The Prologue

It is kind of awkward for me to be sitting here attempting to figure out how to start this blog. I have a ton of ideas running through my head: I could detail the events of my life up to now beginning with my birth and ending with my job at Chick Fil A (affectionately known as the Chicken House). I could give you bullet points of my likes and dislikes, starting with my love for Disney and ending with my fear of sunflowers. I could quote obscure famous dead people in an attempt to seem super mysterious and alluring. But instead, I'm just going to talk to you like I would if we were sitting face to face. Hello! My name is Anna and I really love to travel. I have never attempted to chronicle (I love that word) my experiences- I live life on the fly, embracing whatever happens and changing my mind every fifteen minutes. So sitting down with the knowledge that I'm about to commit to five months of very specific writing on a regular basis is a challenge. If you know me then I'm glad you are reading this, and if you don't then I hope I can (at the very least) bring some kind of smile to your face with the wild antics of my young life.

Basically, over the next five months, I will be attempting to journal through my study abroad experience. I will be moving to Ifrane, Morocco, to study for 4 months, and hope to have all kinds of adventures between now and when I get back. I cant promise there will be any rhyme or reason to anything said in these pages. A lot of my posts will probably be about trifle encounters, or gushing recollections of events that may mean absolutely nothing to you or even matter in the grand scheme of things. For example, you can expect an extremely detailed play-by-play of my first time going to Rick's Cafe American (which, if you haven't seen the movie Casablanca, means nothing to you already). Some may be overly serious and contemplative, and I'll probably attempt to reinvent the wheel at least once with some earth shattering realization.  My words may not matter to many people and my biases, self-centered hilarity and painfully lame jokes with definitely come through. But my commitment to seeing this whole blog through is important to me, and I am doing it so I will have something to reflect on when I get back, in an attempt to see how much changes in the upcoming months. And because I don't want to spam Facebook with ridiculous novels that would annoy people by clogging up their news-feeds.

What I am most excited about is neatly summed up in the word "opportunity" (a word that I will be using freely in probably every single one of my posts). The opportunity to go, the opportunity to write, to learn, to experience, and the challenge of staying committed to updating this little mini-saga. The choosing of Morocco is a tale in and of itself, and will be the topic of my next blog. But for now, welcome to The International Swoop!

Cliche selfie, just in case you dont know who you'll be following the next few months.