In the Spring of 2015, I got to go to India with my partner and meet his family while he took people around the country for a yoga tour. It was my first time visiting India, and I documented some of the things I saw in this prose-poem. I call it “Travel Highlights” as […]
Tag Archives | Essays + Short Stories
Excavating My Expectations For A Semester in Southern Spain
She left the United States when she boarded the plane at Dallas/Fort Worth. Twenty years old and thirsty for adventure, the plane carried her over the ocean to the small Spanish city. She thought she was beginning the typical European adventure many other 20-somethings so desire, the one that would bring her to a new […]
Saint Astier
I sat inside the train. I was trying to write in my flimsy tiny green notebook, on whose cover I had written “Heidi’s adventures in France 11/17 to 11/21/2016.” I had written the second part of the date the day before, as that’s when I decided my date of departure. I was trying hard to […]
In Translation
I have spent my life learning languages. Language after language. I read today, somewhere in the depths of internet clickbait aimed at an itinerant traveler, that people who speak different languages switch their personality to fit the language they are speaking. The article seemed to be suggesting that this switch was a falsehood, a manipulation […]
Red Threads
I got the bracelet in India. I thought the 50-rupee red string bracelet (75 cents) would adorn my wrist nicely as a reminder of my trip. Photos could only depict so much, and my memory tends to fade. The bracelet was a rich reminder of the people whose lives I entered briefly and the mark […]
Lima
Lima, in its raw self, is not obviously, nor immediately, beautiful. Its skin is perfumed of an intoxicating combination of freshly chopped chicken heads, sticky gasoline, and briny ocean waves. The scent lingers within your nose acting as an invisible guest overstaying its welcome, until you forget it’s still even there. During the winter, as […]
The Child, the Ant, and the Magnifying Lens
I was talking with a friend about a month ago about my study abroad program in Amsterdam this summer. When they asked me if my class studied Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek and the microscope while we were there I was surprised because I had never heard of this history or person. I was also surprised that […]
The Exchange Student Reality Show
This time, your city will be Berlin. You and one other exchange student will be set loose in the city for 3 days and 4 nights, including travel, and are expected to forage for food, see important landmarks, and absorb local culture. Of course, you can receive help from other friends before the trip to […]
A Short Story about Pooping My Pants
Hi. My name is Erin, and I pooped my pants. I was twenty one years old. I was in control of my own movements and self. I had an accessible toilet. And yet, despite all logic that would explain otherwise, I pooped my pants. It was a sunny and clear morning in the Indian Himalayan […]
Chalil’s Prayer
He pushes us through crowded walkways, past shouting vendors, ducking through soccer games, and across constant flows of traffic. Bushwhacking rush-hour, I follow him into the middle of the road, and absorb the moment — a bus almost hits me as it tries to change lanes, dipping into the incoming cars in the process. We cross […]