Road Trip!

We started out our week with an exciting eight hour road trip from College Park to Knoxville, TN! Although many of us slept the whole time, we were very thankful for our drivers: Liz, Charlie, Yosef and Kalani. We stopped for lunch at a McDonalds in the middle of Virginia and were greeted by a very hospitable staff. After finishing lunch, we got back on the road and arrived at the First United Methodist Church of Maryville, where we will be staying for the next week. The church is so nice and so big, we're calling it a megachurch. Once we settled in, some of us went grocery shopping. We got very strange looks in the store when we were arguing over which brand of mac and cheese to get. It was a very heated discussion. Thankfully, we comprised and went back to the megachurch to make dinner. We had a mock Chipotle night and everyone was very content. After dinner we participated in our first reflection, in which we came up with a list of community rules to be carried out for the rest of our time together. Then we had a discussion about what it looks like to be an active citizen using the active citizen continuum. It was a great way to start the week and to start bonding with each other! We are looking forward to the exciting activities that Liz and Yosef have planned for us!

Yours truly,

Amanda and Liz