Chernobyl 2018. This is the famous hallway connecting the Chernobyl reactor halls (Units 1-4) is known as the "Golden Corridor.” This is a long hallway with turbine halls on one side and reactor control rooms on the other. It once connected all for units, but now ends at Reactor 3.

Chernobyl 2018. A gas mask found in one of the buildings in Pripyat that I had the chance to explore. Masks like this were scattered throughout many of the sites I visited. Unfortunately, most of them were brought in by visitors over the years and aren’t original to the location. Still, they serve as an eerie reminder of the role this equipment played in protecting people during the cleanup.

Chernobyl 2018. Remnants of a periodic table found in the high school chemistry lab in Pripyat. Was this foreshadowing my future career in radiochemistry?

Chernobyl 2018. Hallway within the school buildings.

Chernobyl 2018. Many children’s toys were left behind when Pripyat was evacuated. Seeing them scattered and abandoned was an eerie reminder that even the youngest residents had to leave their whole lives behind.

Chernobyl 2018. Some of the reactor consoles within the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Chernobyl 2018. Some of the reactor gauges within the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Chernobyl 2018. There were many random children's toys abandoned when Pripyat residents left.

Chernobyl 2018. I visited several sites within the exclusion zone, including the Duga radar, which was an over-the-horizon system once used by the Soviet Union as part of its early-warning missile-defense network. The scale of it was staggering: nearly 500 feet tall and half a mile long.

Chernobyl 2018. Me with my Chernobyl guide, Julia.

Cinque Terre (Italian Riviera coastline)

Prague Castle

Eiffel Tower in Paris, France

Sainte Chapelle in Paris, France

City scape in Prague, Czech Republic

Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest, Hungary