EL SAlvador: Visit home

First things first, I want to share with all of you the GREAT news that Tonio arrived in New York this evening. He's safe, relatively healthy, and with his family!! YAY!!!!!

Now, I'll tell you all a little about my lovely visit home.

On July 24 I flew out of San Salvador and arrived around midnight in Boston. I got to spend my 23rd birthday (the 26th of July) with my family and friends in Boston, where we walked around, shopped, and ate and drank tons in the North End. It was a great day and awesome to see everyone. The day after my bday I headed up to Sandwich with my cousin, Anna, and some of my friends (Emma, Julianne, Jacqui, Mike, Joel, and Tim). We had a lot of fun up there and got to do a lot (hiking, swimming in the pothole, a trip to the creamery, etc). Once they left I stayed up in NH a couple extra days to be excessively lazy and visit with family. My aunt Lee and cousin Lucia drove up from NJ for a visit, and I got to see everybody who lives up there, which was awesome. The last leg of my journey was spent back in Massachusetts, spending more time with friends down there, visiting the best ocean (Atlantic, which also, by the way, is hypothermia-inducing), seeing The Dark Knight Rises (see below), and packing up my room, since my parents are in the process of moving into a condo in Boston (woo woo!).

All in all, the journey was a success. I got to see tons of people I missed, visit the places I love best, and eat everything (and I mean everything) that I miss when down here.

Now I'm back in El Salvador. I'm spending the next few days in San Salvador presenting at a conference for English teachers in the Central American region. I don't know how anyone believes that I am qualified to do this, but I am co-presenting with another PCV who is TEFL certified and has way more experience in the matter than I do, so I am definitely in more of a support role. Plus, since I have been spending so much of my volunteer time teaching my English class in Gotera, it is nice to attend some of the other workshops for helpful information and techniques, as well as to see motivated English teachers (who actually speak English! Imagine!) as a positive reinforcement. I'll be heading back to my site on Friday and sinking my teeth back in to life as a "normal" PCV, whatever that means.