Another preparation post: Itchy feet and Gift Bags

Hello again,

Here I am in the airport. We called our card companies over an Americano and an enormous box of Junior Mints. I'm very excited to try all the foods I loved last trip and get a few new ones but awful American chocolate and lame candies will definitely be missed while I'm gone. I have an emergency food stash of Lara Bars and Casey brought peanuts. This trip will be interesting in terms of what foods I'll find to eat. I don't know the word for cheese--or other animal products, come to think of it--in German. How on earth will I manage to find food? Maybe fruit and vegetables are more or less universal. I can just mime carrots or something. Is pretending to be a rabbit in a foreign country going to send a generally positive representation of Americans or a negative one?

Casey, coffee, Junior Mints

Eavesdropping on the conversations here is interesting. There are a couple of businessmen with legal pads and tablets running the world or whatever it is they do. Casey's on his phone, I'm checked out writing, and I'm unbelievably nervous about this trip. I know it's an adventure and should be fun no matter what happens but the world is a very big place and I've only seen flashes of it in bits and pieces. How am I possibly qualified to survive in a foreign country (countries!) for 3 weeks? I probably am not. Something about being a global citizen probably has to do with acknowledging your particular culture's limitations and accepting them, if not re-evaluating and changing your habits.

Random person in the airport doing important things, I'm sure.

I don't know if I've outlined my intentions for this trip yet. It would probably be a good idea to have some indication of what I want from this before I go. To be honest, it was a pretty impulsive decision to go right now, just months after graduating from university. Seemed like the thing to do, some kind of grand tour or life-changing travel experience. I'm excited but I have no idea what I'm running from or where I'm running. All I know is I have a deep-seated wanderlust matched with an equally-deep desire to stay in my house for weeks without doing much of anything. These come in conflict and make for a very hesitant, impulsive, torn traveler. I owe it to myself to go, owe it to my hard work, general tenacity, and youth. When else do we make strange decisions if not in youth when we're relatively unattached and as free as we'll ever be? Maybe I'm looking for freedom, maybe enough space to evaluate my life and find my next step. Maybe it's a horrible idea that will get me stranded in a train station for a few nights in Berlin. We'll see.

Casey and I had the idea to make little individualized gift bags for our hosts while we're out of the country. We'll be staying on a few people's couches so we thought it's only right to bring some kind of host gift or tiny souvenir. These articles are difficult to find in Greeley. We ended up with trinkets made by a local artist from a vending machine, some American candy, and cheesy American flags. I hope our  hosts have similar senses of humor to us because if not, the hosts will think we're completely insane nationalists and leave us horrible reviews online, tanking our chances of ever finding future hosts. Assuming we survive this trip. I'm sure we will and everything will be fine but there is a good chance of things going horribly wrong. Maybe that's part of the excitement, like a roller coaster or getting on the highway.

I hate having pictures taken of me but this one is tradition--I have one almost exactly like this from 5 years ago when Teej and I went to London to visit Gill

My good friend Sera made me a mala for the trip. I'm wearing it on my left wrist with a bracelet I bought in China and every time I look over at it, I think about how much of a hippie I resemble. It's a beautiful piece, made with amber--one of my favorite stones--and Botswana agate, which has properties that should help me in traveling and life goals in general. The China bracelet is a Daoist charm that's supposed to protect the owner. The bracelet is made with different seeds found in China, some of which have fallen off, which is probably a good sign. I think I have enough good luck charms to last for months and months of travel. Now that I've written it, I might fall short, but hopefully not. You won't tell anyone I said that, will you?

China bracelet, mala, backpack. I barely have any arm left.

Anyway, we now have a gate assigned, all my cards are transferred to work internationally, and my phone is charged. Hopefully, we'll catch the Netherlands/Argentina game on the plane and there'll be good news in Amsterdam. Nothing against Argentina or their team but I happen to be visiting Europe this summer so I hope a European team wins.

Our first place is an airbnb host just outside of the city, about ten minutes from the airport by train. We'll put those rail passes to good use over the course of the month, I'm sure, starting tomorrow after our 14 hour flight. Yuck.

Namaste (because I'm a hippie now),
Maria