All my bags are packed... (Micronesian Summer, Part 1)

No, no... my bags are not packed.  They were, six years ago.  Today I sit on my couch, in my living room, in the home I share with my husband.  But back then I sat in my old room at home, surrounded by boxes of college dorm-room stuff.  (What else do you call a mixture of toasters, curling irons, and textbooks?)

I was reading through Cassandra's blog post this morning about wanting to travel and she asked at the end, "Where was the place you have gone to that has influenced you the most?"  That got me to thinking... they have ALL influenced me, and several are tied for influencing me "the most".  But there is one that I would like to share with you, and I have the first hand account thanks to my sporadic blogging back then.

There is too much to share for one post.  Too, too much.  Yet that works out perfectly because I am going incredibly busy for the next two weeks and will not be able to cook very often, so for a little while I am hijacking this here cooking blog that I have got going on and turning it into a travel blog.  Please take a little bit of your time over the next few days and follow my journey as I, along with 11 other college students, traverse across the pacific to bring a summer camp program to children who probably didn't know what the words "summer camp" mean, and learn a lot about the world and ourselves in the process.

June 19, 2006

It's here. Months of planning and work and sweat and sometimes tears, and when I wake up it will all begin. All my makeup, nice clothes, and non-essentials are packed away for several months, I have a suitcase and a carry on stuffed to the gills sitting in the living room, and I am terrified. Do I have everything? Did I make sure everything is taken care of for the trip? Did I take care of everything for myself? Am I ready to go into a land of little-to-no communication with the outside world? Basically, WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING??? It would be so much easier to just sleep in tomorrow and forget the whole thing.

But it probably wouldn't be as much fun.

So, here I am. No make up, no cute clothes, no computer to play on. Just me, some old skirts and t-shirts, and a bunch of questions. I don't really know what to expect, well, accept that whatever I do expect will turn out much different that I anticipate. I know that it will be great, but now I have just have to actually BELIEVE that.

Oh yeah, and I graduated college today.

NEXT POST (Part 2)