190 days to go...but who's counting?

Dia dhuit!

Every college student is told to use their 4 years of undergraduate schooling to explore the world before they have to face that whole "reality" thing *shudders*, so here I am on the verge of such an excursion.  In March of 2013, I will be hopping on a plane to Dublin herself and all her Guinness glory.  I've been to a total of 4 states outside of Illinois: Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, and New York. Exciting stuff, I know. This lack of exploration eventually encouraged me to bring up the idea of traveling to my sessile parents.  At first, they assumed I had told a very funny joke and enjoyed a good laugh, but with time I was able to chip away at their anti-traveling barriers and here I am.

I look upon this experience with both excitement and fear.  You know it's a big deal when you start having crazy dreams about it-like when we first had to use lockers in middle school, so every night you were caught in a nightmare that wouldn't allow you to remember your combination and you were late to class and the teacher was disappointed in you....No? Just me? Well, my fantastical brain has already manufactured illusions of forgetting all my luggage when the plane has already touched down on foreign soil and what not.  On the other hand, this is a normal reaction (or at least I hope so) to trying out something new, and it's braver than my usual "one step at a time" approach.  I want to truly feel that sense of culture shock when I step onto Irish ground so that I could learn to appreciate the culture.  

All that said, I'd like to bring up an interesting idea of mine that I would like you all to participate in! I want this experience to be shared with all of y friends so I am asking for you to send me a request of what YOU would like ME to do while I am in Ireland! This will force me to take the road less traveled by finding whatever is you ask of me, and it will make me take advantage of the opportunity I have been given by going to Ireland. Of course, my only condition is that it be within reason (Jon already asked me to find an alpaca -.-), but other than that, ask away! I will post these on my blog, and repost my completion of them with a picture of finding/doing that request.  Can't wait to see it!

190 days to go . . . no passport, no plane ticket, no packing, no clue of what awaits me . . .

But I'm counting . . . and I'm counting on it to be the most incredible, exhilarating, liberating, and life-changing journey of my 21 years. 

Comments? Questions? Advice? Funny jokes? You know where to find me.