My world consists of friends, family, school, homework, travel, sports, and BOYS.
My family is unusual, but I absolutely love them with all my heart. I have a lot of people that love me too. My “blood” parents are divorced but still manage to be friends now. And, I have a sister that is 5 and a half years older than me. Including my host families, I am still in contact with my host families in Spain and Brazil as well.
School can be stressful, happy, exciting, scary, good and bad. Everyday, I was psyched to see all my friends at school making the day fly by much faster. Any school can be stressful because you have work that maybe challenging or you don’t understand right away but when its finished you feel like there was a relief. I think the worst grades in school are 1st, 6th and 9th grade because you are the youngest. Attending a new school seems to feel like the hardest part because you stand out. Making new friends can take some time, an adjustment to finding those classes in different locations and learning new languages or cultures. My friend group was always eager to extend their friendships to the new kids, so they feel welcomed. I had never really moved away from this school district before my junior year when I became an exchange student.
Who can’t live without friends? Everyone needs a friend to be there for them in tough times, be yourself (goofy, crazy, weird,) around, talk about boys, go on double dates, get advice and make amazing memories for stories to tell in the future. Although, Teenage girls can be a little stuck up, as soon as you find something in common they do get more friendly. Just remember if you do something wrong that offense them, they will forgive you but never forget about it. That advice sticks with me everyday. You know you found a true/real friend when there is never judgment and they stick right by your side no matter the situation. Never let a crush get in between you and your girlfriends!
Growing up a daddy’s little girl I grew a love and passion for soccer! For years he was my head coach until I tried out for a much more competitive program. My parents committed to driving me 2 hours to/from our community so I could play on a girls travel team. I always played mid field because I loved to be apart of defense and offense. When I made varsity my freshman year of high school I knew I wanted to play soccer as a career, until I hipper extended my hip flexor and everything changed for me. As doctors recommended I took a year off to heal, it was going to be life changing for me. Try outs for the following year was coming up so I started training to get back into it and I was sore, limping after just light training. I almost accepted the team manager position just to be apart of the team, someone told me to try chiropractor adjustments and dry needling. That was my first introduction to eastern medicine and it worked! Sometimes we had practices inside because of the weather and I couldn’t play at full potential but out on the field my hip continued to feel great. I would get adjusted every two weeks and dry needled the night before every game. I will always love sharing that hobby with my old man!
In Breckenridge, CO I could only play soccer during half the year so in the winter season I would ski race. It was a blessing in disguise because our races were every Friday in January and February so we would be excused from school to SKI with your best buddies. Every week we would compete at a different ski area in Colorado. But the practices were always night skiing, sometimes hiking the course between Thanksgiving and Christmas break because the lifts weren’t running late night yet. Sometimes the nights were cold and my toes were frozen but just being apart of a team with your friends kept you going. My freshman year of HS I qualified for states championships and finished top 30 in the state of Colorado. Our school trained for giant slalom and slalom events, which are commonly seen during the Olympics. I preferred Giant Slalom because you make wide, speedy S turns around gates with a banner. Slalom you are making tight/quicker turns, whacking the gates across/away from your body to make up time.
Ever since I was been born my family and I took more trips out of the US more often then within the states. My first trip to Europe was in 2007 before my parents split we took a trip to Italy and Switzerland. Course I don’t remember too much of it except for the train rides, gelato, and my grandmother teaching me how to braid with three strands of ribbon. All the way through middle and high school we would visit Puerto Vallarta and Sayulita, Mexico for spring break multiple years in arrow. Every year we stayed in the same bungalows but would visit with new family friends each time to show them the street food, culture and play in the ocean just like locals.
My next big trip was to Asia in 2013, we chose Thailand, Cambodia and Laos for 8 weeks at a time. Thailand quickly became my top favorite because as soon as we landed I was in paradise shock. I started this blog so I could share my thoughts and experiences as young as a 13 year old on that trip! Everywhere between the islands, cities, mountains towns and the transport between those places was so foreign to me. On the streets of Bangkok the traffic seemed like organized chaos because there was so many people driving scooters, tuk-tuks, small cars in every direction without stopping or honking at each other. I am sure you can imagine the thai food was unforgettable! In a good way, after that trip I accepted everything I had, nothing more because I was just grateful to have an opportunity to spend 2 months in a third world country that was very eye opening!!
At this point, Spain in 2016 was my first school trip out of the US with teacher chaperones and the best trip with my classmates. We started in Valencia during the first week and a half then a weekend in Madrid. I didn’t travel with my closes friends from the dual language program, but with the people I didn’t used to socialize with until we got to Spain. The family I lived with in Spain was my first host family ever, I only stayed with them for a week and fell in love with them instantly. The other Americans I traveled with weren’t as fluent in spanish as me but by the end of living with their host families they spoke spanish very well. Returning home, we not only have stronger connections left in Valencia but the experiences we had together will continue to be special
So far Brazil has been the longest trip of my life. I was there for 10 months as an exchange student for my junior year so I flew all on my own… I have been fluent in Spanish since kindergarten so catching on to Portuguese in the beginning was easier to comprehend then to pronounce for me. Also living in the city with a population of 2 million people for the next year would definitely be a change. I lived in a city named Curitiba, Parana, was sponsored by a Rotary exchange program and apart of District 4730 in Brazil! During my year abroad I attended school, volunteered, took road trips, met over 100 other foreign exchange students and lived with 3 separate families!
I came from a little town called Breckenridge, Colorado! Which is known for their 5 peaks ski resort winter wonderland! Keep in mind my winters lasted 70 % of the year so now I migrate to more warm weather environments. Since I graduated from High school I moved to San Diego, California for college. During the quarantine shut down for Covid I reconnected with my friends all over the world again since we finally had the break in our busy lives. We had always known social media would make it easy to follow each other but now we actually could make a promise to plan the trips to visit each others hometowns after Covid ended.
This past fall of 2022 was my most recent trip was to Europe. I took 4 months off to not only reunite with my friends I met on my exchange year, but with my mom as well. Extending my college graduation gift from 1 country (Greece) and making it last across 5 countries (Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Turkey and Spain) just seemed like the right thing to do.
From Spain, I took off on my own journey and continued another 5 European countries (England, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium). Within these 12 countries I got to see 6 exchange friends, an old teacher and taught english with two little girls for a month.
Now that I was exposed to working with my mom remotely, we have started a custom business for New Zealand itineraries. Check back in soon for more of my life experiences.
