7 days

7 days. Not only is this the creepy catch phrase of the highly overrated movie The Ring, it is also exactly how many days I have remaining in the U.S.ofA. You are probably thinking "I wonder how she is ever going to pack for 5 months in a foreign country?"... or maybe I'm the only one thinking that. The result of these thoughts are my 2 massive suitcases sitting open in my living room, staring at me viciously every time I get a cup of coffee (which is a lot as of late). 

To me, packing is a very bittersweet event. I love the whole act of planning outfits,shoes,accessories, but I despise have to shove it into my suitcase. Not to mention I always forget something, literally always. I keep telling myself it will only take a few hours to actually throw everything together, but in actuality I know I will be up until all hours of the night the day before watching reality tv, and trying to decide if it's logical to bring heels with me. 

It hasn't really hit me that I'm going 5,765 miles away from home (yeah I looked up the exact milage) for 5 months. Currently, I feel kinda like a college drop out. Spending my days watching television, and staring at my computer. I've never been away from my friends and family for more than a month at a time, so 5 months? across the world? in a country where I don't even speak the language? Yeah. Daunting. 

It's not a scary daunting though, more of an i-hate-sitting-at-home-and-i'm-ready-to-get-out-of-my-stupid-bubble-and-actually-see-the-world kind of daunting. I'm not even going to begin to image how I'm actually going to feel once I land in Istanbul, mostly because that will only give me indigestion, and because I know that everything is going to work out. I am a notorious worry-wart, and thinking too much about all the things that could go wrong is my biggest specialty. But I'm ready, actually I'm more than ready, I'm ecstatic. I just want to get on the plane, and get this adventure started. 7 days, only 7 days to go. 

-Emeran.