2 DAYS TO GO!!

So pretty much going into the final stages at this point. It's Friday and I leave on Sunday. I'm kiiiiiiiinda freaking out. The packing is the worst part. My suitcase can only weigh 45 pounds and it currently weighs.... 70 pounds. And I don't know what else to take out. How does one pack for 4 months for 70 degree to 30 degree weather? In a suitcase less than 50 pounds? I just don't know how anyone can do it.

Finally got a list of all the people that will be on the trip, and have been Facebook stalking. It's a group of 11 people, all girls! That's kind of weird, but it's cool. They all seem really great so far, although most of them seem much more... worldly than I. I'm really looking forward to meeting them.

I just found out about a week ago that I've been accepted to be a student correspondent for Global Post, an online news source that covers global news via independent correspondents living in different countries all over the world. They've started a Study Abroad page for students to contribute and talk about their experiences abroad. Hopefully I can keep up with that blog, this one, and all my school work.

Regardless of how nervous I am, and how hard packing is, I'm excited. I can't wait to see Zagreb and meet all the people in the program and my host family. Mostly though, I can't wait until the 12+ hours of traveling are over!

The Packing Nightmare

10 days until I leave.

I've been waiting for SIT to send out a list of other people who will be going on the trip, but they haven't yet, so I'm getting kind of worried like, I don't want to go to a foreign country with a bunch of people that I literally know nothing about. Luckily, I made a group on Facebook that one other girl joined, and we've been corresponding via Facebook about travel plans and packing and whatnot.

Packing. Whew. I haven't really started yet, although I do have a big empty suitcase sitting in my room and an extremely long Excel worksheet of things to bring. I've bought a few things, plain t-shirts, a new bag, a skirt and cardigan and some leggings, but I still have a bunch of toiletries and crap to buy, as well as school supplies. Still working on that whole... getting rid of stuff in my room thing. It's stressful.

Most of my friends are back at school, so they're all dealing with classes and stuff, but I'm just sitting at home... hanging out... waiting...

Preparing to prepare

I decided at the beginning of the summer that before I left for Europe I wanted to totally clean out all the crap that is in my room. Like, everything. I remember being at school, packing for winter break and just throwing everything I owned in boxes. And boxes, and boxes and boxes. I lived in basically a 6x6 room with another person, and somehow I packed enough stuff in there to fill our living room up with boxes! And that was just stuff I wanted to take home with me for a month-long break!

How is that even possible? It really freaked me out. I ended up spending about a week during my winter break clearing out shoes and clothes and other stuff to get rid of. It felt good, but I still had a TON of stuff. A. TON. And so I feel like leaving to go on a trip is a good opportunity to (try) to purge myself of a bunch of crap.

But that is ridiculously hard. All I have to do is open one drawer and think about it and I start to freak out a little. It's so stupid, and I'm aware of that, but it's so much harder than it initially seems. Take something like an old t-shirt that I never wear because it's light pink. I hate light pink. I literally have worn this t-shirt once, plus I have at least 3 drawers full of other old t-shirts. But it's from some state swimming meet, and it feels wrong to get rid of something like that. And then there's stuff like my grandma's jewelry that I used to wear constantly, but I don't so much anymore, or older books, or presents, or photographs, or things I bought on trips. I just don't know how to feel about that stuff. It's the kind of thing that I put on a shelf and never look at or think about otherwise, but when I start doing this, I sit and hold it in my hand and think for 20 minutes about how much it really means to me.

I just don't know how to go about doing this. I feel like it will be so freeing to clear a bunch of stuff out, and going to Europe with only a bag and a half of crap and knowing that I don't even have that much more stuff at home, but I just don't know if I even have the time. So right now, I'm mentally preparing myself to go through with The Purge. I'm not going to be done with work until August 21, and after that I'll have only 2 weeks to get ready to leave.

I'm kind of having a panic attack thinking about this right now.