Ceol Éireannach

In the evening, when you stroll down the cobblestone streets of Ireland, you can hear the strains of fiddles, pipes, and guitars pouring out of the local pubs playing ceol Éireannach (Irish music in Gaelic). Last weekend, I took a trip to Ireland and went on a Traditional, or “Trad,” Irish Music pub crawl. Our …

As they say in Les Miserables: Who am I?

Who am I, you ask? Well, to make a long story short, my name is Katie Joachim and I am a rising senior at Hope College, studying Theatre and Creative Writing. Some of you may have seen me as the Baker’s Wife in Hope’s production of Into the Woods last fall. Currently, I am an …

Pick a Favorite?

Every Monday, the classroom is filled with chatter about what everyone did the previous weekend. “How did you like [insert city name here]?” “What did you do there?” “Oh, I loved/didn’t like that city” “What’s your favorite place you’ve been so far?” Of course I participate in these pre-class discussions. How could I not? The …

Fresh Air is Good for the Soul

Ever since I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, I’ve dreamed of living in a city.  Getting an apartment in New York or Chicago, taking public transportation to work every day; it all seemed like the dream. And living in London was the perfect trial run for it. Now, don’t get …

Take Some Time and Forget the Map

On day one of orientation here in London, our program put on the screen a list of several apps to help make sure we knew where we were going the next few days. There was a frantic rush as everyone grabbed their pen or pencil to scribble down the names, myself included. I was nervous …

Shetland Islands

The University of Aberdeen’s final exam schedule is spread out across three weeks. Because of this extended time frame, a few friends and I were able to fit a two-day trip to the Shetland Islands between studying for exams. The Shetland Islands are a group of islands north of mainland Scotland. We took an overnight …

Spring Break: London & Vienna

After finishing up WWOOFing throughout the UK, as I talked about in my last blog, Gabbi and I headed to London. We spent a day in London before flying to Salzburg, Austria and, then, taking a train to Vienna. London is a massive city filled with tons of things to do. So, what do you …

WWOOF – World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms

In my freshman year at Hope I had the opportunity to participate in an immersion trip that went and did some volunteer work in Jamaica over spring break. The trip had been advertised to me by a friend as an opportunity to experience all the benefits of a vacation while also doing some good for …

Concert in Glasgow

After spending nearly three weeks traveling around the UK and mainland Europe for the University of Aberdeen’s spring break, I arrived back at Aberdeen late last night. I rarely had reliable WiFi on the trip, so I had planned on submitting a few blogs about the trip today. When I went to do this; however, …

The Beast from the East

Hi everyone, Due to a couple of stressful weeks of classes, I haven’t gotten to posting in a while, so I have some catching up to do. Over the past few weeks, Scotland has been hit by a couple of snow storms. Although there was never more than 2 or 3 inches of snow on …