And so it begins...

Currently, I am lying in my bed in my dorm room in Ghana! It is almost 2:30 am, so I'm not going to write too much, but here's a quick little intro into the few things that have happened so far.

I traveled here with a girl named Sarah that I know from work. She's an absolute sweetheart, and it was so great having someone to travel with me. We took a 7 hour flight from Newark, NJ to London yesterday. We didn't really have enough time to make it into the city, but it was still nice to break up the flight. Last night we stayed at a hotel, got dinner there, and got a little bit of sleep. We had breakfast at the hotel this morning, then went back to the airport to go to Ghana! 

When we first boarded the plane, there was a little incident with a man who was a criminal being deported back to Ghana on our flight. He didn't want to go. He stopped yelling after about 10 minutes, and the flight attendant informed us that it would be okay, because he was handcuffed and accompanied by two police officers. It worked out to be fine for the rest of the flight, but it certainly shook up our nerves.

The rest of the flight went perfectly. It was another long 7 hours of flying, but we got to see some great views of the Sahara Desert (I'll post some pictures later this week). It was really exciting to land, knowing that we were entering our home for the next four months!

It turns out about half of our study abroad program was on that flight. Sarah and I met a bunch of people in line at immigration. Then, we managed to get our luggage and make our way out of the airport. A few pieces of luggage didn't make it, but thankfully none of the missing bags were mine. The director of the program and one of the CRAs (Community Resource Advisors) met us with a NYU in Ghana sign. We loaded all of our luggage into a couple of vans, and made our way to our dorms.

I'm rooming with a girl from New Hampshire named Whitney. We actually started talking in line to board the flight to Ghana, and she seems really great. We live in a complex of four little houses with apartments in between for the CRAs. There are a couple little courtyards for the complex and balconies for each of the houses. Whitney and I share a house with three guys (I think there are five in our program? haha). There are bathrooms connected to each of the bedrooms, a common area thats about as big as the living room in my house, a little dining area with 6 chairs, a kitchen (that was stocked with food and drinks when we got here) and a washer/dryer. I'm not going to lie--it's a really sweet deal (pictures later this week).

We all loaded back into the vans to go get some food, since it was 10:30 and we hadn't eaten in hours. There were only a few places open, so we stopped and ordered some pizza to take back. We first ordered two large pizzas for 8 of us. Then we discovered that large pizzas in Accra are about the size of small or medium pizzas in the US. We ended up ordering some more to make sure we all got plenty of food.

We came back and ate the pizza in the dining area of our house. It was really fun to get to chat with some of the people that are going to be my comrades for the next four months. Everyone seems really different, but really fun. It's going to be interesting living with this small of a program (I think there are about 30 of us) and getting to know everyone so well.

Around midnight, Whitney and I headed up to our room to unpack. It took several hours, but we have plenty of space for the two of us. We actually have an extra bed, because my bed is a bunk bed. All of the beds are doubles though, which is really nice. We have four closets, all of which quickly filled with our stuff.

This "quick" update has turned into a play-by-play of the past 24 hours. Tomorrow, we have orientation stuff all day and for most of the evening. It's going to be a busy week!

I'm so excited to be here. And now, I'm quite tired. Time to sleep my first sleep of this crazy adventure :-D.