I have butterflies in my stomach the size of a 747! Last night I was walking home from work, iPod in my ears, my usual route, running a usual-by-now pre-departure checklist in front of my mind’s eye… And it hit me: one week from now there won’t be a single familiar face around. There won’t be anything familiar. For months!
Of course, I did think about it all along, but I was surprised how much it scared me all of a sudden! People kept asking me: aren’t you afraid? I couldn’t figure out what the hell they were talking about. What exactly should I be afraid of? Pickpockets? Snakes? Squatting toilettes? Traveler’s diarrhea? The former two combined? Sure, I’m concerned about it all, but it’s such a minuscule price to pay for every new day full of mystery!
Wait a minute… EVERY day? FULL of mystery? NOTHING familiar to hold on to? Continue reading →
Leaving one’s favorite shoes, outfits and beauty products behind doesn’t mean that one should give up on looking pretty. For starters, one might run into someone cute. And then feeling good about one’s appearance shouldn’t stay back at one’s home along with the rest of one’s crap. So what is the one to do? Continue reading →
Heights, wild dogs and running out of money – these 3 things scare the living shit out of me. Heights are somewhat of a mystery, though my mom believes that some idiot nurse dropped me (on my head?) in the maternity ward which resulted in a broken collarbone that went undiscovered for years. With dogs it’s rather straightforward: an overgrown mutt attacked me from behind as I was strolling to work one day, iPod in my ears, no sudden moves or loud sounds – go figure. Fear of going broke goes back to my college freshman year: with a $12 monthly expense limit, my weight didn’t go above 42 kg/92 lbs, as eating was the luxury I could rarely afford. Safe to say, it was one of the worst years of my life, for food I love!
Thirteen years later I am about to embark on a six months unpaid vacation. Financial security is still my biggest concern and I dedicate a great deal of energy to budget planning. Weekly updates of this little table (below) appeared to be the best way to calm my nerves. For there’s no better way to protect your money, than staying on top of your expenses. Continue reading →
To pack or not to pack is not the question. If you love traveling, you’ll have to try to like (or at least not hate) packing. From the beginning of your trip till the moment you get back home, organizing your shit and keeping it neat will be your main chore. The amount of fun on the road will depend on the ease with which you pack, unpack and re-pack your possessions. Spontaneous trips, gorgeous sites and many new friends can be missed if you don’t have a “system”. I’m not saying that mine is perfect – if anything it’s anal bordering on ridiculous – but it works really well for me. Of course, girls will find more useful ideas than guys (with me being a girl and all), but there are some universal points here also.
This weekend I have performed a “packing test”: I have selected, categorized and photographed everything I’m going to bring with me to Asia, weighed each group of items separately and then once more together inside a fully loaded backpack. Continue reading →
My new backpack has arrived! And oh, what a long journey it was: a relationship of 1.5 years had ended before the damn thing crossed the ocean… But at last it’s here – and I’m happy.
…Shopping for a backpack is not easy. Backpacks are to backpackers what boobs are to women: they come in different shapes and sizes and your entire style is defined by them. Adding to the resemblance, there’s an endless debate about which are better – big or small – with big (shocking!) slightly in the lead.
Being somewhere between the categories in the boob department, I’m definitely a small backpack girl. Continue reading →
My name is Lena and I’m lucky: I have done well in one of the most random lotteries of all: parental one. Besides the practical convenience of being pretty (you know, free drinks), compact (enough leg room even on the smallest buses) and healthy (no allergies, no broken bones and a digestive system that can process nuclear waste), I owe to my dad my boundless curiosity and anal(ytical) mind to my mom. Continue reading →
