Welp, you've found your way to my 4th ever travel blog - and this one is going to be one of the best ones yet! Hopefully I won't have to type this one entirely on my iPhone, haha.
This time around I'll be going to various places around the world. Here's the rundown:
New Orleans, U.S.A.: August, 2 weeks
São Paulo, Brazil: September, 5 weeks
Cape Town, South Africa: October, 4 weeks
Hanoi, Vietnam: November, 5 weeks
Bangkok, Thailand: December, 2 weeks
Got it? Sounds like a lot. Let me explain: I am studying abroad for my whole junior year. For the fall semester, I will be traveling with a student group and learning about 4 different cities around the world. So I will be getting school credit for my time abroad, but the program is not run by my school. We will be learning about sustainable environments, power dynamics, culture (anthropology), social structure, and plenty of other academic subjects in a hands-on, field-based setting. We'll also be living with host families in each place we go outside of the United States. The program ends in Vietnam, but since I've never been to Asia, my parents allowed me to spend 2 weeks in Thailand before I come home for Christmas, since some of the other students will be doing the same. My spring semester will be spent in Uganda, but that is for a different blog.
As per usual, I can't make any promises about the frequency with which I post, since traveling for me generally entails limited internet access. However, I can prophesize that my posts will be quite long, since that seems to be characteristic of my writing thus far. Also, for some reason people have a hard time commenting on my blogs from the interwebs, so if you want to make a note on something, the best way is through Facebook or email. That way I'll definitely see it.
My blogs always start and end in my house in the US, and this is no exception. I've been home for 2 weeks since my last adventure in Ghana, and now I only have one week more! Traveling can be tiring, but one might say that I'm addicted to it. Still gotta pack up, finish my book, do my pre-departure homework and... pet my little fluffles named Lucky the dog.
I have two goals for this trip. The first is to get more exercise than I usually do while traveling and the other is to explore more. Because even though I do go all over the place, I still tend to spend more time in the house than I'm proud of. So. There we go.
Well, I usually have a little tagline before I sign off each post in the language of wherever I'm going, but there's like, 6 languages this time so I'll have to think of something else. I looked up words that rhyme with 'urban' and got bourbon, pipe organ, and zoological garden, among others... so... that's not going to work. I tried 'metropolis' and got bottomless, esophagus, and urinary incontinence. Nope.
As luck would have it, my father put on a Carter Family CD while I was typing this. In a song entitled, "Lonesome Valley", the following lyrics were sung:
"Everybody's got to walk this lonesome valley,
We've got to walk it by ourselves,
There's nobody here can walk it for us,
We've got to walk it by ourselves"
Of course, right after that, another song played the lyrics,
"You're drifting too far from shore,
Come back before it's too late."
Bad omen, maybe? Well, ignoring that part, I like the first lyrics because even though they sounds lonely, they also make me think that travelers have each other to walk across the valley with. They'll never get lost, because they have each other to find the way. I'm kind of going on this adventure alone, but I'll be with others going through the same challenges, questions, and excitement as I am, so really, I won't ever be alone. We have each other to serve as our guides. So my tagline for this blog will be:
Steppin' in the right direction,
Emz
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