Before the Jump

Ever since I made the decision to leave my job and travel the world for six months - one of the most drastic of my life - I haven't lost any sleep over it. I've stayed up for other reasons - doing research and making travel plans and online shopping for travel accessories but not for second guessing. This might be because there is only one thing I'm certain about in my life and that thing is that I want to learn more about other places in the world and the people who live there. I want to take full advantage of this crazy connected world to fly to different corners of the globe and meet people in all those places where weirdly enough people speak my language and then use this invisible magic called the internet to keep in touch with them long after my outbound flight.

I want to know what it's like to live in those places - how they're affected by their history and economy and geography, how they see the rest of the world as well as their own city. I want to know it all because how can you understand your own country if you have nothing to compare it to. 

The more I find out about other countries the more I realize I know nothing about other countries. In general the US education system does a terrible job of educating students about other places - even places we have troops fighting in or have bombed, including a place I'll be going on this trip - Belgrade.

I was so excited abut everything related to the trip except the packing. While lugging my checked bag from my bedroom in the top floor of my (former) townhouse down seemingly endless flights of stairs I realized that I had not realistically packed. Instead I had done wishful packing. Based on what I had crammed into my suitcase I was going to work out every day, play tennis, find a dance studio, read a book on international relations, improve my Spanish, and learn Russian. And as a result I had forgotten to pack a decent coat – a necessity in Europe in October. Global warming is happening in Europe too right?

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