"It's the day (before) the show, y'all!"

Welcome to my first blog! I don't know what I'm doing! I decided to do a blog this time because I know a lot of people aren't fans of mass e-mails (myself included). And it might just be easier to do shorter posts every couple of days rather than a long e-mail every week. My hope is to post pictures online during my travels, but that may have to wait until my whole adventure is over.

AAAH! I feel very overwhelmed right now as I am getting some last minute things done before I leave tomorrow. It's very typical for me to get so bogged down in the details of a trip that I don't start to get really excited until I'm in the airport. So at 11:30 AM EST tomorrow, I will be feeling good, but now I just feel very, very scattered.

Anywho, here's my basic itinerary for my trip:
-Feb. 10-Mar. 10: Kenya with ICROSS (International Community for the Relief of Starvation and Suffering)...not sure exactly what I will be doing, but it will be wonderful.
-Mar. 10-Mar. 31: Not sure of exact dates yet, but I will be visiting my study abroad host family in Paris, visiting my high school friend Melanie in Berlin, visiting my L'Arche friends Joy and Beranger in Grenoble (French Alps), and possibly visiting my sister-in-law's sister in Vienna and Budapest. That's a lot for three weeks, and if I do all of those things, it will probably take me more than three weeks to do them.
-April: Walking across Spain on El Camino de Santiago (the path of St. James)! Hello, blisters!
-May: Returning to Grenoble and maybe visiting a monastery or religious community somewhere before I return home. My departure date depends on what nursing school I end up going to. (I'll be making a decision while I'm in Kenya.)

As you can see there are three-ish month-long stages: (1) ICROSS in Kenya, (2) Trekking all over Europe, (3) El Camino, and (2 cont.) more European trekking. I guess you could call this my version of Eat, Pray, Love, but with only a month in each of these places. Maybe my trip should be called Love, Pray, Walk or something like that. I don't know. But I like the idea of three distinct stages. It seemed to work well for Elizabeth Gilbert, though I do not want to return home with an older Brazilian man...

I think it's important to have goals before starting a new adventure, so here's the list I have so far:
-Journal every day
-Write blog posts regularly!
-Pray every day
-Learn some Swahili and Spanish
-MAKE A DECISION ABOUT NURSING SCHOOL
-Take lots of pictures
-Have fun

I'm sure I'll come up with other things once I'm in the thick of it. But the main purpose of this trip is to see the world, grow deeper in my relationship with God, and have fun because this might be the last time that I don't have ANY responsibilities!

Thanks for sharing this journey with me.