Departure Day

Hello!

The day I have been waiting on for over a year is finally here!  I feel quite ready to start this adventure.  I'm trying to enjoy every fleeting moment I am still in the States. But after a while I get too overwhelmed with the fact that I will not be here for half a year and start to panic.  My plane is getting ready to leave here soon and I am frantically running through all that I have done so far to prepare for this trip.  Do I have enough clothes?  Is all my paperwork in order?  Everything is indeed ready to go but I have an instinctual desire to keep revisiting the obvious, I am hoping that once I am on the plane and no longer have the option of a "last minute task" I can chill out and enjoy the ride.

Today I am flying to Washington D.C. to stay with my aunt and hopefully get my Residency Permit from the Slovenian Embassy.  Unfortunately I will most likely not be receiving my permit because the Embassy works a lot slower than one would expect.  My Plan B is to hopefully obtain my permit in either Italy or Croatia once it is ready.  Plan C would be to fly back to D.C. once the Embassy has my permit and get it there.  This plan is both expensive and time consuming so I am hoping that by some chance the Embassy has my permit ready now.  Until then I will be a "tourist", a status that a traveler can keep for 90 days in a foreign country without being kicked out for being more of a "squatter".  I would like to assert that I am neither of these things but rather a student, a much more becoming title.  Sadly being a student is not enough to actually live there without having to pay an arm and a leg for a dang permit! Ugh.

Anyway, I am excited to be in Washington D.C. for a few days to visit with family and hopefully see some kind of celebration in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Where better to be on a national holiday then in our nation's capitol?  I am hoping this mini-trip gives me some motivation professionally in terms of social justice etc., an area I would one day like to have a career in.

As I sit in Kansas City for the last time for six months I can't help but think about all those I will miss while I am gone.  So far I have been able to avoid an all out tear fest but I have came quite close.  I've already said goodbye to all my friends, extended family, my dad and my sister, my mom and I are just about on our way to the airport and I am hoping that I can make it through with a dry face.  Even so, crying is proven to make you feel better so maybe this is just bound to happen.  So I am ready to get it over with, I'm sure my seat buddy will understand.  I would like to thank all those who are there to support me on this adventure of mine.  I couldn't do it without you!  Bon Voyage!



Millie