Taking on the World

I know that I have spoken about this during class, but I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Kishinev, Moldova over Spring Break 2011. I went through a program with Penn State Hillel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) along with 17 other Penn State students. During the week, I had the honor of helping to renovate a building of the Community Center, going on a home visit during International Women’s Day, and spending time with our Moldovan peers. I don’t even know where to start to try to describe how incredible this week was. I could truly go on for numerous blog entries describing the week, but I will try to quickly get to the point of this post (but if anyone is interested in the details, I’d be happy to share!). 

I love traveling. And, even more than just going to a different country, I like absorbing myself in it. My favorite parts of the week were spending time with people and getting a feel for what the country is really like. It was a bizarre moment when I looked up at all of the billboards and realized that I was looking at Russian and Romanian. I actually liked not being able to read the language - it made me appreciate that I was really in a different country and made me want to learn these languages. 

Something that I have always wanted to do is travel. I want to study abroad and I want to travel to really see a country and its people, not just touristy things. I spent a week the flew by too quickly in a county that I had only heard of once before (I read a book that spent a chapter speaking about Moldova as the most unhappy country in the world) and I absolutely fell in love with it. Have you ever heard of Moldova? I'd be pleasantly surprised. But now I'm in love with it and I want to go back to see and do more. 

Is there a country that you want to experience? If you had the opportunity to travel to a “random” country, would you? I suggest it, you never know what you will find. 


Our last night with our Moldovan peers