Coming home is a strange thing, especially for those of us who have studied, lived, or worked abroad for an extended period of time. It’s simultaneously exciting and terrifying. It’s kind of like returning to your childhood bedroom and finding it unchanged. It’s like running into your high school boyfriend and seeing that he is exactly […]
The Best Way to Play With Elephants in Thailand
One of the things that excited me the most about visiting Thailand was the prospect of interacting with elephants. I wanted to get up and close with those beautiful, regal creatures. I wanted to see them walking through jungles and blowing water out of their trunks like in the movies and NatGeo documentaries. What I […]
How to Prepare for the Annapurna Circuit
I had so many questions prior to starting the Annapurna Circuit trek that I bombarded my poor friends for days with endless inquiries about “what if”s and “but what about”s. Having just finished the trek, I figured it best to jot down every question I had and the answers that made themselves quite clear as […]
The Annapurna Circuit: Too Beautiful to Miss
Somewhere between the baby goats who gingerly sniffed my hand before allowing me to pet them (like puppies do!), the baby cow which did the same, the little snorting yaks, village kids who put their hands together to say “namaste” (hello), the amazingly beautiful mountains that framed every moment, and the daily chai masala teas, […]
China: The Awesome, the Annoying, and the Downright Scary
“She charged us to wrap our bowls in plastic? But I don’t even want plastic around my bowl,” I said to Lynn after paying my portion of our lunch bill. “I know, but it costs them money to clean the bowl for us,” she explained. “Yeah but, that’s sort of an occupational hazard that comes […]