Here I Go Again!

The last 18 months have been quite interesting times between moving up to Stockton, CA for nursing school, doing nursing school, spending almost all my breaks from school somewhere fun (think Southern Utah road trip, Baja California road trip, Channel Islands camping, and Lost Coast Trail hiking to name a few), and learning how to be a nurse.  But before I start my first nursing career, I have to get out of America, see the world, and have some fun.  This trip started as a three weeks to visit a friend and her husband (Christina and Greg) who are currently living in Africa and turned into three months in Africa and a week in England.

During the next three months, I will travel through Malawi and Zambia and go on a safari, see Victoria Falls, (hopefully) hike and backpack, SCUBA dive in Lake Malawi, and see what other fun things I find and that find me.  For a quick overview of where I will be going, I will spend the next two weeks mostly in Malawi touring it with another friend from the States (Stephanie) and Christina and Greg.  We will go out on safari to one of the best places for it in Zambia (South Luangwa National Park) for a few days and hopefully see all the animals you think of when you think of Africa.  Steph and I then head over to Victoria Falls in Zambia for a week.  After she leaves, I have two weeks on my own in Zambia before I need to be back to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi.  That brings us to the end of May.

For June, I’m going to be in Malawi and July will be spent touring Malawi with my sister Karyn.  The capstone of the trip will be to England to see a dear friend I worked at a Sierra Nevada summer camp with during college.  This puts me back in California the first weekend of August and into the real world once again as I will have to study and take my nursing licensing exam and find a job (but we won’t worry about that too much until I’m back).

This might not mean much to most of you reading this, but putting it here for some context.  Yesterday, I was talking to one of my sisters about when I visited her and her family on the East Coast right before I started nursing school in the fall of 2015.  My return flight to California for my start of nursing school was the day before it started.  Now that I’m done with nursing school, I’m heading out to Africa the day after it finishes.  This fits in with my history of leaving immediately after each term is done to go somewhere fun on my breaks from school.

I’m planning on updating my blog at a minimum weekly with my goings on and pictures, so check back.  

I don’t have any pictures of my travels yet but here’s all the “stuff” I’m bringing and me from my ceremony yesterday.  Hopefully, I’m not bringing too much stuff, but as normal, I feel as if I have more food, books, and non-clothing items and clothes.