As I mentioned after my time in Dublin, I particularly notice toilets while I travel--for a couple reasons: I think it’s interesting to...

In this post I will talk about my scattered last couple of weeks in Mongolia, where I lived and worked for a master calligrapher and his...

After two months in Mongolia, the engineer in me cannot help but notice all the ways Mongolians think like an engineer, starting with...

In this blog, read about my transportation across Mongolia, miscommunications, and travel to the northern Khuvsgul Lake and Bayan-Ulgii...

Updates from Mongolia, featuring my recent cultural understandings and the food we’re eating. I write this after cleaning myself for...

Sain Noo! (Hello) I'm now on day 17 in Mongolia! What! In this post I'll cover how I got to Mongolia, what my daily life is like, as...

I write from this Turkish plane, wherein I’ve been handed a menu, provided with little slippers, and my tootsies feel warm (a rare...

This study abroad experience felt like it lasted forever. Looking back to January feels like a lifetime ago, and the person I was then is ridiculously unaware of all the fun times she was about to have. When I first arrived, I had trouble meeting locals and mostly hung out with my roommates. They were great, but it felt like something was missing and I was bummed to not be doing more things outdoors with crazy Aussies like I thought I would. All of this changed in February, w

Whether for a date, alone, or with your friends, here are some of my favorite things to do in Sydney. A note: try and take advantage of weekly deals! Sydney is expensive so it will save you some money. 1. The Bavarian (German brewhouse with multiple locations) has 10c wings on Mondays with purchase of a drink. This means that for 10 AUD, I had 20 wings and a pint of beer. Plan the day around that! Go to the Royal Botanical Gardens and wander for a couple of hours; you can get

One of the greatest challenges of studying abroad is meeting locals. You’re surrounded by other exchange students, and from the beginning, you live with them, go to dinners with them, and have classes together. Exceedingly, these other exchange students are from your home country. I noticed many study abroad students make friends within their program, get comfortable and don’t seek friendships in their exchange country. During my first month in Sydney, I had a difficult time

For the second weekend in a row I’ve spent a bucket-list item-crossing time with people I met in the UNSW Outdoors Club. About two weeks ago, 40 of us were sitting around the massive table that the Outdoors Club reserves every Thursday at the Forest Lodge Hotel. We were all talking about the adventures we have been on, and I mentioned that I really wanted to try canyoning but wasn’t sure when I would have the time. Three of the guys sitting by me said that they could take me

When I was invited on a camping trip with the UNSW Outdoors Club, I thought it would be a 10 person ordeal around a campfire with a guitar. We would go climbing and hiking and maybe swimming, and at the end of the day decompress and joke around. Three days before the camping trip, I was added to a Facebook event page called Dam Cliffs Doof, with about 100 other people. It was at that point that I realized a doof is a party in the woods with no one around. It’s chaos, and it’s

Dublin was an insane journey and the best six weeks of my life. Last summer was a difficult time for me and I came to Ireland with no idea what to expect–I knew no one and I had no idea what my classes would be like. Despite this, I felt at home after only a few days and never wanted to leave. My new and dear friend Gaby agrees; we have both done a fair bit of traveling and Dublin is the first place that we both clicked with that quickly and intensely. I became close friends

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 Fibber Magee’s became my favorite bar in Dublin. They play hard rock and metal music and draw a diverse a