I blinked, and March was over!

I honestly cannot believe that the month of March is already over. February really seemed to take forever, but March seemed to last about a week! I did so much this past month: I traveled to Paris, Austria, and Poland, got long hours in at my internship, and, of course, kept up with school. I only have one midterm left, but never has a semester ever been so relaxed. I realize that I am used to working in hyper-drive when it comes to school, so that may make things seem easier than they are (I'm told that AAU is actually a very rigorous school!), but STILL! Here, there is a lot less busy work, and the focus is on the midterm, the final, and other larger projects. It's really nice, because this way, I know from the beginning of the semester what days certain things are due, and I can plan around that. I am watching my grades because I know that grad schools (especially if I apply to grad schools overseas) will be looking at how I did while I was studying abroad, but it's still nice to know that only my course credits, and not my GPA also, are transferring back to UWM.

I have been keeping a close eye on the countdown of days until I leave Prague, with a sense of both dread and anticipation. In case you were wondering, it's 49 days ;-) I am so excited to see everyone back home, and especially since I just heard that a very close friend of mine is pregnant, I can't wait to hurry back to the States and see her!! I have another very close friend getting married, and my brother and sister-in-law are adopting two children this spring...so there are a lot of important things that I am looking forward to being a part of! Of course, on the other hand, thinking that my adventure is now on to its second half floors me. Time really does fly when you're having fun! I keep thinking about where in the world I want to travel next after my European adventure is all over, and I keep thinking that I would love to see India, or Japan, or Africa or the Middle East...Australia....there's a lot I want to see! I'm looking forward to wherever my next adventure takes me. Of course, there will still be parts of Europe that I won't get to on this trip, so I'll want to see those too someday!

UWM just posted their class schedule for next fall, and so I was going through the courses and picking what I needed to take. I'm at the point now where I really don't have any leeway in deciding WHAT I want to take, it's more so that I just have to make sure that I get all of my required courses to fit into my schedule. I can't believe that this will be my final year of college! On the one hand, I don't want it to be over; I don't want to move on to the next stage because I like this stage. On the other hand though, I want to go to grad school, so it really won't be over when I graduate from undergrad. One thing that I won't really miss about college is the "poor college student" feeling, but it's also kind of fun to be doing things on a budget. I know that sounds funny, but it's true. If college wasn't so darn expensive, I would probably extend things by a semester or two, but I know that I can finish in 4 years, and so I will. I also think that while this semester has been nice, once I'm back home, I'll remember all of the stress of balancing school and work! Besides, I like to get things accomplished in a timely way, in case you didn't already know that ;-)

I am leaving tomorrow for my 10-day trip to Italy with 3 other girls, and I am so excited! We're traveling to Venice, Florence, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, and the Amalfi Coast while we're there (and yes, we're going to manage to fit all of that in : D ). I am very, very excited for Rome, but I'm also really looking forward to the Amalfi Coast. If you've never heard of the latter, you need to google it =) The pictures will blow you away! As exciting as sight-seeing is, it can get tiring to trek through a city and snap pictures of buildings, which is why I loved my ski trip so much, and also why I'm excited for the last couple days in Italy. It's fun to actually go out and do something active while you're traveling, rather than just looking at things. I don't know if I'll have much internet access while I'm in Italy, so my next post might not be until I get back, but we'll see! I'll have lots to say then, and a million pictures, I'm sure.