After a confusing early-morning flight out of lreland (fueled by leftover Chinese food) we arrived in Frankfurt, Germany around 10 am. Next challenge: find Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe is the city where Brittany's new apartment is located. The problem? We didn't know the address of the apartment. Problem number two: almost everything in Germany is closed on Sunday and Monday was a holiday. When we were at our hotel in Ireland we were curious as to how we planned on getting food, blankets, pillows, etc. The only food we had on us was spaghetti and snickers bars. We joked that at a minimum, we could boil the spaghetti in the hotel coffee maker and make snickers pasta to take with us for our first few days in Germany. Fortunately, we didn't have to resort to such measures, as ... read more

After a delayed flight at LAX and a long sprint through the San Francisco airport (fueled by freeze-dried strawberries and Gardettos... breakfast of champions), I met Brittany (my travel buddy) at the gate to our flight to Ireland, where she was stalling the flight crew from closing off the boarding so that we could both make it on to the flight. The flight itself was pretty uneventful, we tried (but failed) to get some sleep. Good thing Aer Lingus had movies and games... they kept us pretty entertained for the duration of the 10-hour flight. We arrived in Ireland around 9:15 am and the weather was perfect! We caught the bus to our hostel (or so we thought) and ended up lost for the better part of an hour (we soon found out that Ireland is ... read more

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Today was jam-packed! In the morning, we set off to visit the Irazu Volcano. We were originally set to visit the Poaz Volcano but our tour guide decided that this would have a better view, as Poaz had clouds rolling in. On our way up the mountain, the bus stopped, as the guide had spotted an erupting volcano in the distance. This was awesome to see, as you could vaguely see the smoke and magma in the distance! When we reached our destination, we were settled right into a crater of the volcano. Apparently, the volcano hasn't erupted since the early 90's, but is still considered an active volcano. The area was beautiful, but almost martian-like (or what I would imagine Mars to look like). Venturing in further and exploring the area proved to be a ... read more

Today we headed out early, planning to visit two of Costa Rica's prisons. The goal of this trip was to get a grasp of the contrasts between this justice system and the United States justice system. There were absolute contrasts! We first visited an elderly prison. This prison was designed to keep the more vulnerable elderly population segregated from a general population. Upon entering the prison, I immediately noticed the lack of security that we were put through upon entering. We were briefly screened for weapons and then let into the prison in a large group. We were given a tour of the prison and then led to a classroom where a few of the staff spoke with us about the country's view on prisons and the actual prison itself. In viewing the prison, it seemed ... read more