my itinerary

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I will start posting in this blog once I am actually about to go abroad, which will be on July 19th, 2006. Until then, I will be working my butt off in Kingsland, Georgia. So if anyone goes to Florida, stop by and say hi (I will be insanely bored there). Well, here is the plan of my trip:

First, I will spend a month and a half in Russia. I will fly into Moscow and hang out with my friends for a few days, then I will take a train to Ulyanovsk, my hometown. While I am there, I will also try to visit some cities near by - Samara, Tolyatti, Kazan', etc. And the most exciting part - I will visit the village that my mom grew up in - Slavkino, as well as the village of my childhood summers - Eshtebenkino. The next part of the trip is still up in the air. My goal is to go from Ulyanovsk to Paris sometime before September 1st. I am considering either taking a train to St. Petersburg, then Tallin, Riga, Vilnus and other Eastern European cities and slowly make my way to Paris, or just flying from St. Petersburg to Paris.

I am going to Paris to attend Sciences Po for a year, which will probably be the most amazing year of my life. I plan on doing lots of travelling while I am in France, but I don't know exactly where yet. My dream is to go to Russia for New Year's (I have not seen real snow in a very long time), but then celebrating New Year's in Paris sounds just as appealing. After I am done with exams at the end of June, I really want to go to San Fermin festival in Pamplona again - I went last summer, and it was amazing. I will also visit a couple of other places in Spain. Depending on how long my visa lasts and how much money I have left, I will also take a trip through Eastern Europe.

If any of you (my friends that is) plan to visit Russia or Europe this year, let me know! you can always crash at my place in Paris (which I still have to find) or we can travel together.

I am already very sad about leaving - I am starting to realize how much I care about people here. So I really hope you can visit me.

Until the next post! I promise to make it shorter and more exciting

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