Deposit submitted!

After a fantastic weekend spent on campus and in Boston, I have officially accepted my offer to attend the Boston University School of Public Health in the fall!

The accepted students day was really informative and helped to solidify my decision even further to attend BU. I got to meet with professors and students from my concentration, International Health (IH). I also may have been swayed into adding a second concentration, Maternal and Child Health (MCH). I talked to a couple of the MCH professors about some of my interests and they invited me to an alumni reception their concentration was having that evening. They were all so brilliant and wonderful, I felt like I was back at a Wheaton Women's Studies event-- that awesome. 

I picked up lots of tips and tricks throughout the day about financial aid, registering for classes, and getting the most out of BU in general. 

I feel so happy, excited, and lucky. 

This is exactly where I'm meant to be.

Boston University

I have officially been accepted into the Boston University Master of Public Health program with a concentration in International Health, and my hope would be to focus on Sex, Sexulaity, Gender, and Health. A mouth full, but exactly the focus I want. I also was very fortunate to receive a merit scholarship, which helps make the decision a little bit easier, but I’m still not 100% sure if I’m going to go.

Why you ask? Well, that’s a complicated question.

While I know this is the program I want to do, it’s more of a question of do I want to do it right now? Or should I wait until next fall?

As most of you know, my plan was to head to Africa, not take a causal year off before grad school. While it wasn’t what I had intended, having time off was kind of a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to take a month in Europe, visit friends in DC multiple times, go to Arizona for two weeks, and just generally lead a pretty low key existence.

I got my acceptance email and I panicked. Do I want to do this yet? If I took another year I could visit Natalie in Panama, or Lauren in California, or go back to Europe and explore some more with Hannah. I could take more time to travel and volunteer, all without having the ridiculous amount of student loan payments that grad school will add to my plate.

Then there is the questioning of financing. While BU is a great program, it isn’t cheap. I know as a grad student I won't have any problem finding someone to give me a loan, but how will I ever pay them back? Should I work full time and go to school part time to try to spread out the payments? What if I just took the loans, hammered school out in 3 semesters and then started paying? What if I took a year off to save some more? The last thought is just laughable because if I’m not in school, I’m going to be travelling, not saving.

As you can see, I have a lot to think about and mull over. I’m stressing myself in circles, which really isn’t much of a surprise. I’m waiting for my financial aid packet, and for the accepted students day on campus at the end of April before I make any official decisions.

Arizona

Our family trip to Arizona was thrown together a little last minute. We’ve only been saying that we were going to take a trip out to visit my uncle (my mom’s oldest brother) for 10 years now. Finally, the stars aligned and it happened. Mike could only get a week away from work, but the rest of us were there for 10 days.

We spent the beginning of our time two hours north of Phoenix in Cottonwood, where my uncle lives. He was out personal tour guide for the trip. Everyday we had something planned.

We ventured up to Jerome, more than 5,000 feet above sea level.

We dedicated a day to the Grand Canyon. The drive up through Old Creek Canyon and Sedona was beautiful.

We spent an afternoon with my Uncle in Sedona, and went on a hike.

For Easter we went back down to Phoenix to spend the holiday with my cousins. The weather the beautiful. We hid eggs for a hunt for the kids. There were lots of card games to be had.

We went to the hole in the rock.

We saw the Diamondbacks play.

And, we went out to Canyon Lake.

Overall it was an A+ family vacation. Only ten more years until the next one...

St Patrick's Day

This was my first year celebrating Patty’s Day in Boston-- it did not disappoint.

I spent the night of the 16th with Rachel in Watertown-- we had a boiled dinner, a Jameson float, and green drinks! We adventured a bit to meet up with some Wheaton folks. It was a relatively low key night out for us, but a lot of fun.

 

I woke up early on the morning of the 17th to meet up with family to head into South Boston. We arrived far too early, but easily filled up our spare time with drinks and laughs. The house we were at was right on the parade route, by the time the parade finally ran by us it was mid-afternoon and everyone was a bit silly. Shane Lea and I enjoyed the parade, getting free candy and taking every free give away we could get our hands on.

After the parade we headed back to Brighton for some libations at a local bar. It was a fun day, that ended with lots of greasy food and bagpipers walking in and performing at the bar. That’s what Saint Patrick’s Day is all about, right?

Europe in Summary.

One month of travel in 10 blog posts:

Istanbul
Sliven
Sofia
Amsterdam
Berlin
Prague
Munich
Salzburg
Vienna
Budapest

Oh, and also: The Things I've Learned

The things I've learned

I've been struggling with how to sum up a life changing month of travel, and I don't think I will ever be able to fully articulate all of my thoughts.

I am fortunate beyond belief to have had the opportunity to enjoy seven different countries with such different cultures and histories. 

While I’d love to be able to list all the things this trip has taught me, it would be quite impossible to encapsulate all the things I learned about the world and myself during my month is Europe. Mostly because a lot of what I've learned is abstract, or haven’t even hit me yet. 

After some thought I have created a small list of concrete items that I have learned that I will carry with me in all of my future travels:

1. Some cities have more than one train station. Always look into that before getting off at a random train station in an unfamiliar city after dark where no one speaks English.

2. Going off of #1, if you know you're going to be arriving into a city after dark or on a weekend when things may not be open, be sure to be prepared and exchange some money into your destinations currency beforehand. You may not be lucky enough to have a Mcdonald's convert Euros into Czech Crowns for you. Also, a map wouldn't hurt either.

3. A lot of cities have companies that offer free tours! While there is no up front cost, it is recommended that you tip the tour guide, but it is still cheaper than most other big fancy tours-- especially if you're on a budget.

4. If you're traveling in the winter months bring a hat and gloves. Seriously, no matter how tough you think you are.

5. Staying in different areas of a city is a nice way to experience all the different sub-cultures without having to trek from one side of the city to the other every day.

6. Staying in a hostel? Headlamp, ear plugs, and eye mask. Waking up well rested ready for a new day of adventure is worth every ounce of embarrassment you may feel from those three very important accessories.

7. Eastern Europe? Be sure to bring travel toilet paper in your bag. I promise.

8. Staying in a party hostel the first night you arrive after an international flight is not a good idea. As much energy as you may think you're going to have, you will be jet lagged and want a clean shower.

9. Get to the train station early, always, no excuses. No one speaks English and trying to communicate always includes charades, and you still don't always get an answer. Leave yourself plenty of time or you'll be sprinting through a train station with a 30 lbs backpack weighing you down.

10. A Therm-a-Rest Compressible Pillow can get you through anything. 10 hour overnight bus? 24 hours of travel? Dirty hostel? Train ride? No problem. I will never travel with out this puppy.

Budapest.

Budapest by far was my favorite city that we visited. I’m going to try to contain myself from the endless blabbering that I could do about this awesome city.

We stayed in the Hi 5 Hostel, it was the best. If you’re going to Budapest you can’t stay anywhere else, seriously. Everyone was super friendly; there was something to do every night. Our room had a balcony that looked over the busy street. Clearly, we loved this place.

Our first night we went to this really cheap all you can eat buffet, stopped and got some really cheap beers on our way home, and then met up with the hostel for a free pub crawl, which went to all of the best ruin bars. Ruin bars are located in formerly abandoned buildings that local artists have gone in and decorated, recycling the old buildings into popular bars with an interesting flair.

Our first full day we spent meandering the PESCA Flea Market in City Park before going on a free tour of the city, which took us to both sides of the Danube River. The flat side is referred to a Pest, and the hilly side is Buda.

Heroes' Square, the entrance of City park

the market

View from the Buda side on our tour

Our second day we walked back over to the Buda side of the city to explore some more. We hiked up to the Liberty Statue, which was left behind from the Soviets. Keelin found 2 guard stations, and we tried to find this cool labyrinth we read about, but it turned out to be a total tourist trap.

View from the Liberty Statue

The Halászbástya or Fisherman's Bastion

Our evening, my favorite part of the entire trip, was spent at Szechenyi Baths, the thermal baths. Built in 1908 there are more than 12 thermal baths and five swimming pools.The water was over 100 degrees. There were interactive bubblers, a huge fountain, even lounging areas to sit in the water.

We spent our last day meandering the Central Market, sampling some local food, and drinking in the park.

For our last night our plan was to get dinner, have a few drinks, sober up early, pack and go to bed. That idea didn’t fly. We ending up getting dinner and a few drinks, and then a few more drinks, and then a few more. Keelin and I both got about an hour of sleep before getting up at 6am to get ready to catch our flight. We handed the airline attendant our passports to check in, oh what’s that? Our flight has been cancelled due to snow in Frankfurt? We could have slept an extra five hours? Wonderful. They rerouted us through Munich and we ended up getting home two hours  earlier than we were originally supposed to. Although we had a long wait at the airport, everything worked out just fine.