Day 1? Ah Yes, Commence Breakdown

March 5, 2013. I arrived in Washington DC no problem and took a taxi to the hotel; cake. I couldn't check into my room early since there were no rooms clean so I waited in the lobby.  Lots of other people my age-ish filed in and started talking. Some were going to the Dominican, some to Nicaragua, and some to an African country. I found out that those going to the DR were either in the Education sector or Community & Economic Development.  Registration started at 12:30 so a line formed to hand in paperwork. Then staging started at 2 so we sat in the conference room and chatted.  I was running on three hours of sleep and no food at this point so I was already crashing.  Staging was so long... But nice I guess to see I'm not alone in my worries and fears. We finished at 7 and I could check into my room. My roommate's name was Sarah.  I got freshened up and then hurried downstairs to catch a free shuttle to a place with food where we could eat and withdraw the money from the debit card they gave us to get us to the DR.  I didn't want to go at all... But everyone else was and I knew I should try and eat.  We were out until 10pm and I had my first meltdown. I just looked and listened around me and everyone seemed so fine, so okay, not nervous at all; drinking beers and eating bison burgers. I was sick to my stomach with nerves and couldn't eat the calamari sitting in front of me despite the fact that it was delicious.  They have travelled the world, volunteered in other programs, worked unique jobs... It's incredible. Samantha let me use her phone to call home though and I immediately started crying when I heard my Dad's voice. They were wonderful, of course, and I did feel better.  So we headed back and got into bed by 11:30 but by the time I fell asleep and my alarm going off at 1:30am, I had gotten maybe an hours worth of sleep.