Sonqoykipi Apakuway (Take Me in Your Heart)
We are all broken people living in a world that is filled with hopelessness, sorrow and hate. At times we ask ourselves if there is still humanity and love in this planet that we call home. However, there...
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Answering a Mother’s Call
Dawn’s warm sunbeams peered through cloud cover at intervals, illuminating patches of emerald rice patties throughout the low-lying mountains of Southern India’s ghats; the faintest of breezes glided...
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Pickett’s Charge – When Even God Mourned
You can still hear the sounds of cannons, the steady tap the drummer plays for the army, and the cries of men, young and old, who will never make it home to see their loved ones again. These dreadful sounds...
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Galveston: The (Not So) Pristine, Sunny and Glamorous Beach Getaway
It rained so hard on the drive down to the island that the only thing I could see sometimes was the taillights of the car in front of us. Since the sun rose the sky had been grey, and the car crept forward...
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Dying Legacies and A Dusty Attic: The Lost History of Hungary
One thing Andrew Pongratz is notoriously famous for is his horrendous driving. On his visits from Arizona, he would occasionally drive me to basketball practice, involving serious bumper riding and cruising...
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The Paper Airplane Wars
A week. That’s all I had: a week to experience a new culture, a new world, a new perspective. I assumed that the geography, culture, and people of other countries would be wildly different. What else...
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Like a Scooby-Doo Cartoon
I half expected a monster with matted green fur wearing a sombrero to scare me just like out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Perched on a two-foot wide stone ledge with no guardrail, I gazed at ancient carvings...
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The Sovereign Joy
I couldn’t daydream in Kampala. Getting somewhere required all my concentration, patience, and if I failed to stay watchful, too much money! The clammy streets of Uganda’s capital city were ringing...
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Solace on a Roller Coaster
Here I was. The moment I had always dreaded, but simultaneously looked forward to - riding a roller coaster. Before me was Expedition Everest, Disney’s behemoth of a coaster, situated in a mountain modeled...
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The Blessed and The Ravaged
As an American, I am extravagantly blessed with comforts most of the world cannot even imagine. I often find myself hiding from this world inside an impenetrable bubble, a bubble...
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Death on the Bridge of Life
Calm waters shift slowly on one side. Driven, velocious cars journey on the other. A living form of juxtaposition. I feel the shadows of those who marched on the Edmund Pettus Bridge beside me. Heads up,...
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Hope in the Midst of Despair
The building looked innocent enough from the street. With its greying stone, plain rectangular structure, and uniform windows, it looked like simply another old office building that you could walk past,...
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Of Heat and Humanity
The heat slipped into Los Angeles, catching us unaware. Was that the inkling of a coming heat wave, or just a warm breeze? Were those clouds in the distance? Surely, the morning fog meant a mild day? By...
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Pilatus: The Dragon’s Mountain
LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND. 1421. It’s summer, when the snows have finally receded back into the fang-like peaks of Mount Pilatus. The small lakeside village rests peacefully...
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The Universal Language: Ice Cream Cones and Crayola Crayons
My eyes grew sleepy as winding hills consumed my view, sloping gently into the background with no sign of relapse. I watched as sunflowers danced in the wind and wildflowers mingled haphazardly; the colors...
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A Stroll in Berlin
If I’m honest about it, I was never grabbed by books about history when I was younger. I found it hard to connect personally...
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Sunrise Serenade — Hiking Navaho Peak, Washington
Some ideas are the product of meticulous planning and deliberate thinking, while others just seem to happen. When three friends and I decided to climb a 7,000 foot mountain at 3:00 AM to herald the sunrise...
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My Soul for Santa Maria: Life Lessons Learned from a Volcano
4:00 a.m. is too early to be climbing volcanoes. I’m still dreaming as I wake up, crawling out of bed and into shorts, fumbling with shoelaces and hair ties. Everyone in in our little town of Xela is...
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Where Humans and Wildlife Collide
The miniature howler monkey clung to its mother’s back as the older monkey undulated through the branches of the twisted tree. With one movement, the mother pushed off the bowing bough and transferred...
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A Thousand Ones
The silence is so strong it hurts my ears. It’s as if the people around me are trying not to wake the souls that lie below our feet. The water around us seems shadowy, but I know what is there. It’s...
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The Blossoming of Compassion
"Anything will help. God bless you." "Mother of 4." "Homeless. In Need." Everyday as I drive to school I pass signs resembling these. I sit nervously tapping my foot on the gas pedal trying to...
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Navigating the Dark in the City of Light
Travel is the insane desire to become lost. Lost in a culture, a language, lost in ourselves. And when I decided to study abroad for a year, I was completely unaware of how my world would change, of how...
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Storming Castles and Hunting Dwarves in Poland
As a kid with an incredibly active imagination, I loved acting out the stories that my Mom read to me or what I saw in movies. I taped flashlights to my arms to shoot lasers like Buzz Lightyear, and built...
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A Grand Design
No one had to tell me to feel the way I did. I felt it all on my own. With depths as bottomless as the ocean, and craters so vast they seemed to spread across the world forever, the view was like nothing...
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Rediscovering My Roots
400 years of my family’s heritage lies rooted south of the American border, in Guadalajara, a blossoming city located in the heart of Mexico. An economic recession drove my immediate family out of the...
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Too Close for Comfort
As I looked out the car window, we passed a short concrete hut-like building. And then we passed another, and in the next village, another one. I asked my mom what these strange buildings were. I had never...
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Seoul-searching
Over the past few years, I've chastised my friend for being obsessed with Korean culture without understanding what Korean culture really is. I was angry because I thought her interaction with Korea, one...
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China’s Treasure
I’m here. Ancient stones are only steps away from my touch. I see a high point in the glorious distance and make it my goal to at least make it there. I take my first step and just admire the wall itself....
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Joy Amidst Devastation
If someone had asked me a year ago, "Where will you find utter devastation alongside genuine joy?" I'd have tapped out and asked for a new riddle. And I know for a fact that the last place that would've...
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Finding My Sister
This was a trip three years in the making. From the moment we stepped off the plane, the thick, balmy air hit me like a wall of tropical bricks, inducing the hazy, dreamlike feeling that dominated the...
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Forest, Farm, and Southern Charm: Why Hayden, Alabama Is the Best Southern Travel Destination You’ve Never Heard Of
Never heard of Hayden, Alabama? No surprises there. According to the 2010 U.S. census, Hayden had a population of 444 and no stoplights. Some of its attractions include two lovely...
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Rural Japan – A Vacation for Those in Need of More
Owase is a serene fishing town nestled comfortably in southern Mie prefecture on Japan’s eastern coast, surrounded by towering mountains and twisting rivers. Although Owase is the rainiest place in all...
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Wild Wonders of the Himalayas
As you step out of the train, you quickly notice the crisper, cooler air of the Indian town of Kathgodam compared to that of populated cities like Delhi. The Himalayan Mountains stand tall in the backdrop,...
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Second to None: Why Chicago is America’s Heart
Gritty, blue-collar town, City of Broad Shoulders. Hm. Strolling along the breezy blue lakefront, among the joggers, jugglers, bikers, chess players, volleyballers,...
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We’re Still in Kansas, Toto
“Where are you from?” “Kansas City.” “Oh...so you live on a farm, right?” I cannot even count the number of times I have received this response after informing someone of my place...
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What a Desert Oasis Really Looks Like
Tucson, Arizona offers a unique experience for any traveler. It is modern and historic, Mexican, Native American, and American, natural and man-made. It is as wild as its desert and as calm as its endless...
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A Panorama of Life: Poughkeepsie, NY
The breeze sifts through my hair like a million playful butterflies; the sky is a singular swath of blue above my head; 160 feet below is the splendor of the Hudson River. I am walking on the longest pedestrian...
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Grab a Bike and Explore Wassenaar, NL
Welkom bij Wassenaar! Welcome to Wassenaar! Wassenaar is a quaint Dutch town which lies between The Hague and Leiden, two major cities along the Netherlands North Sea Coast. Wassenaar is more...
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Star of Bavaria: Rosenheim
Southern Germany’s patchwork landscape, dotted with orderly squares of emerald and mustard, plays peek-a-boo with me through the clouds. Below, the familiar Bavarian charm of Rosenheim acts magnetic,...
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Good Things Come in Small Packages
When you come from a small, rural town (technically a village) it is rather tempting to imagine yourself living anywhere else. I often imagine myself walking the crowded streets of New York City, surfing...
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The Normal and Extraordinary Places of Bangladesh
Crowded streets. Cars honking. Burning sun. Tall buildings block much of the sky. Dhaka City, Bangladesh. This may be a typical city. But furthermore, Bangladesh is known as a developing country to much...
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Sweet Simplicity
Around a flickering flame, four young boys lounge leisurely poking the inferno before them with sticks. Cheerily conversing, a few adventurous ones draw the smoldering sticks close...
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Something Just….Clicked
Life changing experiences are rare. Even more rare are the moments where you can recognize their significance as the fabric of your life unfolds. Many people spend years seeking such moments, searching...
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My Hut Is Your Hut
Pitch dark, ten degrees hotter than outside, a stench of manure. I can barely make out the outline of a woman, or rather a girl of twenty, who sits in silence as she feeds her...
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Who Can Get The Closest?
It was reckless. It was reckless, stupid, and dangerous. But, it was just the rush I was looking for in my Yellowstone vacation. Standing outside of the Gardiner, Montana Gateway...
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South African Bush: An Untouched and Invisible World
I awoke to clamoring sounds on the rowdy bus. It became increasingly evident we were approaching our intended destination, as the scenery was devoid of familiar architecture. We were surrounded by...
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Sin Cuenta
Our group of high school juniors and seniors stayed up until midnight at Las Tortugas, a turtle reserve in Limón, Costa Rica. The night before, we patrolled for four...
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A Slice of Literature
Going back in time requires no supernatural powers, no new-fangled machines with walls of blinking buttons and levers—walking into an era long-gone can be achieved as easily...
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