And so the time has come.
In less than 24 hours, I will be on a plane heading towards the country that will serve as my home for the next four months.
I find it almost funny that after months of planning, buying cloths and supplies, applying for financial aid, and doing every other bit of minutiae needed to go on a study abroad, the full weight of me leaving everything that I am familiar with here in the U.S. didn't truly strike me until today. In a sense I have missed the forest for the trees, becoming so bogged down in the details of what I needed to do to travel that I never seriously considered the implications of what going to a completely new continent means. However this realization was not accompanied by a sense anxiety, nervousness or even fear. More so it was a feeling of excitement, a feeling of rushing into a refreshing new. I truly look forward to the culture shock, to the disorienting feeling of being surrounded by a culture, language, and geography that is neither my own nor familiar to me in any way. Only time will tell if this sentiment holds.
Since I have always felt that this St. Augustine quote perfectly captures my thoughts on traveling, I feel it appropriate to be the ending of my first post to this site:
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page".
I look forward to the many pages that lie ahead.
Until next,
Sean S.
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