Tourists Don’t Know Where They’ve Been,

Travelers Don’t Know Where They’re Going.

(Paul Theroux)

            As a teenager, most of my traveling (besides the annual family vacation in Austria and once in Italy) was thanks to soccer. My first plane ride ever was going to Latvia with the regional selection team. The year after, I went to Turkey with my club team. And it was also my club soccer team that first brought me to the USA when for two consecutive years we participated in the Dallas Cup in Dallas, TX. The highlight of “soccer traveling”, though, was certainly the trip to Kazakhstan in 2003 with the state selection team!

        The first non-soccer related trip came only in spring 2006, after finishing my undergrad and before starting grad school. I took the time to spend two months by myself in South America and then meeting up with several friends to spend another month in Central America (Follow the links to see some pictures). Despite being slightly nervous about the trip ahead of time (I didn’t speak any Spanish!), it turned out to be a fantastic experience - and I’ve been trying to travel more ever since.

        Since then I have taken a few roadtrips in Europe (Germany-France-Barcelona, Germany-Switzerland-Italy, and within Italy), added some travel in Southern India after a friends wedding there, and lived in Doha, Qatar, including a trip to Dubai and Lebanon. I hope to fill the missing parts of the map, mostly Africa and Australia, soon!