This weekend I went to Amsterdam to visit my friend Jesse, who I met two years ago in a gazebo outside of our freshman dorm. We spent much of our sophomore year of college stomping around the park next to campus, watching cartoons, eating late night gummy bears, creating Baltimore's finest undergraduate literary magazine, and dancing till dawn by the Inner Harbor. Needless to say, I’ve missed the kid and seeing him was just the break I needed from Berlin.

One of the things that I love the most about the urban areas of Chile is the amount of dogs there are! While this is a little bit sad because some of them are homeless and were left by their owners on the street, they are also so smart, friendly, and cared for my the people of the city.

29 September 2015

So school has started. Time has flown by. Train lines have become disloyal. Confusion has been at an all time high. Excitement levels have exceeded all expectations.

It is safe to say, life in Japan has been something else.

In the past two weeks, I have gone to a calligraphy workshop, a Pokèmon center, a Tokyo Tour boat ride, and a place with one of the greatest anime and manga collections and products I have ever seen.

There is a reason Rio de Janeiro is called "Cidade Maravilhosa". It's so much more than beaches full of multi-colored umbrellas, women clad in bikinis, and men lying out in speedos. Rio is the bus never being on time, forcing you to be twenty minutes late to class, wanting to get upset but then scanning your eyes upward toward the mountains that sit perched above the city, so calm and tranquil. The wind brushes past your face and you forget what you were even angry about. Rio is a Carioca asking you "Tudo Bem?" Or how are you?

I couldn’t have chosen a better possible place than the beautiful Queenstown, New Zealand to spend my 21st birthday. The travel was long but the scenery was beautiful along the way. Of course the trip began with driving through the very flat, sheep-filled, Canterbury plains and then twisted and curved into the Southern Alps. My friends and I took a quick pit stop at Lake Tekapo to have some lunch and sit by the water.

Venice is arguably the most touristic city in Italy, or maybe Europe. Indeed, it is such a beautiful city that I decide to go anyway despite the frenetic tourist crowd. After staying in Venice for entire four days, here are some tips that I invite you to read through before you step into this most dreamy city. It could be a nightmare if you don't know where to go, trust me. 1. Spend at least two full days in Venice, or any city in the world.

Paradise - lyrics [Hook] Don’t you know ‘bout Paradise? Don’t you want it all the time Don’t you know ‘bout paradise Don’t you want it all to be true [Verse 1] My Paradise It’s been about 30 days, I’ve been in Spain, A few days of rain, walking so much my feet hurt with pain, streets with one lane, hug the wall to avoid the traffic train. I miss Maine, but I don’t complain for this main reason of being away. Lemme refrain, I’m away from the comfort, away from the familiar, familiar faces only make me feel like a stranger. I love feeling unknown so I

When I committed to study abroad in Buenos Aires last spring, I filled out my living form and selected “Residence Hall” instead of “Homestay.” I didn’t have much logic behind this decision, but rather I referred to my imagination. I pictured myself living in a cramped apartment and sharing a room with multiple younger host siblings who would be running around me screaming in Spanish and my host mom would be insisting that I come home by 10 p.m. because it’s “her house her rules.” Needless to say I was wrong.

This past week, from the 21st to the 23rd of September, was Silver Week in Japan, a colloquial term for three consecutive national holidays in the country. Monday was Respect for the Aged Day; Wednesday was Autumnal Equinox Day; and Tuesday was kokumin no kyūjitsu, or Citizens' Holiday which is the day in between two holidays that subsequently becomes a holiday by Japanese law. Consequently, the entire nation of Japan was on holiday, and luckily for me, I was too! What else is one to do on a five-day break then but travel, obviously?