Author: Anna
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South Africa- Going Back While Moving Forward
For me, returning to South Africa felt like falling into a dream, some odd liminal space between past and present. I didn’t realize how significant the country was to me until I was talking to my current, and frequent, travel companion, Gleb, on our way there. We talked about how it was the place we’d…
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Mallorca & New Memories
I wrote a post once, years ago, about moments. I talked about how I classify my experiences by the moments that hit me, and stick with me the most. While, now, there are so many experiences that stand out to me, sometimes there are things that I know I will remember the feeling of in…
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Lisbon, As Life Changes
February 11, 2022: At 6:12 P.M. on this Friday night, I can feel the breeze moving my hair, as I work from the terrace of the Lisbon apartment that my best friend and I have used as a home base this week. In front of me, just down below, sits the Praça de Figueira, while…
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Mexico, Again, But Different
May 11, 2022: I’m sitting here in Tulum, Mexico on the huge couch in the living room of our 2-story AirBnB (located in the heart of Aldea Zamá) writing a piece about my reflections on study abroad and lessons I’ve learned along the way. It’s not lost on me that this comes at I time…
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The Latest Journey, and 23
This past year has been the best of my life. I began true adulthood by diving into a full-time position just weeks after finishing my degree. Next came a move across the country in my station wagon, with only belongings that would fit, and my brother, in a quasi-Great American Road Trip sort of way.…
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Another November- Thankful in Tulum
Fall, Years Ago Fall used to be my least favourite time of year. It always seemed as if time was slipping away in ways I couldn’t quite keep up with. As the daylight drained away, it just so happened that events in my own life lined up to create a season that felt sad and…
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Grand Canyon National Park & An Old Fear Worth Facing
The best part of climbing a mountain is when you finally reach the top. You then get to spend hours coming down at an incline that suddenly makes it feel like you’re flying. Seeing things you didn’t before, when you were focused on making it to the summit, feeling a sense of accomplishment and relief…
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California Dreaming
When I was in eighth grade, we had to do a project about what school we wanted to go to in the future and I immediately thought of California. In ninth grade, I bought a UCLA sweatshirt that felt like a great callback to that project. During my senior year, we spent 10 days between…
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Iceland- Fire and Ice
Watching bright red magma begin to bubble and flow over the basin of barely cooled, yet already black and hardened, rock was a moment that reminded me of what it means to be alive. As the lava gushed upward, arcing through the air so gracefully and so deadly, the rock beneath it pulsed like the…
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Back to November- Reconnection
As a new November looms, it feels like it might finally be an appropriate time to move this out of my folder of unshared writing. Not all memories can be encapsulated perfectly, but maybe that’s why it took me so long to call this ‘done.’ Now that it is an experience that I can remember…
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Looking Back and Moving On- a reflection
One night not long ago, the rain was pouring outside my window that I leave open as a rule and a gust of wind whipped, impressively, my heavy curtains into my room. It is not lost on me that a similar scene took place while writing my last piece about being here in London. Maybe…
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Living in London- Reflection and Rediscovery in a Lockdown
Saturday, February 20 5:30 pm I didn’t truly feel like I was in London until I just did. In fact, I didn’t even realize that a part of me wasn’t feeling quite in place here, until the moment that I felt like I was exactly where I need to be. I stepped out of the…
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A Home for the Holidays
The friends with whom I spent a few holidays last year are also those that have shared in some of the coolest experiences of my life, luckily enough. After saying goodbye to them, something that always comes too soon, I prepared for a final semester of school in yet another location around the world. Right…
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Zion National Park- The Nature That Nurtures Us
When I try to recall the moment recently where I have felt the happiest, the most contentment, even the most peaceful somehow, I think of our first weekend as a group. Together for the month of November after being apart for longer than any of us had known to plan for, we made the decision…
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To Say Goodbye After All This Time
At our last group gathering of the trip, just hours before some of us had to leave and just hours after some had already gone, Lukas gave a speech. Suddenly, everyone was standing up and saying how grateful they were, in a way that was so authentically them. Lukas told us how we’d all meet…
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Moments
Another archived post that just didn’t feel quite ‘right’ being put out there when I wrote it. Some moments take place in what feel like clusters. Sometimes, like now, we go so long without anything really standing out. Remembering the things that have the power to make us feel most alive is so important in this…
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Chile Reflection
I used to write reflections for each country I visited when I was traveling with Semester at Sea. This is something I wrote just a day or two after getting back to the states, but I never got around to posting it. It didn’t feel right, talking about my time in Chile as such a…
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Patagonia- El Fin del Mundo & The End of a Journey
How quickly we forget the difficulty of a moment when a better one comes along and completely overshadows the former. How easy it is to dismiss a challenge once it is complete, fin. The Journey is the Destination I hiked 16.5 miles over an 8-hour span to get to the base of the towers (torres)…
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Pucón- A Mountain and a Mindset
43. That’s how many days of living in Chile that it took me before I got truly overwhelmed. By the crowds on the metro and then in the bus station and with the heat and the constant busyness of it all. These feelings could not have come at a more appropriate time it felt, after…
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Uruguay- Flashbacks on the Ferry
Colonia Del Sacramento is a little town in Uruguay across the river from Buenos Aires with very distinct Spanish and Portuguese influences. It was the coolest Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had (shoutout to Brenna for being my travel buddy among all the real couples that day.) Arriving to a new country by boat is incredible,…
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Argentina and Adventure
I like to put things in my notes on my phone so I don’t forget the way I’m feeling during certain moments in time and this is one that I wrote as I was about to board my flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina on the thirteenth of February. I realized this morning how excited I…
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Atacama Desert- Discovery and Dunes
I love moments that feel transcendent of time and space. I think that’s why I like planes, and boats, so much. You’re not touching the ground, not really. You’re separate on your own sort of wavelength without time. As I sat on our small plane to the Atacama Desert, the moon was clear and bright…
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The Mountains and a Motorcycle
I found it again. One of those moments that I knew I was going to miss the second it ended, even as I was living it. Riding on the back of a motorcycle, down some mountain in the Andes, with a new Chilean friend as the sunset threw the most incredible pinks and purples across…
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Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, y el Verano
Picture this: a paid-for field trip to the ocean, and sand dunes you didn’t even know existed until the night before, followed by a weekend of partying and exploring the coastal region of Chile. I can’t think of a better second weekend in the country to get to know everyone better, to experience the art…
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Chilling in Chile
Somehow a part of me forgot how it felt to walk into a room and meet new people that would certainly become entwined in a life-changing segment of my existence. How quickly we forget things that we think will always be a fundamental part of us. First encounters, the anticipation of a new adventure in…
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Bali in a Backpack- What I Packed for an 18-Day Trip Across the World
Bali has been at the top of the list for my best friend and me since high school, and it’s a trip that we are so excited to be leaving for in just a few days. While we are in Bali for 12 days, we have three days of travel on the way there and…
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Semester At Sea- How to Prepare
Semester at Sea is the easily the biggest adventure you can go on as a college student. It is also pretty damn daunting if you don’t know where in the world (pun intended) to start. I’ve had everyone from friends to acquaintances to total strangers reach out in the last year to ask about the…
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Time
One year ago today I was leaving my first year of college behind. One year ago today I found out that I got no scholarships or aid from my study abroad program. One year ago today I thought I would have to last-minute enroll at my local community college because it was too late to…
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A Semester of Seeing
‘I have never really known what path I wanted my life to take, and I don’t think I really found it until I was already in the middle of the road.’ I wrote this on December 16, exactly one week before I left the ship that had so quickly become home to me. As this…
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Ireland- Rediscovery & Family Reunions
It’s funny, that Ireland wound up to be the first place I spent any real time abroad after my semester running around the world. Ireland was the first country I flew to on my own, my first (albeit four hours of) solo travel, and the place that I first realized how lucky I am to…
