A slight delay....who doesn't love Jersey?

Greetings from Newark! So....as some of you know we are supposed to be en route to Amsterdam this evening, but bad weather in Newark threw a wrench into the itinerary. So my plane (this is Hailey by the way) touched down in Buffalo NY to wait out the storm, while Lindsay and Michelle spent their delay in Cleveland. The plan at that point was to do whatever possible to meet up in Amsterdam. Seriously, if you had a choice between spending extended amounts of time in Amsterdam or in Newark, would it take you long to decide? But fate, as usual, has other plans. So Linds and Michelle made it from Cleveland to Newark and I made it in from Buffalo, just in time to miss both flights to Amsterdam. So Continental decides to put us up in a hotel with some food vouchers, and we're confirmed on flights to Amsterdam tomorrow and to Kilimanjaro the next day. At 9:20 everything seemed great, at 11:20 we were all ready to jump out the window. We were waiting for a shuttle to take us to the hotel, which never came. So we took an overpriced cab to the hotel to stand in line for another hour to check in at the hotel. Now, we finally get to sit and stretch our legs in this hotel room, and we're waiting on the pizza we ordered with our vouchers. And Jimmy Fallon is on.

It's not quite what we were expecting, but we are grateful that we are alive with all our faculties and we all packed toothbrushes in our carry-on luggage.

To Arusha or Bust!

We leave tomorrow!

Michelle is back in Portland, and Hailey is back in Salt Lake City ... and we leave tomorrow morning! We're all getting a little nervous ... that getting through customs will be complicated, that we will forget something important, or that we'll miss one of our flights!

Just can't wait to get there ... we'll finally get into Arusha around 1 pm Portland time on Wednesday. Yep, that's about 36 hours of traveling!

We'll update you when we get there!

Year one ... done!

We took our BBOD final today, and we are officially done with our first year of medical school ... I can't believe we made it! So now all we have to concentrate on getting ready for Tanzania. So tonight Lindsay and Michelle are camping out at REI to get some awesome gear. Hailey is going to join us in the morning and bring us coffee and bagels! Yesuh! We're hoping to get some sleeping bags, hiking boots, and headlamps tomorrow morning at incredibly discounted rates (that's our hopes!)

Today we learned all about how physicians and researchers can diagnose malaria by using Giemsa stain. Jane Kelly at the VA was spent a couple of hours with us today teaching us the procedure so we understand how the procedure works and can hopefully help out in the diagnostic procedure. Big thanks to her!

Only 11 days until we leave!

16 days to go!

Things are starting to come together ... so many wonderful people have assisted us with donations of time, advice, donations, and money. We are so grateful for all of the support. We are all starting to get excited ... we only have one more exam this Friday and then we are officially 2nd year medical students.

Hailey and Michelle went to REI today to scope out what supplies we need/want for the summer. It's amazing how much stuff you can convince yourselves that you "need" when you are in such an awesome store. We're checking out the used gear sale this weekend, which also means likely camping out the night before outside the store to get the best spot in line.

So we will try to keep this blog updated on our travels ... but we're not quite sure how reliable internet access will be. We found out from Molly Fuchs (the MS3 that is coordinating this trip) where some of the internet cafes are, but we're not sure how often we will be frequenting them. In other words, we probably won't have daily posts, but hopefully several times per week.

Time is running out ... and we still have so much to do!