May 20, 2012

Day 0: Boston Logan Airport, Boston, U.S.A.

This is going to be my most serious attempt at a regular blog.. probably ever. I'm throwing it out there now that my goal with this is to post about each and every day on my post-grad Eurotrip. Now, I cannot guarantee that internet will be available at each of the stops I will be making, but I hope to stick to a schedule of at least writing a blog post every single day and posting it as soon as that lovely interweb becomes available, photos and all.


I leave for Ireland in T minus 1.5 hours and I'm unbelievably excited. Just a bit of background:


So, in the fall of 2010, I fell in love with Ireland during my semester abroad there. I couldn't wait to go back, and returned in April of 2011 for about a week. Then, back to reality and the last few semesters at Northeastern. A few weeks into my final semester, I, like many other graduating seniors, was debating what my life would look like post-May 4th. And I, still like many other graduating seniors (or graduated seniors at this point), didn't want to start real life yet. That's when the Eurotrip planning began. With my priority being to return to Ireland, I started looking for new and exciting ways to experience the country. After meeting a random friend at a random community service event, I was introduced to WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, wwoof.org) after he told me all about his 4 months working on an organic farm in Italy. Please note: from hereon out, "WWOOF" and all of its various conjugates will be considered legitimate verbs.


After browsing the Irish WWOOF website, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. So, I began the process by signing up (for a mere 20e) and browsing host sites. My goal was to go to a part of the country that I had never visited before, so that's where I began my search. After narrowing down my list, I found the perfect place in Southern Cork, and that's where I'm headed now! The farm is a small holding with both fruits and veggies, and the family is a large group of musicians whose profile says that there's always "loads of craic" at the house- sounds like my kind of place. I'll be sure to be more descriptive about the place once I get there.. but that's the impression I'm heading in with!


After WWOOFing for 3 weeks, I plan to spend the next week or so still in Ireland with various friends. Here's a glimpse at my tentative itinerary after that point:


Ireland-Scotland
Scotland- Slovakia
Slovakia- Austria
Austria- Poland
Poland- Denmark
Denmark- Germany
Germany- The Netherlands
The Netherlands- Germany (again)
Germany- Czech Republic
Czech Republic-Germany (for the last time)
Germany-Italy
Italy-France
France- Spain
Spain- Ireland


Whew. I'm tired just looking at that list. Luckily, I just filled a pocket of my backpack with a bunch of bottles of 5 hour energy!


I'm super excited to start this journey. I think it all hit me as I cleared security on my way to the gate and realized I wouldn't be back in America for over 2 months. Peace out U S of A, helloooooooo Europe!