Maps








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Start of a Peruvian Adventure

Image
The past two weeks have been one hell of a whirlwind. To start, on May 30th, around 5:30 pm, I received a job offer that would require me to relocate to a small rural town in the Peruvian Andes. I was struck immediately by panic and sadness, because I knew that I was, of course, going to accept this amazing once in a life time opportunity, and that it would mean leaving all of my friends and family behind in less than a week. By the morning of Friday, June 2nd, I had accepted the position, and knocked my habit of crying. So with that, I went into full on packing mode with a plane ticket that had been already booked for early on June 7th.  The weekend following was amazing, my favorite food, swinging in the backyard, paddle boarding at Kensington, taking Otis and Oliver on walks around the block, and of course PACKING. How many suitcases was I allowed? How much could each weigh, if I paid overage fees, what clothes to pack, what weather to expect, toiletries, my favorite sna...
Read more

Chicken Feed and Other Life Lessons

Being a foreigner makes you humble. You point to a bag of grains at the market and ask the woman selling it "is this for popcorn?" and she politely responds ... "no that's for chickens, this is for popcorn." "Chickens" She was polite at least, and honestly, you don't think anything of what an ass you just made of yourself, it all happened in another language, which obviously means it didn't really happen at all... Right?... ... I went through a phase when I was in elementary school where I loved the Dixie Chicks. Which is pretty comical if you know my current tastes in music. My favorite song of theirs is Wide Open Spaces , downloaded on my phone to this day. It's things like that, little hints and clues of what my life would become, that sometimes freak me out. Like maybe listening to the lyrics while dancing around in my best friend's bedroom in fourth grade taught me something. Maybe I was actually listening. ... I ...
Read more

I Believe in Travel

I have to say something that may seem rather obvious: I believe in travel.  I believe wholeheartedly in the lessons that are to be learned while exposing yourself to cultures other than your own. No, like really, I'm not sure there is anything more impactful and profound that one can simply opt to expose oneself to, in the world.  I think the ability to swallow whatever gross food is in your mouth without puking is a skill. I think that being disconnected from cell service and the internet and the ability to remain calm and collected through your disconnect is a skill. I believe that communicating where shared languages are slim is a skill, and remaining comfortable despite the struggle is a skill. I believe tolerating stomach ailments and bug bites among a slew of other traveler injuries is a skill. Skills that are learned only by putting oneself through initially uncomfortable situations.  Cramming into a microbus, ordering meals that you have no idea what...
Read more