Florence – A Box of Chocolates

As a recovering Yelp addict, I used to always want to know where the best spots were, what was trending, what people enjoyed. In San Diego, I visited new restaurants, museums, installations, photo spots. I compared my experiences to those I found on Instagram, Pinterest, Yelp, Facebook. Then I realized I always went in with higher expectations than I should. If the place lived up to the hype, I was happy, but not overjoyed. If it didn’t, I was annoyed at the business’s lack of what I considered follow-through.

We visited Florence with no previous research and (history buffs cover your ears) simply walked towards the tallest pointy things. Was our experience any less because we didn’t see the real David or climb the inside of the Duomo? In my opinion, no.

VIDEO: Two Weeks of Teaching and Traveling in Thailand

I wanted to encapsulate my experience overseas by compiling a video to share with anyone intrigued by the thought of visiting Thailand someday. Here is a glimpse of the breathtaking landscapes, jovial citizens and beautiful traditions of Chiang Rai, Thailand that I am grateful to have encountered during my Winter Break abroad. Enjoy!

New Year, New Country, New Adventures!

A few days before we began our volunteer work up in the highlands of Costa Rica, my classmate and I decided to do some exploring along the Pacific coast. We arrived in the country on December 29 in San Jose and soon after landing, a taxi drove us to our hostel in Manuel Antonio.

Friends in High Places

For most international students at university, the end of fall term signaled the return to their home country, where they could once again speak their own language, sleep in their childhood bed and eat all the food England’s supermarkets hadn’t bothered to carry. For me, as I watched my friends leave one by one, Winter Break wasn’t about returning to the familiar; rather, I was preparing to dive headfirst into the unknown once again.