I am leaving the country in two weeks.  Two weeks.  The thing is, I haven’t realized it yet. I know that when I realize that an event is imminent, I’ll start to worry immensely; I’m not.

I feel like in two weeks I am going on vacation to somewhere around the United States or even starting my first day in college all over again. It does not yet feel like I am going to a completely different world where they speak a different language, sleep at different times, have a different diet and eat at different hours, USE DIFFERENT PLUGS AND OUTLETS, use different money, drink different water, have different ways of going about life; different  everything.

This is the first time I will be traveling out of the country on my own (actually, not to mention,  anywhere  on my own. I have traveled on my own but with the purpose of visiting someone or with a big group).

So not  everything  is different, of course. And I’m not just completely calm about the trip; there are many things I’m already worried about:

• Communicating with people back home will be hard, since I do not know how much internet access I will have and I only have Skype/Facebook. Yet I love to talk. I am one of those people that talk pretty much 24/7 and if I do not have the ability to talk to someone, I will freak out.
• I have heard the weather will be similar to how it is now in Washington — summer here is winter there; I have heard the weather will be freezing. I have heard it does not rain yet you might be walking around the house looking like a marshmallow. What if I don’t bring enough clothes and I freeze myself to death and my toes fall off? And I don’t want to pack what I don’t need since I only have so much room in my suitcase …
  (I just checked the weather — it is currently 61 degrees  Fahrenheit but will be 37 tonight. And I will have to learn how to use celsius … )
• They eat dinner around 10 p.m. They sleep anywhere between 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. I know I am a night owl but that is with the consideration that I wake up at noon the next day. I won’t be able to wake up that late especially if I have school the next day, and I’m the type that if I don’t sleep, it’s not uncommon for me to compensate during class, and I’ll have to pay very very serious attention in these classes since Spanish is not my first language.
• Thirty-minute errands turn into three-hour errands. If they say they are meeting at 4:30 you will not be seeing them at 4:30 … or any time close to that. I compare Argentines to sloths: they take their time. There is no rush for anything because they just want to enjoy their lives rather than worry about being late or timed.
• People say that classes abroad are  a lot  easier than they are at Whitman considering Whitman’s classes are brutal; however I will be taking these classes in Spanish. My Spanish classes at Whitman are hard enough, and I’ve finally learned that I do not have to look up every word, but I don’t expect readings in an Argentine university to be much easier. Classes abroad being easier than Whitman classes only applies to certain programs.
• What if I don’t like  maté?

Technically, I don’t sleep either (I stayed up till 3 a.m. last night for example). Technically, I am “the late girl,” either appearing on time or pretty long after the supposed meeting time. And I live in Washington. I still think people don’t understand the concept of a sunny/warm day. But one thing still stands: I am experiencing these in a different country, and that makes all the difference.

Now that I’ve written this entire thing, I’m starting to realize that I am leaving in two weeks. That gives me two weeks to obtain all the things I need for Argentina, two weeks to spend time with the people I love and see their faces for the last time in five months, two weeks to smell my house and two weeks to eat Asian food.

And this is nothing close to me realizing. This is just the planning stage. This is just the beginning.