Big day tomorrow

Well, after two going away parties and many heartfelt goodbyes, its finally time to start the whole Peace Corps thing. Ironically, 'leaving' for the Peace Corps involves travelling 5 minutes from DC, to Arlington, VA. So I guess my goodbyes to all my DC friends get to wait... but the past few days have still been hard. Fortunately, the strippers, crazed taxi drivers and ridiculous nights in Teaneck, NYC and DC have made the goodbyes a little easier.

The Daren and Omer going away party was glorious and best of luck to him in crazy astronaut school. It was great seeing everybody before I left. The stripper going away party was equally glorious, except for the crazed african cab driver who decided to chase me and rocco down the street and choke me. But hey, at least I can assume that won't happen in Ukraine, right?

Pre-Travel Travels

So obviously the thing to do before travelling to Ukraine for two years, is to travel as much as possible. The trip to Vegas with Vishal and Amith was awesome. It was my first time there and Vegas definitely lives up to its rep. The craps table treated me well and the Vegas buffet is a thing of beauty. The fact that I got carded AT LEAST 50 times was a little annoying, but whatev. And a note to everyone, the strippers are ridiculously cheap, and the two for one special might be the best deal in the country. Mind you, this is just for lapdances. One of us, may or may not have, umm, gotten more for his dollar... But he'll remain nameless.

And before leaving for the -25 degrees weather of Kiev, I figured a trip to the Caribbean was a necessity. So my sister, Safiye, my mom and I shot off to the Dominican Republic. The water there was beautiful and the all-inclusive resort, like the Vegas buffet, is a thing of beauty.

What isn't a thing of beauty if the fact that I get food poisoning EVERYWHERE I travel... Ironic that I'm going to a country where they LOVE to poison their president... Yea, I'm screwed.

'bout time to hit the oool' dusty trail!

Well, its been a good run, but the day has finally come - the last day of my first job. Bittersweet? I suppose... Even though I knew this job would be temporary while I applied for the Peace Corps, its still sad to be leaving. Never again will I enter the shady world of lobbying. Well, at least not until I'm in a position to make some serious bank out of it... Working in DC has been an amazing experience, if not a little disheartening. Seeing the corruption first hand, and participating in it, makes it difficult to ever want to return to DC to work for the administration or for a member. But we'll see how 2 years living in political turmoil does to those thoughts...

Now it's back to the dirty jersey for a few weeks. If all goes well, I'll be taking a few side trips to Vegas and possibly somewhere in the Caribbean before making the long journey to Mother Ukraine!

Peace Corps!

Step 1 - Apply for Peace Corps
Step 2 - Get accepted to serve in Peace Corps
Step 3 - Make blog
Step 4 - Two years and 3 months in Ukraine....

Well, 1 through 3 were pretty easy....