Experiential Blog 5

I'm feeling a million different emotions as I travel abroad, the majority of them being positive. Initially it was all a bit overwhelming, being so far from home without any family near by was a new experience for me. I'm an extremely anxious person who literally stresses out about everything imaginable. So as you can imagine the days leading up to our departure date I was a mess, worrying about every small thing. "Do I have enough money", "what if something goes wrong", "what if I don't get along with everyone" and so on. Since then my emotions have changed completely. I'm in love with all of Europe and I can't wait for the day that I get to return. I was and still am so eager to soak up every experience possible while here. The only time that I got truly frustrated was when dining in restaurants, only because the staff seemed annoyed with paying our bills separately and some were blatantly rude about, in those situations I had to remind myself to just let it roll off my shoulders and go on with my day. I feel like, in general, everyone handled their emotions relatively well. Obviously there were times when things boiled over but that's to be expected. To be honest, this trip went a lot smoother than I expected it to. Some were more upfront about it while others were more timid about it but overall emotions are universal so I think that people were experiencing the same emotions. I'm a pretty empathetic person so I feel as though I'm pretty understanding of others and their feelings. As far as observations go everyone is different and everyone has had different experiences that has shaped them into who they are today so in turn people are going to react differently in situations. I've experienced emotions being dealt with in a number of ways, most of them effective for that person. It's fascinating to me to see how each individual deals with their emotions differently.