My longest trip was a bout 4,000 miles…and I did it twice.
In 1992 and 1993, I participated in a summer study abroad program in college. We went to St. Petersburgh, Russia with a weekend in Moscow.
On that second trip, I felt like the human example of Geroge Carlin’s joke “A Place for My Stuff”. Since I was going to be gone all summer, I gave up my apartment. I had stuff stored in about three different places around Tallahassee. Then while in St. Petersburg, we made a couple of weekend trips to Moscow – an even smaller version of my stuff was required. So at this point I had stuff in Tallahassee, St. Petersburgh, and Moscow! Talk about being scatterered!
The first trip was the inaugural trip to Russia and was only five weeks long. There were a lot of unknowns for everyone.
My trip started even before the packing was done. Here I am about to take my first flight – a transatlantic one at that – and my mother who is afraid of flying had me in a major panic. It took my dad two days to calm me back down and ok to get on the plane. I called him at work after the first flight – there was a total of five planes over two days – to let him know I was ok and having a good time.
The five weeks seemed to go by so fast. We had classes in the morning and saw a lot of touristy places after lunch. Later we were on our own to do as we pleased.
I got to see a lot of concerts, operas, and ballets while I was there and even though I didn’t understand it all, I thoroughly enjoyed it all.
I loved it so much, I went back the next year and spent the whole time – eleven weeks – and even though it didn’t end well; I was glad that I did.