My Journey To See The World

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Anonymous asked: You seem to be into lists. Why? And what is the craziest list you've ever made?

Thank you so much for the question!

I’m big, I mean BIG into lists. It is rare that I go through a day and don’t make at least one list. Why? It is really simple: to keep up with myself. I am twenty years old and can’t remember anything, so without my millions of lists I would never know what I needed to do. But I also have tons of fun list, hence 20 Thing To Do While 20 and my outrageous bucket list.

I think maybe some of the craziest lists I have ever made are the lists of lists I need to make. I know it sounds silly, but lists are the only thing that keep my thoughts organized. Some of my most fun lists are things to do in a certain amount of time. I made one for my last month abroad, so I didn’t forget to do things that I kept saying I’ll do it later and then leave with regrets. I also made a list of things to do my freshman year in college. I can’t even remember where that list went and I don’t remember getting even half of that stuff done. Good thing I graduate in a year and will soon be making my “What To Do Before I Graduate” List!

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Happy Summer!

Cheers to the first day of summer!

I am leaving tomorrow at 5am and heading to Rodanthe, NC for a few days at the beach; a much needed break from my inside, desk job internship. This will take care of one of thing on my 20 Things To Do While 20!

So far my summer vacation has been pretty good to me! I have a job where I work normal hours. I have every weekend off! I have gotten to go home and see friends. I have already made one trip to blue hole. I have started reading books for pleasure (be prepared for some book review posts soon!). I found some pretty good watches on Netflix (check out Party Down and Parks and Recreation). And I have started actually cooking, not just rotating between frozen pizza, spaghetti and tacos. All good things!

I guess now that it is officially summer I have an excuse to spend more time laying in the sun, being outside and enjoying not having real responsibilities all starting tomorrow at the beach!

Danielle

Filed under summertime

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I Love Questions!

So I am having the writer blues. I know I have so much to fill in on this blog and can’t seem to find the motivation to do it. I need your help! Please ask me questions about anything and everything. I would love to answer any question about traveling, study abroad, packing, all my crazy lists, pictures that I have taken or anything else that comes to mind!

What questions do you have?

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219

219. See a Shakespeare play in the Globe Theatre

I went to see “All’s Well That End Well” on opening night. I paid only 5 pound for standing tickets. I will say my hips and feet were killing me at the end, but it was worth it to save the money and get to talk to the actors.

Danielle

Filed under London Shakespeare Globe Theatre

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6 Down: 14 To Go!

20 Things to do While 20:

  1. Go on a summer vacation
  2. See the sunrise at Reddish Knob
  3. Secure an internship
  4. Hang pictures I have taken in my apartment 
  5. Find a good recipe for vegetarian chili
  6. Go to a zoo
  7. Find a place to Volunteer
  8. Build a GREAT resume
  9. Creatively decorate my room in my apartment
  10. Keep up with my blog
  11. Purge my clothes
  12. Find a new band I like
  13. Buy a little black dress
  14. See the Rockettes
  15. Get a massage
  16. Read The Great Gatsby
  17. Buy a floppy sun hat
  18. Visit a new state
  19. Get a magazine subscription
  20. Go to NYC to celebrate my 21st!

Last night I went for my training session to start volunteering at my local SPCA. My official job title is pet socializer. I know you are probably thinking that it sounds like a joke, but my job is to play with the animals, teach them to walk on leashes and help them get adopted. The real reason I chose the SPCA is because I really want a puppy, but being in college that is impossible because I can’t have pets in my apartment. So really this is just a win-win!

Danielle

Filed under 20 things to do while 20 spca

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5 Down: 15 To Go!

20 Things to do While 20:

  1. Go on a summer vacation
  2. See the sunrise at Reddish Knob
  3. Secure an internship
  4. Hang pictures I have taken in my apartment 
  5. Find a good recipe for vegetarian chili
  6. Go to a zoo
  7. Find a place to Volunteer
  8. Build a GREAT resume
  9. Creatively decorate my room in my apartment
  10. Keep up with my blog
  11. Purge my clothes
  12. Find a new band I like
  13. Buy a little black dress
  14. See the Rockettes
  15. Get a massage
  16. Read The Great Gatsby
  17. Buy a floppy sun hat
  18. Visit a new state
  19. Get a magazine subscription
  20. Go to NYC to celebrate my 21st!

Get a magazine subscription…or 4! I’ll admit I am one of those people who read magazines while waiting to be checked out at the grocery store and never buy them because I don’t want to waste five dollars on a magazine. So in honor of moving into my new apartment I decided to finally get a subscription (and by “a” I mean four)! I went a little overboard but I got Cosmo ($15 for 2 years), Self ($10 for 1 year), Redbook ($5 for 1 year), and fitness ($10 for 1 year). I know I should have probably picked magazines like Businessweek and The Economist to better myself, but girly magazines are more fun and after all this is “20 Things to do While 20.” I’ll focus on the more grown up magazines when I have to.

Danielle

Filed under 20 things to do while 20 magazines

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4 Down: 16 To Go!

20 Things to do While 20:

  1. Go on a summer vacation
  2. See the sunrise at Reddish Knob
  3. Secure an internship
  4. Hang pictures I have taken in my apartment 
  5. Find a good recipe for vegetarian chili
  6. Go to a zoo
  7. Find a place to Volunteer
  8. Build a GREAT resume
  9. Creatively decorate my room in my apartment
  10. Keep up with my blog
  11. Purge my clothes
  12. Find a new band I like
  13. Buy a little black dress
  14. See the Rockettes
  15. Get a massage
  16. Read The Great Gatsby
  17. Buy a floppy sun hat
  18. Visit a new state
  19. Get a magazine subscription
  20. Go to NYC to celebrate my 21st!

A little late posting this one, but I went to the zoo when I went to Prague over a month ago (it seems crazy to say I have been in America for over a month).

Danielle

    Filed under 20 things to do while 20 Prague zoo

    3 notes &

    What You Don’t Expect

    I have been back in America for over 3 weeks now and I have to admit my trip to Europe has become somewhat a blur; it feels as if it was a dream and it really didn’t happen. I would say I am almost completely adjusted back to American culture (except for the not being able to publicly drink alcohol). I am finding more and more ways I changed while abroad, and for the most part I didn’t expect to change in these ways at all.

    1. I realize how good I have it at home. Seriously, I realized how great my friends and family are while I was abroad, especially my boyfriend. It was so nice to have someone to talk to when I was overwhelmed, excited or just needed to talk about my day. I have some of the best friends anyone could ask for and I took that for granted until I lived without them for over three months. And even though I don’t want to admit it, I really missed my family. I don’t know what it is, but a good talk from your mom always makes you feel better. So I guess my real advice is if you have a boyfriend/girlfriend that you are serious about, YOU CAN MAKE IT WORK. I really thought it was going to be miserable having to work my boyfriend into my daily adventures, but I actually found it was my favorite part of the day when I got to talk to him.

    2. I realized even America has some good food. I had access to some of the best food in the world and I craved easy mac and ice. I guess there is something about comfort food.

    3. Traveling isn’t always fun and games. Traveling every single weekend sounds like the best thing ever, and it is don’t get me wrong, but you never really hear how tiring it can be. You usually have to take several different types of transportation to get to the airport, then get there go through security, wait to board the plane, fly, get to your destination just to have to take several more modes of transportation to get to where you are staying, which you have to figure out how to use each countries transportation and when you are there you try to make the most of if it so you cram everything into one maybe two days. Traveling is fun, but it also requires tons of planning and being able to run on no sleep.

    4. You don’t have to like everyone. I think when people go abroad they want to become best friends with all the new people in their program. While I do think it is very important to keep an open mind about a new culture and new people, I think it is safe to say you don’t have to like everyone in your program. It is just like any other time in your life, pick the people you like and don’t worry about the rest. All the people on the program are forced friends, and what I mean by that is, you know them because of the program, not because you selected them to be your friends.

    I don’t mean to sound like I didn’t enjoy my semester abroad because studying abroad is one of the best things I think anyone could do while in college, but coming home has it advantages too. I loved my semester abroad experience and honestly I can’t wait to travel again, but next time when I travel I think it will be nice to do it with my friends, family or boyfriend.

    If you are studying abroad or just traveling, please feel free to ask me questions. When I was preparing to study abroad I had several questions that no one could really answer, so please if you want to know something ask while it is fresh in my mind!

    Danielle

    Filed under study abroad

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    Anonymous asked: You went to sooooo many places while studying abroad. My question is, did you plan all of those trips independently? And if not, how many of them DID you plan on your own and how did you budget in the money to go to so many amazing places?

    I'm hoping to study abroad in London next year and want to be able to travel around Europe as much as possible, and it looks like you did a great job at that! So I'm just trying to figure out a way to do the same thing.

    Love your blog!

    Wow thank you so much! I planned trips independently and did some with the program.

    I went to Brugge, Berlin, Strasbourg, Bruxelles, Ardennes and London with my program. But I planned Gent, Paris, Nice, Dublin, Venice, Rome, Stockholm, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Oostende and Prague by myself.

    I saved a lot of money on flights by using ryanair. The catch to that is you can only bring one carry on that has to be under 10kg (roughly 22 pounds). But I learned to pack very lightly while abroad.  I also stayed in hostels, which I mostly used hotelworld or hostelbookers. I used location as the prime focus because that will save you money on transportation. Also one good thing about Belgium is the Go pass, which basically is a 10 pass for the train for 50 euro that took you anywhere in Belgium.

    And another way I really saved money is by cooking while in Antwerp. I rarely went out to eat on the week days to save money. I would eat spaghetti like two or three times a week because it was cheap to make (as in a euro for 2 or 3 servings). I would splurge on the weekends, but stayed really frugal during the week.

    I probably spent around 3,000-3,500 dollars while abroad, most of which went to traveling. I really didn’t buy a lot of stuff to bring home because I was more into spending money to do things instead of to buy things.

    I hope that helps a little bit. If you have any other questions I would love to answer them, so please ask!