It has taken me weeks to discover a suitable place to write my pre-departure blog post. I tried writing at our dining room table, on my bed, on my sister’s bed, even on our living room floor. Now it is the third of July and there are only four more days left until I depart for my overseas adventure. Due to my awfully bad timing, all coffee shops with wi-fi have closed for the holiday weekend and I am stuck sitting on the ground in front of a closed library, hoping that this slight drizzle will cease and that my ever-decreasing battery power will survive for at least an hour.
While sitting in front of this library, I have begun to realize that the only connection I have felt to our society’s ancestors is the words I have read in books and textbooks. But, words are just words; they offer little insight into the actual people creating the history we learn about. As I consider the buildings and ruins I will be standing among in just a few days, my excitement builds up. I will not just be reading another book in a modernly furnished room, but I will be standing in the midst of history itself, feeling the presence of those who laid the floors and built these very walls.
Will my thirty new acquaintances feel the same way I do about the history we will be witnessing? Some may be more interested in the ancients while others may be more interested in the modern culture, the food, the shopping. I do not know what to expect from the people I will be meeting, but I do hope to come out of these four-weeks with many new friends and an experience more interesting and unique than anything I could have ever found on the shelves of a library. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
