I’ve been privileged enough to travel to a lot of places in my life.  I’ve made a lot of trips with family and friends over the years.  I remember cross country road trips with my grandparents, family vacations with Mom and Dad and the little bros, that one time Eric and I told our parents we were going to visit some friends somewhere and drove to the beach and back in one day (Mom and Dad are just learning of this), taking my parents’ van to go backpacking in the Sipsey Wilderness or the Ozarks, going to Destin after graduation, that one Tuesday that Eric and I skipped school and flew to Orlando for the hell of it, driving through the most dangerous parts of Jackson in The Olds just for the hell of it, going camping in the north of Wisconsin with my cousins, convincing Meghan and some other college friends to go see Death Cab for Cutie in St. Louis on a Monday night freshman year of college, road-tripping to New York City for New Years Eve in Times Square, numerous wild trips to Indiana, driving to West Point Military Academy with Aubrey and then spending the night in the airport in New York before flying home the day school started back after spring break, going to Lollapalooza in Chicago, taking Meghan to the Atlanta airport when she was going to Tokyo, too many late night trips to the infamous Graceland Too, or weekend trips to Memphis, flying up to Boston on a paid for research trip, Iron and Wine concert one night in Birmingham, numerous trips  to Starkville or Hattiesburg to see friends at school, lots of trips in between Oxford and my parents house, my hurried flight out to Atlanta to get my visa during exam week and then a crazy weekend in New Orleans after exams last semester and then finally the much awaited flight over here to Europe.  It’s the places that you go—no matter how close or far away they are— that leave the biggest impression on you.  It’s the things that happen to you when you travel that give you stories to tell.  The trips you make are the things you remember.  I’ll always remember my weekend traveling alone through Eastern Europe and the people I met there, I’ll remember going to Amsterdam for the first time to see The Black Keys with Meghan and Willem, I’ll remember going to Morocco with Grace, and touring the south of France with Theodra.  This semester abroad has been a truly great experience— not only did I get to improve my French skills and grow accustomed to life in a different country but I also had some great travel opportunities and I’m about to have a few more.  Mitch (one of my roommates from back in Oxford) and I are meeting tomorrow at noon in Paris.  He’s been doing a May-session class in London the past few weeks.  We’ll be heading to Barcelona tomorrow night and staying there for 3 or 4 days.  From there we’ll be off to Rome, Stockholm, Berlin, Prague, and then Amsterdam before flying back to Chicago.  Sarah-Fey and Joe and Anthony will pick us up at O’Hare and we’ll slowly make our way back down to Mississippi over that next week (stopping to celebrate Mitch’s 21^st Birthday in Illinois/Missouri).  I’ll be out of touch for a while but life will be back to normal at the beginning of July.  Thanks to all of you who have read my blog this semester, I really enjoyed writing it.

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