A little about what is to come

Dear reader,

First of all thank you for making it this far! So excited you're reading this and if you choose to keep reading, you are in for quite a whirlwind of a summer recap. Second of all, if you manage to get all the way through this, then I commend you for bearing with me. I created this space for myself, and anyone else who wants to take the time to listen, to remember, and make sense of this crazy leap of faith I call the last 3 months. So why are you here... Well I wrote this blog partially to keep my sanity. Okay mainly to keep my sanity. Partially because I don't want to forget. And partially because I have (let's be honest) failed at almost everything I've attempted to do here, but each time stumbled on something incredible. I do have a small hope that perhaps this will give somebody a sense of "I can do that too" if any of you are thinking about a giant solo adventure across the world with absolutely no clue what you're doing; but honestly, I just hope you all laugh at my unlucky failures as much as I get to. And, if I don't write them down, I figured it would be difficult to make sense of what it's all really about. So here goes. Who am I..... I happen to be a 21 year old college kid who decided in a span of about a week and a half- to leave all my friends and family, move to another country by myself, move in with a family I met via Skype, be their aupair (does anyone really know what that means?), and hope that somewhere along the way I would learn something meaningful and beneficial from such a crazy decision. Not to mention my country of choice was indeed Spain, so obviously my 7 year background in French has of course worked wonders here. I did this all with about $200 to my name, and the knowledge that I'd be living off of a 60 euro a week wage, while also receiving food and board. Oh, and the morning of my flights I happened to wake up with a violent case of food poisoning. Truth be told, I was not sure how to get my body off of the floor in order to make it to the airport -much less board a plane to go across the globe. But really how can you miss your flight to Spain where you're about to spend 3 months of your life? You can't. So, somehow I made it. Bless those poor flight attendants who helped me out along the way as well as my sweet father and stepmom who packed my -yes unpacked the night before- bag with anything they could think of .... But if that was not a sign that showed anything which could go wrong throughout the progression of my summer, would go wrong, I don't know what else was.

Now, as my time has begun to dwindle down here, I realized I have about 22 days left in a place that has brought me so many ridiculous and hilarious adventures, which have all tested my patience more times than I can count. So I thought why on earth not write them all down. I have been lost, rained on, given rides by strangers (sorry if you're reading this dad), yelled at in Spanish, mistaken for Spanish, run out of money, lost again, treated to free meals, and wine... so much free wine, worn out, loved on, tested, challenged, rewarded, and all the while I have met about every type of person imaginable along the way. I have made new friends and heard every attempt at speaking English possible- with very few being even remotely close to the real thing. So I intend to recap my summer these next few weeks. I hope to share some stories with whoever is reading, and most importantly, make it through until my flight home? I have made it this far. Would be a shame to mess it up now. I hope you enjoy my adventures, as much as I have laughed at living them, and realize that sometimes the best thing to be is a -messy, accidental, and frequently lost traveler XOXO