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.

7,354 miles. The number has been running through my head all day. That’s how far Harrisburg, PA is from Shanghai, China. And that’ll be the farthest I’ve ever been from home. In 22 hours, I’ll be on a plane on my way to live and study abroad for the next four months. It hasn’t fully hit me yet.

This weekend we had another awesome IES sponsored trip. This time we went to Royal National Park.

I am off to Berlin in the morning, which has surprisingly caused more anxiety than I would have predicted. I arrived in Germany four weeks ago, so I am well acquainted with the German language and culture. I spent the last four weeks studying at the Goethe Institut in Munich. I chose to study in Berlin because of the IES Metropolitan Studies program. I am studying both Architecture and Sociology at my university back in the United States, which makes this program a perfect fit.

My long day of travel begins in less than 24 hours, and, as it stands, I still have most of my packing ahead of me. My typical procrastinating self has seemed to have gotten the best of me yet again. Tonight, I find my self stumbling all around my house, through the closets and dressers, in a seemingly endless search for that missing sock or that iPod charging cable or that answer again to “what am I getting myself into?!?”.