I didn't sleep for a minute. I spent the whole night packing my bag and trying to get ready to be able to catch my flight. I had no clue what to pack, I ended up with one large bag and a smaller one, if you saw those bags you might start thinking that I am leaving the country for good! I even ended up paying
extra fees for my second bag, since it contained liquid and sharp items that are not allowed on the plane.
I slept through the whole flight! I only woke up for the landing. I was a little tense since I am not used to traveling alone, on non-business trips, and it is always a bit intimidating to do that. I was always this shy, timid, closed-up girl who needs a "safe person" to go with to any place because I hate being alone in a crowd. In my last retreat I cracked my shell a bit, and this was a second crack in my shell that would eventually help me get out of my tightly closed bubble.
I knew someone was going to pick me up from the airport, but I got no messages confirming that, or asking if I got on the plane or anything of the sort, so I was secretly worried that upon my arrival I would find no one to pick me up. As soon as I arrived I kept looking around for a man holding a sign or anything that would lead me to my transportation, until I finally recognized the organizer from a video I had seen earlier, and headed right there. Apparently I had a lot of people with me on my flight who were also joining the retreat, I knew no one, and they all seemed to be pretty acquainted or at least knew someone in common. I started getting more tense and freaking out even though they were all more than nice to me and tried to include me in their conversations constantly. I didn't meet anyone else for a while, though I knew we were a very large group, so I was expecting to meet many more people. eventually we met a few more people who also turned out to know the group, which made me feel a little more out of place. In my last retreat the first person I met was a girl who also joined the retreat without knowing anyone else, which made things a tiny bit easier for me, especially that we bonded instantly. But this was terrifying, I had no clue what to expect, and the feeling of not belonging just kept growing and growing.
The group decided to go for lunch, I didn't want to be rude though I was very tired, so I decided to join them. The moment I knew the golf cart was full I decided to retreat, I really really REALLY needed to sleep. So Instead of the hassle I felt that this would make so much more sense, I needed to rest to be able to face whatever this retreat brings. I slept, from 2 pm to 7 pm! I really needed to sleep. I called up room service since I hadn't eaten anything since the day before and everyone was having their last meals before they need to farewell food for 14 days. The food was terrible, everything was just plain bad, even the things you would think are hard to screw up. The man said one dish came with fries, it just never showed up, and the fresh orange juice I had ordered seemed to have lost its way in the woods. It was just a terrible meal. I headed to our meeting room and met a few more people, got acquainted with what we were expected to do. A different group decided to go out for dinner, the last supper before the fast, but I retreated, I wasn't yet feeling in place and I felt that even this group knew each other, so I didn't want to feel more out of place than I already was. This plus the fact that I had just had a terrible meal made dinner for me a sure no. I decided to spend the rest of the night in my room, unwinding and watching TV.
When I headed to my room guess who showed up there waiting for me? My missing orange juice! It finally found its way and after tasting it I was kind of wishing that it had fallen in a sink hole or something. It was the worst orange juice ever! It was even separated, and very very very acidic, a real juice nightmare. I watched some Tv and eventually later at night I felt hungry, or just had the urge to eat, so I decided to have a last supper of my own and did the great mistake of re-ordering room service, I didn't know any other available option. I ordered something safe and very hard to screw up, I ordered a margarita pizza, with extra fresh mushrooms if that was available. Ofcourse the mushrooms were only a fantasy, they didn't have any, and the pizza was one of the worst I have ever had in my life. I usually have a thing against adding ketchup to pizza cause it ruins the taste of everything about the pizza, but in this case I happily added all the ketchup I had, and when I was out of ketchup I added mustard, it was just not something I would eat unconcealed.
Tomorrow we start the fast, I have no idea what to expect, but we will see...
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