Preparation and my stay in Miami

          My twin brother went to Argentina with AFS and he left two weeks before me, so preparing for my trip, I was very anxious to join the excitement of travel that my brother had already experienced. Packing was much easier for me because I knew what I needed through my brother's emails to home. I had to take two flights to get to Miami. The first flight left on the 6th of September early in the morning from Baltimore to Atlanta, and the second that same morning from Atlanta to the orientation in Miami with a small hour layover. Both of the flights were two hours so there was not too long of a boredom period that I sometimes get when I am on a long flight.  When I got to the Miami airport, I grabbed my suitcase and followed the instuctions I was sent via mail. Once outsite on the curb, I met another student also going to Peru. She was waiting for the bus to the Marriott, also. We waited for a few minutes and another student going to Panama showed up to wait with us. It seemed like forever, but the bus finally came, and we were finally transported to the hotel. We arrived at 1:00 which was earlier than we had to, but we were still not the first. There were two others at the hotel already, both going to Panama. We sat down and got something to eat at the hotel restaurant after taking our stuff up to our rooms. We had until 4:30 to hang out and wait for the others.

          Eventually everyone showed up and we had about an hour to waste before the orientation started. There were six of us going to Peru and eight that were going to Panama from the US. We had the smallest group, and we were also the last group to leave. My stay in Miami was shorter than most because of our size. We had orientations and dinner that night, and in the morning we had more orientations breakfast and Lunch and Peru left for the airport at around 12:30. Panama left an hour or so later. Once at the airport we got through security and we had a 3 hour wait until our flight left at 4:30. We had an amazing time playing cards and bonding. The size of our group was especially helpful to get to know everyone very well. Finally after an hour or so of Hearts, they called our flight. We were finally going to get to go to Lima. We were all so excited to meet the rest of the AFS'ers going to Peru.......or so we thought.