Hello there! If you are reading this, then you have found your way to my first blog post- Congratulations!
For those of you who are interested in following my adventures in Europe, I suggest you subscribe to get updates because if I were you I would forget to check back. Now if you're asking yourself: "Courtney's going to Europe??" then allow me to fill you in. When I began my study abroad search, I was originally going to pick one of Muhlenberg College's organized Theatre trips to London or Italy or the Business trip to Maastricht. I'm sure any one of those programs would've been an awesome experience, but I was looking for something that gave me more independence and a little less 'Muhlenberg in Europe'. I began my search with one country in mind- CYPRUS! Why Cyprus? Well, when I was 12 years old, my 7th grade teachers at Northeast Middle School asked us to pick a country that we wanted to research for various projects resulting in slideshow presentations at the end of the year. We had to pick two countries that we had heard of and one that we knew nothing about. My countries were:
1. Germany
2. Ireland
3. Cyprus
Cyprus was obviously the one I had never heard of, and as any good teacher would do, I was assigned that country. My 7th grade year was the first time laptops were introduced into our classroom, and the objective of the country projects was to demonstrate the many ways we could use our laptops. I researched Cyprus for projects like travel brochures, original poems, a history report, a persuasive essay to travel to Cyprus, and of course the final slide show. After doing so much research on Cyprus, I fell in love with everything the Mediterranean Island had to offer, and it became a dream of mine to travel to Cyprus one day. So, that's why I began my search with Cyprus.
August 20th, 2011 was the day I began my search, and Google brought me to Global Learning Semesters' website. I was very happy to learn that not only does their International Business program take place in Cyprus, but it also travels to 10 other countries! This opportunity sounded amazing to me and I knew this was the right program for me!
Once I discovered my dream program, I had to work on getting Muhlenberg to approve it since they only allow students to travel on approved programs for the credits to transfer and for financial aid to help pay for it. When I inquired about petitioning for my program, I was informed that not a lot of petitions get approved, and I was afraid that my dream opportunity might slip away. Basically I had to fill out an application and write a really good essay about why the program should be approved. The petition was due in October, but I had to wait until February for the board to review the petition and make a decision. After having to wait for 3 months, you can imagine how happy I was to hear that Muhlenberg had granted their approval --- I submitted my deposit to Global Learning Semesters that day! :)
Anyways, that is the story that brings me to today. It is Monday and my flight departs on Thursday!!! I have been counting down the days since earlier in the Summer when I was at 75 days....now I'm down to 3. Packing my bags was super frustrating seeing as I swear I did not over pack, and yet there's not much room for more. I had to upgrade to a bigger suitcase that we had once I realized that my smaller one wasn't going to cut it for 3 months worth of stuff. I also took out a few clothing items that I deemed unnecessary. I am tempted to upgrade to an even bigger suitcase, but I think I'm going to resist that temptation....
This post is already longer than planned, so I will save my last minute thoughts for another post right before I leave. I guess you'll just have to subscribe after all....haha. ;)
For your entertainment value (and mine) the titles of my posts will feature fitting lyrics from songs; that way I get to share travel updates and some of my favorite songs at the same time! Today's post is from 'It's Time' by Imagine Dragons to express my current state of bag packing and leaving Muhlenberg "the academy". Also, the title of my blog is from my favorite artist of all time- The Tallest Man on Earth. His lyrics are so poetic and filled with meaning, so it seemed fitting to honor him with a blog title from 'The Wild Hunt' by The Tallest Man on Earth.
A few days ago out of boredom and anticipation, I painted my nails with the flags of the 11 countries that I will get to see, and I wanted to share them with you. From left to right: Greece, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands (they have the same flag with slightly different blues, so I just counted that as both) and CYPRUS!
I hope you are excited to read about my adventures! I have never kept a
blog before, so it should be interesting to see how often I update it.
Stay tuned for posts about my journey to 11 countries!
Till next time!
-Courtney <3
No comments:
Post a Comment