About Me and My Blog
An Introduction to Me, My Blog, and Why
Most people reading this are family members and friends who obviously already know me pretty well and are probably wondering why did I decided to pack up and leave and why am I posting this online? I will get to that, but right now, for those of you who don't know me that well, here is a little bit about me.
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| Giverny, France |
Who am I?
I am a twenty-something former teacher who decided to take a break and travel the world and live abroad. I was born in France and spent a few years visiting family members there. After graduating college with a B.A. in History, I began the process of becoming a credentialed teacher in California. I got a taste of travel after my graduation and became obsessed with the idea of discovering new places. So I worked as a teacher for a year, booked a ticket to Italy, and realized that I was meant to live abroad. I then quit my job, moved to France, and completely changed my life.
Thanks to being both American and French, I have good connections on two continents and speak two of the world's most learned languages. I am very close to my family and really enjoy learning about history, so traveling is a journey of a lifetime that tests my boundaries. I will go out of my way to find a historical museum, monument, or location and take as many pictures of it as I can. I over-plan, over-pack, and over-estimate just about everything. I am organized, well researched, sometimes self-taught, and always planned out. I am not spontaneous, rarely adventurous, shy, quiet, and observant. But I love animals, getting to know people, and making a difference where I can. I don't always know what I am doing and have a tendency to take the easy way out, but now I want to put an end to that and challenge myself.
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| Prague, Czech Republic |
Why travel?
I have grown up traveling a lot but I never enjoyed it as a kid. I was afraid of planes, didn't like my routines being changed or ignored, and was so uncomfortably shy, it must have been painful to watch. I also never considered my visits to France as "travels" since we spent the majority of the time visiting family. Now in my 20s, I am still shy but know when to speak, I am still afraid of planes but it is no longer debilitating, and I want to live life outside the box, or outside the routines that I once cherished. It was not until my grandparents took me to Italy that my perspective shifted. I experienced so much that I began to consider traveling more. The second we returned from the trip I told my parents that I wanted to return to France again, so less than a year later, my mom and I visited France and London. In the meantime, my thoughts on traveling has grown a lot more. I went from never wanting to travel to maybe visiting different locations, then to backpacking through Europe, then to living in Europe. Now that my eyes have been opened, the travel bug seems to have taken complete control over my mind and all I can think about is living abroad and the experiences that will be available to me.
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| Siena, Italy |
Why France?
When I first began planning my move, I had in my mind that I wanted to move to Italy, but after a short trip, I thought really hard about what I wanted from my experience and realized that France would be able to best cater to my needs. I had laid out my specific goals and compared all of my options and have finally made a decision about the next chapter of my life. I originally thought that living in France would be the easy way out, but I realized that while it provided me with some comforts, it would force me outside my comfort zone just as much as any Italian city. Spending a week or two with family in the country is very different than living in a large city by yourself, so I knew I would be getting that adventure experience that I am craved. While I love Italy and need to go back as many times as possible, what I wanted more is to live in Paris. And I think that in this case, it was acceptable to go with my gut feeling.
Living in France was probably the best decision that I have ever made. It taught me about my culture, my roots, and reconnected me to family members that I had lived so far away from for so many years. I learned so much in my year in Paris that I came home a completely different person. My year living in France gave me a new outlook on life, one that I wanted to share with so many people.
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| Helsinki, Finland |
Why Finland?
When I was a kid I was a big fan of Finnish metal ... yeah I was a metal head, black t-shirts and all. So Finland has been on my radar for years. So one day when Facebook posted a random advertisement about summer courses at the University of Helsinki, I got interested. Facebook knew what it was doing: mixing my love of travel with my Finnish obsession. I was hooked. So immediately I began researching master's programs in Finland, any Finnish city, in hopes of moving there. And lucky me, I got in!
I fell in love with Finland for its nature and its serenity. Helsinki is a big city, offering all the usual conveniences and entertainment of a big city, but its unique layout and abundant nature makes it feel like its not that big. Its not jam packed with people and buildings and its location by the sea adds to the openness. And the kindness of the people surely made it feel like it could be home. I was completely in love with Helsinki.
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| Rome, Italy |
Why post it online?
I am choosing to blog about my experiences, adventures, and travels for a variety of different reasons. One is to keep friends and family up to date on my travels. Another reason is to encourage others to travel. I am constantly learning from others and want to pass that information down. I would also like to use this as a platform to encourage people to treat each other with respect, help one another, and educate themselves on different cultures. We are all human beings with unique experiences that deserve to be acknowledged. If me traveling around the world helps promote the humanity of all people, then I feel like I will have accomplished something. I am choosing to blog to get people to travel, love their lives, and help others. I am choosing to blog to remind me to do the same. Love. Travel. Live
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| London, United Kingdom |
Why a migration?
If you take the word migration in the context of animals, it is the temporary relocation of an animal to another location. If you take the word migration in a historical context, it is the movement of a people from one location to another. I am doing a little bit of both. Physically speaking, I am moving from one city to another with the thought of returning in the near future. Physically speaking, I am migrating like the geese migrate south for the winter. Metaphorically speaking, I am shifting from one frame of mind to another. This is the second migration that I was talking about. I am learning to let go of my fears and live in the moment. I am moving from ignorance to informed, lazy to active, comfortable to challenging my boundaries. I decided to title my blog Mimi's Migration because of these two definitions that are defining my journey.
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