End of the Semester Checklist

At the beginning of the semester, I created a checklist for myself of everything that I wanted to get done in my time abroad.  It ranged from countries to theatre to shopping to beaches.  I heard over and over again from others who had studied abroad that unless you wrote it down and worked every day on crossing things off, you’d leave with regrets that you didn’t do everything you wanted to.  And this was the absolute LAST thing I wanted to have happen.  So far, I’ve crossed out 95% of my list.  I’ve visited all the important sites, like Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, Parliament, and Abbey Road.  I’ve also visited a lot of the nearby cities including Brighton, Windsor, and Salisbury.  I also paid visits to many of the countries that I wanted to- Ireland, Portugal, Denmark, Holland, Italy, and Scotland.  All this traveling hasn’t even begun to satisfy me, though.  I want to do more, I want to see more.  This trip has made me want to travel more than ever before. I want to walk the streets of Central Park in New York City, and cross the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  I want to go skiing on the mountains in Colorado, and visit the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington.  I want to experience the cold beauty of Alaska. I want to try a fishing trip to Canada. I want to visit other places in the UK and England like Wales, Liverpool, and Manchester.  I want to visit other places in Europe including France- to see the beautiful countryside, Spain, Greece, Germany, Turkey- to lay on the clear blue beaches of the Mediterranean, and Iceland.  I would like to be able to pay my respects at a concentration camp in Poland.  I want to visit other areas such as the rainforests and waterfalls of Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, and Chile.  I want to see the kangaroos and koala bears of Australia, and take a boat over to New Zealand.  I want to visit the hot humid desserts of Africa and ride around on a camel’s back.  I want to dig a tunnel to China to get a glimpse of the great wall, and then head over to Japan. I’d love to zip line through the trees of Costa Rica, or take a cruise around the Bahamas. I feel like I’ve seen and done so much, and yet I’ve only just begun my journey around the world.  There are so many things to see and do; there are so many experiences to be had.