Spending Two Weeks With Mother Nature
Never before have I been in a town with less than five-hundred people: two gas stations, two bars, and a Subway; accompanied by a mom and pop store and a hunting surplus which...
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Taking a Shower
We were warned. Miss Wood, the teacher who led the U.S. and Ghana Exchange Program, had spent months hammering Ghanaian culture into our heads. We watched documentaries, looked...
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Ruby Beach, Washington
Last July, the summer of 2009, my family took advantage of four free airline tickets and planned an impromptu vacation to the Pacific Northwest. We went gallivanting off to the...
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The Three C’s of Mount Kilimanjaro: Clear, Copious, and Constant
The most essential item for a woman climbing 19,340 ft Mount Kilimanjaro is the Sani-Fem Freshette Feminine Urinary Director sold for $22.95 on www.REI.com....
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Writ in Water
Oscar Wilde called it the most sacred place in Rome, nestled in the shadows of that strange, out-of-place pyramid-- the tomb of Keats. Walking along the streets of, not just Rome,...
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Scuba Diving in Costa Rica
The sun dried the sticky layer of salt that coated my skin. I looked out at the sparkling water. Who knew what mysteries lurked underneath the beautiful surface? Costa Rica was...
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My trip to Puerto Rico
I spent seven days this summer in Lares, Puerto Rico, building an altar for the International Bible Baptist church — a trip sponsored by my church in Warminster, Pennsylvania....
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Machu Picchu
I held the seat in front of me in a white-knuckle grip as our tour bus negotiated the switchbacks and hairpin turns necessary to ascend from the valley town of Aguas Calientes to our destination in the...
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Bienvenue En Haiti
In February of 2009, I learned several things about my life, through a trip to Haiti. First and foremost, Haiti is a poor country. Over 80% of the people are unemployed, and have...
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Shooting for the Stars
Curled up in a beach chair, I hunt the myriad of specks for a streak. Flanked by two best friends, all fighting for a piece of the blanket, I search for luck in the Shenandoah...
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Haiti
I take a big breath in, and the smells of burning trash fill my lungs. Though it is an unpleasant first wiff it makes my heart smile and all I can think is, "it's good to be back."...
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A Journey Into the Unknown in a Mega City
"Thank you,” I said to the bus driver as I stepped out of the bus. He was my regular driver whom I saw everyday. I walked home down the same path I walked everyday. I wondered...
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French Fever
The city of love! The city of lights! Baguettes for breakfast, snails as a snack and cheese galore! Wine all the time, cigarettes all around, and berets abound! Sadly, this wildly stereotypical depiction...
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Emerald Water Memories
When reflecting on a significant tradition in my life, I feel sand surrounding my feet and sun rays quickly warming my skin. I hear waves crashing into the shore and I see seagulls flying above, looking...
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A World Away from Home
As I step off the airplane all I am thinking about is if the rest rooms in the Nairobi, Kenya airport are sanitary, because I desperately need one after flying for fourteen hours. I don’t even take...
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Miso Queasy
I began to gag as something slid down my throat; it was long (I had assumed, and really hoped, that it was a noodle) and had nodules on it, much like a tentacle of some...
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Tijuana, Mexico: An Eye-Opening Trip
Gripping my father’s coat, I gazed upon the unfamiliar land with awe and curiosity. My forehead trickled with sweat and my heart raced uncontrollably. Each step became heftier and slower as I approached...
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China, A Second Home
Exhausted after fourteen hours of flight time I looked at my new surroundings, the Beijing airport. I realized my journey across the world had just ended, but at the same time freshly begun. Thinking about...
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An Unexpected Beauty
Have you ever heard of the advice to arrive two hours before your flight is scheduled to leave? Well, that is exactly what my family and I did not do for our flight to Phoenix, Arizona last summer. We...
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My Trip to the Moon
The bus took us to many impressive sights that day; geysers spraying water and steam like enormous earthbound teapots, thundering waterfalls cascading into fresh, pure rivers, the cavernous crack of the...
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My India
Fear. Bombs. Blood. Screaming. TERROR. This was all I could see, hear, and think about while visiting one of Mumbai, India’s exclusive malls. All I could do was watch the people in the mall, with...
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The Becoming of Appreciation
My buoyant ambiance is dampened...
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Worlds Apart, Closer than Ever
It was a 24 hour flight from Maryland to Ilo Ilo City, Philippines. It was how my family and I spent our Christmas, which was also my older sister’s birthday. But it was a dream we had all shared since...
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With Clouds Beneath My Feet
I stood in front of a small wood building that almost blended into the alpine landscape around it. An overstuffed backpack dangled off my shoulders, full of rented mountaineering gear that I though made...
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The Other Side of Jamaica
A perfect picture: a palm tree on a deserted beach, a starlit sky, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. I dig my toes into the sand trying to take in every inch, every sound, and every scent...
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If Thoreau Went Backpacking
The second night was much like the first. I stripped off my pack, this time remembering to clear an area, and I even had time to cook dinner before crawling into my mobile grave. I felt a short-lived...
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Costa Rica
It was Costa Rica, a vision of crowded, colorful houses and flat tin roofs caked in flaky, thick rust, and hillocks of kaleidoscopic litter cascading down the dirty streets. It was the sun, the blistering...
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My Jamaican Heart
On February 21, 2008, I boarded a plane for Montego Bay, Jamaica, excited for what God had in story for me. Little did I know that I would leave part of my heart in Jamaica. During the eleven days that...
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Luvianos
We were to depart from Dulles International Airport, at 5:00pm, and arrive at Mexico City International airport at 9:30pm. Those were the simple instructions given to my eight year old sister, my eleven...
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Discovering the Roots of My Personality
In Memoriam On August 19, 1692, Martha Carrier of Andover was hung as witch in Salem, Massachusetts. She is one of the witches about whom many people know nothing. To me, she is the most interesting...
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An Unexpected Opportunity
Nigel no Monogatari (The Story of Nigel) On the humid evening of August...
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N.O.L.A. and Me
The last week of August 2005, a natural disaster struck the southern United States and impacted millions of lives. Hurricane Katrina caused grief, tragedy, and despair. But for...
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7,000 Miles Away But Right Next Door: My Trip to Beijing
Orange, blue, red, yellow signs touting the taxi cabs, the restaurants, the money changing stations lined the airport terminal. The air, an acrid, foreign aroma filling my lungs, left me with an indecipherable...
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A Climb Up Mount Tai During Our Summer Vacation in China
The eighteen flights of precipitous, stone steps soar upwards, a 5000-foot ladder into the clouds. On overcast days the effect is eerie: just yards ahead, the path is hidden in swirling mist. There is...
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Auschwitz
By the time November comes around in school, the band room is buzzing with rumors of what the next band trip will be. Last year, countries like China, Italy, and Spain were coming out of the mouths of...
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Yup, I Brought My Calculator
There's no way around it. I'm a math nerd. It was the night before my first trip out of the United States, to the distant land of Egypt. I was soon to discover a realm of striking poverty, ancient architecture,...
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Amazon
Yeah, sure I'm in IB Biology and my mom is a conservation biologist, but I'm not quite the rainforest type. As a seventeen year old, I prefer our nocturnal sleeping schedules as opposed to the early jungle...
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Unbreakable in New Orleans
My mother collects Christmas ornaments. She buys them everywhere we go. Every vacation, road trip, journey -- each place we visit becomes a decoration to hang proudly on our tree....
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The Forbidden Island of Kaho’olawe
Kaho'olawe; also known as Kohemalamalama'okanaloa, is translated as "the holy genitals of the Ocean God Kanaloa" and is the only island throughout Polynesia to be named after a God. The following are my...
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My Not So Audrey-Hepburn-Wind-Blowing-In-Your-Hair-Roman-Holiday Kind of Experience
St. Augustine once proclaimed that "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." With blistered feet, rain-drenched hair, and aching bones, my first introduction to the European...
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Tennessee Perspective
It came. I knew it would, even before I exited the flight. The small plane had just landed at the Knoxville Airport in Tennessee, and my apprehension had already escalated to a sizeable amount. The seatbelt...
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Bright Angel Trail
Sweat poured down my face as we passed under an arch. The path was dangerously narrow here and a daring look down the edge showed us a steep seventy-five foot drop hampered only by a couple of shrubs....
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The River Captain
Like so many things, security is an invisible asset. When we have it, it empowers us to go boldly, to take chances that actually endanger it. But when it is threatened, or worse, gone, you realize how...
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New Orleans
The streets are wet. The rain is still puddled in some of the ancient cobblestones, tho the air is clear and dark. Neon signs flash off of dripping asphalt, the whole street is...
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My Eye-Opening Cab Ride in Israel
On Saturday mornings in Jerusalem, there are really only two sounds to hear -- silence and prayer. As I walked up the paved road of the Goldstein Youth Village to catch my 8am...
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Why College? Cause I Would Die as a Roofer
It's the middle of a hot summer's day. Ninety-six on the ground, one hundred-fifteen on the roof. The humidity is hovering just over ninety-eight percent, as I'm told it always does in southern Louisiana...
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The Eternal City
The calendar date is July 17th, 2005, but for all I see around me it may be over nineteen hundred years earlier. That's because Pompeii is a city lost to time, oblivious to or defiant of the continuous...
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