Your tax dollars at work…

So I realize that I have not written nearly enough about Peace Corps, have not wrapped up my Guatemala experience, and generally have not made any upgrades to the site in some time, so I am just going to blame it all on the anesthesia. Bad anesthesia, bad. Honestly, that should all change as I am studying up a bit on web design and hope to add some cool stuff.

Booked my flight today to Washington DC for the staging event for Peace Corps that will take place on May 5-6 at the beautiful Holiday Inn in Georgetown. Peace Corps is already getting us ready to be isolated from the world (as we will be in training) by putting us at a hotel that is about the furthest possible distance from a metro as possible in DC. Still the event should be nice and am excited to meet all my fellow Peace Corps peeps.

So what’s with the title of this post, you ask? Well I just want to let you know how much my nonstop USAir flight to DC cost. Now I have taken this flight at least ten times while I was living in DC last year and I have never, ever paid more than 150 dollars one way (and that is when I waited until the last minute). So guess how much the US government/Peace Corps paid for the flight…200 dollars….nope higher….250…higher….275…higher… 284.50 dollars! Seeing this price in the email that was sent to me by Sato Travel, dropped my jaw. Are you freaking kidding me? So of course I go to check the USAir website to see how much that exact flight should cost. 130 dollars with taxes and all! Just imagine for a second how much useless money the government is spending when it books flights in this way. In my Peace Corps departure alone (38 people) with an average price difference of 150 dollars, they would be spending $5700 too much, probably equivalent to all of our Nicaraguan salaries for this next year. US Government/Peace Corps/Sato Travel take a bow. We appreciate how much you value our tax dollars.