What happens when a city thrives for 2,500 years, makes its mark as a maritime power, and combines Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, Catalan, and modernist influences? The vibrant, dynamic Barcelona, with its Roman ruins, medieval cathedral, Gothic quarter, and unique Modernista architecture, is the fascinating result.  Spain's second-biggest city is also the capital the partially autonomous region of Catalonia, home...

Read more »

June 2015: my CBYX program year was on pause for two weeks, one of my best (American) friends had made the trek out to Europe to visit me, and all of Europe was our oyster - it was time for the trip of a lifetime! First on our itinerary was Dubrovnik, Croatia, whose magnificent Old Town features a fairy-tale like cluster of cobbled back lanes and centuries-old houses, churches, and palaces, all surrounded by imposing, well-preserved...

Read more »

I didn't meant to sound so ominous with that title, but my good friend Marissa's arrival in Europe in June 2015 truly did mean the final leg of my CBYX program year in Germany was about to come to an end.  Just before her arrival, I had my last day of my internship at Kompaktmedien, so I whipped out my best German in my final goodbye email to the office. My coworkers responded and wished me well, and one of them...

Read more »

They say all good things must come to an end - and seeing as my year in Germany was a very good thing, it most definitely was coming to an end back in May and June 2015. At this point, my return from Europe may have been many months and a few vacations ago, but I am still determined to let one particular good thing NOT come to an end - this blog!  After a trip to Krakow, Poland, I found my time in Berlin rapidly...

Read more »

It was the month of April, and my travel buddies and I were ready to set out and absorb as much of Krakow, Poland as possible on the last day of our three-day stint (I talk about the city's history in my Day 1 and Day 2 posts). It's not a huge town, but it is jam-packed with attractions ranging from a charming Old Town to the subterranean site of a violent legend. A beautiful day in Krakow...

Read more »

Warning! This post is pretty depressing! If you aren't in a mood to hear about the Auschwitz death camp, skip to the pretty pictures of Krakow at dusk at the end. For everyone else, the second day of our trip to Poland in late April was dedicated to making the hour-and-a-half trip out of Krakow to Auschwitz. Visiting a death camp is, of course, anything but fun - however, seeing as we were living in Germany, where the...

Read more »

Nearly exactly one month earlier, in March, I had already visited and thoroughly photographed both Warsaw and Poznan. But I wasn't quite ready to be done with Poland - the country's biggest tourism draw, the city of Krakow, was on my itinerary in late April. I had planned a visit with two American friends, and it would be my 2nd-to-last trip away from Germany before my program came to end with a huge two-week blitz through...

Read more »

Berlin has a grungy side. Sure, the massive Unter den Linden and sky-high TV Tower and bustling Potsdamer Platz provide all the highlights of a gleaming metropolis one would expect, but should you get under the city's skin, you can find all kinds of unexpected sights.  It's no surprise that a city as rapidly changing as Berlin has a fairly large number of abandoned structures. Industries evolve, businesses...

Read more »

May 9th, 2015: My third and final day in Budapest, Hungary was upon me. I woke up bright and early, short on sleep but in high spirits. That didn't last long, as I made a beeline for a decidedly un-cheery museum: the House of Terror. Although today it's an powerful, informational museum, the house at 60 Andrássy Boulevard once housed Hungary's version of the Gestapo during the Nazi occupation and thereafter communist...

Read more »

The month was May, and I woke up in a tiny hostel in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Day two of my trip began with free breakfast at the hostel (always a highlight) and then a visit to St. István’s Basilica, Budapest's largest church. In my previous post, I mentioned that St. István was Hungary's first Catholic king and harbored a penchant for gruesome violence wholly unbefitting of a saint. But hey, at least his church...

Read more »

It was early May, and I was ready to escape Berlin and take another ridiculously long and cheap bus ride in the dead of night (departure was 2 a.m.) to another new and exciting city... this time, my destination was Budapest, Hungary! I went not only since everyone who goes comes back with good reviews, but also because I was able to meet up with my USC friend Catherine, who was studying abroad there, each night to enjoy...

Read more »

With one day down, my Easter weekend trip to Amsterdam was already half over. No matter - an art museum, bike ride, and tour through the Red Light District was definitely doable in one day! I had done more in less time before, after all.  First stop of the day - the Rijksmuseum, the largest museum in the Netherland...

Read more »

The Easter holiday in early April meant an extra long weekend away from work, so it was a chance not to be missed - my friend and fellow Berliner Amy and I knew we had to travel somewhere, and AMSTERDAM was our selected destination! We stuck to my preferred cost-effective method of travel: overnight bus. The 9-hour ride there was a little less comfortable than usual, though, since the bus had no bathroom and...

Read more »

Unique, underground, alternative, exhilarating... even dangerous: all are words that pertain to the activity that is the subject of this post! How exciting! The activity in question? Urban exploring (urbex) - the exploration of man-made structures, particularly abandoned ones. Having seen urbex photography online for years and years, I finally got a chance to try my hand with it on one Saturday afternoon in late March,...

Read more »

On that weekend in late March, I wasn't done with my trip through Poland after just Poznan - I had all of Sunday to see Warsaw. But first, I had to get there. After spending Saturday in Poznan, I went to the very outskirts of town to catch a late-night bus from there to the Polish capital. But I found that the bus station was completely boarded up and closed, so I had to brave the below-freezing weather for an hour...

Read more »

As promised, I'm picking the blog back up now that I'm safely back home in Lake Forest, California! I have a lot of traveling behind me - I finished my stay in Berlin and whizzed off to Croatia, Montenegro, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and then Germany one last time before crossing the Atlantic. I capped the entire year off with an exhilarating 10-day stay with my sister in New York City. It was a whirlwind, but I meticulously documented...

Read more »

Time is ticking - the end of my year in Germany has been rapidly approaching and is now only one week away. I look forward to going home and seeing friends and family, but I will always miss my second home (unless I manage to come back someday!).  In another sign of how close the conclusion of it all is, all program participants just attended our end-of-year seminar here in Berlin. It was a fun, action-packed week...

Read more »

Ah, it's good to live in the German capital. Fascinating sights, great events, plenty of parks, tons of nightlife, diverse neighborhoods, cheap prices, lots of interesting history... the list goes on and on. Not to mention that the country's best and most famous tourist attractions are all here. Among them: the German Reichstag, or Parliament building. And since it's just a subway ride away from me, I found myself there not once...

Read more »

With the internship phase of my program nearing its end, I've fully settled into the full-time working life here in Berlin and resigned myself to only the occasional trip outside the country. Unfortunately, that means I have "only" been to Poznan, Warsaw, Krakow, Amsterdam, Budapest, and Münster ever since I returned from Rome and started my internship in early March. No matter, I've been keeping myself busy, in part by resuming...

Read more »

The month is February 2015, and today was the big day - I was going to see Coliseum! My friend Leah and I were in Rome for the second day of our three-day trip and we couldn't wait to see the famous ancient landmark. But first, why not stop at one of Rome's most impressive churches? This is Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, first built in 432. Check out that gilded Renaissance ceilin...

Read more »

Ah, Rome.... a huge, magnificent urban jungle peppered with innumerable churches and pleasant piazzas and formidable ancient ruins. Maybe I'm biased since Italy is the land of (some of) my forefathers, but my February trip to the Italian capital has been my favorite excursion yet. As an added bonus, I got some truly fantastic photos while there! I went with my USC friend Leah, who was visiting me for a week. We had already...

Read more »

After a long period of radio silence, this blog is back! Lots has changed since the last post in late February - I have seen exciting new places, traveled to exciting new cities, and met exciting new Germans.  What's less exciting is that I now work full-time, but that's just fine, since what I do is interesting. For the final months of my time here in Germany, I will be an intern at Kompakt Medien, a PR firm that works...

Read more »

After some time away from Berlin in Frankfurt, Nuremberg, and Austria, it was time for me to return and take more shots of my home city, Berlin. One fine sunny Sunday, my host dad and I resolved we couldn't let the excellent weather go to waste and headed out to nearby Potsdam. Potsdam is the capital city of the German state that surrounds Berlin, Brandenburg, and plays host to a number of famous, picturesque castles. We hopped...

Read more »

I whizzed down the hill towards the town in the valley below, the wind rushing by me and the sun glinting off the snow. I couldn't believe it - I was skiing in the Alps! This month, February, has been full of exciting adventures in new places. Let's start at the beginning, when I went on a little ski vacation with my host family. My host family's destination was the idyllic ski town of Saalbach-Hinterglemm, nestled high...

Read more »

January 24, 2015, 8:00 am: my first and last evening in Nuremberg was behind me, and the clock was ticking - I had just 7 hours in the town before my bus left, and there was a lot to see. It was time to do some efficient sightseeing, which just happens to be a specialty of mine. Nuremberg is certainly associated with imperial history in the 14th to 16th centuries, but more recently, it also earned a designation of a less savory...

Read more »

After my seminar in Frankfurt, I wasn't ready to head back up north to Berlin just yet. Instead, I hopped on a bus for 3 hours and arrived in Nuremberg, which, with a population of 510,000, is Bavaria's second-biggest city (after Munich, of course). The city was around as early as 1050, and to this day it still has a charming Old Town with lots of impressive medieval architecture.  Of course, much of the Old Town was...

Read more »

Last month, I had to get away from it all in Berlin and thus headed south to Frankfurt! No, I really did have to - my exchange program's mid-year seminar was on the agenda, and all 75 American participants were required to train into Frankfurt so we could discuss our experiences and reflect on the past half-year. While a week of discussions and lectures may not sound like a lot of fun, it was actually a great experience and I...

Read more »

Just two weekends ago, my French and Greek friend and I decided that it was time to head to the excellent Jewish Museum here in Berlin. During our marathon 4-hour visit, we learned thousands of years of Jewish history, with a particular focus on the Holocaust. What made me particularly happy was that the modern architecture was stark but impressive, and thus made for some nice photos.   Blue skies have become a bit...

Read more »

Unfortunately, I have some bad news to report. My exchange program, the Congress-Bundestag Exchange for Young Professionals (CBYX), is in peril! They are facing major budget cuts in the coming years. Not good! CBYX is a intercultural exchange program funded by the American Congress and German Bundestag (their parliament). The goal is to make the important relationship between the German and American people tighter by exchanging...

Read more »