Throughout the winter, this adventure of mine was mostly disappointment after disappointment. In fact, however thrilled I was about the fact of leaving abroad or any specific destination, there was always something to bring me down. Day after day, I was facing walls, starting over again, before hitting another wall. Gosh I thought I could never leave after all. No destinations were working; my hard labour and hours of investment and excitement were in vain.

London hadn’t worked.

My hope to go to Brighton was only too short.

Maybe would I go to Ireland or Scotland?

There was no way I would really go to West Virginia State University even if I still registered (who knows why).

Ahhh…bureaucracy!

Honestly, WVSU was the kind of backup plan that feels like you’re forced to drink a cup of cough syrup. Sure, it would make me grow as an individual and I would have a tiny cultural shock and I might as well meet great people. But this place was far from what I dreamt about when thinking of moving abroad to study. I mean, I dreamt of seeing new places, meeting people from all over the world, learning to live in a completely different system. I wanted to feel like I was unstoppable and felt the urge to eat so much delightful food and discover life and its simple treasures…

Food is one of my best friends. You will learn that pretty quickly, as one of my first goals wherever I go is to eat tasty food and try out new flavors and dishes. As you can imagine, WVSU was not the center of fine cuisine, nor a place where people are really sporty! And I am a young yoga teacher to be…So, I did just that:

There was no way I would really go to West Virginia State University but I still registered.

Eh well, after months of thinking and dreaming and completing files, my project was a pile of fluffy dreamy dust.

Until one morning, I received an email from the international office saying that I could go to Germany as a new agreement has been signed with my psychology faculty. I felt my heart beating again. I was inexpressibly happy, but also frustrated and fearful and scared. After realising I wouldn’t leave at all, I had all rearranged my plan and was about to sign a lease. But after my grumpy phase passed, I said yes, obviously. I wouldn’t miss it for the world and luckily, my lease wasn’t signed yet, so things were finally making sense again.

It’s funny how we need to feel safe and sure of what’s ahead of us. This winter, I learned the hard way that nothing is completely sure until it happens. Life is unpredictable, scary and frustrating sometimes. But when you learn to flow with its riptides, it can be pretty awesome. Planning is an overused concept these days. It can’t always work or be as we planned but the truth is you should never give up. If I had, I never would have had this opportunity.

Today, I received the email’s confirmation that I was officially accepted to the University of Mannheim. It was pretty sure for the last few weeks, but I think I hadn’t allowed myself yet to realise it was happening. I was talking about it with as much excitement as if I was talking about a good movie. But today, the drive of moving abroad finally kicked in. Today, I realised I was really moving abroad and even if the preparation list was making me nauseous, I WAS MOVING TO GERMANY. I mean, that’s pretty exciting and it finally feels like a huge life changing project is coming up.

Today, I had my first butterflies.