An Introvert Abroad

Emily Reynolds Start Date: May 2, 2016 - End Date: May 1, 2017
  • Paris, France
  • Belgium
  • Germany
  • Bordeaux, France
  • The Netherlands
  • Denmark
  • Italy
  • Spain
  • Switzerland

My Travel Story

by: Emily Reynolds Start Date: May 2, 2016 - End Date: May 1, 2017
Hello everyone!

My name is Emily.

I am 20 years old. I love nature and animals. I am an environmentalist. Artist. Avid Reader and Dreamer. And Wanderlust pretty much sums me up to a T. I am constantly dreaming and fantasizing about where I could be, what I could be doing, or eating. There are so many possibilities out there so why am I here, stuck in one place?

Well I won't be for long. For my next adventure, I will be studying in France for the 2016/2017 school year and exploring Europe on the weekends. I've always loved other cultures, but at one point in my childhood I picked France as my main love. I started taking French lessons in high school and continued to take them once I started at UCSC. A few years ago, I realized that languages did not come easy to me and for that reason I decided that someday I will be fluent in French . Living in France gives me the perfect opportunity to work on my language skills and to practice speaking with natives. 

I have always heard that studying abroad is the best experience of anyone's life because you not only see different perspectives of life, but you are also exposed to other hardships that may not be present in your home country. This will be an experience of growth for me. I titled my campaign: "An Introvert Abroad" because I am very introverted and have a tendency to shut down in unfamiliar circumstances and places. While I am abroad, I will be working on my personal growth to become more confident in myself and comfortable in different social situations that I am not privy to. This is an amazing opporunity for me to find myself and learn how to navigate my faults and weeknesses in order to become a stronger woman and activist. 

This adventure is a dream come true for me! And I just hope I can spread the joy of travel with everyone I meet along the way. 

So I just want to thank you for taking the time to read this and for giving me a chance to live out my dream!

Á bientôt!

(See you soon!)

  • Paris, France
  • Belgium
  • Germany
  • Bordeaux, France
  • The Netherlands
  • Denmark
  • Italy
  • Spain
  • Switzerland

Updates

2

  • Having To Navigate Through A VISA Application.

    Having To Navigate Through A VISA Application.
    Applying for a VISA is no small thing. Currently, I am struggling to even get an appointment to file my application. The consulate is only open for appointments an average of two hours a day so they are always booked up. Now I just have to wait for a cancellation. But then there is the added complication of like 20 different documents you need to bring with you to the appointment. There has to be like 14 official documents and their photocopies.

    But it is all good. All of this hard work and diligence is worth it in the end. But I suggest to whoever is having to get a VISA as well: start a good few months before you even have to start the application process. It gives you time to figure things out.

  • My First Time Abroad!

    My First Time Abroad!
    The first time I ever flew the coup was a few weeks after I graduated from high school. I had been organizing a trip to France with my french teacher for over a year. It was a pretty arduous process: fundraising, organizing the trip and paper while also getting the other students to participate in the fundraising activities. We had put together a group of ten or so students of different ages to go. It was a simple 8 day trip through a company that did these sort of high school student trips all the time so it wasn't impossible to fund raise the money.

    During those marvelous eight days, we had a five day family stay in Epernay, and in the three days we were in Paris we saw the Chateau de Versailles, Le Louvre, had dinner on the second level of the Eiffel tower (which was amazing, trust me), had a boat tour of the Seine, visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, saw another cathedral, walked along the Champs Elysee for a few hours, walked to the top of Montmartre and saw the Sacre Coeur Basilica, we fit some meals in there somewhere, and we got hardly any sleep. It was amazing, but rushed. I was exhilarated, but now I can barely remember it because everything happened so quickly. And through it, I was behind a camera the whole time. So while I have thousands of pictures, I can barely remember the little details and memories I made with the friends I went with. It is a real shame, but I just didn't know when I would be back so I was convinced I had to take as many pictures as possible.

    The only thing I know for sure was that I loved it. I didn't want to leave because everything in Paris was just so beautiful. I knew from that moment of first laying eyes on the Seine that I wanted to live there someday. And now I will be, at least for a little while.

Adventure Registry

  • Return Flight to US

    $ 1,200