South Africa Bound!

Hey everyone! Hopefully I’ve got this set up correctly and this got posted to Facebook!

As we speak, I am sitting in my terminal in BWI, waiting to leave for South Africa! I can’t believe that the day has finally come for me to head over there- it still doesn’t quite seem real and I’m not sure it will until I walk out into that 90 degree weather (yes, it’s really going to be that hot!).

I said goodbye to my dad and Kenny yesterday, because they had to head north for one of his gymnastics meets, and said goodbye to my mom and Kelly about an hour ago.  They were hard goodbyes because I will miss them all so much.  Oh, and I can’t forget the dogs.  They all seemed pretty unphased by all of the packing and even when I was saying goodbye, haha.  But keeping in mind where I’m going makes all of my goodbyes much easier!

I will be meeting up with a few guys from my program in New York, and then we will have a 15 hour layover in London where we will hopefully get to do some exploring.  After that we will be off to Cape Town, and we arrive on Monday.  Then the adventure begins!

A lot of the questions I have gotten revolve around why I chose to study abroad in South Africa of all places, so I guess I’ll shed some light on that.  This might sound silly, but some years ago I was watching the Bachelor on tv, and one of the places they traveled to was South Africa.  At that point I knew that I loved the wildlife in Africa but when I saw the gorgeous places they visited within South Africa, I was sold.  So it went right to the top of places I wanted to visit.

Initially I was looking at studying abroad in Italy.  But when I saw that there was a new program in South Africa, I knew it was fate! I quickly started doing my research on that program and started my application.  Not only that, South Africa is rich with history and culture.  And most people speak English, which is always a plus.  I am so excited to see all of the beautiful scenery in South Africa, taste its wonderful wines (I will be living in wine country), go on a safari, tan on the beaches, see all of the wildlife and learn tons about the country and its history.  I can’t thank my parents enough for allowing me to fulfill my biggest traveling dream. Love you guys!

Well I have to get ready to board… the next time I post I will be in South Africa and hopefully have tons of pictures to post on here as well.

One final thing… I just want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has supported me in this, sent me well wishes, or just been a great friend of family member.  I love you all and wish you the very best while I’m gone!  Good luck to all of my friends at school- UMD, Rice, UMBC, HCC, ERHS and many more.  Special shoutout to my turtle family- some friendship and bonds I did not expect to make but now don’t know what I’d do without them!

See you all when it’s warm!

xo

Kim