Madrid, Spain | 2026

Two years ago, my best friend, Emily, and I befriended two wonderful Spanish women, Eva & Natalia, in an adult hip-hop class. They had just moved to the area to teach ESL and science classes, respectively, at one of the local high schools. They had been to the United States multiple times before and were…

Innsbruck, Austria | 2023

We arrived to the Vienna Airport shortly before midnight feeling very hungry, uncomfortable and disoriented from our 6-hour flight on W!ZZ Air (an airline not worth mentioning except to encourage you NOT to book one of its flights if at all possible). From the airport, we drove through the night on a much-smaller-than-anticipated coach bus…

Nashville + Franklin |2019

After what seems like years of not leaving my home state of Illinois (except for family gatherings in Michigan, Arkansas, Missouri and Wisconsin), I finally took a road trip to a completely new location: Nashville/Franklin, Tennessee!  The university that my best friend and I work for gave us the entire week of the fourth of…