I
decided to bring my roommate with me to meet my conversation partner because
she never seems to be at a loss for words, so I figure she could get some good
conversation flowing. Well, turns out
she was on her phone for the entire time so thanks a lot, roomie. We managed to come up with some pretty good
material regardless. We were talking
about out-of-country travel and she mentioned that she participated in a
foreign exchange program in Santiago, Chile.
I never knew how beautiful the city was until I looked it up after the
conversation. The mountain views are gorgeous,
not to mention the architecture within the city itself. According to Alejandra, there is an alcoholic
beverage that the city specializes in called a terremoto (or “earthquake,” for
all you gringos out there) that is apparently pretty delicious. And pretty lethal. Though I’m sure she only knows that from
stories. It is at this point in the
conversation that my roommate finally decided to grace us with her mental presence
and she inserted her two cents about all the various and sundry places she one
day wishes to visit in South America.
I honestly
wish I paid more attention in my fifth grade geography class. Maybe then I would know anything about
anything concerning South America. I am
utterly ashamed to admit that I had no idea that Patagonia was an actual place
and not just a clothing company until a few weeks ago. I could probably name less than 1% of the capitals
of the countries in South America, Africa, and Asia, and my percentage for Europe
is probably not as high as it should be.
And the sad thing is, it is not that I don’t necessarily care about
learning about the world at large. I’ve
just managed to get by in life without ever having to really pay much attention
to it so far.
Until
last night, that is.
In a very
effective attempt to avoid studying for finals, a group of friends and I
started talking about our summer plans. One
of my friends is doing a study abroad in Seville, and my roommate (who is quite
the aspiring globe-trotter, if you didn’t already pick up on that) wants to
meet up with him after his classes are done and travel across Europe together. They started planning out their itinerary and
listed about twenty or so cities that they wanted to hit in a three-week time
frame (I just didn’t have the heart to tell them that this trip was never going
to happen. I figure I’d let them dream
for this one night.) I’m not gonna
lie. I had only heard of about half the
places they were eager to hit. (Fez is a
country?)
I’ll be
the first to admit. I became a little
jealous. There is at least a slight
possibility that this trip will end up happening. And they will have an absolute blast. Meanwhile, I will be here in the good ol’ continental
United States, interning away my summer.
Don’t get me wrong. I will be
raking in the dough. But I’m certainly
not going to be getting any Instagram posts out of it.
I think
it is the age-old dilemma that every college kid faces sooner or later: should
I do something that will make me a lot of money that is not fun, or should I do
something that costs a lot of money that is fun? My heart tells me one thing, but my bank
account tells me another. It’s a tale as
old as time. The unfortunate part is,
this is the last summer that I will truly be able to spend any way that I please. I have never gotten to travel outside of
North America, and I don’t want to end up losing my only opportunity to truly
roam around the world unencumbered by spending the summer working instead of
taking advantage of other more exciting possibilities. Once I get into the working world, I feel
like it is frowned upon to randomly take off three weeks from work to go backpacking
across Europe.
That is,
unless I marry rich and don’t have to work at all…
Okay, so
it’s decided. If any of you know any
wealthy oil barons with single sons, you know where to find me.
Also, I realize that Fez is not a country. It's finals week.
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