Beginings 2

 Hello from Maryland!

It has been a very busy past 2 days! I departed from Detroit at 7 am on Monday morning and arrived in Baltimore a little bit before 9am. However, I didnt leave the airport for another 3 1/2 hours. Because of the crazy snow in Maryland, all the vans here in Perry Point were snowed in and roads were blocked so our welcome party was some what late. Although it was annoying at the time, it turned out to be ok because I was waiting with about 30 other people at the airport and was able to meet new people and make new friends right away...and have some serious bonding time. One of the girls ended up being my room mate and one of the guys ended up being my next door neighbor. Speaking of neighbors...I live in a house... very exciting!

About 1/3 of residences in Perry Point are houses and the other are barracks style six to a room dorms. I lucked out. I live with one other girl in my room, Jamie the girl from the airport, and 4 other girls Sara, Megan, Tracy, and Beatriz in 3 other rooms. Typically I will be living on $4.50 a day, but for the first 3 weeks, we get to live on $5 a day. We pooled our money as a house and ended up with about $210 for the week. Sara and Beatriz went shopping tonight, and did veeeerrryyy well. We spent $209.99 at the store...only off by 1 penny!

I also received my uniform today. 3 regualr tee shirts, 3 long sleeve tee shirts, 3 pairs of pants that are too big, 1 base ball cap, 1 fisherman cap, 1 pair coveralls, 1 fleece vest, 1 hoddie sweatshirt, and 1 winter parka...steel toed boots yet to come. 

The past 2 days have been filled with processing and paperwork. Today we were divided into PODS which are going to be our temporary groups for the week. I will not know who is in my long term group for awhile. I'm not sure what I will be doing with this POD, but they are all friendly people, like everyone else here who I have met.

Perry Point is an operating VA on the bank of the Chesapeake Bay. It has its own zip code, since it is Federal land. The town by us is called Perryville. The whole campus and town seem to have some very interesting history, and I want to see if I can do research on them... my house has to be at least 80 years old.

We will most likely have a snow day tommorow...since it is supposed to snow 12 - 16 inches tonight.

I'll have more to report later.

In Peace.