I have met my match on an island in Italy. It sounds like a dream, but my match is not. The island however is. This match that I speak of totes the same hair color as myself. He is around two feet tall, but he lives in perhaps one of the most beautiful, blooming places on earth. Today, I am wandering the islands that make up Lago Maggiore in Italy. Tourists, for the most part, stop in Lago di Como for George Clooney and company all have mini palaces along its shores. The closest glimpse to their fabulous lives is by boat, but at a distance. However, Lago Maggiore is different. It is just as Continue Reading
The Saints of Travel Drive Three-Wheeled Carts
When you are traveling in a place outside your zone of familiarity and comfort, you are bound to get lost. I don’t mean just actually getting lost, but also that panic, that oh no, I cannot find where my hotel is and they will give my reservation away any minute. You stand in the midst of the unfamiliar as those that live this unknown world daily whiz past you. Some bump into you. Others do not even make eye contact. They do not even notice you are there standing on a corner with a map and face in disarray. “Please help!” you want to scream but you don’t. You are trying not to be that tourist Continue Reading
Where are you going? Traveling by chairlift to a Luxembourg Castle
I am just minutes away from going medieval and I don’t even know it. Driving a Volkswagen station wagon, you wouldn’t even know it. I look more soccer mom than medieval princess. I am heading to Luxembourg today, a country so small many have never heard of it. Belgium, France, and Germany almost smoother Luxembourg from showing people just how beautiful it really is. The landlocked country may be small, but its castles are huge. As I drive just outside of Vianden, a one-way road leads me into the town, no highway or massive freeway. It is ridiculously green with just farm animals Continue Reading
I’m Hungry for Travel and Food
While traveling, there is one thing you cannot go without, food. If you try to pass up fries in Belgium or that glass of chianti in Chianti, Italy, I guarantee you will regret it. Backpacking Europe is not the time for a diet. Part of traveling is enjoying the cuisine. If you walk around cities all day, you deserve a delicious meal as a reward. I do not claim to be a foodie or food snob. However, just as certain places stand out in memory, so too, have several foods on my travels. Italy Risotto While unfortunately I do not have a picture of Loriana’s risotto, this dish may be my Continue Reading
How To Study Abroad
Studying abroad can be expensive, set you back in your degree, and may even make you a little homesick. If you gather up all the negatives when it comes to studying abroad, you may decide to just join fellow students back home for a spring break to Miami rather than six months in Spain. Sometimes students opt out of studying abroad because the amount of programs is far too daunting to explore. How you decide to study abroad can truly make or break your experience. I have heard horror stories of programs not giving students credits, resulting in a fifth year of college. That does not need to Continue Reading
Can You Really Go Home Again? The Foreigner Sensation In Once Lived Places
I studied abroad when I was a junior in college in Ortigia, Sicily. Ortigia is a small town, the old town center of Siracusa in southeastern Sicily. I spent over four months living and “studying” in this picturesque location. My program was smaller than the Duggar family of just 15 students. We all came to know one another, much like family. More often than not, it felt like we were on a reality show, 15 strangers living on a island. Will they survive? Ortigia was home and a little American family possessed it for a few months. I went back to Ortigia for a week around this time last year. I Continue Reading
Where are you going? Getting Lost in Bruges, Belgium
My rental car unknowingly moves through Bruges, or so I hope that is where I am. I am lost. The small streets of Bruges weave around countless canals. To say that I am confused would be an understatement. The city looks a lot like Venice, except in Belgium form with waffles, fries, chocolate, and beer on every corner. If Bruges looks dreamlike from a car window, I can only imagine how it feels without the separation of glass. I have to find my hotel. Bruges boasts a 2,000 year old history when Gallic-Romans settled here. The history of Bruges is without question centered on being a trading Continue Reading