Thursday, October 1, 2009

Georgia's Blog Day 1


Sun. 27 September

My flight was on a tiny airplane with only 2 seats per row. As I was boarding I met another girl whom I recognized as Courtney Freyhauf, Arctic Ambassador from Ohio. We sat amid a plane full of hunters. We talked for the whole hour and a half flight, annoying all the other passengers with our incessant gabbing. Then we met the bubbly Kathy Myers and Kaylie (one of the Australian Ambassadors) at the Winnipeg airport. We chatted and waited for some others to arrive before crossing the street to the Four Points Sheraton. There we spent a few hours getting to know each other as all sixteen ambassadors arrived. Everyone is really easy to talk to and cool and funny and not nearly the collection of nerdy misfits I expected. There are a lot of overachievers though. I immediately connected with the Canadians, I think because of our proximity. Everyone else had these fantastic stories about their long journeys to get to Winnipeg and how they had never been somewhere so cold. Sadly I could not commiserate in the sentiments about how exotic Canada was. My favorite moment was when Mirielle for Quebec (aka Mimi) asked me if I was sick or if my voice always sounded like this. Yep. Someone else asked me the difference between Minneapolis and St. Paul.
We did icebreakers in the conference room for a while and watched a presentation by the MAAN (Manitoba Arctic Ambassadors Network). Then we got our beautiful goose-down with coyote fur trim jackets. We had a discussion that justified having real fur on the jackets, and it actually made sense though I cannot explain it in writing. The jackets are absolutely fantastic, but they make us all look like obese Smurfs. The girls came to Courtney and me’s after supper where we had great conversations, mostly comparing lifestyles with people from around the U.S and Australia. We also all made grand plans of visiting each other and sneaking home with the Aussies in their luggage. Even though we have an early flight tomorrow, I am too excited to sleep!

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