Category: Travel

Currently flying out of Chicago on my way to Las Vegas for IBM’s THINK conference after a long Saturday of St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Even though I’m from Chicago, yesterday was my first time watching the river get dyed green and crawling through bars of my favorite city.

Chicago had a lot of hype to live up to – And it did. My bar was set pretty high when I spent the holiday in Dublin, but it was great to have a reason to wear my Ireland rugby jersey again and see all of my best friends.

Many people ask me what Dublin was like on the day where America celebrates all things Irish. I usually can’t find words that do how Dublin celebrates the holiday justice. Pure Irish insanity. Lots of men dressed up in green suits. Bagpipes. Green. Worth the trip if going to Ireland in mid-March sounds lucrative to you.

As expected, Chicago was freezing. I had a few friends from work that are from Texas ask me what they should expect the weather to be. My answer was that it could either be snowing or 70 and sunny. Thankfully, it did not snow but I really could have used my Ireland scarf. I lent it to a friend who made the trip last year and it didn’t make it back – Probably at Temple Bar where it belongs.

Forget the Grand Canyon – Paradise Valley is the place to be in Arizona. I say this with a major bias based on my recent annual visit to my best friend’s family home that looks out at Camelback Mountain. Oftentimes you can go on vacation and feel like you never truly “got away.” For me, weekends here are definitely a retreat. There is something about a beautiful view, dear friends, and days without a schedule that put my mind in a state I don’t reach in most places.

While in town, we lounged by the pool as much as possible, ate and drank our way through Old Town Scottsdale, ordered a cinnamon roll bigger than my face, and hiked up Camelback mountain.

I also returned as a repeat customer to the Camelback Inn’s indulgent Sunday brunch. Mimosas flow while you pile your plate with everything from Alaskan crab legs to French macarons. There is no excuse to not gorge yourself. I recommend setting aside the rest of your day to digest.

Life. Changing.

Here are a few of the most savory barbecue spreads I’ve indulged in over the past year.

Lockhart Smokehouse

I’ll start with my favorite spot in the Bishop Arts District in Dallas.

TIP: Put the BBQ sauce in your mac n cheese. Or everything. You’ll thank me later.

Pecan Lodge

Located in Deep Ellum in Dallas. Plan ahead and go when there won’t be a line. If you don’t like planning ahead, I don’t recommend arriving ravenous because the anticipation of waiting in line might kill you. As a big fan of coleslaw (this is not something I like to openly advertise), I was a little disappointed in theirs, but I got through it by eating an uncomfortable amount of the mac ‘n cheese.

For my senior year spring break, I decided that I had spent enough weeklong vacations from school partaking in stereotypical college spring break activities and go spread some radical love with my college ministry.

With nearly 100 of my TCU & Christ Chapel Bible Church peers, I flew to Belize on what happened to be the inaugural Southwest flight to Belize at the Denver airport – which meant we were treated to Belizean treats and dancing before we even left the U.S.

Every morning and night I ate and prayed with wonderful humans. Every night we were invited to hang out on the pier to stare out at the ocean and sing about our Savior.

Have you come to the end of yourself? Do you thirst from a drink from the well? Jesus is calling.

When I travelled to Belize, it is an understatement to say that I was at the end of myself. I had been through a hellish 6 months and brought to what I thought was the end of myself. Life brought me to my knees and left me looking back wondering how things had gotten so bad – And why? It was during this time on the pier that I looked up. In awe at the stars and God’s ability to plant these Christ-following people in my life, I surrendered my heart to the Creator of all things. Give it to God. I don’t know if I’d ever cried such happy tears, especially under the circumstances I found myself in.

During the day, I was at the mercy of a school full of children who at some points literally drug me around their recess area. I got to ask them if they knew how much Jesus loved them and hear their unanimous “Yes!!!!!” before yelling more and running off. I spent some days away from the children digging irrigation trenches for the Feed-A-Child farm and trying to memorize scripture to distract myself from how much I was sweating. Time of my life.

At the end of the week before sunset, I walked into the ocean to declare my love and commitment to Jesus by getting baptized in front of the whole trip cohort. It was surreal and I felt a weight lifted from me when I came up for air. God is SO GOOD.

Title inspired by the name of our ridiculously affordable Airbnb in Oia Village – “The Dream.” They were not messing around. These are the very views that Odysseus once looked out at, nostalgic for his home.

My first day was met with unfortunate weather that also excited me – Winds had brought in Egyptian dust over the sea to coat each of us while we ventured out for gyros.

The second day brought clear skies and a need for speed. With just $20, we rented ATVs for 24 hours. For easily 8 hours, we sped around the island – up empty cliff side roads, across miles of beautiful beaches, and through Grecian neighborhoods. Only once did we need to stop and fill up for gas and it was with great reluctance that we head back to park them for the night at our place.

The people on this island were nothing short of wonderful. At every turn I was delighted. The food, the architecture, the views… I was in heaven. Especially when I stumbled upon this bookstore without knowing it’s tourist significance – Atlantis Books. I am a huge bookworm and had just had the quintessential book lover’s experience in Amsterdam where I picked up a book at our hotel’s “take a book, leave a book” shelf and happened to choose what I later found out is a famous novel by renowned Czech author, Milan Kundera.

 

Alone and without cell service, I successfully took a last minute flight to Lisbon, took a cab to the city center, got on a bus to Lagos, arrived in Lagos, figured out where my friends were staying despite lack of address and a very rough language barrier. By the time I arrived to our tiny oceanside Airbnb, I felt like I’d waged a war across the Portugal to get there — And it ended up being well worth it!

My parents would be so proud of me – I managed to stay up until the sunrise at Barceloneta Beach. Not a difficult thing to do when the clubs that line the beach stay open until 6AM. It was beautiful even on no sleep and hanging out with strangers. If there is one thing that makes me annoyingly introspective, it is any sunset or sunrise – And this one did me in.

Morocco marked my first trip away from my new home of Barcelona – Which actually sat above the Moroccan embassy. We were given firm no’s to snapping photos of the policemen, drank lots of Turkish tea, and found ourselves at the mercy of our tour guide hiking up the Atlas Mountains in flip flops.

The Riad we stayed at in Marrakech was easily one of the most beautiful hotels I stayed at while abroad for the price of a hostel. The owners were genuinely friendly and wanted to accommodate us in any way they could.

We had a guide walk us through the markets where we each bought sandals, spices, and photo ops with monkeys. Nighttime was spent with red wine, lamb, and couscous.

My favorite day was spent venturing outside of the city to cruise around on a camel and unknowingly hire a hike guide who ended up essentially tossing each of us up the Atlas Mountains while the call to prayer sounded. So. Cool. Even though my flip flops did little to support my feet and I slipped up & down the mountain the most of our group, it was a perfect day abroad. I was uncomfortable, a little scared, inconveniently unathletic, and loving every single minute.

After hearing the price to go skydiving in Interlaken, my friends and I decided to go paragliding instead. They drove us up to the top of a mountain, got us in our harnesses, and then suddenly I was running off a mountain being asked urgently by the experienced paraglider behind if I could “run faster.” Despite my lack of speed and apologetic “No…Ah!”, we made it up in the air and began our sail over the Swiss Alps. It was beautiful and oddly relaxing. Unless drifting hundreds of feet above solid ground only suspended in air by parachute plastic, reliant on intermittent winds scares you – I wouldn’t anticipate an adrenaline rush.

My instructor recommended I try it again in the summertime – To which I said yes and asked if he’d buy my plane ticket. The rest of my time in Interlaken was spent with two feet firmly on the ground – Taking in lots of Swiss cheese, Swiss chocolate, and time to appreciate the pristine scenery of Switzerland.

One of my favorite things about my visit to Switzerland was asking as many locals as possible to say my last name. While obnoxious, it was exciting to hear “Buchholz” pronounced correctly after 21 years of correcting teachers, friends, and basically anyone that has ever needed my last name for any reason.

While wandering around alone in Paris with no cell service or sense of direction, I stumbled upon my new friend Damien (pictured above) and thousands of French protestors marching down Le Republique. Just before landing in Paris, the government had announced a renewed state of emergency. I asked Damien why this mattered and he explained to me in impressively broken English that a state of emergency gives more power to police and administrative authorities. He described it as an “increasingly fascist political situation.” Damien’s banner reads “Committees against Le Pen” – Referring to Marine Le Pen, a French politician running for president representing The National Front – an increasingly popular and influential political group in France at the time with far-right learnings.

Later at a pregame with some of Franny’s new French friends, I asked how they felt about “Le Pen” and got quick responses that compared her to Hitler. I also found out that the French strongly oppose discussing politics while drinking – a social grace that should be introduced to the U.S.

While I didn’t make a trip back up the Eiffel Tower or revisit the Mona Lisa at the Lourve, I got a unique taste of Paris that I shared with my brilliant Turkish professor who has been lecturing about the rise of political parties, like the National Front, across Western Europe for the past 2 weeks. I also made a lone visit to the creepy depths of the Catacombs – ossuaries underneath Paris containing the remains of more than 6 million people. Creepy? Yes. Cool? Definitely.