I love this quote. Which I guess goes without saying or I wouldn’t have picked it. I also love to travel and despite my previous posts about memories, I love memories. You see, things will come and go, they will fade, they will break or they will cease to function or have purpose. Memories, good or bad, are forever.
I also think that traveling opens your eyes to how other people live or even other experiences. When I was a kid we used to go on day trips all the time to Historical Places all over the state of Wisconsin. Some of them were really awesome and there were others that were not so cool at all- either because of the weather or the relatives we went with – that was a consideration at that age. But now I would love to go again.
Now that I live in Iowa I haven’t been able to take as many day trips; having a full time job kinda kills that. My vacation time is spent back in Wisconsin seeing family or in Chicago seeing Katie. I would love to go to some new places though and explore and learn!
I have been blessed to have been able to visit Costa Rica, Argentina and the Dominican Republic. Each one of those trips come with so many amazing memories that will never go away. Each trip also included so much hands on learning not to mention invaluable experiences.
When I went to Costa Rica I was a freshman in high school. I went over spring break with 3 other girls from my high school and my (amazing) Spanish teacher. The first week we traveled all over the country and zip-lined through the rain forest as well as swam/relaxed in a hot spring at the base of a volcano. We also toured a coffee plantation. The last week I lived with a family in Cartago (about an hour away from the capital of San Jose.) It was a rough experience at first but I met a lady at the end of the street who was from California and told me I could go back and stay with her whenever. I also met Roy, who was a guy friend of my host sister and he was super cute (hey, I was 14!). Fun fact: the cake there is covered in caramel, not frosting. And Costa Rica introduced me to Juanes. Enough said.
Argentina was a completely different experience. I went my junior year of college for a study abroad class. By this point I’m sure you can tell that I was a Spanish major. We flew in to Buenos Aires and then it was close to an 8 hour bus ride to Rosario (maybe it was only 5…but regardless, it was a really long time to sit on a bus). This time I went with 8 other students, one of them was a very close friend who I had known since freshman year and we actually ended up rooming together senior year. When we were down there we were in class during the day and it was a totally different experience, we had a 2-3 hour lunch break because lunch was way more laid back and relaxed there.
We even had 30 minute breaks in the morning and we would always go and get dulce de leche pastries. I seriously ate so many pastries and rich food and I’m pretty sure I lost weight. We drank mate and didn’t eat dinner until like, 10pm. We also did some touristy things like check out Che Guevara’s birthplace and the last few days we stayed in Buenos Aires. In Buenos Aires we saw Sweeney Todd in Spanish and I collected at least 100 naked lady papers.
They were about half the size of a postcard and had a naked lady and a number to call and guys were on the street handing them out everywhere. It was one of the most hilarious and crazy things ever. It was also pretty weird and in the grand scheme of things, kinda creepy too.
In August of 2015 I was able to travel to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with Katie for a wedding. We decided to turn it in to a bestiecation and laid out by the pool and went swimming in the ocean one day. We even went zip lining which was awesome. It was a real eye opener to see how people lived outside of the resorts – I knew it was going to be bad, I didn’t think it was going to be that bad. It was actually really sad. I can’t wait until the new system when that really won’t matter and everyone will be happy and healthy. I also can’t wait until I can travel all over the world and see all of Jehovah’s creation.
The moral of the story is that traveling is totally worth it. Whether it is domestic or international, travel introduces you to new cultures and ways of life. Plus it gives you great stories to tell!
Here’s to my next adventure,
xoxo