I've always been a planner. Lists and schedules, color-coded planners and journaling - these things make me happy. It's no surprise then that every year I set "New Year's resolutions." But this year I did them a little differently. First of all, I didn't do them until February (because January was a lil cray). Once I did get to them, I focused them a bit more than I normally would. I went through a few prompts to really think through what I valued most and what I wanted to ac

There are some cities that I go to and instantly fall in love with. There are others that grow on me over the time that I'm there. Unfortunately, Charlotte wasn't really either of these for me. I visited the #1 city where millennials are moving to back in November for the National League of Cities' City Summit. In Charlotte's defense, the conference kept me pretty occupied during the day and the end of a bad cold had me more confined to my hotel in the evenings than I normall

Flint’s economic history is not unique. A once booming, middle-class city riding on the waves of Chevy and Buick car production was left writhing at the loss of manufacturing, much like every other “rust-belt” city in the Northeastern United States, Syracuse included. ...when the jobs left, people left with them. Those left behind were residents with little resources, skills, or education to pick themselves up and start over in a new place. The water crisis only exacerbated t

I have a strange love for public transportation. Especially public trains. I grew up in a small town where public transportation isn't a thing. Now living in Syracuse, we have a public bus system, which is, well, just okay. But when I lived down in DC for a summer, I took the Metro into work and back every day and absolutely loved it. While a lot of people complain about DC's system and the inconvenience of consistent delays (especially on the red line), I found it to be rela

It all started as a joke. My team of 6 was sitting around our office conference table discussing our upcoming trip to Chicago for the University of Chicago's Data Science for Social Good conference. My colleague Susannah and I had been with the team for about a month at this point, and she was taking the opportunity to pick on her older brother. "My brother is such a nerd! He said if we're going to Chicago we need to take some architecture boat tour." I laughed with her for a

September 2013 For one of my classes this semester we have to do weekly free writing exercises. This week's was on a place that holds particular resonance to us. I liked how it came out so much that I wanted to post it here on my blog: "A place that holds particular resonance for me is from my childhood. It is called Rock Street Park. It is a small park on the outskirts of the small town that I grew up in. Set off the edge of an almost completely untraveled road, the park is

April 2015 Okay, quick break from DC and flashback to NYC. For Christmas this year, tucked at the bottom of a little box of Lion King Christmas ornaments, my parents got me two tickets to take a trip into the city to see The Lion King on Broadway. I had seen the commercials for it on TV for years and wanted to go, so it was a pretty amazing and surprising present. In April, my boyfriend and I hopped on a Yankee Trails bus down to NYC for a day. The show was absolutely beautif

August 2015 I couldn't resist. As many of you may know, last Friday was a blue moon. A blue moon is when a full moon occurs twice in the same month, which is a somewhat rare occurrence, hence the expression "once in a blue moon." It's not as rare as all the hype might make you think, though. In the next 20 years, about 15 blue moons will occur, with none happening in 2017. So not super rare, but still pretty special. The really rare phenomenon "twice in a blue moon," two blue

July 2015 Warning: cute cats ahead. Yes, this is a real thing – and for my fellow cat lovers, perhaps the best thing in the world. In Georgetown, there exists a DC ASPCA partner café known as Crumbs and Whiskers, be-speckled with cushions, toys, platforms, and, of course, cats. The local ASPCA sends over 25 of their poor stray kitties to hang out and the store employees hand deliver you coffee, milkshakes and cookies while you play with your new-found furry friends. You can a

July 2015 We did it! What blogs and DC area news articles brandished as the great challenge of the capitol, we found a spot at the National Mall to watch the DC 4th of July fireworks! But actually, the hyperbole was insane. Let’s take a few steps back. Seeing the fireworks in DC on the 4th of July has been on my bucket list from the beginning – as it’s a very important holiday for me – so it was big on my to-do list for this summer. Every blog post and article on the best pla

May 2015 This is probably a story I shouldn’t be sharing for my own embarrassment’s sake, but someday I’ll be able to look back and laugh and most of you will likely find some humor in it at present, so I figured why not. On our way back from Baltimore I dropped my friend off at her apartment. She lives in a town about a 15-minute drive away from where I am living. As I was getting ready to leave her apartment complex I pulled out my phone to bring up my GPS (that afternoon w

May 2015 A couple of weeks ago now I attended the birthday dinner of a friend of a friend up in Baltimore. It was my first time being in the city and my immediate reaction was that Baltimore is beautiful. We went to a restaurant called Riptide by the Bay and parked a little further from the restaurant than planned. But we got there early and were able to have a nice walk along the bay and through a charming area of old brick houses. It had an enchanting breeze that carried th

May 2015 Hi all. My semester is finally over and it's summer once again, so hopefully I can get back to the blog life. I got an internship with APCO Worldwide, so I'm spending my summer working in DC and living in Maryland. I've been here for about a week, and I have some first impressions of the area and my internship. My Apartment The trip to move down here took a solid 7 hours with stops. For being such a small state, I was pretty positive that we were never going to make

#travel #Israel #friendship #selfies #SUinIsrael #explore #exploretheworld #worldexplorer #livelikealocal #photography #travelphotography #photoamateur

May 2014 I am home now after my two and a half week trip to Israel. I am, admittedly, happy to be home and to see my family. But I can't say that I won't miss Israel, with my hotel on the beach and the amazing weather every day. The thing I'll miss the most, though, isn't the scenery, but the people. The group of students on our trip got very close during these two weeks. We became great friends, and some us might have never met each other on campus. We know each other now be

May 2014 Last Saturday some of my group members and I booked a tour through our hotel to Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and Tiberias/the Jordan River. We left the hotel bright and early at 7am to head to Nazareth. Once there we first visited the Church of the Annunciation. The church itself was beautiful. All around the outside and the inside of the church there are ceramic pictures of what each country sees the Virgin Mary as. It’s extremely interesting to see all of the diff

Last night we had dinner in the Nalag’at Center for the Blind and Deaf in Tel Aviv. We went with a group of students from the IDC who are coming to Syracuse in the fall for a similar program that we are here doing now. The special thing about this dinner is that we ate in complete darkness. We were taken into the Black Out Restaurant by blind and visually impaired servers and seated at our tables. We went into the restaurant in a conga line style since we couldn’t see where w

May 2014 On Thursday we took a trip to Masada and the Dead Sea. Masada and the Dead Sea are located in the Southern part of Israel. But before I talk about them, I want to start with our bus ride down there. To get to Masada we drove right next to, and even through at some points, the West Bank. I want to share some of the photos I took from the bus on the way down. These are apartment buildings that were being financed by the Saudi government for Arab-Israelis and Palestinia

May 2014 Yesterday was Lag BaOmer here in Israel. Lag BaOmer is a Jewish holiday celebrated on the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer, which occurs on the 18th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar. In Israel, they celebrate the holiday by having bonfires all over the country. We were invited by our friends at the IDC (yes, we have made some amazing friends here in less than a week - things that don't happen at home) to the bonfire they were having next to the campus last night.

May 2014 On Thursday we spent the day touring Jerusalem. We had an amazing tour guide – she knew so much! As you can imagine, we packed a lot into our day, so this post might be a little longer. I will try to make it mostly pictures. We started our day in Yad Vashem at the holocaust museum. The museum is designed in a triangular, tunnel like form. It has “fault lines” throughout that lead you to go through every exhibit as you make your way towards the light at the end of the