What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
To my knowledge I had never been on an airplane and on top of that I was considering leaving the country.
In college, I was a language major and had the opportunity to be among the first group in a summer study abroad program to St. Petersburg, Russia.
I took the plunge and committed to the program – a five week trip of study and tourism.
Like I said, to my knowledge, I had never been on a plane, but apparently I rode on a “puddle jumper” when I was six month old – doesn’t really count right??? But, my mother is afraid of flying and had me totally freaked out in just two days. It took my Dad two weeks to settle me back down. The transatlantic flight was out of New York City, but it took two stops and plane changes before we got there. On the first stop, I headed straight for a phone to call my Dad to tell him how much fun I had.
My first trip to the “big” city and all I saw were two airports – we flew into Kennedy and flew out of La Guardia. A nine hour transatlantic flight later, we landed in Helsinki to change planes one more time before getting into St. Petersburgh!
Landing in early May, the days were long with only a few hours of darkness. It had us all confused. 🙂
The five week program included a day trip to Novgorod and a weekend in Moscowthat included a trip inside the Kremlin walls; along with classes in the morning and touristy stuff in the afternoon. It was all such a whirlwind that I don’t remember half of what we did. Fortunately there are some journals that one of these days I will “do something with”.
I enjoyed the whole thing so much that I went back the next year and stayed through both programs – eleven weeks!
I have photos, but they are pre-digital.