Category: Europe
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Spanish Holidays and Festivals
January New Years Eve (All Spain) New Years Eve is spent with family and friends. Families will have a meal together and then wait for the countdown until midnight. At midnight, Spainards have a tradition of eating 12 grapes, one for every stroke of the clock. I’m not 100% where this tradition comes from, however…
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Best National Parks in Spain
This is partly a love letter to Spanish national parks and mostly an appreciation post for two of my favorite Spaniards and hiking buddies, Noelia and José. We all randomly met on a guided hike in Toledo when I first moved to Spain, and they ended up consistently showing up in my life. Noelia went…
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Lessons from the Camino Primitivo
I feel this ancient, holy road has been a part of my life since I set out from Santander on Halloween Eve. Perhaps it’s been longer, when I read about the Way of St. James in a children’s book in the library at Mildred Elementary School. These days, I’m cynical about destiny, but sitting in…
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Spain, te quiero
I’ll be processing my two years in Spain for the rest of my life. I can’t adequately express the gratitude I feel toward this country or its people. For now, I’ll share some self-indulgent photos showcasing the 17 autonomous communities I visited. This only scratches the surface of what the Iberian Peninsula has to offer,…
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What to do in Tbilisi, Georgia
Tbilisi is one of my favorite cities in that gray area between Europe and Asia. It has a welcoming, up-and-coming vibe that reflects youth culture without being too pretentious about it. People are cool, without trying too hard. Locals work hard and salaries are less than other countries in Europe. You can see the continued…
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One day in Ankara, Turkey
From Istanbul, my friends put me on one of the cushy buses that goes across the country so I could see Erzem, a friend I had met while working in Spain. Erzem’s family is from a small town near the border with Bulgaria, but she had been living in the country’s capital for the past…
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One week in Istanbul, Turkey
A friend once described Istanbul as a “storied city,” and that phrase stuck with me. Istanbul is a city of diverging stories that defies classification. It’s impossible to cover everything within the space of two or three days, and although I spent about a week there, I barely scratched the surface. I was lucky enough…
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Solo Travel in Cappadocia, Turkey
If you have been a millennial engaged in any sort of travel in the past five years, you’re going to have seen the balloon pics from Cappadocia. It is inevitable, the only objects that have been more instagrammed are those white and blue buildings in Santorini. I like to avoid hype when traveling. For this…
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Day hikes in Asturias, Spain
One of the reasons I moved to the region of Asturias in Northern Spain was for its incredible hiking along the coast and mountains. Since moving here, I try to do a route every weekend. Here are some of my favorites day hikes: Routes in Natural Parks Picos de Europa Lagos de Covadonga This is…
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London and Bath!!
I’ve dreamed of London since I was a little girl. Although not everyone loves this sprawling and crowded capital (one friend compared it to the “gates of hell”) I still found myself smiling like a kid when I visited. My good friend Victoria recently moved to the city to pursue her master’s in international relations,…
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Christmas on the Camino del Norte
Over the Christmas break, I completed six days of the Camino del Norte, the northern route of the Camino de Santiago. The Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, is a pilgrimage that Catholics and non-religious people have been walking for thousands of years. It usually starts in France and ends in the…
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Couchsurfing the Camino de Santiago
They say all paths lead to Santiago de Compostela, one of the five holy cities of the Catholic faith. You can choose the popular Camino Francés or the lesser known Camino Inglés. You can walk through Portugal or even France. I chose the Camino del Norte, which begins around the border of France and Spain,…