packing, packing, packing...

Hello Everyone!

Right now I am supposed to be packing, but since I am the biggest procrastinator in the world, I decided to create a blog that will document my travels instead. For those of you that don't know, I am going to Eastern Europe (Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia) for a month to do volunteer work with International Student Volunteers (ISV). The bulk of my volunteer work will be in Bosnia and I will be in Krupa na Vrbasu (about 20 miles from Banja Luka) working at their Center for Environment. Some of the projects that we are trying to achieve is to preserve the environment after all of the destruction of the civil wars in the 90s, teach the townspeople how important environmental conservation is, build walking trails, bike paths, community centers, and a water purifier for the local school. The ultimate goal is to build a better sense of community for these people because there was a lot of destruction during the civil wars in the 90s. After two weeks of working there, our group will be off to Dubrovnik, Croatia to start the adventure tour! The map shows all of the amazing places that I will be traveling to in the last two weeks of my trip. I will be tourning the cities, rock climbing, caving, rafting, sky diving (if i work up enough courage), biking, beaching it up, and all sorts of other fun things! I will end the adventure tour in Bovec, Slovenia and fly back to the US from there.



So...tomorrow around 8 am I will be leaving my home of Bridgewater, VA to start my long journey to Eastern Europe. Around 11 am I will be taking off from Reagan National airport in DC and flying to JFK airport in NYC to meet up with the rest of my ISV group. Around 5 pm I will be leaving to fly to Munich, Germany and will land around 8 am German time which will be 2 am Eastern time. Then from Munich I will fly into Zagreb, Croatia and land around 12:15 pm (6 am Eastern). From Zagreb I will board a bus to go to Krupa na Vrbasu and after a 3 hour bus ride I will finally be at my destination. SHEW...I am going to be beat after this. I hope the jetlag isn't too terrible...

So that's the outline of tomorrow for me. I don't know how often I will be able to update this blog, especially in Krupa na Vrbasu since it's such a remote location. I do have an international cell phone (my mother insisted) and the number is 1-540-246-5199. It will not cost you a penny to text or call me (just keep in mind the 6 hour time difference!), it will only charge me for the international fees. It's not too expensive though, so feel free to text or call (texting is cheaper for me though)! I will be calling some of you within the first couple of days to let you know I'm alive ;) haha. I would also love to drop you all some snail mail, even though it takes 2 weeks to get to the US, if you'd like a letter, please leave me your address!

Well I better go back to packing before my mom kills me, she's going nuts right now because she's worried about me leaving..haha. Please keep me in your prayers, even though I am excited about this oppertunity, I am incredibly scared as well. Please also pray for the people that we will be helping as they live and have lived through poverty and times of turmoil. I pray that we can really make a difference in the lives of these people who truly need our helping hands. Thank you.

Love,
Anna