Internship evaluation & five more days at the office

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Tomorrow's my last Thursday at the office. Which means I have 5 days left. I had my internship evaluation with Anna today which went really good, mostly because Anna is so honest and constructive in everything that she does, which makes her evaluation and assessment of my work such a valuable insight for me. She also provided me with my first real letter of recommendation! (I have one from Scandinavian Airlines from earlier this year, but it's in Swedish so it has kinda lost half its value already). I feel really sad for having to leave a job that I've come to feel so comfortable with and which has given me such a valuable insight in the international tourism business and the work of and behind an international NGO. All the networking and client relationship management, travel philanthropy program development, procurement (learning a new word today, haha) and supporting research is exactly what I want to continue working with. Which makes it even harder to leave and go back to Sweden where I know that the chance of the having the opportunity to work with this is so small. There are no comparable organizations in Sweden, not within work process and neither on a global level.

I am however glad that after almost 10 weeks of absence from home I'm finally getting to see my boyfriend again, meet my family, hang out with my friends, sleep in my own bed and shower in my own bathroom. I'm so looking forward to eating Swedish food, watch uncensored TV and finally take out my gear and go snowboarding!

I can't describe how good it feels to know that in exactly 13 days I'll be sitting on the plane from JFK and nine hours later I'll be walking into the arrival hall at Arlanda hoping that my boyfriend's face will be the first one I see. But even though I'm excited to come home, I'm at the moment even more excited about the fact that I'll be in NYC next week! I've wanted to go there for so long and now I'll have 4 nights to do whatever I want with! I'll indulge in some sightseeing (of course), some serious last Christmas shopping and various Americanisms.

By the way, Hood River was featured on National Geographic's list over the top 100 adventure places in the US. Check out the article here: http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/trips/adventure-towns/hood-river-oregon/ and an additional one on kiteboarding the Columbia River: http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/trips/americas-best-adventures/kiteboard-columbia-river/

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Photos

Hood River
Celestial Falls