Expedition Institute 2012

After backpacking all last week (which generally causes everything else that may be happening in my life to fall away), suddenly the Baltic is right here! As the last car coming back to Boston from Gettysburg, my trunk was packed with four people’s worth of kayaking gear and camping equipment that needs to be distributed between the students flying out of Logan next Saturday (big thanks to Ben and Emily Kohlbrenner for spending all of last week putting that stuff together). The pile of bags and boxes is currently dominating my parent’s living room, but they had fun going through and looking at everything we’re bringing. I think they are a little skeptical that it is all actually going to fit in the boats, but I assured them it would. And if it doesn’t, then I guess it’s not coming with us.

Though we are leaving in just a few days, the list of logistics never seems to get any shorter. Right now we are working on securing the cargo crate that will ship our kayaks back to the States from Helsinki in July (assuming, of course, that we don’t change our minds and simply paddle them ourselves across the Atlantic). We need to figure out both where to put the container, as well as when we will be able to load the boats. It is difficult, however, to worry about how we are going to get everything home while all I can think about is how excited I am to get over there. Four more days and counting!

Emily Heeren