s-u-n-s-h-i-n-e

It is always around this time of year in late February, that I start to make deals to sell my soul in order to see the sun for longer than 5 hours at a time. However, the deal-making is done for this year because SPRING IS HERE!!! Today there was no other word but MARVELOUS to describe the weather in Budapest. The sun was shining like it just won an Oscar by 7:30 this morning. It was like I woke up with a spotlight on full blast prying my eyelids open—just the thing I had been hoping for.

Upon peeling myself out of bed and observing the sights below my window, I did next what came naturally—I zipped up my boots, took out my spring jacket and headed off to all of my favorite cafes to spend the day reading, eating and smiling away. I spent the entire day café hopping. IT WAS GREAT. I probably consumed 7 times the amount of liquids that constitutes a balanced bodily intake, but today I did not hold back. It was only when I went to pay for the first of my 19 beverages of the day that I realized I had 4 different currencies in my pocket. I went to sit back down and took out my laptop only to find a message in my inbox from one of my best friends—who is Colombian—and another few messages being from a South African, a Swede and a Greek. I then opened up my notes from class the previous day and got to thinking about my professors being of German, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Swiss backgrounds.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ME? I remember like it was yesterday, that I was taking a vacation with my family to Vancouver, BC and when it came time to cross the mystical, magical border beyond the US, I had to practically be tied down and sedated because of the excitement of my very first experience visiting another country—and just the English-speaking one that touches our northern border. Looking back, I also remember making weekend trips to St. Paul with these butterflies in my stomach because of getting to go to the capital of my state. And I also remember oooooohhhing and ahhhhhhhing at the novelty of the mysterious foreign exchange student in high school. I don’t think I actually knew a foreign person until I was about 16. Oh how the tables have turned…Now instead of having to be tied down when crossing borders, I have to be woken up to show passports and travel documents, my weekend trips consist of impromptu treks to Austria or Croatia, and now it is ME who is the foreigner—discussing with my Polish roommate his reasoning behind why it is necessary that he blasts his music at 5 in the morning. And I’m only oooooohed and aaahhhhed at if I actually tell people to oooooh and aaaahhhh.

It’s funny the person I grew into since I was at one point so sure of living my whole life in my hometown. Now I don’t know if I will ever live there again. I sure miss it some days and especially the great people there, but I know in my mind and heart that is not the place for me. But the point of this blog is not to showcase my traveling ability or name drop all the foreign friends I have or places I have been—the point is that I am doing what I once thought was so very far out of my reach--figuratively and literally. Prior to my initial abroad experience I had closed the door on a life outside of Minnesota—my comfort zone—as well as on alot of other dreams and intrigues I had because they weren’t of the norm, conventional or practical. And that made me hesitant—the thought of being myself! Yuck, I hate that I let others dictate how I felt about my own life. But somehow by taking that very small, very chaperoned first step of exploring Vancouver, it was as if the flood gates opened. Once I had been exposed, I found I had the ability to keep going by myself. And although getting past what others think of you is a huge obstacle, it is SO satisfying when you are on the other side doing what it is you had previously ruled very undoable.

For me it is living a life like the one I am now and being the person that I am growing into which makes me most happy. This will most likely change as the years go on—I will want different things as life continues, but for now I am happy. And to think it all began just by going 20 miles north of the border.