[ march 26: places i've travelled outside of the country ]

I love traveling. If you couldn't tell from my places to travel list earlier this month, I have a crazy insane desire to travel basically everywhere. I have been lucky enough to travel quite a bit, between soccer tournaments and study abroad programs in college.

• Jamaica: Second grade with the family. I don't really recall much of the trip, but I did get those tiny little braids with the beads at the end. And the accompanying sunburn on my entire scalp.
• Amsterdam: I played in a soccer tournament with a spin-off of my MAPLE team. We sucked. It was embarrassing. But Amsterdam was pretty cool. I'm sure it's much cooler when you're not 14 and on a strict curfew.
• Rimini, Italy: The next summer I played in a tournament in Italy. We actually ended up doing pretty well, and placed third. Which was especially exciting because we were all 15 and 16, and we were playing against semi-professional women in their 20s. This is where I scored the PK.
• Nice, France: We took a bus from our tournament in Italy to our tournament in Spain, and we spent one day in Nice. It was beautiful, and it was the first time my feet touched the Mediterranean!
• Vittoria, Spain: My last soccer tournament in Europe. We whooped ass and won the tournament. We actually showed up in the local newspaper, with a headline under the picture that said (in Spanish, of course), "The Americans have become the main attraction of the tournament." It was awesome. Everyone was rooting against us at the beginning, but then our games drew the biggest crowds!
• New Zealand: My sophomore year of college, I spent five weeks studying abroad in New Zealand. It was amazing. One of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. You can go for five blocks in a major city, not see a single garbage can, and also not see a single piece of trash on the ground. It's incredible. I hiked a volcano, walked on a glacier, kayaked across a major sea channel (which I will never do again!), and got to do it all with my camera. Awesome.
• Italy: My junior year of college, I studied in Italy for a semester. Four long, amazing months immersed in Italy. We went all over the country, saw amazing things that I had only dreamed of, ate incredible food, and learned a beautiful language. I really need to get back into Italian.
• London: For spring break of my semester in Italy, my friend Krista and I split the week between three places, and the first was London. We had so many issues getting there, ended up arriving at 2am, splitting a cab with another American student we met at the airport whose flat was right around the corner from our hostel, and getting to our hostel at about 3am. London was the type of place that I felt completely at home the second I got there. I was only there for three days, and now I'm dying to go back for a longer period of time.
• Barcelona: After London, we went to Barcelona. Although I saw some amazing things, like an incredible Van Gogh museum and the buried remains of a city from the time of the Roman Empire, and the weather was incredible, I didn't really like being in Barcelona. I felt really uncomfortable the entire time. I could never figure out what it was... maybe the language barrier. Not sure.
• Paris: After Barcelona, we went to Paris for a few days, and although it rained the entire time we were there, it was still one of the most amazing places I've ever seen. We tried to see as many things as we could, but we were only there for about two and half days. I'm definitely dying to go back to Paris too. There was so much I wanted to see. I was incredibly comfortable there, and felt like I could just spend weeks wandering around, seeing everything.

So I've been incredibly lucky. I've been able to travel some amazing places, see some incredible things, and meet some awesome people. And I can't wait to travel more and see more! Travel rocks!

Where have you traveled? Care to share any pictures or stories?

[ postdated due to serious internet issues the past few days ]