I don’t think anyone ever forgets their first trip outside of their home country. In my case, I was 10 and I went to Paris. The next year after I came back I started down the journey of becoming a fully-fledged francophile, learning French, French history, French culture. Ask my friends, if anyone so much as mentions the word France, my head pops up like a bloodhound and I am immediately (more) interested in the conversation!

I attend Rice University and I am studying political science and French studies. In the future I hope to become a diplomat, or have a career that will allow me to travel the world. For me, travel isn’t a luxury or something that should be done in one’s spare time. Travel is a necessity. It’s like breathing for me.

I’m currently studying abroad in Paris with a program called Sweet Briar’s Junior Year in France, and I will be using this blog to document not only my travels, the food, and my daily life, but of my impressions of the culture, and the politics and polices of each nation I travel to in relationship to my experience. If I see police arresting a woman for wearing a hijab, I’ll blog about it. If I see the gay pride festival going on in Paris, I will describe it in as much detail as I can. And if I make friends with a Syrian refugee, I will most definitely blog about it. 🙂

So if you like reading travel blogs that add a political flavor to a description of a quiche-Lorraine, and you like reading about a girl set on crossing cultural boundaries and making international friends for life, then please subscribe (click Follow blog via email in the column on the right!)  and help me to make sense of the chaotic beauty of travel 🙂