Crazy Adventures in the Life of a Redhead

This is my year of travel. I work long hours and whenever I can in order to have enough money to visit friends and travel the globe. So, when last year, I promised myself that I would try to visit all my friends who live outside the Chicago/WI area at least once in 2010, I have been making every effort to achieve this resolution. (Every year I have a list of at least 10 things I want to accomplish during the year. I have a 75 percent success rate!) These are three friends from high school—Lisa, Kara, and Rebecca—and two friends from college—Morgan and Ariel—who live in Sacramento, Denver, Austin, DC, and Bridgeport, CN, respectively. Fortunately, I was able to make it all happen, so this is our story. Washington, D.C. (Late July) I planned the end of my around-the-world trip to include a visit with my littler sister, Whitney, and a visit with my friend, Morgan, who lives and works in D.C. I flew into NYC and spent four days with my sisters and Mom in upstate NY in the Fingerlakes regio...

The border crossing Sarah and I stayed in the border town of Przmysl because we planned to cross the border on foot. Neither one of us had ever crossed a border on foot, so it promised to be quite the adventure. The only information we had on crossing the Polish/Ukrainian border was to take the local bus to Medyka. Dubiously, we showed the name of the town written on a piece of paper to the ticket window, where the employee understood enough English to communicate the line in which we needed to stand. One of the worst feelings when you are traveling is the thought that you are not where you are supposed to be. I was comforted by the high schoolers congregating around us who I hoped were also going in our direction. The bus was miniscule and happened to be the one that everyone and his friend planned to use, so we barely pushed our way in (I obtrusively hit almost every teenager on that bus who returned the favor with some quizzical looks of offence) and paid the driver. Since we were n...

Every time I leave Germany, I know that I will be back. I always enjoy being there discovering new elements I had not previously experienced. Even though I love Germany and was a little despondent in leaving, I was really looking forward to exploring a new country. Poland was my 27th country. (I am keeping a chronological list of all the countries I have visited in hopes that I will reach 50 by the time I am 30. We shall see; that means I have 23 countries to see in the next six years.) For many years and a couple of reasons, Poland has been on my list of countries to visit: one, I have a Polish friend from college who absolutely adores her Polish heritage and two, Chicago has a huge Polish community, so I had been intrigued by the Polish culture, mostly Polish food for quite some time ☺ When planning my trip, I knew I had to start in Germany and I wanted to get to Ukraine to visit my college friend who is in the Peace Corps, so Poland seemed like a logical interim place and the perfec...

Sometimes you must take a chance on friendship, even when it is expensive or a little untimely. When my friend from Germany, who I met in 2008 in Washington, D.C. through the Washington Semester Program, invited me to come to Germany for a wedding celebration for her recent marriage, I knew I could not pass up the invitation. Although quite impractical considering I had just returned from a 13-week-around-the-world excursion, I knew something special awaited me. While planning the three-week trip, I was working as a nursing assistant, returning to the job that had kept me financially stable throughout college. Even though the job market is volatile at best, even for part-time jobs, I was confident in procuring a job. Not only did I get hired for one job in the home-health field, but also I was hired as a nursing assistant at the local nursing home, which is one of the nicest I have ever seen. These two jobs were keeping me busy and helping me to fund the trip, so much so that when I le...