It all begins!

After waking up with a terrible case of the stomach flu, I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to make it to New Hampshire this morning! One panicked call to my mother and some Dramamine later, however, Marc, Clarissa, and I arrived in scenic Manchester, NH, amazingly without winter related flight delays. I was pretty glad we just had a quick layover in Minnesota, because the temperature there was 2 degrees Fahrenheit when our plane landed!

We got an interesting phone call from poor Michael, saying that he would be delayed because his tickets were booked to Manchester, England instead of Manchester, NH, which sounded like a disaster. (It later turns out that he won’t even be getting here until tomorrow morning – hopefully it all worked out for him.) We dropped Clarissa off at the Obama HQ in Derry, NH. Marc and I helped Clarissa get her things into the office, then we took off for Brentwood, NH. Our HQ is wonderful – it’s situated in someone’s kitchen and there are about 8 college students working out of this office. It’s pretty neat politically and geographically, but I’ll have more on that tomorrow. We phone banked for about an hour, inviting people to a house party with a local Congresswoman, which should be pretty interesting. Senator Obama will be at a rally tomorrow in Exeter, the neighboring town – I’m so excited!

The whole area is just amazingly pretty, with all of the trees and the snow on the ground. The little towns kind of remind me of the towns like we saw in the South – packed with history and little hometown stores and eateries. It’s so cute. We finally reached our house for the week tonight at about 10:30 and the couple came out to greet us – they’re absolutely wonderful to talk to and just some of the kindest people. We sat and chatted with them for about 30 minutes tonight, but I was finally about to fall asleep from my long day. It looks like its going to be a good week!

- Amanda