This year has come and gone faster than any year before. Or at least that is what it feels like right now.
This year has also been busier and more full of experiences than any year before. Or at least that is what it seems like to me.
I started this year, on New Year’s Day, on an airplane from my home in Los Angeles to Miami, preparing for one of my first adventures of 2016.
I ventured off to Martinique for a month on the French Caribbean island to study French and to acquire the habit of island time. I lived with an amazing family that welcomed me with open arms and made me fruit salad and strong coffee for breakfast every morning. I learned a lot of French, climbed an active volcano with a 4-month post-surgery knee, sun bathed (or rather sun burnt) while it snowed in Delaware, and gained some good friends.
Then it was off to Delaware to go through a stressful semester with my two best friends by my side. My family and I visited my sister in South Carolina where she was fulfilling the last requirement of her college degree at an internship.
After passing the semester with decent grades, it was time for a celebration. But not a celebration for me – a celebration for my sister graduating college. Family from all over the country came to watch her walk across the stage in her green robe and 4-inch heels.
My sister graduated college! Woo!
After my sister’s graduation, it was time for us to go back to Los Angeles to watch my bother walk across a stage at his middle school graduation. To be honest, we were all a very little bit worried that he wouldn’t graduate. So, we celebrated that too. On the same day of my brother’s graduation, my best home friend graduated from high school, so I went to congratulate her and tell her how excited I was for her to be studying only an hour and a half away from me in Baltimore!
After all of the graduations and life milestones I was off to another adventure in Norway. I left in mid-June to go visit some friends in Sandefjord before going to Oslo and dragging my 50-pound suitcase up a gravel path to move into the Blindern dorms at the University of Oslo. I would live in those dorms with my two roommates for 6-weeks while taking an art of Norway and a Scandinavian politics class. It was an International Summer School, so I met and became friends with people from all over the world. In these 6 weeks, I faced some challenges, but I also came out of it with some pretty awesome friends. I was able to be a co MC at the International Cultural Night with one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Together we made people laugh and cry at our bad jokes, and we were able to celebrate all of the diversity and beauty that was the summer.
Directly from summer school, I took a flight to Copenhagen to meet my family. We proceeded to see the city and then hop on an 11-day Baltic cruise where we went back to Oslo, Norway, then to Stockholm, Sweden; Tallin, Estonia; Wardenmunde, Germany; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Helsinki, Finland. Then, it was time to go back to the US for all of us. My family headed back home to Los Angeles as I headed to Delaware. I met my dad there so he could drive me around because my truck was broken and undriveable. I had an appointment at the French consulate that I couldn’t miss to get my French visa.
After submitting all my paperwork in DC and cleaning out my room in Delaware, it was back to California for a hot minute. Then, it was back to Delaware to pick up my visa (where my truck broke down on me again and I had to take two Ubers and a tow truck to and from D.C.). I got a cardboard cutout of myself that now sits in my friend’s living room at school and I had to say hello and goodbye to my best friends.
After my two weeks in the US, it was back to Europe for me. This time it wasn’t to Norway, believe it or not, it was to Paris, France to study for 4 months to try to perfect my French.
After 4 months of the Parisien experience, living with the sweetest host mother, making some new friends, and visiting old one’s, it was back to the US for me.
I celebrated Christmas with my family, where we didn’t get out of our PJs all day, and then I was off to North Carolina to go swing dancing. I hung out with friends, danced my booty off (jk, my booty is just as prevalent as always), and learned some new tricks of the trade. The trade being swing dancing.
In North Carolina is where I celebrated a dancing and champagne-filled New Year’s.
Then 2017 was opened and waiting for me to take some new adventures !
Can We Go Please? 