I (Now) Love New York
“I’ll go, but I really hate New York City.” “Of course you do. This is coming from the girl who hated...
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Aspetta (Travels in Italy)
The first week in Italy, I lost my watch at (approximately) 12:47 pm. For someone always in control, I now felt powerless without it. I had relied on its safe rigidity, but now I stood in the piazza,...
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Adoption from China
Last summer I had an awesome experience that I will never forget. It wasn’t just any other trip, I went to China! Our purpose in going was not like most vacations. I went with my parents to pick up...
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Santa Fe: Spain in the Heart of America
Bright colors, festive music, and delicious smells greet me as I step into the plaza. An old man in a serape leans down and speaks in Spanish to a young boy, who is showcasing his wooden handicrafts...
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My European Adventure
Our parents were saying goodbye and crying like we were being sent off to war. I could not stop smiling. THIS IS IT! The sophomore class Euro trip was finally commencing. It was almost unreal. Take...
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The Piece of Puzzle Found in Japan
Stepping into a room filled with nakedness, I wondered to myself just what I got myself into. Japanese ladies were walking in every direction, into steams of hot baths and scorching hot spring water....
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A Perfect Tiramisu
As the rain outside slowly dwindled away we walked into a preserved castle, tucked gently away in Italy. Upon entering, the shadows of people danced upon the walls as they talked in hushed voices at...
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The Great Wall and Beyond
It all started on June 10, 2009. I had just loaded my luggage onto the bus and said goodbye to my family. It was finally time to start on our voyage to a new and unknown world. The...
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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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Of Traveling to the Beginning of Freedom
A little over two years ago, my family got a chance to take a trip to the New England area of the United States because of a benefit my father had gained at his workplace. While we...
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My Trip To Australia
Going to Australia was a chance of a lifetime. I was there this past summer of 2009 for five weeks. I am really glad...
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The Other Side of the United States
Coming from Idaho and never traveling farther east than Utah, I could just feel in my bones, this was going to be a whole new experience. There were five of us all together and we were headed to see...
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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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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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Liverpool/London trip!
For my dad’s 50th birthday, my family decided to surprise him with a gift that none of us would ever forget. We bought him a book about the Beatles. No, that wasn’t the surprise! The surprise was written...
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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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Most Cars Don’t Come Back: A Final Trip to Croatia
The airports in Germany won't allow you to take rented vehicles into eastern Europe. This puzzled my parents and I, because in two weeks we were about to take a road trip to Croatia. We...
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Southern Africa
During months of anticipation, I knew Africa would be life-changing...
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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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The Experiment In International Living: Turkey 2007
I pushed a seed...
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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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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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Hope in Times of Helplessness
Sometimes we may feel we are hanging on by a thread, and often that thread is the one thing keeping us connected to humanity. On December 3, 2004 as I walked into Dairy Queen I already had a premonition...
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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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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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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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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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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 Magic of Morocco
This past summer, my dad and I took our second trip to Morocco to see more of the wonderful country, drawn back to the North African paradise. Morocco has a magic about it, stemming from its architecture,...
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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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The Alluring Mystique of Ohio Woodcarving Museums
I let my forehead hit the window of our family's giant blue Suburban. I could not believe that we had sunk so low as to visit a wood-carving museum. I had gotten used to Ohio, but a woodcarving museum...
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Chile
I climbed onto the moon; I had been sick early in the day, but I still trudged up the sand dunes, climbing steadily in search of the perfect view of the sunset. I found it sitting...
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Riding Away from Cairo
At the end of every 'Indiana Jones's' movie, Jones and his team ride off into the sunset. If chance has ever taken you on an adventure, you would know how Jones's feels, speeding home towards the sunlight....
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A Trip Back In Time; An Experience to Remember
What a spring break it was! Fifty students and adults from my high school toured Greece and Italy from March 25th through April 14th. Our journey back in time began in the city of Florence where we...
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Study Abroad to Germany
It is a rare occurrence that a person is able to time a dramatic shift in life. It is a truly unexplainable feeling to be so certain that the comfort and routine of everyday life will be taken away...
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Pink and Gold: Life and Little Italian Dollar Stores
When a person goes to Italy, the expectation is that she will rave of the vitality and meaning accompanying seeing the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum or any other famed attraction. I meant (and hoped)...
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Going to Italy
As I was waiting for the plane to take off I kept thinking to myself about what it was going to be like in Italy, till I got there. During my trip in Italy, I learned a lot about the country's culture...
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Mexico Trip
My Family flew to Cancun, Mexico on vacation last year. Cancun is a busy city full of life. Everywhere you looked there were faces buying, selling, relaxing and experiencing all that the city had to...
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