I have a confession to make. Don't tell my mother, but I don't own a pair of shower shoes. Over the course of five weeks, 6 countries and 11 cities, I never once wore a pair of flip flops into a hostel shower stall. I know, disgusting. After all, there could be cleaning fluid and skin cells and MRSA swimming around my bare feet. Somehow it never bothered me. Armed with only one pair of pants, a hand towel, a return plane ticket from Ireland to Spain, and a puffy backpack that made me feel like I was carrying the shell of a Ninja Turtle, I spent my winter break taking Europe by storm. It is amazing to me how travel changes a person. 4 months ago I couldn't figure out how I would manage to spend the holidays away from everyone and everything I know and love. I couldn't imagine traveling alone for any extended period of time, or navigating public transportation in another language. Nonetheless, despite the mistakes I made and risks I took, I somehow managed to do all of these things; and furthermore I didn't lose my passport, get kidnapped or wind up at any American embassy with a freak hostel-shower-gangrene infected foot.
It is hard for me to explain to you or anyone what travel and study abroad has changed about me and for me. Maybe everything, maybe nothing - change is a difficult thing to measure. Furthermore, it is impossible for me to fully convey to you; what this trip, this time studying abroad, this change has meant to me. Perhaps I am just young and naive and privileged, but I feel that I trust and appreciate the world more than ever, now that I have really been in it. I may not know who I am or what I am doing here, but there is a whole world out there where I can search for answers and be happy.
Salzburg, Austria
Hallein, Austria
modern-day castle, Schloss Neuschwanstein
Hohenschwangau, Bavaria, Germany
Munich, Germany
(intermission for train travel and journaling)
"The Beautiful Fountain" (yes, that's actually it's name)
Nuremberg, Germany from above
Brandenburg Tor, Berlin
riding the Berlin underground
bicycles + canals = Amsterdam
more boats and crazy Dutch architecture
one mitten short, but jumping for joy in Bruges
picturesque Bruges, Belgium
British Parliamentary buildings
(please don't take photos with the merchandise) in London
[sneaky picture of] Westminster Abbey
songbird on Trinity College campus; Dublin, Ireland
banjo player I fell in love with in Temple Bar, Dublin
Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, outside Belfast
my yogi friend, praising the sun at the Giant's Causeway
intermission: bus travel; breakfast of champions
tomato soup and Guinness bread for lunch, Inishmore
328 feet above the Atlantic on Dun Aengus, Inishmore, Ireland
another intermission: bus travel and more countryside, Ireland
Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare Ireland
powerful wind and a scarf-cape
bellying to the edge
2,000 year old Poulnabrone, monument to the ancient dead
kissing the famous Blarney Stone in Cork Ireland
kiss the stone for the gift of gab (and luscious lips)
live music in Cork
delicious strawberry-lime cider, and our last night in Ireland before heading home to Spain
(this is what happens to shoes after 5 weeks stuffed in the bottom of my backpack,
wrapped in a plastic bag - ewwww)
