Sitting along a secluded little beach on the north end of Sherkin Island (off Baltimore, west Co. Cork—well worth a visit if you get the chance), I watched the tide lap its way gently in, slowly erasing the footprints I had left in the sand. It occurred to me that that’s often the case when you travel—what transitory mark you may leave on a place is worn away in time. I’ll refrain here from extrapolating to the existential level, but the point is that I’ll be leaving Sherkin Island in a few hours, and already my footprints there are fading.

The old wanderer’s feet bear the scars of a path travelled with no destination. Though his shirt is tattered, and his swollen knees have long since worn holes into the brown corduroy pants a passerby offered one…two years ago, anyone who dares to look can only notice his steeled eyes.

As someone with many tattoos, getting a tattoo while in Italy was definitely on my bucket list. Luckily for me, I found an opportunity to get two separate tattoos. One tattoo, I went in as a walk-in and told the shop what I wanted. The other tattoo, I went to a tattoo shop’s event where they were doing flash tattoos that you pick from a wall of sketches, rather than you deciding exactly what you want.

This may seem random and irrelevant but one of the things I always notice abroad is the difference in the bathrooms. First and foremost, the bathrooms in Ireland (as with much of Europe) are simply referred to as toilets. Which makes sense. Because that’s all they are. Anyway here are the toilets that most stood out to me during my time in Dublin.

Satan at Fibber's, 10/10

Using Tinder abroad can be exciting and a great way to meet locals, but it’s important to use it safely especially if you want to meet up with people. I am going to give advice based on my experiences as a 20-year-old straight cis white woman and keep in mind that everyone’s circumstance is different.