Would You Believe Me if I Said "HOLY CRAP I AM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG!"

So I finally sat myself down between trying to learn a song off Youtube and clicking “refresh” on Facebook and said “GURL WRITE YOUR DAMN BLOG ALREADY!”

“But…but….”

“NO BUTS. OPEN UP WORD THIS INSTANT YOUNG LADY! MARCH!”

“Ugh. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!”

Actually I have been meaning to update this thing for a long time and I am sorry for the hollow promise of the last post, maybe I can make it up to you with the news that EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED!

In short, about 2 weeks before what was a badass trip with my dear friend Clara through Budapest, Berlin, and the entire country of Jordan, I formally quit my study abroad program and effectively went rogue on the whole “pleasant year in France” agenda.

Why?

One day, in the strain to keep myself from punching my own head through the classroom wall during Niveau 4B Grammaire, an idea was either hatched or busted open. My French had been improving a lot, but I suddenly realized it was entirely thanks to my host family, french friends, and work I had done that was entirely unrelated to university. The recent planning of Clara and I’s trip (another blog post altogether) had only fed the travel bug I’ve had all my life and so I said to myself, “Why don’t I ….just….keep traveling?”

So I left. I did some forum surfing and got myself a profile on a site called HelpX.com (short for Help Exchange) on which you can essentially pick where you want to go and live/eat there for free on farms or in hotels or in people’s houses in exchange for some good old fashion company and manual labor. It’s actually super great, and exists all over the world! Booyah right?

So now from my first stop, a bee farm in the French Alps on Evian lake (spitting distance from Switzerland), where a pregnant cat keeps trying to eat my hair, I want to thank everyone again for your love and patience with my whimsy. I’m here in the Alps for a month and I think this blog may very well keep me as up to date with my affairs as you.

OH! I also FINALLY read The Great Gatsby on the way to Évian-Les-Bains (Which apparently some past helper on this farm read “Évian Lesbians”...teehee). How I managed to receive a high school diploma without have to read a damn thing astounds and scares the crap out of me.