Bahamas  ·  2021

When your college best friend is an international student, you visit her after graduation.

My best friend in college was from the Bahamas and was kind enough to invite me to visit her and her mom the summer after graduation. I ate a fish that still had its eyes, which genuinely disturbed me because eating something while it looks at you feels morally questionable. But I did it. And it was actually pretty good. I also got on a boat where everyone was dancing and feeling the rhythm in ways I simply cannot. The crowd cheered me on, "You got it, white girl!" I did not have it. When I got home I looked up twerking tutorials on YouTube. You really can learn anything on there.

Edinburgh, Scotland  ·  2020

No one knows the Frankinstein bar the way my girls and I do.

I only got three or four days here, which was not enough. My girls and I went to a gin and cheese tasting where they gave us eight full shots, a few crumbs of cheese, and sent us on our way within one hour. We dried out at the Frankenstein bar with a Bloody Mary Shelley. That's almost all I remember. Scottish gin is serious business. What I do remember is finding the "family crest" that had hung on my great-grandparents' wall my entire childhood on a keychain in every single souvenir shop, which sent me down an ancestry rabbit hole where I discovered my paternal line is very much not German and very much Scottish when traced through the men my last name has traveled through. Once in Inverness and Dingwall. Once Schaw, now Shaw. I'm also the last one… the only child carrying that name, and I'm a girl. Awkward. Maybe I’ll keep it forever.

England  ·  2020

Almost became the lead in the next Taken movie while on my way to the London club.

Spent a week in Great Britain bussing around with London as home base. One night two people on the trip wanted to go to a gay bar but didn't want to go alone. I, being the team player I am, said sure! On the way there, a man lunged out of an alley and grabbed my hood and shoulder. When he realized I wasn't alone he let go and ran. Life lesson: don't walk around London after dark by yourself. That said, it did not stop our night. I also walked through a genuinely janky old house Shakespeare apparently lived in, saw some very alluring hills that made me want to ride a horse bareback across a glen, and met some very cute sheep near Stonehenge. I miss them.

Winnipeg, Canada  ·  2019

Got my nose pierced on 36 hours of no sleep but at least it wasn't a tattoo!

One day my best friend and I looked at each other and decided to drive from southern Nebraska to Winnipeg during a three-day weekend in college. Just like that. I got my nose pierced, she got her ex's initial tattooed on her wrist, and then, for reasons that are unclear to me now, we drove all the way back on zero sleep. We almost pulled over in Fargo to sleep in the car, but I chickened out and decided I could make it. My friend was an international student without a license so it was all me behind that wheel. I'm pretty sure I saw a giraffe in the road at some point. Never again. Also, the border agent didn't check a single thing when we reentered the States.

Dominican Republic  ·  2019

My little sister and I became closer than EVER after this, and life has been better since.

Went with my dad, stepmom, and sister, and my little sister and I had an absolute blast. We went parasailing over the ocean and nearly fell in. My stepmom was beside herself, though honestly I don't remember it as vividly as she does. My dad and I drank lots of rum and coke in the sun. We also found an "American cuisine" restaurant and got to see what other countries think we eat. There was a lot of ketchup involved.

Costa Rica  ·  2016

First time speaking Spanish with locals and getting chased up a hill by cows.

My first trip abroad, 2016, with my Spanish class. My best friend was also in the group (woohoo!), and for the first time I got to actually immerse myself in a foreign language. Incredible experience with one caveat: my bestie and I were walking back up a hill through what we were told was a pen of cows or goats that were used to people walking through. Two boys at the top of the hill yodeled down at us. The animals started charging. My lungs, seizing the opportunity to be dramatic, launched into an asthma attack as we sprinted up a steep incline. I survived the cows. I never found my inhaler. I also had the best strawberry I've ever had at the local market.