Day 4 July 14

Day 4 July 14

“Creating an impact in the International Community”

This day required a lot of energy and work from us, it was a day spent entirely in the hotel.

Got up, sported a black tank top with a stylish blazer, a tight black skirt and purple flats. That just did it. Headed to breakfast with the girls for an hour and then off to our LGMs

Today was another kinda simulation day, this time it was about Peace and security.

For two hours and a half we managed to analyze peace and security, draft a policy and have a World Bank Briefing.

International Economics Panel

After LGM we had 3 speakers, I can’t remember all their names but one of them was Mr. Jon Kuhl, public affairs, media specialist, National Conference of State Legislatures. I honestly don’t remember anything they talked about.. they didn’t know how to answer half of the questions but managed to crack jokes about it.

Had lunch for an hour with the usual group… it’s so funny how whenever we walk together we somehow looked like a Benetton Advertisement. Then again back to LGMs to write proposals (they wrote, I just took videos and goofed around… which I kinda regret)

and took pictures of one of my favorite Australian girls that I kept calling Adele, she looked like her!) writing the proposal took forever! Mainly because 11 people were trying to speak and we only had one writer. They were all saying the same thing but in a different kind of way … it was all common sense yet it took us around 2 hours to write it. down here with the cup is whom i call Adele :D

the girl under the chair without shoes is well... you guessed it. Hippie!

The next two hours were dedicated to the Peace and Security simulation in the Security council rooms… nothing special…

Then dinner… then LGM… where we debriefed about it. After LGMs we were sent back to our rooms to change into casuals for GYLC Olympics.

GYLC Olympics was basically a bunch of stations for each country group and we roamed around the room playing the games and trying to get high scores to win. It was extremely boring, pointless and I wasn’t in the mood for it. Neither was Jaques, or Engian who kept looking but not saying anything or approaching to talk.. he must have been bbming his GF.. or something because he just couldn’t get his eyes off his phone! Sadly I had no service at all,,, which is why I didn’t enjoy the Olympics as much.

While they were counting the numbers to see which country group won, we all had to be seated on the floor with our groups. I was sitting in the front with Jae and the group on our front left side had Naomi in it, who was also sitting in front and the group to my right side had my SA model like blondie friend and Jaques. Naomi kept giving me weird glances and Jae noticed them too. I was still ignoring Jaques. It was sooo annoying! Whenever I decide I hate him he somehow knows and comes up and talks to me! After that we were treated to a cupcake buffet outside.

So I walked back to my building only to find a bunch of people in the entry way.. like 4 girls with Naomi and on the other side Jaques and 2 of friends.. AWKWARD MUCH? I didn’t say anything and walked in to get to the stairs. He grabs me by the shoulder and says: “ we gonna play soccer soon, my friend Dierdrich will get us a soccer ball” me: yeah soon, apparently one of the guys said if we could get 20 people to sign a paper mentioning they want to play then one of the FA’s will let us play on grass.” Him: “oh that’s great then” and winks. I forgot half of how the conversation went but then the four girls with Naomi suddenly all wanted to play. Yeah they all had crushes on him .. that’s for sure!

Day 3

Day 3

“ENGAGING IN DIPLOMATIC PARTNERSHIPS”

This day was one of the busiest days we had. Also most interesting + Opened many doors and brought in new ideas.

It was the type of day where you’d wanna wake up with a smile on your face, get up from bed easily do your daily morning stuff to get ready .. put on an outfit and head out.

Yeah well not for me.. I woke up moody, grumpy whatever it is you name it and that’s how horrible my mood was. I stayed in bed as long as possible not caring if I was late or not, ignored all bbms, got up to get dressed .. couldn’t decide what to wear.. until

I saw the perfect dress in the corner, a beigey beautifull sleevless dress with a skinny waist belt in the middle to go with it, topped it off with navy blue croche cardigan since shoulders had to be covered. The dress made the hair a bit tidier somehow..

put on tan colored flats with red leather patch in the front and accessorized myself with gold jewelry and a grey Hermes bag. Still I was in no mood to go out yet. It was still 6:30 am and breakfast was at 7.. so I headed to star bucks speedily, grabbed my frapp and headed back to my room. I even avoided my South African girls. Once back in my room both my room mates left, I put on my headphones and listened to Adele’s one and only to make me feel better, grabbed my GYLC book and started reading the case study.. couldn’t go in looking like an idiot..( especially since I was the least one to participate and not care about the simulations. I had a role to fill in and a small speech to give to our leader. Nothing made sense! Yet I tried .. thanking god that my part had to do with technology.. I bullshited, closed the book and headed to my LGM. earphones still on, I really did look like a junkie! Not enough sleep re

sulted in black circles under my eyes… among other things… such as my unexplainable mood. I was late too, had to avoid the crowd on the stairs too, as soon as I got in everyone was just quietly sitting in their seats we get a state department briefing from Ashley then an Embassy briefing, we were told to get our passports and ID’s because security was tight. I liked the sound of that, we were going to places that weren’t open to the public, special treatment hell yeah!

We boarded the buses, I greeted Lola and sat beside her. First stop was the State department, we were told not to take cameras and phones or bags, just ID’s. there wasn’t anything special about the building.. just the room where all the conferen

ces were held. We got seated next to the podium and were soon told that HILARY CLINTON WAS IN THE BUILDING! I was so excited I thought she was going to give us a speech! To my disappointment it turns out that she had a meeting upstairs with foreign Leaders and couldn’t greet us. Shame. 30 minutes later our speaker walked in late.. she was an old woman named Tamra Wittes

, Hilary’s assistant I think .. she was Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. < in other words the middle east) and she started talking about the middle east and all its problems.. it ws common sense stuff and nothing we haven’t heard of before. She talked about Egypt and how the poverty line is high and that half the population lives under a dollar a day. It was time for questions and an Egyptian boy went up and introduced himself… two seconds later everyone was applauding. 1 because he was there with us. 2. Because he made it there. And he asked a question, the type of question ive been waiting for all summer long it went something like this “ How can WE as the youth, help change these situations” only problem was that she didn’t answer us directly, therefore I’m left answer less. Then Ali.. Mr. know it all from Pakistan went up and asked a similar question to someone else’s “ such as why isn’t the states helping Bahrain?” and she answered some shit like “ we offered but its in their hands, as a country” bull. After asking his question he was supposed to say thank you and head back to his seat. Instead he went on and said “ My friend’s friend lives in Bahrain and he was there in the protests and witnessed everything he was shot and killed…….” Something like that.. Everyone was just like :O wth. Both Lola and I exchanged glances then everyone started clapping… im guessing to kill the awkwardness or maybe to encourage him, it seemed that he had some anger within and just let it out. I don’t blame him but it felt like he was going to get a good little speech from one of the FA’s about respect. After the speech we were dismissed by bus number, we were first. And as we were leaving Engian was sitting by the door talking to his friend and looking at me, exchanged smiles and kept walking. By that time I was all chilled out and it was time for lunch at DuPont Circle. We decided to wait for all the buses to arrive to regroup with the South Africans and head out for Lunch. While we were standing there Jaques talked to one of the S.A girls with us The blonde model looking one and then came up to me said something about my dress and gave me his bbm pin.. I SWEAR THAT DRESS WORKED WONDERS! Of course the girls all ‘ooed’ and then off we went to a burger shop to eat. It was pretty fun, full of good funny memories took pictures outside. Honestly we were too dressed up to be in there. After that we headed to a cupcake store we were all craving but sadly no Red velvet and then back to the buses meeting point. Each bus was then divided into two groups and sent to different embassies. We were invited to 10 embassies: Austria, Azerbaijan, Belize, Bahamas, Japan, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago and Saudi Arabia. Lola’s group went to Saudi Arabia while we went to Trinidad and Tobago’s ( Where Nicki Minaj came from) I didn’t know everyone on the bus but Bahraini boy was with me and so was one of the girls from my LGM, we called her hippie.. according to her introduction back on the first day. “hi name is… and im a hippie” yeah I have it on video too!

We kept complaining about the hot weather and wished it would rain, we waited outside the embasy for what seemed like eternity, until a dark man in a suit and long braided hair came out and apologized telling us they forgot about us and weren’t expecting us, and couldn’t take us in but instead they were going to show us the house next door which belonged the Trinidadian ambassador. As soon as we entered we were greeted by a large entrée room, a beautiful dark brown grand piano on the right then the stairs and straight ahead were a Tin man or a soldier in a defense costume holding a shield made of gold. The guy asked us if we knew who or what that drawing was on the gold shield and I yelled VERSACE, then an idiot had to answer correctly “Medusa” pshhh how boring could they be?

The house was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L, the walls were wallpapered the ceilings were embroidered with wood, and what wood that was! The wood itself was carved with details little drawings that I fell in love with. Now that’s what I call art! And the t=dining room table.. what a table! It was exceptionally long and ongoing and also had wood work. They also showed us the kitchen upstairs of course all made out of stainless steel, the man didn’t know what to say so he started telling us about his days in Trinidad… the man partied 24/z apparently that’s all they did there in the streets for days. We were done and waiting for our bus, as we looked out we noticed that it was dark and raining. Wow Hippie should have asked or a million dollars instead. as we waiting the man decided to show us the rooms in the basement me” what is there a wine cellar or something?” in a mimicking way. And to much of my surprise.. there was! It was so cool it looked like just what a wine cellar looks like! Except the wine was imported from somewhere unknown in the world and was over 300 years old. They weren’t bottles, but they were BARRELS big barrels of wine that have been preserved for years. That must be worth more than the house itself. We thanked them and received a little present from them too on our way out. Each bag had a couple of pamphlets about the country and what it has to offer. No one expected it to rain therefore our plans had to change. Instead of going to the memorials, we were going to go back to the hotel and do the simulation. We all headed back to our LGMs, debriefed and went down to dinner. What really sucked about the u.s was the fact that dinner was at 6pm instead of the normal.. 9pm or 10pm.. so most of the time we had very little to eat because we were barely hungry.. but of course we had loads of snacks back in my room. We had an 1:40 minutes before the simulation yet we finished dinner in less than 20 minutes. So gathered the girls and headed back to my room to chill. On our way there old roomie decides that we should all walk together through one swivel door, like in one triangle if you know what I mean… and of course like idiots we did.. and got stuck in there for a few seconds LMAO. We chilled, watched TV, ate Reese’s cups and other junk food and then decided we should all split back to our rooms and have showers and change. As usual whenever old roomie comes back to my room there must be something fishy going on.. this time she was all smiles and hyper, two seconds later she flashes us her butt.. WELL I CAN FINALLLY SAY IVE SEEN A FULL MOON IN JULY! It was just like.. BAM! Out of nowhere! And she only had one Redbull! Where on the other hand.. when Lola has 2 or 3 Redbulls she’s just still very quiet mysterious and normal. No balance whatsoever

Anyways… so yeah … back to LGMS we had to relocate to different rooms according to our little groups. I was the information attaché for Venezuela meaning I had to record/write whatever each country has to offer. Thankfully old roomie was in the simulation with me, Naomi was there too and even more annoying than ever.. and Amanda, one of the most funniest Puerto Ricans was sitting to my left. She made the whole simulation worth attending! Give this girl a little pint of sugar and with her energy she could give Washington D.C enough power for a week! It was uncontrollable but funny; she had the sort of laugh that would make you laugh even more! Not much happened though Naomi wouldn’t give anyone face, it showed how full of herself she was. And uuughh that accent of hers was so annoying that I cursed the day that bimbo accent was created! After that we all had to go back to the dining hall for some evening social.. it wasn’t an evening social it was a trivia event. They asked us stupid questions and we answered.. boohoo. Though the ending was extremely fun! So the director went up on stage and said her famous quote “ GOOOD EVENING SCHOLARS” in a monotonic stoned kinda way and then excused all of the boys out of the room so she could have a chat with us girls.. of course the Trinidadian number TURTY from bus one wanted to know what she was going to say and decided to hide under one of the tables. The girls couldn’t hold their giggles and soon enough one of the FA’s figured it out. The director lost as she was.. had no idea. Turns out the girls on the second and third floor were making way too many noises and talking out loud in the morning that other guests at the Sheraton filed complaints.. it was really not worth hiding under a table for. We all left and the director realizes there’s a guy under the table and decides to have a few words with him.. nothing serious though.

this is the famous " good morning scholars" video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcA-sW-PcfE

Day 2, July 12

Day 2 July 12

Woke up really early so we could take turns using the bathroom by 7 I met up with the S.A girls in the lobby and then headed to star bucks and the breakfast buffet. The breakfast was briefly eggs, bacon and sausages they weren’t bad but the eggs were flavorless. Breakfast was … interesting because blonde boy Jaques sat with us and right across from me, the girls all have bfs so they weren’t interested and almost wanted to turn this into a mission trying to make me talk to him. We left a few minutes later to get to our LGMs. This LGM meeting was my favorite. We talked about cross cultural and generalization… what we first see when we visit a country. It then turned into a discussion and we formed into smaller groups and started labeling things onto a poster that had a drawing of an iceberg. Things that were seen in a country’s culture were drawn on the top of the iceberg and the ones visible in the middle and the rest under and sooo on.

After the cross cultural activity…

We had a politics of trade briefing which led to our first simulation,(continued later) basically, the scenario we were given was a dispute between two major aircraft companies “BOEING” a European company < the ones Middle east airline’s uses sometimes… and “Airbus” (American company) the issue was that one of the companies was given more subsidies than the other (or something like that) * a subsidy is basically… money ( a little help) from the government to help promote a private or public firm. So as Global Young Leaders or “Scholars” we were to pretend that we are these two companies and try to solve the issue. All 25 of us were divided into two equal groups and 5 or 6 people were to be part of The Council (in a normal case… the Judges)…but they had to be elected… long story made short, Jae was elected as president AND MYYY may I say! One day this gentle man will be the president of Barbados! < That’s where he’s from, that’s where Rihanna is from too ( I bet you just went like.. ooooh yeahh now I know where that is!) ( well.. I said that too when I met Jae an

d his Barbadian friends) Quick intro to where the 25 people in my LGM Venezuela group were from. A mr know it all was from Pakistan, he really was a genius that loved to argue and known as the blunt one < just like me. 2 were from Barbados, 1 was from the Bahamas, South Africa, Philippines/Taiwan, Honkong and Beijing, Switzerland/Holland 4 from Australia ( Sweetest people EVER), India, Sweden, Netherlands, Argentina, UAE the U.K and the U.S.

After the politics of trade discussion we boarded our buses and headed to George Town for lunch!The bus count story:

Lola and I sat next to each other.. we were on bus 1, the best bus ever! In total we had 8 yellow tourist buses that took us everywhere, these buses were HUGE they had free wifi ( most importantly) among other.. less important things… oh and a tiny bathroom that no one used. Since whatever was dumped in there was to remain with us for the next 10 days. Each bus fit around 56 people or “scholars”, and each one of us had their own bus count number for security reasons. We were to count our numbers out loud in order till 56. Sounds easy, but not when youre sitting beside your friend all the way in the back and a tiny little girl in front says her number so low that you cant hear her and then the faculty advisor yells out your number on the microphone.. which leads to embarrasement.. and after you yell out your number she makes everyone start all over again from number 1. Number 1 belonged to a Bahraini boy, awesome man who will one day become a very important figure. Number never join

ed the conference so he always had to yell 1 AND 2 in a funny arab ac

cent. Now the accents… those were the funniest and best memories of our bus! It was like laughing therapy. Specially when you have a Columbian that has the same accent Sofia Vergara from Modern Family, has… his number was 21 “twinty waaan” And a Trinidadian accent, he was number 30 “tuuuhhhty” then once in New York Phae yelled out Im so tuuuuhsty trying to mimick him and we just all laughed till we cried. or an Australian one! #10 “tiiiin” we literally spent most of our time on buses trying to get from one place to another.

George Town

Once we got to George Town we were set free from the Fa’s (Faculty advisors) it was only 12 pm and already scorching hot.

The type of heat we have back in the mid east!

The streets were designed with beautiful violet plants and trees. All clean with no signs of plastic bags drifting through the wind < HAH! And the sky was clear blue just the way they photoshop them in ads. We didn’t do much, other than have salads in an Italian place and shop a little. WE left George town’s heat and headed back to the Sheraton where we had another speech about Interacting in the Global Community: Cross-Cultural Communication and Leadership by Dr. Gary Weaver, who’s (old) a professor in the School of International Service, American University. I don’t remember much of what he said but he had a power point of the same Iceberg we had in our LGM’s and was basically saying the same things we said. We were sitting all the way in the back and of course I couldn’t NOT make any comments and be quiet… the usual. To my surprise there was an FA right behind me and I didn’t notice until after we were done. Congratulations on embarrassing yourself. After the speech we got on the buses again and had to repeat the bus count 3 times! It was annoying but fun at the same time, we headed to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial and Thomas Jefferson Memorial. There was a lot of walking to be done and I sure as hell wasn’t too happy about, neither were any of the girls in flats. This was only the second day and we all had our feet covered, designed and camouflaged with all assorted types of Band Aids. Took a couple of pictures here and there, Roosevelt was known for his quotes and there were a couple of goods ones that we’ve all heard of before.

After that memorial we got bored and I did some stalking of my own, I stalked Jaques.. who was walking with that one pretty girl with the most annoying personality and attitude. She was ALL over him and he didn’t mind. So yeah actually before that I found out he has a girlfriend and wasn’t telling any of the girls.. but he did tell one of the guys that hes not ‘getting’ with any girls but hes going to make every single one of them like him! Wow. The cockyness! That’s when I was like AW HELL NO! 3 can play at a game! I hated him but didn’t want to show it. So yeah this girl ( Let’ give her a mean girl’s name.. Naomi) Naomi I actually thought she was my friend back from Kuwait Faye and I was sooo close to calling her except she looked at me and BLANK no expression nothing, so yeah wasn’t her. She actually looked like two girls, Faye and Sarah.. both pretty much known in Kuwait. I then asked a couple of people if they knew who she was and I was told she was from the Caribbean islands.. yeah definitely not my friend.. but imagine her flawless look and tan! She models and had that most annoying American accent, of course every girl would hate her. After we reached the top of the stairs and into the small famous dome where Thomas Jefferson is sitting in his chair we look out straight and notice that the long famous pool in front is no longer there, they had actually dug it all up to change the pool tiles and make them greener. Some people told me there were dead fish lying around in the dirty left over water. SAD how SAD! It was still very hot, all 400 of us sat on the stairs and took a couple of group pictures… then back to the hotel for an LGM meeting to prepare for the Politics of trade simulation. ( the one between Boeing and Airbus).

Then dinner was served ( I don’t remember much) Oh but I talked to Jaques and some other guys and we all wanted to play soccer, except we had no ball.

After dinner all 400 of us had to take the glass stairs up to the LGMs we weren’t allowed to use the elevators because “other guests at the Sheraton need to use them” There was NO WAY that I was cramming myself with everyone else on those stairs taking one step at a time, specially with that knee of mine. A few minutes later I noticed a tall boy beside me doing the same thing and I actually thought he was the one sitting beside me at dinner and I decided to continue our conversation about football: the most uniting topic that is talked about all over the world. We all spoke football. And this is how our conversation went: (Let’s call him Engian)

Me: So yeah we’ll play soccer whenever we get a ball and have some free time

Engian: im sorry what? ( with that perfect british accent)

Me: oh sorry weren’t you sitting beside me at dinner? My god you look exactly like that guy//// (we exchanged names but I ofcourse one second later I forgot it)

Him: so how’d you get here? Are you enjoying it so far?

Me: I actually got here by mistake.. was elected by my history teacher at the beginning of the year.. when I HAD the highest grade in his class. Emphasis on HAD.. im more of a sports person though.

Turns out he was too. We both went up together and both got to our LGM’s late. Ofcourse I just had to ask bodyboy about him… bodyboy was already lovestruck by one of the girls in our LGM. WOW it was all so fast! Who knew things could form in 10 days? I then asked him about Engian and he told me had a gf who models for Victoria’s Secret. Uhhhh wow! Yeah im no homewrecker, so I just forgot about it all and avoided him for most of the trip.

The life changing Speech:

After the LGM we headed to yet another speech. NOT AGAIN! As we headed in one of the FA’s separated Bodyboy and I from the rest of our group and made us sit in the front row. That meant we had to sit through a boring speech without cracking up jokes, sleeping, bbming, tweeting or playing X O on the back of the velvet chairs. The seats started to fill up and a weird mustached boy decided to sit next to me. He lived in the UAE (yay) but wasn’t from there. The boy was a creep.. he kept staring at my legs.. boy’s been in the heat for way too long it must have struck him.

The woman Introduced herself as Amy Merill and started briefly going through all the jobs she had, until she got into that one job she hated and just when she was about to quit she got fired. Thinking it was luck. A few months later she met a woman that goes by the name Somaly Mam. I don’t remember the story very clearly but she also met a small girl who was saved by Somaly mam. Somaly Mam was a sex trafficking victim. The little girl was kidnapped and drugged, raped numerous types a day and given drugs that erased all her emotions then forced her to keep smile through it all. Amy was touched, she wanted to get involved in Somaly Mam’s foundation and help raise awareness. I was all goose bumps and had never heard about Sex trafficking before. Amy has also stated that Sex trafficking was the 3^rd largest issue in the WORLD. I wish I could remember more of what I heard, such as the foundation “Cocktails for a cause” founded by Amy Merill and a friend of hers… the speech was so touching that it made me want to do something with my life, help change the world. Help start awareness in Kuwait, I wasn’t sure if there was such a thing in Kuwait but I wanted to start something that could spread awareness to any other problem that could be similar, maybe something like migrant rights. Somaly Mam has also written a book called “The Road to lost innocence” which could be bought from amazon. The speech was so touching that everyone wanted to ask her questions, ask how WE, THE YOUTH could help solve or prevent this. Bodyboy was sitting right beside me and I noticed he was very touched by the speech too and he mentioned something that I’ll never forget, he told me he was part of a school organization that spreads awareness for this type of situation and they have created or used a tactic or technique that could help prevent it. In his school in Johannesburg they created little red cards that fit into pockets, and these cards were with most of the girls… whenever they think they are in danger all they had to do was raise these cards in public and they’d be okay, someone could rush to them and keep them company or something like that.

After that amazing speech we went to LGM’s and shared our thoughts then our roles for the Politics of Trade were distributed and to be delt with the next morning. We barely ever have free time so 15 minutes later we were all in our rooms ready for room check.

Day 1

The next day...

~Iphone Alarm rings~ and she gets up.. ofcourse I was fully awake but didn’t wanna move.. she gets up and I repeat half the stuff I told her last night and she tells me ive already mentioned them. The girl totally took me by surprise she looked asian but she was south African and spoke in a british accent! Very sweet girl who also offered to take me with her to meet a couple of her friends and also to a tmobile store to get a line.. shes been to the country before and knew her way around. Still at this time it still hasn’t hit me and I wasn’t aware of my surroundings, I just did everything with a flow. A few minutes later I told her I could help her unpack she was confused and was like “ didn’t you know were supposed to check out by 11am?”” because apparently these aren’t our official rooms.. we have new room mates today” as soon as I heard that my heart dropped to the floor its was 8 or 9am and we were supposed to leave. I HAD UNPACKED EVERYTHING! EV-ER-Y- DAMN TH-IN-G! Half an hour later I packed up (somehow) and out the door.

Downstairs in the lobby I was greeted by her male friend.. tall, dark, built body and most importantly a nice gentleman. We were escorted by him and he held the door open for me which totally made me scream in my head “CHIVALRY IS NOT DEAD” and I thanked him ..I wasn’t used to this since back at home most of the men are full of themselves. We grabbed a taxi and headed to the W hotel where we were picking up her next friend. It wasn’t awkward at all in the taxi! Well exept that I was crackin jokes and talking with (lets call him) bodyboy (for now) and my roomie was sittin quietly in the middle fiddling with her phone. I bet the taxi driver wanted to shove a gag in my mouth to shut me up. I remember I kept saying” ahhh my eyes hurt its so green” im sure that was annoying. 30 minutes later we arrive to the W hotel.. It was beautiful! And apparently Gossip girl was filmed here or some sh*t like that.. the floor was classic black and white.. very similar to gossip girl’s! we asked the reception for the room number blablabla but no one was answering the rooms phone.. turns out their friend’s whole family was having breakfast in the room next to us.. wich was like 5 steps away.. in we walk and I see two gay dress up ( good looking) men having breakfast, then was greeted by their friend’s mom who I could SWEAR looks like LILLY VANDERWOODSEN who’s serena’s mom in Gossip girl. Tall, blonde, tanned oh and classy. Then I met the girl who was awfully quiet her name was… (let’s call her) Lola! HAH! So yeah sat awkwardly with her sis and bro and then we left to T mobile! Bought a line to activate BBM blabla then had breakfast at Dean and Blakely next door. Its like a mini bakery that sells fresh drinks and croissants and the whole chibaang. Sat outside and was quickly overwhelmed by D.C’s beauty! Green trees perfect sidewalks all sorts of people walking to and from places and the sky was the perfect shade of blue! It was just perfect! I don’t remember what we did next but we went back to the hotel and was greeted by their other south African friends! Tall model looking girls. We then decided to go to the nearest mall and shop, it was a huge mall with all the famous brands! It was really fun specially since bodyboy went shopping with me and we had the same interests (SHOES) I bought a beautiful ring that looked like brass knuckles it was later famous in gylc. Then back to the hotel… we went to the luggage room which was FULL of luggage with no leg space to get around! It was fun diving into them to get to our bags to retrieve gylc information because it was time for dinner then registration. Dinner was maily a buffet with normal food nothing special then a table for people that only eat Kosher, halal or were allergic to certain things or were vegitarians. Their food was much better than ours! Then the dining hall./ HUGE full of round tables that fit around 8 or 10 people. We were around 400 people in that room.. started wondering if I was supposed to meet them all, yes I have a good memory but later I learnt that I wasn’t so good with names… and gave each of them a little mean nickname in my head. During dinner they called us into another larger room by the first letter of our last names to collect our room numbers it was either the main building or the one across the street, I was hoping to get my old roomie or one of the girls I met but didn’t… also inside the packet’s were country names I was part of Venzuela with bodyboy. So we all ran back to our rooms to pick the “good bed” since 3 people were assigned to one room, leaving one of the 3 with those military beds.. yeah the ones that squeak and unfold. I got there and found a duffel bag on one of the beds and quickly threw mine on the next one and quickly ran to my first meeting with the country group also known as LGM. I kinda got lost… for a few minutes and arrived to see everyone standing talking to each other. Then I was thrown into the game and had to say someone elses name… im not even going to explain the game because I didn’t get it. In the end we all introduced ourselves and then I think we went to bed. Oh! I met one of my room mates! She was from Trinidad & Tobago, that’s where Nicki Minaj came from,, sweet girl very quiet and it was hard for me to understand her accent I think she got fed up of listening to me saying “ im sorry what?” we then had room check, which is basically.. a room check. As if we can run away from the windows.. they didn’t even have push buttons!

GYLC Early Day Arrival

GYLC Early Day Arrival July, 10 2011

So arrived to dc.. got the deserved stares of ayoung arab exotic lookin girl arriving to a business/working capital.. wtf? I know right? Anyways got my luggage and looked for sim cards but couldn’t find any so I bought those pay phone cards n called mother dearest to relief her from the stress she was in. it was around 7am in dc and 1pm in in ku. Some arab guy knew I spoke Arabic and recommended I take the hotels shuttle and not a taxi since they were expensive. It was either wait 5-6 hours for the shuttle or go to the hotel myself and see what happens. I took a cab and yeah 15-30 minutes later 60 dollars outta my pocket. It didn’t matter.. I sure as hell wasn’t going to wait alone in an airport with two suitcases for a shuttle. On the way to the hotel my eyes began to hurt from the amazing scenery, ofcourse ive never seen anything like it before! Perfect streets no cracks, all trees were GREEN and living! There wasn’t any traffic and roads had 3-4 lanes and divided into three. One for taxis and buses, one for everyone else and one for coming back. The taxi driver was new to dc it was his second day on the job and he was extremely friendly… he also happened to tell mention his life story and that hes doing this for his daughter, so she could go to school. He work in California before. Just fyi. Since I had to go through it, you shall listen to it too. Yeah so the scenery was amazing, clean too (SHOCKER) Americans love their laws.. and their green grass( they are very protective on tha matter) after arriving to the Sheraton I found out that check in was at 3 pm.. it was still around 7am. They told me I could chill in the lobby or café and use the internet. So I sat in the lobby and with every hour I grew more impatient.. I had walked around, bbmed, surfed the net, gymmed, sat. turned into a couch potato in the main lobby and read a book.. still my room wasn’t ready. At 3 pm I tried to check in with the arab girl but still room wasn’t ready \. I couldn’t take it anymore! I needed sleep I felt and looked stoned! I felt nasty from the 14 hour flight and needed a shower and some sleep! So around 3:30 I started complaining to my dad and brother. Who ofcourse got frustrated and called the front desk “Sheraton is well known around the world and shouldn’t be treating people like this”. Finally gylc reps arrived there were 3 young blondes ( didn’t know if I could get anything outta this but I tried) I told them everything and my hands were clenched from how mad I was and my lower lip was quivering. One of the girls with the dark mustache noticed. HELL TO YOU WITH MY ARAB ANGER! And in the middle of all of this I noticed a very good looking blonde teenager guy staring at me in a weird way so it pissed me off even more!So took my anger out on them and the front desk guy ( new guy that just started his shift) and so they agreed to switch my room with another room. Since I cant switch room mates. Thank you Amanda! And sorry to the new guy at the front desk. Finally, got to room 325, It was very clean, neat and I didn’t expect it at all, quickly opened up my bag and unpacked neatly into drawers ( I had gotten around 11 pairs of shoes and over 15 outfits. Two minutes later the phone rang and I was creeped out. Turns out it was my father. Phew! I was staaaarhving by that time! So I took a shower finished unpacking and headed to the main lobby to thank the reps and the front desk guy and also to see if blondie was still there. Unfortunately neither was the blondie nor the reps. Went back up and bbmed my brother who seemed more interested in the hotel’s surroundings than I was.. he started giving me restaurant names he found online that are nearby and telling me whats inside the hotel. I could have gone to a mall earlier during the day but was too scared to leave plus I was a little girl in a huge city all alone! ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN so I just stayed in.. (regret it BIG time) so after I got back to my room decided to check out the menu it was pretty good but double the amount it cost outside so I ordered Chicken Quesadias and a Panini sandwich 15 minutes later a huge ass tray was delivered with two plates two glasses and two sets of cutlery. Yeah.. I was eating for two people! The food was amazing but never got to finish it..

Then around 7pm I watched a couple modern family episodes and tried to stay awake till after sunset wich didn’t work and resulted in sleeping with the tv loud in the background. At around 11pm I hear people outside knocking on my door, half dizzy and with one eye tearing by itself I get up to open the door.. only to be greeted by a man with a suit and an asian girl quarter his size.. she comes in, we exchange names, I ramble a few words that I don’t remember at all and get back in bed… she left the room 5 minutes later to call her parents and friends.