Thesis Thursday

Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection. ~Lawrence Durrell

As part of the process to graduate from the University of South Carolina Honors College this May I have to complete a senior thesis project. The project can be about anything of my choosing which is both a gift and a curse.

For a long time I really struggled with finding a topic for my thesis. With the freedom and flexibility to do my thesis about absolutely anything, it was difficult to narrow down topics. While I initially struggled with selecting a topic, as soon as I began hiking Kilimanjaro I knew that the whole experience would be my thesis topic.

My thesis focuses on two main things: reflecting about my hike to the summit of Kilimanjaro and providing detailed information about my experience hiking Kilimanjaro to others. First I wanted to look at the experience introspectively to identify what hiking Kilimanjaro meant to me in terms of a learning experience.

Second, I wanted to share this experience on a large scale which is why I opted to incorporate a blog into the thesis process. Hopefully this blog will help anyone considering hiking Kili or anyone who is planning their Kilimanjaro adventure with the preparation process and with what to expect.

Also I have found a love for blogging. I look forward to continuing to blog about my travel experiences. Summer of 2009 I spent five weeks in Spain, four of which were in Barcelona. Right before hiking Kilimanjaro I spent several days in London and two and a half weeks in Tanzania. Fall of this past year I took several weekend trips, one of which was to Asheville, North Carolina. Already since I began this blog I have been on a ski trip to Colorado and a spring break trip to Walt Disney World and Naples, Florida. I love to travel and want to continue sharing my trips and travel opportunities with others through this blog.

In the process of working on this thesis I have learned a lot. Tomorrow’s post will be about my reflections on the hike overall and what I feel I learned throughout the whole process.

Parental Permission...the Biggest Hurdle

The trouble with having a stubbornness contest with your kids is that they have your stubbornness gene.  ~Robert Brault

How would your parents feel about you hiking Mount Kilimanjaro? My mom and dad were reluctant, to say the least. Winning over my mom and dad was one of the first things on my Kilimanjaro To-Do. Gaining my dad's blessing, specifically, would be the toughest. The thing about my parents is that their travel experience is limited mainly to the United States. While my dad has been practically everywhere in the States, his first trip to Europe was to visit me in Barcelona when I studied abroad there in the summer of 2009. My mom had at least spent some time in Sweden while getting her master’s degree so she was more understanding of my overwhelming desire to go all over the world. Seeing as my dad had a hard enough time accepting the fact that out of all the places I could choose to study abroad I decided to go to Africa, one of the seemingly most dangerous continents, I knew convincing him to agree to Kilimanjaro was going to be a challenge.

Fortunately, while I am a nice and mostly agreeable girl, when it comes to traveling I can be pretty stubborn. And when I say stubborn, I mean it in the sense of once I get an idea in my head of some particular place to go or some particular adventure to have, I am basically as unstoppable as a freight train traveling at a high speed. Thanks, Dad for this quality. So after a fair amount of talking to my parents and convincing them of why I absolutely had to hike Kilimanjaro beyond a shadow of a doubt in my mind, they reluctantly agreed. Well mostly my mom agreed. My dad still had his fair share of qualms but while I usually am not a proponent of the phrase “It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission,” it definitely came to mind. Now I could officially check off get my parents approval from my To Do List. Check!

Mom, Dad, & Me in front of the mosaic dragon in Parc Güell

Mom & Dad in front of La Sagrada Familia Church (I lived a block away from it!)

Mom & Dad at the Mediterranean for the first time