Well, I made it to D.C! Ok, time to go back home. Lol. Today was quite adventurous. This was my first time flying by myself and having to find my way to the hotel on my own. It doesn't sound too hard, but for this Union County girl, it's quite impressive. I quickly noticed that flying to DC during the week of July 4th is super awesome. While waiting for my flight, there were a LOT of veterans getting onto the flight to visit DC for their celebration of the fourth. I met 2 Vietnam veterans, one Korean War vet, and believe it or not, I met two WW2 vets. Both were in wheelchairs and I knew right away that they were WW2 vets due to their age. I spoke to each veteran, thanked them for their service, and told them where I was headed. The WW2 vets both fought in Japan, but thought it was cool that I was going to the Holocaust sites.
Our plane was delayed for an hour and 15 minutes. First, we had to change gates because the plane we were going to use had maintenance issues. Then, when we got on the plane, we had to wait for the navigation system to be recalibrated. I finally got to DC, and I found my way to the hotel by getting on two separate metro lines. I must say - I impressed myself. Haha! Actually, I've been to DC a couple of times and absolutely love how simple the metro is to use.
When I got to the hotel, my roommate for just tonight was already here. She is from Massachusetts, and we talked about our school districts. Believe it or not, her high school only has 350 students! She is in a smaller district, but I thought about the school I teach at that has close to 1,600, and we are considered a smaller 4A school! We met up with another young woman on the trip, and we walked across the street to have Mexican for dinner.
I got to meet Elaine, the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Program director and organizer of this trip, tonight but it was very briefly. We had a small meet and greet, and it was nice to meet her. She is the one that accepted us into the program and has a wealth of knowledge on the Holocaust! I am extremely excited to learn from her!
Ok, I know there wasn't much regarding Holocaust information, but I felt it would be good to let everyone know that I am good! We start orientation tomorrow. We will be at the US Holocaust museum for our orientation for the majority of our day. I hope to have time to update tomorrow evening. By the way, please forgive any grammatical or spelling mistakes - I am typing this from my ipad!