Greetings from California!
I have made it safely, after a nine hour day of travel! These past two days have been very busy, and very exhausting - we really haven't had much time to ourselves yet, but that was expected.
I got here on Thursday around 1:30 and waited for my luggage for about an hour with another intern Eric, who picked me up from the airport.
We got back to the condo to find that I was the last to arrive! I luckily was able to end up with a good room although I was the last to pick. Our condo is a four bedroom - 2 1/2 bath. Two bathrooms for the girls and one for the boys. (There are four boys and 11 girls... think about the ratio for girls & showers... yup.) But the place is great, has a great view and in all honesty, we are very lucky to be living in such a great place.
I am in a room with three other girls, Abbi (Tennessee), Carly (Alabama) and Becca (Florida). Abbi and Carly have thick southern acccents and I have already adopted saying "Ya'll" --- I can't help it! AND, of course I am being made fun of because I can't say 'Bag' correctly. To them, I say bag like 'beg'.... It is freshman year of college all over again.The first day and a half we have spent getting to know each other. We were asked to write down ten words to describe ourselves, then we all went through our list. This was great because it really did allow us to get to know each other on a level that has made us all more comfortable.
The TOMS interns are from ALL over the country: Minnesota, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, Vegas, Florida, Minnesota, North Dakota (Yup, someone from Bismark!), Kentucky, California & Louisiana. Everyone is very diverse and all have amazing experiences and reasons why they are here. We all have agreed that we are a Wholesome group. Everyone is very positive and have their own Causes that they are passionate about.
I will probably talk more about all the interns another time, but for now I will just talk about what we did today. We all headed to Venice beach to have an intern "Style Your Sole" party.
We got to paint our own shoes by the Venice Beach boardwalk. I had so much fun taking pictures of everyone, and people and the beach, etc. I took over 400 pictures! We had awesome weather. The funny thing too is there are five others here that have great SLR cameras and a few are actual photographers. We are going to find a website for all of us to upload and share our photos (What a great way for me to learn!)
We had some people ask us what we were up to and even had a little kid come join us. It was truly a great day - being out in the sun, by the beach with a group of really fun people.
The weather today was in the 60's. It is actually really cool, I've been surprised. This next week it will be in the mid-50's. It gets cold at night without the sun, but it is still better than being in Minnesota right now! Negative 25 with wind-chill - No, thank you!
<---- This is one of my favorites pictures I took today. This guy was painting this on the famous graffiti wall in Venice Beach. It looked awesome! Also in Venice today, was the skateboarding dog from Youtube. He pretty much ran over me today -- he was a hit with everyone.
I will end today's post with saying: It's a Small World because....
1. Kim from Bismark, North Dakota is best friends with someone I used to skate with!
2. Andi from Texas, was an Alpha Chi Omega the University of Texas!
3. Our 'House Mom' is from Eden Prairie, Minnesota!
4. Mike Hammer, our boss shall I say, has family in Lincoln, Nebraska!
-Peace & Love Ya'll
