Introduction

So, another year means another new blog. The only difference is that this year, the bulk of my time will be spent outside the United States.



Wait, what?

That's right! Today marks day 4 of my time in the beautiful city of Montreal. Before rambling on about how much I love it here, I would like to give a little introduction and explanation to this blog. First off, I took the title of this blog from a line out of the song "Americans Abroad" by the band Against Me! because I feel it represents two ideas I would like to keep in mind this coming year. The quote is a sappy way of reminding myself of how much there is to experience outside of my little bubble in the northeastern United States and even with new media shrinking global communication, there is still so much to see and do that simply cannot be replaced by reading a wiki or searching something on Google. In regards to the song "Americans Abroad" as a whole, it represents something I DO NOT want to be: an obnoxious tourist tearing through foreign lands looking to copy/paste my lifestyle into a different country.

With that being said, I do look forward to being a tourist and visiting various landmarks in the countries I'll be traveling to and taking lots of pictures while I'm there. Additionally, I hope to learn new languages, adapt to new customs and cultural expectations and to expand my view of the world to something larger than that which New England can provide me with. Simply put, my goals for my year abroad are to: meet new people, try new things and take lots of pictures. While these goals are fairly vague, I wanted to leave them that way to encourage myself to always be in pursuit. You can never make enough friends; there is no limit to what you can try or learn; more pictures mean more memories (...and I have a terabyte of storage, so taking up memory isn't much of a concern for me). I can't guarantee the frequency of my postings (my classes and internship take priority!) nor have I established a set length for each blog post. I can assure you, however, that if you don't hear from me a while it's not because life has been dull, but in fact quite the opposite and filled with experiences that I will be later writing about.

Now before I get carried away waxing poetically on my experiences in Montreal so far, I really need to get to a grocery store so I can actually feed myself (shout out to my roommates and their excellent cooking! Gaeton is a master at making just about any type of crepe you could want...within reason - we are but simple college students!). Military time and being written in French somewhat hinder my understanding of store hours at a glance, so I'm crossing my fingers that the nearby IGA (grocery store chain) is open. Oh, that's another thing - I have a vague idea of where the aforementioned IGA is on a map, but no idea if it is above or below ground. Montreal's underground city is amazing (expect some pictures in the future!) but it adds a whole new dimension (...literally) to finding places on a map. Wish me luck!