Pre-Trip

Hello! There are less than two months before I leave on my trip to Japan. With the departure date coming up fast, I am getting extremely nervous and excited for this opportunity. The idea of traveling alone scares me, but the idea of exploring a whole new country is thrilling.

Recently, though, I went on spring break out to Colorado, mainly Boulder and Breckenridge. While I was out there, I went to University of Colorado Boulder and University of Colorado Denver. Both were amazing campuses in different way with Boulder being more isolated and having more outdoor campus that is spread out. The Denver campus was just outside of city limits with a few buildings within the city and integrated with other colleges. Though I don’t think I will go to either one, they both were fun to experience.

Also while I was out in Colorado, I went to my favorite hotel, The Stanley, a hotel where Stephen King wrote The Shining and was featured in the film Dumb and Dumber.  I saw many iconic places that were depicted in both the book and the movie. Though I did not get haunted, it still was a beautiful place to stay.

The final place I visited was Breckenridge ski resort. My father and I have a job at a local ski resort teaching people how to snowboard and get a discount at all ski resorts. Breckenridge had the best snow I have ever been on with it being April and warming up. The snow here is icy and hard, but the snow out there is fluffy and packed enough to snowboard on. I also visited A-basin and that was more rough. I had more bruises from A-basin than from Breckenridge. I can now say with confidence that snowboarding past the point where trees stop growing on the mountain is terrifying, and in need of a meditation point before you go down it. I also learned some history about how the resorts keep the avalanche danger low with explosives. It was very exciting to see an intentional avalanche, but I would definitely not want to be on the slope next to the avalanche zone.

Colorado was a fantastic trip, though it is not as cold as I expected it to be at 13,000 feet above sea level. You could say it was breathtaking and left me feeling weary. I saw so many native animals, such as: Moose, Caribou, Prairie dogs, and Squirrels. I will have to go back earlier in the snow season, though that will have to wait for when I return from Japan. If you would like to donate I have joined the Sponsor an AFSer Program which is an online fundraising tool provided by AFS-USA to allow potential contributors to make easy, secure, and non tax-deductible contributions to my AFS program fee. Every dollar helps me get closer to my goal of taking this trip

Thank you for listening and I would greatly appreciate it if you could spread this to people who you think are willing to donate. Thank you again and check in to follow my adventure.

To sponsor my AFS program, please click the Donate Now button (you press the triple dashes in the upper left hand corner to access the donation) to make a non tax-deductible contribution directly to my AFS program account.