Everybody gets caught up in those late night schemes with their friends sometimes. You know, the ones where you plan to take over the world, go on a crazy trip, dye your hair magenta, or invent some insane pizza-pasta-sushi-burrito hybrid. But when the opportunity comes to actually do it, they back out.
And I’m not talking about those situations where you can’t do it. sometimes things turn out to be completely unattainable; Plans fall through. Sometimes you can’t get the support, or funding, or other responsibilities come up.
But I see people all the time say I’m going to do this! And they really want to, even if it scares them. But they don’t take the steps. They keep acting like they’ll really do it, but don’t even take the tiniest baby steps. It’ll change your life, and I really think it’s just a mindset holding you back.
I’ll be forever grateful for my family being that type to not only make wild plans, but to actually do them. My mom is the best at those schemes, and it made for an amazing childhood. We’d propose something wacky and Mom would just make it happen!
“Are we seriously going to do this?”
“I don’t see what’s stopping us!”
My mom decided she was going to hike the Appalachian Trail. And she did it. She got out there on her own and then my grandpa died, and she had to come home. She decided to go even bigger and hike the Camino de Santiago… AND THEN SHE DID IT.
I can’t believe her sometimes. She’s truly amazing. And I like to think a little bit of that passed on to me.
Right before my high-school graduation, I sat on the kitchen floor with my friend as we planned our grand European backpacking trip. I signed up for all online classes my first semester of college so there was nothing stopping me from leaving, I saved and saved, I researched and planned. I was so certain that I was going to make it happen with sheer force of will that I turned down the opportunity to go to Europe with my parents. I wanted to do it on my own! But I didn’t realize that people don’t have that mindset. My friend was saying we were going to go in the sense that everyone says they’ll eventually make their pipe-dream come true.
That was really tough.
But then I found somebody who was just as good at following through as the Washburns! We went to Italy and it was magical. And then he had the idea to go to China! I hadn’t ever thought about it before, but it seemed like a great adventure, so we made it happen! And then while we were in China, he decided to apply for a Master’s program…. In Russia. And he got accepted! When he told me he was accepted, we just looked at each other, like…. “Are we going to do this? Are we moving to Russia?” And then we decided we would! And we did it! We made it happen.
I hope that when I have my own kids, I can pass it on to them. I hope we can plan a road trip over breakfast and be there by midnight. I hope I can give my weird kid the ghost hunting road trip of their dreams, just for me and them. I hope that we can make a time investment to figure out how to fix up an old boat together like my dad did so many times. I hope when my kids are all grown up and come home for the weekend, that we can go skydiving on a whim.
I hope I can keep that same sense of “we really can do anything we want to” and pass it on to my kids.
In the United States there are 2 types to choose from:
An exchange, where you pay a small program fee (a few hundred dollars) and your normal tuition. You pay rent and feed yourself on your budget, just like you would at home.
A program like CIEE, IES, or USAC. Usually running anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 a semester.
The choice is pretty clear, right? But people still choose those expensive programs! So they must be offering something amazing, right? Something that makes all that money worth it.
Those programs offer complete support. I have a group to meet you at the airport, they take care of the apartment hunting for you (read you have no choice where or who you live with), they take care of your meals. It’s a smaller group of foreign students together so you get more one on one attention, and they plan outings for you to other cities.
That might appeal to you, but it doesn’t appeal to me. The point of studying abroad is to learn, grow, and become more independent. With those programs, you pay more to lose the freedom of choice. On an exchange you get to do everything yourself, and it gives you so much freedom, and that freedom helps you to build lifelong skills.
On travel: You make fast friends with a huge group of foreign kids who all have the same interests to go to museums, travel, and see history. It’s easy to find a group of people and learn to book your own tickets when and where you want to go.
On housing: You get to find your own apartment, you set your own budget and choose where and who you want to live with! Most of the times you’ll be saving money renting in a foreign country than you would paying for on campus housing at any American university anyways!
On food: You get to grocery shop like a local, and find your own favorite restaurants rather than eating at the dining hall because you already paid for it.
I truly think if I had done a program in Italy rather than an exchange, I never would have built the confidence to go on and live in China and Russia.
The only major benefit I DO see from programs like those is they tend to cater more to other majors besides business and economics, majors like English, drama, or history. I ended up taking masters level design courses, mixed with Italian, Italian history, and Italian markets, and I loved all of them, even as an English Major. I loved getting to choose my own classes out of everything the university offered, just like I would have at my home university. I think when you study abroad, you should be learning about the country you’re in too! So if you do want to try to do an exchange, the only thing I would recommend is saving as many of your electives as you can for it!
And there is one other crazy option too. I know a guy who didn’t find any programs he liked, so he switched to all online classes at his university, found an apartment to share with a bunch of exchange students and just moved to Spain for the semester. I think you miss out on a lot of the camaraderie that way, but you do have more time to travel than anyone else because you aren’t stuck in physical classes! College really is the age to live abroad. Once life gets started and you have commitments and responsibilities, it gets so much harder to leave.
1st- It was my first time in Europe. It was my first time flying alone, it was my first time flying out of the country even! Up until this point, I had driven everywhere I had been except once, when I flew to DC on a school trip. This trip was BIG for me.
Luckily, I already had my passport, even though I had never used it. I was supposed to take the customary best friend backpacking trip after high school, but I put my eggs into the wrong basket and it didn’t turn out.
At the time it was horrible and absolutely crushed me, but it turned out great in the end! I took all my savings for the trip and I bought a Mini Cooper instead! I waited a few more years and when I finally got across the Atlantic it turned out exactly how it was meant to be!
Finally getting to Europe was such a long time coming, but it turned out so much better for me to go when I did, with the person I went with, and where I was at in my life at that point. It was better than I could have ever imagined.
Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. I had such a different vision in my mind of what backpacking Europe was going to be like. It probably would have worked out fine if I had gone with my friend, we would have floundered a bit, but figured it out as we went a long. I’m sure it would have turned out in the end, and it’s not like we would have died or anything, but I was doing all the planning myself and I had no idea what I was doing. I knew what I wanted to see and where to go, but I didn’t know how to actually get anywhere.
When my friend backed out, my mom tried to get me to go by myself. I could have! I thought about it… But I’m just so glad that I didn’t. I wanted someone to share it with, and going with someone that I love makes all the difference! I don’t know what I would have done without Lucas with me.
Side note: I also don’t know how I ever would have made it through without a smartphone. How did people do it back in the day?! No pocket translator? No scanning QR codes? No online tickets? No train schedules? No Google maps?!? The horror.
So, Lucas and I had only been dating for about 7 months when he left for Madrid for 4 months. That was hard. Real hard. Spare you the details. I promised him I would come to Spain to be with him after the semester was over. I don’t think he believed I was really coming until I was actually on the plane though!
The day before I left I was a wreck. I had a final at like 7 pm, I got home, did homework til 1 am and then finally started packing. So long story short I ended up with like 6 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, 2 dresses, 1 pair of shoes and 30 pairs of underwear lol. I could have fit everything I brought into a carry-on no problem.
I flew from Phoenix to Dallas, and then Dallas straight into Madrid. On the way to Dallas, I sat next to the sweetest little old lady. She asked me where I was headed and I told her that it was my first flight, and I was going to Madrid to see my boyfriend! She told me how romantic it was and how excited she was for me right before I fell asleep. Something about the cabin pressure knocks me right out. It’s wild. When we landed in Dallas she knew I was nervous and she walked me all the way across the airport, helped me get to my connection and gave me a hug. I wished I could keep her.
That wasn’t even the best part of my luck though. While I was waiting, I logged into my flight check-in one more time to check my seat and I saw that I could still change it! So I did. I moved myself from a window seat with two other people on my row to the only completely empty row on the plane. It was so awesome. The lady at the gate had to reprint my tickets when I tried to board, which was a little bit stressful, but it was well worth it. I slept sprawled out for most of the flight, but every time I woke up I caught the lady across the aisle glaring at me. The entire flight. It was awesome.
When I finally landed in Madrid, I was so excited to see Lucas. I met a girl while I was waiting in baggage claims and we started talking because we were both alone. I told her I was meeting my boyfriend who I hadn’t seen in 4 months and that I could not handle waiting for my luggage any longer. While I was talking to her all the sudden I see Lucas running towards me! I was so blown away. Somehow he had SNUCK into baggage claim because he couldn’t wait one more minute either. 😍 My favorite memory. Probably of all time.
Finally back together again! ❤
The first day in Madrid was pretty boring. I was so dazed from the time change and staying up so late, and the pure excitement. First thing we did was drop off all my stuff at Lucas’s apartment. He had a room in a flat that he shared with 9 people in the dead center of Plaza Mayor, which is in the dead center of the city. Then we went to the metro office to set up my student metro card, which was a bit of a hassle, but well worth it. The metro system in Madrid is great.
Madrid is just beautiful in general though, everything you could want from a European city: the architecture, the food, the street performers, the lights, cathedrals and museums.
Let’s start with the museums- Madrid has some of the best. They call it the trifecta. (At least Lucas does.) Prado (the love of my life), Reina Sofia (which is incredible if you’re really into modern art), and Thyssen-Bornemisza (which has everything else you might be missing). But those aren’t even all of the museums. There’s also a naval museum, history museums, and the Museo Archeologico Nacional- MAN, all super close to each other, and they are some of the best museums in the world. I’m serious. Prado is in the same league as the Louvre. You cannot go to Madrid and not go to Prado. (You can get in free with a student ID!) I should know, I’ve been there 4 times. 😉 I really enjoyed the MAN too. Lucas says it’s the best archaeological museum he’s ever been to. But if you only have time for one museum, I can’t recommend Prado enough.
When I got settled in, metro card, sim card, luggage, shower and nap, Lucas took me around and showed me his favorite places. We walked the streets hand in hand, and he took me to my first cathedral – Catedral de la Almudena. I was in awe. I had never seen a building so beautiful or grand. Now that I have seen lots of other cathedrals, I don’t look back and think it’s the most beautiful anymore, but it will always have a special place in my heart.
2016
2018
We walked through the gardens as the sun was setting and had the sweetest time together. I still couldn’t believe I was in Spain!
The next day we toured Palacio Real de Madrid. A PALACE. It was lavish and shiny and huge and everything you’d expect from a Spanish Palace. I loved it!
Afterwards Lucas bought me my first sandwich from Museo de Jamon, and from then on an obsession was born.
I love Museo De Jamon so much
“The products in this section are only for consumption outside of the establishment”
We spent hours in Prado, and finished the evening walking through Retiro Park, lush, green and cold in early December. On the edge of Retiro there is a pathway that always has accordion players next to a miniature lake circled with monuments. We sat across from the lake at a little restaurant where we ate baby eels and watched the birds. I didn’t think it could get much more magical, but then Lucas went and rented us a little boat on the lake! My heart melted. All of my very best days somehow involve a boat. I couldn’t think of anything more romantic.
Best day of my life!
We walked the city, we went into so many museums and found a secret garden under one of the old train stations. We went into Lucas’s favorite coffee shop, Jaleo, for neopolitanos and magic orange juice. We wandered through El Rastro street markets where I bought the cutest gloves and hat. We went into so many antique shops, and antique bookstores. We spent a nice evening going up in the Faro De Moncloa and looked down at the whole city lit up at night.
Libreria Bibliofilos
Faro De Moncloa
And one of my all-time favorites- in the middle of Plaza Mayor, is a man who stand there every day dressed as spider-man. But he weighs like 300 pounds. He is “Fat Spider-man” and he is hilarious. I only saw him the first time in Madrid, but when we went back again in 2018 we stopped to talk to him and I laughed my ass off. I ended up giving him all the money I had on me. He earned it!
Fat Spider-man is an icon of Madrid
Lucas had done all these wonderful things with me, but he still had finals to study for, so I had the chance to do a bit of wandering on my own. It was good for me to get out of my comfort zone. Be forced to speak Spanish, figure out the metro on my own and try to remember where things were.
I went and hunted down a bracelet I had seen in a kiosk at a metro stop, and decided to see some of the things that Lucas hadn’t gone to. It turned out later that he hadn’t gone to them because they were pretty disappointing, but the real magic was in my adventure to find them.
The first one on my list was Plaza Cibeles. I had seen the outside of it with Lucas, but for some reason I was dying to know what was inside. It’s really close to Retiro Park, but I didn’t trust my memory, so I typed it into Google maps. Or I thought I did. For some reason I just typed Cibeles. And followed the map. All over the city. it actually turned out quite well to get lost because I got to see so much of the city that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. I did eventually find my way to Plaza Cibeles, There was a small museum inside, but nothing too spectacular.
Next I wanted to see the inside of the Crystal Palace, which Lucas and I had walked past the evening before. He told me that there was some sort of art installation inside, but by the time we got to it, it was already closing. So I walked and walked, deep into the park. Some immigrant guys tried hitting on me in Spanish and I just hurried past them and pretended I didn’t understand what they were saying. It was pretty awkward. By the time I got there I was tired and I really hoped there was something good inside. But it turned out that the art installation was just the fact that it was an empty room. The art part was how sound travels. I was pretty disappointed, but the lighting was nice for some pictures at least!
I ended up wandering around for 7 hours throughout the day and I just felt so safe and capable (even though I got lost, and even though I got hit on). Madrid was just a wonderful experience for me.
We ended the evening with a lovely Spanish tortilla in a restaurant outside of Plaza Mayor before we flew to Paris the next morning!
So I haven’t written in a few years, but I’ve been feeling a spark again. (By “spark” I really mean that I had a few too many cups of coffee one day and got a little bit overzealous with my planning.) So now that I have come back down to Earth, I am going to have to try to live up to those plans and actually start back up again.
The coffee fueled (and stained) plan that I carried around for weeks before I actually started writing. I nearly lost it 20 times.
The problem is that as an English major, I was trained to introduce what I plan to write about, and I absolutely refuse to start writing without laying out the why and the how. So without further ado, here is the plan for my series of travel-based, money-centric posts.
The Why
I think even though the themes are fairly common, nobody really bothers to compile their know-how for others after the fact. It’s just sort of assumed that people either know what they’re doing, they have someone to ask, or else they’ll just have to figure it out themselves.
I did my research before I went
most places, but there were a lot of things that I didn’t even think to
consider or plan for that would have made my experiences way easier, cheaper
and efficient. So let me tell you about the things I wish I had known!
Travel is honestly a super common thing to write about and there are plenty of books, blogs and posts about it. There is so much content, but none of it is exactly what I am looking for. It’s either a complete travel guide that has a million places to go (none of which I can afford), or it’s like one or two tips. I want to hear about the whole thing- how to get around, helpful phrases, places to go and places to avoid, awesome places to eat, and how to save money while doing it.
I think as a reasonable, average, poor, young person instead of a professional, full-time traveler, I have something else to offer. I’ve done SO much research on how to do everything in the cheapest way, and I have a good knack for filtering out the overrated tourist stuff while not missing anything important.
The How
I plan on doing two sets: a
city series, and a general advice series.
My city series is going to be a post about my experience (in case you’re reading these because you actually know me) and then a separate post to list of objective “must-sees,” objectively overrated places, off the beaten path attractions, the BEST thing in each city, and how to budget. (I might be using the word objective a little loosely.)
As of now, my city list is: Madrid, Toledo, El Escorial, Paris (is anyone really qualified to give advice on Paris?) Berlin, Krakow, Prague, Milan, Legnano, Lugano, Cinque Terre, Venice, Rome, Naples, Florence, Sorrento, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. I’m currently living in China, so hopefully my list will have more Asian cities and not be quite so Euro-centric.
General advice is a little bit less structured, but I’m just going to give all the advice I know how to give. Things I kind of know about include: applying for colleges/scholarships/jobs, (don’t even get me started) fafsa, university, study abroads, working abroad, teaching English packing tips, cheap flights, living in Italy, living in China, and the best travel apps.
Beyond writing to fulfill my own personal need to write for my own mental health, and beyond writing to help the every day traveler, the true pipe dream is to someday write for Atlas Obscura- my one true love, my go-to for anywhere I travel, and the greatest website of all time.
I reference Atlas a lot, so if you’re going to keep reading my blog you best familiarize yourself now. 😉 atlasobscura.com
Finding Eden 