Leaving Syracuse

This is the first post (hopefully of many) of my travel journal for the next seven months. I started this blog because I will be out of communication for upcoming periods of time, but I know that I will want to share my experiences with all of you.

To catch all of you up, here is what I am lucky enough to do in the months to come:

• I am leaving Syracuse tomorrow (May 9th) and I am going home to Michigan for a few days.
• On May 14th, I am leaving for Cape Town, South Africa. I am going to be there a little more than two months serving as a volunteer teacher at an elementary school. I don't know too much else about it, even with all of the reading materials I have been sent, but I am REALLY excited! (I will have very limited internet while I am in Africa)
• I will be back in Michigan from about July 21st - August 17th (ish)
• I will then go to Ireland for 10 days for the "Pale and Beyond" political science/sociology seminar as a kick off to my fall semester
• On August 30th, I will leave Ireland for London, where I will spend the rest of my semester until the middle of December (and I will hopefully be able to experience many other countries while I am in Europe)

When I was thinking about this blog and what I wanted to do with it, I came up with the idea of baggage. It can mean so many different things. I am bringing all of my baggage with me to all of these places, both physical and emotional, and the things I bring back with me will be so different. Not only will I have physical representations of the places I am visiting to bring back with me, but I will also bring back new lessons and life experiences. Our baggage, what we carry with us, and what we leave behind, ultimately defines who we are.