San DieGO - Good bye America

I leave tomorrow morning at 9 am from San Diego, California (where i am now) for a shuttle to Ensenada, Mexico to board the ship that will carry me around the world. My first port is Honolulu, Hawaii where I will be a week from now on September 2. I am very excited and i look forward to sending many messages explaining my adventures abroad. feel free to send me letters as that will probably be your easiest way to communicate with me other than email. Please pray for the safety of the students, faculty, and crew of the MV Explorer , which is the ship responsible for Semester at Sea.

This is the strangest mix of emotions i have ever felt - i actually had this strange break down earlier in which I explained to Tyson (my boyfriend, for those of you that don't know) that, for the first time in my life, people that I love and will need won't be right there - it is so strange and sad. But this sadness is mixed with anxiety and excitement and the feeling of adventure and i don't know what I will experience next - i love it !!

San Diego has been awesome. Tyson and i have gotten to spend several days here exploring together and have had the chance to spend some much needed time together. Also, I road the trolley for the first time, which was a really neat experience. I used several forms of public transportation, actually and we did quite well catching buses and travelling around town. We went to the zoo. We watched the sun set on the Pacific ocean, twice! We ate at this little part of town called Little Italy and it was Amazing!!! This has been an awesome beginning to what I hope will be an even more awesome trip !!! Thanks Tyson - for being here with me and making me feel safe in a new place- i can't wait for Thailand! :)

Last sunday - a week ago today - my youth had this awesome going away party for me - it was incredible!!! They had this super cake and a really beautiful scrapbook and all the youth and my family - it was awesome!!! It was a great ending to a great summer and i thank yall for it !! I love yall soooo much and i will miss you !!

For everyone else - i love you and will miss you!! I hope that you will pray for me and think of me, maybe even send me letters. I will update this blog as frequently as i can with details of my adventures!

God Bless!!

Keep in touch!!!

I will be updating this blog frequently. I will also email as often as I can, but I will have very limited Internet time while at sea. Please do not feel sad if I do not get right back to your emails, I will try to get to them as soon as I can. I will also be sending post cards as often as I can, but I can't do that without your addresses, so send me an email and let me know where to send a post card.

For those of you that are interested in sending me letters while I am abroad, I have listed my addresses below. The heading includes whichever port it is and the date that you should send it by. All letters should be sent via airmail (go to the post office and they will help you). Semester at Sea recommends that you not send large packages because of the difficulty with customs in various countries. They also suggest that you not send currency, but if you want to take the risk, I don't mind!!! :)

HAWAII - AIR MAIL BY: August 26

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: September 2, 2007
Inchcape Shipping Services
521 Ala Moana Blvd.
Suite 256
Honolulu, HI 96813

JAPAN, Yokohama - AIR MAIL BY: August 29

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: September 12, 2007
Inchcape Shipping Services (Japan) Ltd.
Asahi Seimei Yokohama Honcho Bldg. 36
Honcho 4-chome, Naka-ku, Yokohama
231-0005 JAPAN

JAPAN, Kobe - AIR MAIL BY: September 1

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: September 15, 2007
Inchcape Shipping Services (Japan) Ltd.
Kenryu Bldg, Room 502
6, Kaigan-dori, Chuo-ku Kobe-shi
Hyogo-ken 650-0024, JAPAN

CHINA - AIR MAIL BY: September 5, 2007

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: September 19, 2007
Shipping Dept (11th Floor)
Penavico Qingdao
21 Wuxia Road
Qingdao, 266002, P.R. CHINA

HONG KONG - AIR MAIL BY: September 9

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: September 23, 2007
Inchcape Shipping Services (HK) Ltd.
Units 1802-1805, 18th Floor
N° 3 Lockhart Road
Wanchai, HONG KONG - CHINA

VIETNAM - AIRMAIL BY: September 13, 2007

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: September 27, 2007
General Forwarding Agency
5th Floor Osic Building
8 Nguyen Hue Avenue
D. 1, Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM

THAILAND - AIRMAIL BY: September 20, 2007

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: October 4, 2007
C.F. Sharp (Thailand) Co., Ltd
3366/36 Soi Manorom, Rama 4 Road
Klongtoey, Bangkok 10110, THAILAND

INDIA - AIRMAIL BY: October 1, 2007

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: October 15, 2007
J.M. Baxi & Co.
3rd Floor, Clive Battery Complex
4 & 4A, Rajaji Salai
Chennai 600 001, INDIA

EGYPT - AIRMAIL BY: October 17, 2007

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: October 31, 2007
Worms Alexandria Cargo Services
47 Sultan Hussein Street
Khartoum Square, Azarita
Alexandria, EGYPT

TURKEY - AIRMAIL BY: October 24, 2007

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: November 7, 2007
c/o ITS - International Travel Services
Buyukdere cad. Kaya Aldogan Sok. No:12/1
34394 Zincirlikuyu, Istanbul TURKEY

CROATIA - AIRMAIL BY: October 31, 2007

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: November 14, 2007
ATLANTAGENT
Obala Stjepana Radica 26
P.O. Box 40
HR - 2000 Dubrovnik, CROATIA

SPAIN - AIRMAIL BY: November 9

Kristen Thompson
C/O: Explorer
Arrival Date: November 23, 2007
Perez Y CIA S.L.
Ecuador, 2
11007 Cadiz, SPAIN

wrapping up loose ends

SOOO this is starting to feel too real!! For months all I have been thinking is that this is so far away and that I don't have to worry about it yet. Well, I have less than two weeks before I leave for San Diego and exactly two weeks from today I will be embarking on the greatest adventure ever. This arouses sooo many different emotions that I didn't know were possible to feel at the same time. I feel anxious and excited and scared and nervous and sad and a ton of other unexplainable feelings. I am excited about my adventure and all that I will experience, but I am sad about all that I will be leaving behind. I will miss my family and friends and my youth.

I have been a youth leader this summer at Glenns Bay Baptist Church (woo woo!!! ) and it has been awesome!!! We had our youth Sunday yesterday and I am so proud of my youth - they did great and I love them. I have helped build a youth program from almost nothing and now I feel like I am leaving them and it really makes me very sad. They are all so great and have taught me so much this summer. I really think that this has been the best summer ever!! I remember thinking at the beginning of the summer that I had no idea what I would be getting myself into and so nervous about it all. As the summer comes to a close, I have no doubt that Iwas exactly where I was supposed to be this summer. God had me here for a reason this summer and it has been sooo incredible!! Thanks to all my youth that are reading now - I love yall and I will miss you soooo much!! I wish I didnt have to leave yall ...

Tyson (my boyfriend) left almost a week ago to go to Ohio, which really sucks. I miss him a lot and I am very sad that I will not get to spend my last few weeks here with him. He will be meeting me in San Diego to see me off, though. I am very excited about our time in San Diego.

So I have been getting a lot of my things together for my trip. This includes large quantities of tooth paste, deodorant, shampoo, etc... that I will need and won't be able to easily buy while abroad. I can only take two large duffel bags of stuff for the whole semester. I hope all of my stuff fits - I will post about the specifics of that later.

I still have to buy malaria pills, which will cost 200$$$. I couldn't believe that the medicine would cost this much. I guess treating malaria after the fact would cost a lot more, though. I hope I don't have bad side effects from the medicine, but I won't know until a few days before I arrive in China, which is when I will start taking it.

I bought a new camera the other day and I am very excited about it. My brother, Steven, helped me pick it out. For those of you that don't know - he isn't really my brother, but we have grown up together and we might as well be related. Anyway, he helped me pick out this awesome camera that I will take super pictures with to show all of you when I get home. I will also try to load pictures on my blog along the way.

I wanted to post to update some of my information and reveal the strange mass of emotions that I am currently dealing with.