The journey has begun

The last few days have been extremely emotional since saying too many goodbyes and being stressed at the same time just makes you feel everything double the normal. Also hearing “the last words” from your friends makes you understand how privileged you have been when meeting so awesome people. Once again I’ve realized that leaving for longer travels makes you really understand that life goes on and also you need to move on to keep going with it.

I am now at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport writing this first blog post of my more or less year-long journey. The first destination is Miami, USA just for vacations and relaxing. After Christmas I head to Mexico to visit my friends who I got to know during my first exchange semester last spring. After enjoying the holidays in America it is time to get real and start my half-a-year experience as an exchange student in Spain. If I follow my current plan, at some point during the summer I will end up in Americas again but this time in the southern part of it, Chile, as an exchange student for third time. Third time is the charm, they say!

I learned from my first exchange that you need to stay open-minded and prepare yourself for everything but not to expect anything. This is the idea I try to follow during the upcoming year as well. I am luckily in a situation that I am not tied to anywhere anymore: After this year I will be graduating, so far I don’t have anything decided about my future career, I’m single and I don’t have any other obligations to live on a specific location. The tricky thing, however, is that this year may also change all of these and I am hoping it to change at least something in me. If I get (un)lucky it is possible - at least in theory - that after this year I will have a full-time job in an exotic location, I am planning to get married with a guy that I haven’t met yet and we are pondering the name for our first child.

To someone it may appear that I am just naive and living in utopia with my thoughts of one year having the possibility of changing the whole life. Advice to you, try travelling - and also follow from this blog how my experience abroad changes me. From my own experience I know that when you start your life from scratch in another country, you in a way become child-like being excited about everything you see and feel around you. I also know that this is a year that I need to experience before being mentally ready for graduation and it will hopefully make me understand a bit better who I am and what I want. Surprises will come and probably my plans will change many times but that’s the whole point of this experience. Stay tuned, I will be blogging of my travels and also how this small girl maybe grows up into a bigger person, it can happen either mentally or physically!