Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I was having a lovely day today, spending some quality time with my parents in London, until I came home and checked my emails.

To begin to describe the situation a little background information is probably necessary.

My year abroad is in two parts. The first five months are being spent in Germany and then during the following few months I will be a language assistant in Italy. I thought everything was sorted out. I thought all of the dates were fine, nothing clashed, all of the minimum time requirements were met but then I realised that I wrong…very very wrong.

To cut a long story short, I thought that I was ending my Italian placement in July but now I have found out that it will end no later than the beginning of June (Giugno means June not July duh) . This gives me a 12 week placement; my university requires that I am active in Italy for at least 18 weeks. If I do not meet my university year abroad requirements then I will not pass into the final year! As if that is not bad enough, if I do not partake in a placement running for at least 13 weeks (excluding school holidays) then I will be dropped from the teaching program, thus I will be active for 0 weeks. 

I do not need this type of stress a few days before I fly of to Germany. Please God help me.

Fear of flying

It’s exactly a week until I jet off on my new “exciting adventure”. I must admit I am a little more excited than I was this time last week and I’ve begun to acknowledge the fact that I have to go; it’s compulsory after all. So here I am trying to approach the situation a little more positively, yet something keeps dragging me back down to the realms of negativity: the flight. I hate flying. I loathe flying. Flying is unnatural. Supposedly a fear of flying can be referred to as aerophobia, aviatophobia, aviophobia or pteromechanophobia. To be honest no matter what name they give it, call it “cuddlyfluffywarmbearophobia” for all I care, the anxiety of boarding and sitting on the aircraft will be exactly the same. I do fly, occasionally, but only because when I have no choice. I usually sit there and try to distract myself from the situation. This involves reading a magazine word from word, stuffing my face full of chocolate and other comfort food and talking to my travel companion. I say “talking” but it’s really me sitting rigid in my seat stating the obvious; “we’re landing”, “look a cloud”, “I see the sea”.

The problem is that this time I am flying alone. I have never flown alone before. I am going to be sat on an aeroplane with no one to calm me down, to hold my hand, to reassure me that everything is ok. I’m terrified. I’ve tried my hardest to book the most stress free flight possible. I’m flying into Köln/Bonn airport rather than Frankfurt, because it knocks off 30mins of flight time. The extra 2.5 hour train journey that I will need to now take to my German destination is adequate compensation. Also I know both Köln/Bonn airport and my UK departure airport reasonably well, which will hopefully keep me calmer. The most important decision for me was choosing who to fly with. I was adamant that I would not fly with an airline that I had no previous experience with, and I thus chose the airline that I have flown with the most and had the least stressful flights with.

I’m more than aware that this is all a little OCD and you’re wondering why I am not just hopping on the Eurostar (I too ask myself this on a daily basis. It all comes down to money. The journey by train would have cost me at least 5 times more than the budget airline tickets. Trust me if I had a spare £200 lying around, I would not be writing this post.

The next dilemma will undoubtedly involve the 20kg weight restriction, but I will save that for another day.

 

  

The biggest backpack ever!?

My new backpack arrived today. I’d been carrying around the same backpack since I was 15 years old. It was a khaki coloured Roxy bag. It had served me well as a school bag and then later as a travelling bag. However during one of my many trips to Germany I broke the zip on the front pocket and although I’ve managed to put up with it, I’ve decided that this year a fully functioning  front compartment will be a necessity. Choosing a new backpack proved to be harder than I had thought. I wanted a backpack that was both practical and fashionable. This wouldn’t have been such a challenge if I lived in a country like Japan, where pretty dresses are often accompanied by the wearing of a backpack. Unfortunately in the UK backpacks are usually reserved for school children, males or the aptly named “backpackers”. I found many suitable backpacks online, yet unsurprisingly they all needed to be shipped over from Asia.  
Finally I found a suitable bag from a company based in Yorkshire. It’s the “Eastpack Hokkaido Backpack”, in navy blue and pink. It was a little pricier than I would have preferred but c’est la vie. So I unwrap the bag, happy with what i see, but then I put it on. I’m relatively petit and this bag looks huge in comparison to my 5ft4 (approx 162cm) frame. I resemble some sort of human turtle. Nonetheless I love the bag and am happy to have another item to cross off of my “must buy” list. 

Money, money, money

My worry of the day is, as the title suggests, money. How will I access my bank account whilst I’m abroad? How much cash shall I take with me? Should I get a prepaid card? Will I be able to transfer money easily if I do not have internet access?

I've spent the day researching different types of prepaid cards. Originally I was going to use the “Escape Travel Money Euro Card” as suggested to my mother by Phones4U. Luckily just before I pressed the confirm button on my online application, I read the terms and conditions. Thank God I did. Suddenly I was faced with a bunch of restrictions that I had not even considered. The card had an annual load limit of £650 and the maximum daily ATM withdrawal was a mere €188. I’m sure this card would be perfect if I was spending the week in Europe, but in reference to a year abroad, I have to deem it useless.

Nevertheless I really liked the prepaid card idea. I’m planning on withdrawing weekly a set amount of Euros from the ATMs and then using cash only to pay for whatever my heart desires (and the necessities). Alas my debit card does not like the idea of me withdrawing cash abroad and wants to hit me with ridiculous charges. Prepaid cards seem to be a lot more year abroad friendly. Anyway I came across two very tempting cards. The “Travelex Cash Passport” and the “Caxton fx  prepaid card”. Both cards seemed perfect and it was a struggle trying to decide between the two but after reading a handful of reviews I bit the bullet and ordered the Caxton card. It should be arriving in 7 working days, which is good since I’m leaving in 8. Oops. 

 

Introduction to me

Hi, I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce myself. I’m Travelling Girl, a 20 year old student from the UK about to embark on her year abroad. I study modern languages at university and it is compulsory for me and my fellow students to spend our 3rd year in a country of our choice. Is this an amazing once in a lifetime opportunity or am i about to be pushed head first into the dark abyss of foreign culture ? I’m torn between the two. I realise how privileged I am to be able to spend a year in Europe; it’s something that many people dream of doing,  however I’m not an independent character; in fact I’m far from it. I’m the type of type of girl who needs someone to hold her hand to do EVERYTHING. So am I excited? If I am then any feelings of excitement are being suffocated by intense fear. This is why I am starting this blog. It will be my chance to comfort (I hope) other lone-travelling virgins. I’m going to share the low points and the high points of my journey and a few random facts that I learn along the way. Hopefully this time next year the not so independent Travelling Girl will have transformed into the ultimate travelling machine.