The rumors are true: Travel, it’ll change your life
About three weeks ago, I planned a spontaneous trip to Germany and Austria. With the start of school a few months away, I knew there wasn’t going to be a better time than this summer. It would be the first time I traveled alone to a foreign country and now that I’m back, I can tell you it was awesome! I have to agree with the advice given by others before me that traveling will change your views on life. Being the super nerd I am, I’ve read books and watched shows about travel and it wasn’t until a good friend chided me that I was living a second hand life that I realized, that’s exactly what I was doing. Well, no more of that.
Traveling is a bizarre thing. Besides the beautiful sight seeing and feeling of independence, it opened my eyes to what I was like in a new and strange environment. For example, there were 3 days I was so homesick, I wanted nothing more than to go home. With just a week left of my trip, I was ready to buy a plane ticket home … (see? independent!).
So for those who want to travel for whatever reason, you might want to check out CouchSurfing. It’s exactly what it sounds like: you message potential hosts about the availability of their couch or mattress or whatever they have. If they do and are okay with hosting, you stay there for some agreed upon number of days. Some hosts are cool with you leaving them to do your own thing, while others may want you to spend time, talk and get to know them. I had intended on couch surfing only a few days of my trip but enjoyed the experience so much, I ended up ditching my hotel plans and couch surfed the entire time. Of course, this isn’t the path for everyone. It takes a pretty open-minded person to go for it, I admit. Still it’s a great way to meet people and maybe even save a few bucks since that’s one less hostel night.
In the world of pre-dental school happenings (so you guys can keep up with the time line of all this): Financial aid award letters were mailed out a while ago. I didn’t get them until I got back to the States. They’re due back in the financial aid office next week. Also, Big Bro/Big Sis applications were e-mailed out. I printed that and snail mailed it back to the coordinators.