Pre-Cannes Thoughts

I can only help to think back on a specific moment in my memory. There I stood, 5 foot 3 in my purple J. Crew shorts. It was the middle of rush week and I was talking with some girl at a sorority house who led me to different picture boards around the room. "That's me!" she told me, pointing to some picture of herself standing arms-wide-open with an incredible, vegetated view behind her. I responded in awe, and curiously spoke to her the rest of the time about her study abroad experience in Australia and about how I desperately dreamed to study abroad at some point in my college career. The funny part was, the conversation was complete BS, and I didn't really care about going abroad or traveling at the time.

I sit here now with a pretty high level of anxiety trying to create a master packing list for myself. I leaves for Cannes, France in exactly 1 week and I need to acquire about 10 more pairs of socks if I'm gonna last 3 weeks there. The amount of excitement I feel right now is overwhelming (and inspired me to write my first blog post) even though I'm not sure what to expect from this journey.

I signed up for this study abroad opportunity the night before the application was due. It was a Thursday night (you know how those go in Athens) so I was preparing to go out, when I remembered that my friend Danielle had told me that today was the last day to turn in an application for the Cannes Lions Festival study abroad. It was a strange moment; something within me just forced me to whip out my computer, fill out some paperwork, write an essay, and submit my transcript all within a record time of 15 minutes. I texted my parents to let them know I had signed up, and once I was accepted, I let them know how serious I was about wanting to go. I had thought about it a ton- the more I thought, the clearer it became that this was the perfect program for my major and my creative endeavors.

Now, I am super thrilled to be going on this trip that is the perfect fit for me. I've never been to Europe and I'm excited to see what this France country is all about and to try a real french fry. I can now say that my conversation with that girl during rush was somewhat genuine (kinda?) and I'm so excited to be GOIN ABROAD!!