Staging

I made it LA just fine after an interesting set of flights. Luckily, I had a travel partner in one of the girls who is also from UNC. We boldly tried to take a full row to ourselves, but were thwarted by an evil banker. He took his middle seat proudly, and as soon as he was allowed, he broke out the laptop and began working away. I innocently asked a question of my traveling partner and he gave me the evil eye. Clearly no talking would be accepted. I listened to some music and did crossword puzzles to pass the three hours.

On our second flight we were still on the ends of the row but a nice 17 year old moved over for us. He really impressed me because he was reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And by reading, I mean the highlighting, underlining, and writing notes about the plot. It was pretty cool to see a little kid doing more active reading than I ever have. Then we land.

Kid: So where you from?
Me: North Carolina
Kid: Oh cool. LA must be really different for you.
Me: ...
Kid: You know because everything is so close together. (Thanks 17 year old for calling me a yokel.)
Me: Oh yeah (dismissal)

Granted that yes, things in NC are not so close together. But no, that doesn't mean I've never seen city blocks before. But thanks for being friendly, right? The funny thing is though, that I'm going to a place where everyone is going to assume that I'm rich and cultured and from something like a city. Not really sure I know which is right to assume about me.

Once in LA more adventures ensued. We couldn't find our shuttle bus to the hotel and had the Radisson guy take us from the hotel. He was sweet. Immediately we checked in and turned in all our forms. After that it was the first of our ICE BREAKERS! We did so MANY ice breakers. I love ice breakers more than the average person, but we played all the wrong ones: People Bingo, Change 5 things, Silent Sort. Granted, they're the low budget ones but I like a little variety in ice breakers.

Our two days of discussion covered topics such as personal safety, unwanted attention, and fears. The best was definitely the fears and aspirations work we did. I found out that all the big things I was scared about, were also fears of my companions. I'm really happy that we're pretty much all scared of explosive diarrhea and ready to tackel that issue with their 'help'.

That's pretty much the gist of the last two days. We're leaving SUPER early tomorrow morning to go to the airport. Since there are 70 of us it is going to take soooooo long just to do simple things like check in. I am a group leader and so I'm in charge of 18 people and making sure they don't get lost. I also have to get the airline people in gear when we get there so they can do their job as quickly as possible. Basically, group three is going to be the place to be.

Okay I need food and sleep and Olympics. Next post will be from PHILIPPINES!