Settling In

Yesterday was the big flight and travel day. It started at 4:15am MST. My flight left St. George around 6:30am, and I had a two hour layover in SLC. I met a couple while I was there. They were on there way to Hawaii. We visited for quite a while. They got there shortly after I did and had a 4 hour layover. Hawaii was their second-to-last state to check off for meeting their goal of visiting every state in the U.S. I asked about their favorite, and they both said it was North Carolina. I've never been, but I just moved it up a little higher on my places I'd like to visit list.
All throught the day I kept thinking, "Am I really doing this!? I'm really doing this?" I think a part of me was in shock. I felt calm, but excited and even nervous all at once. There's no adjective to describe it. The flight here was a long 4 hours, but I slept on and off through it, so it wasn't so bad. After struggling with my luggage and bags out of the baggage claim, I realized I would not be taking the metro to my apartment as planned. A taxi was definitely in order, and luckily I don't live too far from the airport. The cab driver was from Sudan. We visited along the way, and it turns out he doesn't live far from where I am. He said he really likes the area...then there was this whole series of conversation about "my boyfriend" (he brought it up), and I just went along with it because I felt like that was the safest thing to do if this was his round-about way of hitting on me. lol!
Two of my roomies were at the apartment when I got here. One is MIA (she met a boy last Thursday) and the other, Dani (who I share a room with), is visiting her brother somewhere here in Virginia where he's stationed. They seem nice, all LDS girls. Valerie went with me to the store last night. That was nice to have her show me around the underground tunnels from our apartment to the metro so we don't even have to go outside.
Today, I went to the singles ward. Colonial 1st. It's just a 10-minute walk from our apartment, and we all went over together. The ward is nice, and everyone is so friendly. They basically have the new member thing down to a science. When it came time to leave, I couldn't find my roommates. Turns out they left me! Haha, they think they're so much cooler. But, it worked out great because I ran into the boys living in one of the other USU apartments in our building, and they walked back with me. It was nice to get to know them better since yesterday, I only saw them for a few minutes.
This will be a great week. Tomorrow is our ward Temple trip. I'm excited for that. I start work Tuesday. Tuesday night is institute, just down the street in our chapel (which is an old 4-story office building--looks nothing like any chapel I've seen except the plack that says "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" near the front door). And, On Friday, our ward has its annual retreat which is out in some cabins near Gettysburg. It will be Friday-Sunday, and we'll be having church out there. I'm excited!