A bit of reflection on these last three weeks post-graduation.
Firstly, I am so ridiculously happy that I ended up traveling. I learned so much and I have come out of it with an even stronger friendship with Laura than I had before.
The hostel wall in London had a bunch of quotes, this one has changed my perspective on traveling: "The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land." - G.K. Chesterton. I want to start discovering what the United States has to offer: I want to go back to Alaska in the spring to watch the ice melt, finally visit the grand canyon, go hiking for a few days in the cascades, see the Palouse, go rafting. I'm excited about it.
Thus, these are my new additions to my bucket list:
These are random things I wrote down about my trip:
Firstly, I am so ridiculously happy that I ended up traveling. I learned so much and I have come out of it with an even stronger friendship with Laura than I had before.
The hostel wall in London had a bunch of quotes, this one has changed my perspective on traveling: "The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land." - G.K. Chesterton. I want to start discovering what the United States has to offer: I want to go back to Alaska in the spring to watch the ice melt, finally visit the grand canyon, go hiking for a few days in the cascades, see the Palouse, go rafting. I'm excited about it.
Thus, these are my new additions to my bucket list:
- fly on a prop plane over ice fields as they break up in the spring and summer.
- go back to Ireland, rent a car and go to Doolin, Belfast, the Dingle Peninsula, Donegal and the Giant's Causeway.
- Visit Prague, Budapest, Moscow and St. Petersburg.
These are random things I wrote down about my trip:
- I have been blessed by people over the last four years, how can I even doubt that there will not be more blessings and people who will be coming in and out of my life?
- The Irish flag represents the Catholics (green) and Protestants (orange) and the white in the middle of the flag represents peace between the two groups.
- Rainy and cold seems to be a valid description for Irish weather; unless it is one of those times when it is ridiculously sunny and 80 degrees as the majority of our trip was.
- When I get somewhere new, I have a tendency to freak out, therefore, I need to always travel with someone who tells me (kindly) to get over it and get me out of my hostel so that I am oriented to my surroundings.
- You can buy extravagently priced peanuts from the United States in the Rejkjavik airport. You might also meet very kind Icelandic people at airline information desks who upgrade you to first class because the airline overbooked your flight.
- When traveling, you will have the most incredibly random connections with people that lead to small world moments. I met someone who studied last semester in Sweden with a friend of mine and another girl who went to Georgetown with a girl I played rugby with.
- Apparently, after 10 hours of traveling, I look like I am too young to travel on my own. At least that's the vibe I got off of the disbelief of the US Immigration officer in Seattle when I said I was traveling alone.
