A train or two or three: a spring break odyssey
Sometimes it’s not about where you travel, but who you travel with. For spring break this past week, I decided to stick around close to Bologna (a combination of financial restraint and lack of planning). Although most of the students in my program seized the opportunity to travel outside of Italy, a few friends also found themselves on a Budget Break. I convinced three of these friends to go with me to Genoa, a port city on the North-West coast... Read More
All Good Plans of Mice and (Wo)men
So here I am: At a McDonald’s outside of Gare d’Est in Paris because I have nowhere else to go, listening to a terrible rap song played on repeat over the speakers. Seriously, I think I have the lyrics memorized already: “…I see them coming from afar… they know who we are: from Kingston we come through, Kingston we come through…” For those of you who know me, I think its important to mention that at this... Read More
To Train or Not to Train?
Depending on your destination, you may have no choice but to travel by rail. Some countries, like the U.S., have less convenient railways and are better suited for road-trips or air travel. But when planning a multi-destination journey around Europe, we often find ourselves debating on the preferred method of travel between countries. Do we take the scenic route (train) or the route most conducive to saving our precious, precious vacation time (plane)?... Read More
Be Patient. Please?
Last weekend I took the train home from Boston to Rhode Island. I arrived at the station from my umpteenth job interview and I hadn’t eaten since an early breakfast hours before. Evidently I wasn’t the only person who was hungry. It was just after 1 p.m., and the terminal was hectic and crowded. Every food franchise had a line of customers, many with distracted, put-upon expression so characteristic of people who have somewhere else they’d rather... Read More
Toto, I Don’t Think We’re in College Anymore
I am back in America and anxious to see all of my friends, so traveling to three cities in six days didn’t seem like a big deal when I planned my trip to visit friends in New York, Boston and Cape Cod. It sounded like a great adventure, a return to my crazy city- and country-hopping days in Africa. I landed in New York’s LaGuardia airport somewhere around 11:30pm. After a long day of work it took all my energy to pull my luggage through the airport... Read More
Michaela Finaly Arrives in Zanzibar!
Thank goodness! I have somehow managed to get through the 10 hour coach journey from Arusha to Dar (from one side of Tanzania to the other). After arguing with a man who I thought was trying to run off with my luggage for about 15 minutes, me and my Friend Fran get in to one of the million taxis and head to a hotel for the night. Cant wait for the morning to get to Zanzibar! Yawn…I get woken up at 6:30am by the guy working at the hotel. He has picked... Read More
Have to be flexible
My first night aboard the MV Explorer was rough. As soon as we pulled away from the port and Nassau began to disappear over the horizon, the ship began to rock. And when I say rock what I really mean is it dipped so far from side to side that it felt like we were going to do a full turn and plunge right into the Atlantic. To say I was quietly freaking out would be an understatement. No one, including me, was expecting for the waves to be as... Read More
Sometimes you just have to let go
As I stood in line waiting to board the MV Explorer, I thought to myself, “There’s no turning back now.” I looked around at all the other adventurous, excited college students surrounding me as the bright Bahamian sun beat down on my head. As I knew would be the case, there was not a familiar face in sight. I was about to board a ship that would take me thousands of miles away from everything that I knew and loved. Everything that was comfortable... Read More
Out of Breath
We arrived five hours later than we thought we would in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal. Those five hours spent waiting on the train, with no update from anyone except the Indian tour guide leading a giggling group of enthusiastic Japanese tourists, were painful. I knew that the carrot on the end of the stick was well worth it, but I could not help feeling frustrated. The day before, we met a slightly crazed American film artist traveling in Sarnath... Read More
Delhi Extremes
Delhi Wires The New Delhi train station is not exactly the most lively locale at five in the morning. And the journey there from the airport wasn’t exactly what one might consider a warm welcome to the country, but my expectations for India were high. Our pre-paid, ‘low hassle’ cab driver allowed a gentleman to enter the car who after figuring out what country we were from, started in on trying to convince us that he could get... Read More
