Travel Obsession

An entire semester has gone by since I spent four months living in the beautiful city of Florence, Italy, which is so hard for me to believe. Those four months were the most incredible months thus far in my life, and I am not sure why I did not decide to start keeping a blog while I was living in Florence. Better late than never I guess!

Traveling is not new to me. My mother has owned a travel agency for 19 years and I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to travel before I went abroad. Together, my mom and I went to Vienna, Prague, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Heidelberg (where my mom was born!), Oberammergau (to see an 8 hour Passion Play in 2000), Rudesheim, Rothenburg, Lake Como, Lucerne, and Lugano. We have also been to many islands together: Jamaica, Punta Cana, St. John, St. Thomas, Turks and Caicos, San Juan, Grand Cayman. Since Cancun is a tropical destination, I will mention that I have been there more than once. I have also been to the Bahamas 20 times. The reason why my mom and I traveled to the Bahamas so many times is because she had to renew her gambling license every year. So we HAD to go to the Bahamas quite frequently! Not a bad deal! But nothing can really compare to my travels during the months of September, October, November and December of 2009.

In four months, I visited Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam, Interlaken, Rome (4 times), the Amalfi Coast, Sorrento, Capri, Positano, Pompeii, Venice, Cinque Terre (Riomaggiore, Manarola, and Corniglia), Monteriggioni, Assisi, Ravenna, Pietrasanta, Carrara, Sienna, Pienza, Lucca, San Gimignano, Milan, Lake Como, and Pisa.

I changed a lot during that semester I spent abroad. Obviously, I became much more independent. I felt more comfortable with the English language. This statement might seem a bit odd, but it is in fact a truthful observation. Not being able to communicate with ease was at times frustrating. I became much more confident in communicating my thoughts when I came back to the United States. I was not thinking about what I wanted to say. I was just speaking without having to think. Living abroad also intensified my desire to travel even more.

Traveling is a huge part of my life. This summer I even had the opportunity to go to Uganda and Cameroon for three weeks all expenses paid. At Syracuse University, I have a work study with the Africa Business Program in the Whitman School of Management. Most of my time was spent organizing a conference on Entrepreneurship in Africa that was held this past semester on Good Friday. Many representatives from Africa were flown into Syracuse. On the first day of the conference, I met a research team whom I exchanged contact information. Two weeks later they e-mailed me asking me if I'd like to apply for a summer research opportunity to carry out case studies on journalism, technology and business. What an incredible opportunity that would have been?! Unfortunately, my mom and grandparents persistently objected to it until I agreed to not go.

I know another opportunity like this one will come my way. I am head over heels in love with traveling and I will make sure I will have the opportunity to see the world. After being abroad and having the opportunity to travel to Africa, I came up with a new dream job. My new ultimate career goal is to work for the travel channel! And preparation for that starts now...