November 22nd: OMG I'm going to Slovenia! I'm going to meet Jerneja from Sparkly Kid!
December 10th: I'm so freaking excited!
January 17th: This is going to be so awesome.
February 14th: I can't wait till May.
March 5th: Almost almost May.
April 28th: Two days away from May.
May 1st: Shit, what if we don't get along? What if I'm a disappointment to her?
May 3rd: Well, no going back now...

From Envy's Make it Happen List
#29: Meet a blog buddy in real life
Status: Awesomeness achieved

There's nothing more exciting and terrifying than meeting an online friend offline for the very first time. So when I sat at the bas of the Preseren statue on Preseren square, I was torn between fight, flight and total excitement. Sure I'd talked to Jerneja plenty of times on Twitter and through comments, but... you never know, right? As long as the internet exists, catfishes and the chance of being stood up will be around.
One o'clock, the moment we'd meet, came and went. A few doom scenarios crossed my mind. My heart was beating like crazy when I received a text from Jerneja, saying she'd come a little later on. Mere minutes later, she was standing in front of me. It was the most surreal thing ever.

What do you say to someone who's never heard your voice, yet knows all your stories from the past years? Apparently you keep repeating how awkward you and the situation both are. At least that's what I did. There was something about the situation that my brain couldn't quite handle and that something was this: I was not looking at a picture on a screen, I was interacting with a real human. That switch from online to offline is not an easy one to make, but once I'd made it, it was awesome.

Jerneja and I went to get a drink on top of Neboticnik Skyscraper, talked about whatever came to mind, then took the first blog buddy selfie of our lives. I've got to say that it felt pretty awesome.

We actually met!! We're both real people! 😄 #bloggermeetup #ljubljanacastle @envy_fisher

Een foto die is geplaatst door Jerneja (@sparklykid_) op 3 Mei 2016 om 6:42 PDT

In the days that followed, we saw Captain America: Civil War together, along with a few of Jerneja's friends. It was my first time watching a Marvel movie with die hard Marvel fans. It was great, even though Slovene subtitles sometimes distracted me from the perfection that's Captain America.
Later on we took a mini road trip to Bled, where we rented a row boat. Now imagine that: two bloggers in a row boat. That's where the weirdness gets in too. And of course the selfies to send to our other blog buddies.
On Friday I had to say goodbye to Jerneja. It was awkward again. I'm not good at saying goodbye, mostly because I'm trying to contain my emotions. I couldn't focus on saying goodbye, I was trying too hard to think of ways to keep seeing my blog buddy and meet others like Kathie from A Sea Change and Kanra from The Lunar Descent too. I was sad to say goodbye to Jerneja, but so grateful that we'd been given the chance to meet both online and in real life.
If you ever get the chance to meet one of your blog buddies in real life, grab it! It might be awkward at first, but it'll turn out to be awesome.

Have you ever met any of your blog buddies in real life? Would you be as awkward as I was?
Stay Awesome!