them. In any case, it translates roughly to "Whitey, whitey, good afternoon! Are things going well, thank you!". While it would sound persecuting in the states, here it isn't. It's just a thing they do. My one source of amusement in the entire affair is that really small children don't know hardly any of the words, so they crack me up. Usually they degenerate into the proper rhythm with all the words replaced by "yovo". It's extra annoying when older people do it. Although they usually seem to be content to just say "yovo", hiss, or make kissing noises (hissing and kissing are ways of attracting attention here, not at all the same connotation in the states). Some of them are funny though, there is one guy that when he sees me says "Hello White American friend!". All in all it's a minor point of annoyance. I do wish my water would come back though.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 Whew, it's been a fun few days since the party over the weekend. As was expected everyone was NOT bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning for marchet day. We got a bit better of a tour this time, and even got to go down to the live animal market, where they have everything that walks, crawls, flies or swims. I mean one lady had a few small cages where there was everything from turtles, to kittens, to guinea pigs, to hamsters, and who even knows what else. There were quite a few bizzare birds I'd never seen before (chicken-like, for eating) and even puppies. It was pretty wild. We also went past several "voodoo" booths, where they had tons of dead animal stuff, from crocodile heads to antelope horns and all the like. Suffice to say they didn't smell all that great, but it was interesting to see.

This weekend all in all was really slow paced, and I didn't really do anything of note. Saturday I went again with Ben to play frisbee with the kids at the primary school not far from our houses, and on Sunday I studied French and played guitar with one of the facilitators.

Last night was probably the best of all, Brooke had his birthday and his host family threw (or allowed) a party. Brooke has some secret family recepie for tortillas, and tomatoes, onions and spicy peppers are aplenty. Avocados are around, but there was only three to be found in the marchet yesterday. So all that put together ended up with a kick-ass Mexican food themed party. Oh man, it was sooo good. The food is fine here (although my host mother probably thinks I hate everything because I don't eat gargantuan amounts), but it was nice to have some familiar flavors on the palate.

Today we were joined by our one errant stagier, Ly. She left us in Philadelphia for reasons unexplained with the promise that she'd rejoin us in a couple of weeks. She came today, so our SED/IT family is finally complete.

This weekend is our first trip with all the other stagiers, so it'll be like a big family reunion. The 13 (now 14) of us have been hanging out exclusively for the last 2 weeks, so it'll be fun to see everyone (46ish) again. I guess PC regulations prohibit me from revealing the location we're going to, but I can be vague. We're going to the touristy place with nice beaches, I've even been told that pizza exists there. Expect the full report next week.

I thought of a few more care-package ideas as well!
-El Cheapo Parmesean in a big can (the one that isn't really cheese, but sort of is)
-Italian Seasoning (the general all purpose one)
-Taco Seasonining
-Olive oil (or not, it'll be a fortune to send)
-Instructions on how to make refried beans
-Secret Family CORN Tortilla recepie (corn is everywhere here, but Brooke's tortillas are flour which was hard to find he said)

Okay, well I have to get going to my afternoon tech. session. We're talking about telecenters today... should be fascinating. < /sarcasm >

Saturday, July 23, 2005 Whew, it's about 1am and I just got back from our first official Peace Corps trainee party. Contrary to the state of just about everyone else, I'm not drunk. I don't know exactly what it is, but I've been really reluctant to drink much here. I think maybe it's because we go all go to the buvette every night after class is over, and just about everyone gets a beer or two. I'm just reluctant to get into a habit like that... It's not that I'm anti-drinking, it's just I've known people for whom alcohol is a problem and I don't think that I want to have to struggle with that obstacle. There are enough challenges here without adding another to the pile. In any case everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.

There are a few particular items of interest though. First and foremost is the appearance and existence of sodabe ('soda-bee'). I knew before I came that palm wine existed, but I didn't know about it's more potent distilled form. It's quite an interesting experience. It's quite clear, but fairly thick. It's all moonshine, so I've been told the quality varies greatly. In fact so much so that I've been told in Togo volunteers have been strongly warned to not partake because of batches high in methanol (which I guess destroys your brain or something). Quite a few people here enjoy it quite a bit, and I'll admit it isn't as biting as other hard alcohols. Supposedly though there are sodabes with a proof of 151 or higher. Yikes.

Also, I think I should explain a little bit about the entire process that's going on here. While I have "volunteered" I'm not technically yet a Volunteer. My currennt status is Trainee. After completing my 11 weeks here I'll be officially sworn in by the ambassador (whom we've already met) and taken to my post where I'll have all rights, priveleges and responsibilities of a full fledged volunteer, including a bit higher pay. What they're giving us now is more than we need, since our main expense is beer, soda and snacks. All of the food is provided by the familes, who of course are compensated for their troubles rather generously.

In any case tonight was fun, and included a rather interesting late-night ride through parts of Azove I've never been to yet. I was escorting a few trainees who weren't quite as sober back to their respective homes, and ended up in a place I'd never been. It was actually interesting though. We saw some sort of crazy midnight shipment, several meetings (church, voodoo? who knows...) and the normal plethora of farm animals. I got back okay, obviously so it's all good in the hood. Well, I have to get up relatively early tomorrow. We're all going to the market for our French lesson tomorrow. It should be fun, although I'm pretty much all out of money. Good thing we get paid on Monday!

Friday, July 22, 2005 Whew, it's been a day or so since the last post. Strangely enough I'm posting them at the same time. Sorry for the weirdness, but like I said it's really hard to get to a Cyber here. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read the gargantuan post below.

Still here? Okay. Well, things are continuing to go well. Language is slowly progressing, and things in general are just going. Tomorrow evening the crew here is planning a party at our training center (which is the upper floors of a 3 story bank) It should be fun. Today was relatively odd though. Our main activity (besides language class) was a Beninese fashion show. A few volunteers (yours truly inclusive) got to dress up in 4 different outfits each exhibiting the styles of the different regions of Benin. Let me say the clothes here kick ass. The fabric, the cuts, just everything is so bizzare but so cool. Even the prints are bizzare. It seems to be a somewhat national Peace Corps. pass-time to look for bizzare tissue (the name for the fabric the clothes are made of). So far I've seen thumbprints, kitchen sets, american money, stars of david, and well.. you get the picture. Bizzare. Interesting though, evidently it's not difficult to have your own custom fabric made so lots of strange things end up appearing. I hope to get some clothes of my own pretty soon. It's not too expensive in American terms to have clohtes made (pretty much the only way you can get them here). For the fabric it seems to be around $7, and for tailoring around $1. Now that's for a full outfit, for only a westernized shirt it's $4 or so out the door!

Now, I'm sure you're all interested in what it is that I want in care packages... so I'll make a brief list. No particular order for these things, and it's only a wish list...
- Crystal Light, Kool-Aid, or any other drink mixes.
- Macaroni and cheese "goo"
- Pringles, Doritos, Lays... or pretty much any American snack.
- A converter from a 3-prong grounded plug to a 2 prong non-grounded plug (3 prongs female to 2 prongs male)
- Pictures! I didn't bring any but digital, and I'm not too keen about showing off my gadgets...

I think that's about it. All in all things are going well. Unfortunately sending mail home is really expensive here (around $2 per letter!). Right now my pay is about $20/week, so you can imagine how quickly it would dissapear with letters... IN any case, hopefully I'll get back to a cyber soon with more news!

Thursday, July 21, 2005 I'm afraid you'll have to pardon the length of this entry, lots has happened in the last week and this entry is actually the work of a couple of mornings and evevenings. It's been much harder to get a net cafe (or cyber, pronounced 'sih-behr' as they are called here) than I had anticipated. Since the rates for phone calls are so high here during the day the cybers only open up at night. Night is of course the worst time for me, because I'm spending time with the family, eating, and it's freakin' dark out...

Well, the good news is I'm alive. And, actually there isn't any bad news! Things are going really well. Since I left Cotonou last week things have been a whirlwind of change. We left Cotonou around 10 in the morning (or 2am for those of you PST bound) and headed straight for Azove. I had thought they would have briefed us or something about what to expect when we reached there... But, in standard PC style we were un-aware until we needed to know. We got out of the car, and were pretty much thrown at our families. Actually I lie, they told us a bit about what our family sitution would be like when we were in Cotonou, so we all had a physical picture of our family, and knew what languages to expect, what religion and how many wives and what not. For me, moving in with a new family was certainly a scary prospect, and I think was one of the few volunteers trainees who had any misgivings at all. I was sooo wrong. My family is freakinug awesome. According to PC policy I'm not allowed to divulge too much information about my whereabouts and what not, so I'd probably get in trouble for typing their humongously long last name. In any case they are sweet.


My family consists of my host Mama and Papa (as we've been told to call them), and 4 kids; a brother of 21, a sister of 16 (shush Tim), another brother of 12 and a sister of 8 (shush Tim). Life with them is fun, even though I only understand about 2% of what is said. The smaller kids are easy to interact with, they seemingly have infinite patience and have no trouble acting out what they are trying to say. There sentences are also simpler. Papa and Mama speak a little bit of english so between my horrible french, and their english we get along. My oldest brother speaks english pretty well, but he is trying to make sure I don't get used to it so he always starts in French.

Actually, as far as French goes things are working out in that department better than I had anticipated as well. I mean I'm not delivering disertations or anything, but everyday I learn things and have gone from not understanding or being able to communicate at all to having simple conversations. I mean it's stupid stuff like telling Mama what sort of foods or drinks I tried today, but it's something. It's fun learning like this, because you learn something in class and it's immediatley applicable to life.

Days currently are pretty busy. We have language class everyday, and on somedays we have only language class (for around 6 hours!). Most days though we have 1-2 hours of language, and then various other activities. Today for example we started learning about the different regions of Benin. Everyday we start at 8 am, and we don't get done until 6p or so. It's pretty civilized, especially considering we get a 3 hour lunch break. Yeah, you read that right. 3 hours for lunch. Even if we get out a little bit late I have enough time to take a well needed nap.
For getting around Peace Corps has provided us with awesome Trek mountain bikes. They are blue/silver and have a rack. They also gave us a sweet set of saddle-bags and a huge tool kit that will allow anything to be fixed on it. It's probably the nicest bike I've ever owned, and is certainly a step up from the bikes we inherited from Lab-Rat last year. It even has shocks!

Food has taken a step up from what we were given in Cotonou (which wasn't bad at all). Mama keeps things pretty varied, so I can't say everything I've had. There have been a few occasions of pasta with some sort of really spicy tomato sauce, and also the infamous pate (pronounced "paht") has made it's appearance a couple of times. Pate is THE Beninise dish, it's pretty much the staple food. It's made from corn with a few variations. Pate blanc is the standard, and is only corn. Pate rouge has tomato and spices mixed in (and is much tastier than pate rouge) and finally pate noir has mantioc (sweet potatoes, I think) mixed in. I've only had pate noir once, and it was gross. But I've been told it wasn't good pate noir, so I'll try it again.

Things in town are much like one would see in some of the poorer parts of Tijuana. Even the market is reminicent of Mexico. We're actually blessed here to be a major marchet (market) hub, so every 4 days is marchet day. It's pretty incredibly insane, people everywhere and tons and tons of food. 2 days ago we went and I bought a pineapple from a street vendor for the equivalent of 10 cents. She even cut it up for me. Yeah, that's right. 1 entire fresh cut pineapple for 10 cents. What's even more is that the pineapple here is the best pineapple I've ever eaten, hands down. I mean you can eat it all the way through, there is no "heeart" like there is in the states that is hard and impossible to cut or chew. It's soft and delicious through and through. I could talk about how good they are all day. Actually, I may have gotten myself in trouble with that... I went on so much about pineapple to my family that Papa came home today with a trunk full of pineapples. I'm talking like a full trunk, like it took the kids 4 trips to get them all in these huge basins. LOTS of pineapples. They told me I would eat pineapple until I was tired of it. Hehe, we'll see.

So, all in all things are going really well. There is still a lot to learn, and lots more to try. Hopefully I'll be able to get on a schedule where I can hit up the cyber more often, but no promises. I will however make an effort to blog a bit everyday. That way things will be broken up in to multiple entries. That way they won't come in one big update, and I won't have to think of a weeks worth of news all once to write! I plan on activating my cell phone within the next 3 weeks or so, just so you all know. I don't know what the number will be, but incoming calls are free for me, so you can all pay exorbitant fees to call me!! Woo!

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Back in Peace Corps. HQ. Today we did our zemijan (motorcycle taxi) training. It was interesting enough, although I arrived late because I was being interviewed my program director. Suffice to say the zemis are little mopeds of which there are thousands in the city. They are really everywhere. It's cool because it's convenient and cheap. I mean you stick your hand in the air and close your fist a few times saying "Kekeno wawa" (Zemijan, come, come!) and they appear. You argue about the price, and then you're off for a wild ride.

Nothing else really of note yet, still no time for pictures. I'll try and resize them in the near future and get them up. Soon I'll have enough for a full CD, so maybe I'll just send a CD home... we'll see what is faster =P

Monday, July 11, 2005 I'm alive! I've been here in Cotonou (coh-to-noo) since Friday night. A ton of things have happened, and in interest of letting other people use the computer (I'm in Peace Corps HQ right now) I'll just make some bullet points.

• The first morning, I was woken up by Afrcian singing nuns and birds in a tree, I wouldn't have expected any less


• Local beer is cheap! At current exchange for a .63L it's only about $0.50!!


• On the subject of beer, you can get Guinness here. It's twice as much as La Beninoise (the cheap beer)


• Food is pretty good, almost every meal has onions though (which is fine for me, since I love onions). Last night we were served a half avocado with tomato and onion with some sort of dressing in it, couscous with some sauce and bread. Very good!


• It's pretty warm and humid here, probably around 80F/80%. Strangely enough I'm getting used to it fairly quickly


• There is only one temperature in the shower: cold. Yet, I feel lucky to have a shower at this point, and it feels good anyway after sweating all night


• I meet my host family on Thursday.


• Our mountain bikes are freakin' sweet


• Pictures will be at a point when I can sit for as long as I want... sorry for the long delay!!!

All in all things are going really well and I'm looking forward to see what is to come.

Thursday, July 07, 2005 Goodbye America! I'm officially leaving today. In fact, I need to finish packing and check out before 11 or I'm screwed. Actually probably not, but even so it's better to be on the bus. Things have been awesome so far, the people here really are great. Philly is totally sweet as I pointed out yesterday, and things were in fact better in training. I got all of my shots today, and my first dose of anti-malarial medication. Evidently there are two, one has a side-affect of blindness(!), the other "vivid dreams". We're taking vivid dreams. It's sort of crazy around here right now with everyone going to clinic, getting checked out and packing. Of course I think we're all freaking out a little bit about the trip, but spirits are high. We're leaving Philly tonight at 6p to got Paris, then stay in Paris for 6 hours then off to Benin. The one crappy thing is that we don't get time to rest between getting into Benin and starting training. We get to Benin at 7p local, then it's training at 8:30a the next day. Of course our schedules will all be screwed up... so yeah.

Once we're in Benin we're staying in some sort of converted convent. No idea what the facilities will be like at all. We're there for around a week then it's off to our host families. I'm realloy curious about the way food will be and all of that, but I did find out one thing. There IS internet at my training site! So it looks like I'll get some blogging in at least once a week (provided I can afford it, I'm not sure what our training stipend is). Well, gotta get packing. I haven't uploaded photos yet, but if I get a free moment before 11 I will do my best.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005 Woo, Philly is freakin' sweet. I came in early and got to see quite possibly the sweetest fireworks display known to man. I also happened to take the longest walk known to man. Fireworks were about 2-3 miles from the hotel. Actually, let me back up. I got into Philly and met 2 other guys within minutes of getting off the plane. That made things easy, although we ended up waiting for the stupid hotel shuttle for an hour before we gave up and took a taxi. The taxi ended up costing $1 more than the shuttle would have. Oops. Anyway, got in got my stuff put away and we went to this awesome little Belgian bar that had a list of a little over 400 beers. It was sweet. Finally made it to bed waay after I should have and ended up sleeping until 11 (registration started at 1). It worked out fine though. I'm up early today (4am by West Coast time!)

Training is pretty boring so far, but I expect it will pick-up a little today (I hope). The people I've met are awesome though. It's so cool to have no worries at all about walking up to someone and sharing whatever is on your mind regardless of the fact that you don't know them at all. It seems like most of us are pretty like-minded. I mean, last night I went to dinner with 6 perfect strangers but I had as much fun as dinner with 6 friends I'd know for years. It's really bizzare, but bizzare in a good way. Spending two years with these shouldn't be too bad at all.

Not enough pictures or time to really make a full gallery update yet, but I'll try and get up early tomorrow and put some up.

Monday, July 04, 2005 Good-bye California people! I'm off! (Don't be confused by the time listed below, it's Cotonou local time)

Sunday, July 03, 2005 Whew, almost finished packing. I have a few things left, but I think I'm around 90% done. I'm also right up to the wire. There is conflicting information in what they gave us, so there is confusion as to whether we're allowed 70 or 80 pounds. I'm hoping for 80, because I think I'm at 69.99999. I might be a tad over, but as others have suggested, I can pack heavy things in my carry-on.

Party was yesterday, very fun indeed. It was cool to have my entire family in one place. Also funny, since we're so small. Thanks to Chuck we were well fed with some awesome pork and delicious tri-tip (not to mention the ever popular Hebrew Nationals aka. 'Natty Heebs'). It was fun seeing everyone, but so hard to imagine that for many it'll be the last time I see them until 2007. I'll be 26 in 2007. That's more than a 1/4 century. I'll bet by then people even MORE people will be married... and some will have kids. I think I'll freak out if that happens.

So, am I frightened, scared, nervous? No. I think last Wednesday there was about 15 minutes where I said to myself "Oh my gosh, what in the heck am I doing?". Now though I'm ready. My bags are packed and I'm ready to get on that plane tomorrow. The weird thing is I'm not really even very nervous. I would expect more butterflies, or I don't know... something. I was talking with my mom this morning about it actually. I told her I was more nervous about starting college, and it's true I was. Starting at Poly was a pretty big step, I mean I was moving out of the house for the first time, leaving all of my friends, and really getting a brand new start on life. This jaunt is similar I suppose, but I've done it once before. While the friends I've made in college are more dear to me than those I'd made in High School (with the exception of those that I continue to keep in contact with, and those in turn that continue contact with me) that's all the more reason that it's easier. I know very well that travelling halfway around the world isn't going to end those relationships, it's just going to change the dynamic a bit.

Well, I guess I'm still a little nervous about the French thing. I've been doing the tapes, but they'll think I'm a drunkard if I talk. Everything I know how to say involves the desire to imbibe, the offering of, or the plan to drink wine or beer. I can go shopping for wine and beer, I can ask if you'd like to have wine or beer with me, I can even tell you that I'll buy some wine and beer for you tonight. But, it's pretty much all wine and beer.

Well, I doubt I'll get a chance to blog tomorrow, but I'll make every effort to upload some pictures before I go. If not though, there will be some before I leave the country I'm sure. Oh, if anyone has pictures of the party, please send some my way. My camera didn't really make an appearance so I don't have any at all.

Friday, July 01, 2005 Whew, one day 'till party time! Tonight Chris and Nicole are coming down, so dinner with them and fun times. Today I have to pretty much finish my packing, clean out my car and essentially be done with everything that needs to be done. Yikes. Although I don't really have too much more, so I'm not freaking that much out.

Oh, I cut my hair.