To start anew: The rebirth of the travel blogger

So, I'm leaving for Europe in two weeks for my third time and I am pretty pumped.  I thought I would continue to blog while I'm abroad (not like anyone would read this, or anyone is following me, but it is a fun way to journal/blog/share pictures while I'm gone).

I went to sign in to my previous (but current) blog and I am not allowed to enter posts anymore.  Go figure.  I started it when I first traveled to Spain in 2007 for a semester abroad to Sevilla.  I may have posted once in 2008 on my summer session to Guanajuato, Mexico.  Then maybe once more in 2009 when I got my first "job" after college volunteering for AmeriCorps in Brooklyn Park, MN.  After that academic school year, I picked up a teaching job in Inje, South Korea.  I certainly kept up the blog for that year with traveling experiences, teachable moments (for both my students and myself) and immersing myself in a brand new culture I had never studied or was much interested in before.  Judging by my blog posts from 2010-2011, I clearly learned to love and immerse myself in Korean culture.

I took a hiatus from traveling - aka, I didn't have any money to travel - until a trip I took back to Europe in 2016 when I was visiting a friend of mine in Oviedo, Spain, who has been living there since we graduated from college in 2009.  That's about eight years my friend had lived there without me visiting her.  She is one of my best friends from high school and she had returned home to Minneapolis many times during that eight years and we always met up to hang out and party.  I traveled with another friend of mine from high school, who is also an experienced traveler and always fun to be around (usually when we're hanging out with our friends from high school, our friends always place bets on who will say something dumber).

Upon our return to Minneapolis, after visitng yet another friend in London, our friends in Ovideo, and then visiting Santorini and Athens, Greece, we found out that our Oviedo friend was engaged to her long-term Spanish boyfriend.  Of course, the one friend and I were invited to attend the wedding - with no expectations of attending, especially with just being there one year prior.  But of course, we will make the trip out to Oviedo yet again, plus visits to Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

I may add some photos from my 2016 Eurotrip, but I would like to continue writing at least one blog for each city I visit abroad.  Like I mentioned earlier, no one will probably read this, but it is my journal.  My collection of photos.  And anyone is able to feel free and follow me, no matter what lame stories I may bring or what events may take place in Europe.  As I try to figure out this new blog, try to link the new one with the existing one, and being slightly buzzed off of two New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPAs (on a school night), I hope to bring a little humor, some mediocre photos, and a good story or two along the way.

Thanks for reading!