I'm packed. Let's go guys.

Yep. There it is. My suitcase. It's right there. Full to the brim. It’s finished. I’m packed. I’m going. It’s here. Holy. Cow.

There’s no more preparing to do. I’ve even printed my boarding pass. I don’t really have words to say to thank everyone once again. I’ve said all I wanted to say to everyone. I’m going to make some predictions here tonight though:  1) my suitcase will be overweight. It has to be 50 pounds or less and I’m predicting 51.8 lbs. 2) I’m also going to predict some things I’ll miss about the United States during my time in Spain, in no certain order:

• All of you
• My family(the ones not reading this)
• My car
• My data plan
• Americanized Mexican food
• Americanized Italian food
• UT
• Lawrenceburg
• Knoxville
• My apartment in Knoxville
• Knowing I can drive anywhere at any time.
• Fox News/CNN 24 hours a day
• My own bed
• American food in general
• THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
• The Walk at Sevier Heights Baptist in Knoxville

That is just to name a few. We’ll compare that list to the list I make around April when I’m looking forward to coming home. There are many things I think I’ll love about Spain, but I’ll always consider my home here in the good ole U. S. of A in Lawrenceburg or Knoxville. It’s time to move on out of here! I’ll try to write a little something while I’m on the plane tomorrow. Talk to you all later!

P.S. By the way, I don’t think you’ll be able to use my cell phone number for iMessage while I’m in Europe. My Apple ID is ntb1991@gmail.com so you’ll be able to send an iMessage to that if you want to! 

IT"S HAPPENING

So, I guess I lied when I said the next post was going to be the night before I go. I’m writing one now. First, I want to acknowledge the work of God in this entire study abroad journey. I sincerely do not understand why I am so blessed because I truly do not deserve it. However, I’ll gladly accept His blessings. I hope I have more people reading the blog post this week, because I have told everyone about it! Hello to my new readers from church! What I wanted to tell everyone about today is the going away party my dear friends and family threw for me tonight. This “fiesta de España” was at Brian and Rita’s and was complete with sangria, Italian food (because it’s my favorite and not because it’s where I’m going), and plenty of strawberry cake and Dirt Cake to go around. There were FORTY-ONE people there tonight, so I can’t quite go through everyone, but once again thank you to all of you! I hope you’re reading this now! This week, I will purchase my new Kindle Fire with some of the money you guys gave me! Thank you so much!

From the time of this posting, in one week, I’ll be somewhere on a 757 operated by American Airlines over the Atlantic Ocean. Everything is in place. Everything is settled. Papers turned in, classes approved, cell phone ordered, flight tickets confirmed, and passport in hand. I keep saying this over and over, but everyone, THIS IS HAPPENING. It still seems so unreal. Five years ago, I was sitting in Mrs. Carole Cheatwood’s Spanish I class and I discovered this thing called “study abroad”. I was hooked from that point on. Many things have happened through the years following, but it all comes to this point: I’m going to Spain. Now, I hope you realize that excitement is not all I feel. Nervousness, apprehensiveness, and stress are all feelings on my radar. However, excitement trumps each. Once again, IT’S HAPPENING. I have researched this city, country, university, neighborhood, other study abroad experiences, airline ticketing, and anything else related to this journey until I’m blue in the face. It’s all history. I have to now get to packing. I’m so glad that I have this blog so that I can hopefully post at least once a week informing everyone of what I’m doing, because I want you guys involved in every experience along the way. I hope to do some video blogs (vlogs) at some point during these 3 and ½ months, but we’ll just have to see. Thank you so much for reading!

P.S., you’ll notice on the right side of the page, there is a box in which you can type your email and subscribe to this blog so you’ll get an email each time I blog.

Below are some pictures from the party tonight:

Mi Familia

Okay, so the preparations are nearing an end. I'm basically just waiting on UT to get me some stuff back (which is like cutting teeth) and then turning that stuff in. Exciting things have happened today! I've been MATCHED TO A HOST FAMILY! My mother's name is Isabel who is a 65 year old housewife. I do have a sister who is 26, but she lives in Madrid most of the time. Her name is Estefania, and is an "artist". I have been matched with a roommate too! He goes to NC State. I was given a list today of all the participants in my program and it is so exciting to see where everyone is coming from. So many different states and universities: University of Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Kansas, NC State, Kentucky, just to name a few. The most interesting aspect of the list of participants is the Lawrenceburg, TN is listed next to Chicago, NY, Salem, St. Louis, Dallas and lots of different towns, mainly ones I've never heard of. After I got the address of my house, I explored the neighborhood using Google StreetView, which is incredibly cool. I saw restaurants, convenience stores, pharmacies, furniture stores, and many more. I'm in the neighborhood called "Triana", which is one of the more famous quarters of Sevilla. I'm about a 20 minute walk from the university, 10 minute bus ride, and 10 minute Metro ride. There's so many things left to explore when I get there, though. 20 days, my friends! Probably the next post I do will be like the night before I leave, so be prepared!

ONE. MORE. MONTH.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, continue the countdown! As of the date of this posting, I leave for Spain in exactly one month and one day.  Armed with a new (gargantuan) suitcase, a new backpack, and all new wardrobe, I am almost ready. All that is lacking is submitting my flight itinerary and making my schedule official with UT. It’s almost here, guys. I’ll be headed back to UT in the beginning of January, not to start class, but to run all over campus working on getting my classes approved. Why? Because I’m a procrastinator. Don’t use me as an example, kids. But in only a couple weeks, I’ll find out who my host family is! I know NOTHING of them other than I requested kids and no cats. I don’t even know if I’ve already been matched with them or not yet. Expedia did email me today and inform me that my flight time has been changed slightly. I now leave at 12:40 pm from BNA (Nashville) to JFK (New York) and then from JFK at 7:05 to Madrid-Barajas Airport (MAD). I’ll arrive at MAD at around 8:05 am local time. I then will be picked up between 10 and 11 by my company (ISA) and taken to my hostel to begin the touring of Madrid. I leave Madrid on January 30^th and actually tour Toledo that afternoon. I finally arrive in Sevilla on January 31^st and then meet my host family. I have orientation on February 1^st at my university along with the city tour put on by my company, ISA. I then start classes February 4^th! I will not know my class hours until I’m actually in Sevilla. After this Christmas, I experienced my first sad feeling about being gone for so long. There will be lots of things that will be going on while I’m gone: an entire semester at UT, a semester at LCHS, March Madness, the Super Bowl, and the final months before Brooke (Beck) Hall has her baby!  I know in the coming month I’ll be experiencing about every emotion but the excitement rules them all. My trip is all I think about. I hope you all are ready for an ONSLAUGHT of pictures, statuses, tweets, Instagram posts, and blog entries. If you have any questions, please ask! It’s almost time, folks. Here we go!

Let the countdown begin!

Hola, everyone! This is where I'll be blogging (I don't know how often) about my study abroad experience in Spain. From the day of this post, I'm two months away from leaving for Spain. I decided to go ahead and make my first blog post to kind of inform you of what I'll be doing. My city of choice is Sevilla (Seville in English) in the south of Spain. I leave January 27th from Nashville at 11:00 a.m.! I'm going to study in the Hispanic Studies & Electives program with ISA (International Studies Abroad). I'll be a student at the University of Sevilla. I will be living with a host family whom at the time of this post, I don't know. While over there, I'll be traveling many weekends to different cities in Spain and once to Lisbon, Portugal. I also might go to Morocco, Italy, France, and anywhere else I have the opportunity to! I'll be living over there for about 3 and 1/2 months (January 27th to May 10th). In this blog, I'll try to post pictures, videos, and whatever else I may want to show you. I'm also going to try to use some Spanish on here, so get ready! I'm getting to go to Spain because of a lot of people, and I want you all to know how much I thank you! I'm not really sure what to expect, but I sure am ready to get over there. Here are some pictures I got from the Internet about Sevilla:

Where exactly is Seville?

Plaza de España in Sevilla

Universidad de Sevilla (University of Sevilla, my university)

There will be plenty more to come, ladies and gentlemen! Let the countdown begin!