cecilialater

[cecilialater]

Visit: Andorra

Where to Stay:

 -Airbnb: Get the feel of living like a local

- Hostel Barri Antic: Above a bar, and does not provide complimentary breakfast. Ideal location.

-Sport Hotel Hermitage and Spa:  If you have some money to spend, this is a breathtakingly beautiful hotel located directly on a ski mountain in Soldeu. Highlights are a spa and the best breakfast buffet you could imagine.

What to Eat/Drink:

-Nostrum: Cheap and healthy meals, ready to eat

 -Any mountainside restaurant you stumble upon will have delicious local food

 -Atelier by Aitor Estela- My favorite cocktail bar in the entire world. I have never been somewhere with such beautiful, reasonably priced, delicious drinks. The bartenders are also visibly dedicated to the art of mixology.

 -La Birreria De Andorra- A must visit pub for beer lovers

 -La Fada Ignorant- Catch a show here as well

 What to do:

·      Hike/Ski depending on the time of year

·      Take a trip to Naturlandia 

·      Shop in the city center- the entire country is tax exempt so it is a great spot for shopping!

·      Visit Caldea Spa -This is one of the top attractions in the country, so if you are looking for a less touristy location, many of the main hotels will have nice spas as well

My experience:

I visited for a weekend in late October 2019.  I drove six hours from Bordeaux and it was surprisingly quite an easy drive. I arrived after dinner and went to check in at my hostel, Hostel Barri Antic, only to find out that I had booked FIVE BEDS by accident. The staff was nice but very firm on not refunding me as I had made the mistake while booking. (In retrospect, I booked the week before arriving and remember being very confused by the description of the room so this mistake didn’t shock me.) I accepted that I would need to pay more attention in the future, and focused on the fact that I would have my choice of beds in a quiet room all to myself. After washing up I walked around the small streets surrounding the hostel. I settled in at Atelier for a drink. The bartenders were all incredibly invested in the process and art of making drinks. I sat and watched in awe as they prepared varied cocktails, complete with garnishes from a basket of fresh fruits that hung from the ceiling. I had a few drinks made personally for me based on my preferences for tastes and alcohol and talked a mix of French, Spanish, and English with the bartenders. One of them gave me suggestions on what to do for the remainder of the weekend.   

The following day I started the morning at the Roc del Quer lookout and then set out on an all day hike to the Jucla lakes. I met a French couple and hiked with them the majority of the afternoon. We finished the hike around 6 PM and they invited me for a drink at their hotel, so I followed them to the Sport Hotel Hermitage and Spa. They generously treated me to a wonderful dinner there and told me about the life-changing brunch they had eaten there that morning. When I got back to Andorra La Vella, I walked around the town to stretch out my tired legs and listened to a few songs at an open mic at La Fada Ignorant. When falling asleep I thought about how exhausted my entire body was from the day. Even though I technically walked 14 miles, I have been less exhausted after running a full marathon than I was that night.

The next morning I had breakfast while overlooking a square filled with livestock for sale. I headed to Naturlandia when it opened to do the Tobotronc, the world's longest alpine toboggan run. It is self-controlled so you can choose to take it slowly to admire the scenery or whip down the mountain at roller-coaster speed. I decided on a mix of these two. I then headed back to Andorra La Vella and walked around the city center where there was a street fair where I sampled a lot of local foods and bought a few things from the vendors. Though I should have taken advantage of the countries lack of taxes, I walked down the main shopping strip but did not buy anything. Ok, except chocolate of course. How was I expected to give up a chance to buy chocolate?? I had a lovely late afternoon drive back north for a night with my friends who are a German/French couple. At the end of the night after cry/laughing at a story in French about a particularly ugly Swiss garment my friend’s father had brought her from Switzerland, I reflected on how wonderful and exciting it was to have spoken and heard French, Spanish, English, German, and Catalan ALL IN ONE DAY. I think often while traveling especially how lucky I am to be able to have more experiences and meet more people just because I am able to understand and speak other languages.

[cecilialater]

Visit: New Zealand

Where to Stay:

Tekapo Backpackers- Stay in the “glamping” tents outside

Nomads Hostel Queenstown -Very popular and social

Absoloot Hostel Queenstown- the most comfortable hostel bed I have ever experienced

 Where to Eat/ Drink :

Queenstown- Fergburger, World Bar, Patagonia Ice cream, Cookie Time, World Bar,  Bar Up

Franz Josef: Alice May

Punakaiki: Pancake Rocks Café

Tekapo- Astro Café

My experience:

March 2018 ROAD TRIP-- Dunedin > Te Anu > Milford Sound > Queenstown > Franz Josef > Tekapo > Omarama > Queenstown

DAY 1: My childhood friend Nicole and I flew to Dunedin from Auckland, where she is currently living. We rented a car from the airport which was a semi automatic and we were at first very frustrated by it, but learned to love it over time. We climbed to the top of Baldwin St. before grabbing pies for breakfast to bring on the road. We drove to Sandymount Bay and were going to hike down to the water, but decided instead to take the Lover’s Leap track instead which had beautiful views of the water and SHEEP. This led to my lifelong appreciation and love of the sheep of NZ (and those all over the world). In New Zealand, they are adorable and they are E V E R Y W H E R E. They outnumber the amount of human inhabitants of the country. I drove out rental car for the second half of the first day, which was not as scary as I thought it would be on the opposite side of the road, except when our hubcap flew off at one point! We drove to Te Anu and grabbed a quick dinner before heading to our Airbnb.

DAY 2: We woke up in the darkness and drove to Milford Sound. The mountains appeared through the fog as the sun rose and it was breathtaking. We took a Jucy Cruise to explore Milford Sound, and fought our way to the railing for the best views. With the fog and a bit of rain, it was beautiful, but when the sun came out near the end of our cruise, we were able to get a whole new perspective of the Sound. At one point, the captain informed us that we were going to pass under a waterfall, and only the bravest of passengers strip down to their underwear and stay out on the deck. Since I happened to be standing next to him, I decided to do it because it was a once in a lifetime experience, From his perch I got a view of EVERY MALE on the bow turning their heads when he made the announcement, “an American girl has already decided to do it, any other takers?” It was freezing and the water physically stung, but I’m happy I decided to do it, and even happier that I had dry clothes to put on after. We drove on to Queenstown later in the day and I figured out why The Remarkables had been given that name. Mountains are always beautiful but there is just something about seeing the Remarkables that sets them apart.  We stayed at Nomads Hostel, which offered us a free dinner at Loco, where we met two girls who convinced us to bungee jump the next day, as they had just been. Wandering through Queenstown, we were given free tickets to Ice Bar, so we went there after drinks out of teapots at World Bar, and then headed late night to Fergburger, where we waited in a 45 minute line and ran into two girls we met on our Milford Sound cruise.

Day 3: I started the day by dropping my phone and shattering the screen, but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, because I was too busy worrying about whether or not I would bail on bungee jumping at the A.J. Hackett bridge. I knew I wanted to do it, but I am afraid of heights, so my fear was more getting out to the platform and not being able to jump than the jump itself.  We went and though it took a while, the jump itself was one of the best things I have ever experienced. We had lunch at Lake Wanaka, and then stopped for ice cream on the side of the road on our way to see the Blue Pools, which we accessed by crossing two rickety bridges. We stopped again at a beach to break up our drive, and ended the day in Franz Josef. We stayed in the YHA Hostel and had a nice dinner and delicious Pavlova at Alice May.

Day 4: Even though the morning was cloudy, we drove to Lake Matheson for a view of the Mirror Lake and Fox Glacier. We finished our hike right as the rain started. In spite of the weather, we tried to visit Fox Glacier, but after hiking almost an hour towards it, we were told that the road to it was closed due to unsafe conditions, so we hitchhiked back to our car with a group of Californian retirees. We napped and tried to wait for the rain to stop, but in the end decided visiting Franz Josef glacier was worth it, despite the rain. I thought about how disappointing humans can be, as I stopped to pick up random trash on the way to the receding glacier. My mood was quickly turned around as we spotted the glacier through the clouds. We stayed at an Airbnb with a woman who shared with us a bit too much about the personal life of her son.

Day 5: We had an appropriate pancake lunch at Pancake Rocks Café in Punakaiki, after visiting the Pancake Rocks themselves. Nicole took the train from Greymouth, and bought me a greenstone necklace before she left. <3 I ran into a lady from Tennessee who was ahead of me in line for bungee jumping after I said goodbye to Nicole, and thus began the solo portion of rest of the trip.  I drove through Arthur’s Pass, which was my favorite section of driving throughout this whole trip, and stopped at Castle Rock, which is where scenes from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Lord of the Rings were filmed. I then proceeded to get completely lost and drove almost all the way to Christchurch. I arrived at Tekapo Lakefront Lodge Backpackers at nightfall, and slept in one of their “Glamping” tents, which was cold but very comfortable.

Days 6-7: I met a few people while eating breakfast on the deck near the tent village, and we decided to hike together to the Astro Café, which had the best chai tea I have ever had. I stopped at the Church of the Good Shepherd on my way to Omarama, where I stayed with Argentinian friends I had made on the Milford Sound cruise, who I then hiked the Hooker Track with at Mt. Cook the next day. Driving to Mt. Cook listening to old music with this group, I had one of my many moments of reflection that have happened on this trip, where I’ve just realized how lucky and happy I am to be alive. I ended up running into the girls from the cruise a THIRD time at Mt. Cook. The world is tiny, especially for NZ tourists! There were many winding roads on the way back to Queenstown and I  had Fergburger for dinner and ran into some college students Nicole and I had met at the Ice Bar and made plans for brunch the next day with them.

Day 8: I brunched at Yonder with my college student friends, and then set out for a day of adventure with my favorite hostel roommate.  We went to Pub on Wharf, and then headed to Arrowtown, a historic goldmining town, and had lunch at The Stables to escape the rain that continued the rest of the day. In order to hit as many of the places I wanted to visit as possible on my last day, we visited Cookie Time, Bar Up Queenstown, and ended the night sipping whiskey neat by the fireplace at Bardeaux. This country and this trip made me the happiest I’ve ever been, and I am considering moving to New Zealand as a result.

[cecilialater]

On: Walking Alone In The Woods

I am a very social person. I prefer the company of others, and I don’t love to be alone. But this is not to say that I depend on being around other people to be happy. In fact, the idea that I need to be constantly surrounded by people I care about in order to be happy has caused a lot of issues these past few years. It has taken stepping back from a lot of relationships I really care about to figure out how my own unhappiness has affected others. Recently, I have tried to spend as much time on my own as possible, to prove to myself how much happiness I do get even when no one else is around.

I remember a time in my life I felt like I had the key to the world. This feeling was a culmination of thoughts I had on days spent alone hiking in the Appalachian Trail in Maine. A good portion of those days were spent walking and talking with girls whose friendships I will hold dear for the rest of my life. Even though we have mostly lost touch, we still care about each other and understand each other because of how much we shared on those walks. But in the moments without the girls, I spent a lot of time on sections of trail completely alone with my thoughts. And it was there where I thought most about my life and the world in general. Sometimes I would think about the boys I had crushes on, hoping there would be letters from them when I got back to camp. Other times I thought about problems I had been dealing with and talked myself through them in my own head. I remember getting back from one of our long trips in the mountains and thinking “I feel like I actually have the answers to everything”. (Now, if only I could remember what these answers were)!

Since then, I have had many walks by myself outside. I have spent a lot more time happy to be alone than I (or anyone else who knows me) ever imagined I would. Being around mountains always makes me feel closer to the person I was on those long days, and to the people I was with. But sometimes, no matter how beautiful the view, it is still easy to feel a sort of disconnect. A recent experience that brought me back to a feeling of true contentment with nature, and my life in general was walking in the Bloedel Nature Reserve in Bainbridge Island, Washington. I almost turned around at the gate when I arrived because I saw storm clouds approaching, but I am very happy I chose to stay. The path that wound through different types of forest and landscape was both beautiful and hard to explain. I was completely lost in my own head, while simultaneously appreciating the world around me. I started to find more peace in accepting the changes in relationships I’ve felt like I’ve started to lose this past year. I felt closer to someone I cared a lot for who spent a lot of time in the same woods as I, at a different time. I appreciated this section of the earth, along with a lot of other strikingly beautiful places I have seen, and how much more wonderful they are than most things man has created.

Partway through the walk, guests can visit the Bloedel’s old house. The house itself was charming, but the parts that interested me the most inside were the guest book- seeing how far certain people had come to end up in the same room I was standing in, and the placard I read with detailed information about Bloedel’s life. Learning of the theory of Prentice Bloedel’s inspiration for the reserve as “healing the land and making an amends with nature” after making a living in the timber industry made me think a lot about how important it is for humans to continue this process, and on a very large scale if we want to survive. Bloedel funded research to further study the effect nature has on the human psyche, and though I don’t have the answers to the extent that it does, I can attest to the fact that the experience of a day spent walking in the woods did more for me to bring me peace and happiness than much else could.

[cecilialater]

Visit: Monaco

Where to Stay:

If you are looking to save money, stay in France or Italy and visit Monaco as a day trip.

If you win big at the casino and want to spend a night in luxury, try Hotel Hermitage Monte Carlo

Recommended Tours:

This country is so small, you can easily explore it without needing a tour guide. There are information desks in Monte Carlo where you will find maps and can ask for suggestions.

What to do:

Monte Carlo Casino- Visit or play (if you are prepared to lose a LOT)

Visit the Prince’s Palace Oceanographic Museum/ Aquarium- Not your average aquarium! I wasn’t able to go because I ran out of time, but this is a MUST Jardin Exotique de Monaco- beautiful gardens with Cacti from around the world, and a grotto tour

Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology- Artifacts collected from the surrounding areas. Very small but interesting to visit while touring the Exotic Gardens  

Fort Antoine Theatre: An early 18th-century fort with sea views, now home to open-air theater performances in the summer  

My experience:

I decided to drive to Monaco for the day while on a trip to Marseilles in August 2018. I had a rental car, and no plans, so why not pop over to another country for the day? I left a little late and hit traffic, and by the time I got to Monaco, all of the parking garages were starting to fill up. I found one by the water with FOUR spots to spare. The second I left the garage, I started to sweat and didn’t stop the rest of the day. This was possibly one of the hottest days of the summer, but I had no choice but to push through with a day of exploring ahead of me! I walked to the Oceanographic Museum, and the line for tickets was very long. Though it was not too expensive, and it would have provided a few hours of air conditioning, I chose to instead take the road uphill to the Prince’s Palace. It is a beautiful building and has a great view of the port, so I spent some time up there before wandering down to get some Chocolate at the Chocolaterie de Monaco and walking until I found the Exotic Gardens. These gardens are home to a variety of species of cacti and succulents and overlook the water. I took the path through the gardens to the grotto, where a tour was just about to start. Being alone, it was easier to make sure I got in line before a group of about 30 kindergartners on a field trip. We descended deep into the grotto and finally got a break from the blazing heat. I then walked to the opposite side of town (pretty much across the country) to the Monte Carlo Casino. It was as lavish as you’d expect, with a street full of high-end stores and expensive cars leading up to it. I was running out of time and it cost more than I wanted to spend to even get back to the room with the tables, so I chose ice cream by the water instead. I had to make it back to Marseilles by 8:00PM to drop off my rental car, so I strolled back through the port and drove back following the beautiful setting sun.

[cecilialater]

On: The Invitation

I love letters. I love writing them. I love receiving them. I think that this joy is the result of two things - watching my Mom write a lot of letters to her friends throughout my life, and my love for writing and receiving letters at summer camp. Before I get into the letter portion below, I have to add a quick word on his magical place - Camp Tekakwitha – because I’m sure it will come up in future posts. The major difference that separated it from the classic American summer camp in Maine was that it was a French Canadian camp, and I was one of only a handful of Americans who attended. Not only did I savor each and every moment of the July and August months there, but it also shaped the path of my life thus far. But that is a story for another day. Every afternoon at camp, over a loudspeaker, the directors would read out the names of the campers who had received faxes, letters and/or packages from home. No matter what was waiting for you, to hear your name more than once on any given day was the best feeling in the world. Of course, I wrote a multitude of letters home hoping to receive as many as possible in return. As I grew older, I kept a lot of these letters, * insert confession about small hoarding problem here * and, over the years, I also learned to love looking back at old letters and remember the situations that people were describing and, sometimes, remember how it felt to originally read them.

The letter that sparked today’s post came from my Aunt Stephanie, who sent a lovely message from her Vineyard (Martha’s Vineyard) to mine (the vineyard in Bordeaux, France where I have been living since May). My aunt ties with my mom, and might actually surpass her on my list of inspirational letter-writers because she uses her incredible artistic mind to hand decorate almost every card she sends. I could go on for a whole entry about the layers of Stephanie and how wonderful she is, but by reading the poem below you’ll maybe understand a bit how supportive she is, and if you click on her name above, you’ll understand the artistic portion. 

This particular card from Stephanie was threaded with a leather cord and had on the cover, in script font, the poem “The Invitation” by Oriah, Mountain Dreamer. When it arrived, I was momentarily transported back to all of the situations the poem described. I know that, whenever I go back to read it along with the other letters that I have kept over the years, it will bring me back to my porch in France where I sat to read it with a glass of Bayle Carreau Rosé with the sun setting on the vines surrounding me. Here is the poem:    

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. 

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

[cecilialater]

On: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Everyone has been asked once (or hundreds of times) what they want to “be” when they grow up. For some, the dream of being a teacher or a doctor, a musician or a firefighter is easy to conceptualize. It’s easy for them to picture themselves commanding a classroom or arranging music. To the people who fit into these and other specific categories and are completely happy, having found purpose in these careers, I have always envied you. To those whose ideas are in a constant state of flux and to those who might never have had an exact idea what they want to do with their lives, this is for you: Regardless of your age, it is perfectly fine for you to have no idea what you want to do with your life. If you are so happy where you are and you believe that nothing can be better than what you’re doing right now, stay there. Appreciate it and be the best at whatever it is you’re doing. If you’re unhappy and want to make a change, make it. No matter how small, no matter how long it takes. If you feel stuck, unhappy and incapable of making any changes to your current state, please refer to my last sentence. It doesn’t have to be a life-altering change. Even making small positive changes (i.e making time after a long day at work to rock climb or make cupcakes) whenever possible will make a big difference over time. Though it has so far proven quite effective in my case, (leaving a great job at a wonderful company and moving to France) you don’t have to quit your job and leave the country to find your purpose. I state this as if I have all the answers, but I believe that there is no clear definition or answer to the question of one’s life purpose. I can however tell you with certainty that, if there is one thing that you were put on this earth to accomplish, constantly doing the things that make you happy, especially the ones that scare you, will help you get closer to whatever that thing might be. A few years ago, I decided that I was going to start listening to as many of the random thoughts that popped into my head when it came to things that would make me happy as I could, and actively pursue them. Examples of this ranged from, "I feel like having a second ice cream today” to "it would be fun to run marathons around the world even though I despise running." My friend calls the easier to accomplish, ice-cream-twice-in-a-day level goals “Ceec Dreams” as they are not maybe not real “dreams,” but they are things that I would like to accomplish and can very easily pursue. I recommend always pursuing your version of whatever these are (within reason of course), because they always bring a sense of accomplishment, no matter how small. By listening to these little ideas and focusing less on worrying about my unplanned future, I have dedicated more thought into how content I am to be where I am in the present. A few marathons and hundreds of ice cream cones later, I am getting closer, one Ceec Dream at a time, to figuring out what comes next.

[cecilialater]

Visit: Prague, Czech Republic

Where to Stay

Post Hostel: If you are looking for a comfortable, quieter hostel experience in Prague, stay at Post Hostel. This Postcard themed hostel is very reasonably priced, provides free breakfast in the spacious common area, and has smaller dorms with curtained beds for those who appreciate their privacy.

 MadHouse Hostel: For those looking for more entertainment while visiting Prague, stay at MadHouse. This hostel is ideal for solo travelers and provides daily activities, free breakfast, cheap family dinners, and organized outings on the town. Sleep is not always the norm at this hostel, but if you are looking for experiences that will keep you out exploring the city until the early hours of the morning, this is the place to stay.

 Recommended Tours

Free Tour by Good Tours: This walking tour happens twice a day and lasts about 3 hours. This is an ideal way to learn the history of the city by visiting a number of historical landmarks, and it is a great way to learn the layout of the city for your future days of exploring. Please remember to tip your guides well as these tips are their source of income with the tour itself being free!

(This company also offers very reasonably priced tours including: Prague Castle Tour, Beer Culture Tour, Terezín Concentration Camp Tour, and Kutná Hora and Bone Chapel Tour)

Riverside Parties Prague: An interactive evening tour around the riverbanks that includes unlimited beer and sangria, history of the city, and very engaging tour guides.

 What to Eat

Chlebíčky- Open faced sandwiches

Svíčková- (braised beef) with dumplings

Trdelník – Chimney Cake. While these are not traditionally Czech in origin, they are still DELICIOUS

Italian Food- While also not traditional, the pizza and pasta dishes at Italian restaurants throughout the city are great

(Drink)- Pilsner Urquell and all other Czech beer! It is incredibly cheap and can be found around pretty much every corner.

Where to Eat:

Café Louvre- One of Prague’s top cafés, frequented by Kafka and Einstein, has a wonderful atmosphere

Secret Garden- If you can find it! Quiet and beautiful, has delicious and simple salads

Choco Café- Very thick, delicious hot chocolate and pastries

Perníčkův Sen- A quaint store filled with Gingerbread creations. Adorable gingerbread men

T’anker- Beautiful rooftop bar with views of the city Prague Beer Museum

Lokal- Another popular restaurant serving traditional Czech food and beer

My experience

I booked this trip a week beforehand in June 2018 as it was the cheapest destination I could find while based in Bordeaux. I love to stay in hostels, so I chose Post Hostel for the first night and MadHouse Hostel for the remainder of the trip. Getting to the city late at night, Post Hostel was wonderful because they provided easy directions from the airport. I was able to relax from my first day of travel, get a good night’s sleep, and the next morning I met new people over breakfast, and got information from the hostel on a free walking tour of the city. On this tour I learned a lot about the history of the city in general, as well as it’s landmarks, and my guide was very entertaining. I spent the remainder of the day wandering alone with the intention of finding certain well-known landmarks, statues, and Vojanovy Sady- a park where peacocks wander freely. With no real time schedule, I found great food and hidden gems along the way. I got lost partly due to my horrible sense of direction, partly because I walked with the purpose of getting myself lost in the city’s streets, and very much enjoyed it. This city is one of the easiest to navigate on foot that I have experienced, despite its very confusing roads. My next few days at MadHouse hostel were not as restful as my night at Post Hostel, but this was due to the sheer amount of activities I wanted to pursue in the following days. I was “adopted” by many groups of travelers and embarked on journeys through the city day and night, including nights spent wandering until we could watch the sun quietly rise on the otherwise always crowded Charles Bridge, a plethora of bar crawls, and days of rest spent laying in a park and drinking multicolored smoothies by the river. I had my brand new iPhone stolen as I set it down in the bathroom of a club halfway through the trip, but the new friends that supported me as I cried for the next few hours, and the other travelers who checked on me the rest of my time at the hostel quickly restored my faith in the good of the masses. If I could have told a past version of myself that I would be able to survive two days in Prague phone-less and then get myself to the airport, fly to back to Bordeaux, and back to the small town where I live 40 minutes outside the city, I would have never believed it. More concerning than the monetary loss of my brand new phone, I realized from this trip just how dependent I am on technology (as if the comments from my friends didn’t tell me enough how addicted I am to my phone). With a break from all the information in the world at my fingertips for a few days, I felt myself noticing little things that I usually miss when filling hours of boredom with scrolling through the Internet. It took less time than I would have imagined to get used to life without constant access to technology, and I almost was hesitant to replace my phone quickly because of how free I felt. This trip was wonderful for the memories made exploring the city at all hours of the day and night, and the lesson of staying optimistic in a time of real stress and struggle when I was completely cut off from the rest of the world in a foreign country is one that I will always hold on to from this week.  

[cecilialater]

What You’ll Find Here:

An introduction to CeciliaLater, the online version of the travel journals I have kept over the past decade-

Recently, during one of those what-are-your-next-steps-career-wise conversations, someone asked me, “what do you like to do?” The question was vague, but I found it very different from the, “where are you from? what do you do for work? why do you travel?” questions that are usually the norm while traveling. Instead of answering in a generic manner, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. It was what I believed to sum up the essence of what I hope to do in life, even if I don’t yet have a clear idea of how to do it. “I like making other people happy.” I tend to look for the good in most people and situations, but in times of strife, the support and wisdom of others means a lot to me. I tend to ask others for help and input for small issues but, when it comes to the bigger problems, I tend to isolate myself and try to deal with things on my own. Through the years, I have noticed that this is what a lot of others also do. For some of us, it's easier to ask for help or advice or to be pushed to do something uncomfortable. In the spirit of self-awareness, and even though I try to do these things as much as possible, I admit there is a lot that I have left to learn, and I am trying to do so by writing this blog. In my opinion, the most rewarding path to growth, knowledge, and self-awareness is through exposure to the diverse opinions of others, and this is most easily accomplished through travel. This can range from visiting a new part of town, to hopping on a plane to another continent, to going to a restaurant and asking for a table for one.   My reason for writing this blog is to share my experiences and opinions on both travel and life. My hope is that - as a reader - you will take something away from it, whether it be some bit of advice, travel recommendations, or that you will enjoy it just for the sake of having something to read. In my posts there are many people, experiences and pieces of information that I will leave out, not because they did not impact me, but because I believe that experiencing these and other new things on your own is more beneficial. I do realize I don’t have the time, money, or education to share even a fraction of all there is to experience in the places I will write about, and that my thoughts on certain subjects might not always be the same as yours. Any feedback, whether it be positive or negative, is welcome. As long as even one person finds what I write helpful, I will be content in knowing that I am doing what I can to help bring a little more happiness into the world. Thank you for taking the time to read! Cecilia