Hey Mom, look! I made a blog!

Like most people in the 21st century, there are a few blogs I follow religiously. Whether it’s reading about someone’s travels, how to travel (executive citicard, here’s to you), a great new recipe, or even just a growing family, I love being invited into someone else’s world and getting a glimpse of their life. I’ve decided this is the year I stop observing and start doing, so lookie here, my very own blog! This will be fairly varied–a lot of travel (and how to do it on a tight budget), some career stuff, life stuff, flat stuff, whatever.

To start, I guess I should introduce myself. My name’s Kristen. I’m from Boston, and pretty proud of it – I don’t know if you know, but we have the best sports teams in the world and the 2014 Patriots won the Super Bowl on my birthday.

I went to Emerson College, where I studied writing and psychology. During my sophomore year I spent a term studying in London. That was my first time abroad, and one of the most influential experiences in my life – it completely opened the world for me (like the world was wide open, wink wink). In addition to the travel I did while I was in the UK, I also made a great group of friends who, for some insane reason, let me crash on their couches for months at a time (and also once from a mattress literally stolen out of a dumpster), allowing London to become a kind of a second home.

After university I moved to Los Angeles, where I got a job working at a talent agency. Jobs at agencies are supposed to be the literal worst – think Lloyd on Entourage, Anne Hathaway in Devil Wears Prada, or Ryan Reynolds in The (great and amazing) Proposal. However I got pretty lucky and had an amazing boss – that, plus being thrown into a working environment filled with other recent post-grads made my move to a new city relatively easy. I worked there for about a year and a half, and spent the following few years working with writers on various TV shows – Emerald City, Marco Polo, and the final season of The Leftovers.

After about five years in LA, my wanderlust took over and I realized that instead of sitting behind a desk dreaming about all the trips I wanted to take, it was time to make a move. I applied to teach English in Spain, and in September of 2016 I moved to Logroño, a small city in northern Spain. That was easily one of the best years of my life, and I’d absolutely love to live in Spain again someday.

After Spain I spent about a year and a half living in London, before an amazing career opportunity took me to Fort Dauphin, Madagascar, where I spent six months working on developing and early implementation of an SRH and HIV project in rural villages around FD. From there I moved back to London, bought a flat, moved into an officer position in one of the leading SRHR INGOs in the world and currently work with our Myanmar, Afghanistan, China and Mongolia country programmes. I love my job.

I also love JFK, chocolate, and my cat, (Tom) Brady.  And sometimes pilates.

I’m not sure exactly how this will go or what it will be, but I’m pretty excited to find out!