Coconut and I are currently on an Amtrak back to Boston, and we just passed the most beautiful stretch of reddish-orange trees. New England fall is truly a sight to behold. I can’t wait to light the pumpkin-vanilla candle I’d purchased right before this trip the second I get home. 🎃

Sooooo where’ve I been? This is my second international trip in two months, and to be honest, I’m kinda traveled out! (Though I still have two more domestic trips before the end of the year…) In August my boyfriend and I went to the Netherlands and Belgium, where we visited Amsterdam, Ghent, Bruges, and Brussels. Of the four cities, my favorite was Amsterdam, closely followed by Ghent. Things that stick out in my mind from the trip, even several weeks later, include:

• Amsterdam’s incredible biking infrastructure. Bike lanes were everywhere, and people were out and about even in the rain! Even though I’m impressed with Cambridge and Somerville’s bike lanes, these were next-level.
• The Anne Frank museum. I’d re-read her diary in preparation for this trip and am so glad I did. Seeing the Annex in person, especially noting how claustrophobic and dark it was, was really impactful. I don’t think I’d ever cried at a museum before this visit.
• How underrated Ghent is. It’s such a beautiful and dynamic city! We did a free two-hour walking tour that taught us so much about its history. (Note to self: do more walking tours in the future!)
• How overrated Bruges is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very pretty city. It’s UNESCO World Heritage protected, so it’s been very well preserved. But it was also extremely crowded and tourist-y, which made it feel too hectic for my taste.
• The EU Parliamentarium. My boyfriend is really interested in history and politics, so this was very much his jam. I honestly knew close to nothing about how the EU worked or why it was formed, but I walked away with a much better understanding of its importance (and of why Brexit was a REALLY BIG DEAL).

A few photos from the trip: a bridge in Bruges, what is now a shopping center (!?!) in Ghent, Belgian waffles, and some quintessential canal pics in Amsterdam.

The second international trip, aka the one I’m coming back from now, was to Dublin! It was my first work trip ever, and my team used the week to map out our strategic plays for the coming year. Most of the time was spent in the office, but I managed to do a little bit of exploring outside of our work sessions. We’d apparently gotten pretty lucky with the weather (it only rained one out of five days), and in general everyone was super friendly. Also, Irish accents are SO fun to listen to.

Below are a few snapshots from Dublin: a bookstore promoting Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo (the UK cover is so different from the American one!); a reading break at a coffee shop with some hot cocoa (the book I was reading was coincidentally set in Dublin — I’d randomly picked it from a Little Free Library back home); the office of the Taoiseach (pronounced “tay-shuh”), which is the Irish word for the prime minister; a beautiful park; and a quintessential overcast selfie.

While this trip was tiring — ’twas a combo of working, jet lag, and still needing to tend to grad school at night — I’m still immensely grateful for it. I feel a lot closer to my teammates now that we’ve spent some in-person time together, and I’m actually really pumped to execute on the plans we’ve laid out. I also learned a neat professional insight about myself during the summit, which was that I don’t enjoy UX/UI design as much as I thought. I’d always imagined myself as an ~artsy~ person who did, but I found the customer-focused “design thinking” exercises we did throughout the week not only difficult, but also not….fun, personally. There was a lot of sketching, iterating, and on-the-fly brainstorming involved, and I really struggled to keep myself fully engaged.

This doesn’t mean I won’t strive to become a better visual designer, as it’s absolutely a skill worth developing. But it was a neat reminder of what type of design I do enjoy: technical design. The idea of designing a system that accomplishes XYZ continues to interest me, and I felt some joy realizing that my current role strengthens that muscle specifically.

In terms of trip logistics, I’d flown in/out of NYC for both international trips so I could drop Coconut off with my sister. In this last trip he apparently went on a hunger strike for days, blatantly refusing his kibble (which, for the record, he was fine with just a week ago), so she was forced to roast him some chicken so he didn’t starve… his stubbornness and fickleness truly have no bounds. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Aside from lighting my aforementioned pumpkin candle, my plans for when I’m back are to simply relax and reset. I’m looking forward to unpacking (I prefer to do this immediately), re-stocking my fridge, and doing a low-key activity with a face mask on, like starting a re-watch of Gilmore Girls or updating my book journal (or both!). There’s actually a lot of new entries to add to the latter: I finished six books in September, which was by far my best reading month of the year. I genuinely think most of this can be attributed to my almost yearly re-read of Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, which happened early on in the month. Afterwards I became more intent on lowering my screen time and engaging in what Newport calls “high-value leisure,” which to me meant reading, doing fiber arts, cooking, and playing with Coconut.

Avoiding solitude deprivation — i.e. not turning to a podcast, video, email, or *gasp* book whenever I’m bored — continues to be Newport’s trickiest point of advice for me to implement. I like media and think it’s genuinely fun (who doesn’t!?), but boredom has so many benefits. My sister and I were discussing this very point a few hours ago, in response to a harrowing article about incoming college students not being able to read books. Growing up, the two of us used to “make movies in our head” when there was nothing else to do. As in, we’d just close our eyes and imagine our own films — it was a bit out there, sure, but it was also creative. While the article was about kids reading less, not the importance of spending more time by ourselves, these points are related because being able to handle boredom or a slow burn (as the case with reading) is a skill developed when we’re not constantly consuming content. So while I’m thrilled to be an avid reader, I’m also trying to not just swap one solitude-depriving habit with another.

And thaaaat’s enough of my Cal Newport-fueled soapbox lol. We’re in the final stretch of this Amtrak ride now, so I’ll end the post with some non-travel-related snapshots from the past couple months: Coconut snoozing on my lap while I took meetings; a roasted strawberry-lime cheesecake and sour cream-and-chive pull-apart rolls I made with a friend; a neat leaf in the midst of its autumn transition (nature is wild); and a very fall outfit I wore to an afternoon at the library.

✌️