My Peace Corps Friends

From time to time I will mention people in my blog and I thought that perhaps some of you would like to have a face or the names that I mention in my blog. So here are some pictures and a bit of a description of some of the most important people in my life here in Armenia. I will do this a little bit at a time because it takes so incredibly long to upload pictures here.
By the way, thank you to everyone who filled out a card for my mom to send to send to me. Care packages are amazing and I have the best mom in the world for sending me a perfect package!

So first and foremost are the two girls that have been with me since day zero! We all came from the west so we had to take a flight up to DC a day before everyone else.

In the middle is Marissa. Marissa was my roommate for the first week and a half of the Peace Corps. Marissa is awesome, we met at the airport in DC, and ever since then she has been such an awesome friend! She is from New Mexico, graduated college a year ago I believe with a major in Spanish, haha and now she is in Armenia, not using her Spanish at all. She is a self described hippie, but a girly one at that. We navigated our way through Viennra together, along with Ashley and when I dislocated my jaw, she was the one that insisted I go to the hospital. She brought soft foods up to my room when I couldn’t eat and was all around amazing to me, even letting me use her pillow so I could prop my head up and make it not move. Marissa is always active and is one of the most social people I have met. I love Marissa and am so lucky that she waited for me in the DC airport, and that since then we have been such good friends. Hopefully when I get placement on Wednesday she won’t be too far from me.

On the right is Ashley Jan. Ashley is amazing! We also met on our first night in DC and ever since then we have been giggling our way through tech sessions i.e. training. She is from Kansas and just graduated with a communications degree. Ashley is girly girl like me. We even accessorize when we go hiking! We talk about boys and family and food, and sometimes we even gossip together. Ashley is seriously the sweet girl that everyone loves. She is friends with everyone and even when we are being followed around by some weirdo in the market she remains polite, whereas I just give him a dirty look and walk away. If it weren’t for Ashley I would never get hugs or girl talk. If Ashley and I are placed near each other, it’s going to be two years of a ridiculously good time! Oh the trouble we will get into! I am so glad that she is here.
Ashley + Marissa are my best friends here, we just all click and are similar yet completely different types of people.

In the middle is the first A-18er (that is Armenia group 18) that I talked to. This is Alex, and he is pretty much my best friend here! He helped me decide what to buy before I came, and along with Marisa and Ashley was one of the first people I met in DC. We had our last U.S. dinner together as well as our last U.S. shots! When I dislocated my jaw Alex took pretty good care of me! Alex is super funny and constantly has me laughing. When either of us have a bad day we call each other and complain. Alex is from Florida and is my fellow conservative here, and if there are any others, they haven’t spoke up yet. The Peace Corps is pretty liberal. I really hope Alex is near to my site too. Him, Marisa, or Ashley, I need one of them to be near me!!

PS. DAD, please note that in both pictures I do not have a beer! Everyone else does but not me =) I am being good!