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

An airline representative picks up the loudspeaker hopefully to announce I will be boarding any minute. She explains that there is bad weather at our destination and the pilot instead will be landing in Wichita. “Don’t worry. We won’t leave you in Wichita,” she says as she puts down the microphone. What? Wichita? New travelers tend to panic in instances like these, frightened that their travel plans are not following the print-out itinerary.  As I boarded the plane, I accepted the fact that I would probably be spending my Friday night in Wichita. I was actually half excited to call home and Continue Reading

Over the past few months, interviews at airports across the U.S. by Homeland Security have gone a little nutty. Well maybe they always were post 9/11. War reporter Michael Yon was recently detained in the Seattle airport, practically arrested by the TSA when he refused to answer personal questions about his income that bore no relation to national security. Then we have Steve Bierfeldt, a Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty treasurer detained and hounded by TSA back in March of 2009. Bierfeldt was stopped for carrying cash and Ron Paul campaign material, despite the fact that there is no limit to Continue Reading

This past May, I graduated from college. With my bags packed, I was off to teach a 14-year-old English in the Italian countryside. To me it sounded like a dream after graduation: live rent free in Italy for the summer before figuring out life or perhaps figure out life in Italy. At any rate, the dream turned into much more of a privacy nightmare. I am no stranger to living with Italian families. I lived in Sorrento with a family of four women when I was just 18. By 20, I lived with an elderly Florentine couple for an entire semester. I knew what it was like to live in the home of a culture Continue Reading