5: the number of days until my 23^rd birthday. Or, as I keep telling people at work, until I have one foot in the grave I’ll be so old. I fully realize that being 23 means that I should be all adult like, but right now, I am starting to feel like I would do just about anything to go back to grade school and start over. Mom and Dad made all your decisions back then, and you never had to go out into the real world. But, that is most definitely what I will be doing during this 23^rd year, so hopefully I can come back from Spain as a full-fledged adult! (or something close to it). Unfortunately, what I wanted most for my birthday was to visit my sister in Georgia, but after trying to work our schedules closer (and keeping in account my Spain budget) it just didn’t work out. Oh well, there’s always next year, right? Here is a cute picture I found of us, though, from when we were little.

6: the number of shifts I have at Wal-Mart. For now anyways. It’s kind of a bittersweet temporary goodbye. I did end up getting my Leave of Absence approved, but am not guaranteed a position back in Electronics. But, I’m not too worried about that because I know that we are losing a couple of people between November and February so I think I might be coming back to a perfect opening. Either way, it will be weird not to be working. And I suppose I’ll admit to the fact that I will probably miss being the only girl in my department besides my department manager. Sam won’t have anyone to shoot rubber bands at anymore. Adam won’t have anyone to tease. Two unnamed others won’t have anyone to babysit them anymore. Nope, instead Brianne will be all by her lonesome with a bunch of boys!

11: the number of days left in Idaho. The number just keeps getting smaller and smaller. In this eleven days, I will still probably end up repacking at least two more times (once before my grandparents get here, and then I will probably take everything out of my bags and ask their opinion on the stuff that I am taking). But it seems like time these days is moving so much faster than it was at the beginning of the summer. Now, all of a sudden the days are gone, and I’m freaking out because I’m not entirely sure I’m ready. I also wont be able to see my baby brother again after I leave Idaho because he isn't able to take off work to come down to Oregon with everyone else. He probably thinks that 11 is the number of days until he can drive my car without me telling him no, but that is definitely not the case! I will take my keys to Spain if I have to!

25: the number of days left in the United State of America. Also kind of bittersweet. This will be the first time out of the United States, and honestly one of the first times I’ve been away from family except for the weekends spent at NACURH conferences. Luckily, since I am going to Zoe’s house before Sevilla, she will be there to help ease me into life away from mommy and daddy (and by ‘luckily’ I mean lucky for me, but probably not for her J ).

1: one last time to do everything. It is definitely weird to be doing stuff and thinking “this is the last time you will get to do this for a while.” Last week, I had one last outing with Grandma Lockie to Lewiston. Technically, Grandpa was there too, but his hearing aids were dead until we made it to Costco so that was like ¾ of the trip that he probably was not really there. Yesterday, I had one last casino run with just my mom and me. Granted, I will probably go to the casino with my grandparents this weekend, but Mom and I like to go by ourselves every once in a while. As the days get shorter, however, there will plenty more of these “one-lasts”, which is what is making this so difficult.

Spanish word of the day: seta-mushroom. (I’m practicing how to tell my host mom what I don’t like to eat!)

Sixteen days and counting!

The countdown has officially begun. In only sixteen short days, I leave Idaho to begin the greatest and most nerve-racking journey of my life: studying abroad over 5200 miles from home in Sevilla, Spain. After month of filling out paperwork, booking flights, getting my passport/visa, and generally going nuts, the time to leave is finally almost here. This is where I am at right now and what my current plans are for the next month:

For the past two weeks, I have been packing, repacking, and repacking, and repacking, and repacking my suitcases. Everyone keeps telling me to not take a lot of stuff with me, which does make perfect sense. But then when I tell them that I am only taking two bags, they look at me like I am crazy for not taking more. I’m positive that in the next two weeks, I will probably be repacking numerous more times. I keep feeling like I am forgetting something important, or that maybe I want to change the clothes that I am bringing.

Because my parents are trying to fix up/sell their house, I also have to make sure that my room is completely packed. This is on top of helping my mom paint and cleans my sister and brother’s old rooms. Needless to say, this is just one more thing to add on top of a very long list that needs to get done in the next few weeks.

On August 10^th, I am driving with my dad all the way to Portland in his Bronco. It should be a very long, interesting journey since its going to be the first time it’s gone more than to Moscow and back since he finished rebuilding it (here’s to hoping that we make it!).  Then, I get to stay at either my great-grandma’s house or my grandparent’s house on my mom’s side for the next 2 weeks. I’m excited cause we are going to drive over to the beach for the day and eat at Mo’s (who makes the world’s best clam chowder). I’ll also get to spend some quality time with them before I leave.

Then, on the 24^th of August, Grandma and Grandpa Giddings will take me to the airport and I will be on my way to Manchester, United Kingdom (with an extremely long layover in Newark, New Jersey). For ten days, I get to visit Miss Zoe Watts and see Scotland and London and buildings that were built before the 1800s and castles and, if I get my way, I might even get to see a royal or two.  I even told Zoe that I was perfectly fine spending every second of every day camped in front of Buckingham Palace, but she didn’t seem to think that was as good of an idea as I did.

Finally, on September 4^th, I will start my study abroad program with our five day orientation in Madrid, Spain before heading to my final destination, Sevilla. (For those of you who don’t know where Sevilla is, I have enclosed a map.)

I know this was a long post, but I wanted to catch everyone up on all of the happenings in my world. I will be posting occasionally so that people can hear about all the awesomeness of my travels.

Every day, I am trying to learn/re-learn a new word in Spanish. Today’s word  is asustarse: to panic (which is something that I must keep myself from doing!).