beginning of conference

another country entered, another step towards my next two years, another whole new experience. monday evening i flew from vienna to amsterdam. i had to spend the night in the airport because my flight got delayed and i didn't want to try and find a youth hostel in amsterdam around midnight by myself. so i slept on this giant red and white checkered shelf thing that had four different sides to it. I had a section to myself, but couldn't sleep much. i've never seen an airport be that busy all night long. no matter when i woke up and looked around, there were always people moving somewhere.
then tuesday i got picked up with a group and driven to a hotel out in the fields of holland where the GO conference is being held. now that my roomates are all here i am sharing a tiny room with an american living in england, a german and a dutchie.
every day is jam packed. meetings. prayer. fellowship. worship. training. information. meals. and more meetings. they have us in different groups for where we are going, where we are coming from and another group mixed random. so different events or meetings are with those groups. then other times it's everyone together.
it's hugely international. i think just today i've spoken to an aussie, lots of germans, a scott, a belgian, americans, a serb, some asians, an irish, and probably a whole lot more that i can't think of. it's a great feeling to be surrounded by so much variety. and i've been able to use my german and brush up on that. i like this kind of outwards focus on the world settings. everyone cares about their home country, so you get to talk about a lot of different places and hear about them.
9 days left of the conference and then it's off to australia for more ship specific training. we'll see what else comes my way.