the first stop!

This photo was taken right after leaving baggage claims at our very fist stop of our year traveling in January 2010.  I was TERRIFIED as well as the most excited and pumped that I'd ever been in my entire life.  There is nothing like this feeling!  I was dead tired and about to fall over in a haze of exhaustion, but the adrenaline was unstoppable!

Looking back at this moment, this exact photo sort of defines how inadequately prepared I was for what we were doing....I was CLUELESS!

My hair - I ended up chopping it all off 2 weeks later after stubbing my toe on some coral because I couldn't see thru my bangs.

The pak - You can barely see a gigantic padded strap around my waste..these huge "back supporters" and the mini micro fleece travel towels that smelled of mildew for most of the trip, were the two major items I wish I hadn't brought with, just due to how much misery they caused!  Definite lessons learned.

By the time we reached our Ryokan in Tokyo a few hours later, we quickly realized we had made a grave mistake in packing....our paks were killing us and we were now on the other side of the planet. 

Perhaps we didn't need 50 granola bars and 20 pairs of underwear and socks?!?  (ok, that was just me) Luckily our paks got lighter with time and we had a pit stop in the States 5 months later where we reconstructed our exact needs and cut our pak weight by more then half, only traveling with a carry on bag for me and one large backpacker bag for my husband.  It made a huge difference...and a safe place to store electronics and essentials on a plane/train/bus/boat.

"It's dancey dance time" - I loved this shirt so much....but, I hadn't yet gotten the memo that although I was on holiday, the rest of the world wasn't....it got ditched somewhere in Indonesia sadly, I do miss it now.

The blue fleece jacket - I'm from Minnesota.  I love comfy-ness.  I love warmth.  I LOOOOVE fleece jackets.  This also got replaced once returning home for a North Face close fitting wind proof coat that didn't make me look homeless. In a lot of places, it makes a difference to look good while also feeling comfortable.  If you want strangers to speak to you and help you at midnight desperate for a good nights sleep....you don't want to be wearing pajamas already!

I wish I could sit myself down in that airport and explain a few things to pre trip Sarah...and perhaps lead her to a trash can and dump out half of her unnecessary pak!  I wish I could tell her to calm down, stop worrying and enjoy the ride....would she listen?  Probably not!  and thanks to that first experience late at night I learned quickly soon after what felt right and what didn't. 

There's always next time!

Beef, It's What's For Dinner

I became a vegetarian the same year that the Blue Jays won the World Series. The reason I know that is because I remember Bobby, who was in my chemistry class, was a Blue Jays fan and Justin, who was a Braves fan, put a dead Blue Jay in his locker. 

I didn’t do it because I particularly felt sorry for animals; I didn’t do it because I didn’t like meat. I did it because of Mr. Gruner. Mr. Gruner was my high school chemistry teacher. He told us about red meat and the cholesterol and other bad things that go along with it. We probably had to work up some kind of equation from the periodical chart to figure it all out. After that, my friend E and I decided to try and see if we could go without eating red meat for a while, more as a challenge to ourselves than anything. 

That challenge lasted 15 years. 

In 2008, I went to South America, with stop number one being Argentina. All my friends were so excited to try “some of the best steaks in the world” and the very famous Argentine “asado” (BBQ). I, on the other hand, was interested in museums and neighborhoods, of mountains and lakes, of beaches and hiking and penguins. 

They wanted BEEF.  

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So, the very first day we arrived in Buenos Aires, we went to dinner at a place called Las Cholas. If you ever go to BsAs, make sure you go here. It was delicious! No, I didn’t try the Parilla (grill) but my friends did and they loved it. I had a bottle of wine, a tasty rice dish and much, much more. Come to find out, Argentines don’t just eat meat! Plus, my entire meal cost me $8, which on a traveler’s budget was kind of on the high side, but for a meal anywhere else, it is a steal of a deal! 

The entire time we were there, we went out for meat almost every day, and I always found other things to eat. Did you know that there are a lot of Italians in Argentina? So, pizza was on the menu a lot, although the sauce they use was a little sweeter than I am used to. Did you know that there are tons of Germans in BsAs? So there were pastries aplenty! Did you know that the coffee in Argentina is better than the coffee in some of the countries in Europe? Well it is! They have espresso! Not the Nescafe stuff that many of the other South American countries call “café”! 

So, it wasn’t really very hard to be a vegetarian in a meat eating country.

One month after I got back from South America I was on a plane and they served me a breakfast of eggs, sausage and fruit. I ate the egg. I ate the fruit. And for some reason I had a craving for a salty piece of pork. So I ate it. And the challenge was over. 

I still don’t eat very much meat. However, I do wish that I would have just tried on of the “best steaks in the world” when I had the chance. Oh well, I guess I will just have to go back some day.

I will leave you with these random beef facts:

- Argentines are the 2^nd biggest consumers of beef (Australia is 1^st)
- Argentines eat 55 kg of beef a year per person – that is 121 lbs per year, or a third of a pound A DAY.
- Argentina is the 3^rd largest exporter of beef – behind Brazil and Australia
- Generally, Argentine cattle were mostly grass-fed, but lately they have been using more feed lots, so are producing both leaner and fattier beef (did you know feed lot cattle are fed BEER to calm them down? Me neither)

How about you? Have you ever had trouble with your diet while traveling? How did you adapt?

biker food

Now that I'm living back in the States, my husband and I were inspired to see if we could live our lives solely based on bicycle transportation our car died while we were traveling 

This has a lot of pros and cons to it financially and environmentally...
No worries about car insurance!
No way to buy a desk and get it home.
It saves money on gas!
It makes trips to visit the folks 5 hours away a little more complicated....
It's hard to say what's best!

Biking as my main form of transportation really has been a smooth transition in comparison to carrying my entire life on my back for the past year....it all comes down to weight...particularly when it comes to buying food!

As far as purchasing power and grocery shopping, not much has changed from our days of deciding whether or not to purchase food based on its weight and temperature and how far we had to carry it!
*A major reason why my husband still won't let peanut butter or jelly enter our home is because it was the only thing I knew how to eat as an American that was light weight, cheap, easy and could be eaten at any time.  PB&J, the classic American treat will stay American....mmmm...a PB&J sounds kind of good right now!

This conundrum of space/weight/dietary and physical needs, has lead me to all kinds of critically odd purchasing decisions slightly different for a home then for a hostel...it's ok to buy bulk when you know you'll be around for a week, but with no space to carry it, it's kind of weird!

• Buying things like toilet paper....how do I get home 36 rolls on my bike?  Hmph....4 pak it is...
• For a while we switched from milk to half and half, because it's smaller!
• Wine or beer?   I'll admit I'm now a major fan of the Napa Valley!
• 20 fancy napkins for $2 or 500 not fancy napkins for $2....I guess it's time for a tea party!
• We literally shop and look at the 7 different brands of something like rice and decide now based on size!

I think this fact has actually helped us watch our waists!  Sugary beverages and chips are immediately off the list due to the fact of their weight and size.  Chips are light, but in a backpak, they are ridiculously huge and by the time I'd get them home, they would be mush! Coke comes in sizes of large and larger, which just doesn't work when I have almost enough space for a tub of yogurt and a little bag of almonds......I'm just sayin....as a way to burn off some excess...it seems to be helping just in what I can physically carry home!

What's really funny about all of this is that our new refrigerator in our new permanent apartment is HUMONGOUS!  I hear it whining along with dollars flying out the window with it's inability to stay cool for very long, all for the benefit of a small portion hard salami, a tomato, 3 bottles of beer and a stick of butter....it just doesn't seem right.  This refrigerator was obviously meant for a resident who happened to own a hummer...not a Fuji 10 speed!

That all being said, having a refrigerator in and of itself is an incredible thing in comparison to always moving around and never getting to finish a bottle or a can of something, because you have to go on to the next town.  Traveling in Africa, we were able to cook in many of our hostels, so I began carrying with me an emergency cooking kit consisting of 1 bottle of vegetable oil, a small packet of salt, what I think was a whisky bottle of homemade chile sauce we bought on the street at an outdoor market and two plastic plates.  I'll admit the most used cooking tool we had was my husbands swiss army knife!

At least I don't have to bike with my kitchen on my back now, just grocery shop!  The supplies I have at my disposal nowadays would weigh down a larger sized elephant!

What's going to make this biking for food experience even more interesting?
These past few days have had a chill in the air!  I can't wait to find out how this works in a snow storm!

Around The World

You may already know this, but last year, after working 60 hours plus per week for many, many months, I had finally saved up enough to do my favorite thing in the world (no pun intended) -- Travel!

This time the trip was going to be around the world. Now, I am a planner and I usually like planning, but have you ever tried to plan a multi-month trip? It's not so much that we had to plan the day to day things, like buses and accommodation, but we did have to plan a few things ahead of time.

Here's the deal. We had the option of 6 stopovers. That means we could get out of the plane and stay out of the plane for over 24 hours SIX times. However, we got 16 "segments". A segment being any flight from point to point. For example, when flying from San Francisco to Madrid, we had a layover in Atlanta. So, SFO - ATL = 1 segment, ATL - MAD = 1 segment. 2 segments down, 14 to go.

At first it seemed like a lot. I mean, with only 6 stops, 16 segments should be fine, right?

But I haven't told you everything yet. This flight was being funded using airline miles. Have you ever tried to book an awards ticket? There are black out dates; you get the worst flight times (3 am flight anyone?); you have to fly from New Orleans to San Francisco via Boston. They don't always make it super convenient for  you.

So. We set out to plan. Not only where we wanted to go but how long we wanted to stay in each place. This is hard. This is already hard if it were only me planning it and it was a ticket I paid for so I could have any flight I wanted. Now, throw in a boyfriend who wants to go to Europe for 1 month, meaning 17 countries in 2 weeks and Portugal for two weeks. So, yeah, we had different opinions on EVERYTHING. How long we would stay in each continent was a discussion, let alone how long we would stay in each country!

I am of the "rather stay in one place longer than try to cram in many places" school of though. He is (was actually, but that's another story!) of the opposite school. Anyway, we finally narrowed it down after many arguments discussions and many weeks of planning. We decided on the 6 countries AND which city we would fly into and out of. Then we did all the research online. Which flights we liked the best, what times we wanted. Sounds great, right?

This was only the beginning. Next, we spent the ENTIRE day, and I do mean ENTIRE, on the phone trying to book the flights (You are not allowed to do it online. Poop). Delta had different ideas then we did however. We wanted to fly from Amsterdam to Cape Town. It's a direct flight. It would be perfect. What did Delta do? (WDDD?) They got us a flight from...Paris to Dubai to Nairobi to Maputo. Do you see any of the cities we picked in this list? No? Me neither. Now do you see where the segment thing got eaten up really fast? This counted as 3 segments! 3 x 6 = 18! This just would not do!

So it went like this. We would ask the lady about flight X. She would, inevitably say it wasn't available but that if we took flight Y, we could start in a city miles from where we would be, get rerouted through 4 different cities and then end in a city miles from where we wanted to be. Would that work for us?

And it did. I am making it out to be worse than it was, but we really did not get any very many of the flights that we wanted. However, it turned out fine.

The funny thing is, like I said above, I am a planner. Usually I like everything planned in advance so I know what to expect. When I travel, I don't mind throwing the spreadsheets out the window and doing things differently. If I love a city, I will stay for a few days, even if I thought I would only be there for a day. If someone says to me, "you have to go here! It is great!", I will go there and it will be great!

And picking these flights was the same. We threw the spreadsheets out the window. We let Delta do the picking. Because it doesn't really matter where you go, it only matters that you enjoy it, wherever it is.


Have you ever planned a really long trip? Did you have to plan anything beforehand? Was it hard? How did you do it?

running the road

Exercising while backpacking....is different.

When we were in Asia, it was always too hot to work out during the day.  We could have forced ourselves in the mornings/evenings, but it just felt wrong.  Walking thru a small town, you will almost always see a class being attended by all the local ladies doing dance aerobic type Tai Chi of some kind and rocking it!

In Africa, we never quite had enough energy/there were animals that could eat us/it wasn't super safe to venture out running around by myself....I definitely didn't see many people working out, although a lot of travel is done slowly by foot/hitch hiking.

In Europe I spent all my time wanting to walk around the beautiful streets and goggle at anything...who needs running, when you can move at a snails pace with your head in the architecture?!?

In South America, I did my best to hit the pavement in the morning before the heat set in, but I was generally the only gal on the sidewalks out of breath....and it can be difficult getting across streets safely without getting hit by cars/bikes/trucks/mopeds/taxis/buses.  It's really annoying.  A lot of Latina ladies attend Yoga/Pilates classes, rather then be assaulted by smog, cat calls, oggling and the intense glare of the sun.

This all being said, now that I've been back in the States for a few months, I feel almost unpatriotic not lacing up for a jog.  The concept of running for me personally has sort of lost its sparkle, which is a shame when I see so many around me doing it on gorgeous running paths along lakes parks with perfect weather for such activities!  My husband and I both noticed on first returning to the east coast how much running and the idea of an after/before work exercise session is so popular in the States.  To quote him "now this is something America does right!"

Perhaps just writing this will be the final push I need to get moving on my feet again!  I mean, if my goal is to thoroughly enjoy my culture to the max, when in Rome Wisconsin!

I feel pretty

I'll never forget the first time I went to buy sun screen in Thailand.

There's a 7-11 on every corner and is the major way for giving directions in any Thai city, "Turn left at the 7-11 and you're there!"  It's the place you go to buy $1 beer to drink on the sidewalk and usually the only place you can find sunscreen...that is....if you want your skin lighter.  I made a lot of mistakes on our journey around the world, one of my biggest?  Not carrying more over 50+ SPF sunscreen with me before leaving the States... in Asia, women find beauty in being lighter skinned, so anything that isn't a very low SPF/meant for tanning/meant for tourists, is only available with added whitener!

I'll admit, this had an effect on me.  I started to view my own beauty differently.  I started asking myself questions about what I think makes me beautiful...I thought all of the women around me in Asia had such gorgeous perfect figures and beautiful faces....and now I wonder if we were all just looking at each other with an odd curiosity, wondering what it would be like to look like the other.

Prambanan Temple in Yogyakarta Indonesia
All the local field trip  groups wanted a picture with the "white girl"

Stepping out of one culture and into another gave me that temporary moment to really look at myself and all my weird cultural stereotypes and decide what I really want to look like....of course this changes all the time, but always looking slightly wacky with a travel pak on my back, dorky shoes on and wearing wacky foreign clothes in the middle of deserts, forests, cities, definitely doesn't make me look flattering anywhere!  I got used to looking odd, which gave me a weird kind of confidence in my oddness knowing that I had to just accept how I looked, no matter how hard I tried, I was not going to fit in.

Right before I got married, before we traveled, I went to a tanning bed for months mid winter and accepted a whitening treatment for my teeth from my dentist....looking back post travel, I don't know if I would have made those same decisions.  Being tan with white teeth doesn't necessarily make me feel more beautiful any longer and definitely not healthier.  I feel like I bought in to the bridal beauty myths and requirements, that what I was wasn't beautiful enough.  If you did this in a lot of other places, you'd be laughed at...or at least snickered at and talked about behind your back.  

All these beauty thoughts came about because of something my aunt said to me a few weeks ago.  She was telling me how as she ages, she looks back on pictures of her younger self and sees how beautiful she was, but then she remembers how she felt about her looks at the time....flawed, imperfect, ugly, clothes not right, etc..etc.., so she's now decided to do her present self the courtesy of enjoying exactly how she looks today and acknowledge her beauty in the present....which I think takes a lot of guts no matter what age you are!

Just now writing this blog, I walked into a public bathroom and stuck to the mirror while washing my hands...a sticker that reads "You are beautiful".....amen sister!

Wouldn't it be amazing if women all over the world loved how they looked without being lighter/darker/thicker/thinner/plumper/taller/shorter/brighter/less wrinkly/longer fingers/where does it end? 

It's like that theory on straight verses curly hair....us ladies always want what we don't have....

I just wonder what it might be like if women all over the world would see the true beauty within them however they look and love the heck out of it...

What if!

Just for the record, the one country where I felt like women really knew they were workin' it?  Botswana!

Oh yeah!  They worked it and they knew it.  They were luscious and large and they took great pride in being such with no apologies.  Men treated women with respect and awe of their beauty and I remember thinking...damn...I wish I had a bootie too...(in many parts of Africa, having largeness is a sign of wealth, that you can afford good food)

I'm just sayin.....Dumela ma!  (That's hello to a woman in Botswana, said with great respect, warmth and a huge smile)  Incredible, strong and proud women who love how they look whatever that look is!  Wow!

Right after this photo was taken, this women's friends began laughing hysterically
that we had taken her photo and she was going to be famous!
(Taken not in Botswana - where we were too shy for photos - but Tanzania)

Have you been to a country where women knew they had it goin' on?
Have you been to a country where they look at you as if you were a movie star?  How did you feel?

My First Time

Do you remember your first time? I do. I was so nervous! I had no idea what I was doing; I wasn't prepared. I brought too much stuff. I was way too early.

What? NO!!! What did you think I was talking about? I am talking about my first time abroad! Sheesh.

The destination: Bordeaux, France.

The reason: I had taken a semester of French in college and had then (rashly) signed up for a summer abroad work program.

My French was not good. I was young and crazy. I would never do this now, since I really wasn't ready. But I am so glad I did.

I was not packed when my parents came to take me to the airport. And when I say "not packed", I mean...my entire room was in a shambles. I was moving out of my house I had lived in for a few years; I had quit my job, had a huge going away party at my house and two days later, I was moving out of my house. I didn't have ANY idea what to bring on a trip, especially when I would be gone for three months. I didn't know what the apartment I would be staying in would have in it. I didn't know what I would be able to buy in...ooooh....France (like it was Mars or something!) I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

We finally got everything together and my suitcases consisted of: 1 suitcase that I got from my dad and was probably from the 1950s. It looked like this:

source

Notice it DOES NOT have a sweet handle to pull it with. I does have a leather strap, but one that was not as long as the one in this picture. Think: one of those straps that goes on a clutch handbag. It was more like that. A wrist strap. So, to use the wheels, you had to crouch way over and pull it. (by the way, note to self, never google "crouched over" when you are looking for a visual aid for this post)

And 2: A regular, and by regular I mean old, suitcase which was also large and had to be carried by a handle.

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So, I get on the plane in San Francisco and I arrive in Paris. If you have ever been to Charles de Gaulle airport, you will know that it is a bit confusing. There are multiple terminals and the train station has to be taken from a certain one and I was tired and I didn't have any francs yet, and I didn't speak French very well and I couldn't read the maps and I was shy! There were turn-styles that you had to go through to get onto the train and I had my two huge suitcases (and I think I may have also had a backpack) full of clothes and shoes and alarm clocks (what, you can BUY those in foreign countries?) and presents for my future new friends (I was told this was "good manners" but that's another story.)

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I got stuck. My suitcase with the wrist strap got stuck in the turn-style and it was still attached to my wrist and I tried to heave the other one over the gate but it was too full of crap I didn't need heavy. And people were looking at me like, "what is YOUR problem?" and they were talking to me very quickly ("Vous-avez besoin d'aide? Madmoiselle? blah, blah, blah") and I couldn't understand what they were saying and I couldn't get my suitcase out of the doors and I couldn't get my wrist out of the strap and I wanted to sit down and cry.

I finally got my wrist free, got my suitcase free, got francs, figured out where the Gare du Nord train station was and how to get to it and got on the train. The TGV, which is the speedy train in France was awesome! I was highly impressed, although my jet lagged mind was really looking forward to going to bed. However, it was my first time abroad! I was so excited. Bordeaux was about 2 hours by train from Paris and the trip went by fast. I arrived at the train station in Bordeaux thinking, "how the heck am I going to get to the apartment?" But, wonder of wonders, the girl who's apartment I was subletting was there at the train station. With her boyfriend, who was VERY good at lugging around suitcases.

I still had difficulty trying to speak to them in French and to understand what they were saying, but luckily gratitude and kindness are both common languages around the world.


To see what I have learned about packing in the last 12 years, you can go here .

"Her Royal Highness's Matched Luggage" - Original Source HERE. Edited by Me.