HollisHollis Mugford is a sixth semester Professional Music major at Berklee. She is a pop, R&B, and country singer from Virginia. Her passion for writing and travel have inspired her to share her experiences and thoughts with the Berklee community and beyond as she embarks on her first semester abroad in Valencia, Spain. 

 

image (1)Only 15 more days until Valencia! My apartment is looking sparser and sparser, my packing list is getting longer and longer, and my patience is getting less and less. I just got my student Visa from the Spanish Consulate’s office this week, and pulled my luggage out of storage. What has seemed like an eternity of planning and anticipation now is finally becoming a reality with every passing day. Only a few days since I’ve completed my finals, and just mere weeks away from leaving the country, I find myself asking how to pass the time. How do you bridge the gap between where you are, where you want to be, and where you will be? It’s like the anticipation of waiting to begin a race. You’re stomach cramped with anticipation, just waiting for the whistle to blow, and before you know it you’ve covered yards of distance and you’re crossing the finish line.

image (3)If only it were as simple as wishing the clock to tick faster, if only I actually had the choice of when I wanted for weeks to “hurry up.” But that’s the thing about waiting to start the race, you are powerless, suspended in the moment knowing that the seconds will pass as they will, and trusting that eventually, with your heart pounding in anticipation, the whistle will blow.

I’m going to miss nights in the apartment with sangria and cookies and the Bachelorette, or mornings at the office with my boss, Joanne, rambling on about her daughters or her plans for the weekend. I’m going to miss shopping on Newbury, brunches at Sonsie and Top of the Hub, lunches on Beacon Hill, dinners at Panceta in the North End, desserts at Mike’s Pastry, and the sales clerks at Symphony Mart that know me by name and never say goodbye but instead say, “See you tomorrow?.”
Change is so healthy, so exciting, and so bittersweet. I’m going to miss Boston. This summer has been more than anything I could have hoped for it to be. But the promise of beautiful Valencia, its delicious Paella, and the opportunity to see all I can of Europe makes my stomach turn into a knot of excitement. I want the next few weeks to be over in a flash, and at the same time I want to hold on to every morning I wake up at 1109 Boylston Street.

So this is my new home for writing and sharing with you, my fellow Berklee friends, my stories, my ramblings, my pictures, my advice, and my unending excitement about traveling abroad and spending my fall semester in Valencia, Spain. Whether you plan to travel abroad in the spring, maybe next year, or have no plans to travel whatsoever, I can only hope that this blog will inspire you.

Let the final countdown begin.

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