After a very relaxing and uneventful plane ride, I made it safely to Washington, D.C yesterday afternoon where the rest of the day was anything but relaxing and uneventful!
After deplaning the 40-passanger aircraft, I saw a squadmate (Melissa Milroy) at baggage claim and we made our plan for the day as we waited for our airporter-covered bags that happened to be decorated with the same verse from Mark 16:15:
“Go into all the world.”
We finally found and snatched our bags off the carousel, removed our airporters and lugged the 75 liter packs over our shoulders and onto our backs and strapped our carry-on bags onto our fronts. I can only imagine how ridiculous us World Racers look to the “outsiders”!
We then proceeded to Door 2 where we were told that a shuttle would take us to the hotel we were staying at. This shuttle was said to run every 30 minutes. 30 minutes go by and we have yet to see a single shuttle pass by. A few minutes later, another passenger asked if we were waiting for a shuttle and we said, “Yes” and seemed to confirm for her that she was in the right spot. However, a man dressed in a business suit asked if we said we were waiting for the shuttle and proceeded to tell us that shuttles don’t come up here, they are outside Door 2 on the lower level. Oh…… That explains a lot!
We pick up our packs and head downstairs and after a few minutes, we are able to find and board the hotel’s shuttle!
Once we arrived at the hotel and checked in, we found more people from the Race, though most not on our squad, and headed to eat some lunch. After lunch and a nap, the other team leaders, finance people and logistics from our squad showed up! What a joy! Hugs, laughs and conversations filled the room as we headed to eat some dinner. (I guess we’re stocking up for when we don’t have food for months or something?! Hah)
We split up into groups after dinner- logistics and finance in one room and team leaders in another- and did specific training. The finance training was basically looking at a spreadsheet we will have to fill in every month and making sure all the fields were working correctly on our computers and software programs.
Then came the stress! We were told we were starting with finances in just a few minutes and had to provide meals for our teams the rest of the week.
The rules: we had to use what was in our hotel room to store and prepare the meals (one mini fridge to share between 4 teams, a microwave and counter space), we have $5 per person per day to spend and we had to provide three meals a day for them.
The challenge: we had about 10 minutes to try and plan before we were driven to the grocery store and given only 30 minutes to find all our stuff and be back outside to go back to the hotel.
We all freaked out!
We got together as a squad and brainstormed a list of meals each team could pull from and figured out how much money we had. I had $115 to provide three meals a day for seven girls for the four days we are in D.C.
The shopping itself started out stressful, too, because some of us wanted to keep the entire squad together and shop. Eleven of us trying to push carts down an aisle to get the same food wasn’t working for us and we were wasting precious time. Finally, we split into teams of two and worked together. Myself and Mindy did an amazing job staying under budget, yet getting enough food (at least we think we did!). She was keeping a running tab on the calculator as I was crossing off meals as we bought them and see what we had left to plan for.
After about an hour of planning, shopping, loading, unloading, sorting and shoving, we were finished with two teams’ food for the rest of the week! Awesome!
In case you caught that subtle mention up there, we also found out we are staying in DC until Friday afternoon. Our logistics people confirmed we leave Friday at 3:30 for Ecuador!
Today, we had to be up and ready to go at 9 a.m. for another session about budgets and procedures. It was very informative, but honestly, at the end, very boring because it was stuff that just applied to team leaders and not us finance people.
Afterwards, since we have a break until 5 p.m., a few of us finance people decided we were going to go to Target and pick up a few more things, like snacks, for the team since we were under budget and had more money to spend. The Target was only 0.8 miles away so we thought we’d go WR style and hoof it. After about 0.8 miles we realized the Target we were going to via Google was closed down and the closest one was 5 miles in the other direction.
So, we got a Blimpie sub and retreated home with our tails in between our legs.
Right now, the rest of the squad is beginning to show up and, once again, squeals of joy, laughter and hugs are permeating every inch of our space.
Tonight the real Launch begins!
We’re here! Let’s do this, N Squad! Our World Race has officially begun!
Reunited and it feels so good! The logistics, team leaders, and finance people of N Squad at LAUNCH!
This is how World Racers live; the finance girls' room!
P.S.-
I have my normal phone on me now, but once I leave the country I will not be able to send text messages or receive calls on that line. I did, however, get another number through an iPod app that allows me to text and call people and allows them to text and call me for free. I’m able to do that through WiFi. So, if I don’t have service when you send a message to me, I’ll just get it whenever I connect next! What I’m saying is feel free to send me messages of love, prayer and encouragement whenever you feel the need to! 😉 My new number is 816-760-2751.
