The Preparations Begin...

With only two weeks until my departure to Australia, crunch time has set in.  I guess I should probably mention first why am journeying over to Aussieland and where I am sailing from.  My name is Kaitlin, but all my friends call me Seegs (a nickname made from my last name Segal), and I recently graduated from Bucknell University.  I am from LA, a true west coast, warm weather, beach girl, but ventured over to the east coast for college.  I always thought after four years away from home, I would start my "real life" back in LA, but clearly that is not the plan anymore.  I had the best four years of my life at Bucknell and was not ready for it to be over, and definitely not ready to go find a job in the "real world!"  I went abroad on Semester at Sea Spring 2010, my second semester junior year, and had the most amazing semester of my life.  I met friends that will remain close to me forever, learned so much about the world and all the cultures it has to offer, and most of all I learned about myself.  I have always had a passion for traveling because my parents took me and my two sisters on cruises around the world since we were in elementary school, but Semester at Sea turned my passion into an obsession.  On Semester at Sea, the Global Studies professor, Don Gogniat, coined us "Adventure-ers."  Every class was commenced with, "Hello fellow adventure-ers" and I have taken that name with me and let it stick.  I am a true adventure-er of the world, so what better way than to leave my safe haven of the Bucknell Bubble than to take a baby-step into the real world by doing what I love most, traveling.

Australia seemed like the perfect place to go because 1. THEY SPEAK ENGLISH ( I am terrible at picking up other languages) 2. The weather does not drop below 40 degrees Fahrenheit 3. I have actually been to Sydney twice with my family and absolutely loved it!  I lucked out with receiving a great contact in Melbourne, Australia who I ended up getting a job offer from.  I will be teaching at Carey Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne from January 25th - December 9th 2012.  Their schooling system is a bit different than in the States because they have a year round schooling system.  Carey has four terms with two-week breaks in between each term, and they start in January because they have the opposite fiscal year than we do.  I know I said I am leaving in two weeks (September 10th) even though my job does not start until January, but that is because I plan to do a few months of traveling before hand.

I met my boyfriend, Tommy, on Semester at Sea, which is pretty surprising because he also happened to go to Bucknell University.  Although we were both from the class of 2011 in a school with around 3,400 undergrads, AND on top of that in brother-sister fraternity/sororities, we did not manage to meet each other until January 2010 on board the MV Explorer.  Tommy shares my passion for travel, and we are making the move to Australia together.  What better way than to start our journey the same way we met over a year ago, on a ship.  On September 10th we will board the Holland American Volendam to cruise from LA to Sydney, a 23 day crossing.  We will stop at a few islands along the way including Hawaii, American Samoa, the Samoa Islands, Fiji, and New Caledonia.  Hopefully I will have some access to Internet along the way so that I can update my blog instead of throwing everything together at the end of the 23-day crossing!

I think I have covered the basics to catch you up to the start of my adventure, so now it is time to discuss the painful experience of packing up my life up into two suitcases... or maybe I'll just leave that to your imagination.  Luckily I have the best mom in the world who spent four days straight with me running errands and finding the perfect size suitcases to stuff everything I could into :).  I think the journey will be more enjoyable...