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Pompeii
This Throwback Thursday posts took place during one of my favorite trips. It was my first time in Europe and I was travelling with my best friend, who was the ideal travelling companion. This story takes place on the very first day in Italy. May 2015 It was our first day in Italy and with only a thirty-minute train ride between us and Pompeii, the ruins of a city once drowned in the ashes of the volcano Vesuvius, we knew exactly how we wanted to spend it. After a complimentary breakfast of Nutella croissants, espresso, and orange juice, we hopped (literary we were bouncing) onto a train south. Little to…
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Cheated
Time for another Throwback Thursday post. I’m going to try to be more regular about these in the future. This time we are headed back to South America, to Lima, Peru. January 2014 For our final day in Lima we visited the ruins in Miraflores, constructed by the Limas not the Incas. The bricks were stacked on top of each other in what archaeologists call “bookshelf style” and composed of a mixture of mud, sand, crushed shells, and water. The vertically stacked bricks have increased flexibility and endure the impact of earthquakes more effectively than those stacked horizontally. For years the ruins had lain buried below a mound of dirt…
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The Yellow Brick Road
I don’t know why I’m so crazy about this phrase. I looked up whether there’s a yellow brick road in AUS (pronounced Oz) but the only thing I found was info on a mortgage broker…oh well. So, in case you haven’t guessed I made it to Australia: only two continents to go! The hostel was nothing particularly special, other than the fact that as a guest you had access to a local gym. I took advantage of this feature every single day, including after my ten-hour flight to Sydney. As I do in pretty much every city I stay in, I looked up free walking tours and found a company…
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Narcos and New Beginnings
Medellín, the former stomping grounds of the drug lord and killer Pablo Escobar. For those of you who are not familiar with this man, here is what you need to know. Colombians have drastically different opinions about him. Young, hot heads looking for easy money and a “better” life, tend to envision him as an idol. Popular shows, like Narcos, only amplify these sentiments. One of his former mansions was turned into a paintball arena. I highly doubt visitors truly realize the number of lives that were violently lost in their “playing field.” The people who lived during his prime, however, have scars that run deep. I spent one of…
Insights and Stories Through the Eyes of a Wanderer
