My adventure begins with no plans at all. My European extravaganza was spurred by two initial invites. My Greek friend Kostas from Toronto had been inviting me to his family’s place in Greece for two summers and of course I initially said no. Last summer there was no chance as I would have had to take a whole years worth of vacation to go for any decent period of time. And this year my “no” was backed by; “I have to buckle down and start my business,” “I have to train all summer for the Timberman ½ Ironman”, “I’ll be away at school”, “I can’t afford it,” “I always spend my summers at the beach,” “I’ll have tons of studying to do, obligations, relationships,” etc, etc, blah blah blah, come on! I just wasn’t making space for it yet and instead filling that space up with excuses! Invitation number two was based on my best friend of 17 years, Justin Frenzel, being transferred to Milan through work. He was going to be living out there and I promised I would come before October when he left NYC. Now this was one of those “light” promises; you know the ones you really want to do but somehow find excuses not to fulfill. I personally tend to fill my life up so much that it overflows and then everything ends up not fitting into my glass. Now if you have ever been the person, commitment or obligation that spilled over the top of my glass I apologize. It’s hard to make everyone happy and in trying to do so I know I have hurt some feelings along the way. Feelings that belong to some pretty amazing individuals! At least I know when I’m wrong, I have looked my fault dead in the eye and know how significant it is, was and will always be to make sure I do not do this. It’s ok to say NO! If I’ve learned anything at all it’s you can’t make anyone happy, truly happy, until you make yourself happy! Same applies to love. Until you love yourself fully with all that you have and for all that you are you will never have the purest love to give and I think Pure Love is the only way to go!Ok getting off track here! So I have these two invitations swirling around in my head as well as the fact that I had just quit my job, started a new adventure, chosen a new career, found my true life purpose, embarked on an indescribable journey and shelled out quite a bit of green ones for school and old debt! And my green ones I don’t mean super yummy green smoothies! They are WAY more fun to shell out! Well they are also great to make, drink and even share with your friends! So I just started talking about it, thinking about it, telling people about my invitations, asking people their advice and finally I told my friend Matt who was working in Zurich but was originally from London that I was considering taking my friends up on their offers. He said, why don’t you find a cheap flight and fly into London because it’s direct and easy and I’ll take a couple days off and show you all that London has too offer! After that my mind was made up! London, Greece, Italy what the heck! All that and “light” promises by Matt and Justin that they would do additional traveling with me. And since I can never do anything just a little instead of booking a week or two, three or even a month I said screw it, how long can I stay for! Next thing I knew I was booking a ticket 6 days after I would be coming back from my month intensive at school for 10 WEEKS! Yes folks, that’s how I do it! Felt like an opportunity of a lifetime. I would have no apartment, no job, no husband, no kids, a sports/triathlon injury that needed to heal and everything at my finger tips! Oh did I mention I booked my trip on miles so my flight was 200 dollars and not having to pay for hotels was going to allow me the luxury of time and of course the complimentary chaos of “flying by the seat of my pants as well.” You’ll see what I mean later ;)
So my summer was now going to consist of packing up my life and moving out of my apartment on May 31st. Followed by flying out 3 days later to school in Patagonia, Arizona for a 5 weeks masters program intensive and note to self, don’t give yourself two days to pack up and unpack everything you have and then repack for 5 weeks and THEN only give yourself 6 days after that to pack for almost three months when in those 6 days you also plan a small fourth of July party at your beach house and a quick visit to NYC! Yeah not the best planning there! That’s the spilling over again! Now I could spend the next month writing about how amazing Arizona was but that’s another time and another blog ;) It will be nice to revisit the memories when I do.
So after all that I gave myself just one full day to unpack and repack, which turned into half a day, which as always turned into me not starting to pack until 9PM the night before, trying to take a nap at 2AM and sleeping right through my alarm! Boy was that fun! Slept through and woke up needing to finish packing, shower, make breakfast (aka superfood smoothie, also a necessity) and get to the airport all in 40 minutes. Mind you the airport is about 20-25 minutes away with no traffic. However, yes be shocked, I made it! Over packed, overslept and over did it but at least I was being consistent!
So that is how it all began. And at 6:45AM on Thursday July 9th I stepped onto a road that was going to take me on a beautiful, outrageous, fabulous, crazy, over the top, unexpected adventure! Oh how sweet it is!
