Barcelona.. Me Encanta Barcelona!!

Today we arrived in Barcelona, I  wasn't expecting too too much, just another city in Europe.. but I'm full on falling in Love with it! As soon as I got off the plane, there were mountains within eyesight!  And if you know me, you know that mountains are my most favorite thing ever! Not beach.. MOUNTAINS!!  I wasn't expecting this getting off the plane so it was a very exciting moment for me:)  After we took the bus from the airport into the city, we headed toward the hostel.  Our room is a 16 all girl dorm, and it's awesome! There are drapes along side the beds that we can close for privacy and to keep light out when we're ready for bed!  Also, there is a reading light in my little nook AND an outlet! It feels soo mine!  Which is very nice, because I've been so used to sharing space, it's nice to have my own, even if it's for 2 months. I'll take a photo and post it in this entry later. Also, this hostel is especially sweet not just because of my little nook, but because of the location: right in the city center!  I walk out the front and I'm right where I want to be!

After unpacking and settling in, we headed out for food and to walk around the city!  If there was a place that I could guarantee someone getting culture shock.. it would be Barcelona!  This place is soo full of different cultures, languages, and people, it took a minute for me to take it all in!  When I think about today and all I've done, it really isn't that much except having walked around!  We walked Las Ramblas, went to the Gothic area of the city, and I went to mass at the Cathedral (which I talked about in my last entry).

Walking the Ramblas was incredible, I've never been surrounded by soo many different languages and soo many people all at once! Maybe it's because I'm not used to a big city like New York City or Chicago, or like any city in Europe lol, but there are SOO MANY PEOPLE!!! Everywhere!  At all times of the day! It's insane.. and a bit intense! 

The streets, the buildings, the architecture.. It took a little bit for me to take it all in.. And now.. I LOVE IT! It is absolutely beautiful, there are terraces, close buildings full of flats and porches, plants on the porches, cars can't drive down a lot of the streets because they are so narrow, there're cobblestone streets, cafes everywhere, little restaurants, people, soo many diverse people and cultures.. it is wonderful. I literally felt like it couldn't be real. Like I was in a movie.. or at least on a movie set.. I remember at one point I said to Leslie, "this can't be real."

I took pictures on my phone.. But for some reason I can't find them:( they aren't in my gallery.. but they are uploaded on Google plus.. I'll take more tomorrow, and upload them in this entry asap!

Oooh I am soo excited to experience more of this city... I love it soo much!

Updates/Comments/Concerns:
I love traveling.. but mann do I miss Spotify!
I left my sunnies in Ibiza:(  (probably one of my saddest moments so far).. luckily there are quite a few places that sell some good ones for only 5 euros.
My knee Still hurts. I'm thinking it's bruised.
Really regretting my lack of Spanish speaking skills now.. Hah but ya know.. they're not lying when they say many people can speak English.. & it's awesome when you have a French, Italian, American, & Brazilian all able to speak to one another through a universal language. I just hate not knowing all languages because I want to be able to communicate with everyone!
& lastly.. I take that back about leaving my sun glasses in Ibiza being my saddest moment yet.. it was definitely when my Nalgene lid broke:(

All in all though.. I can't complain.. those are just things.

OH! I almost forgot to mention!  I found Casa Miranda!!  I was pretty dang pumped about that one... Picture below:)

Catedral de Barcelona - Gothic Cathedral in Barcelona

Right now I am sitting outside the Catedral de Barcelona.  It is magnificently beautiful. I just finished going to mass at the most beautiful church in which I've ever attended mass.  There were definitely times where I did not understand what they were saying, because it was all in Spanish, but I expected that, what I didn't expect was how much it would move me. It's amazing how thousands of miles away from home, and my home parish, there are still people all over the world praising our most wonderful and amazing God, with the same prayers, meanings and motions. It was lovely; I may not have understood word for word what the priests and readers were saying, but I knew what they and what the mass meant. It is beautiful. That meaning will never change.. no matter where I may be. There will always be a church to praise with. As I was sitting inside listening to the readings, I let my mind wander, and as I looked around, I just kept thinking to myself, how beautiful it is that something this amazing was built for our God and as a place we can all feel safe and praise him.

It is soo good.

As I continued to pray I realized that something I am struggling with on this trip so far is making sure I am doing it all for the right reasons and being thankful of it. 

The main reason I love to travel so much is because it makes me feel truly alive. It makes me feel alive because as I travel, I am able to see and learn about all the things we have been given and blessed with. And as much as I can, and to the best of my ability, I am able to experience all that God has given us. This planet. Earth. It's People. Culture. Land. Diversity.  Vulnerability. Scares. Strength. Growth. And love. Traveling allows me to truly experience this. If I am doing it in Him.

Tonight, I am thankful, and beyond humbled.

Ibiza

Well first night was a blast! We met these people from south Africa who had moved to Britain, their names were Mark, Lydia, and Nick! Had a blast with them at this place called Space.

Yesterday we went to the beach.. amazing! Mountains were on one side and the coast on another! It started sprinkling so we got lunch at this nice restaurant near the beach. After that, when it had stopped raining, we wanted to take a walk. We walked all around! and came across these awesome hiking paths on one side of the island! There was a residential area we had to go through to get there, lots of steps, but we just kept walking and stumbled upon beauty, that gave us amazing views of rocks along the coast and of the island!  Pictures to follow. 

Yesterday night we had new roommates! Which means: new friends!  The first one we met is from Brazil and her name is Flavia.  She is soo sweet, and is doing her residency in Valencia, Spain!  The next one was Katy, and she is from Italy. She has been on the island for about a week but it is her first time at this hostel. And finally there is Layla, who is also from Brazil!  But has no connections with Flavia.  We all hung out for awhile and then spent the night out together! It was soo much fun!  Ibiza is more different than any place I've ever been...

Today we woke up and said bye to Katy:(  Then Leslie, Flavia, and I had lunch along the beach! It was wonderful.  After that we headed to a different beach to spend the day. It was gorgeous! 

Thoughts/Updates:
I fell and skinned my knee.. it hurts a bit.
We are headed to Barcelona tomorrow!
Everyone I've met so far are traveling alone (other than the South Africans).
Also, I'm finally getting use to 2 meals a day! -one being the free breakfast from the hostels.
Aaand I really wish I would've paid attention more in my high school Spanish class...

This Hostel's Awesome!

Today we left London, but before doing so, we took the train into the city to do some last bit of site seeing before we left. We went to see the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Didn't go in though.. cuz that's totally NOT in my budget! Lol. Then we headed back to the hostel to check out and catch our plane to Ibiza, Spain!

I almost had to check my bag  because it was too big.. which was frustrating because Leslie and I put on most our clothes to allow our purses to fit in our backpacks so we could limit our bags to one Hah! because to fly RyanAir you can only have one carry on bag.  I maybe ended up rushing onto the plane to escape the ticket people asking me to check to check if my bag would fit.. luckily Les just fit hers in the metal tester thing that they had and we both ran through the entrance after they scanned our tickets lol. aaaannndd (drumroll please): It fit under the seat!! Wooh!  That was success.. but my Nalgene.. the plastic part of the lid, that allows it to hang off of things, broke as I was shoving my bag under the seat as fast as I could: (  but.. at least its just a thing. 

The flight was loud, in both noise and color (a majority of the inside was colored yellow), but what else did you expect from a cheap flight!? We've just arrived at the hostel, and it is awesome! Every room is named a different country. We are in an all girls dorm, gotta be safe! & it's name is India! There are 2 girls from Canada in our room so far. Every wall is a different color, and there are bean bags and pillows everywhere! In fact I'm sitting on a bean bag in the social room right now! We'll be here for 3 nights then we'll be headed to Barcelona. More to come on Ibiza, but nothing's happened yet!

Mind the Gap; London 2012

Yesterday I arrived in London after a long delayed flight due to a flight attendant not showing up! I was suppose to meet up with my friend Leslie at Heathrow airport by noon or we were to meet at the hostel.. luckily she waited until 12:30!  We bought tickets for the underground and headed to our hostel, the Green Man.  Our dorms are above the pub, where we also checked in!  It's pretty awesome, I'm not gonna lie.  It seriously feels like I'm in a movie.

We dropped our bags off and were on our way.  We headed out toward the Olympic Village.  Well that didn't happen! We ended up wandering to a towpath along a canal called Regent Canal where there were a bunch of riverboats, it was incredibly awesome.  The path also took us through Little Venice as Well:).   We then went to Camden Town, which is an area full of culture, shopping, and TONS of people! 

Today we went to.. Well we attempted to go to the Olympic Village.. that was a fail. But we got good pictures from the store that was on the 3rd floor of a mall right next to it!  We also tried to get a free walking tour.. but where we ended up meeting wasn't where the free walking tour was meeting... So that was a fail too.. We also tried to go to platform 9 & 3/4... Failed. Lol.

But we did see Buckingham palace and walked around that area for a bit...

& something else awesome happened today!  We were wandering around the city of London, saw Parliament and Big Ben! ...Peter Pan!!!!!  Aaand then headed toward Westminster Abby, and then St. Margaret's Church, & decided not to go in because it cost 16 pounds, which is about $34USD.. so we walked around back and went on more of the less travelled roads. It was really cool!  (Pictures to come).. and we passed the Westminster Abby college (HS) and there was an area we could go in!  It was full of awesome architecture and gardens, and later on, we found that it ended up being Westminster Abby!!!  And we got in for free!  By accident!  It was great.

Now we're hanging out at the hostel and headed to Spain tomorrow night!! 

Will it be all it's cracked up to be?

"Don't ever wonder "if only." Big trips like these are a once in a lifetime experience. You might go and find out that all you ever wanted was to go back to your office cubicle, or you might return knowing you are destined for greater things. The most important thing is the path that led you there..."

This is a quote from a travel book I just finished reading. It speaks soo many truths..

Right now I'm sitting in the Washington Dulles airport and my flight was just delayed until 10:30! Mann this is gonna be a late free dinner!  So since I have the time.. and since I still have data on my phone, I figured I'd write about my fears and expectations for this adventure.

I don't even know where to start..

Fears.
Loneliness.
Missing my amazing family.
Missing my all of my most wonderful friends.
Missing the comfort of a home.
My shower.
Getting lost.
Having too high of expectations.
Not loving the world (which seems nearly impossible)...

Expectations.
To experience everything that God has given us in this part of the world.. and to fall on love with it.
To try new things.
To learn new things.
To learn through experience, not from a book (though I sure do love to read!)
To feel new things.
To be out of my comfort zone, and grow because of it.
To grow stronger because of things that don't go the way I want them to.
To feel utterly myself.. and be absolutely ok with it.
To come home happier and humbled.

To truly meet, get to know, and love this world that we've been so blessed with.

So will it be all it's cracked up to be? I don't know but there's no way in hell I'm ever asking "what if..."

What to do...

Europe.  I would like to travel around Europe, I always have, and here's my chance!


But, I don't want to waste these next few months on just myself, so I've also decided to volunteer!  In Southeast Asia! Southeast Asia, is somewhere I've never ever been before, and I have heard soo many good things about it!  Which country might you ask!?

Thailand!  So why Thailand?  I have nothing else except for some reason, I felt a tug at my heart for it.  I have known people to travel there, who have only ever said good things about it.  People I met in Australia, friends from here, they have all said Thailand is amazing.  So after Europe, whenever that may be, I will be teaching English & doing community work in Chiang Rai, Thailand :)

In Europe I am traveling with my friend Leslie.  Who I met the first time I traveled to Europe in high school! We were in the same program.  We are going to fly into London on the 25th September.  Finding each other should be interesting, seeing as though we have different flights.  We are arriving there within 5 minutes of each other, I just hope we end up in the same terminal, if not... then it should be very interesting!  After London, we will be heading to Spain, first an island called Ibiza, then we will go to Barcelona, then we are going to be pilgrims and walk the Camino de Santiago for about a week, and continue down the coast and into Portugal. After that we will go to Spain's capital, Madrid and then head to Germany! We have a goal of making it to Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland together, but it just depends how the time goes before Leslie leaves to come home on the 24th of October from Munich.  After she leaves, I have personal goals to make it to at least the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Belgium, France, & Luxembourg.  I also have a friend in Stuttgart, Germany, who I met while travelling in Australia!  So I am hoping to definitely visit with her for a bit.

Ideally, before I head to Thailand I would love to work and make a little extra money for a bit.  Whether it is working at a hostel or being a fruit picker in Italy... After I get to Thailand, I am hoping to travel on the weekends with other volunteers to surrounding countries including, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and maybe even China!

I will be trying to blog as much as I can, it's my goal that I blog everyday, but understand I may not have wifi everyday, so if I have to skip any, I will catch you up.

Please! Comments are welcome!!  In my blog for Australia, I ended up stopping it half way through because I wasn't getting much response.. I am writing this to update all my friends and family, but also for myself.  Mostly to come back to in a few years and read, and it definitely helps to know others are reading and enjoying my entries & I would LOVE to get updated on you guys too!!  So please, share any questions or comments you may have!!

The Decision...

1st thing you should know about me: I LOVE PEOPLE.  I just finished an AMAZING first year of teaching this past school year.  I had soo much fun teaching Biology and Chemistry at a nearby high school; it was a one-year contract and while I was working, I kept thinking, what should I do this coming fall?  I ended up falling in love with teaching more than I knew... my students were amazing, it really seemed like they were enjoying themselves, and I was definitely having a lot of fun teaching them.  Though.. lets be real, my opinion of my classes vs the reality of what the students think, are both probably very different.. But that is not the point of this entry now is it? Lets move on...

The 2nd thing you should know about me: I LOVE TRAVELING!  This passion developed in high school, when I was threatened with losing my life, and I decided I would never let a day go by where I would not live as much as I could.  To me, living means exploring, discovering, and learning as much as I can about what we have been given, with the time we have been given.  

Before we move on, the 3rd thing you should know about me is: I LOVE SHARING.  I love sharing and teaching experiences, and the things I have learned with others.  I also love the idea of being able to inspire others, not from what I have read from any book, but from the things I have experienced and discovered first hand.  One of the main reasons I decided to teach, was not to just teach content, but to teach and inspire my students to truly live and learn.  To me this means that as long as my students are living out their passion, and loving it, they are truly living.  

So.. here is where I started having a lot of trouble deciding what to do this fall.. I loved to teach, but I loved to travel too.. I couldn't decide!  So, after much praying, thinking, and talking with others...

I was still undecided! 

I have always said I wouldn't let myself get caught up in a job when it came to my #1 passion of travelling; in fact.. it was one of my greatest fears when deciding my major in college, to let the greed of having money mask my longing to travel the world.  But its different now; I do not teach for the money, I teach to inspire and learn.  I also don't have much money, I have enough to get by while travelling, but not to go too crazy with spending while over there.. Also, I didn't know if I'd have a travel companion... 

So, I decided to go for both, and see what my options could be.  

I started filling out applications for teaching at high schools around the area, and across the US (Colorado & Alaska).  I went through many interviews; some that went really well, and some not so well.. I got called back for 2nd, 3rd, and final interviews... But I started to notice that in the back of my mind, I was hoping I wouldn't get a job, so it would just make the decision for me.  I wanted to reflect on this; I knew I had a passion to travel, but I also had a new passion, to teach.  

So why was travel winning? 

After looking into myself, praying (a lot), talking to others, I realized that I have the rest of my life to teach.  Sure, I have no doubt that if I would have taught this year, I would've loved it, but I realized that if I taught this year, I would have done just that, loved it... and I would have stayed to teach another year and another and another.. I would have been trapped (my fear).  I would be loving it, but why not just postpone that by a year... and just start that life next year.  There would be no room for regret then.  There's not going to be another point where it is so easy to leave a school to travel, I will never want to leave a school if I love it there.  

So it seemed like this past one-year contract, living at home, not being in a committed relationship, and not being 26 for another year (where I would have to start paying a lot for med insurance). is ending up to be absolutely perfect for this decision, and I think it would be silly not to take this opportunity.  

I didn't want to regret never taking a trip where I could just be completely free.. and not have to worry about coming back for any kind of commitment (ex: summer break).  

So finally, what have I decided to do? 

Travel.