Traveling the World

I can't help but becoming increasingly more aware of the 3 year mark since I've traveled outside the borders of this country...adventuring throughout Europe in my 21st year with an old lover, young and viciously wild hearts, alive, riding 99 down the coast with my heart in my throat and my hands in the air, drunk off of newness and cheap wine, late night walks to candlelit Spanish pubs, dreary Paris morning...The stars are pulling at my hair again, and I know I won't stay still for long. 

These photos are my documentation of my month long stay in Spain and Paris in January 2011. I don't believe I've ever blogged them before, and I felt it was long past time.

I flew from California to Spain to meet Zack alone, and came down with an awful illness the day I arrived. I was coughing and feverish the entirety of the trip.I lost weight and didn't sleep (neither did anyone else due to my signature incredibly loud cough). Thinking back now, I should have taken a day to rest...but that's not like me. I started feeling more back to normal after I went into a Parisian medical shop and a man handed over a big ol' bottle of Codeine in my last week abroad. Communication with others was difficult for me knowing very little Spanish and zero French, so I observed and photographed instead. It's interesting now that my fondest memories are the ones I instantly brushed aside after they happened...a cup of coffee in Paris, a kind word in broken English to help me out, a waiter giggling at our list of phrases, window watching as people take their siestas and dreaming of what their lives feel like, constantly seeing my breath as the place I stayed was not heated, body parts of pigs hanging from ceilings in Spain (because they love ham more than damn near anything), feeling the cobblestone underneath my feet, how crazy those toilets were, having a boy take me under his wing and lead me around a foreign place; wild eyed and excited, and how I was completely lost in a perpetual state of wanderlust. I hope you all take it upon yourself to travel sometime in your life, to get lost, to explore the unknown. 

"If we don’t offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Don’t become one of these people. The fear of the unknown and the lure of the comfortable will conspire to keep you from taking the chances the traveler has to take. If you take them, you will never regret your choice."