Where did this trip come from

I've always loved to travel and particularly to uproot my life and start anew somewhere else. I think this seemingly innate enjoyment of moving comes in large part from the fact that during my childhood I lived in 7 different states before the age of 8 and, until UCSD, have never spent more than 3 years at a single school. And I like to move, I love the challenge of finding myself again amongst new people, scenery and challenges. But of course I didn't realize that until the end of college when I realized that I was in one place and one school longer than I had ever been anywhere before.

Not that I haven't had a singular place to call home throughout my life of moving. My great-grandfather had built a house in the late 1800's in the Plateau Valley of Colorado's western slopes to which my mother's entire family makes pilgrimages for every holiday imaginable. This place, The Mountain House, is the only place I will ever consider home. The rest of the places I make my life and live are just the places I live at any given point in time-places in which I develop beautiful relationships and get to know like the back of my hand but are still simply the places I know well instead of being a visitor to.

Back to the point, I love to travel as well. Though my visits of US locations is extensive I have had very little experience abroad. My sophomore summer I had the fortune to befriend an English student studying at UCSD whose family eventually invited me to take residence with them for a summer. After my sophomore year I found a reciprocal work-exchange program and went to London to live and play and just explore for a few months. And explore I did. I ventured to a new 'tube' stop every few days and just walked the city, finding pubs and galleries and people with which to speak. London was wonderful, and I had the fortune to visit friends in Leeds and Paris as well, but with London I lived there, I didn't travel much.

So this trip is my newest adventure. I have a habit of getting these ideas in my head and just going with them--this trip is no different. I told friends early on that after I graduated from UCSD I wanted to sell everything and just go vagabond around Europe for a while, staying with the friends I had made through living in UCSD's International House two years and at the occasional hostel. And so I am. I've pared down my life of four years to 4 boxes, a bike, and a guitar (which my dear friends Sam, Kristin, and Kat are storing for me while I go) and will be living out of a backpack for the next three months while I wander across Europe.

I've thought about why I'm doing this, and I'm still not particularly sure. I'm not looking for anything that I can think of, it's not to prove anything, it's truly just to explore.

The thing is, I really love the university that I'm leaving. In particular I've had an incredible opportunity over the past 2 years working for a program called the Alumni Discovery Initiative through which current students meet with and hear the stories of countless alumni in order to get a picture of the history of the university through the eyes of the students. It's been an awesome project and has brought some amazing people into my life. So I figured, why not take that project abroad with me!? That means the Alumni Association has helped me to research a number of alumni who are abroad in western Europe so that I've got a few email addresses and phone numbers with which to contact people who supposedly live abroad. With this information I'll do my best to get in touch with alumni abroad and will travel (all as part of my big personal adventure) to meet with them and hear their stories. How cool is that!?

And, best of all, the Association is going to help me to publicize my writing about this trip and will post the pictures that I take with random individuals around Europe and a Flat Stanley of our very own Sun God.

Departure is July 13th and after I land in London (and spend a few days with old international friends) all I have planned so far is a trip to Dublin where I'll meet Anna from my second year in I-House and go camping along the coast with her family.