RoVa is my wife

Carilion has my life.

So, I haven't as of yet acquired internet at the new apartment and am using my lunch hour to peruse some much needed information on the internet and thought I might as well try to update you with the remaining 32 minutes of my lunch hour.

I came down here last Tuesday with my Mom and the movers. It was a fairly easy transition though time consuming and my wallet is significantly lighter. The building I moved into is in the heart of downtown Roanoke, which last Friday Leah (my roommate), Rachel, and some of their friends from work used my new locale to its fullest by walking across the foot bridge to downtown. We did a bar crawl which included heading to 202 a local martini bar, Awful Arthur's because they had a live band, and finally finishing at Cornerstone which I have a vague memory of why... Needless to say I had an amazing time and look forward to many a night spent in just the same way.

Mom and Dad came down this past weekend to check out the area and where I'll be spending my time. We ate dinner at Awful Arthur's to watch the Tech vs. Nebraska game (yea Hookies!) and then headed back to my place where we drank (hello family) and played cribbage. The next day we went to a little dinner called Famous Anthony's and had an amazing breakfast followed by a viewing of CRMH (my hospital), the Roanoke Star, and the frustrating Patriots game.

The Roanoke star is the largest man-made star and is positioned on the top of Mill Mountain here is Roanoke. If it hadn't been cloudy when we went it would have offered an amazing view of the city. It lights up every night until midnight in red, white, and blue. There's also a zoo up there but I have no idea what selection of animals they have, I'll do some scouting and report back.

I had my first day of orientation at the hospital on Monday and have been doing various training sessions all week long but I do have the weekend to look forward to. I continue training on Monday and finally have my first shift on the floor on Wednesday (eek!). I've met a ton of new employees like myself and even have a possibility of grabbing a brew with another new nurse on Friday after our last Epic (computer system) training class on Friday. Her name is Danielle and she moved here all the way from Minnesota, which sounds strange but actually she's the second person I've met this week who just moved from there (apparently there are no nursing jobs in Minnesota, who said there's a shortage?)

My nights have been boring lately, just reading and watching season premieres. Last night I found out my roommate Leah is as obbsessed with Biggest Loser as I am and we even instituted a "Cry Chart" to keep track of the tears spilt in each episode.

I am completely enjoying my time here and have even made it around town a couple of times without the use of my ThomasThomas (he has an english accent). I have gotten waves of homesickness and miss Charlottesville's comfort but soon enough I won't be on orientation and will be free to visit.

Love from the star,
-kiki.