Nervous

“Be present, even when everything inside you says to run.”~Dr. Dan Olson
 

Sunday morning was the first time it happened.

I sat straight up in bed and looked at the clock. I checked the date on my watch. January 27, 2013.
The trip was officially just 12 days away. I was officially nervous.

It felt kind of good to finally be nervous. I am the type that gets nervous going camping for a weekend, so feeling all composed about travelling half way around the world felt very out of character. This was much more the typical Zach that I knew.

And the trip has been getting more and more real ever since we bought the plane ticket. To give you just a few of the highlights:

~I decided I wanted to get a new camera to take with me. I wanted something that was both durable for travelling (and, inevitably, dropping) but that would also deliver high quality pictures. After talking with the people I work with—all of whom have travelled around the world—they suggested a GoPro Hero3. GoPro is internationally known for being used in extreme sports to capture action shots down to the millisecond. While the camera itself is small and flimsy, the housing makes it both waterproof and shatter proof. It doesn’t have a lot of typical camera features (such as a view finder or a flash) but the picture quality is pretty exceptional.  So to check the first thing off my list of “to-do’s,” I bought a GoPro camera...added to my to-do list is now learning how to use it.

~With being gone for just under five months, one of the dilemmas I have been pondering is how to get a haircut. The horror stories of European haircuts have fallen into one of two veins.

In one column we have stories of haircuts that go something like this:

Customer: “I just want a trim, shape up the edges, and take a little off the top”

Barber: “Ah, yes, good choice sir.”

Result: You look like the fifth Beatle.

The other stories go more like this

Customer: “I just want a trim, shape up the edges, and take a little off the top.”
Barber: “Ah, yes, good choice sir. Why don’t we have some tea first?”

Result: Five hours and $100 later, your hair looks marginally different from when you walked in.

I’m sure these stories are largely overstated and only represent the extremes of European hairstyling. Nevertheless, I did not want to take any chances. So as part of my pre-trip planning, I buzzed off my hair. While I fear it makes me look a bit like a runaway inmate, I have to admit, the short hair is really nice.

In a related note, the recent snow storm has put me on the market for a new beanie.

~All of the foreign exchange students coming into Prague are assigned a “buddy.” To quote an email I received from the International Buddy System,

“We will assign you a Czech student-buddy who will do his best to you'd never felt lost in Prague; mainly right after your arrival. He/she will pick you up at the airport and help you with all the bureaucracy. This student does everything voluntarily and wants to help you. So don't worry to ask him/her anything you need.[sic]"

This week I started receiving emails from my buddy. Her name is Ivana. She has been very helpful with all of my few questions and I look forward to working with her this semester.

Interestingly enough, the sermon this past Sunday at church was actually on the topic of fear. The following quote was shared.

“Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction . . . everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained.” ~Malcolm Muggeride

I know this is true. I think back on the many camping trips that I feared for years and they are certainly some of my fondest memories with people that have become my closest friends. I am confident that this trip will be just as life changing as each of those weekends.
 

With just 8 days until I set out on my adventure, I truly am excited. The nervousness is still there, but it comes and goes in fleeting waves. I am very thankful for the support of my family and friends and I look forward to sharing this journey with all of you!

Papers and Plane Tickets

The doorbell rang. I was still asleep, but the high pitched chime roused me from my revelry. I looked at my watch. The date in corner of the watch face was Thu-Jan 10. The time was 8:59am. Part of me felt bad for sleeping in, but it was my day off and I had a busy weekend coming up.

I heard my Dad shuffle to the door. Through the muffled quiet of my bedroom, I listened deliberately. The door opened, but then, silence. There was no conversation. There was no discussion. The door opened, the door closed.

My curiosity made it difficult to drift back to sleep. It was probably just a package for Mom from home office, I thought. It could have been something my brother bought online. I wanted to sleep a little bit longer, but in the end, I gave in. I got up and, throwing my pajama pants on, I stammered downstairs.

"A package came for you," my Dad said as I wandered into the kitchen.

For me! The giddy four-year-old excitement of receiving a package never really does fade. I walked to the table and saw a priority mail envelope. Sure enough, it was addressed to me. In the upper left corner the return address read:

Consulate General of the Czech Republic

10990 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90024

"Oh cool!" I said and tore into the envelope. I knew exactly what would fall out when I removed the seal. Sure enough, wrapped beneath layers of bubble wrap and packing tape was my passport. I turned it to the first blank page and saw in bright vibrant color...my visa!

I have officially been approved to live in the Czech Republic!

There was only one problem. I had planned to leave for Prague on February 5th. My Visa wasn't good until the 11^th.

I decided to call Lauren. Lauren is the Study Abroad coordinator at my university. Right off the bat she was shocked I had received my Visa. The Czech embassy is notorious for lengthy delays in the Visa approval process. When I told her about the mix up in dates she suggested that I could probably still go on February 5th, as long as I was out of the country by the latest date on my Visa.

"I would still call the Czech consulate to confirm that," she said. "I'd hate to give you bad information and have you get detained in customs for some reason."

I hung up with Lauren and called my Mom. She was making calls for work but I knew she had the number for the Czech consulate on her phone. I told her my visa had come and she was just as excited as my Dad and I had been. After four months of gloom-and-doom stories about lost passports, late visas, and being stuck in the Czech Republic, having that sticker in my passport was a huge hurtle we'd passed.

My Mom said she was going to call the consulate on her drive home. When she got to the house that night, she said the consulate had confirmed that I could go to Prague any time before my Visa was good, but I couldn't stay after it expired.

Now we were ready to book airfare.

We’d been monitoring airfare for over a month now. Every day that ticked by, the airlines jacked up prices. As my favorite satirist Dave Barry explains, "[Airfare] is determined by Rudy the Fare Chicken, who decides the price of each ticket individually by pecking on a computer keyboard sprinkled with corn. If an airline agent tells you that they're having ‘computer problems,’ this means that Rudy is sick, and technicians are trying to activate the backup system, Conrad the Fare Hamster.” (Full article available here).

The hang up in booking my ticket was we still didn't know when I was coming back. Classes started the 18th of February and ended the 17th of May. My family is planning to come over for 10-14 days after I get out of class but my brother doesn't finish school until the 21st of May. With weekend airfare, Memorial Day airfare, etc. we weren't sure the best time to book their tickets, which meant we didn’t know when I would be coming home.

A travel agent I work with had suggested that a one-way ticket would be the cheapest way to go. Not only would it work with my open ended schedule, but the price would be a little cheaper. While, a few family friends had told us the same thing, the math didn't quite add up. For example, a round-trip ticket to Prague with a layover in London ran roughly $975. A one-way ticket to Prague with the same layover was $725. While that was cheaper, it meant that I would spend another $725 to return to the states for a roundtrip total of $1,450.

Friday Jan 11th

I was on the train into downtown with my friend Bryan. I'd been so excited about getting my Visa I was tempted to carry it around and show it off to everyone...but then I realized that would not only be annoying to everyone, but not the safest idea in the world. I'd dodged a bullet by getting my passport back and on time, I didn't want to lose it by carrying it around my own home city.

But Bryan was excited for me. I told him I wanted to show it to him at some point as it was fun reading the words on it in Czech and trying to figure out what they meant. "Vizum" for example was Czech for "Visa."

I got a text as the train came to a station. It was from Mom so I called her back.

"Hey," she said. "I’m going to buy your ticket."

“Now?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m going to get you a one-way ticket, but the prices for February 5th have climbed out of our price range and I don’t want to wait any later. You don’t start class till the 18^th right?”

"Right, but I need to be in Prague no later than February 11th," I said. "Orientation starts on the 11th so I'd like to be there a day or two before that."

"Ok," my Mom said. She scrolled through and looked at a few flights. "Tell Bryan there's a flight on Iberia out of O'Hare on the 787." Bryan is working on his private pilot’s license and loves planes...the bigger the better.

About an hour later I got an email on my phone. It was confirming my flight from Denver to London and London to Prague on February 8th.

So after a busy and somewhat hectic week: I’m in! I’ve been approved for my Visa and my flight is booked. Now the trip is just 21 days away!

Prologue to an Adventure

"And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again." ~Benjamin Button

Anyone who knows me knows three things are true about me:

1.  I am not adventurous! I order the same thing at restaurants every time because I know I like it. I don't rock climb, downhill ski, or do anything that takes me out of my comfort zone. Heck, I go to school 80 miles from my house and for the past two semesters I've spent more time at home than I did away.
2.  I don’t do fun real well. Experiences I can put on my resume have always been more valuable to me than activities that will just make me laugh. If someone tells me the goal or the purpose, I’m all about jumping on board to make things happen, but doing something just because it’s fun has never made a lot of sense to me.
3. I like to be in control. Itineraries and agendas are my best friend. For the past year, I’ve lived with most of my life mapped out on a schedule. I knew when my classes where, what days I worked, when I had volunteer meetings, and where “free time” would fit in. I knew where I’d be and what I’d be doing six months in advance. If life is organized, then life is good.

So about a year ago when my academic advisor suggested that I consider studying abroad, I immediately shrugged it off. Going around the world was something “other people” did, but was way outside my comfort zone. I was going to focus on my classes, graduate as quickly as possible, and live happily ever after.

Yet at the same time, part of my own vision bored me. Where was the story to it? What was the point? Did I really want to stay in the rut? It was predictable, the purpose was clear, and I was in complete control, but there was something missing. To this day I can’t name what, but it was enough to perk my curiosity.

So as I began looking into different exchange programs. My university had partner programs all over the world including Thailand, Australia, Lithuania, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Kazakhstan, and Spain. That gave me 11 options to choose from.

Australia was an early front runner. I thought that going down under would be an incredible trip. From seeing kangaroos, visiting the Sydney Opera House, SCUBA diving the Great Barrier Reef...it would all be incredible. But as I did more research on the school in Perth, I realized, I'd rather be a tourist in Australia than live in the day-to-day culture.

At that point I decided I really wanted to go to Europe. The history and pageantry of Europe is so vast and fascinating, I decided that was the culture I wanted to experience. So this left me with a shorter list of Lithuania, France, Italy, Czech, Germany, and Spain. I ruled out France and Spain initially because I felt like I'd learned a lot about those cultures in high school. From Spanish Class to European Histroy, we'd talked a lot about the culture of Spain and the history of France. I wanted to see something I wasn't as familiar with.

By dropping France and Spain, I was left with four countries. I was committed to narrowing down the list to three by the end of first semester; that way I would have a nice list to research and consider over the summer before applying in the fall. So I decided to drop the Czech Republic. In my mind, it was one of the countries that—aside from coloring it on a map from time to time in Geography class—there wasn't much significance to it.

So this left me with my magic three and the following arguments in mind:

• Germany: my family's heritage is from Germany and it would be neat to go back and see the history; not to mention exploring history from both World Wars
• Italy: From strolling the streets that inspired Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, to seeing the Roman empire that gave rise to modern civilization, to perhaps even visiting the Vatican, everything about Italy seemed magical.
• Lithuania: This country seemed central and good for travel, plus the communist history would be cool to experience.

After deciding that I'd rather go to a historical area that I knew about, I narrowed the list down to Germany and Italy. Over the next few months of research I’d hear some recurring arguments. They all went something like this.

• "All of the stereotypes are true. The German's are punctual and demanding people. They like order and structure and will push you very, very hard. The Italians like to be social and have fun. It's a very different laid back culture than anything we are used to and it drives American students nuts”
• “If you go to Germany and buy a train ticket for the 4:00 train, it will leave at 3:50 rather you are on it or not. If you go to Italy and buy a train ticket for the 4:00 train, the train may never come and you may have to try again the next day.”
• “If you are walking around at 2:00 in the morning in Germany and you come to a cross walk and there hasn't been a car on that road since God invented assphault...you had better not cross that road. In Italy, they aren't always sure which way traffic is supposed to go."
• “In Germany, you'll drink beer; in Itlay, wine...the choice is yours.”

By the end of summer I had made my decision: I was going to go to Italy! From all of my research, it seemed that the German lifestyle was very westernized and would be very similar to life in America. I wanted to experience something different.

But as I started the application, I made an interesting discovery. Italy had very few classes that I needed for my major. In fact, there were close to none. So at the last minute, I decided to change. I wanted to see a different culture. I wanted to be able to travel Europe. I wanted a new experience...so I applied to the Czech Republic. In October, I received notification that I had been accepted to study at the University of Economics in Prague, CZ.

One month from today, I will leave for Prague. There still a lot to do to prepare. Airline tickets to buy, currency to exchange, classes to register for, but the adventure is so close to beginning. People ask me if I’m nervous or excited, and the honest answer is both. I can’t wait to see the history I’m going to get to view, to experience the culture I’m going to get to live in, and to face the challenges I’m going to have to overcome.

I've decided to use this blog to record my experience. Over the next few months, I will see things, feel things, and meet people that will change my world view completly .I want to make sure that when it is all over, I can look back and remember all that has happend. I plan to share stories, pictures, and videos of my trip so that you can join me in my adventure. It's going to be the trip of a lifetime!