Clever Title

Finally, the time has come—I’m gonna travel out of the country. I can barely even remember the last time I left the states; I think it was a family tour of Europe. We hit up Scotland, Italy, France, and I think England all in one go. But I could totally be making this up. ANYWHO.

I’m going to be gone almost the entire month of August (including my birthday, sadface). My parents gave my sister and I funds for travel, as a combo birthday/graduation gift for both of us. We just had to pick where we were going and plan the whole thing, and we settled on Morocco and Spain. *jazz hands* At the end of July my family will fly on up to one of those Canadian thingies for my cousin’s wedding, which should be fun because a) I’ve never been to Canada and it’s one more place to check off the list, and b) I get to wear some pretty dresses and eat free food. Huzzah! From Canada, Caroline and I fly to New York (I think…still hazy on all this), and from New York to Morocco. After a week or so there we fly to Spain. I’ll get more detailed once plans are more finalized, but I can tell you now this trip will include: expanding my food tastes, train riding, crashing on strangers’ couches, cramming in some French and Spanish review, awesome photos, probably some bickering, lots of weird but hilarious Caroline/Austen moments, frantic emails from our dad, people watching, some sweet music, etc. Caroline has basically assumed control of the planning, which is probably for the best as she has done this more often than I. Quite frankly planning and organizing a trip like this is one of the most confusing thing I’ve ever encountered (I’m not gonna say ‘done’, I’m not really doing much.)

I can’t say whether I’m excited or not yet, since these things don’t usually register for me until I’m right in the middle of it…I’m sure I will be though. If there’s anything my mom has taught me, it’s that everyone needs to get pushed out of their comfort zone, multiple times. I agree, despite the fact that I am innately a lazy homebody who is perfectly content watching tv in a bathrobe. It’ll be good to be somewhere…un-American for once. I want to be surrounded by accents and languages and colors and smells and unusual architecture, just stuff I’m not used to. Maybe we’ll meet some sweet characters and have random adventures. Oh, plus, we might be staying with one of the Gordonstoun kids who visited us a few months ago. His family has a house in Madrid, and has offered us some (FREE) shelter. Keyword free. This could be awesome, but it could also be a disaster haha. Eh, apparently we’re going to be staying with absolute strangers anyways, so I might as well jump right in.

Assuming I have internet access, I’ll try and be super diligent about detailing the whole trip on this website—for my future self, the parentals, amigos interested in my whereabouts, and anyone who’s ever thought of traveling to Spain or Morocco. Also if you have any tips/connections/people to talk to/whatever, DO SHARE.

Wish me luck!