The Ghosts of June Present: 2016 Edition

It seems there's always something to worry about, isn't there? Worrying is one of those very human traits that we just can't seem to get rid of.

At about this time a year ago, I wrote a post about the random worries I'd been plagued with in the past, and how insignificant they seemed from where I was standing in June 2015.

Well, now that another year has gone by and June 2016 is over and done with, I feel like it might be nice to continue the trend of laughing at my silly past self. She wasted so much time worrying about such insignificant things that turned out just fine!  I'd also like to provide fodder for my future self to do much the same. I'll always have worries, but knowing that future me will be here laughing at them at this time next year (or in five years, or ten...) makes them seem less scary in the present, and it's always nice to be reminded of that.

So, Future!Alisa and Past!Alisa, this one's for you.

At this time last year, I was just about to leave Europe for the last time and make the big move back to the United States, for good. Understandably, I was rather nervous about this. I had no job lined up and no idea where I really wanted to live. I also had next to no money, and I was craving the stability that I'd been without since I'd moved away from home eight years before. These last two things, in particular, set the stage for where I find myself now, in June 2016. So did my worries about being jobless and homeless come true?

2016

I have just finished my first year as a Spanish teacher in my hometown in the States, and I'm currently on summer break. I'm spending my time planning a big trip to a new area of the world for me--Oceania! I'm very excited to finally be traveling abroad again after almost a full year of not leaving the USA. If I were to tell my teenage self that not quite ten years after making my great escape into the big wide world, I would find myself living not only in the town where I was born but also in the very house where I grew up, she would probably cry out in disbelief. Yet here I am. While it's never where I'd have pictured myself in a million years, I have to admit that it's not all that bad. A year ago I was craving stability, and it turns out that stability DOES feel really good. Having a steady job and not having to constantly stress about money is nice! Am I rich? No. Do I want to live in my parents' house forever? No way. But this year of being able to see my family and old friends whenever I want and not having to worry about moving halfway across the world or searching for a job was good for me, I think. This is the first summer in ten years that I haven't had to move myself and all my belongings between 2100km and 6700km (1300 and 4100 miles) across land and sea. Not having that kind of stress in my life has been really calming. While I'm still bursting at the seams with wanderlust, knowing that I have a steady home and job to come back to makes the idea of traveling seem more like fun and less like work!

Struggles: Trying to plan a long vacation in some of the more expensive countries in the world without spending ALL my savings, making new lesson plans for next year that improve upon those from this year (and they say that teachers have the whole summer off, pfft)

Fears: That I will crash into another car while trying to drive on the WRONG side of the road in Australia or New Zealand and kill someone à la Matthew Broderick except that I am NOT Ferris Bueller and will most certainly go to jail for my crimes (paranoid much?), that I will never meet an interesting gentleman caller in my tiny hometown where most people my age are married and/or do not share my main passions in life (namely, travel and foreign cultures)

Hopes for the next year: To find a way to move out on my own again, to join clubs and activities where I will meet interesting people in my town and make some new friends, to practice my foreign language skills more so they don't atrophy

So there we have it, the ghosts of June Present: 2016 Edition. I'm just as much of a worrywart as ever, but I also feel more equipped than ever to handle my problems with aplomb. For most of these issues, I know the solutions, I just have to find the right time and place to employ them. It's certainly easier than facing the great wide unknown. What a relief!

Alisathome Answers Travel Questions

In all honesty, I've thought a lot about laying this blog to rest over the past few months. After all, I'm no longer abroad, so it seems a little silly to keep writing in a blog called Alisabroad. Wouldn't a more appropriate name be Alisathome?

Alisathome's adventures are a bit more *ahem* tame...like exercise in the woods!

If I'm no longer an expat having international adventures, how can I maintain a blog devoted to them? Is there really any point in trying? Mightn't it be better to just give up? Wouldn't I seem like a fraud?

And yet, it seems a shame to just abandon something that I've been working on for over 6.5 years, especially when I feel like I had just been starting to find my voice and connect with other people.

But if I were to decide to keep writing, about past adventures, about potential future adventures, or even about life in the United States (which I do realize, IS 'abroad' for most of the world, and still feels pretty damn foreign to me after all these years away), I'd have to first get over something. For the past few months, I've been continually wrestling with that mean little voice in the back of my head that says "You're not that good of a writer anyway. Quit bothering people with your whiny expat stories, because no one wants to hear your humblebragging. That life is over now. Get used to it."

On the best of days, that voice is no more than an annoying whisper that I can easily tune out. But when I'm feeling low and not sure that the decisions I've made were the right ones, it screams in my ear with force enough to knock me off my feet.

And lately, that terrible voice has been roaring at me with gale force winds, and I've spent most of my time falling arse over teakettle, trying desperately to stand back up again and usually failing.

Is it any surprise, then, that I haven't had the courage to blog about my transition back to living in the United States? That I abandoned my resolution to blog once a week, every week, all year long? That instead I haven't written in over four months?

And to be honest, I could have just slunk away quietly and pretended that this blog had never existed, that I didn't care about giving up on it entirely. But instead, I'm dragging myself back up and writing this right now because I have the support of some great friends. I can't pretend to be that wonderful of a long-distance friend (or in-person one, for that matter), as I continually forget to respond to emails and texts for weeks at a time and get so wrapped up in my own stuff that I don't reach out to people when I should.

Luckily, not everyone out there is like me. I have some wonderful friends who won't let me fall off the radar, accidentally or otherwise, and for that I am so grateful. There have been numerous lovely people reaching out to me while I've been burrowed away in my little personal cocoon these last few months, but there is one in particular to thank for my trying blogging again, and that's Linda from Indie Travel Podcast.

Me and Linda at about this time last year

Linda was one of my work buddies last year in Alcalá de Henares, and I was delighted the day that I learned that she and her husband Craig were travel bloggers, like me! Of course, their podcast is all, like, famous and really really good and stuff and I'm still too lazy to bother to do a lot of things that bloggers are "supposed" to do, but whatever. As fellow members of the international travelers' club, we formed a bond that I still look back on fondly.

Linda wrote a blog post a few weeks ago about 10 awesome female bloggers. As I was reading it one day during my lunch break at work, I found my name on the list, and I was quite touched. She then wrote me a message saying that she hoped I would continue blogging as she'd missed reading my updates since I stopped. Although I still struggled with silencing my fears, I felt like I owed it to her to keep writing. If nothing else, I had to at least answer the questions she'd put out on that post, being that I was so honored to have made her list at all!

So that's what I'm doing today, answering her ten questions about traveling and hoping doing so will help to quiet that jerk of a voice in the back of my head. Perhaps her little prod may end up being to blame for starting me blogging regularly again! As they say at Hogwarts, "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus," never tickle a sleeping dragon. ;-)

So without further ado, Linda's travel questions and my answers.

Questions: 

1. Why do you travel?

I travel because I can't think of anything else I would rather do. Because the world is so big and interesting, because I love to learn about anything and everything, and because I have a ridiculously long list of places I haven't seen yet (not with these eyes). It's a yearning, it's a passion, and it's the only thing I ever think of when I get asked "What would you do if you won a million dollars?"

Nothing makes me feel more alive than experiencing new parts of the world!

2. Suitcase or backpack? 

When I move abroad to live for a year or longer, I usually take one of each. But once I get there, for all my trips I take a Patagonia 30L backpack, which I am quite talented at stuffing to the brims and still getting on Ryanair flights for free.

3. What luxury item do you take with you? 

I'm a pretty bare-bones traveler, especially because the majority of my trips are of a duration of two months or less before I check in at my home base (wherever in the world that may be at the time). I can't fit a lot besides basic clothes and toiletries in my tiny backpack, but the one "unnecessary" (except to my mental health) item I always have is my daily journal. I go nowhere without that. Quite often, I also have a paperback book to read when my phone's battery is dead, and I have, on occasion, backpacked with my laptop (although that brings the weight of my poor little backpack WAY up).

4. Who do you like to travel with? 

This is actually a really hard question. Without a doubt, the people I have traveled the MOST with are my parents, but, with no offense meant to them, the way I travel with them is rather different from how I travel on my own. There are a lot of improvements, of course, but I also miss out on some more "funky" things I would do if all by myself. Actually, probably the majority of my travels at this point have been totally solo, but while that can be really amazing, it can be really lonely too, especially for someone as shy as me. I've had some really good trips with different friends, but I'd say I'm still looking for that perfect travel partner. In a perfect world, I suppose it would be whoever I end up marrying someday!

Again, not at all to diss traveling with my parents...we had a blast in Estonia this past summer!

5. What’s great about your hometown? 

It's kind of funny to be asked this question, since right now I'm actually living back in my hometown for the first time since I was 18. I have lots of memories here, but I'm currently struggling to figure out what it might have to offer someone in their mid-twenties who's traveled the world and come back again. There are a few new interesting places that have opened up since I left, including some craft breweries, and even when I was younger I loved visiting the local Japanese gardens.

6. Do you ever feel tired of traveling? 

Absolutely. I've learned that I'm not really cut out for long-term travel because after a certain point in long trips I get tired of packing up my things and changing locations. I even start to feel like every destination looks the same! At these moments, all I want is a lazy day alone at home in my pajamas watching movies on my computer! There are ways to combat this travel ennui while on the road, of course, but it's also good to know how you travel best, and for me that's in shorter spurts.

7. What’s the most challenging thing about travel?

Probably how difficult it can be to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. Learning how things work in other places is part of the joy of travel too, but when you're already worn out from a full day of travel, just trying to find somewhere decent to eat can seem like a huge mountain to climb. And that's not to mention dealing with rude and intolerant people, language barriers, currency issues, strange opening hours, difficult-to-read train timetables, or immigration paperwork.

8. Tell me about a moment when you felt really happy. 

Hmmm....when I was backpacking around Morocco during Semana Santa 2013 with a group of Spanish friends, we ended up hiring a local guide to take us around Fez's medina, since it was almost impossible to navigate on our own and we were tired of being harassed by locals trying to sell us things. After doing a fantastic job all day long taking us to the most interesting places around town, he invited all four of us to his family home for dinner. That evening was one of the most enlightening experiences of my life, and I remember feeling so very lucky that a family who cooked all of their meals on a hot plate was generous enough to share what little they had with four people they had never seen before in their lives. We ate without utensils, we laughed, they taught us how to dance using mainly our shoulders, and I was so happy that I got to experience such a unique and special moment.

Delicious tea in our Moroccan guide's home

9. What have you only recently learned about travel or about yourself? 

I've said for a long time that I will eat literally anything, at least once. But I recently learned while in Mexico this summer that I just CANNOT do spicy breakfast. It seems like a weird thing, but I kept saying over and over to my Mexican friend "But does EVERY meal have to be spicy? Even BREAKFAST??" Nope nope nope. That early in the morning, I only want coffee with cereal, bread with butter and jam, pancakes, waffles, etc. No salt, and please god no habanero peppers.

10. Which travel destination would you love to go back to? 

You mean besides wanting to move back to Vigo? Well, there are so many places I'd like to see more of, even in countries I know well. The UK will always have more things for me to see (if you're tired of London you're tired of life, after all), there are so many places I'd still like to go in France, and there are even a few places left on my Spain wish list. I guess if I have to pick just one I'll say Iceland, because I feel like I was only there for a hot second, and the whole time I was limping and kind of miserable due to a misfortunate incident at the Blue Lagoon, so it kind of needs a do-over.

If only travel were as easy as hopping in a blue police box...

Looks like I still have a lot of places left to get to (or get back to)! So here's to hoping that, despite being back Stateside for now, there are more travel adventures in my future...as well as plenty of ganas to write about them! 

Where Is Home?

I seem to have an innate inability to give a simple answer to a simple question.

What's your name? That depends on your native language, what country we are in, and the language we are currently speaking. Probably about half of my friends don't actually know my name, since I hate the way non-native English speakers mispronounce it. So I introduce myself in a more Spanish/French way, which is not my real name but sounds better to me than their butcherings. Bref, it's really /əlɪsə/. A homophone of Alyssa, not Elisa.

How many brothers and sisters do you have? How long have you got for me to explain it? It involves divorces and remarriages on both sides, and either way I answer it's confusing. In short, I grew up basically an only child, yet I still have a crapload of nephews and nieces.

Where are you from? Where are YOU from? My answer will depend greatly on that. Most times in my expat life, I say "near Chicago," but it's always really embarrassing when I meet another Illinoisian and they ask for more specifics. Ahem, how near is "near" to you?

And lately, I've been doing a lot of deep thinking about that last one. Not where am I from, but where is home? I have a hard time coming up with an answer, even a complicated one.

Is home the little town near Chicago where I was born and raised?

But I haven't lived there in 8 years. This past summer, I cleaned out and packed up the majority of my things from my childhood bedroom, knowing that I had officially moved on. My parents are going back to live where they consider home, up in Wisconsin. So although Northern Illinois is where I was raised, I'm not sure if it's home anymore.

Is home Alcalá de Henares, where I currently live?

As sad as it is, I've never felt particularly at home here in Alcalá. It's an all right town, I suppose, but I'm not very happy here. I don't feel very integrated into society, and I don't have a lot of friends. I'm not miserable, but I am rather bored. I'll be happy when my Master's degree is finished in a month and I can move on.

Is home Orono, Bilbao, Vigo, or Saint-Malo?

In the past 8 years, I've lived in 6 different cities. Just doing simple math, I think it becomes obvious that I haven't been able to stay in any of them very long. I've been a nomad for a long time, trying on different cities for size but moving on relatively quickly from all of them. There were things that I loved about all of these cities: Orono's student culture, Bilbao's alternative vibe, the friends I made in Vigo, the language I spoke in Saint-Malo. But were any of them home? I don't think I was able to stay long enough to find out.

I'm getting really tired of this itinerant life. I will always love traveling, but I'm not the type that can do it continually. My heart is bruised from being fractured into pieces every single time I move. I need a stable home to come back to at the end of a long journey. I want my comfy warm bed to fall into, my car in the driveway, and my long-term friends to meet for coffee the next day to share my stories with.

So right now, my task is to build that permanent home for myself. To find a place where I can stay legally and make it mine. The question is, where?

Back to Northern Illinois or some other part of the American Midwest, where my permanent ties still are? Where I speak the language and know the culture like the back of my hand? Where everything is easy? Where I've traveled more than anyone I know? Where I've felt like an alien when I've visited every summer for the past 8 years?

To some other part of the States? To explore something new and yet still be "at home"? To make a new part of the country my own? To still be at a great distance from my family, even after all these years of missing them?

To a new country? To learn a new language or dialect? To explore a new part of the world? To be in a place where I'm all alone, again? Where I still need a visa to stay? Where I'd have to learn a whole new set of cultural paradigms? Where I'm far from everyone I love?

These questions have been running continually through my head for months now, and I still have no clear answers. I've been trying to listen to what my soul is telling me, but it's coming through like garbled static on a badly tuned radio.

I heard a quote recently in one of my meditations that I really liked. It was from a man called Philip McKernan, and it went "In the absence of clarity, take action." He was saying that if you don't know what to do, just do something. Even if it turns out badly, at least then you'll know one more thing that isn't right for you!

So I guess that's the plan. I have no idea what's right or where my home should be. So until I do, I just have to take some action, any action, and hope for the best. I have one month left of living in Alcalá de Henares, and then...

Once more unto the breach!

My Changing Feelings About Spain

I think my feelings about Spain have run the gamut. I've hated it, I've loved it, I've wanted to leave tomorrow and I've wanted to stay forever.

When I first got here, more than anything else I was bewildered. I had no idea what this strange country was that I knew basically nothing about, where I all of a sudden found myself living, out of the weirdness of circumstances. 

Over the course of that first year, I learned more and more about the country, and more than anything else, I compared it with America and found it lacking. The service was slow, the prices were high, and I hated jamón. I was often miserable, homesick and feeling trapped with the host family from hell, who screamed at each other in front of me and criticised my Spanish until I cried.

I was so happy to leave at the end of my two semesters in Bilbao, and having my flight cancelled due to inclement weather and being stuck in airport limbo in Madrid for four days was the cherry on the cake. When I arrived home, I was thrilled to no longer be stuck in Spain.

However, following that was one of the most stressful years of my life thus far, as I was tirelessly writing my thesis, working towards graduating from university, and slowly ending things with my (then) boyfriend of four years. And during all of that, I often found myself daydreaming of Spain.

I saw Spain as the solution to all my problems, the escape to which I could get away when I graduated. I yearned for another opportunity to do a year in Europe (which I'd been dreaming of since I was a preteen) the right way. I craved another chance to realize those childhood dreams, and so I decided to go back when I graduated.

The second year, I was still culture shocked by many of the same things as before, plus being thrown into teaching in the Spanish system with no training whatsoever. I debated for the first half of the year whether I would just go home like I wanted, or whether I would be optimistic and renew for another year and hope things would improve. In short, I was once again pretty unhappy, and felt like it was all Spain's fault.

But the last half of that second year and all of the third one, improve things did. Those were probably the happiest 18 months of my life so far. I felt settled in Vigo, I had stable friends that I cared about, I was speaking Spanish almost all the time, and I had plenty to keep me busy. I was learning to understand my work, I was earning plenty of money, and I was traveling somewhere new almost every weekend. I fell in love with Spain in that time, deeply and unexpectedly. By the end, I had even decided that I could see myself living in Spain forever. I laughed at those small things that had once annoyed me (like Spain's notorious inefficiency), and decided to see them as the price of admission for being in a country where people work to live, where relaxation and being social are celebrated parts of daily life, where wine comes with a tapa, and where I had come to feel at home.

At the end of the third year in Spain, I wanted to stay and keep living that happy stable life, but I also felt like if I didn't take the opportunity being offered to me to realize my preteen dream of living in France, I would forever regret it.

As is common, however, upon finally realizing my 13-year-old wish, I realized that it wasn't going to be all croissants in chic cafés, living the life of Amélie. France wasn't the same in reality as it had been in my dreams, and it took me a long time to adjust to the reality of the country. And during all of those first few difficult months, I clung to Spain like a security blanket. I talked of almost nothing else, to the extent that several people thought for awhile that I was actually Spanish. I fell even deeper in love with Spain, or my rose-colored memories of it, anyway.

I did eventually begin to assimilate to life in France, just in time to have to leave, but I had a plan: get back to Spain, through hell or high water. Spain was where I belonged, I figured, and things would work themselves out if I could make it back. So I accepted a spot in my current Master's program in Alcalá de Henares, and came back.

At first this year, I felt justified in my choice to move back to Spain, what I had been told was "the love of my life thus far." I was once again enjoying all those things that made living here worth it, like tapas and siestas. But as the year has gone on, my feelings have begun to evolve once again, towards negativity. Part of it is probably living in the province of Madrid, which I've never liked as well as Galicia, but I think there are two other factors that play a much larger role.

The first one is spending more time with other English speakers than I have since my study abroad days in Bilbao. This time around, it's not because I don't understand Spanish, but because we work together and we study together, and I haven't had a lot of free time to find quality Spanish friends in Madrid (other than an old Galician one who lives here now). Being around other Anglophones means having people to complain with about those little annoying parts of Spanish life. Every time we're given a random task to complete that seems utterly pointless and yet is required of us in order to stay legal here, every time something seems to have been organized bass ackwards, and every time we disagree with Spanish teaching methods, we have each other to turn to. That is wonderful, and it's a great stress reliever, but it's forcing those small annoyances to the forefront of my mind. Things that I learned to ignore during my 18 happy months in Galicia have begun to bother me again. I've remembered that there IS another way, one that makes logical sense and is efficient. This irritation is compounded by the fact that I'm so busy this year that I don't have the time to take advantage of the best parts of Spain--the food, the people, the sunshine, the cheap flights to interesting European destinations.

That brings me to the second factor in my current negative feelings toward Spain. This year, I'm working full-time as an assistant in a Spanish school. I'm there as much as the regular teachers are, and I share many of their responsibilities. But yes, I am STILL an assistant. This is the fourth year I've worked as an assistant, and some of the realities of the job are starting to make me crazy. I think to myself, if only I had my own classroom, if only I could run things the way I want to, if only I could plan my own classes. I could handle those realities when they came in exchange for a life full of free time, friends, and travel. But now? I work all the time, I get paid half of what a Spanish teacher does, and I have no life, no freedom to enjoy all those things I once loved about Spain. And that's fine for right now, but someday soon I'm going to want something more.

And the problem with Spain is, it can't offer me that. I can probably find a way to stay here indefinitely, yes. As an assistant. Moving regions every year or two. But can I ever have stability, a decent salary, and enjoyable working conditions? No, no and no.

Spain for me is starting to become like that boyfriend you have when you're young, who you love so much and you think you'll be with forever, until you realize he can't offer you any stability.

And so what happens? You break up. I'm starting to wonder if a breakup between me and Spain is in the near future. I've had so many ups and downs with Spain and still stuck with it that I really did think it was true love...but I'm starting to grow up now. I'm starting to want to put my things away and not have to worry about packing them into a suitcase again 9 months later, and that's how things will always be for me in Spain, I think.

My emotional journey with Spain isn't quite over yet, but this is the direction it's headed in for now, and although that makes me sort of nostalgic and sad for days gone by, I think it's what's right.

So I'm probably going to be in the market for a new country to fall in love with soon, and hopefully it will be THE ONE, and not just another ex-love writing sweet nothings in my passport. Any ideas?

How NOT to Visit Iceland's Blue Lagoon: An Embarrassing Story

About a year and a half ago, in September 2013, when I was moving from a summer at my parents' house to teach in St. Malo, France, I decided to take advantage of Icelandair's awesome low prices ($300 for a one-way ticket!), great location (they fly from Minneapolis-St. Paul, where I have family, saving me the hassle of O'Hare), and neat free 7-day layover scheme.

I didn't have the time or money at that moment to take advantage of a full seven days, but I wanted to see Iceland, even if only briefly, and so I managed to squeeze in a two-day stay before I had to jet off to my new life in France.

Since the flight from Minneapolis to Reykjavik is only about five hours (it IS in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, after all), I flew out at about 6pm Central Time and landed at 5am Greenwich Mean Time. It was one of those stupid travel moves that you think sounds like a good idea when it's on your computer screen, but in actuality it is not at all fun. Sleeping on the airplane is hard enough when you have around 9 hours to do it, but in only 5 hours, it felt like I had just closed my eyes when they announced that we would be arriving shortly.

"No problem," I thought, "I have no problem sleeping in airports; I've done it a million times before!"

But not in Iceland, I hadn't!

It turns out that there are signs all over Reykjavik (Keflavík) airport warning you not to sleep. This is the type of thing I usually ignore, and I did try, but airport officials kept coming around to make sure that all us poor groggy souls slumped in the chairs in the airport lounge at 5am were 100% AWAKE. Thanks, Iceland.

I remained optimistic though, knowing that I had planned ahead and booked myself a trip to the Blue Lagoon on the way to my hostel in downtown Reykjavik. I was sure that a nice hot thermal bath with crystal-blue water would be just the thing to cheer me up from my jetlag.

Of course, I had forgotten to take into account the weather in Iceland at the end of September. As I dashed from the airport to the bus in the lashing rain, dragging my two 50lb suitcases (checked for free on Icelandair, another reason they are awesome!), my heart began to sink. "An outdoor hot spring in the cold, wind, and rain," I thought, "FUN."

At least I was able to check my bags in at the front of the lagoon, avoiding lugging them behind me in the rain down the path that looked like it was on the surface of Mars, lined with giant black igneous rocks, a result of Iceland's volcanic past.

Once I was all paid up, changed, and headed out to the water, though, my thoughts began to change. I began to feel more optimistic about my visit. The warm water would probably make up for the icy wind and unrelenting rain, I thought.

More or less, I was right. No, the water was not uniformly hot, and yes, I did spend the majority of my visit hovering in the warmest spot I could find, shielding my eyes from the rain. And yes, I did make the mistake of putting my head underwater. Let me tell you, washing water filled with minerals out of your long hair is not fun. Really really not.

However, I did start to feel a bit more relaxed after a while in the water. To finish my visit feeling nice and snug, I decided to visit the sauna before heading out. That was lovely, everything that could be expected from a wooden sauna, complete with the smell of the hot timber.

What I failed to take into account was that it was still freezing, windy, and rainy outside, and I was going to have to make the walk from the sauna to the indoors in my wet bathing suit. I mentally prepared myself for a big shock, opened the door, dashed out, and...

Slipped on a wet wooden bridge, accidentally kicked a piece of hardened lava, and went down on my side, hard. TIM-BER. When they say don't run near a pool, they mean it!

Bruised beyond just my pride, I limped inside to survey the damage, hoping no one had noticed my epic fail. My toe was bleeding rather profusely, my hip hurt like the dickens, and I was really embarrassed that I'd just fallen on my face in front of an entire spa full of people.

In the end, I lost a toenail, and got a big welt the width of a(n American) football for my trouble. That sure made walking around Reykjavik the next day more fun!

However, I'll always remember the Blue Lagoon as the location of one of my more embarrassing travel stories to date. Am I glad it happened? No. But is it an amusing story to tell now? Yes, for sure. Would I have such vivid memories of the place if everything had gone smoothly? No way!

So I guess there's always that. Every terrible travel moment brings with it the joy of making people laugh through recounting your embarrassment for years to come.

I'd still like to go back to Iceland and the Blue Lagoon again, by the way, now that I know how NOT to do it. But I think next time I'll check the weather first!

Does anyone else have any embarrassing travel stories to share?

Hiking Madrileñan Mountains

What is it about being out in the fresh air that literally gives you a breath of fresh air? Getting outside is so wonderful for clearing my head, and after having been cooped up writing my thesis so much lately, I needed it!

So one day recently, I took a trip with some friends back to El Escorial again, this time not to tour the monastery, but to hike in the mountains nearby. 

I'm literally picturing at least one of my sisters giving me the side-eye right now. Somehow, I've gained the reputation for not being outdoorsy, but that isn't at all true, as long as it's not too hot outside and I'm properly attired. And rewarded with coffee and churros afterwards!

Luckily, on the day we went it was freezing (by Spain standards), with a fierce wind blowing, and there were small patches of snow on our path. My kind of outdoorsy weather! Perfect for doing exercise. I was particularly pleased when tiny flakes of snow began to fall, making the scene just that much more idyllic. 

Seeing the town from above was absolutely gorgeous. 

So were the snow-covered mountains behind me here. I wish they'd come out better in my photos! 

I think my favorite part about walking through the woods is that it gives us a chance to get into real conversations with people. We're going to be with them for several hours, we might as well explain what's bugging us at the moment, right?

In my friend group, the topic always seems to be "where are we going with our lives?" ...I suppose that's pretty common for young adults. As I've said before, I'm getting a little sick of constantly having to ask myself the question "what's next?" I'm tired of moving all the time. Chatting with my friends in the woods made me start to think about how it's getting to be that time of year again, when I have to figure out where I'm moving next. What will be my next home, and will it be semi-permanent, or only for a few months? What do I really want?

At present, I have no real answers to these questions, and thinking about it too much makes my brain hurt. There are so many options and they're overwhelming and there are no clear answers.

Soon enough it will be crunch time, when I will be forced to make another life-changing decision. But for at least a little longer, I can try to just take my life here as it comes, continue thinking, but also allow those thoughts to be swept away with the wind when it all becomes too much. 

So here's to moments of pause and reflection, of good conversations and body-warming exercise with friends. May they be there when you need them!

2014 in Pictures--Part 1: France

2014 was quite the rollercoaster ride for me! There were a lot of good parts, also some bad ones, and in general I'm happy to see it go and excited to find out what's next. But first...let me remember all the fun adventures I got up to!

January

I started out 2014 visiting some of my best friends from Vigo. I enjoyed seeing them again, as well as revisiting all my favorite spots in the city, like O Castro (the park on top of the hill in the downtown, with the BEST views).

Next up was my birthday! I celebrated a few times, first in Vigo and then in France, where I had a 1960's-themed birthday party! (Thanks for the picture, A)

After all the excitement of the holidays was over, I was feeling a little bummed, so I tried to really appreciate the beauty in my everyday surroundings in order to cheer myself up. This photo is of the area of town I where I used to live in St. Malo, and this walk was one I took quite frequently, as it was the way to get to Intra-Muros, or the walled city, where all the exciting things happened!

Still appreciating the beauty of the ordinary, one day I took a daytrip to a town nearby called Cancale, where they have the best oysters. They also have those typical Breton buildings with the colorful entrances that I love so much! 

February

February started out with a bang, as we watched the grandes vagues (big waves) come into St. Malo. This only happens once every few months, where the tides and the moon cycles coincide to bring huge waves crashing against the sides of buildings. It was really impressive, and I loved it until a big wave hit me and I got totally soaked!

As I was learning about Breton culture, I (obviously) also heard a lot about their food. The most famous (and arguably the best) food that comes from this region is crêpes and galettes (salty crêpes). But the Bretons, they are obsessed with (salty) butter. So, the sign says: J'aime la galette...savez-vous comment...? Quand elle est bien faite...avec du beurre dedans! (I love galettes...do you know how? When they're well-made...with some butter inside!)

I took a few daytrips in February to combat my continuing moodiness, and one of them was to Dinan with my roommates. It was a beautiful day with some of my favorite girls, and I absolutely adored the town. A lot of the reason had to do with the colorful buildings. I'm obsessed! 

Next up was a daytrip to Rennes, the capital of Brittany. Some of my favorite-ever and most-photographed colorful wooden buildings are there, so I'm always pleased to make a visit to them!

On this particular daytrip, we also visited a French market, which is something else I love...fresh food all put out for display (and sometimes taste-testing!)...such a wonderful concept. And everyone knows how the French love their cheese...well, I love getting to try all the different types!

March

In the beginning of March, we had 2 weeks of vacation (because French schools give you 2 weeks off for every 6 weeks worked...so lux!). However, I decided to get some extra cash by working at an English camp in Rennes for the first week. I hated the commute, but I loved getting to explore more of a city I love so well! And yes, more wooden buildings!

A friend of mine had recently gotten a cool fancy camera, so in March he let me play a little with it and I started learning how to take interesting pictures, which was awesome. Except now I want my own expensive fun camera, waaah. 

Another day trip was next up, this time to Perros-Guirec on the northern coast of Brittany. This place is famous for its pink granite rocks, which we took a nice walk along. (Thanks F for the picture!)

Towards the end of March, one of my seconde classes at the high school I was working in took a field trip to Jersey, a British island off the coast of France, and I got invited along! That was a cool trip because I had to partially work as translator while we visited their parliament, and also we visited this super interesting cave hospital from WWII that explained all about the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands during the war (betcha didn't know that a small part of Britain had been taken over by Nazis, didja?).

April

April was absolutely full of daytrips. During a visit to the Forest of Brocéliande, where Merlin supposedly lived and King Arthur may have pulled his sword out of a lake, I was very impressed with all the rapeseed fields in bloom, which made huge patches of the countryside yellow!

The next trip was to Carnac, to see the menhirs left behind by prehistoric people thousands of years ago. I was so amazed by this place, with hundreds of giant boulders lined up for miles. I can't begin to imagine how much work that must have taken for these ancient people. And I also love pondering the mystery of why...

April was also a bit strange because it was already time to start saying goodbye to people. My work contract finished at the end of the month, and so we had various meetings on the beach to celebrate and see people one last time before they started taking off! This is from one such celebration, in front of the marine swimming pool in St. Malo.

I also tried to spend some time really exploring St. Malo better, because I knew that it would soon be time for my departure as well. So I walked out to the nearby islands one day when the tide was low, I explored the Cité d'Alet (the first place settled in the area), and I generally just tried to take it all in. I was mostly pleased to be finished working at my technical high school, not because it was the worst job in the world, but because I am well aware that it was not the best fit for me professionally! So getting to the end of April was kind of a relief for me in at least one way.

May

As soon as May came, I was off on a 3-week vacation with my parents! I met them in London, and we explored such historic sites as Canturbury, the destination of the famous pilgrimage that brought us Chaucer's Canterbury Tales!

You can't take a bookworm to London without stopping at Platform 9 3/4!

Then we were off to Scotland, where my nerdy self was thrilled to see actual blue police boxes that look exactly like the TARDIS...

We did a highland tour, and were amused by some hairy highland coos (cows, for all of you non-Scottish burr speakers out there).

In Liverpool, we took a Beatles taxi tour, which was well-worth our money, as we got a full history of each of the Beatles' lives and landmarks in Liverpool, as well as a picture in front of every single one! I'm obsessed with the Beatles, and this was really a thrill for me. Here's Strawberry Field orphanage, like from the (Lennon) song Strawberry Fields Forever...

When we took the ferry back to France, our first stop was in Normandy, to see the American cemetery and the beaches where so many men gave their lives during D-Day. As we were there just before the 70th anniversary celebrations, many of the towns were totally decked out!

On the way back to St. Malo, just before (or just after, depending on who you ask!) crossing the border back into Brittany, we stopped by Mont Saint Michel. Although it was as full of tourists as ever, the beauty of a church like this out on an island in the ocean is undeniable! 

I fully enjoyed showing my parents around the town where I'd been living for the past 8 months, and I think they got a kick out of St. Malo as well, particularly the parts of it associated with World War II (my dad is obsessed)! 

June

After I'd sent my parents back off to the States at the end of May, June was a much calmer month. I went bowling with some French friends (which is ridiculously expensive by the way, serves me right I guess for trying to do American things in Europe!).

I had a beach bonfire with some friends, which honestly felt like something out of a movie to me!

I visited Brest and the small towns nearby, where there were some sea caves with really gorgeous colored rocks!

I spent several hours watching FIFA World Cup games and supporting les bleus win against Switzerland. Allez!

And then, sadly, it was time for me to say au revoir to St. Malo. It wasn't easy leaving a place I'd come to care about and feel at home in, where I had good friends (it never is). But St. Malo gave me a beautiful sendoff, as we went to a final beach bonfire to celebrate the summer solstice, and saw a gorgeous sunset for our trouble.

When I got home to America, I thankfully had fresh sugar snap peas from my mom's garden (my favorite food in the world) waiting to greet me. That helped stem the tide of my sadness at least a little!

I ended the first half of the year in the best way possible, meeting my newest nephew! He's absolutely adorable, basically the Gerber baby, and the happiest little guy I've ever met, so it was a big thrill to finally get to see him in person!

The first half of the year was busy, but mostly good, with some very difficult moments thrown in just to keep things interesting! Stay tuned for the second half in the next few days...