En Route

It might feel like 3am to the forty of us, but the Vienna airport is all hustle and bustle this morning. This is easily one of the smallest terminals I have ever seen--there's basically two shops, one restaurant, and about ten gates. Oh yeah, we have a five hour layover. To make matters worse, there isn't an inch of rug in the whole terminal; it'd basically be like trying to take a nap at a museum. So we're sitting, enjoying free WiFi, watching movies on laptops with rapidly-depleting batteries (why did I pack my adapter??), and generally just shooting the shit and anticipating our arrival in Skopje. Here's my first attempt at using this laptop's Webcam:



The flight over from D.C. was pretty bearable, mostly due to the free wine and an ample supply of Tylenol PM. I was sitting next to an older woman I believe was from Slovakia. She didn't speak a word of English and was the archetype (or maybe just stereotype) of the hardened Soviet female. In short, what a traveling companion!

On the otherhand, the other 41 members of this Peace Corps caravan are a great bunch to be traveling with. Our couple of days in D.C. were quite succesful, both imformative and socially rewarding. Everything we've been evenly remotely anxious about (baggage weight, e.g.) instantly became much easier to deal with once we were standing in a crowd people feeling the same thing. Besides Jillian and I, there is another maried couple--same age as us and from Rhode Island. Most of group is recent college grads and some late 20-somethings.

Jillian, bless her good fortune, was able to sleep for about half the flight, but she did miss breakfast, so we're off for a crossaint and coffee.

Schuss!