Existential Crisis Time!

 It's been a while, but I figured I'd pop in and share something that's been on my mind for a few days.

I'm tired. More like exhausted, existentially-speaking.

Words cannot express the existential exhaustion coursing through my veins and even sitting down to try to write about it in an attempt to calm my nerves. Try to exorcise these demons that have been plaguing me. While the current existential crisis is recent, ultimately, it's been going on for years, with waves of depression and anxiety.

Here goes nothing.

I'm tired of living in this hellhole of a country.

I'm tired of simply being and serving virtually no purpose in life. 

I was laid off from my job of 4 1/2 years last March, and since then I've been under the assumption that having saved for the 6 years since I moved back in with my parents in 2015 would be enough to keep me afloat and sane and help lead me to bigger and better things. Following my dreams. Living the life I was meant to live.

But instead, I got saddled with the ongoing crippling depression and anxiety that didn't go anywhere (they were hardly recent). I had big dreams. My roommate and I were going to start a travel blog. We were going to monetize it. People were going to be interested in our tips and our info and our stories. I was going to tell our stories, I was going to share our pictures. We were going to sell stock photos on Adobe and Getty.

Reality's a bitch.

Imposter Syndrome? Or Just Failing at Life?

Here's another one for you.

Let's talk about Imposter Syndrome.

Supposedly, I have this.

It's supposed to explain the previous post.

I guess.

So I hear.

Not directly, of course.

But I do hear this.

After all, I'm a woman, I'm a Millenial, and I'm a TCK.  At least, I think I am.  Maybe.  I'll get into that.  If not in this post, then another one.

I mean, Imposter Syndrome is when you feel like you're not good at anything at all when in reality, you are.

I just don't happen to believe that I really am.

Is that meta-Imposter Syndrome?  Or is it just self-deprecation?

Twenty Years On

 It's going to feel weird typing up a 9/11 remembrance post 4-5 days after the 20th anniversary, but it's been a crazy few days and I was traveling for the actual 20th anniversary.  So it's taken me until now to fully form thoughts and think about even saying something about it.

Ten years ago I also posted a little something for the tenth anniversary of the day New York City and the rest of the world stood still, in awe and terror, and here I am again for the twentieth.

Damn, it's really been that long.

Sometimes it feels like yesterday I was a sixteen-year-old, about two weeks off a plane leaving JFK to go to Madrid with a layover in CDG that ended up being four hours delayed because someone on the flight stood up to check her luggage in the overhead bin before the plane had leveled out, knocking herself in the face, and demanding the plane turn around, back to NYC, where she could get treated by a doctor.  The plane was already an hour delayed (we arrived at the terminal when the plane was supposed to have already taken off, so...) so this only added an extra few hours, especially when you consider the plane had to refuel.  So that was fun.  I do somehow remember looking out the window as the plane rounded Manhattan and turned around, seeing the Twin Towers.  Looking back, this doesn't make much sense from a logistical perspective, but honestly, for some reason, I'm still convinced I saw them, and this was before all hell broke loose.

One World Trade Center as seen from Chinatown

Here For the Hope

I took this picture while at the apex of a panic attack.

This isn't something I've shared with a lot of people, but I want to talk about it.

Content Warning: Suicidal Ideations

The Myth of "Following Your Dreams"

 Does anyone else feel like the phrase "Make changes in your life like quitting your job and be happy!" is extremely patronizing, or is that just me?

Sure, Joe Not-Really-a-Millionaire, you did... something... and now you live in Dubai and now you're happy.  Great.

But I just cannot help but think that that's... patronizing.  And simplistic.  And not at all feasible for the vast majority of human beings.  Some of us don't have the option to just quit our job to be happy.  Some of us have jobs and keep our jobs and aren't considering quitting (at least not yet) not because they make us happy but because they make us money.

I know I personally have spent way too much time, as evidenced by some of my posts, struggling financially to be able to feasibly be at a point where we feel comforatble leaving the stability and comfort of a full-time job that pays well enough to live in a decent part of the country, or world, and don't have the ability to feel comfortable leaving that to follow non-existent dreams.

I guess I simply feel so tired of the influencer and live-for-what-makes-you-happy mentality that I cannot simply comprehend this concept.

Amsterdam 2018

December 8-10, 2018

Heyyyy, long time no see.

Life kind of got in the way between I posted about my Paris trip and now; in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and my dad losing his job and getting a new one meaning that I had to find a new place to live, and moving out, and moving in, and two other trips...  It's been a really crazy past few months.

I'm going to try to make up for it in posting a lot in succession.  Maybe.  Who knows.  We'll see.

The design overhaul I'm trying to work on as well is coming up, but that's going to end up on the backburner for a good long while.

Anyway.  On to the Amsterdam/Netherlands trip.  I'm not sure whether I should call this a Netherlands trip since I did not spend all my time in Amsterdam, or an Amsterdam trip since most of our time was definitely spent in Amsterdam.  The graphic says Amsterdam, so that's what I'm going with on this one.

S is a huge fan of the Netherlands, pretty much all for personal reasons, and she really wanted to share this with me.  So she booked the tickets out of JFK with Norwegian (our favorite airline!) and she spent time talking to me about her special Dutch friends.

Paris 2018

October 12-14, 2018

I realize I never finished posting the next few parts of my Bilbao trip from July, but I do make these trips frequently enough that I just didn't feel like continuing the posts.  If anyone wants me to finish posting about the trip I will, I just don't feel it's necessary right now.  I really just want to focus on getting my Paris trip done and out of the way because it was already a month ago, and I really should have posted sooner.

So here goes.  A post about my adventures in Paris last month.

Euskadi 2018 - Part 1

July 2-10, 2018.

It's that time again!

Time for me to post about a recent trip, even if it's one I make every year now.  It's always a long time coming, but it's so much better for me to make it at least once a year instead of once every who-knows-how-long.  I promised my best friend, and myself, two years ago that I'd make this a regular thing, and I will keep that promise.

I booked the tickets in March or April, about the same time I booked the tickets to the Philippines, after talking to my best friend about the dates, and when she confirmed they'd work for her, I booked them, and when the time came, off I went.

My flight left at 10 PM out of JFK, so I'm not really counting that day as a travel day, since only about 2 hours were actually covered, fewer if you count in the time difference that inevitably occurred within two hours of flying east.

SE Asia 2018, June 7-11 - Day 5, Oslob

June 11.

Probably my favorite day of the entire 4 that I spent in the Philippines was this one.  We left around the same time we left to go to Moalboal a few days earlier and arrived at our destination at about the same time, if not earlier.  The only pit stop was for a half-hour Jollibee run, because you're not in Asia without going to Jollibee, which is basically fast food, but instead of getting fries with everything you get rice.  You may be able to order fries too, but you basically get rice.  Because it's Asia, and it's not a meal unless there's rice.

Anyway, we made the drive down to Oslob, a trip complete with inside jokes, made all the better by the fact that the days of the week in Cebuano are the same as they are in Spanish, so that was fun.

I'm still a little hesitant about this entry because it deals with the apparently controversial topic of swimming with whale sharks, so if you absolutely believe that swimming with whale sharks is bad even though you are not a certified marine biologist, you can let me know.  Or don't.  I kind of don't really care.  I just know it's controversial, but as someone who's had a thing for whale sharks and marine life since I was a little kid, and after seeing the experience first-hand, I have some thoughts about the pros and cons of how the Oslob whale shark experience is handled.  If you are a marine biologist and have your opinion as a trained expert in the situation, you are even more welcome to share your opinions.

SE Asia 2018, June 7-11 - Day 4, Cebu City

June 10.

After the craziness that was the trip to Moalboal the day before, Sunday was a day for relaxation.  Kind of.  We stayed local like Friday, exploring a few more places, like a Filipino shopping mall at the SM Seaside and Sirao Gardens.

There's not much to say about the mall; the SM Seaside is basically a Filipino version of Westfield malls, since it's high class (they have a Benefit store if you're a makeup junkie, only it's one of the few stores where the products are more expensive than they are in the US) and massive, and they have them all over the country.  I actually really enjoy the shopping experiences abroad though, and I'm not one to complain that I'm taken to a mall when I only have 4 days in a country.  SM Seaside is big but comfortable, as there's actually a rooftop park with jungle gyms and play areas for kids as well as walking paths and views of Cebu. It's places like this that really make you feel like you made the right decision in hanging out with locals.

Plus I got a new phone case and tempered glass screen protector for my Galaxy S8 at a fraction of what it would cost in the US.  So there's that.

SE Asia 2018, June 7-11 - Day 3, Moalboal

June 9.

I was told that it would be an early morning, but since I didn't need too long to get ready, I was woken up shortly before we were ready to leave.  I'd been told that there would be multiple family members going, but when I opened the door to confirm that I was ready to leave whenever everyone else was, I saw that the entire family, almost literally, was coming with us, and we weren't riding in a caravan.  We would be traveling Filipino-style, which means everyone piles into the back end of a truck with benches, towels, pillows and blankets, and enjoys the drive to wherever we're headed.  It wasn't something I expected at all, because we just don't do it that way in the Western world, but far be it from me to complain about something that the vast majority of the world seems to do without blinking an eye.  And hey, when in Rome.  I'm not one to complain about things being different, or weird, I just simply accept that things are different in other places and I'm perfectly okay with that and will happily go along with it.  It didn't feel any more dangerous to be on the back of that truck than it would in a normal car, and besides, I was with people legitimately having fun and enjoying themselves, and who was I to ruin their fun?  So I got into the truck, sat down, and enjoyed the trip that ended up taking way longer than an hour and a half (not like I was counting, or complaining).  So there I was, in a truck with 29 other people (no lie, we were 30 people), headed to the beach.

SE Asia 2018, June 7-11 - Day 2, Cebu City

June 8, 2018.

Thanks to jet lag and an early sun, I woke up at about 6 am the next morning.  In the daylight I got to meet my friend's family, and we walked across the street so I could meet some more ants and uncles as well as her grandparents, was offered some Filipino coffee (which I am now currently obsessed with), and began plotting out the day.

The original plan for this morning was to head up to Malapascua and Kalanggaman, two islands with stunning beaches that are pretty well-known in the Philippines, but due to weather (the Tropical Storm I'd experienced in Hong Kong) it was postponed.  This then changed to Bantayan, another island with great beaches that is well-known in the country, where we'd planned on going the next day.  Today was just going to be exploring Cebu City and some surrounding areas.  Cebu is the oldest city in the Philippines and is called the Queen City of the South.  It was "founded" in 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for Spain (despite being Portuguese, as many of us well know, not that it ultimately makes a difference).

SE Asia 2018, June 7-11 - Day 1, Hong Kong

Day 1, June 7.

I got back from my week-long trip to Southeast Asia (Hong Kong and the Philippines specifically) on Tuesday night, and have been steadily recovering from jet lag ever since.  It's actually not as bad as I was expecting considering the 12-hour time difference and 15+-hour travel time both ways, but it's there.  It wakes me up at 4 in the morning, makes me want to crawl into bed at 5 pm, and other awkward things, but it's really not too bad.  It's incredibly worth it considering the absolutely amazing experience that I had for the very short week.

The trip had been in the works for about a year, when a Filipina co-worker mentioned that she was going to be going home this summer and was looking at flights.  We'd become pretty good friends, and I'd mentioned always wanting to go to the Philippines due to having a grandfather who served there as a medic during WWII as well as having a very close friend who's of Filipino descent.  It's a country that I feel that I owed it to myself and the people in my life to visit, and I loved the idea of visiting someone on her home turf.  Most people might think that's a little weird, and most people probably wouldn't even understand my eagerness and willingness to take this trip, but again, I wanted to go for personal reasons.  The main problem of course ended up being timing, both in the season I'd be going (the rainy season in most of Asia lasts from June through August, as I attested to in India last year) and the duration of the trip (5 days off work, 7 days give-or-take total).  But I didn't care, because the opportunity arose and I knew I'd regret it if I didn't take the chance.

So once my friend told me her tickets were booked sometime in March or April for most of June (since she'd be there for 3 weeks), I began seriously looking at tickets myself.  I'd told her I'd visit her early on in our conversations, and I think part of her may have doubted the seriousness of my desire, but in the end, she became very excited that I really was serious and that I was looking at flights.

The best and most convenient tickets were through Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific, and when I saw that I had two options for layovers: 4 hours or 11 hours, I decided to go with the 11-hour layover for the flight out, since it meant I could check another country off my list.  So I booked the tickets, and the planning began.

Toronto

May 11-13, 2018

May 11.

My apologies that isn't going to be a typical "travel blog entry" since in a way it was more of a personal trip and less of a touristy one or a trip for travelling's sake.  I'm still debating whether to actually publish this or not for this reason.  But I'll type it up anyway to see where it goes.

I actually started this blog when I was living in Toronto with my parents in 2011.  They were working as managers for a youth program with our missions organization that handles 18-20-year-olds from Germany who used to be required to do military service, or in the case of abstaining, could do a volunteer year.  Our organization set them up with programs with inner-city or other cultural communities in Toronto and my parents managed them.  Military service is no longer required, but many kids still use the organizations to do volunteer work in the time between high school and college.  I didn't have a job, couldn't find one since I graduated in 2010 at the height of the recession and so I went to spend some time in Toronto with them.  Got involved with a German family with our organization who worked with the Bangladeshi community there, as they had spent time doing missions in Bangladesh and spoke Bengali.  It was truly an eye-opening experience for me and I can definitely look back on that time and say that I learned a lot and it was overall a good experience to have as I could at least be somewhat productive despite the fact that I couldn't work, having no work papers or even having skills necessary to even apply for a work permit (story of my life, really).

One of my brothers was with us as well, and he volunteered at a local house for refugees, and ended up meeting and falling in love with a Peruvian-Canadian girl and married her, and he lives and works in Toronto still in a tailor shop.  Being as the last time I was in Toronto was in November 2011 for his wedding, I felt it was high time to head back up there for a visit.  I took my travel buddy, and had a great time.  Tickets to Toronto from New York are super cheap, and the airline Porter is perfect for short or long trips, as the flight itself is only between 1-2 hours max (usually an hour and a half), as opposed to an 8-hour drive and dealing with immigration at the border.  Immigration at an airport is a far easier process.

So we headed to Newark after work, had a slightly delayed flight, and landed in Toronto around 10:30 pm, and my brother came to pick us up.  Billy Bishop, the city airport of Toronto, is super nice and convenient since it's right in the city, and it's small enough that immigration is a cinch.  Porter even gave us Lindt chocolate, offering high-cacao bars plus dark chocolate Lindor truffles.  So yeah, Porter is pretty awesome.  Anyway, my brother lives in the Parkdale neighborhood off King Street, about a 10 minute drive from the airport.  We got caught up for a bit because I hadn't seen him since January when he came down after Christmas with his wife, and then went to bed on his pull-out couch.

London 2018

April 20-22, 2018.

April 20.

I'm going to skip Madrid 2016 for the time being and go ahead and get to my London adventure from last weekend, since I'm trying to stay as on top of my trips as possible from now on.

This was a weekend trip we'd booked back in February or March or so when the flight deals were crazy cheap.  We figured a weekend in London with no time off work would be fun because most people wouldn't even consider it, but we're pros at A. traveling on a budget and B. traveling while short on time.  Neither of us had been there in years: 18 for me, ever since a layover from Spain back to the US when I was 14 and it was our first time going back to the US after spending 2 1/2 years in Spain.  So a long time.  I've always wanted to go back because it's London, and why not?

Little did we know the actual adventure we were about to have.  We've now decided that anytime the two of us travel together (my friend/travel buddy will be referred to as "S" from now on to make it easier) it'll be an adventure.

Barcelona 2016

Barcelona 2016.

August 25-30.

August 25.

So now for the entry that you I have been waiting for.  This was my first trip back to Barcelona in a little over six years, and it was a long time coming, especially considering the love I have for this city that I haven't made any attempts to hide in the amount of time I've had this blog.  Barcelona is one of my all-time favorite cities in the world for various reasons, and I wasn't about to let any chance to go back go.

My time as an au pair had come to an end, as school was starting for the kiddos at the end of August, and I think the family was getting kind of sick of me in the end anyway.  I'm not good with kids, and I didn't speak enough English with them as was expected, and even though I did leave on good terms (I believe), it's not an experience I'd go into again.  It was a great learning experience, and it did teach me patience and how to be a better guest, but I'm just not cut out for those kinds of environments.

Anyway, the family dropped me off at the train station in Castellón, where there were some tears on the kiddos' parts (which I'll admit was really nice, because they were sweet kids and the family was definitely one of the better ones I could have been with).  I bought my tickets to Barcelona, where I had booked a hotel for four nights right by the Estació de Sants.

If you're not familiar with Barcelona, there are two main train stations: Sants and França.  França is generally the one geared toward European destinations and Sants toward domestic/Spanish ones.  I've never actually been to França, which says a lot about how I travel, but what can you do.  [I should mention there's another train station, Catalunya, right underneath the Plaça de Catalunya, but it's for regional trains within Catalunya, and I've been through that station; when I went up to Terrassa in 2010.]

Sevilla 2016

July 15-18, 2016.

July 15.

One of the great things about spending that summer in Spain was being able to see my best friend more often than I would normally, being based in the US and all.  My best friend had notified me early on that she'd be in Sevilla during the third weekend in July, my second week in Castellón.  The family I was staying with had a wedding and were going to be off of work, so I asked if I could go to Sevilla to spend some time with my best friend, whose husband was also going to be in town since some friends of his were going to be in Sevilla, and since it was the same country that my best friend is in, they met up there.  They had a long-distance relationship, her being in Bilbao and him being in Paris, so any opportunity they got to be in the same country for whatever reason they took.  And I really wanted to meet him, so I was so glad to be able to make this trip.  That and the fact that I hadn't been in Sevilla in over eight years, since my family left in 2009 and I was last there in 2008.  Win-win.

The family dropped me off at the train station in Valencia where I could spend the night before getting on the next AVE to Sevilla first thing in the morning.  It was my first time in Valencia and it was only for a few hours, but it worked out.  I stayed at a really nice Airbnb that was a bit of a hike from the train station, but worth it, because I got to see a little bit of Valencia that way.  Not a whole lot, and I'm sure one day I'll go back, but so far so good.

The Airbnb was basically a kind of guest house/hostel situation, but it was nice, and the hostess was glad to have another Spanish speaker, but once she left I got invited to dinner with two of the other renters for the night, two guys from Germany and Austria who were taking a van trip across Spain for a few weeks for funsies.  What made it really interesting was the fact that it was the same night of the coup in Turkey, and the guy from Austria was of Turkish descent, so he had a legitimate freak-out, and we also discussed current events in my home country.  I always feel like I'm tooting my own horn or thinking too highly of myself when I talk about my conversation skills with Europeans, but the fact of the matter is, Europeans really enjoy talking to Americans who know their stuff.  After the madness in the news died down a bit, I went to bed, since I had an early train to catch and wanted sleep.

Bilbao 2016, Part 2

Bilbao 2016, Part 2.

June 6.

I didn't realize how long this would be when I started writing this, but I'm going to keep going and using the same header image, because I can.

Anyway.

June 6th started with a partly cloudy day threatening rain, but it cleared up quite nicely, which worked out great because I'd told my best friend that I really wanted to go to San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, because I hadn't been there in 16 years.  And it's absolutely stunning, completely unmissable.

That morning we walked along the cliffs that lead out over the Bay of Biscay, and it's a nice walk from my best friend's house.  It has beautiful views of the sea and the cliffs, as well as the main port.

Bilbao 2016, Part 1

Bilbao, 2016.  Part 1.

June 1-15, 2016.

June 1.

I'm not going to say "by popular demand" because no one has requested it.  But I've been thinking about it, and figured I might as well.  This trip was a huge deal for me and was a long time coming, as before I started "catching up" on my travels, the second-to-last post I made was me sharing that I was going back after six years.  If you've followed this blog (and me) since the beginning, you know what I mean.

I grew up in this city.  Well, kind of.  I actually spent two-and-a-half years more or less in Leioa/Getxo (lived in Leioa, went to school in Getxo, and my friends lived in Getxo) which is a municipality northeast of Bilbao along the river.  It marked my childhood and my life in countless ways, not least of all because I met my longtime best friend here, who's still managed to be a part of my life despite so much time away.

After going through some dismal experiences in my life that I won't go into (some self-inflicted due to poor decision making and others slightly less so), I really, really needed this trip.  I was working at Toys R Us at the time (R.I.P.) and had two weeks vacation, and booked this trip before I even knew that our department was closing.  And when I found out, in made me even happier to be going.  That train ride to JFK after pulling a half-day at work was one of the most exciting experiences I'd had in recent years, and I'm one of those people who loves the lead-up and travel to the airport in general (I guess I'm weird, but whatever).

So anyway, I got to JFK, albeit a bit early, and sat, and waited for the plane to arrive, board, and take off.

Washington, D.C.

March 2-4

March 2.

Well, we're at the last major trip I've taken up till now.  After this, it'll be me talking about prior trips (I'm considering Bilbao 2016 and then Barcelona/Madrid 2016, maybe even possibly Bilbao 2017) and my upcoming/recently completed trips.

I've never been to DC, and I think it's great that my friend/travel buddy has family in cities like Boston who are more than willing to have someone like me join my friend on her trips, because I get it, sometimes having an extra person whom you don't know in your house can be kind of daunting, but it sounds like she talks about me to her family and they feel like they can trust me, so I'm okay with that.

Anyway, we booked the bus tickets and headed up after work to the Port Authority Bus Terminal to head down there.  We had some really nasty weather that day in New York; one of those really nasty sleet storms, that's half rain and half snow, plus lots of wind.  We heard rumors that down in DC it was also really bad, but no word on any cancelled buses, so we left.

Well, we got into Delaware on I-95, and we stopped at a rest area to switch drivers.  It was then announced that all traffic on I-95 by the Chesapeake Bridge that spans the DC metro area was closed off.  So we were stuck in Delaware until further notice.  It's 9:30 pm by this point, and I'm exhausted, my friend is exhausted, and I didn't have the energy to care one way or the other what was going on.  My friend wasn't having any of it after all, she decided, so she was going to do something crazy.  It's always an adventure.