Did my journey start out perfectly? Absolutely not. Would I change how it started? Absolutely not - the story is way too funny.

I didn’t want my semester abroad to end. But really, study abroad doesn’t quite finish when you board that plane back to the States—for one thing, there’s the new you, then there’s all the memories, and finally, there’s that suitcase to unpack.

When I say I’m “out here in the desert,” I’m not kidding. Someone told me the last time it rained was 10 months ago, but it HAS sprinkled a couple times. All the mosques are constantly praying for rain. Ibri is located just outside the largest sand desert in the world, the Empty Quarter, and as one of my instructors put it, “Ibri is famous for the color brown.”

Five days is how long it took before I cried. Not counting when I watched Black Swan on the plane ride over or the tragic video I saw on FB about refugees trying to gain asylum in the US. Those moments both deserved my tears for sure.

This blog will be about me trying to make myself uncomfortable. Not the bad kind though. I won’t be streaking in streets or farting in front of my host family. Okay, so I can’t promise the later but I’ll try my best to control myself gosh darn it.