Me looking at the Rio Celeste waterfall in Costa Rica.
My family is not one that vacations extravagantly. Throughout my childhood, most of the trips we took were either to visit family or just going somewhere in Florida. My father's side of the family lives in Miami, so I have been there several times to visit them.
My mother's family lives in Youngstown, Ohio, so we would occasionally fly or drive up there to visit. Youngstown is a pretty rough place to visit. It used to be a steel-mill-town. The jewel of Youngstown though is Mill Creek Park, which is right in the backyard of my mother's old neighborhood. It consists of steep hills covered with woods and a creek. This creek has lots of pebbles as well as bigger rocks and a man-made waterfall. When I was younger we used to always go to the creek to play.
The first time I ever played in snow was also in Ohio when we went there one year for Christmas. When we got there snow was already on the ground, but it did not fall for days. Finally, on Christmas morning, my sister and I awoke to fresh, falling snow. We scrambled into all of our borrowed snow gear: a jumper, boots, a neck warmer, gloves, and a hat. Then we sledded down a huge hill with all of our cousins. It was the perfect white Christmas.
I began my international travels the summer after I graduated from high school. (When I was younger I went to the Bahamas on a cruise, but I can hardly count that as experiencing a different country.) My first international trip was a week-long vacation to Costa Rica in the summer of 2007. I went with my best friend from high school. We stayed a few days in San Jose, the capital, and then went to the Arenal Volcano for about a week. We did all of the eco-touristy excursions. We zip-lined high above the rainforest, and we hiked up a volcano. My favorite excursion was an outing to the Rio Celeste. We hiked for two hours through the rainforest along the river. Rio Celeste is created from two separate rivers, each containing different minerals from the volcanoes. When these two rivers combine, they create a hot-turquoise color. All the fallen trees in the river have algae that is highlighter-green. It is a beautiful combination. Of course, to top off the experience, the river transformed into a beautifully enormous turquoise waterfall. That was really something special.
My first and only Euro trip occurred this past summer of 2009. My younger sister decided to do a study abroad in France for Summer A. I decided to meet up with her in Paris. We did the usual tourist route of Paris: the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Notre Dame.
Our next stop was Munich, Germany. We saw Dachau Concentration Camp which was the first concentration camp built during World War II. We also made a lot of friends and went to several beer halls. My favorite thing we did in Munich was visit Neuschwanstien Castle. It is the castle that Cinderella's Castle at Disney World is modeled after. The castle part was not so great, but there were dozens of trails winding around the mountainside that we explored.
My favorite stop on the trip was Interlaken, Switzerland. It is a very small-town touristy area near the base of the Swiss Alps. My favorite thing we did was rent mountain bikes for a day and literally rode through the mountains to this waterfall that was five stories tall. Then we hiked up the mountainside and had a beautiful view of the lake below.
This is what I learned from my Euro trip: I identify much more with nature than I do with cities. In Europe we went to too many cities and did not experience enough forests and mountains. My next trip will be full of nature. I am hoping to go somewhere in the United States; maybe to Yellowstone or Yosemite National Parks.