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!).