(South) Philly Cheese Steak.

Pre-service training involves a ½ day of training, paperwork and awkward icebreakers.  Mostly its time to meet the fellow volunteers in your group (mine is M25) and prepare for your departure from the states on the next morning.  Of course I made my trip to Philly somewhat of an event. Instead of flying from Albany to Philly I decided it would be great if my mom and I went on a road trip and my Aunt Norma was even able to join us.  With excellent directions from our GPS and Uncle Gordon we made our way to the Hampton Inn at Center City Philadelphia. We had a delicious dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant on the recommendation of Razz the concierge at the hotel.  We started our time in Philly with an evening ghost story tour of this beautiful and historic city. It was really a cool way to see some of the historic buildings with a little bit of “scary.”  We retired early at the hotel and the next morning after a delicious continental breakfast my comrades decided to sign up for a city tour and had a fun time (according to the pictures on my camera) while I went through hours of training and paperwork.  After training and resorting my over packed bags we all decided to head to South Philly for “the best Philly cheese steak” in all of Philadelphia.  I am not going to lie, the cheese steaks were DELICIOUS but I don’t think the expensive cab ride to south Philly was worth it.  I returned back to the hotel to write thank you notes and my mom and Aunt Norma walked to the corner shop to buy milkshakes.  That was my last taste of the delicious dairy products that America has to offer.  The next morning I left for JFK on a bus with 70 of my soon-to-be comrades in Moldova.