Well, I made it home.
For our closing retreat, my group and I went to Ocean City, New Jersey. On Friday evening, I spent some time walking along the boardwalk with a couple of the girls in my program. It was a nice time, yet kind of bittersweet knowing that in 48 hours I'd be home and have no idea when I was going to see them again.
On Saturday, a good chunk of the day was spent at the beach. I knew when we chose the destination for our retreat that I wasn't going to be doing any beach-ing. So, when we got there, as everyone fled toward the ocean, I headed for the boardwalk and spent the afternoon having lunch and browsing at a couple of bookstores.
Come Saturday night, we had a dinner party that was quite nice, but again, bittersweet. We "toasted" and talked, one person gave us all little mementos. After that, we spent time writing affirmations to each other, then I played a late night game of Monopoly with Nacho, German, and Caitlin and then talked with them until almost 4 in the morning. So weird that it was out last night together.
On Sunday, we ventured back to "headquarters," said our final words, hugged and started to get ready to part ways. I was the third one to leave when my mom and brother came for me. Oh man, I did not want to cry! I mean you can't just live with a group of people very intensely for 7 weeks (and I mean INTENSELY) and then expect leaving to be easy. The remaining folks gathered around and gave me a big group hug and I was off.
Sigh.
My brother decided to extend my ticket, so rather than going home on Sunday night as planned, I'd be leaving Monday night instead. On Sunday night my brother and I went to this great Italian restaurant in Philly called Maggiano's. Such good food. On Monday, I saw my mom off and then spent some time with my brother and rushed off to the airport.
The rushing was in vain. Rain....rain rain rain. Delays. Delays delays delays. Considering I got to the airport 2 and a half hours before my flight was to leave and 4 hour delay, I was at the airport for almost 7 hours...and the 5 hour flight home turned into a 6 hour one. I arrived in Los Angeles at 1:30 in the morning....4:30am East Coast time. Considering I had been up since 5:30 that morning, I was not quite happy.
But I made it home....where the heat is dry, the bugs aren't noisy, and I have easy access to burgers and fries. You have no idea how much I miss the people in my program. It's pretty crazy if I do say so myself.
You can find all posts about my internship in the "Internship 2005" category.
[More:]
Permalink