It's a fall day in Los Angles. The sun is shining and there's a warmth in the air but inside my little one bedroom apartment there's still enough chill from the night for me to be sitting in sweats and a sweater with my sheep skin slippers comfortably sipping on my hot tea. It's fall, and I love it. Another thing that I've noticed is fleeting here in LA, so I'll enjoy every moment of the cool weather and hope it sticks around for a little longer this year.
I stare at the black keys of my laptop, bold against their silver background and smile. Pandora plays in the background, it's my "Colbie Colet" station...with many different artists and genres mixed in. I've struggled to find an uplifting station on Pandora, so I've made my own, slowly accumulating songs and artists who, for the most part, make me smile and feel warm fuzzies and today is apparently a day for warm fuzzies. I glance back at my mug. Barcelona. The second city I fell in love with. A flood of memories rush back in an instant: the long noisy metro rides, the crowded streets bustling with life, the old stone buildings, the narrow alleys, the hot sticky days and warm nights, dirty feet and no screens on the windows, fanta and jamon. Sangria and life. My 20's. The mug itself isn't from my first over sea exploration, but from a more recent trip my parents made after hearing me go on and on about the city I spent a post college summer in for years. A city where I vowed to return...someday.
The funny thing is Barcelona is not the reason my heart skips a beat when I see fantastic travel photos from gorgeous exotic places around the world. It wasn't the start of my ever growing list of "to see" places tattooed on my heart, nor was it the first place I dreamed of exploring. But it will always be my fabulous first adventure in a long line of adventures. I hear about people being "bitten by the travel bug" after a great trip (my boyfriend being one of those after our trip to Thailand last year)...but me...I truly believe I was born with it. Born with this inexplicable desire to spread my wings and see the world, to break out of the every day monotony and throw caution to the wind, hop on a plane and just LIVE.
Or maybe it's hereditary. Passed down the generations like a recessive gene, popping out here and there unexpectedly. It wouldn't surprise me, after all I have an aunt who met her partner of more than thirty years backpacking through Europe and who for as long as I remember I've been compared to, quite possibly because of my love to travel.
Either way, I can remember realizing there was more out there I wanted to see, to know really early on. Middle school is when I first started fantasizing about travel. I saved and cataloged every dollar I earned, every birthday gift, every allowance, every babysitting job rolled into a tight little wad of bills hidden in a box of memorabilia in the bottom drawer of my dresser. It was my box of Ireland, and it was my dream to go see the rolling green hills and grey skies for myself. Ireland because I was 1/16th Irish and because of a movie I had seen about two neighboring Irish villages and the rivalry between the children in these villages. I dreamed of living in that movie, of the simple modest living and the imaginary wars. By the time I was in High School my little wad of cash was growing substantial...at least enough to purchase a round trip airfare...but although I was still stashing away the cash out of habit my focus had shifted from dreaming of thick Irish accents and the countryside to homecoming dances and high school boys, my first love, and leaving home for college.
Not to say my hunger for adventure and travel wasn't still present, it was ever evident but in different ways. I chose to transfer to a different High School so I could be exposed to different people than the ones I had grown up with, applied to almost all out of state schools for college, chose to major in International Studies with an initial minor in Spanish (which I later dropped and replaced with a double major in Politics), and was adamant about studying abroad at least once in college which is how I ended up making it to Barcelona...and later, almost moving to Washington DC (city number three I've fallen in love with).
Also, in High School my parents started taking my brother and me on family trips, my mom always using the excuse that this year might be the last chance they get to have us all take a trip together. We went to Jamaica, Ixtapa Mexico, and later when I was in College; island hopping in Hawaii. I think it was the first time my parents really allowed themselves to travel, having started our family so young. I loved every one of those trips, and feel blessed that my mom urged our family to take so many "last family trips" over those years, feeding my appetite for new experiences.
I didn't move to DC after all...and never got that job that required me to travel around the world like I thought I would. Sometimes I wonder who I'd be now if I had followed that dream. I surely wouldn't be sitting here on the West coast planning my second trip to Thailand in as many years starting a blog about having the travel gene...or would I? Perhaps I would have made it to Ireland by now, maybe living as a diplomat in a foreign country, as an activist or reporter hiding behind enemy lines, or maybe just settled down with kids, a husband, and a dog. Who knows what my path may have been like, but here I am. Another early thirties writer in LA starting yet another travel blog, because...why not?
And of course, I still have that box, complete with the wad of rolled up ones and five and the little checkbook with every dollar and where it came from written in it. It's still stashed back at my parents waiting patiently till the day Ireland becomes next on my list, which may be sooner than later. Though now I have quite a bigger box, a box that grows quite a bit faster. A box I suggest everyone have. I'm not a rich girl, I don't have a lot but every time I work put away a little bit, a $20 every shift that I forget I even made. And when I'm feeling antsy, when my feet want to sprint out that door and leave all the day to day behind, when I think I can't take another day of the same thing, when my mind dreams of selling all my worldly possessions and disappearing into the vast world I pull out that box and book a ticket. Some people have a "rainy day fund," I have a "travel fund."
Here's to the "rainy day travel adventures" with none other than me.
