How do you prepare to leave your family and friends for two years? There is no right answer to that question but I can tell you what I've been doing... Having fun! Good thing there are only two weeks until my departure because I've been sleeping less and eating more. Before I got my assignment I was doing really well on my workout plan and I was trying to eat healthy foods. But when it started to dawn on me that I wouldn't see my family and friends for a very long time I spent less time (read: no time) at the gym and more time going to movies, out to dinner and enjoying the foods I will likely miss while I'm gone. Here are a few highlights:
I work about half a mile from the Georgetown Cupcake cafe in Bethesda and whenever we can get out of the office we go get cupcakes, Peanut Butter Fudge is my favorite. Then there is Chipotle. I hadn't gone in almost five years but because of my awesome cubicle neighbor, Ryan, it has become a weekly lunch...mmm love guac. I no longer eat the Weight Watchers bars on Ice Cream Friday's and instead go for the Oreo Klondike sandwiches or my favorite, the Snickers Ice Cream Bars. Tuesday my parents took me out to a wonderful dinner at the Inn at Brookeville Farms as a final family outing where I demolished the bread and butter and still managed to eat an appetizer, entree and dessert. All the going-away dinners and happy hours will continue the next two weeks.
There are rumors that women tend to gain weight in the Peace Corps but hopefully I will be too hot all the time to think about eating anything but fruit. As you can probably tell just from this second post, a lot of my blogging will be related to food.
But on to the other fun things I've been doing. Last weekend I went to the beach where my Uncle Bill helped me take out the Sunfish, a small sailboat that has been in our family since before I was born. We had doubts that the sails were still good and that the rudder wasn't rusty, but as it turned out she was good to go. But was I? When I was ten and eleven I spent the summer on Gibson Island on the Chesapeake Bay with my great aunt and uncle. They were members of the Gibson Island Club and enrolled me in summer camp where we learned to sail Optimists, 420's and Lasers while also taking swimming, tennis and golf lessons. Luckily for me and my friend Ryan, who I dragged along for the sailing experiment, my sailing lessons stuck with me much better than the golf lessons... Well sort of. I was great at getting us down wind and out into the bay but by the time we decided to head back (when we could no longer see the house and the dock) I had a lot of trouble getting us to sail in the right direction. Luckily my uncle was out on his Whaler and was able to tow us in then take us out for a Mudslide.
On a side note, when I got back home I wanted to learn how I should have sailed us upwind and the first video that comes up on Google when you search "Sunfish Sailing" is Sunfish Sailing School in the Dominican Republic It's meant to be!
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