Santander, Spain Day 1: Going with the Flow

We didn’t plan too much for this trip. We knew we wanted to have one day to just bum around Santander, one day to see the sunrise and enjoy a beach picnic, and one day trip to somewhere else close by. As it was pouring rain on our first morning there, we decided to take the cue from the weather and enjoy a quiet first day. In planning, Erin was in charge of the activities and I the restaurants, particularly as I spoke the better Spanish of the two of us. When I ordered our breakfast, I hadn’t quite plucked up the courage to engage in a full on Spanish conversation, so I was feeling a little embarrassed about my speaking skills as we waited for our food. But just at that moment, a small, scarf-clad and white haired woman walked by our table, said something to us conspiratorially, winked, and walked out the door. After that, I knew that the act of at least trying to speak the language might make up for my errors.

Phoenix, Arizona: Friends All Around the World

I spent the majority of my second day in Arizona hanging out with amazing women. That’s really my biggest takeaway from this trip - just how many incredible women there are out there and how lucky I am to be building my own community of them all across the country. Particularly as all of these women are themselves traveling around the world, creating our own global tribe.

Paris Day 7: Cross-checking the List

Our last of Paris dawned warm and beautiful and we awoke to greet the sun… for all of 5 seconds and then fell back into an exhausted sleep. Exhaustion was certainly the word of the day, although we tried as hard as we could to fight the tiredness from our last few days and sadness of the day to come. Nonetheless, we were able to make our last day in Paris a successful and enjoyable one.

Paris Day 6: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Our first impression of Reims was getting turned around (not to be confused with “lost”) in the train station, the second was trying to use hand signals to a non-English-speaking audience to ask directions to the cathedral and the third that the locals must be made of steel because they had no fear of crossing the street right in front of a speeding car. Our fourth impression was the overall theme of the city: the interesting mix of the old - bordering on ancient - city mixed with the new and modern.

Paris Day 5: Paris Street, Rainy Day

We woke up this morning intent on watching the sun rise over the Seine, but that didn’t really happen. Our goal was to use the Vileb bike rental system to cycle to Pont des Arts, but unfortunately the morning dawned cold and rainy, so there was no sunset to be had. We did at least enjoy a bike ride, although it was equally as terrifying as it was thrilling. While Paris is certainly a bike-friendly city, locals must be much more comfortable riding in the street mere inches from being sucked under a bus. We coasted down main roads with bike lanes and sprinted up side streets between moving vehicles, no destination in mind just trying to stay upright. Thought we tried to observe the rules of the road, we did get yelled at by a bus driver. We just think he was complimenting us on our exemplary cycling skills.

Paris Day 4: A Lot of Eiffel Tower Pictures

Both of us have run across the Holy Chapel in our studies, so we thought we knew what to expect, but when we crossed the threshold into the Gothic cathedral we both inhaled sharply, momentarily stunned. It is not just the impeccable Rayonnant architecture giving the structure a sense of weightlessness it surely does not have, but the bright and ornate colors touching every single surface that is truly dazzling. Every inch of the interior that is not stained glass is painted with scenes of saints and martyrs, decorated with trefoils, or made to look like fabric hanging along the wall.

Paris Day 3: Goes to Paris, Sees Deadpool Movie

We decided today to take a more “relaxed” day to make sure we didn’t burn out on jet lag and continual adventuring. After sleeping in again - yet, in reality, getting up at 5 a.m. in the time that we’re used to - we headed to Montmartre. Though the metro would’ve taken us right there, we decided to enjoy a 40 minute stroll there instead, grabbing a couple apples from a corner market on the way. As my minuscule amount of roaming data is already exhausted, we had to navigate almost the entire day (and from here on out!) with just a map, road signs and our intuition. Fortunately, all three added together took us right where we wanted to go.

Paris Day 1: Always an Adventure

The best way to begin your adventure of a lifetime is to have issues checking in for your flight, give your carry-on luggage to the baggage attendant when he thought it was checked then forget to pick it up when disembarking because you had to sprint across the entire airport to get to your connecting flight (which ended up being delayed), be told your luggage was found and would be put on the plane and then land sans change of clothes and toothbrush. Well, that's what we thought, apparently.