LG's Excellent PC Adventure

My farewell tour is over and I'm back home. Ian and I had a great time and even went whitewater rafting on the Kennebec River in Maine. We hit the river on the day of the highest water release and tore through the gorge on twenty foot waves. It was a cold rainy day but we were wearing wetsuits so we were relatively comfortable. Ian left the raft at one point and went through one set of rapids as a swimmer. I held onto the ropes with a grip that left my fingerprints embedded in the nylon and, when we caught up with him, I helped haul him back in. It was the least I could do.

I got three estimates for storing my stuff and can't afford any of them. I've looked into the self storage units and have found one that's relatively new and affordable. I think I can squeeze my stuff into a unit that's 10x20 but it'll take some creative packing to achieve that. I'm practicing by staging stuff in my garage. The first thing I need to do is sort out all the stuff that's going to the Catholic Charities. I hope to have them come in at the end of the week with their truck to pull out my donations. Then there's a smaller batch that will go to Ian's house and we'll haul that batch over there in the truck. Finally, I have to begin boxing and packing my 'keeper' stuff. Once it's all ready I'll hire someone to haul it over to the storage site and that'll be that.

I received my packet of information and forms from the PC. A questionnaire that will be used to help match me up with an appropriate 'homestay' family in Bulgaria and another one that was designed to evaluate my language learning abilities and tendencies had to be filled in and emailed back to the Balkans Desk. I have my marching orders for the Staging Event. On August 6th I'll go to Philly and spend two days in orientation meetings and covering administrative details with the rest of the group. Then on the 8th we'll be bussed up to JFK to leave for Paris with a connecting flight to Sofia. We arrive in Sofia on the 9th and go right into meetings. We spend four days in more orientation meetings and then meet our 'homestay' families. These are the people we'll live with for the next three months while we're in training. After living alone for the past years, it'll be strange to have to share the bathroom.

I've received a cd with a huge amount of information on Bulgaria. It also has a language unit that plays through my computer and a letter from the head of training outlining my homework assignment. I guess I'll be pretty busy for the next three weeks.