Viva Las Vegas

I finally went on vacation. 

Finally.

It's been almost two years since I got back from Budapest. Which means it's been almost two years since I went on any semblance of a real vacation. 

A friend I work with and I have been talking about taking a vacation pretty much since we started working here a year ago. Well, two weeks ago? We sat down and started looking since we had April Vacation off if we wanted it off - and we wanted it off! So, after about an hour of looking we found a pretty decent deal on a trip to Las Vegas.

And? We booked it!

Which is kind of insane and ironic when you stop and think about it - Sin City? For two people who don't gamble that much (me more than her, and I only played maybe about $50 over the course of our trip) or drink (I had one because, well, it's Las Vegas). So, we were quite the idiosyncratic Vegas tourists. 

And we visited the Hoover Dam which was crazy and so impressive. What an amazing piece of American engineering! If you ever get the chance, I'd totally recommend seeing it!

It was such a fun trip. And it was sunny and mostly warm. And it was a much needed and well deserved vacation.

Here, let me prove it to you:

Vacation & Starbucks = one happy Courtney

Caesar's Palace was amazing.

Buffets are all the rage

90s Girl's dreams (kinda) come true!

it's a long way down the Hoover Dam

Coming Home

It's been almost two full years since I left Budapest.

Two years. 

I never really understood 'time flies' until recently. I've been watching kids I babysat for grow into amazing little people who I can have honest and thought-provoking conversations with. I've watched my five year high school reunion come and go (and have started dreading looking forward to the ten year reunion this year). Then I watched my five year college reunion come and go. I've watched friends get married and my best friend have a sweet little baby boy. 

I've done things, been places, made new friendships, and grown more solid in old ones. I've been having quite an amazing and eventful life. I honestly couldn't feel more blessed in where I'm at and who I've become.

But, it's been two years since I returned home from Budapest, Hungary. And while some days it feels like it was yesterday, some days it feels like it was a lifetime ago. It was an amazing, exciting, and whirlwind period of my life. 

What's most important though, is that I'm not the same girl I was before. Living abroad does that to you. Heck, moving somewhere else across the country does that to you too. It changes how you see things and how you interact with people. It shows you that things aren't exactly the same way here that they are elsewhere. It makes you realized that there is so much amazing out in the world. It's eye-opening and thrilling and scary and wonderful.

Coming home, though? 

That's tough. Because things are not quite as you left them. People have changed in your absence. Your home may have been remodeled a little, habits of friends or family may have changed, and life isn't just how you remembered. Because you have changed too.  

And what I've realized in two years is that coming home is a process. You can't just slip back into your old life and expect it to fit like a favorite pair of jeans. Because you've changed so much. You've grown and developed and become so much more of yourself than you were before. You may look like the old you, but inside you're blooming and changing and evaluating everything you've ever known with fresh eyes.

And this process of coming home doesn't seem to be a process that necessarily gets easier with time. 

When you first get home people want to hear everything and see every picture that you took overseas. They want to be wowed with beautiful stories of fancy castles and delicious dinners. They want to hear about the people you met and where you lived and how is it to live somewhere that's not here? They want to live their lives vicariously through you for just a moment.

And on their terms.

And then there comes a point where those people have heard enough and they want to get back to living in their (and now your) present. They want to talk about the things and the people here. Back to the common experiences and the things that make sense.

And you? You're still not done with the there. And the things going on here and now don't make sense to you any more than your trips make sense to them.  

Because it was a time and a place that changed your life. 

So, whenever you bring it up that place (your other, previous overseas life) in a conversation you may get that eye roll from a friend. Or the slight smile that seems to say 'you don't live there anymore, get over it. And it will manifest itself in many little other ways. 

And at some point it will start to hurt a little. You'll feel slighted that you can't talk about an experience you had that's relevant to a conversation just because it happened while you weren't here. You bottle up your experiences and hold them tight within your heart. And you start to think about how coming home  is the hardest thing you've ever done. Because no one gets it.

But here's the thing: some people do get it. Because they've done that too. They've gone away as someone and come home again as someone new. There are people out there who will listen when you tell your stories, or even ask you for a new one. There are people that you can talk to about how different life is when you make your way back home. You just have to find them.

Because? Some people will never get it. 

You have to have left in order to come back. And until you've done that you will never know or understand how it feels to live your life outside the things you have always known. And until you've left, you will never understand how it feels to come home.

Coming home? 

Yeah, it's hard.

Two years later and it's still hard.

But I wouldn't trade being able to come home for anything in the world.

A Tennessee Wedding

On Friday I packed up my bags and flew from Portland, ME to Nashville, TN for the wedding of one of my best and oldest friends, Kendra. It had been a while since I've seen her (or her sister, Kristen, or her brother, Jordan. And yes, they're triplets!), so this was a lovely way to catch up with her and her family. It's always a tough thing to do to go to a wedding where you know you'll know next to no one. But, really? I wouldn't have missed this wedding for the world.

Being given away

Kristen being an AWESOME MoH

At the Altar

Repeating their vows

THE KISS

Mr. & Mrs.

Wedding Pie Cutting

Besties since 2nd grade!

Me and the girls

Photo Booth Fun

We've been friends since we were in 2nd grade when their family moved into my town in New Hampshire. Ironically, another set of triplets moved out the same summer they moved in! Crazy, right? So, after a little thinking last night, I've realized that Kendra and Kristen are my oldest friends in the world. And two of my best friends in the world as well. Though a lot of distance separates us and sometimes we're not the best champions of correspondence, they're still two people whom I have known and loved like family for as long as I can remember. Heck, their parents had a huge hand in raising me - just as I'm sure my parents had a huge hand in raising them - with how much time we spent at each other's houses!

Congratulations Kendra! Love you like the sister I never had! :)

Unexpected Travel Plans

Have you entered my, Sam, Kristine, Meghan and Caroline's Plenty To Be THANKful For Blog Swap? You have until November 8th to sign up and get paired with another blogger to send each other presents! Then make sure to check back on November 9th for the Challenge prompts! We are all SERIOUSLY excited about this, so sign up quick!

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A few weeks ago on a Wednesday I posted something along the lines of "I MISS YOU! WHEN DO I GET TO SEE YOU!?!?!" on my old college roommate Morgan's wall.

You see, it's been two years since I had seen her. Which is far, far too long in either of our books. She was my roommate. We had scheduled nap-times most days in college. We had the best dorm room I had ever seen (hello holiday decorations, cozy blankets and pillows everywhere, and year-round Christmas lights to give the room a soft glow). And she and I just all around had (and still have!) and amazing bond - a friendship that can go two years without much contact and still be rock-solid. Needless to say, I love the girl, and I missed her!

About 20 minutes after posting that on her wall, I get a phone call.

"Want to come to Boulder tomorrow?"

It's important to note here that Morgan is a flight attendant, so she could do crazy things like fly me out to Boulder from New Hampshire for about $100 at the drop of a hat.

And just like that I flew out to Boulder on Friday (so, it wasn't the tomorrow we had hoped for, but I had stuff to get done on Thursday). It was an AMAZING adventure, an experience in the toils of flying standby, and a seriously awesome way to spend a weekend with an old friend. Things picked up like they had never been put on pause, and we just giggled and hung out for three days.

Here's the evidence:

what else says fall like a good corn maze & pumpkin patch?

Sunday morning Mimosas & Breakfast

Did I mention just how beautiful this place is?

Leaps of joy in Red Rocks :)

Roomies Reunited :)

So, on the way home it was almost impossible to get on a flight back to Boston. So I routed through DC and decided (well, the airlines decided for me, really) to have a day extra layover in DC. Where I got to see my other college Roommate and one of my favorite friends from the fencing team at UNC. It made an already awesome vacation simply amazing.

I really, honestly, love this city.

finally made it to the Korean War Memorial

love this girl too!

And there you have it! How a weekend of no plans becomes a whirlwind tour of visiting both of my old college roomates. It's great to have such awesome people in your life. It's really hard when people start to spread out and get immersed in their new, busy lives. But it's so wonderful to have the chance to drop in and have a visit.

Friends and Family are, in fact, what makes life meaningful.

Better Late Than Never {Vol. 3: London}

So, back in April I went on that crazy trip around the UK&Dublin.

I've told you about Cambridge.

I've told you about Dublin.

Here's my post on London!

(yes, FINALLY!)

It's going to be a bit picture heavy,

which I tend to like more than a rambling account,

but there's gonna be some talk too,

so don't you worry.

I went to London

a) to see it & experience it

and

b) to visit a friend, CE, from camp last year

It was worth every second on both accounts,

I really, really love England:

a lot more than I expected.

CE and I just wandered around both days that we had together.

Saw things I wanted to see, saw things she wanted to see.

Went to the British Museum,

ate Fish & Chips,

went on a "Jack the Ripper Walking Tour" from a company that Joyce @ From This Side of the Pond suggested to me (which was awesome, btw, thanks again Joyce!),

took way too many pictures,

and had SO much fun.

way too expensive for a ride,

but quite nice for a picture

our first day was the London Marathon

which meant streets were closed to traffic

it was amazing.

be warned,

this is the Tower Bridge,

NOT the London Bridge

a double decker bus,

with a HP promo?

how perfect!

me & CE

and Parliament

Big Ben & A Bobbie

for the record,

THAT'S the London Bridge

These are a few of my favorite things:

FiveFingers, Starbucks, and Einstein

Just a week before

the Royal Wedding :)

On the Jack the Ripper Tour

Basically, it was an awesome two days.

and for someone who never really planned on a trip to England,

I would totally recommend taking the time for a trip.

I LOVED Londontown.

(And later you'll get Serbia, Poland, Prague, and much, much more!)

Better Late Than Never {Vol.1}.

So...

a while back i took a whirlwind trip of the UK.

Well, Cambridge, Dublin, and London.

(note, Dublin? Not part of the UK.)

(which I knew, but it still confuses me.)

And I promised for eons that I would write a post about it.

And since I have a few minutes

(and I finished a ROUGH rough draft of my thesis

and decided to reward myself)

I'm gonna tell you a little about it!

Up today: Cambridge

If you don't follow me on Twitter,

I'll catch you up a little on the backstory

I went to Cambridge to present a paper

at a conference I was invited to

(on my exact thesis topic, nonetheless!).

Needless to say,

I was SO nervous the whole time I was preparing for the trip.

THE people who wrote THE books in my field,

they were going to be there.

My external advisor/reader?

Yeah, he was there too

(and is also one of THE people).

It's the first conference I've attended,

let alone presented at!

What a way to start, no?

At Cambridge?

Anyway,

when I arrived at Heathrow

(via Munich from Budapest)

I made my way to the Underground

to King's Cross to get a ticket for the train to Cambridge.

For all you Harry Potter nerds out there like me,

my train left from Platform 9.

SO! CLOSE!

I still had hopes the train would get mixed up

and take me to Hogwarts instead.

But, to Cambridge I went.

The train trip was lovely,

The English countryside is beautiful.

When I got to Cambridge I hopped in a Taxi to take me to King's College.

And my taxi driver?

Most AWESOME dude ever.

He talked to me the whole way,

told me where to eat,

what to see,

and where to get the best pictures of King's

(though, I've decided it's impossible to get a bad picture of the place!)

He was hilarious, and I was laughing the whole trip!

The conference went well,

the people were lovely and SO helpful.

I didn't faint when I gave my paper,

and I didn't say anything stupid!

Go me!

They fed us constantly

tea, coffee, sandwiches,

dinners, desserts,

breakfast in the King's Dining Hall

(which really could have been in Hogwarts!)

It was amazing.

My room was in King's College Gardens,

which are incredibly beautiful,

and you can only get into them if you're a fellow or a guest

of the college, so it was a pretty awesome privilege.

I learned a lot about Cambridge University too.

As in there isn't really a "Cambridge University"

The University is essentially a collection of colleges

which act and function independently of the University system.

Cool, no? Oxford is exactly the same too.

So, Enough talk,

here's some pictures:

So, This One Time I Went To Madrid

You may remember a while back I posted about a trip to Spain I was taking. You may also remember the promises I made to post about that trip, so that you all could see what a pretty place Madrid is. Well, my friends, I need a reason to procrastinate from writing my thesis that day has finally come!

Madrid is a beautiful place. I, honestly, could have spent my four days just wandering around the city with camera in hand instead of actually going to any of the museums. Don't get me wrong, the museums (hello! the Prado?) are amazing and were totally worth my time and money (btw - if you have a student ID? the modern art museum lets you in for free!). But there is just something about that city that just makes you want to be there and feel it. I don't know how to do that feeling justice with words, so I'll let the pictures do some talking for me.

The First day I went to this HUGE flea market - supposedly one (if not the) biggest in Europe. It was crazy. Full of kitchy things and junk, but I managed to find a few cool things: a car frame for my dad, and a print of a bullfighter and an owl necklace for me. This was crazy busy and huge - so I didn't stay long!

My friend Adam joined me for the last two days of my trip and we pretty much wandered our way (and ate too, probably) through the city. We went to the two major art museums for a good portion of the time. But we also sought out the Temple of Debod - an ancient Egyptian temple that was transported to Madrid. It was seriously beautiful! And they built this nice little park around it too. Probably one of my favorite spots in the city. The views over the hill and the temple itself; it was gorgeous.

And, OHMYGOD! the FOOD! I seriously could have eaten my way through that city. Everything was delicious and there were so many options for things to eat. Tapas have always been a favorite of mine - I'm indecisive, I like being able to pick a few things to eat (and to share!) rather than committing to one meal. Madrid? DELICIOUS tapas. Oh wow. I somehow managed to find this super busy and full little "market" my first afternoon there. It looks like a food market - but each stall sells a different type of food (croquetas, sangria, olives, etc). I wandered around for a while just sampling everything I could afford!

Can I just go back and eat again? Please?