It's on my list

I would say my biggest passion is traveling.  My first trip to Europe was with my mom the summer after my freshman year in high school.  We traveled to Paris first, and I was hooked!  I had love for art, culture, and fashion from an early age.  I remember being on top of a double-decker tour bus riding down the Champs-Élysées.  I saw all my favorite stores, so later that day, I told my mom I wanted to go back to the best street in the world, the "Champs (like the sport store) Elsie".  My mom had no idea what I was talking about, because I pronounced it so wrong.  Anyway,  I've been back to Paris at least 8 times since then, but not that street.  It's way too touristy, and does not have my favorite shopping.  I guess tastes change in 13 years!  I definitely prefer Rue Saint-Honoré now.

After Paris, we took the chunnel to London.  I think it was gloomy most of the time (shocker).  One of my best memories was standing in line with my mom (or "queuing" as I learned) in pouring rain for hours to get last minute tickets to the Wimbledon semifinals.  The rain was so worth it, because I got to see my idols Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi play (separately).  If you look at my "about you" page, you'll see how much I love tennis!!

After this trip, I was hooked!  It was fun to go to another place, see different cultures and beautiful sights.  So, of course I jumped at the opportunity after my junior year of high school to study for a summer in Oxford, England!  Let me tell you, I did a lot of studying ;)  That fall, I traveled with my senior class to Greece and Italy.  I knew I had to go back to Italy.  Out of the 70+ I've been to, it is one of my favorite countries!

I left that next year for college in Dallas, and I was planning all the ways I could study abroad.  This is where I developed "the list".  I was going to go to as many countries as possible, even if it was for a day! How many more countries could I cross off my list and pin on my map!?

{Wish this was my travel map, but I've probably been way more countries than cities in the United States!!}

I spent the fall semester of my junior year in college traveling the world on a boat... and studying... and getting college credit for it.  How does this even exist?!  The program was called Semester at Sea and it changed my life.

100 days.  24,036 miles.  4 continents.  11 countries.

Marcel Proust's quote,"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but having new eyes," basically sums up those four months of my life!

I will definitely do a big post soon on Semester at Sea, and studying in Florence and Sydney, but first I wanted to share places I've "crossed off my list"!

 My Travel Map

I will be blogging more in detail on different countries soon.  I wanted to start with an overview of my country list, and later post stories, experiences, and advice relating to travel.

I know I've been a lot of places, but I'm not done! There's definitely more on my list!