Just five days and I'll be back in Rochester. Five days after five months seems like no time at all. Each day brings new emotions. Five days and I’ll be returning to some of the monotony that has driven me to travel. Five days and I’ll have friendships that last longer than a weekend and a bed in a room without 17 other people constantly coming and going.

Three weeks ago, I arrived at LAX Airport and the weirdly small portrait of President Obama after a semester abroad in Nantes. Since then I’ve gotten over the jetlag (which was awful) but now that going back to normal university is on the horizon, I’m confronted with reality—I’m here now, and Nantes is across the world.

My name is Jonathan Skewes, and I am currently a junior at Pennsylvania State University. I am majoring in advertising, as well as minoring in French, political science, and international studies. I am an avid soccer fan, and I spend most of my weekends supporting Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain. I am itching with anticipation to attend multiple PSG games during my time in Paris. I am ecstatic to live and study in Paris for multiple months.

It's been almost two weeks since I left Japan, and hardly a minute goes by where I don't reminisce about my time there. However, the transition back into "daily life" has included some obstacles I didn't consider as I sat on the floor of my homestay bedroom, struggling to fit four months of memories into a single suitcase. The greatest struggle for me, after returning to the States, was figuring out how exactly my study abroad experience fit into my life.

The international travel I am used to involves walking from the United States of America to Italy in a matter of minutes. EPCOT at Walt Disney World has this massive collection of pavilions called the World Showcase that I have visited no less than 15 times. These pavilions, sponsored by their respective countries form Japan to Morocco to Germany, are comprised of themed restaurants and miniature versions of their most popular landmarks, and permit guests to stroll through 11 countries in a very short amount of time.

When I was no older than a second grader, I jumped off of a diving board for the first time. Well, to say I jumped is a bit of an exaggeration. First I walked, then I tried to jump but got scared. Eventually, after holding up the line of other eager campers for long enough, I sat down on the low dive and dangled my feet over the edge. I was a tall kid, my legs could almost touch the water from my spot on the edge but that didn’t keep me from being afraid.

My last full weekend in France was spent at the base of Mont Blanc in the little town of Chamonix. Chamonix hosted the first winter olympics and now it is a year-round resort filled with outdoor-enthusiasts. Chamonix has been on my bucket list since my first trip to the French Alps seven and a half years ago.

As I am writing this post there are exactly 7 days 23 hours and 6 minutes until my adventure takes off for Quito, Ecuador, which is super exciting but also kind of scary. It’s not the fact I am going to a new country that makes me nervous, it’s the fact I’m going there alone. Anywhere and everywhere you can think of in the world I have probably been to. The Caribbean, Europe, you name it. With every single one of those times I traveled with my family.