Travel
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Gone to Ghana: Who Is Emily Saathoff?
A hand-painted rainbow elephant hangs on a cloth canvas next to Emily Saathoff’s bedroom door. Above her desk sits a canvas of seven women carrying baskets on their heads. Her…
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Searching the Maze
“I’ll have what she’s having,” I told the waiter, pointing confidently to Marcie. For three days, I ordered only what Marcie ordered, and she hasn’t been wrong yet. “Ah, all…
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Lost in Translation
“Ich bin ein bleistift auf dem flughafen [ick bin eye-n BLIE-shtift off dem floog-hoffen],” my dad chanted through the streets of Berlin with a cheeky grin on his face. His…
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Culture Shock
“It’s a bigger culture shock than you’d think,” a friend told me. She studied in Rome the semester before me, and despite her four months of experience, I didn’t believe…
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Homeward Bound: Grief in the Coronavirus Outbreak
One month ago, I was living in Rome. Two weeks ago, I was laying on a beach in Ibiza. Today, I am in Raleigh, quarantined in my room. The coronavirus…
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Hello MTV, and Welcome to my Crib
Romans live small. Kitchens are small, showers are small, beds are small. There are no houses in Rome, only overcrowded apartments in overcrowded neighborhoods. I knew this when coming to…
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High Flying in Switzerland
I’ve never been much of an “outdoors” person. Hiking is exhausting, camping is terrifying, and fishing is uneventful. I have allergies, which means watery eyes and a runny nose whenever…
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A Walking Tour Through Rome
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Rome can’t be explored in a day. There is so much to see and do, so I broke up my sightseeing into three…
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Crutches
A temporary blindness came over me as I stepped from the sun into the dark church. A large, blurry, blue hole morphed across my eyesight like a lava lamp. Shoes…
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Gringa
My first day at La Casa Verde was a Tuesday, and Tuesday was trash day. The streets of Desamparados were lined with mounds of trash to the point where sidewalks…
