Tomorrow is the Day. I fly out of Cedar Rapids at 6:00 am sharp. I'm still packing...clothes and papers are strewn all over my apartment. At least I have almost everything I need except for a few minor things. I had a wonderful going away party last weekend where many friends wished me well. It was a great time but bitter-sweet. I'm very excited to go but also very nervous which is to be expected I suppose. It is difficult to believe that only the day after tomorrow I'll be in 60-70 degree weather!! I'll miss the snow but definitely not [View Full Entry]

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Hello All- Well, the trip is in less than three weeks now. I finally got my itinerary for the few months I'm gone so I wanted to fill you all in on what you can expect to read about in the next few months. Things are going to be very exciting right from the beginning. I won't know anything about my homestay family until we get introduced. I get a few days to relax and fight off altitude sickness but on my third day in country i'll be going to Machu Piccu! If you have never taken a look at a [View Full Entry]

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Hello! Welcome to my blog!! I'm glad you decided to come check this out!!! I fly out on the 31st of January and that is when all the fun will begin. I'll be arriving in Peru the next day and will be there until May 16th. For now I'm just finishing out my last semester at the University of Iowa. Thanks for coming along, its going to be amazing! -Em P.S. In case you are curious...My friend Jessi gave me the nickname 3mily after hearing the story about how I used to spell my name with a capital 3 because of [View Full Entry]

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Well folks, I leave in less than 24 hours! I just took the rest of my stuff to my house in Des Moines, including my car (i'm gonna miss the white taurus with the hole in the bumber!). Courtney and I are meeting in Paris, luckily our flights are only 20 minutes apart, so hopefully it won't be too hard to find each other! We have some awesome plans to travel through Italy before I start work, so I can't wait for that! The only thing that I'm nervous about is being late for my first day....I always had those nightmares [View Full Entry]

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Hello all and welcome to my travel blog, the great idea given to me by my father! So I haven't hopped the flight yet, oh no, not until September 11th... oddly enough! I thought I would give everyone a sneak peak of what was to come for the next several months! Courtney and I (my sister if you didn't know) are heading out together to travel around Italy and get me set up in the city of Nantes, France. I will be teaching high schoolers English for 7 months and hopefully mastering the French language too! I decided to do this [View Full Entry]

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test blog [View Full Entry]

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It’s official… I am going to Bali!! As of June 10, 2008 I will officially start my journey as a volunteer for the Yayasan Bumi Sehat non-profit organization. My flight is booked and all the little details are all falling into place, and I couldn’t have done it without the support of all my family and friends! I can’t believe that in less than a month I will have packed up everything I own, put in a 10x10 storage unit and paused my life for the next 3 months to travel half way around the world to volunteer. Life sure does [View Full Entry]

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This weekend, Mom, John and I drove down to Iowa City so that we could meet up with Will, Mom's first cousin (Aunt Shirley Ann's son.) John and I had never met him; I'd been wanting to meet him for a long time, and was excited to. I was also excited to see Iowa City, which I consider one of my favorite homes. Even though we lived there for only two years, I feel so connected to Iowa City, and miss it often. Friday night, we hung out with Will at his hotel. He works for Proctor and Gamble, and was [View Full Entry]

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