What a wild whirlwind it has been the past couple of days between flying from Minneapolis to Torino, meeting the fellow travelers from my Greenheart Travel Group, and moving into my new host familia. I have been in Italy a wee bit over 24 hours and I can confidently say that the pizza here was love at first sight. My friend Jennie and I were rather tired from the 2 flights we had been on but I think jet lag has not got the best of me yet. I am waiting for that. So our flight went fairly fast with movies, sleeping, and eating. We flew Attalia airlines into Milan and I was happy to see that wine was a complimentary drink offered on the plane. Instead of pretzels/peanuts the Attalia airlines offer a small a ... read more

A weekend get away is one that will often "refresh" you from the chaos of everyday life. This past weekend our family and some friends headed to Northern Wisconsin for a stay at Lakewood Resorts. Located in Cable, WI, this is a family friendly area on the lake offering condos with full kitchens :) We took advantage of the full kitchens and cooked dinner a couple nights on our stay there. It's nice to have a unit with a kitchen because it allows eating at a low-cost for a large number of people. Some people have the idea of get away as absolutely no cooking at all. I see your point--but think about some of the quick easy meals you can do in the kitchen. One night we made frozen pizzas and another night we had ... read more

Tin foil dinner, smore's and hot dogs on the campfire. That's what I call a true summer in Minnesota weekend. I spent this past weekend near St. Cloud Minnesota on a tubing and camping adventure with my cousin, Heather. This adventurous weekend was proof that you can have a "vacation" yet still be so close to home. Less than a 2 hour drive away from the Twin Cities, we went tubing at Two Rivers. It was fairly cheap as well--just 10$ to rent the tube for a ride down the river. Let me tell you however--this is no relaxing ride. There was no waiver to sign, they simply drop you off on the side of the road and off you go into the River, which some people think will be a relaxing lazy ride. With the ... read more

Ahalon (Hello in Arabic) and welcome to the final (big) blog of my journey in Israel. I’ve been having mixed feelings about going back home because over the past few days I’ve had thoughts of extending my stay here to live and work on a Kibbutz, but it seems that to do this you need advanced planning. So, it’s not possible for this journey but I will make it happen in the future very soon. A kibbutz is a community of people living and working together; and people from many places come to volunteer on them for 2-6 months. It’s on my travel-to list without a doubt. Over the course of the past two days I have been to the South of Israel, Eilat, and crossed to border from Israel into Jordan to go to Petra. ... read more

Prepare yourselves for a blog of Jerusalem, a walk through history of food, culture, and religion! I am thrilled to finally get myself to Jerusalem on Monday....I took a train there. When I told a few local Israelis I was taking a train there, the reaction was "There's a train that goes to Jerusalem?!" News to them, there sure is. However, it turns out that the train is not the preferred mode of transportation for the locals....bus is the preferred mode and here's why; time. The train takes nearly double the time the bus takes. This is because the train takes a scenic route along the mountainside verses a straight ride down the high way. I enjoyed the train ride on the way there--it was a beautiful view, and a nice way to see Jerusalem from ... read more