Halfway Point Ramblings

Finally a new post! Sorry it has been so long, travels and procrastination got the best of me. Thank you to everyone who sent me reminder emails to post though. It makes me really happy to know there are so many people reading. I feel loved. :)

The first half of the trip I was trying to be really good about my blog. I was using it as my own personal journal in a way. It was more for me to be able to remember everything that happened when I was old and grey and my life was boring and normal, haha. Unfortunately that took a lot of time to constantly record everything I did everyday. I tried to blog as much as possible on trains and buses between countries and at night when I had down time. The problem was that Hilary was doing the same. This caused some computer time issues and eventually I got to the point where I thought we were worrying too much about blogging about our trip and not enough about actually being on our trip. So I've reevaluated the process and decided to just write a summary at the end of each country from here on out. Which means I should be updated once a week hopefully. Hilary is still going to try and do a pretty descriptive day-to-day account of the trip so if you want to keep up with the details here is her link:

The other major problem with blogging as much as I was is that I honestly feel like I am running out of ways to continually explain what we are seeing. It sounds horrible but we've already started to get jaded with the whole process. We have seen castles, monuments, museums, churches, parliaments, parks, caves, red light districts, festivals, rivers, bridges, lakes, mountains, sunsets, etc. We've had amazing and delicious foods, wines and beers. We've met the most generous people who will probably shape my life for years to come. We've met people that embraced us and ones who just wanted to tell us how much they hate America. We've been lost and found in just about every city. We've mastered transportation systems -- usually on the day that we leave. We've taken trains and buses. We've had nights of no sleep and nights of lots of sleep. We've had days where we didn't want them to end and days where we couldn't wait for a bed to sleep in. We've gone way longer than we should without showering and have worn the same clothes for an entire week. We've slept on floors, beds, couches and on trains. And we are only half way done with our trip.

It doesn't seem quite as new and exciting in the same way it did when the trip first started. I'm starting to get comfortable and things don't surprise or shock me anymore. It is a very 'take it as it comes' lifestyle. This isn't a bad thing at all. I am actually really enjoying the fact that I am as comfortable and content with everything as I am. I think I was truly born to travel. We are in a new place and a new surrounding every week if not every 3-4 days and I haven't once wished I was back in the states or in Seattle. I miss my friends and family, but not the city or the consistent lifestyle. It has only been 6 weeks and I'm sure I'll get to a point when all I want is to stay in one place for more than 3 nights, but right now I can't imagine that. All I can imagine is moving to Europe and traveling every weekend. I love never knowing where I am, how to get around, what to say, what I am eating or sometimes where I'm sleeping that night. I have gone outside of my comfort zone enough times in the past 6 weeks I am realizing that a comfort zone may not exist any more.

The best example is that of food. Those of you that know me well and have known me for awhile know that I am a pretty picky eater. My family used to joke that I was the wonder bread girl cause I wouldn't eat anything but white bread when I was younger. White bread, pizza, mac'n cheese and hamburgers were pretty much my diet. Unfortunately I didn't really grow out of that all that much as I got older. White bread turned in to wheat and mac'n cheese turned in to alfredo pasta but other than that I still wouldn't each vegetables or anything else healthy or past American and Italian food. New foods from other cultures scared me. All of that has gone down the drain here. I am eating just about everything I can get my hands on and loving it. My family will be excited to learn I think I have eaten just about every vegetable I knew of and some I didn't on this trip and liked them even...shocking! I have finally gotten to the point where if someone puts it on my plate I will eat it. This started because our hosts were making us food and when someone does something like that for you, you don't say no. Eventually, after a few times of this happening, I learned that it turns out I like a lot more food than I would have guessed. Peas for example. Yum. Who knew?

I have always been a pretty low maintenance person. Makeup? Not necessary. Blow drying my hair? Doubtful. Styling it? Ya right, too much effort. Putting together an outfit that other people would be jealous of because it is so cute? Not within my capabilities. None of that has really changed on the trip. Except that I have learned I don't quite need to wash my clothes as much as I though. This could turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing. Essentially I have two pair of pants and three shirts that I have worn the entire trip. Once in a while I look at all of the super stylish girls walking the streets of places like Vienna and wish it would be nice to have something other than REI pants and dirty tennis shoes but when it comes down to it, only having those clothes hasn't had any negative affects on me. I've never been much of a materialistic girl but traveling makes you realize how much really is unnecessary. We take so much of what we have for granted and we have way to much of it. In the end it doesn't matter what kind of clothes you are wearing, how your hair is styled or if you have makeup on, All that matters is the type of person you are and how you are living your life. Hopefully this is something I will remember once I get back to the states and fall back in to the routine of everyday life with ads everywhere yelling at me to buy that really cute outfit... and that green purse I've been looking for everywhere!

My ramblings have gone way off track of where I was going with this blog, but I guess it is a good half-way point summary of where my head is at at the moment. Since we meet so many new people along this trip the same questions always get asked. One of these is what I plan to do when I get back to the states, especially in relation to my business degree. Of course I have no flipping clue. And it is hard listening to Hilary's answer because she is so sure that she wants to work at Amazon and loves doing what she does there. It is not hard because I don't know what I want to do; it is hard because I would never want to do what she does. I'm so happy that she is doing something she loves and enjoys, but hearing her talk about her job I think I would hate it. Which doesn't make sense. Any sensible person who got a business degree would want to go work for Amazing right? Ha. No. Not I, of course. Microsoft? Costco? Google? Starbucks? None of this sounds interesting to me. Finance? Accounting? HR? Nope. No thanks. crap. Why did I get that business degree again? Oh right, cause I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do and business seemed to make sense. I hoped I would figure it out by the time I graduated. False. Yet again. I don't feel like I am anywhere closer to figuring out what I want to do. In fact, I almost feel further away from it. All of my friends that graduated from the business school and are getting jobs in the business industry (duh). I hear about them and they should sound like great opportunities and amazing companies, yada yada yada. But all I think is: "good for you. but nothing I would ever want to do." Shit.

All I want to do is move to Europe or Australia and work and travel. Hm. That sounds irresponsible. My dad once asked me why he sent me to business school if all I wanted to do was go off and travel and not work in the business industry. Whoops. I didn't have an answer for him and I probably made some smart ass remark and changed the subject but the truth is I didn't know why. Honestly, all my degree has helped me figure out so far is that I want to travel and I don't want to work in the corporate world. I hate the corporate world. I don't enjoy working in an office very much. I get bored with repetitive work and end up riding something out until I can move on to my next adventure. This isn't really a good thing in business from what I have learned so far. Sitting behind a computer is boring. I'm good at it. But I don't enjoy it. It's not something I look forward to everyday. I guess this is probably true for a lot of people since complaining about your job tends to be a big topic for a lot of people. But I also know that there are people who really enjoy it. They thrive in the corporate environment. Always wanting a promotion, to work their way to the top, to prove themselves. This is great. Just not something I'm interested in. I could care less what my job description is. Making a lot of money would be great but I'd only want money to be able to travel more. And there are a lot of ways to travel for cheap. I don't have the inner motivation to be in a constant battle for a promotion over my colleges. I just don't care.

A lot of good comes out of the business world. I know this. The world would not work without business. Unfortunately a lot of bad does too though. And I think the bad shows up more than the good. People are constantly stressed. There are inner office politics - which I hate. Drama! It's always about the next deadline or how much money was made or lost. You are constantly having to answer to someone else: the boss, the client... And usually when you get to a place high enough within your business it means you are spending more time working than doing anything else in your life. I've seen families and relationships suffer from this. Ya ya, I'm only 23 and don't know what the hell I'm talking about for those of you that are reading this that are older, more wise and experiences. I know. I have a lot to learn and understand that isn't even close to possible at 23. But I've always been very observant and I see how things affect people. Jobs, especially stressful ones, never seem to have much of a positive impact. Especially because I feel like most people are not doing what they really enjoy. They are doing something they fell into and probably didn't hate. How awful. I don't know if I just happen to have a really pessimistic view of this whole topic or if I am just overly realistic for my age. I beg anyone out there to let me know if they feel drastically different.

So where that tangent paragraph of writing was going is to say that I have no idea what I want to "do" with my life except that I don't want to fall in to one that doesn't make me happy. I'd rather be a traveling bum than stuck in a job I don't like. The problem is that most of the jobs I feel like I am supposed to be interested in or apply for don't actually interest me. I keep playing with the idea of going to work for an NGO or some other organization along those lines. That will probably be where my first attempt at a real life grown up job is at, but those are still big businesses that usually have several layers to them just like other stereotypical organizations of the corporate world. I want to do something that lets me go outside, have contact with real people and not just a computer. I want something where I can see the results of my action through the look on someone's face and not by the number in their bank account. I want something where I can go to sleep at night not worrying about everything I still need to do for work. I want to be able to have a social life and a family and still feel like I am contributing to the world. I don't know if these are realistic.

Bah. Is usually the conclusion I come to when I over think my future and decide I don't want to make a decision. I say 'bah' and then move on to my next ADD moment in life until the next time I want to contemplate moving to some random continent where I know no one. Haha. One day hopefully that 'bah' will turn into an "okay, I'm doing it" followed by the scariest plane ride of my life. Until then, 'bah' it is.

Wow. I sat down to write about the past two weeks and that came out. Whoops. I am currently on an overnight train from Budapest to Krakow and I think writing while physically traveling at the same time has put my head in the clouds more so than usual. Or at least allowed me to put what I am thinking in to writing - which is usually really hard for me. Thanks for reading all of that for those of you out there that have. Guess you know a little more about me than you were expecting to. Haha. Okay, the next post I will update you on Vienna and then Budapest!