Spring Breakin' (Rules)

The best part of my spring break was sneaking out after hours in Amsterdam. We had had a pretty tiring day after recovering from jetlag and walking around the city, so Kait and I decided to disregard the rules our teachers had laid out for us and spend the next several hours wandering around the red light district. It was not very difficult to sneak out, as the teachers were all in bed early and the hotel wasn’t busy. Once we got outside, we stopped a man on a bike and asked him how to get over to the red light district. He told us it was too far to walk, but he told us where we could buy some cheap bikes. Kait and I walked over to the sketchy shop he had told us about, and we each bought a rickety bike for 15 euros each. We then rode over to the red light district, which was different than anything either of us had ever experienced before. Almost every single person wandering the street was intoxicated and leering at us as we rode by. In the windows were advertisements for things that our young eyes should never have seen. This freaked us out a little too much, so we left the red light district (we didn’t even see any red lights) and rode beside some of the canals of Amsterdam. We came across a very large canal, where we saw a huge white bird. I realized it was a heron, and then I remembered that Ms. Holwell had pointed out a sign to us that said ‘last year 3 tourists died from white heron.’ I thought that this must be the giant heron that had killed the tourists, so I screamed at Kait to turn our bikes around and go down one of the skinny little alleys between buildings. After a few minutes of hard riding, we found ourselves alongside a quiet canal with a bench facing an arched bridge. We stopped to rest, and then we realized that this was the bench that was featured in the ‘Fault in Our Stars’ movie. Satisfied with our lucky find, Kait and I headed back for the hotel. We threw our bikes over the fence of the zoo that was near our hotel so that the teachers wouldn’t get suspicious when they saw two crappy bikes ditched next to the hotel doors. (The flamingoes were quite startled when the bikes crashed into their quiet pond.) We then snuck back up to our hotel room, went to bed, and went along with the group the next day, acting as if we had been in our rooms the whole night. During the day the next day, we passed the white heron warning sign we had seen, only to realize that it actually said ‘last year 3 tourists died from white heroin,’ not ‘white heron.’ 

New Year, New Me?

There are thousands of clichés surrounding New Years and the resolutions that people always seem to make; ‘new year new me,’ ‘page 1 of 365;’ but are resolutions something that really matter? I personally make resolutions every year because I feel that it is important for a person to have goals to strive towards. If someone doesn’t have any goals for themselves, they have no motivation or feelings of success or failure. When I make resolutions, I feel that it is important to stick to them. The goals we set for ourselves during the New Year take a certain amount of self-reflection and honesty in what we really want for the future. If life truly is about the journey and not the destination, shouldn’t we strive to make ourselves the best we can possibly be along the way? This is one of the many reasons why I think that New Year’s resolutions are such a good thing to practice. Even though many people aren’t able to stick to the resolutions they make, they are at least making a conscious effort to change themselves for the better; even if someone only eats salad at lunch for a week, at least they ate healthy in that week and had a small success. I think that’s the key to keeping with resolutions; celebrating the small successes and triumphs. Maybe you did cave last night and eat half a tub of ice cream, but you also got up early to work it off by running for an hour. Celebrate that you had the motivation to go running. I think another important thing about resolutions is that we help each other out when we may be struggling. For example, many people that frequent gyms complain about the increase in traffic in January. However, I think it is important that instead of shunning and condescending people who have perhaps struggled with their health in the past and are now making an attempt to better themselves, those with experience help and boost these people along their difficult journey. Even if you don’t make resolutions at New Years, it is still a great time to reflect on the last year and look forwards to what’s coming in the future.

Christmas in Paradise

Last year for Christmas, my entire family on my mom’s side spent the holiday season in Maui. There were 20 of us there, and we had a great time spending some quality family time on the beach. The place we were staying at was right on the beach, and our whole family was in the same hotel. There was a shopping center about a 2 minute walk down the boardwalk from the hotel, and it had lots of designer outlets and shops, as well as a whaling museum. My cousin Erin and I walked to Sephora at least once every day to do our makeup with all the samples they had out. When we weren’t at Sephora, we were at the ABC store or at the self-serve frozen yogurt place eating as much as we possibly could. In between shopping sprees, Erin and I would tan on the beach with our other cousin Sarah. On the beach there was a sand volleyball court, and it would be an off day when we didn’t start at least one volleyball game with almost the entire family playing. It was so much fun to play the sport that I love with the people that mean so much to me in a warm, sunny and fun place. My older cousins Matt and Greg would spend the whole time chirping each other about how much beer the other had had that day. This amazing experience was a result of my grandparent’s generosity, as it was my Grandan’s 79^th birthday present to the rest of the family. It was originally supposed to be this year for Grandan’s 80^th, but he had a run-in with cancer last year so we decided to push it forward by one year. (Don’t worry- he’s now cancer free!) I feel very lucky to have shared this amazing vacation with my family and extended family over the holidays because of all the fun we had and because who doesn’t love Maui!