An Opportune Moment

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Life in Berlin
Life in Berlin
WWOOFing in Hawai'i
WWOOFing in Hawai'i
Backpacking Europe
Backpacking Europe

  • Berlins and Outs

    Thoughts on One Month of Living Abroad

    May 1, 2018

    When I backpacked Europe, almost six years ago now (yeesh), I wrote a post about my thoughts on one month of travel, so, when E and I realized we’d been in Berlin for a month, we decided to write this post as a bit of a callback. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly from one month of living abroad in Germany. Plus, if you scroll all the way down, a little video of what we’ve been up to. The Good The Weather: We arrived right at the tail end of winter and, while our friends and family back home suffered through April snowstorms, we enjoyed days in the…

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    Emma 6 Comments

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    Wrocław, or Emma Tries to Convince You to Visit Poland

    July 2, 2019

    Berlin, Revisited

    September 18, 2018

    The Egg Cups of Berlin

    June 19, 2018
  • Berlins and Outs,  Feeeeelings,  Meta-Blogging

    Everything is Different Now

    April 22, 2018

    There are no screens in our windows now, so in the mornings we lean out and people watch while we drink our coffee. E imagines what it would be like to be a field mouse living on the supermarket’s green roof – he wants to make a video game about it. I mostly ogle other people’s dogs as they walk down the street. We watch the trains going in and out of Ostkreuz station. And if we look left we can see the TV Tower, but only when we’re leaning out the window. Hi. Hello. Welcome back. Everything is different now. E got a job as an educational video game…

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    Emma 7 Comments

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    Berlin, Revisited

    September 18, 2018

    Spring in Berlin: A Video and A Love Letter

    June 12, 2018

    Let’s talk about depression and bicycles

    September 1, 2018
  • Feeeeelings

    He’s Dead So I Can Say Whatever I Want About Him

    November 13, 2017

    Do you ever come up with titles for your unwritten memoirs? The only reason I’m writing this post is because the title struck me as I was walking home. Its subtitle will be “And Other Pithy Essays About My Family.” It will be my second book – a slightly more sophisticated follow-up to the fresh voice readers fell in love with in my debut, It Starts and Ends in Barcelona: A Memoir of Grief and Travel. “Holliday’s work reads like Wild if Cheryl Strayed were snarkier and had a less interesting story to tell…” –New York Times Book Review I’m taking a writing class and today one of my classmates’…

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    You Moved to Berlin for a Job, Right? How’s it Going?

    October 20, 2019

    Travel is a bit like acting

    March 21, 2013

    Let’s Talk About My Apartment Fire

    September 7, 2014
  • The Great European Adventure

    I Know Nothing About Architecture

    November 30, 2016

    Facebook keeps reminding me that I was in Paris 4 years ago today and, on the one hand, I appreciate that. It’s nice to be greeted at the top of my newsfeed with a smiling photo of me and my mother. We had such a lovely time on that trip. On the other hand, it makes me nostalgic, and a little jealous of past-Emma, and also, didn’t I tell facebook to turn off that feature? Anyway, I was looking through my photos from Paris and I stumbled across the one at the top of this post. I can’t remember anything about this part of the city or the moment I…

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    Emma 1 Comment

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    Krakow was a turning point

    February 25, 2013

    Statues of Copenhagen: A Photo Essay

    January 20, 2013

    How to Travel With Your Friends and Stay Friends

    October 8, 2013
  • Feeeeelings

    Future Focused

    November 29, 2016

    I asked my partner, E (pictured with me above), a scary question the other night: “What do you want to do before we have kids?” He half-laughed, half-groaned and didn’t answer me. I let the subject drop. To be fair, we’d been watching the new episodes of Gilmore Girls Netflix just released and I was teary-eyed and emotional and it was late and there were basically no good reasons for us to have that conversation at that time. Additionally, E finds talking about the future stressful, which is fair. I’m pretty sure the future is objectively stressful. And yet… that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it all the time.…

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    Emma 2 Comments

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    Do other people’s life decisions ever make you question your own?

    November 21, 2019

    And then I got published in a newspaper

    August 9, 2013

    Righteous Fury: Thoughts on Politics and Religion

    October 30, 2018
  • That Time I Studied Abroad,  The Great European Adventure

    Churros con Chocolate

    November 24, 2016

    One thing that is better in Europe than in the United States is hot chocolate. Hands. Down. This is not to say you can’t find delicious hot chocolate in the U.S., but the standard hot chocolate in this country is a far cry from the standard hot chocolate in countries like Spain and France. I particularly love ordering hot chocolate in Spain when it comes with a healthy serving of churros (fried dough) for dipping. And by “healthy” I mean “large,” just to clarify. Hot chocolate in Spain is mostly melted dark chocolate with a little milk and sugar mixed into it. Sometimes it’s so thick you need to drink…

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    Emma 2 Comments

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    Park Güell, Barcelona

    November 17, 2016

    fall, autumn, otoño, tardor

    November 1, 2016

    Top Ten Barcelona

    June 22, 2012
  • Close to Home

    Wild Raspberry

    November 23, 2016

    E and I are at his parents’ house in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving, and while it’s not too cold yet, there are a few inches of snow on the ground already. One of my favorite things to do when we visit E’s family is to wander the garden and interact with the plants whether I’m touching, smelling, tasting, or photographing them. I took this photo of a raspberry bush at their old house (which is about 15 minutes down the road from the new one), and recently made it my computer background. Every time E sees it he comments on how delicious the raspberry looks. The landscape is a little…

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    Emma No Comments

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    That Time I Went to Canada for Lunch

    May 30, 2013

    Old Friends / Bookends

    November 14, 2016

    Welcome to The Beach House

    July 12, 2013
  • The Great European Adventure

    Da Vinci and Me

    November 22, 2016

    I’m currently working in an exhibit about Leonardo Da Vinci, and while the focus is mostly on his inventions, there’s also a large section on the Mona Lisa and an interesting video about The Last Supper. I could have seen The Last Supper in person when I was in Milan in 2012 but… I didn’t. There are a limited number of tickets to view the mural each day and you usually have to get one as part of a larger tour package and I wasn’t organized or motivated enough to make it happen. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have much interest in Renaissance art and I ended up in…

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    Emma No Comments

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    What I Learned in Amsterdam

    January 6, 2013

    Budapest: Last Look

    May 27, 2013

    What I ate in Reykjavik, and so can you!

    September 24, 2012
  • Uncategorized

    Otavalo From Above

    November 18, 2016

    Otavalo is home to the largest artisanal craft market in South America. The Otavaleños (people from Otavalo), especially the indigenous Kichwa community, are known for their textile work and the market is made up of stall after stall of clothing, bags, blankets, hats, belts, jewelry, and artwork of all kinds. This central plaza is always packed with vendors, but on Saturdays the market spills over into the nearby streets taking up as much as a third of the town. The crafts mostly appeal to tourists while the nearby animal market caters to locals. When I visited, there were still plenty of tourists (such as myself) around taking photos of the…

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    Emma No Comments

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    Once in a Lifetime

    June 26, 2014

    Can’t see the forest for the baobab trees

    November 9, 2016

    One Month in Asia in 23 Photos, 2 Gifs, and 1 Video

    May 26, 2020
  • That Time I Studied Abroad

    Park Güell, Barcelona

    November 17, 2016

    When I studied abroad in Barcelona in 2010, I visited Park Güell several times. It had nice gardens and walking paths, many examples of the architect Antoni Gaudí’s signature whimsy, a stunning view of the rest of the city stretching out towards the sea below you, and it was free. By the time I took E to Barcelona in 2015 to show him all my favorite places in my favorite city, Park Güell cost 7 euros and had ugly stanchions to keep people out. It’s not an exorbitant fee, and it’s still worth visiting despite the crowds, but it feels a little less magical than it used to.

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    Emma No Comments

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    Why Italy isn’t a part of the Great European Adventure

    July 31, 2012

    Fleeting Encounters Over Tea

    April 16, 2013

    fall, autumn, otoño, tardor

    November 1, 2016
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