if places were people no.3

I thought you were a shortcut.

You took us the long way 'round.
With stops at every station.
Pauses after every sentence.

We never went
faster than
50 miles an hour.

26 hours is a long time to sit and stare
memorize each other's faces, skin lit up by
dimness of walkway lights, reflecting off the scratched, plastic-y windows.

Maniacal laughing clatter of steel wheel against steel track
annoying complaint of rubber window lining against foggy glass to the outside
Almost distant stubborn stomach grumble of the machine taking us to somewhere

You are that in-between place
That interpretation
That 'please wait while document loads' symbol.

You will always come back
But sometimes you will sleep
And Destination will take your place

Sometimes you will go on holiday
And Preparation will visit
To get us ready for you again.

Sometimes your face will change.
You'll grow a beard, or something else ridiculous will happen,
Like the time your eyes changed colors.
And sometimes I will need to memorize that face
Over again.
Take the journey twice.

Sometimes you don't make sense.
And yet you are almost constant and consistent
But you are nothing twice
You are never the same
You are In-between

We had better get used to it because
Consistent is different than static
And change is different from chaos

And sometimes you will drive the train backwards
And north will be west
And east will be south.

And I don't mind.
I love you very much, more than I thought I would,
Because I thought you were a shortcut, someone
I could pass by without a second glance
And you very much weren't.

Which is to say
I like your scenic routes better.

In-between is nice.
Even though it is the definition of patience
and You never had a dictionary.

Which is to say
I thought you were a shortcut
And you showed me the world
And stole my calendar
And my time
And my heart
And now,
I live for the limbo
The in-between
The changing
The unexpected hairpin curve that says
Pay attention.
You don't have time for second glances.
You may not come this way again.

(WHAAAAATTTT. Yeah. Hi. I'm not dead or anything I just haven't posted in FOREVER. Sorry 'bout that. But anyway, if you're interested, the idea for this one was from the train trip we took last October. Fun stuff. LOVE Y'ALL. I'm going to post again soon so stay tuned.)

(ANOTHER NOTE BECAUSE I FORGET THINGS: remember last year when i did that blogtober series? I NEVER DID DAY 18 (the horror) but it was supposed to be "This week I..." and really, that week before the 18th i had gone on a train trip, which is what this post was based on. basically: i finally finished blogtober and its july. isn't that great?)

lend me your ears...or eyes. whatever.

hello lovelies -

so here's the deal. i went to norman, ok, right? and it was a wonderful trip. we did a lot of amazing stuff while i was there:

 - Milk tea with boba

 - College campus, libraries,  backpacks, and sore feet

 

- taking pictures with my iPad, so they're not anything special, unless subject was awesome then I did use my regular camera.

 - piano music in Beaird Lounge

 - the little stationary/journal/neat artsy stuff shop that was like, three blocks away from campus.

 - trying (and failing miserably) to food blog 

 - drinking water because dehydration is not fun.

 - LEARNING. (aka: an honors class in which I learned that one interpretation of government is that it harnesses the ambition, vanity, and ego of human nature, and pits it against itself. Ambition against ambition, ego against ego, want against want. I NEVER KNEW THIS and partially hated government for it. it always seemed like government was supposed to be above human nature. But when it is described like this is offers the idea that government uses human nature and it totally makes sense now.)

 - people watching and stereotyping, which I would normally protest against, but while on college campuses and in airports it's basically a sport.
 - takeout thai food (MOST FAVORITE EVER.)

 

- our own attempt at thai food - which was rice made with coconut milk, beans, and curry powder sprinkled over the top (it was really good.)

 - late nights that turn into study times that turn into music jam sessions with four female voices and a guitar and a ukulele that turn into wall-sits and planking (the roommates have accepted me as one of their own. I'M SO PROUD OF MYSELF.)
 - first time flying on a plane. which was awesome, and terrifying, and terribly liberating. (see?)
 - visiting my awesome friend who showed me all over campus and we got to talk about EVERYTHING. (Okay well maybe not everything but she really confirmed my suspicions: she's seriously the coolest person in OK right now.)
 - #pianohandsami and #travelbug...check out my instagram @saminuxoll.

this trip to Norman was what i would consider my first solo adventure (i've been on many trips with groups of people, aka my family, but this one i was on my own...for at least part of it.) (basically this was me.) and so i'm like, YAY NORMAN, but then i'm like, oh. home. and then i have to decide, and i end up with the conclusion that travel is wonderful and new things will always be lovely and visiting friends in their lives and worlds are usually wonderful things, but home will always be my world which is okay. because that's my world, and they have theirs. and we can visit each other. And maybe even I will get stuck in their world sometimes but that's okay. Good, healthy even. (Yeah I totally just quoted Flynn Rider. #bombdiggity)

SO THE TRIP WAS GREAT.
the thing is, while i was there i got an email from a previous professor of mine. he was the one that taught me to love writing. and he says "sami, i'm starting a creative writing course, and i know you're getting ready to go to midwifery school and you need to save money for that but i also know that you love to write so if you want you can audit this course" and i'm like "TOTALLY. COUNT ME IN!!" because i mean really: it's poetry and creative writing.
and so one of the assignments for the class was to write a memory and/or place using imagery and assertion, simile and metaphor, and make it live. so i get totally excited about this assignment and i end up writing about norman.  and then i realize that i love writing places into people, and that's how this poem about norman looked and i'm like:

I SHOULD BLOG THIS.

and so I'm writing and writing and I end up with this poem about how Norman was kind of a place-fling for me. don't get me wrong: i loved norman. its just that norman wasn't for me. it was flat and i'm a mountain kind of girl, and the museums were great but you can only go through so many museums before you get sick of them. so this poem is kind of how i feel about places, which is basically I LOVE new places but in the end i will always return to mountains. particularly MY mountains, to home. and so then I'm thinking about how i could try writing a lot of different places as people - the ocean where we've always gone, the cabin that we have in the woods, Arizona when we took that road trip, even downtown in my hometown and then by my house and the next thing I know I'm like:

I SHOULD BLOG THIS.

And so just a note:   i swear this first post about Norman is actually NOT how i feel about dating people. And the rest of these posts in the series are not how I feel about family or friendships or PEOPLE in general. It's just how I see places - how I relate to places and maybe even how my pen took over my brain for the length of the poem. 

This post: it's a bookmark: it's a colon: it's me saying BRACE YOURSELF because the series that's coming? If Places Were People.  It's gonna be awesome. Mostly because I'm stoked about it but let's be real: sometimes that's all awesomeness needs to get started, is a little excitement. 

enjoy!

-XOXO-

Sami

if places were people. no. 1

if norman were a person, norman would be curiously normal.
normal norman.
whirlwind romance across flat squares and circles and grey veins of unleafed trees.
we spent a week together and only took pictures
of some things. remember how we met?

remember how some days i wore a dress and you made sure your sky suit was blue
and your breeze flirted with my hair and for a moment
you had all my attention?
i almost remember thinking that not even my long-term relationship with mountains could taint that.

but at the end of the week the whirlwind took me back to my mountains.
and you tainted the mountains with your ink of red clay and azure atmosphere and because you tainted my mountains, you faded just a little.
now the pictures are faded too.

you were just a fling: a moment where your flat land hands held up my feet
and your skies let me breathe for a week
and it was good except it really was just a fling so
i didn't stay.

i think i'm the player because
i think that will happen with every place i meet
i think they will love me for however long i'm there
and then one day i will get up and leave nothing more than a note written

in the sand in california. in the dirt on the outside of an english moat, maybe i'll scratch it into the stones of paris or into a papyrus leaf in egypt or maybe even into a palm tree in the carribean or indonesia. maybe i'll put
the note in a bottle and toss it into the ocean.
all i will leave is a note
and the absence of the perfume that i don't wear.
the note will say "thank you." that's it.
you will be the person i couldn't spend the rest of my life with.

you will be the place where the museums were nice and the skies were blue for the most part but other than that there wasn't much to say or do. there wasn’t much of you.
and now we’ve bumped into each other, 30 years late, and you are the same. maybe
a little grayer. but still flat

with squares and circles of plots where people have pushed you over
and plowed into your dirt. your veins of unleafed trees are a little deeper, still a dull paper gray.
and the only reason that i say "hi" and not "how are you" is because you are still just normal.
you couldn't keep me happy then, and you still can’t now. you’re normal norman.

and maybe that's wrong of me.
maybe one day in another 30 years i'll come back to say that i'm sorry and
i’ll mean it.
maybe one day the whirlwind will take me back to you and we will laugh and watch children play in 

your fields but i will be remembering the way your hand brushed mine 

as you reached for my fallen books and the thud when they fell against the concrete path

the ringing of my phone that made me drop them in the first place.
i will almost remember the painfully normal day before
i met you, when the whirlwind had just set me down.

i can promise you that if it does. if the whirlwind does bring be back to you
i will only stay because my wings have been cut off,
and my feet have blisters that won't go away
i will only stay because i can't leave

and you will write your vows on the other side of the note that i left
and i hope to god
that i don't ever have to see you again.

Adventure is out there

Adventure is out there, I tell myself as I step into solidly cold wind 

wee hours of the morning, not enough coffee and a heavy suitcase.

Light heart. Anticipatory, open brain.

Adventure is out there, I say, as I leave my bag with the man and his cart, up the steps into the cylindrical tube that will be hurtling me through the air 600 miles every hour

6 miles up there.

6 miles. I can't even run that far.

I am a fifth of a century old and I have never flown in an airplane. 

I'm beginning to hate the Wright brothers. What is wrong with horse and carriage?

What is wrong with car? Train? Roller skating? Land travel is SO MUCH SAFER. 

But no. Onto the plane. Into my seat.

Seatbelt, even though we won't be leaving the ground for another twenty minutes.

Breath. Adventure is out there

The words chasing my terror around my head,

Children in a game of tag.

Terror? ...pretty sure that's what that is.

Adventure is out there

Black dawn yawning hungrily at me through tiny window.

Adventure is out there

Taxiing down the runway

Adventure is out there 

Engine noise overpowers all other senses until it is all I know.

Adventure is out there

Heart and stomach switching places with my esophagus and 

Tongue turning to sandpaper

Adventure is out there

Lights flicker

Adventure is out there

Plane begins to tilt

Wheels begin to lift

I think for a moment that there is no way that we will not crash, tail over wings

27 casualties, 48 wounded, remainder of passengers and crew in critical condition

Adventure is out there

Mocking me from its seat belted position in my brain

Adventure is out there

Wheels lift off the ground and 

Adventure is out there, in the air:

WE ARE FLYING.

Two airports later (one landing, one takeoff, one landing later - let's face it: the landings feel like roller coaster rides gone wrong) - we have arrived on time.

We have arrived alive,

We have nurtured my traveling soul we have located our taxi and obtained coffee

We have moved forward in control

Confident travelers.

Our bus fills with smoke.

Nothing to do.

Gauges fine, gas fine, heaters and airconditioning fine

Everything is fine

And yet I can trail my hand through the sunshine lit fumes that swirl plentifully.

We open windows.

We wait, amid flying hair and silent mouths, surrounded by strangers.

We arrive at the hotel, 

70s style room...it has gold light fixtures. 

Rest. 

Before I sleep, before my father wakes me with his dead-raising snore,

Before I cleanse myself of the dirt of travel.

I am haunted, greeted, wrapped in a thought:

Adventure is out there.

But adventure is not always without trouble. Adventure is not always pure. Adventure is not always what we think it will be. Adventure will trick us - 

For that is the essence of adventure: to not know, yet plunge in. 

All the Light We Cannot See (book review #6)

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).

GOOD: STOP EVERYTHING AND GO READ THIS BOOK. seriously guys, it was amazing. it is now the best stand-alone book i have ever read. like, gaaaaahhhh.... *flails* *falls over* *cries silently* *lays still* *takes a deep breath* GAAAAAHHH. Here's why: 
a) this book is written from two different view points. you may have heard me rant about the difficulty of this. Doerr NAILS this. i've never read better. Werner is quiet and thoughtful, a constant battleground for good and evil. Marie-Laure is a forest clearing filled with forget-me-nots and daisies, always seeing the good even though her eyes don't let in the light.
b) description: one character is blind, the other is not. seriously, the chapters switch like that. Marie goes by smell, taste, touch, and hearing. She goes by memory, she goes by instinct. she is a sponge for knowledge and her chapters in the book are steeped in it. she is also obsessed with 3-D maps (you'll get that later) and the ocean. Werner, on the other hand, sees everything. His eyes are the sponges, flitting about, pulling in information and analyzing not only the facts but the feelings, the emotions, wondering why at every opportunity. and his chapters. oh golly. his chapters make me cry. and he loves radios. seriously, this kid makes. my. world. although he kinda breaks my heart at the same time.

BAD: there's some language. there's also some really heavy real life stuff. which is difficult to swallow sometimes. one girl gets raped. one character is willing to blow up half of Europe (oh wait, that was Hitler. okay, blowing up the continent would be an exaggeration but you get my point) in order to heal himself. characters are blown up, shot down, impaled, frozen by water in the middle of the night, and some are taken to prison camps. you know what? i fully expected all of that. this is a book written in the middle of the Second World War. There were bad things happening then. a book that doesn't detail these would be lacking historical accuracy and depth. 

DIFFICULTY: the undaunted book queen in me says not hard at all. i mean yeah the book was more than an inch thick BUT HEY who's counting? however, the tiny little girl in me disagrees. for it was indeed a difficult book to read considering the fact that there would be one sentence describing how the field was full of daisies and you could hear a cow's bell in the distance and you could smell the sea and life was normal, and the next sentence would be talking about how the character hadn't eaten in three days and they were on the brink of wishing for death. this wasn't an easy book to read as far as content goes. definitely not for the weak of heart. 

1-10 SCORE: 10. All the way. This book won 6 awards. and it won 6 awards for a reason. it will break your heart and then heal it again. for me, it is forever on my favorites shelf. 
let me put it this way: i normally don't buy books. normally i just borrow them from the library. 
i bought this book. 

OVERVIEW: All the Light We Cannot See is intense, a web of stories and people and facts and myth and time that weave together into one grand climax and leaves you wondering what the purpose of life is. It makes you wonder how you are living today. It makes you think about what you notice, what you give into the world. It changed the way i think. i don't see bad things anymore. i see empty voids capable of good or bad, equally equipped and with equal opportunity to take over that space. at one point in the story Werner is trapped in a basement, listening to a radio. there's absolutely no light, and yet he doesn't feel scared, because the voice that is transmitting over the radio carries light with it. it lights Werner's soul. this scene left me wondering if physical light is not the most important. maybe it is the light that's felt, and heard, the kind that changes our hearts, i think that's what matters. and oh how much there is of it, all the light we cannot see. 

that's what i got out of it.

30-ish before 30. (i can't believe i'm actually making this list.)

so normally i'm one of those people who hides in their room on their birthday.
i don't check my facebook.
i don't answer my phone (mostly because letting the well-wishers leave a message is WAY less awkward and honestly, i LOVE LOVE LOVE the messages they leave me.) OKAY FINE. exhibit a: i still have three different messages from three different people saved on my phone from my 16th birthday. Me? sentimental? never...
and i have a really hard time planning my own parties. or doing anything on my birthdays other than mope around because dang it i'm one year older, one year closer to dying. screw it, let's just plan my funeral now.

I really actually THINK THIS ON MY BIRTHDAY.

this year, i'm turning 20. *cue dirge*
this year, i'm considering writing my eulogy. *enter mourners clad in black*
this year, i--

"HOLD IT."
*awkward silence*
*sad sami gets pulled off stage by happy sami*
*whispered conversation ensues*
"you can't just..."
"yes i can..."
"you need to get a grip, girl..."
"but-"
"NO."
"i need to-"
"you are going to have a good birthday and you are going to enjoy it or so help me-"

*happy sami smiles from corner of stage*
"Hi everyone! sorry about that...Sami's having issues with turning 20. It's kind of understandable considering that its the end of her teen years but i think she's taking it a little too far, don't you? So to help her cheer up, we're going to help her create a list of all the things she's going to do in her 20s, okay? LET'S DO THIS!"

1. Buy a van, refurbish (or refurnish...can't decide on the word here), and road-trip across the U.S. with a small incredible group of girls and an amazing soundtrack. Do a blog specifically for the trip, let all the girls post on it, and take 7 billion pictures. (more or less...)
2. Do some form of obstacle course race.
3. See a Broadway show. In New York, of course. and listen to "Welcome to New York" while there.
4. Learn "Flight of the Bumblebee" on piano. Play it for Vicki.
5. Write. a) that novel. b) a book of poetry, thoughts, etc. maybe just make it a memoir. c) short story. d) a work of nonfiction, if you have an idea for it and everything is working out.
6. MISSIONS.
7. Experience something that takes your breath away.
8. Learn another language. 
9. Find your superpower.
10. Rest.
11. 1 blind date.
12. Takepicturesandmakeitahobby.
13. Travel internationally.
14. Dance in the rain.
15. See the Northern Lights.
16. Visit C.S. Lewis' home, or his grave, or somewhere related to him. (Narnia would be great.)
17. PARIS.
18. Throw a pot on a pottery wheel. 
19. AMSTERDAM.
20. Keep few secrets.
21. LONDON.
22. Tell that person that thing that you've been putting off for forever. of course, only if the opportunity arises. 
23. VIENNA.
24. Run after God. There is nothing else.
25. ROME.
26. Read Shakespeare. 
27. BERLIN.
28. Visit every continent. (including Antarctica.) 
29. MOSCOW.
30. Ride an elephant, while not in the U.S.
31. Add to this list, and chronicle it. 
32. Do something (travel, bookstore, whatever) with Jana. 
33. Work in a library.
34. Do something musical with Lexy. 
35. Messy Twister while wearing white clothes. 
36. Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, and Shawn Mendez concerts with Jana.

and then, after i wrote this list on a piece of card stock with a rainbow of different colored sharpies, i wrote this, too:

Because you are wonderful. Beautiful. Things can always get better, and God's hand is on you always. Fear not, and live without regrets. Do what you know you should do, and everything else will fall into place. 
This is your bucket list to get you through life. It's okay if you don't finish all of them before you turn 30. After all, that's only 10 years down the road. But make sure you do at least some of them, and whichever ones you miss you can add to your yet-to-be-created 40 under 40 list.
don't forget to Carpe this Deim. 

Guest Post: Jana (she's the best :) (also DAY 12: collaborate)

SO - GUEST POST:

Jana from Jana's Faith has kindly agreed to post on here. You should really check out her blog because her pictures are awesome and her writing is thoughtful and she's really just AN AMAZING PERSON.

(also she designed this blog. she is the fairy godmother of blog design, seriously.)

But yes: she's here. Give her a warm welcome! (that means lots of applauding and smiley faces and comments.) :D
_________________________________________________________________________________

hello peoples!  thank you to my longtime and fantastic buddy, sami jean, for letting me put my words on your blog, talk about trust!

anyway, when i was contemplating what i should write about and my thoughts ranged from gushing about books, blabbering about beautiful music *ahem, ed sheeran*, or providing a six page essay on why everyone really should love coffee and chocolate as much as i do, sami gave me a great idea.  so i'm gonna go with it and talk about traveling because i love it ever so much.  and i've had a post rolling around in my head about if for a while…

one). make your own soundtrack to life.  

seriously though, you know how there's always that thing floating around on pinterest that says "i wish my life had a soundtrack"?  well i totally agree, especially when you're traveling.

because now France sounds like owl city (especially this song and this song) and random french rap songs (don't ask me why, it's just what was on the radio).
and london is a weird mash-up of anthem lights covers and adele.
above: the coolest rhino statue i've ever seen (never mind that it's the only one) in front of museé d'orsay, paris

two). write people profiles. 

i've just started doing this but i wish i would have done it as i traveled.  because sometimes there are those people sitting across from you on the subway that is so cramped you have someone else's bag in your lap, and that person is just casually doing a crossword puzzle.
or there's that lady who, in the middle of a blank lot in London, has set up an easel and is painting a crazy complex modern art thing.  and i'm sitting/standing there with a billion different lives for these people.  and i've come up with some pretty convincing ones… like the one about the girl in the floppy sunhat and a killer sunburn, she just picked up and left one day to go travel around europe… oh, and she lives with her grandma.

so write them down, even if it's just for yourself so when you're old and moldy you can tell your grandkids about when the old italian guy randomly walked up and started demanding that you take a picture of him with your dad.
pic: artist lady in the middle of london, i couldn't tell you where we were as we were semi-lost when i took it. 

three).  journal, journal, journal.  write, write, write. 

tips for yourself or others in the future.
where and what you ate and if it was bad or good.
what you actually wore that you packed and what stuff you disgustedly shoved in the bottom of the suitcase, because it just didn't work.
all of the amazing things you saw, felt, heard and did.  and smelled, don't forget to add in those smells.
pic: the harbor in marseille, france.  

four).  always look at everything as an adventure.

… even when you've been walking for, i don't know, hours and your converse that were really cute + comfy at the beginning of the day have turned into instruments of torture.
and then later, when you find out that you basically just did the most extensive walking tour of Paris in the history of man, hey, at least it made a good story and awesome blisters.
pic: pier at omaha beach, normandy 

five). eat the food. 

i'm really hoping that this goes without saying, but i'm afraid it might not: eat the dang pastry.  i don't care if you're on a diet or you've already eaten dessert twice that day, you must eat the food.  end of story, the end.  

because crepes will never again taste as good as they do when you buy them from the old man in the little hole in the wall across from notre dame. 

and those mysterious weird, apple dumplings that have ricotta cheese in them, and taste like heaven, will never confuse you as to how they are made as much as the do when you're there. 

and when you're in a pub, in london, and people around you are talking like in call the midwife, eat the fish and chips.  embrace the grease.  refuse the napkin. 
pic: somewhere in a back alley in europe that had an amazing ice cream place

six). get lost + out of the city. 

forget the map and just start walking.  or buy a ticket to some kind of motorized contraption and hop on, then get off when you wanna.
*disclaimer: i would suggest a little bit of research, just so you know that you're not getting off in the bad part of town (not that i've ever done that) or so you don't get back on said vehicle during rush hour.  because that last one might end up with you have full body contact to complete strangers… on all four sides of you. not that i've ever experienced that.* 
oh, and leave your personal space bubble at home, because it's just gonna get broken.  like stepped on, run over and then backed over again.  

one of my most favorite times in france was when we got on the train and didn't get off until the stops no longer had concrete and my foot hit the bare gravel when we got off.  and then there was the most beautiful french town that was home to 300 people, old caves filled with bats and cave drawings and the most amazing guesthouse in all of history.  so yeah, go see pictures of my baby faced self eating a slug and wandering through other peoples' fields here.
pic: a clearing in the woods outside of d'Arcy sur Cure

seven). go see dead things and really, really old stuff. 

i love museums, all around the world.  but european museums really have it going on because those countries have been around way longer than america has, so they have a lot more stuff from way back when.  and most of the time they have stuff from other countries from a long time ago *cough* mummies egypt what*cough* 

so go see the easter island statue (which disappointingly doesn't chew bubble gum), stare at granite statues of mesopotamian creatures that are twelve feet tall,  marvel at how humans can look at a rock + make a masterpiece out of it and try to figure out how people were able to actually read the rosetta stone to unlock the secret of languages, because it's kinda worn.  and the whole bringing ginormous, bigger-than-a-house pillars back from who-knows-where to europe in the 18th century is still mind boggling to me, howw? 
pic: some old guys portrait at the louvre in paris 

eight). take pictures.  a lot of them. 

because no matter how many you take you will always want to go back and take more.  which is why i have gladly agreed to go stumble around europe with sam for a while, at some point in life… preferably sooner than later. 
(and yes that is me, dreamily looking out to sea and feeling like a romantic poet…  although i think i was actually really trying to figure out how i could possibly move to the little uninhabited island.  i failed unfortunately) 

nine). look at the normal, everyday life of european cities.  (aka not everyone lives under the eiffel tower.) 

so, i lived in france for five months with my family when we were in language school.  and parts of it were good, great even.  the food was amazing and uber fancy cheese was really cheap.

but the amazing food was expensive, so just like in the states, not every meal was escargot and creme brûlée.

and if when you're walking down the tight, little streets with cute shops on either side, remember that 98% of the time people's whole lives are in the apartments above you.  
this is their everyday.  
they walk down a steep set of stairs and get their groceries for the day from the funny little market on the corner.  and that's just part of their day, they live normal lives with work, school, play and family all mixed in.  so be a nice american (see #ten) and respect the normal lives of others, no matter what language they speak or how cool their clothes are. 

also, economics lesson for you today: 
a lot of european countries are socialist.  which means that the government decides when the heat can be turned on in apartments and when it can be shut off.  which means that when it is in the 50's in october but the greater powers didn't think it was time yet, life indoors also requires coats, scarves and boots.  (not that i would know from personal experience… the frostbite didn't cause any long term damage anyway. )
pic: a backstreet somewhere in europe

ten). be a nice american.

i think both from living in a european + african country and living outside of my 1st culture for the past three years, my senses have been attuned to the interaction between americans and the national citizens of whatever fine country you're in.  and there have been several times when i wished my french accent and fashion sense was better so i could try to claim that i was european.  in other words, i was not proud to be an american due to the lady screaming in english about long lines… so be a nice american.  

speaking english slowly, in an a n n u n c i a t ed voice doesn't help a n y o n e.  especially not the person talking, because, well it just doesn't work.  and i can say these things because i'm an american and i have the passport and bad french accent to prove it. 

and unless you're in italy, match the volume around you.  if you're in italy you can laugh, guffaw and be loud as you please because it's exactly how it is in the movies.  but if you're in… well anywhere else, channel your inner european and speak in lowercase, because it too is just like in the movies.
pic: versaille, because it's beautiful

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so there you have it, ten tips on how to travel the world like a boss… or like a homeschooled missionary kid, whatever you prefer.  

you guys have any thoughts, tips or comments?  earth shattering epiphanies or requests for me to be your personal travel guide (which is totally an option)?  just let me know in the comments.
and come see me and say hi, here or here.