My most common refrain on the Dolomites segment of my Euro trip 2022 was: "It's so beautiful!!" After meandering through the entire country of Slovenia, we tucked ourselves in for an early night in Cortina d'Ampezzo, the cute town that formerly hosted the Winter Olympics (and will run it back in 2026).
Everyone is sleeping on Slovenia! It is one of the best places I've ever been. It's SO picturesque and doesn't feel touristy at all. The food is amazing, too!
I kicked off the start of my pre-MBA era with six weeks of travel in Europe. We are so back, baby!! After an extremely eventful end to my pre-MBA working life (in which I contracted COVID for the only time and had to miss the company offsite, including a going-away spa retreat from my team...), I convinced my closest pals to escape to Europe with me with some snazzy decks.
During this period, I was weirdly living a dual life: I spent half my time traveling out and about as though COVID were a distant memory (with friends or for work), or completely entrenched in an antisocial hermit life back home in Mississauga. Fear not, come summer 2022, things on this blog will go back to regularly scheduled programming.
In late 2020, I fell DEEP down the BTS rabbit hole. Thanks to my active contributions to the /r/bangtan subreddit, I lucked out and was able to purchase Day 2 tickets to their short four-day Permission to Dance concert in LA (which they then brought to Vegas and Seoul for similar stints). This was like the Eras tour before Taylor Swift dreamt of it: a "greatest hits" concert that compiled all of BTS's COVID-era releases and served as their pre-military sendoff. I was so thankful to see BTS at this time in my life, when they were most important to me. As the saying goes, BTS is there when you need them the most. And during the COVID lockdown era, boy, did I need them!
In 2019, a lot of my closest friends lived in San Francisco. With just one Bubble Republic planning session, Steph and I decided to book flights for an ambitious road trip with Cora in and around the Bay area (IN A TESLA!!).
Is there anything more idyllic than summer in Chicago? Just like 2017, I made my way back here for a Women's conference for the Great Lakes region.
After a delightful time in Seoul and Jeju, the last stop on my 2019 Korea trip was Busan! We had trouble finding our Airbnb at first, and were told we need to speak Korean in Korea. I felt affronted at the time, but I've come around to the logic.