Pre Germany

I am late in posting this because of how long it took me to regain access to the blog, but I would like to get my pre-Germany thoughts out there.

I was pretty scared to be traveling outside of the United States for such a long time on my first time abroad. It seemed overwhelming to go to a country where I knew nothing about how to get around or even the language to ask for directions with. I have always been more of a quiet person and when in doubt, I have kept to myself. When I started off college, I was always the person that needed somebody to go with me to all of the places all the time. I never really had a sense of self becuase I had a constant support system that would guide me and walk me through everything when the going got tough. Fortunately, I have mostly grown out of that and was able to get myself to apply to this study abroad trip without knowing anybody going on the trip beforehand.

I was so nervous to go on this trip that I packed my bags two weeks beforehand. I felt that had I waited any longer to do it, my anxiety would build up and make it increasingly more difficult to do so. The day of my trip, I got up at 4 am and had a friend drive me to the Houston airport from College Station. I was supposed to get to Frankfurt at noon the next day, but I did not make it there until 9 pm becuase I missed my flight. I began to doubt signing up for this trip because I encountered problem after problem in the four airports that I had to pass through to get here. There was nobody there to tell me what to do and nobody I could talk to because of the time differences. It was incredibly overwhelming, but I made it. And if I made it through 30 hours of that, then I could definitely make it through Germany with the help of friends.

I am really looking forward to traveling around Europe and seeing what the rest of the world is like. I have always lived in a bubble and have been meaning to burst through it, but never really felt like I had the opportunity up until now.

At the Houston airport before I got on any flights. It was around 70 degrees, so I was pretty much already sweating in just one layer. 

One of my biggest obstacles was leaving my dog behind, but we FaceTime from time to time.