Life Update: Fourth year struggles, long-distance, and future travel plans

What? Leda posting on a Monday? I know- I find it hard to believe too!

I decided to post a little life update today because as you can see from my un-timeliness on the blog as of late, things have been getting pretty busy around these parts. Plus, between the travel and food posts, there's a real life going on behind the scenes! Just thought I'd remind you.

So here's the 411 on what I've been up to lately:

Fourth Year Craziness

I was chatting to some of my fave gals over bellinis on Sunday about how we were all in disbelief that it's fourth year already (2 months in, in fact!). Seeing our graduation dates set in stone earlier this week made it even more real. There are so many questions about what the future holds, but I think we've all decided it's just best to take it one step at a time. 

Fourth year's been a weird period for me so far. I have only one class this semester, which sounds like all hearts and flowers and being a free spirit and all, but I feel like I'm chained to my desk. The only reason why I have such a lax schedule is because of my looming dissertation deadline (December 13th!!), so that's taking up a large chunk of my credits this semester. Not only am I being bogged down by writing my super fun but probably not ground-breaking dissertation, but I also have to apply to grad school! And internships! So as you can see, those 4 days a week of nothingness aren't immune to a seemingly endless to-do list. 

But, that being said, I guess all that's going on is very exciting. It just takes a lot of self-discipline and motivation to get it all done (and I'm slowly but surely getting there).

Living that Long Distance Life 

I'm not one to talk too much about relationships on the blog, but I just thought I'd touch on this rather big change going on at the moment. I may have mentioned it in past posts, but Ben moved to London for his real-life adult job! Scary stuff, huh? So now we're doing what really qualifies as not-so-long-distance. To be fair, we've spent two summers with an ocean between us, so I'm grateful there's no time difference now. We've been seeing each other pretty frequently aka every two or three weeks which means I get to pretend I live in London part-time.

Unfortunately, I can't offer any life-changing LDR advice other than date a cool person because we haven't had any major problems so far. And to be honest, I think that people just tend to overthink it.

Traveling to Cool Places 

Not that London isn't cool or anything, but I've been dying to go somewhere that isn't the UK. Ben and I wanted to travel somewhere in the New Year. He wanted to go somewhere "cold" and I was like "OK" and now we're going to Poland. Poland in January? Sounds pleasant, right? Now that I've finally accepted that the weather is going to be freezing, frigid, and quite literally baltic (and that I'm probably going to need a new coat) I'm scouting out things to do, eat and see. We're headed to both Warsaw and Krakow, so if you have any recs let me know!

I'm looking forward to enlisting the help of Airbnb once again, after our last a-ma-zing experience in France, and all the rentals in both cities look modern but also super charming! It's safe to say that I know next to nothing about Poland, so this is going to be a pretty cool adventure. Maybe it's just me, but I think holidays to places you're unfamiliar with are always the best! Or at least they're the most memorable.

So that's what's been going on in my life lately. What's new with you?