Sophie À La Carte!

Okay, so I've been the ultimate procrastinator on this blog post. I started it on the train from Paris to Milan ( sound familiar? ) and am writing the bulk of it at a cafe in Ljubljana, Slovenia, two and a half weeks later. However, in my defense I've been fully immersed in traveling and hanging out with my mother, and eating as much gelato as possible. Who has time for blogging? I started this leg of my adventure by flying from Bucharest to Paris. It was a bittersweet departure; I had really enjoyed my time in Romania and made and strengthened a lot of friendships while there. When people ask me what my favorite country I've visited is, the answer is Romania. Such great friends, hospitality, food, and nature! Fortunately, I believe I'll be heading back to Romania in June, so it wasn't goodbye forever!  Sainte Chappelle in Paris It had been about 7 months since I was last in France. I was there at the start of my journey, working at American Villag...

I'm interspersing this post with pictures of my most recent Romanian adventures in lieu of writing about them outright. Voronet Monastery in Bucovina When I initially planned this trip, I thought I would be gone six months, max. Three months in France and Italy, three months in Eastern Europe, home. Then, I decided to add Turkey to the list. Then, I decided to add Spain and the UK and Central Europe. When I left the United States, I didn't have a deadline to go home, but just to see what happened. Since then, my plans have changed constantly. My Google Drive is littered with random timelines and budgets. How long can I go without running out of money? How many farmstays do I need to do in order to stretch out my more expensive travel days? In Cluj-Napoca I knew I'd need to start earning money again at some point. I also want the opportunity to live somewhere for a longer period of time, instead of hopping from country to country. I thought I could transition f...

The old saying goes, "all good things must come to an end," and I can definitely place my house-sitting time in Bod as one of those "good things" that I'm not quite ready to leave. When I left for my trip, I wasn't exactly sure what would happen after December. This awesome 2-month opportunity landed in my lap last fall, and it's been a great break from hopping from one city to the next and working on farms. View of an eastern part of Brasov One of the things that I miss most about my life back in the United States is routine- knowing when you're going to wake up each morning, when you're going to eat/work out/go to work/etc. Traveling has helped me worry less about routine, but throwing my backpack in a closet and sleeping in the same bed for two months has definitely filled some sort of yearning I had for consistency. I can wake up in the morning, drink my coffee, and know then pretty much what the rest of my day is going to be like....