Is it this difficult for anyone else?

Why do I suck at traveling? I'm gonna take it as a sign that its not meant to be, and therefore not attempt it ever again. Does the mood of this post look familiar. Because.....it should! Remember the last big trip I went on and started it off on a terrible note, spring break? There, I boarded the train in the wrong direction and missed my flight. In this strikingly similar and stupid case, I booked my flight for 6 AM instead of 6 PM, an error completely unaware to me until I was kicked off the 6 PM flight.

So here I am, stuck in London Stansted airport. My friends are in Krakow. Paying out of my butt in British pounds to use a computer to book a flight and print off a boarding pass. There is one gleam of silver in here - I'll get into Krakow at 9:30 in the morning and should be able to meet up with my friends and not miss any of what we had planned. But would I normally pay multiples of hundreds of dollars for such a small gleam of silver? Not at all.

I understand its money, and I should be thankful ultimately that I'm in a situation where I can screw things up like this and just book another flight even if it messes some things up, but hey, at least it was a possibility. I understand there are alot of other things to worry about and much worse situations to be in, but I'm just sick of this. What am I doing wrong? I thought I prepared well for travel, but I refuse to come back to the states and call myself an experienced traveler, because with the amount of costly mistakes I've made I'm anything but.

I don't want to bitch and moan, so I'll log off. I'll be hanging in the airport for the night and grabbing the flight to Krakow at 6 in the morning. It'll be a fun trip and I'm excited that I wont miss much. I miss my family right now though, I miss the comfort of home and being settled. I'll be right back in London in exactly two weeks laying over waiting to fly back to the USA. I'll go off and make some good stories in that period of time to make my next post, one of my lasts posts, a joyous post full of adventure (the kind of adventure that Hobbits hate).

Peace, Zach

PS - Damn those exchange rates! 140 pounds turns into like 220 dollars

Concluding JFRC, starting summer, and vagabond backpacking

Schools out for summer :-D. I didnt even think about the fact that it was summer until somebody else told me, since I'm still over here I just grouped it together with this semester. But can you kick off a summer in a better way than a couple weeks of backpacking through Europe with friends? That sounds too ideal, the type of thing your older sibling did when you were younger and you always dreamed of doing if you could somehow finagle it. Well, I guess its not too ideal, cause its happening!

School is done, people are slowly leaving, and the mass of people leaves early tomorrow morning. Tonight is one last night for everyone to spend some time in the city they've called home and has come to very much feel that way. I'm going to a jazz bar with some friends, probably splitting a bottle of wine at the Trevi Fountain afterwards, and maybe hitting up the 24-hour bakery before heading home. Leaving Rome hasnt hit me yet because I'll be back for a few days.

What has hit me is leaving my friends, but it didnt hit me hard till last night. I've made absolutely amazing connections with friends here, and I know those are connections that will last. But I'll miss the people I wont stay connected with, and I'll miss the atmosphere of being able to hang out with anyone at any time even if you've never spoken before. I'll miss the intellectual talks, the talks about God and the human race, the open-mindedness that almost every person here lives by. Sure, it was a little like high school, and it was cliquey, but I'll deal with that for the fabulous community that was formed. And the use of that word isnt cliche; JFRC did become a community, you could have inside jokes about teachers, you always drunkenly stumbled upon a fellow student on the night bus back up the mountain to the campus and recapped your evenings together, everybody together watched the school play/poetry class performance/voice class performance/film class presentations/sculpture class presentations. It may sound corny and unnecessary, but it added alot to this experience, and gave all of us a much different feel for study abroad than most people got.

But anyway - HERE I COME FRANCE AND EASTERN EUROPE. I'm excited to hang out with our couch surfers, meet up with other ones who couldnt host because they have other surfers but invited us to party, travel in places where the Euro isnt destroying my wallet, and travel for the longest period of my life. I'm excited that I get to end it on my own for about 3 days. I need the time to reflect and get closure in my head, and I need those last couple days in Rome to say goodbye.

The mood now though is joyful, its not sad. Tomorrow will be tough to say goodbye to friends, but I'll be excited to head out on my own adventure. And summer is underway, and I can start to daydream about what awaits me at home. Life is good, just like it has been for the last three and a half months, and its a life that I dont want to let go of. While packing up, I came across pictures and cards I brought that family gave me before I came and I had the biggest deja-vu of my life. I read of them telling me to take in this experience of a lifetime and that they were excited to hear the stories when I got home. I looked at the pictures I brought and remembered packing them so I wouldnt feel so isolated. I remembered all those things like it was January. And now I've made those stories to share with others, I'm almost headed back home, this experience that I was told would be life-changing is almost over. And the most amazing thing about it is what it does to you. I feel so comfortable in this new skin I have and the person I've become as a result of study abroad, a change that is impossible to articulate but is totally priceless.

I'll close with a quote that they use here alot at JFRC - "Not all who wander are lost." I wandered, and I found myself, I found this beautiful life. Goodbye friends and my lovely Roman home. I'll see you when I see you, and I can promise no more, so please know that the memories I have and the feelings I've felt are more valuable to me than any picture or souvenir I could take away.

I'll check back in when I return to Rome on May 12. Wishing everyone health, happiness, and safety (wishing myself the same thing), see you in a couple weeks!

Zach

Random Thoughts

- These are the kids I tutor, coolest kids ever.

- Impressionism just adds happiness to the world. Its just massively idealized drawings of nature, and in the best way possible. Awesome traveling impressionist art exhibit that I visited, seen below was my favorite painting.

- I always thought that the Beatles Anthology collection was a greatest hits disc series, like a final collection of their favorites. Little did I know that its a crazy collection of new songs, variant recordings, obscure versions of old favorites, mess-ups, interviews, and demos of songs. I got it from a friend, and it is completely life-changing.

- So, what about the Bills draft? I see what was going on with the Spiller pick, that the best way to hide a bad line is with a player that can create on his own. But fancy players like that arent for the Buffalo Bills' of the league, and I dont know when they'll realize that. Ultimately, I'm buying into whatever this Nix/Gailey combo is going for, so I'll tough it out through this upcoming 3-13 season, and I'm hoping Ralph will to, because I think their goals are long-sighted but I think it will work.

- I leave on Thursday for my long trip, and its pretty much official now, so I'll fill you guys in....

April 29 - Fly to Nice and meet up with the friends I'll be traveling with. Explore the French Riviera while they finish up school
April 30 - Hang around Nice/Antibes/Riviera
May 1 - Fly to Krakow
May 2 - Day trip to Auschwitz, back to Krakow
May 3 - Explore Krakow
May 4 - Train to Prague
May 5 - Prague
May 6 - Prague
May 7 - Train to Budapest
May 8 - Budapest
May 9 - Budapest
May 10 - Train to Vienna
May 11 - Vienna
May 12 - Leave Vienna and train to Bratislava, explore the city for a while, fly from Bratislava to Rome at night
May 13 - One last full day in Rome on my own, finish out some things I want to do
May 14 - Last day in Rome, get to airport at night to sleep
May 15 - Fly out in the morning, transfer in Heathrow, transfer in Chicago, finish in Syracuse

I'll update one more time before I head out on this trip! Winding down finals right now and getting ready to head out. I'm so happy I have that last couple days in Rome to reflect on it all and spend some time in the city I've grown to love so so much. Its been a hectic week of studying and paper writing, trip planning, final Rome adventuring, and immune system failing.

Can you get much more bittersweet than having to say goodbye to this majestic city that fascinates me and stimulates my senses to the extreme and will forever remind of an almost dream like period of my life, but at the same time being able to say hello to family and friends that I'm closest with combined with totally idealized thoughts of one last childhood summer back home?

Goodbye for now :-)