Adventures with Adam and Emily: We're in Miami!

Our Peace Corps adventure has begun! Today we arrived in Miami for staging (pre-orientation where we turn in our paperwork, get briefed on the Peace Corps, and meet all the other volunteers that will be going with us to Ecuador in the Omnibus 102 group). We arrived a day earlier than most people because we were coming from the west coast. I'm glad we did!

We started out bright and early this morning at 3:40am. Adam and I both took quick showers, said good bye to Andy, Gaby and Alex (Adam forgot to say goodbye to Mickie! Good thing he spent an hour petting her the night before!). Then off we went with both our parents to the Inyokern Airport to catch our 5:10am flight. Sadly, we have ZERO photos from that experience because the people at the check in were rushing us, telling us that we should've gotten there at least 1 hour ahead of time (oops!). $100 in checked baggage fees later, we were in the short line for security (i.e. just Adam and I, as all the engineers from the base had already gone through and were sitting in the teeny tiny waiting room). We did see our parents waving us goodbye as our little propeller plane took off towards LAX. I don't think they could see us waving back!

Adam's 15 year old puppy Mickie

We arrived at LAX in half an hour and were at our connecting gate in no time at all. The plane ride to Miami was quite uneventful. No food or snacks served (unless we wanted to pay $4 for some nuts) and a terrible movie about a dog hotel. We arrived into Miami around 3:30pm and were the last to get off the plane. We got to our baggage claim turnstyle, and luckily only had to wait about 5 minutes before getting all of our bags. I have realized that it is a bit tricky handling all the bags if I also have a bag of zong (thanks mom!) and a bag of empanadas (thanks Gaby! They were FABULOUS and totally hit the spot).

Our empanadas and sticky rice (zong)

After wobbling our way out the door toward the taxis, we were able to grab an SUV taxi, swing by baggage claim #5 (we were at #23) to pick up fellow Peace Corps trainee Nancy Wall, and whip off to the Doubletree. It was sooooo nice to drop all our bags and just sit on the bed relaxing for a bit (since we didn't get to bed until 1:30am the night before!).

Adam and his hot chocolate chip cookie

Vegging out after a loooong morning

After a little relaxing, we headed off to Chili's to get some dinner with Nancy. Adam and I had originally wanted to go to a Cuban restaurant with his cousin Nicky, but because we are sans car, we found a restaurant in walking distance. In some ways, it was nice to go eat at a chain restaurant with too large portions for one last time before heading off to Ecuador where we will hopefully live without. Though some pork with black beans and tostones also would've hit the spot!

After dinner, Adam and I met up with his cousin Nicky. Nicky is actually Adam's 3rd cousin. I'll have to take a look at their family tree to get a better understanding of his family history. Either way, it was great to meet him because I had heard a lot about him.

Adam and his cousin Nicky

Then it was back to the hotel where I tried to figure out how to redistribute our bags so that most of the weight will get carried in our backpacks, and less in the duffel with no wheels! Woo hoo! I'll keep everyone posted about how staging is tomorrow night!

Probably the comfiest bed we will sleep in for a long time

And just in case people were wondering, our last day in Ridgecrest was a total whirlwind. We could've used a few more days! But then again, a few more days would've just given us more time to procrastinate. Yesterday we ended up doing the following:
1. Hang up blinds in the back bedroom and hang up the picture frames
2. Go to Wal-mart to return stuff and buy pepto tablets
3. Make a Father's Day Card for Adam's dad that I have NO IDEA where it went
4. Burn wedding pictures to send to Maile. Again, I have NO IDEA where that went
5. Meet up with Sarah and her family, where we got to hang out, catch up, and set up a swimming pool!
6. Meet up with Danny and his family, where we got to hang out, catch up, and get witnesses for our wills (which we have NO IDEA where they went)
7. Eat dumpings, steak and chicken with my parents and show my mom how to use the digital camera and Skype!!
8. Go back to Adam's family's house to frantically shove things in boxes that we weren't taking with us (Suegra- sorry to leave the house a disaster!!) and stick Clif bars, fruit snacks, and beef jerky in the available crevices. Um, all those things that we have no idea where they went. Yeah, probably somewhere in those piles. Looks like we need to make a phone call to the parents!
9. Sleep for 2 hours and dream about how we overpacked! =D

And now some photos of our last few days!!