Beginning (again) in Bogotá

Clegg here, per usual, after everyone else's bedtimes.

CAROLINA AND I GOT TO DALLAS TODAY!  We fly out tomorrow at 7 PM for Bogotá.  It's all starting to feel real now and I couldn't be more excited.  Carolina's snoozing next to me because she already hasn't slept the last two days out of excitement.  

After my ride fell through to Norman for yesterday, one of my friend's from high school volunteered to drive me to Norman.  So I treated her to Tea Cafe, which has the BEST fried rice in all of Norman, and she was on her way.  My friend Adam stopped by to see me for one last time this summer and then was nice enough to carry my suitcases down the three flights of stairs for me.  How lucky am I?!  Carolina's parents drove us to my grandparents' today from Norman and we all went out to eat at Texas Land & Cattle, aka the BEST steak place in all of Dallas (I think).  After some getting to know everyone a little more, we quickly returned and here we are.

Carolina and I received some seriously exciting news already as well.  We will literally get to hit the ground running once we get to Colombia!  We don't land until after midnight on Wednesday morning and Thursday night (arriving Friday morning), we will be traveling to Bucaramanga to see some of the Smile Education Foundation's investments be put to work, which means we already get to see some precious little kids who are benefitting major from this program.  I cannot believe we have been given such an opportunity already but we are seriously like two jabbering monkeys just going non stop.  

On a more personal note, I realized today how much I've done in the past year and it made me feel really good.  From starting & finishing an internship at the State Department and surviving living in Washington, D.C. for a summer to moving straight back into Norman to start school and to start another internship under Tilley & Nichols.  Moved out of Norman and back home to Owasso, then onto Ecuador for an entire semester.  Although it wasn't legal to work while I was there so I couldn't have an internship, I learned and experienced SO much from my time abroad and gained some serious language skills for Spanish.  I also have a second family abroad AND my friends, who I seriously have shed tears over because I already miss them tons.  Now here I am, off to another place to live and work for a summer, this time it will all be in Spanish.  No worries though, blogs will be kept in English.  I'm actually really freakin' proud of myself because three years ago, if anyone had told me this was happening, I probably would not have believed them.  As cliché as it sounds.  But of course, in hindsight, everything is 20/20.

Thought I'd update y'all and let you know we're flying straight out of Dallas.  Hopefully American Airlines can't mess up a straight through flight like they messed up my Mother's Day surprise...

So keep us in your thoughts as we travel to BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA tomorrow!  

And if you need to get into contact with me, make sure you send TEXT MESSAGES instead of iMessages!  

Peace and blessings.

Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

-Helen Keller