Growing Global Citizens

I was inspired to create this with the Pope’s visit last weekend. Such a beautiful place!

What to do in Mérida, Mexico 🇲🇽

Mérida is having a moment right now because it’s a beautiful city, close to popular Mayan ruins, had great food and is safer than most other places in Mexico.

Have you been to Mérida?

This is once cultural difference that I still don’t understand. Window screens don’t really exist in Europe. Sometimes there will be thin curtains that you can close over a window or doorway, but in general everything is open which means bugs and specifically mosquitos can and do get in (and in Germany lots of bees). That being said, the mosquitos here are much smaller than the ones where I’m from in Wisconsin, so mosquito bites are not nearly as annoying.

But honestly, my number one wish, even more than air con is that Europe would adopt screens 🙏 😉.

Move abroad | living in Europe | Madrid

The Grand Palais is a gorgeous and often free art space in Paris. It has rotating exhibitions and the building itself is worth a visit!

I’ve been an international school teacher for most of my life and lived in seven countries. But now I’m trying to stay in Spain.

If you are thinking of moving to Spain or on a student visa and wanting to stay here, check out Hoply. Head to my bio for my affiliate link to set up a free 15 minute call with them to assess your options.

Move to Spain | Digital Nomad | American abroad

Antoni Gaudí had an audacious dream to build a church that would be the tallest in the world and bring people together. The Sagrada Familia has been under construction for 144 years and will take at least another 10 to finish.

But it’s one of the most beautiful and creative buildings I’ve ever seen and is worth the wait.

A good reminder to never stop dreaming, even if your dreams seem out of reach.

Did you know that Basque Country is actually in France, too? If you are in San Sebastián or even Bilbao, you can do a day trip to France.

This trip was easy to do with public transportation, and only cost €15 euros. Plus it was fun to get to ride a boat from one country to another!

Planning can be a bit confusing because of the city names in Spanish, Basque and French:
🇫🇷 Hendaye/ Hendaya
🇪🇸 Hondarribia/ Fuenterrabía / Fontarrabie

This is a lovely small-town day trip if you want to walk by the sea.🌊

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🥘 Looking for a fun food experience in Madrid? Mercado San Ildefonso is definitely a must!

It’s a food court with over dozen stalls selling different types of food from around the world, so everyone can order something they are sure to like. It’s got a fun indoor-outdoor vibe with different types of seating and a bar on the third floor.

It’s in the city center between Gran Via and Tribunal, making it easy to get to.

Save this video for your next trip to Madrid!

Santander is not a city frequented by most international tourists, but as the summers get hotter and hotter it is definitely going to get more popular.

In contrast with the dry and sunny Costa del Sol or areas of Andalucía, Cantabria is much more rainy and mountanous, but that also means it’s a lot more green, something I loved!

The population is under 200,000 and you can pretty much walk the whole city, making it nice for a relaxed weekend trip.

Have you been to Santander? Where else in Cantabria would you recommend?

Travel in Spain

🏛️If you’ve lived it Spain for a while, it’s probably time to learn a bit about the government of Spain (I was definitely a bit ignorant! 🙋‍♀️)

I had walked by the Senate many times and found out they have free tours, so I booked one and it was great!

Tours are only in Spanish though, so I wouldn’t recommend going if you don’t have an advanced language level or a friend that can interpret for you.

I loved that there was both a larger, modern place for plenary sessions and that they’ve kept the original chamber pretty much exactly the same.

The tour lasted about an hour, which was perfect. We also got to see the gorgeous library and learn some history through four historic paintings.