Summer Plans

So I am beyond excited to inform everybody that I will be going back to Berlin this summer! I finally booked my flight (June 29-September 28) and secured my internship working for an art gallery in downtown Berlin. I am going to be helping out with a bunch of different stuff, but mostly with their upcoming exhibitions, art fairs, and editing/writing things in English for the gallery and for the gallery website.

So I got kinda bored in class today and decided to list out my top 5 places that I really want to try and visit this time around (provided I can make some money spring quarter after that ridiculously expensive summer flight haha)

1. Reykjavik, Iceland.

This might sound really weird. But I have lately become obsessed with the idea of going to Iceland. It keeps popping up in travel magazines everywhere - apparently in their horrible recession Iceland as a tourist destination has gone from ridiculously unaffordable to a really cool place to try and visit. I have become obsessed with White Nights (the sun doesn't set in the summer), northern lights, and the awesome neon blue lagoon. (I put a picture above). Icelandic landscapes (even via blurry web photos) look just incredible. And I have a particular fondness for saying I've been weird places most people haven't (cough Slovakia cough ).

2. Amsterdam.

I have been in the airport at least 4x going to other Euro destinations but somehow managed to never make it there myself. Which is weird because it's not that far from Berlin and its not that expensive to get there by overnight bus. I'm gonna make it happen this time around. Canals and art and Anne Frank's house - oh my!

3. Budapest

Another cool Eastern European city I never got a chance to get to but that I really want to explore. I heard there's lots of epic cannons and castles. Yee.

4. Estonia

My fam watched a movie recently about Estonia and some of their amazing musical traditions and it just got me really interested in the country. It's capital is another one that keeps popping up in the travel articles I skim on the regular. And it's on the Baltic sea... I can't resist another trip out there after how pretty and incredible Gdansk was. Especially in the summer.

5. Lisbon, Portugal

This one really has no rational or informed basis - I just really wanna go there haha. And I've heard it's beautiful and really fun.

I am really excited and feel really blessed to have this opportunity through Stanford to go back - this time around I'll be a college graduate - it's absolutely mind-blowingly insane how fast these 4 years have gone.

Love you all and I will keep you posted as I learn more about the summer and head out back out to the land of the Apfelschorle and Nuskati!