As I walked around trying to find ground transportation with two of the program’s student representatives that greeted me at the airport, I quickly peeked into the McDonalds on the second floor of Charles de Gaulle Airport, and saw four very handsome men with beautiful hair behind the fryers. Wow, people weren’t exaggerating when they said French men were good-looking.

The past five days have been incredibly exhausting, rewarding, confusing, fun, and overall incredibly valuable. Even though I lived in Japan two months, the feel of hypermodern Tokyo is unmistakably different than that of rural Beppu. The buildings are taller, the neighborhoods are cramped, and the people simply seem to move faster. Five days simply hasn’t been enough time to adjust, but my host family seems to have something to say about that!

Starting this blog, I think it’s important to note my lack of experience with travel. I’ve never been to Europe, never flown internationally, and I’ve only flown domestically once.

Basically, I’m about as new to the whole abroad experience as I could possibly be, so I’m going to break down my levels of preparation here in the first post.

Google tells me there are 4,889 miles between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Rome, Italy.  AirMilesCalculator.com indicates a slightly more jaunty distance of 4,895 miles, 7,877 kilometers, 4,253 nautical miles from MSP to FCO airport.  Whatever the physical separation of here and there, I suspect that my understanding and impression of the city I am going to live in for the next year will likely be already half-formed by the time I am half-way across the Atlantic.

One of my favorite things about my classes this semester is how hands-on and experiential they are.

The past 48 hours have been a roller coaster of emotions. I sat in my guesthouse in Munich packing my things as I replayed the past month in my head. I went into my month at the Goethe Institut prepared to be completely on my own, especially for being a foreigner who didn’t know the language. Instead, I met dozens of people from all over the world who were in the exact same boat as I was. Unlike the others, I had one advantage. Another student from my university happened to be studying at the Goethe with me.

       After trying to imagine myself in different outfits in my various and imaginative Parisian markets and rues for four days, I can finally say that I’ve finished packing.