Almost there!

Six more days until I take a 23 hour journey to my new favorite place! I can't be as excited as I want to be right now since I received three vaccinations yesterday and am currently experiencing flu-like symptoms. Not fun... but I will now be able to fight off Typhoid Fever, Hepatitis A, and Yellow Fever. Whoo!

For the first six days the girls and me have everything figured out so far. We've booked a hostel and met a girl, Rachel, who can help us get situated. She's from UNC- Chapel Hill, which is really close to our university, so I immediately feel comforted in that she will be the one to help us out.

A lot of people have been asking me about how I feel with the departure date looming and if I am excited. It really depends on the day how I feel about everything. I have days where I'm so excited then days where I am just making lists in my head. There's just a lot to think about and so many ways to feel about this situation. I've never left the country, even home, for more than ten months by myself yet I love Spanish and the fact that I'll be in an evironment where people, signs, and TV will all be in Spanish. I guess if I had to pick one word for it it would be that I feel overwhelmed. In both a good and bad way, but I'm keeping a positive attitude about the whole thing and taking everything in stride.

Nothing is set in stone yet after those first six days. I'm not sure if it´s just Latin American culture or the University I am going to. Or maybe it´s just an American thing to want to know exactly how things are going to happen and what to expect when you arrive to a new place. I know this is probably just typical study abroad things that people learn in my situation, but it´s harder dealing with it even though I knew it was coming. But everything will work out mostly because it has to! After all the research I've done, I feel good about this experience and that I will be able to manage it with the help of the other students from UM. There are only 13 international students including myself and we've already been emailing each other so that's a good sign.

And I would say the second most common thing people ask me when they realize Uruguay is a Spanish-speaking country is "Can you speak Spanish? Will you be able to get around?" Yes, I can speak Spanish though not fluently yet and yes, I will be able to get around. People always ask me this like they can't believe I'm attempting to go to a country that isn't too English-friendly, but I really don't think it will be too bad. I'm far enough along in the Spanish major where I can take the basics I've learned and start to really use them and build upon them to gain fluency. It definitely won't be easy going from speaking my broken Spanish to my American Spanish teachers to being able to speak fluidly to any Spanish speaking person, but I'm confident that I can accomplish this before I leave Uruguay. Plus, I'm pretty sure I have the most classroom hours in my little group of three people so I'll have to step my game up and make sure I can help us find housing and get around the city, and explore our new school. I write better than I speak Spanish, though, so if worse comes to worse I'll just whip out an empty notepad (International students would do this to me at UNCG and it seemed to really help them) and just write down what I want to say on it.

The only big thing that still needs to be done is for me to get my laptop back from HP headquarters. I reall need it before I leave, so I can contact my parents when I arrive via Skype and, of course, I'll need it for school. The next biggest thing is packing... oh, goodness. How on earth does one pack for 10 months?

I wrote this post over a few days and as I'm finishing it I have four more days until I leave. I find myself being very nostalgic as I spend my last days in this familiar place and even saying "Oh my gosh" out loud a lot as it keeps hitting me that I really signed up for this. I'm really looking forward to it and thankful for all the people that have helped me get here by filling out papers on my behalf and holding my jobs and just supporting me as I've had to watch all the other international students leave while I'm still here. So, thank you guys and the next post will be on the day that I leave... in four days... on Thursday!