I’m not convinced the last four days have only been four days. Each one has been jam packed in multiple ways that make me feel like each was multiple days itself.

Thursday we spent most of the day at a boba cafe with Evan catching up on his job while I sent some networking emails ahead of our next steps. Once we got home, laundry and re-sorting our luggage From our time traveling separately took more time than I expected.

Friday we took a ten hour journey for a hour long meeting that was 45 minutes from our host house. What a joy public transit is. The meeting itself, with the Pompano Beach Rotary Club, was a good one. I was able to see Pascale, another amazing RYLA Senior Counselor (SC), and to reconnect with our shared Junior Counselor, Lucy. I also got to meet a RYLA attendee who was not on my team and see Tony, another RYLA SC, who I was excited to find out was also in Pascale’s club. Despite the joy of reconnection and of another day talking RYLA, the multi bus, train, and Uber trip had me past exhausted. However, after a nap, my energy was boosted when our host, Edgar, invited us out for pizza and drinks. We went to a fantastic little bar in Miami that we never would have found on our own.

Despite a late night out, Saturday morning we were up and ready for our shift volunteering at a local soup kitchen. The early morning crew had already taken care of food prep so we were on cleaning duty. The scrubbing, mopping, and dishes made me feel like I was back working in a restaurant again but Evan made the whole thing a lot more relaxed. After our shift, we went out for lunch to a little arepa window off a gas station that Edgar had recommended. Again, never would have found it on my own and oh my gosh thank goodness for locals who know where the best food is. Stuffed full of arepas we walked back to the house, took a food coma nap, and struggle bussed our way through several transportation flaws that decided to make my next month potentially more difficult.

Shout out to Evan and my family and our wonderful host for mitigating all of the aforementioned transportation flaws and helping keep me sane. Edgar agreed to host us for a few more days, my family double checked my panic about my schedule and helped find us other options, and Evan as always was my last brain cell that kept me from freaking out. With all that figured out, I spent some time doing job applications and then finally cooked an actual non-pasta dinner for us for the first time in a few days.