reflection

So… here I am.  Exams are over, grades are in, ambassador’s ball is over, packing is done…it’s so depressing.  The ambassador’s ball was so much fun.  We had a great, great dinner and then awesome desserts.  Then there was dancing up on the 7th deck and everyone was a hot sweaty mess but it was awesome.
        And now it’s over.  Where did the last 4 months go?  I left home January 16th, left America on the 17th and now returning tomorrow, on May 5th.  These past 4 months I can’t even begin to explain.  I can’t even think of how to put 4 amazing months into words.  How am I going to explain to people the massiveness of the Great Wall, the man with no face in Vietnam (ok, ok… he HAD face…theoretically, but it was all burned away), the slums of India, the beautiful beaches in Mauritius, the townships in South Africa and the beauty of Table Mountain, the slave dungeons in Ghana and Christ the Redeemer in Rio?  I can but it’s not going to mean anything to the people hearing it.  To them it’s just me telling stories and them seeing pictures… but they won’t feel it…and that’s what makes the stories so much better. 
        I never dreamed in a thousands years that I would travel the world and go to the places that I have been.  I’ve always WANTED to travel the world but I never thought I could actually do it.  And yet here I am.  Check that off my bucket list.  I slept on the Great Wall… THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA… I slept on it!..in FEBRUARY.  Oh it was amazing.  This whole trip has been amazing.  I honestly can’t put it into words.  I really can’t.  I saw Christ the Redeemer in Rio and he was covered my scaffolding… no one else has seen him covered in scaffolding so I feel pretty special.  I pushed myself and did things i wouldn’t do… such as abseiling down a cliff into water in South Africa.  -
        Tomorrow I get back to America.  I will be an “Academic Adventure-er” as Don would say.  I have grown so much on this trip.  I have seen things that you would only read about in textbooks, I talked with people I never thought I would talk to, I bargained with the best, ate food that I would NEVER dream of eating, and lived, breathed and learned in every country.  I’m gonna get home and be home for 5 days and have an itch to get back to the MV.  I’m gonna miss all my friends I made here, the shipboard life in general… I mean come on.. this past semester was so legit… laying out and going to class every day and broken up every once in a while with 5 days in a country to do whatever I want.  I couldn’t ask for a better study abroad program.  The things I have learned on this trip and the people I have met are incredible.  I learned so much not just about the world and the countries I visited but about myself.  I left home, thinking I knew who I was.  I came on this trip and realized there is so much more that I want to do with my life.  I want to see so many more countries, meet so many more people, and experience so many more cultures.  This trip made me “flexible”.  Who plans anymore?  Planning is for  people who not interested in the now.  The best days I had were the days that my plans were thrown out the window and I just went where the wind blew me.  The days where you just hop into a rickshaw in India and see where the driver takes you… the days where you just walk the streets and take everything in.  Those were the days I learned the most… when I just went with whatever I felt like and didn’t have a set place to go and see.  The people I have met along the way have been truly amazing.  They are people I will never forget…this trip is something I will never forget.  The MV has been my home for 4 months…and now I’m leaving it.  So depressing!
        I just want to thank my mom and dad.  Honestly, without them I wouldn’t be here.  I know so many times my dad probably wanted to kill me with all the emails I sent because I froze my account for not knowing my pin number (stupid Chinese ATM’s have their numbers all backwards).  But if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t have had this great opportunity.  So ma and dad… thank you for everything.  When I get rich… you guys WILL be life long learners.  I wish you guys where there with me the whole way so that I don’t have to repeat all my stories and so that ma didn’t have to worry about me non-stop for the last 4 months.  So…Thank you mom and dad for giving me the world…you guys really are the best parents EVERRRRRRRRRRR.
        And for everyone else… thanks for reading!  I hope it was somewhat entertaining for you.  When I was sitting in the dining hall today, Clive came up to me and told me that I’m gonna go home and everyone is going to be excited and want to hear my stories but after a week they will be bored.  He said that no one is going to understand what I saw and what I did and it won’t hold as much significance to them as it does to me.  And it’s so true.  I mean come on… I wouldn’t want to hear about someone who just spent a semester traveling the world if I was stuck at home.  Talk about BORING.  But thank you.  Thank you for reading and taking an interest.  This trip has been a trip of a lifetime… I know I said that multiple times but it really has.  And I suggest EVERYONE goes on Semester at Sea or becomes a Life Long Learner… something me and my friends here are already planning of doing together.  Hahah.  I’m not even gone yet and we are planning when to see each other! 
        It’s a bittersweet moment.  It really is.  But every story has to come to an end and it’s time to go home.  It has been a hell of a ride and experience and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. 
        SEE YA IN AMERICA!!