AHHHHHH!!! So the day has come. The day I have been waiting for since we bought our plane tickets in December. Our GREECE Adventure!!!! Finally, finally back on the road. The last time I stepped foot on foreign soil was a little more than a year ago when I went to Peru with one of my very best friends, Camila Gaard. On March 15th, 2008 I departed from Houston to venture off to the rough, provocative, amazing continent of South America. Even though I spent only a mere week in Peru it was enough to completely change my life. Dancing to the techno beats of Hernan Cattaneo until 7 am with a Swedish backpacker on my very first night, exploring Lima with Cami and her tios, staying in a beach condo overlooking the Pacific Ocean with surfers and old hippies, riding on the back of a moto through the moon-lit streets and sand dunes, watching the sun set over the harbor every night, drinking fresh papaya juice, speaking spanish (kind of), laughing, experiencing, loving. My first real trip abroad. After I got back I spent nearly everyday thinking of the next time I could experience such freedom and such fullness again. Full of life, living my dream. Doing the one thing that makes me stop and say "oh yeaaa that's why I am alive". Travel. After one summer in Texas and an absolutely amazing freshman year at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I am about to fly off into my dreams again...

For the next 6 weeks I will be in GREECE. I am bringing nothing more than a backpack and a money belt... we are doing this thing on a budget, which makes it all the more exciting! Oh and when I say "we" I am referring to me and Jessica Kutz- my roommate from college. I am a lucky one-- I actually got a roommate that I liked! We have become the best of friends, actually it would be more accurate to describe us as sisters, and somehow we managed to convince our parents to let us go to Europe. This trip is all on our dime; I worked all semester at this coffee shop-ish place at the big student center on campus and Jessica at the Alumni Call Center where she honed her skills as a telemarketer. So with the money we have saved, we deemed it only fitting to spend it all in a foreign country. The first three nights will be spent in Athens in a youth backpackers hostel. We are right next to the Acropolis and we actually have a perfect view of it from the roof-top bar at our hostel (success!). Then for four weeks we will be volunteering on an organic farm on an island called Evia. We are staying with a family in an "old traditional farmhouse" right by the beach and a yoga retreat. Should be picking up some knowledge on self-sustainability, organic farming techniques, and hard work. It will be interesting to see how two college girls who tend to laugh a little too much, have hour long dance parties when studying should be happening, really have no experience with manual labor, and plan to take a million pictures in our fancy new overalls we bought at the thrift store make it for a month doing legit tilling of the land. hahaha. Basically the deal is if we work 5 hours a day during the week we get free room and board. It's certainly going to be an experience like no other. So then after the farm we are spending 10 days island hopping through the Cyclades. We will spend 3 nights each at Santorini, Ios (ultimate party island), and Mykonos. Those ten days we will either be staying in hostels or camping... we brought the hammock too so no worries. The plan is to get super tan, meet a lot of international hotties, dance all night at the discos, ride around on scooters during the day, rent donkeys in Santorini, visit the infamous nude beaches in Mykonos, and enjoy being aliveeeeeee. The last night we are staying in Athens and we have an early morning flight back to the states on June 30th.

It's going to be EPIC.

I'll try to keep up with this whole blog business, but don't be mad if the posts get shorter with more time in between. I'll do my best. I love you guys so so much!!!


AND SO WITH THAT I AM OFF TO EUROPE TO MEET WHO I AM MEANT TO MEET, TO SEE WHAT I AM MEANT TO SEE, TO DO WHAT I AM MEANT TO DO. TO ASSAUGE MY RESTLESS SOUL IF ONLY FOR A SHORT TIME . TO TRAVEL.