International travel B.B. (Before Brian) / B.K. (Before Krisita)

Before our first international trip together to Jamaica, Brian and I had been on several international trips separately. Brian had the unique opportunity to serve as best man in a wedding in Uganda, Africa. I'll see if I can drag him on here to tell about that trip one day, because from what he has said, it was an experience of a lifetime.

Soon after we met, Brian went on a European backpacking trip with his sister and friends. He visited Vienna, Austria, Munich & Berlin, Germany, Prague, Czech Republic and Rome, Florence & Cinque Terre, Italy. I'm looking forward to the day when he takes me to Cinque Terre; the pictures are beautiful and apparently the fresh seafood and local wine are amazing.

My senior year of college I was lucky enough to participate in Florida State University's Global Sport Management study abroad program. I spent a week in Paris, France and four weeks in London, England. I was able to take weekend trips to Amsterdam, Netherlands and Dublin, Ireland. This was my first international trip and I really hadn't traveled much domestically at that point either. While the study abroad experience sparked my love of travel and desire to see as much of the world as possible, it also came with quite a scare.

After our week-long stay in Paris, our group boarded a train and headed to London on July 7, 2005. During our commute, we learned there had been multiple bombings on London's public transport system. I was terrified and very apprehensive about continuing the trip to London; I couldn't quite understand why we were headed into what felt like a war zone when we could simply return to the perfectly safe city we just left. However, since I was with a group I didn't have much of a choice. We continued on to London, only to be stranded at the train station for several hours upon our arrival because all public transportation was shut down. A van eventually came for our bags and we had to walk to our flats. I remember it being a beautiful day and thinking how perfect the experience would be had this vicious attack not occurred earlier in the day.

I contemplated going home early several times, especially after another bombing occurred two weeks later (this time however it was thankfully a failed-attempt). I again resisted the urge to hop on the next plane to the states, but at that point I did ban public transportation -- I either walked where I wanted to go or took a cab. I still have a fear when I use subway systems, but am slowing trying to get over it.

At the end of the day I am very happy I stuck it out in Europe and can honestly say I developed my passion for travel during those five weeks. I'm now hooked and get restless if I go too long without visiting a new city. Now, I have the best travel companion a girl could ask for! Brian and I have so much fun exploring new places together. Some day we'd love to end up on the Amazing Race, but I'm bad at using a map and I can't drive a stick, so I'm not sure how good of a teammate I would be... (That's another post though!)

As I mentioned earlier, mine and Brian's first international trip together was our honeymoon to Negril, Jamaica where we had an amazing time. More to come on that in the next post!