Our flight isn't until tomorrow, but the airport is at least an hour's drive away, and the flight is at 6:30am (ouch) so we're staying in a hotel at the airport so the early morning won't be quite so painful...
Even though it's so near, and even though I've had almost all my things packed for at least a week, it still doesn't feel real. Flying out to another country to live for 6 months, is so different from anything I've experienced before, that I just can't picture it. Moving to Wales was another thing entirely - I can drive to Wales in 3 hours. There's also no language barrier (at least not in Cardiff...) and I'd visited the place twice before I packed up all my stuff and moved there.
This is new. This is SO new.
I don't know any of the place names or how to get there, I don't know when or where any of my classes will be, I don't know anyone there, I don't know what trams I need to take to get to lectures, I don't even know if I can speak French well enough to get by!
But I can't back away from it now - and there's no way I'll let my nerves stop me from having this once in a lifetime experience. I'm just gonna have to step straight off into the unknown on the good faith that it's gonna be AWESOME.
I thought this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was very fitting. He talks about men specifically, but I think this could apply to anyone regardless of gender (particularly year abroad students...)
Une fois pris dans l’évènement, les hommes ne s’en effraient plus. Seul l’inconnu épouvante les hommes. Mais, pour quiconque l’affronte, il n’est déjà plus l’inconnu.
Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men. But for anyone who confronts it, it is no longer the unknown.~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer and poet
Time to confront the unknown, then...! I'll see you all on the other side! :D
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