Humans of Oxford: Michael Braegor Strickley--Trouble in Thailand
By Nate Schwartz | April 18, 2017Michael Braegor Strickley and his friends worked two jobs for over a year, saving up to afford the pre-college trip of their dreams.
Michael Braegor Strickley and his friends worked two jobs for over a year, saving up to afford the pre-college trip of their dreams.
Ryan Terhune, Photo Editor
U.S. Route 89 in northern Arizona is just like most highways in the American Southwest -- barren, dusty, cutting through a vast desert expanse dotted with pale green shrubs and the occasional cactus. Unlike my hometown north of Boston, where the suburbs fill the map like a geographic jigsaw puzzle, this area is hauntingly unpopulated, the roads stretching for miles in between cities with names like Wahweap and Lechee.
As I stood outside the gates and peered through the bars of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the White House appeared a lot smaller than I expected it would be. For all the hype and hoopla the famous mansion holds in the grandeur of its name and history the actual size of the place was underwhelming.
CARTAGENA, Colombia -- Starting at 6 a.m., "The People's Market" is full of a lot of things: a variety of mostly-unappealing smells, obscure and nameless (well, nameless in English) fruits and native Cartagenos buying their groceries at bargain prices.
SANTIAGO, Chile -- The application closed in less than an hour. Several setbacks had held me back all semester, and now circumstances were hinged on less than 60 minutes. I pulled out my laptop and quickly filled out the application, letting out a sigh of deep relief when I clicked "submit" seven minutes before the application closed. All I could do then was wait.
As I struggled up the side of Blood Mountain, wheezing, barely able to breathe under the pulsing heat of the midday sun, I began to cry.
JOeKULSARLON, Iceland -- I'd never seen icebergs before. I'd always imagined them covered in penguins or polar bears, layered with lazy seals and sea lions, resting. But at Joekulsarlon, an icy lagoon at the base of Iceland's Brei\0xF0amerkurjoekull Glacier, quiet pieces of ice floated bare, decidedly devoid of life. Some pieces, nearly sapphire blue in the haze of the falling snow, cracked and groaned ominously.
From the base of an Icelandic glacier to a peak in the Appalachian Mountains, writers at The Miami Student captured their spring break travel experiences, both in words and photos.
I'd been in Europe for two weeks, and I still hadn't had that wow moment. The moment that's supposed to jump out at you and say, "Hey! You're in another country! Isn't this amazing?"
Rome has two sides.
Gondola rides, watercolor sunsets and trying to say 'sorry'
I saw him look at me out of the corner of my eye before he spoke.
By Devon Shuman, Culture Editor
By Audrey Davis, News Editor
By Hannah Fierle, Staff Writer