New York City, USA

It has been nine months since my last post and returning to the US. My emotions have been up and down. While I was traveling, I had a new adventure to wake up to every day. Now, I struggle every day to find what my next adventure will be. What will drive me to jump out of bed every morning?

Three years ago, traveling the world was a terrifying thought. I didn't even know how to travel. Now, I find myself yearning to be back on the road. It seems like the easiest thing to do. Getting a normal job, an apartment, and a car absolutely terrify me. I don't even know where to start. Putting a backpack on with no idea where my next bed will be seems like a breeze.

I decided there were many many stories missing from the blog. What I was thinking or feeling was not fully captured. I sat down for six hours a day for four months writing. I wrote a book. I am now in the process of sending query letters to literary agents. My fingers are crossed that someday my adventures will be published.

I also discovered a career that would fulfill my need to travel. I want to work for the United States Foreign Service. After months of studying, I joined the 75% of test-takers and failed. The test is very difficult, and I can only compare it to random trivia. I failed by 1.35 points. Being so close to passing, made the failure sting even more. I now have to wait a full year to re-sit the test. If I pass and make it through the grueling interview process, I could be working for an embassy in a far off country.

Now I need to do something until that date comes around. I decided to fly to Scotland and assist my older sister with the preparations for her wedding in July. I'm also a bridesmaid for my good friend Margarita, so I decided to visit her in New York City, on my way to Europe. I left my backpack behind and packed two large suitcases.

Margarita and I at Grand Central Station

Fun day at a Yankees game

It was new to me to see a calorie count. Makes the food much less appealing.

The happy couple. Cartagena 2013 is going to be amazing! It was a quick trip, but we had so much fun and a bit too much to drink. We still managed to try on a few bridesmaid's gowns before I jumped my flight to Glasgow. Goodbye USA, it has been a wonderful few months. I already miss my mom. 

Sioux City, Iowa, USA

I hadn't been morel hunting in over a decade. Every spring, my dad used to pile my sisters and I into the suburban and head towards the sandy dunes of the Missouri River to hunt for these delicious mushrooms. The activity had the feel of hunting for Easter eggs, except instead of the children being excited over the spoils, my dad's mouth would water more and more with each paper grocery bag we filled. At the time, I was too young to appreciate the taste of morels, or any mushroom for that matter, I simply enjoyed the game of hide-and-seek that the morels and I played.

For years I wanted to return to the fertile soils of Sioux City in the early spring to hunt and eat fresh morels. This year, I found myself living in Omaha, Nebraska, a ninety minute drive away from ground zero. Nothing was going to keep me from the hunt this year.
On a Friday morning, I jumped in the car with a mesh grocery bag ready to hold my prized morels. My friend Melinda and I planned to scour the countryside on Saturday. I hadn't spent much time in my hometown in years, so I decided to pop in on a few friends while I was in town.

My first stop was the Milwaukee Wiener House to meet up with one of my dad's best friends. I am not usually a fan of hot dogs, but the Milwaukee Wiener House has some kind of magic with theirs. The place has been open for decades and always has a long line at lunchtime. As I pulled off the interstate and into their parking lot, I saw that nothing had changed. Gus was still working behind the counter. He had served me hot dogs since I was a little girl holding my grandpa's hand as he took me out to lunch. My dad's friend, Steve, was waiting for me and we reminisced about the past years over hot dogs loaded with everything.

After lunch and a quick eye exam at my dad's old store, I drove around Sioux City. It had changed. Restaurant chains had flooded the city and dilapidated buildings were replaced with new store fronts.

I picked up my friend Gabe, a girl friend from junior high. I hadn't seen Gabe in ten years and we set out to visit some of our old haunts. My old family home had a huge acerage behind the house, stretching up a hill with the house nestled in a valley. On top of this hill was a bench that I used to sit on and watch the miles of rolling prairie land. I wanted to visit this bench today. My family's house had been sold a few years back, but trespassing wasn't going to deter me. Gabe and I drove the car into a cemetery that sits behind my old house. I parked the car and we climbed through mud, tree branches, and over a barbed wire fence. After a short walk, I found the bench looking the same as it did when I last saw it almost seven years ago. We sat and looked at the view around us and I peeked down into the valley at my old house. I missed this place.

The rest of the day was spent playing MegaTouch and drinking Miller Lite's in a small bar called the Riverside Tap. We picked it because it looked like a scary place to meet locals. We were the only one's in the bar. We met up with Melinda and a few others for dinner and drinks that evening. Laughter and beers kept me up way past my bedtime.

Hanging out at the Riverside Tap

The next morning, Melinda served eggs benedict with smoked salmon and asparagus. It was a lovely way to start the day and prepare for the hunt. Melinda and I pulled on our hiking boots and drove to the loess hills of Stone Park. This is supposedly the most fertile soil in the world, found only here and in China.

The Party's Here. The beginning of the Morel Hunt.
We hiked through muddy valleys covered with dead leaves and rotting logs. After about ten minutes of searching, my trained eyes spotted the first mushroom of the day. I yelled out to Melinda and pulled three morels out of the ground. Over the next few minutes, Melinda and I added two more to the bag. We tried a few more spots around the park, but found nothing, so we decided to head closer to the sandy dunes by the river.

As we drove out to Dakota Dunes, the temperature dropped fifteen degrees and dark clouds began creeping in from the West. In true Midwest style, tornados were due to drop in. We weren't worried yet, so we continued on. We were still waiting to stumble across the mother load of morels and didn't want to go home with only five. We trudged through the sandy dunes, but found nothing. The winds were picking up and the sky had grown dark. It was time to give up for the day.

Back at Melinda's, the weather channel screamed of impending doom from Omaha to Sioux City. None of us were too concerned. We grew up with tornados and knew chances were slim of getting hit and if things got bad, we just go into the basement. I wasn't about to drive through hail though. I ran out to the store and picked up some ribeye steaks to eat with our morels while I waited out the storm.

The spoils of the hunt


Morel's for dinner. They were absolutely delicious.

With a belly full of steak and the taste of morels still on my tongue, the storm had passed by. The tornados had not made an appearance and so it was time for me to make the drive back to Omaha.

Omaha, Nebraska, USA - Home

I left San Sebastian on a bus bound for Madrid shortly after midnight on the 4th of September waving goodbye to my friends with tears in my eyes. The moment I stepped on the flight, I knew it was headed for the US. I could hear the loud conversations of every American sitting around me. Luckily, I'm always prepared. I stuck in my earplugs, pulled down my face mask, and slept through the long flight directly into Charlotte.
In Charlotte, I declared to customs that I had cured meats in my bag. They took all of it. I didn't even bat an eye. I think one of the biggest things I've learned on this trip is to not let anything that happens at the airport bother you. I think the customs agents were shocked. They kept waiting for me to have a reaction. I checked my backpack back into the airport and took a few more short flights into Omaha, Nebraska.

Back with my family. I hadn't seen my sister since I left in February 2010.


My one backpack made the entire journey around the world.


On the drive home, everything looked so foreign. I had spent almost 20 years of my life in this area of the US, but now the roads seemed to wide, the cars were too big, the buildings had too much space in between them. I knew I would have a lot to adjust to.

When we arrived at my moms house, I found one of my kitties (Fred) in the windowsill. He was confused, but let me hug him. My other cat (Jarvis) was laying in bed. He looked completely shocked when I walked into the room. He had a look on his face like I had come back from the dead. It was so wonderful to hold both of them again.
Reunited with one of my babies.


Now that I'm home, people keep asking what my plan is. They have been asking since the first day! I have no idea what is next.

The End of the World Tour...For Now

After almost 19 months or 568 days, it is time to go home. Time to see my family and the precious kitties I left behind.
I have climbed the Great Wall and ridden a tobagon on a metal slide down.
I have bungy jumped The Nevis
I was a grid girl for the Swedish Races and saw the Swedish Prince.

San Sebastian, Spain - Semana Grande!!!!

The Big Week! This is my favorite time in San Sebastian. There are stages set up all over town with music and dancing performances, street performers, fireworks every night, and dancing until 7 in the morning.

The fireworks are put on by a different country every night and a winner is picked in the end. The displays every night were really impressive. Portugal had my favorite.
NC and I waiting for the fireworks



NC, I and a few other girls took it by storm. After two days straight of fireworks and partying, I had to take a break.
NC carrying me home after my flip flops broke and a whole night of parties.

I slept, recovered, wandered around the Basque museum (which is free on Tuesdays), and took it easy. You feel guilty missing any night of the fun, so I made sure I was at the fireworks and then straight to bed.
Basque museum. These huge dolls walk through the streets during Semana Grande. I find them really creepy.
Big heads walking through the streets. They hit people with what looks like dried inflated stomach linings.

After the short rest, it was back to the parties and music.
Towards the end of the week, I took time to go to Corrida de Toros. I was such an idiot. I had read last year the killing the bull in bullfights was being outlawed. I assumed this was throughout most of Spain. I was so wrong. It is only in the Catalonia region and it doesn't begin until 2012.

They tortured the bull for almost a half an hour. They stick spears into it repeatedly, they taunt it, then they start sticking sharp swords into the poor animal. This is not any normal bull either. It is obviously well trained to chase and hit the targets. They end the performance when the bull finally collapses. They slash a main artery repeatedly until the bull's head falls down. The bull keeps trying to stand back up. I began crying and we had to leave. I couldn't stand watching it. It was in no way a fair fight. After we left, I found out that they embarass the bull further by cutting off its ears and tail, then dragging it around the arena. It is then skinned alive (if the bull makes it to that point). The whole thing was awful.

Besides that, Semana Grande was amazing and entirely too much fun!

San Sebastian, Spain - Eviction

In the middle of recovering from my cold, one of my roommates lost her mind.

She moved to Spain to learn Spanish, but decided it was too hard after 2 weeks. She decided she wanted to go home. Only problem was, she had an agreement to rent her room until November. The landlord would not let her out of the agreement.

I listened to my roommate complain and cry to no end. After 5 days straight of her talking of nothing except wanting to move home and how much she hated it here, I had had enough. She was too negative to be around and ruining the end of my trip.

One morning, I woke up from a loud noise from the kitchen that had been going on for 15 or 20 minutes. The faucet was running at full blast on high heat. All the lights were on in the house and the washing machine was going. I knew what was going on. My roommate was running all the utilities as revenge against the landlord.

I asked her if she left the faucet running and she said, "I was cleaning out the sink." I replied, "But it has been running for at least 15 minutes." I knew what she was doing. She left shortly after this and turned everything on again. I realized that she had begun doing this the day before, the faucet was a new addition. She had been washing one item of clothing at a time and did continuous loads of laundry from morning until late in the night. We are only allowed one load a week.

I was so frustrated that she would do this. It was affecting me and our third roommate, not to mention it was also insane. She could flood the apartment and how she was acting, I wouldn't doubt if she would burn it down.

I wrote her a very polite email asking her to stop turning everything in the apartment on. She responded with, "I can do whatever I want." She then came home and turned everything on again and left. I tried again to reason with her. I sent another polite text asking her to stop. She wrote back a completely unreasonable response and called me a few four letter words.

I'd had enough. I felt threatened and she was acting crazy. I called the landlord and told her what was going on. I also told her how the roommate had threatened to steal the landlord's television if she didn't get her deposit back. I told her I didn't feel the apartment was safe with her here. My landlord said she would take care of it.

I began to receive more angry text messages from the roommate that she wasn't allowed back in the apartment.
I decided to ignore her texts and not let them ruin my time. I stayed out with my friends having fun and came home the next day to find all of the roommate's things gone. She had been evicted.

I breathed a sigh of relief. So happy I don't have to run around turning off lights and faucets and closing refrigerator doors.

Back to enjoying the beach and Semana Grande begins!

Estoy Enfermo. No Bueno. - San Sebastian

After too much sun, too many late nights dancing, and too little sleep, it has all finally caught up with me.
The sun is shining and the temperature is high. I'm sitting in my room with no voice. When I began to lose it two days ago, I was talking to my mom on Skype. She says, "you sound like you are getting sick." I replied, "Oh no, I feel fine, just too many late nights catching up to me. I will have my voice back tomorrow." I was wrong and of course my mother was right. The next day I woke up with a terrible cold and aching joints. I have been trapped inside for 2 days and I'm going crazy! I can't even do my Spanish lessons with no voice, so I'm forced to study verb tenses and not be able to speak them.

View from my room

Hopefully I will kick this cold soon because Semana Grande begins on Saturday! Semana Grande means Big Week in Spanish. It is a huge party in San Sebastian with a huge fireworks display every night. I do not intend on missing it.
Time to make another cup of soup and look out the window at everyone having fun outside.