greetings from alabama

I feel like I have been down here forever already, in a good way! the drive here was pretty interesting, i left virginia incredibly early and made my way down here, made loads of stops along the way and finally made it to Alabama around 2 and it was gorgeous out. I felt like as soon as I made it to the boarder of Alabama and Georgia, it was instantly sunny and about 70 out :) I am living in a staff cabin with 4 other girls, 2 other new girls and 2 returning staff. the girls are all really cool, this girl Julia [from florida] and I seemed to hit it off right away and she is my new bud. there is a girl Krista [from north carolina] who is also new, and the 3 of us share a bathroom, but we all have our own rooms :) and then Cody [from Virginia] and Ruby [from Tenn] are the 2 returning staff. our building has a kitchen, 2 computers, a tv/dvd/wii, kitchen and table, 2 couches and lots of space for us to hang out. It is super nice living here because the 3 boys, Josh [tenn] Daniel [tenn] and Zach [georgia] live in their own cabins, and I am pretty sure i would HATE that! then Adam, my boss, and Kim, the lead teacher live off site. But we all get along really really well and I really like spending time with them tus far, we have also spent every waking hour together so far, which is nice.
so, tuesday we didn't really do anything, walked around the camp and played frisbee and just hung out. wednesday training started, we have training until March 10, seems like forever, but it is much needed. there are 25 different classes that we need to know how to teach, along with all the different trails and just all the procedures. I feel like I am already learning so so much though. I learned how to tie about a zillion different knots, we hiked to split rock, which is just 2 rocks which made a cave like place that you crawl through and then come out this smallish hole and get pulled through, and this is a very popular thing the students sign up to do and we had to learn how to pull and guide the kids and it was a fun experience. So far, my favorite thing I have done is probably split rock because I had to challenge myself to actually go into this tiny/dark cave. I am also loving all the games we are learning to do.
We went out into "town" which is fort payne, al on thursday night to wal mart, i needed to get an alarm clock and some granola bars and such, but WOW it is an experience here! the wal mart is enormous and just the people are so incredibly interesting. alabama is a good place to people watch. i pretty much was in culture shock i think! the worst part is having no cell phone service. I forgot how much i relied on my phone! it is frustrating because i just feel like i am so disconnected from everyone, but i almost like it because i don't even think about it when we are working.
i am super excited to explore this weekend! we are going to go to a flea market to get some cheap things for our rooms and to just explore a little bit. we are also going back to wal mart and then maybe over to desoto falls, which is a state park not far from camp, we can hike there, which is going to be so nice once it gets a little warmer out.