Life with Caitlyn - Travel Archives

Visiting Toronto in the Winter: A Guide

January 27, 2019

Back in the beginning of the month I took a little road trip up to Canada with my boyfriend. We went to Toronto and also hit Niagara Falls on the way, but I’ll leave that out of this post.

When I lived in Washington, I was actually always about three-ish hours away from the Canadian border all the time and I never went. So 2019 was the year I was going to make it happen! And here we are now.

Dealing with Toronto’s Winter Weather

Knowing that we were traveling in the dead of winter, I took precautions and reached out to people who had been to Toronto. Everyone told me the city is extremely windy so I was ready for that with mittens, ear wrap, bulky scarves, thick socks, and thermal undershirts. With all that, I was never really cold. It was usually like my thighs and face. Kyle somehow survived with a wicking turtleneck, thermal and sweatshirt. Although he did always complain about being cold.

It snowed while we were there, but it never stuck. Because of this I was able to get by wearing whatever shoes I wanted and not have to worry about slipping and sliding everywhere.

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What You Can Do with 12 Hours in NYC

November 25, 2018

I honestly never thought I would go to NYC. But then I visited Kat in New Jersey in October and realized NYC was just a short train ride away and if I went that I could meet Gabby from The Swirl and mark off one more state from my bucket list!

While planning this trip Gabby asked me what I wanted to see and I think I gave her a list of like three things: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Flatiron and Central Park. To which she told me may not be possible since they are all so far apart. Well, wrong!! We ended up hitting 13 landmarks over 12 hours in two days. The first day I was with Kat and Gabby and the second day I was by myself.

So where can you make it with 12 hours in New York City?

Oculus & One World Trade Center

Kat and I took the PATH into World Trade Center Station from Newark Penn Station so I knocked two things off really quickly. She was surprised to see that the Oculus was completely empty when we got there. But then again, it was like 7:30am on a Sunday. And it was certainly crowded when we left that evening. The Oculus reminded me of the Scottish National Museum in Edinburgh actually.

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What Attending the Grace Hopper Celebration Taught Me

October 7, 2018

I had no idea the Grace Hopper Celebration existed until I saw Abigail talk about it last year on her blog. And I had no idea the scope of it until I showed up to the keynote at the Toyota Center in Houston and they said there were over 20,000 attendees.

Since I am in tech, and I didn’t know what GHC is, I’ll break it down a bit just in case you aren’t sure what it is either!

What is Grace Hopper?

Grace Hopper is a yearly conference put on by AnitaB.org to celebrate women in technology and provide them with more resources to succeed and get careers. Over the course of three days, thousands of women, and men, attend sessions, hear inspiring people speak about their stories in tech, explore the massive company expo, and go to events sponsored by large companies like Google, Twitter, and Snapchat.

I thought it was just a career expo and sessions, so I was pleasantly surprised and empowered to see how scaled up the conference was.

The only reason I was able to attend GHC was because I got a scholarship through AnitaB. I applied back in January and found out in May that I was awarded one! The scholarship paid for my flights, hotel, food, and transportation which was legit. If you want to attend GHC, but don’t have the means to, please apply for a scholarship! I didn’t think I would get one, and neither did a lot of the other scholars I talked to, so you never know! Read more…

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What Traveling Abroad Taught Me About Life

September 9, 2018

This post has been long overdue. I’ve had a sticky note with a rough draft of the key points written out for about four months and have been home for three and a half. So like I said, long overdue.

Plus, I wasn’t sure if people were still interested in my study abroad experience since it ended months ago, but a quick Twitter poll convinced me otherwise. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter to have a say in future posts!

So as the title of this suggests, I’m going to be talking about what I learned while studying abroad. And honestly, it’s more general than that, and all that I’m going to talk about could easily be applied to any trip abroad I’d think. So whether you’re going to be living in another country for a week or for four months, reading this post might help you prepare for the mindset you’re going to be in while there, when you’re back and what to expect in general.

Since I have had a lot of time to think about what’s going to go into this post, it’s going to be long. And maybe a little emotional. You’ll just have to keep reading to find out.

Going to Europe, going outside the country for the first time, or studying abroad, whichever you want to say caused it, changed me and made me want to make some changes to my life when I returned to the states. Some of these changes were good and affected me positively, while others made my mental health take a dive either while abroad or when I came back. Other things I learned didn’t want me to make changes to my life, they just shifted my outlook and view on life.

We really are the same

Everyone obviously has different traits and personalities and ways of doing things and accents and ways of life and appearances, but as cheesy as it sounds, we really are just human.

Having never been out of the country before, anytime I would meet a foreigner or study abroad student, I was always fascinated by them. And I remember my classmates being the same in high school – always fawning over the new kids from Europe, Asia, Australia or where ever they were from. Read more…

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