It's gonna be just like that movie Eurotrip! Only not...

I'm so incredibly excited for our trip, but now "nervous" has officially been added to my list of emotions towards it. I'm not worried about being homesick or disliking the places we go, just afraid that I'll feel like a total outsider and feel isolated. I've never really been the "new girl" and it's daunting to think of experiencing that in a place so different from the only country I'm familiar with.

On the flip side - and I guess it's odd coming from an American - but I actually look forward to the sensory overload: new smells, sights, textures, sounds - everything. Just from what everyone has been telling me of their own experiences makes me feel as though I've been starved from real colors and real flavor and real character, and I feel ravenous and depleted and I CANNOT wait to indulge with every sense.

Despite some very sudden, plan-altering, seemingly monumental, and highly unanticipated turns of events in the past 3 months, I'm happy about where the next 3 appear to be taking me! It looks like it'll be punctuated with a lot of travel and free time to figure out what direction I want to go in, which I desperately need. I'm getting the feeling that the universe just wants me to kick back and go with the flow.

So flow I will.

You're kind of following me at an odd time...

Adrien's been dominating me in keeping up with our blog, and you can ask anyone I've played Wii with - I don't take losing well. Actually if I'm honest with myself, I don't even take winning well. My opponent(s) is destined to suffer from bruises and low self-esteem regardless of the outcome.

ANYWAY. I'm looking forward to it but I CANNOT believe we're only two weeks away. For the moment I'm a little buried in planning - making packing lists, buying up all of my last minute things (which includes a very cute purse that'll make its debut in our airport pictures, I'm sure), writing a (brief) list of things I want my Mama to come check up on while we're gone, and so on.

My reading list for the plane consists of 3 great reads:

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. This book follows the lives of 4 people living in India in the 1970s and opens up the world of lower castes. It's supposed to be excellent and it fits right in with my current reading theme of the Middle East and India.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. I look so forward to reading this one. It's a story about the author himself who devoted his life to building schools in the most remote villages of Pakistan. He stumbled upon one in particular after a failed attempt to climb K2 and wanted to repay their generous hospitality by building them a school. I'm sure it's rife with adventure and people "rising to the occasion" and everything else that I love reading about.

I haven't figured out why, but despite all of the conflict in the Middle East right now, I imagine the people to be so hospitable and warm that I can't help but want to visit. ... maybe not now, but definitely one day.

And finally, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It shocks me too that despite all the English and English Literature classes I've taken in my life I have never read this book! I honestly don't even have the slightest clue what it's about, and I don't think I'm going to read a thing about it until it arrives on my doorstep.

There are two reasons why I picked this one, the primary one being that I am completely unfamiliar with the "classics" in literature and that's a shame for any bibliophile to admit to. The second reason is because my younger sister has to read it for school and I'm holding onto false hope that she'll fall in love with it and we can fawn over it together, haha!

***

I guess it's on to my to-do list. I keep walking into my kitchen ready to clean, only to look at the destruction, get frustrated and stomp back to my computer only to repeat the process 8 minutes later.

It's time.

15 days!

So my bouncing-off-the-walls excitement has kind of dulled now. I'm really looking forward to going, but I think my brain feels like it's been deceived and is waiting to decide if excitement is truly the appropriate emotional response.

I've been exercising like it's my job in preparation for this little adventure, because let me tell you -- I have plans: Cheese, wine, chocolate, olive oil, more cheese, and a little more chocolate...

Oh, and more cheese...

I'm trying to give myself a head start with tons of cardio, yoga, and pilates... Le sigh.

And OHMAHGOSH, I FORGOT ALL ABOUT THE CROISSANTS! MAN! Watch out, Europe. I'm about to roll through there like... like... like you ain't even seen nobody eva roll through there!

Oh, France! I love you already!