Arrived in San Fran

November 12, 2006
San Francisco, CA
12:11pm

The flight from Newark was pretty smooth and we arrived a bit ahead of schedule. I met the other NJ group members as we walked from our gate to the baggage area and there we met up with participants from around the country – Alaska, Oregon, Texas. Once enough people arrived to fill the bus, we made the first trip to the hotel for the night near the airport. I’m sharing a room with another Matt from NJ, but for some reason he’s not here yet. It’s a bit of a mystery at this point. I ate lunch with Jason (also from NJ) and women from Oregon, Colorado and California. The table included a wide array of international travel experiences. The most interesting, for now, came from Carrie, who served in the Peace Corps for a few years and then taught at international schools. She’d also been to Australia and New Zealand in the past few years on her own. Many of the NJ teachers here teach or live in the Bergen County area, near where I grew up. Jason, who teaches at Creskill High School, and I had an interesting conversation with Kevin, from Alaska, about our school districts. Kevin is in my local prefecture group as well so we’ll be together a good deal throughout the program. At lunch we received daily schedules for the entire program duration so I’ll be able to post them as we move forward.