Manarola on a gorgeous day!

Bella Cinque Terre

Brian and I got back a few days ago from a 3-day trip to Cinque Terre on the western coast of Italy, and it exceeded every. single. one. of my expectations (which were already too high, IMO, especially for a place I’d never been before). We stayed at a hostel in Riomaggiore, which is the…

Villefranche Village

Beaches of Côte d’Azur

Having been in Nice for almost 3 weeks now, we’ve made a pretty serious dent in the number of beaches visited. We even splurged and bought a 20€ beach umbrella, so it’s been more than comfortable to sit on the beach for prolonged periods of time (especially given the lack of pigmentation in both mine…

Beach on St. Marguerite, an island off the coast of Cannes.

Some Thoughts on Nice

I was going to call this “Nice: First Impressions,” and then I thought, well, are they really first impressions after 2 weeks? Procrastination at its finest! Anyway, here are some of my random thoughts (with pictures, of course) about Nice and the surrounding areas. Hello, gorgeous! There’s pretty much nothing more beautiful than a sparkling,…

Muenstertal

A Year Abroad: Reflections

Before our time abroad, a year overseas was just a wisp of a thought in my mind. To be honest, the only time I’d considered living in another country was when I did research for about 3 days in college when I thought it’d be really cool to study abroad for a semester in South…

Nice, France

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland!

In the flurry of activity over the last few weeks, we haven’t written very much on our blog. I just wanted to give you a quick update on what’s going on around here. For those of you who don’t yet know, Brian and I have officially (and sadly) moved out of Freiburg. We spent an…

World Cup Champions!

As most of you probably know, Germany won the World Cup last night! It. Was. Awesome. Being in Germany during the majority of the tournament (save for the first 2 group stage games when we were in Belize) has been so much fun! We’ve been to biergartens, bars, public viewings, and even watched a game at…

Climbing Caracol

One of my favorite day trips from San Ignacio was to the Mayan ruins of Caracol, an archaeological site located in the Cayo District of Belize. Caracol means “snail shell,” which represents the access road to the area. Yes, it was exactly what it sounds like – nearly 3 hours of unpaved (save for the…

Our Belizean Itinerary

We recently got back from an amazing 2-week trip to Belize with my family and we’re just now settling back in and getting over the jet lag. In fact, as I write this, I’m battling with the prospect of taking a nap because I really need to stop going to bed at 2 a.m. (Update:…

Awesome Hostels We’ve Stayed In

This will be a 2-part series about good and bad hostels we’ve stayed in around the world. Since I like to start with good news, the first part will discuss the good, the great, and the awesome places we’ve slept! The second part, well, you’ll have to read about that later. For me, some of…

A Weekend in Switzerland

You know how when people tell you about “the most beautiful place” they’ve ever been, you normally nod and smile and respond with “oh, wow, sounds amazing!” But really, you have no idea what they’re talking about nor how to possibly picture it in your head to be more beautiful than the most beautiful place…