The Day

Hello!  If you've been reading this for any amount of time, you'll know that today is the day I am leaving.

Before I talk about that, I want to talk about Sunday!  Sunday was my eighteenth birthday.  I would like to thank everyone who was part of that, especially my parents and sister.  You really didn't have to get me all of those.  It's hard to believe how far I've come in one year.  This time last year I was watching the Euro Cup, enjoying comfort in the great familiar and studying abroad was only a dream.  Now it is a reality.  

Anyway, leaving.  For those of you who have been reading you will know that six days after I get back from Turkey I will leave for college.  Normally leaving for six weeks wouldn't be a big deal, but it is.  This is the reason why my blog is called Turkey and Everything After because this, this journey, adventure, whatever you want to call it marks the beginning of change for me.  When I get back life won't be normal, all of my friends will be getting ready to go to college and so on.

Leaving, part of me really wants to leave another part doesn't.  The part that doesn't is the part that wants more time in the familiar before my life changes completely.  And so it is in this way that I am stuck in a paradox of wanting to leave, but not wanting to leave.  I can't really explain the feeling.

Another thought is, even though I am leaving today it still feels like this adventure is far away.  It feels like I will never leave Anchorage, Alaska and that Turkey is still a distant thought.  I guess it hasn't hit me yet, I am still in disbelief that this amazing opportunity is actually going to happen and I don't think it will hit, not until I'm at the airport, maybe not even until I am in D.C.

I guess I am writing this, not only because I said I would write another post before I left, but because no matter how much you read, you can never imagine what exactly it is like to study abroad.  I still can't and I won't until I'm there.  It's impossible to imagine going into the complete unknown.

By this time tomorrow I will have touched down in D.C and might possibly be at my hotel.  Do I know what is going to happen?  Of course not.  Am I ready?  Not in the least, but nevertheless this moment is here.  This moment I have been dreaming of for over a year and I still can't believe this is happening. In ten hours I will board a plan that will take me from Anchorage to Chicago and I don't look at it as a six hour plan flight.  I look at it as the beginning.

I can't promise or tell you when or where my next post will be from, that all depends on how much time and internet I have, but the next time you read this I will be somewhere different, having an adventure.

As always thanks for reading.
Till next time,
-Sarah