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Collect memories, not things
Cork was way crazier than Galway, as the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland. We were there for two full days, and the entire first day was spent walking around the city, looking at churches, and doing something I absolutely despise… Souvenir shopping. I don’t know what the rest of the family had…
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Feck it, it’ll be grand
The next morning we spent sightseeing in the town and made it back early in the afternoon to meet up with Team Craíc to see a old castle situated on the bank of the river Corrib. Two roads lead to the castle, and we chose the shorter one, which turned out to be a terrible…
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For Heaven’s Sake
Instead of staying in Dublin, we had booked a hostel in Galway on the opposite side of the country– a four hour bus ride away. After some initial freak-outs over European money being too different to make sense (“But grandma, there are still 100 cents in a euro! It’s just called a euro instead of…
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Only the Beginning
Almost a year ago (or maybe more, I can’t remember), I convinced my grandmother to go on a trip to Ireland with me as a leg of my bigger trip. She seemed excited initially as well as terrified– I knew after going she wouldn’t be so scared, but it was getting to that point that…
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Ich bin frei, ENDLICH frei
Gunnar saw me off from the bus station in Braunschweig, making sure I knew exactly where and when the bus would be coming, and the actually deciding to stand next to me to make sure I made it on safely and with all my things. Minus my glasses, everything was still with me… The bus…
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Beyond Words
My last few days in Germany were spent ‘splurging’ a bit. On Thursday we visited two cities; Goslar and Wolfensbüttel. The weather was absolutely perfect at 68 degrees and sunny with a warm, gentle wind. Everyone always talks about how green Ireland is (even I did), but Germany has the same radiance that causes…
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Der Doppelgänger
Way back in 2013, when I was traveling Europe for the first time, a German student from Nienburg had come to my University to study abroad for a semester. A week or two after the semester started and I was still in Ireland, but had received numerous messages that looked like this: My German…
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How to catch the flu
The following is how you catch the flu without fail. Wait until a flu is going around multiple countries at once. Visit at least two of them in succession. Make sure this is during cold weather and make sure you really stressed out because your flight needs to be changed at the last minute. Fly…
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Mach schnell!
At 11am, April 2, 2015, Geoffroy picked me up in his Toyota something or other. Geoffroy is a member of Blablacar– a ride share website where people can look up routes and pay whatever the driver asks for a ride and is generally quite cheap, with personal references driving the trust component. In the back…
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Self-reliance, and lack thereof
On various travel websites, you’ll often hear that traveling without a plan is the best way to travel. But you often won’t know if it’s the best way for you until after you’re done traveling. For me, traveling without a plan is incredibly stressful, but doing so has led to some of the most rewarding…
