Hello everybody, 

It seems like this blog has been getting off to a negative start what with all my worrying in the last post, BUT in my defense I started my trip in the worst possible way.* While I was in the bathroom at SeaTac airport in Seattle I handed my passport to my Dad; he didn’t hand it back before saying goodbye at the line for the security checkpoint. He doesn’t own a cellphone, so my only option was to wait and hope he noticed. For about ten minutes I thought this whole excursion was going to fall apart at the very first step.

Right now, I’m sitting at the airport waiting to board my 5am flight to New York. I’m stopping in Brooklyn for a couple days to visit friends before heading out for the second leg of my travels; first a layover in Ireland and then finally to my final destination of the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I’m that perfect combination of scared and excited where I remember what it’s like to really live, to live fully and completely, like I hope to in the upcoming months.

Guten Tag!  

Ciao! My name is Max and I am a rising junior from George Washington University in Washington, DC. I am studying Finance and Real Estate but have a passion for exploring different cultures. As such, I have spent a majority of 2018 living abroad. From mid-February till early July, I was studying in Shanghai, China at Fudan University. I could never have guessed how much I would enjoy the cities, countryside or people in China, but it was truly an awesome experience.

Hello people of the internet! This post was going to be posted before I left the States. To make this more of a predepartor post, enjoy a photo of my cat helping me pack...

I’ve never been a particularly organized person. My daily schedule when I’m not working consists mainly of rushing between hastily planned commitments, arriving barely on time and a little out of breath. When I am working it’s even worse: I have just as many commitments (or, you know, assignments for school) but fewer hours left in which to do them.

I’m Xavaar, tomorrow I’ll be starting what would be my junior year at the University of Washington by studying in Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands. Yes, my name is very unique, no it doesn’t mean anything or have any cultural significance it was just made up to sound cool. It’s pronounced like Xavier but different. My majors are History of Empires and Colonialism and Biology with a focus in Evolution, Ecology, and Conservation.