Today officially marks the two weeks leading up to my departure from Texas to Florence. It’s been a long time coming and I feel like I am better prepared for it after writing several of these blog posts.
But at the same time, it’s finally hitting me that I’ll be leaving everything behind. My boyfriend, family, friends, and my closet. All the things I love most in this world will be here in America while I’m out gallivanting off in Europe. I guess it finally hitting them that when you travel, you are always going to be leaving something behind.
Regardless, I am stoked. This semester is going to be a much needed break from my rigorous schedule of work and school. I’m looking forward to having lots of adventures and experiencing everything study abroad has to offer me. One of my resolutions for the new year was to maintain an open mind abroad. I also wanted to focus on staying positive. I need to be prepared for things to get messed up along the way and allow myself not to plan every detail of my trips. I also need to focus of making new friends and making sure I don’t get wrapped up in my anxiety. Change is sometimes really hard for me to do, but I hope that the beautiful sites and people abroad will help to numb the pain.
So after months of trying to decide where to go abroad I have my top list of places:
1. Paris
2. Barcelona
3. Turkey (spring break with Monica Taylor)
4. And I’m leaving this last outside trip open 🙂 Although I will say I’ve been throwing around the ideas of Poland, London, Stockholm, Budapest, Berlin, Dublin, and Amsterdam….but we will have to see once I am there.
Back in November 2010, I also made a list of the top 10 places I wanted to visit (and I was so sure I was going to see all of these hahaha):
1. Paris, France (cliche but it’s a must for any fashion junkie)
2. Venice, Rome, Tuscany
3. Amsterdam (the quintessential college destination)
4. Moscow, Russia
5. Stockholm, Sweden
6. Ireland, Scotland, London
7. India (where I want to spend my spring break)
8. Barcelona, Spain
9. Beijing, China
10. Greece, anywhere.
I am so happy with how much I’ve changed just in the past year at home, but I know there are so many more changes ahead of me in these next few months. I hope I can still reflect and write about them on my blog, but if not there’s always Facebook.
Briana Wucinski 