Crunch Time

With my departure date to Ireland just over a week away, I thought it's probably a good time for my first post on my travel blog! In just 9 days I will be heading to Minneapolis and meeting up with one of my best friends, Ali, and hopping on a plane headed for Ireland. After the months and months spent choosing a program, applying, interviewing, being accepted, and then waiting, it seems crazy that the time is finally arriving. But nevertheless it has, and it's time to get prepared. With my last day of work being yesterday, I am finally starting to focus on packing and preparing for the trip. In technical terms, I will be staying at the Park Lodge Hotel, Spiddal, County Galway, Ireland. It is a very rural area where we will not even have full-running electricity, so it should be pretty interesting. But, as you can see on the map, it is a coastal city and I've heard it is gorgeous so I am extremely excited to be there. Otherwise, all I know is that is supposedly rains a lot and we are in rural areas a lot of the time, so I need to bring mainly waterproof, rugged clothing.... which I don't exactly have yet, but I'm working on it. I'm hoping that now that my focus can be completely on the trip, everything will come together and I'll get what I need. Packing for me is going to be tough, considering I'm a habitual over-packer. All in all, I'm very excited to begin my journey soon, and I hope you'll keep following my "once in a lifetime" experience, which I will try to portray as vividly and interestingly as possible! :)