What was the longest bus ride you’ve been on? 

For backpackers, this question can become a subtle pissing contest. 

Eight hours between Berlin and Warsaw quickly becomes “nothing.”

Try 15 hours from Hoi An to Hanoi. 

Or 24 hours from El Chalten to Bariloche 

24 hours? That’s nothing, says the Brit sipping the Chang beer. He starts his story. (The true test of endurance begins.)

Long bus rides are truly a badge of honor for the Osprey-wearing soul. You haven’t really been backpacking and really been on a budget until you’ve crammed your frame into a single seat for the better part of a day.

Hungover.

Sitting alone with someone you just met the day before. 

One of you will be able to sleep, and the other won’t.

That’s just the rules. 

There will probably be a movie playing at full volume in a language that you have not bothered to learn.

That’s just the rules.

The length of each trip alone is usually enough to scare off any “non-travelers,” any comfort queens or sensible human beings whom backpackers show their nostrils. But there is real beauty (and discomfort) in these bus rides: they truly prepare you for anything.

At some point during your bus ride, you will have to say to yourself, “Oh this is what we’re doing now? Okay.” 

Upon searching for “bus” in my photos, I came up with two results pleasing to those with an affinity for alliteration. This is a bus in Bangkok.

I chose to learn French in middle school because I thought I would use it the most. My other options were Spanish and German, but I had no interest in visiting South America at the time and I never expected to be on an overnight bus from Copenhagen to Berlin. 

Night buses made the most sense for my dwindling bank account, which had gotten a true pounding from a month in the United Kingdom. If I could combine my accommodation and travel costs into one, I was truly outsmarting the system. I was travel-girl-extraordinaire. Watch out world, I’m rolling in Euro. No need to stick to appetizers when I get to Germany – I can treat myself to a whole entree (only one, next week, following six dinners purchased at convenience stores.) 

Travel -girl-extraordinaire became travel-girl-very-scared at 3 in the morning when I woke up to a German announcement from the bus driver. It was followed by a Danish announcement from the bus driver. And then it was followed by everyone on the bus shuffling around and standing up. 

The bus wasn’t supposed to get into Berlin until 8am! It was not 8am! I was not ready to start my life as a lady of the night in either Germany nor Denmark, wherever I was. 

Did I get on the wrong bus? 

Am I stranded?

Why didn’t I choose to learn German for two semesters in middle school? 

Why is everyone leaving their newspapers and blankets at their seats?

Just in case, I took everything with me.

I stepped off the bus into what looked like a warehouse. Or, possibly, the place where you go when you get trafficked. Sleepy bus riders shuffled in a line to somewhere, and I had to follow. My mind rode the spectrum of dramatic and reassuring thoughts. As the winner of CB West High School’s Most Dramatic Award in 2011, I was vowing never to go backpacking alone again…

…if I made it out alive. 

Up the stairs and through the door was a pristine, white building. Maybe heaven, but with a food court. Where the hell was I? 

I looked around and saw pamphlets at the food court advertising an ocean view. 

It was then that I remembered I had a phone and decided to check my Google Maps. 

Water. 

There was a whole bunch of water between Denmark and Germany.

Bus in Buenos Aires.

I clearly did not recognize the German word for ferry when I booked the trip or heard the announcement. 

This was the first of many “this is what we’re doing now” bus rides of my travels. But every time the bus stopped or something didn’t go as planned, I thought back to this trip. 

I thought about the relief of arriving in Berlin when, on the way from Mendoza to Cordoba, a rock shattered the back window of the bus and we needed to wait on the side of the road for an entirely new bus.  

I thought about Berlin when a bus stopped in the middle of the road in Valparaiso for 25 minutes. (The driver was waiting for a friend.)

Once, a bus stopped at a bathroom between Da Lat and Saigon. The stalls were a different kind of stall, containing only tile, a bucket, and a hole in the corner. 

Any time I found myself in a Greyhound station, I reminded myself that at least everyone around me spoke English.

I took a five-hour bus to Penang three times in three weeks just because I thought the city of George Town was cute and enjoyed Love Lane. (Love Lane is probably not what you’re picturing – simply a cute street of bars and restaurants that had a charming, up-and-coming air to it.) 

Once, the bus equivalent of a flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder and told me that we would now be playing Bingo. 

(It was a great way to practice my Spanish, even if it was at 6 o’clock in the morning.) 

—

Ten times out of ten, (okay, maybe 9.5,) what seemed like a grave mistake ended up being a game of patience.

The bad job at the hostel in Malaysia led to good jobs online.

The delay at the station led to a conversation with a stranger who had a similar taste in tattoos.

The panic of being led down the wrong roads by a taxi driver in Egypt became a satisfying dinner at his family home. (This did not happen to me, but it was quite a story.) 

As the amount of hours you’ve spent on buses adds up, the amount of time you’re willing to wait does too. Follow the rules, trust everyone getting off the bus around you, and you’ll be okay. You’ll get to your destination, learn a word or two in a different language, and walk away, shrugging your shoulders once again at the slight change in plans. 

So now I’m being told to stay at home for the foreseeable future? Oh, this is what we’re doing now. Okay.

It’s 1 p.m. I’m in New Mexico or New Zealand or New Brunswick. But nothing is new. Everything is old and everyone is smelly and the paint is literally and figuratively chipping. I’m in a laundromat. My phone is charging in a locker during the wash, so I stare into the laundromat, and think of the places that I’ve been on this trip. 

The washing machine spits out Brunswick, maybe 10 minutes into the cycle. As I stare into the washing machine, that’s it, I’m in Brunswick. My body was wearing black under a grey sky, grey buildings and grey bike racks and white-grey sidewalks that lead from the grocery store to Sydney Road, Sydney Road to the hostel. 

I don’t remember the name of the grocery store. I can’t remember if I encoded this memory while leaving the grocery store to cook the Sunday roast, to buy emergency hangover Paracetamol, or to make a routine run when my routine was based in Melbourne, Australia. Which was it? Why this grocery store run? 

Silly, selfish memory. Make way for the good stuff, hey? Formal attire, please. 

Before I took on the thankless job of staring into this washing machine, I told myself I’d read. My copy of Tibetan Peach Pie is lying open next to me with highlighted names and notes. Behind a bright pink curtain is the name Barnett Newman. Robbins mentioned the success that Barnett Newman had exploring vertical lines. 

Between my visits to the Tate Modern and the MOMA, I could bet that I’ve taken in the visual stimuli that comes from Newman’s work. I might have stood directly in front of one of his vertical masterpieces, scanned horizontally to take in the name of the artist, and contemplated the effects of his looming lines.

But I put those clothes back on the rack.

Or maybe I wrote his name down in my notebook, optimistically believing that in the midst of plane rides, train rides, insurance payments, cousins’ birthday parties, crying, building blanket forts, and picking up emergency hangover Paracetamol, I would look Newman’s name up and stuff more seemingly productive knowledge about modernism into my head. 

My notes from the Tate Modern serve as a prologue to the notes in my Europe notebook. My Europe notebook is sitting below my notebook from my time in Australia is sitting below my Southeast Asia notebook. They’re in a bin, next to incense and mugs and towels and all the souvenirs I bought and DIY souvenirs I collected. 

When I’m in my new apartment, I plan on hanging all of these souvenirs off of mini clothespins, but not the clear, pink mini clothespins that I saw at Target earlier, mini wooden clothespins that would hold my memories as I take them out of the washing machine of my memories.

One of the souvenirs waiting in the wash comes from a temple in Malaysia. Like the grocery store in Brunswick, the name never made it in with the detergent. I spent my afternoon at this temple with people whose names must have ended up in the dryer lint must have ended up in the bin. The temple was beautiful, but that’s not what arrived in my mind as I sat in meditation.

It was the gift shop. 

The gift shop sat at the base of a cable car. Remembering one single gift shop in Malaysia is an accomplishment. Trying to remember everything that this gift shop sold would be impossible, so the whole operation is…a wash. 

But I have another few minutes before the clothes are ready for the dryer. 

Snow globes, definitely. Spatulas, the rubber kind. I don’t think they had patches but they had a backpacks. Everything was inanimate, wrapped in plastic. So much plastic. Crinkly plastic notebooks, crinkly plastic keychains. Crinkly plastic magnets, crinkly plastic posters. 

I don’t remember every item in this gift shop, but I remember the feeling that I was witnessing infinity. The rows of souvenirs and household items, wrapped in rows of plastic, touched by rows of hands feeding rows of families, using their fingers to tap rows of keyboards to friends and colleagues and strangers, with their own washing machine set of memories – 

What I’m trying to say is that there are a lot of things that I can recall. Long-term memory storage is unlimited. There are a lot of grocery stores in Melbourne. There are more artists featured in the MOMA than clothes in my wardrobe. There are a lot of gifts to buy in Malaysia.

But as my clothes became fluffy in the dryer, I scrolled through my phone. I stopped on an Instagram that asked me to think of one thing that made me happy. 

And of all of the snow globes I could have shook, the places I could have gone, and the clothes I could have taken off the drying rack, all I can think of is you. 

“The morning of the day I got sick, I’d been thinking. It’s good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that. I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”

“Many Americans, I think, feel that way.”

-The Sopranos, “Pilot”

Since I’ve been back, I’ve been trying to write about reverse culture shock. There are so many angles that I tried to explore and a lot of conflicting feelings that don’t have names. (A “melting pot” of feelings if you will…ha…ha…)

Do I paint a picture of the theme park-esque patriotic novelty of the suburbs? (Trump bumper stickers, marquees advertising standing for the anthem, blah blah blah.)

Or maybe, paint a picture of the abandoned swimming pool of politics? A sticky goo of political opinion desperately clinging to each side of the concrete, leaving any middle ground barren and inaccessible.

…or should I just make a list of the many flavors of Oreos and pizza toppings I can get now that I’m back?

Nothing could accurately capture the salad spinner rinsing hope, disgust, appreciation, confusion, joy, and anger as I think about my past, present, and future living in the States.

…until I cracked open my Beastie Boys Book and started watching The Sopranos. Then I figured it out.

Piece of My Heart

Just Kids, Beastie Boys Book, and Piece of My Heart: Janis Joplin are currently fighting for the top spot on my bookcase. The first few chapters of Beastie Boys Book (a 550-page behemoth, for your information,) paint a familiar, cool, and dingy portrait of New York City. Kids running from club to club, seeing Harry Rollins moshing in the crowd at shows, practicing in dilapidated, $50/week apartments in Brooklyn. Everything seemed cheap (in the good way) and everyone seemed to know where to go to watch legends workshop their now iconic hits.

There’s a certain awe that squeezes my heart when I read and watch these stories. Scar Tissue, A Band Called Death, Chronicles. Fame seemed accessible. Rent was cheap. Cultural revolution positively motivated everyone. But as inspiration and excitement bubbles up in my stomach, a green-eyed monster turns on his porch light. This green-eyed monster has to pay $900 for a studio apartment in Austin, and that’s nothing compared to LA or New York. This monster knows all too well that cheap downtown apartments are just a side effect of the “old days.”

“Back then.”

“Before …”

Sonic Highways And The American Dream

My favorite music documentary/story of all time is Sonic Highways.

Sonic Highways is an eight-part documentary mini series created by Dave Grohl. It follows the Foo Fighters as they recorded a studio album in eight cities across America. Each city features a lineup of modern-day music legends (Dolly Parton, Buddy Guy, Rick Rubin) who discuss the glory days of starting out as a musician back in this and that decade of the 20th century. Kind of the same deal as all the other stories that are strewn around my room.

When I was a senior in college, I was lucky enough to win a contest on Facebook and attend the premiere of Sonic Highways in New York. No skill, no hard work, just luck. In a rare case of spontaneity, I skipped class, met up with a friend in the city, and sat amongst Joan Jett and James Murphy and the Foo Fighters. Pretty sweet.

Sonic Highways is the type of story that makes you fall in love with the American dream: you move to a big city with no money, and then you work hard and hone your craft. One day, before you know it, you and your friends make it big and create a legacy. It’s emotional. It’s beautiful. It’s why so many people move to America in the first place.  

You don’t have to be a musician to identify with these stories. They parallel the narrative that American children are promised from the time we’re wee tots singing patriotic tunes in elementary school. We’re told that anyone, rich or poor, immigrant or born in America, can scrape themselves up from the dirt and build a glamorous, rich lifestyle.

Anyone.

Well, at least that’s what the story was back in the good old days, right?

Things Ain’t Like They Used To Be

These stories of great American cities for music, unfortunately, always seem to nosedive as the clock strikes present day. CBGB reopened in the Newark Airport. South by Southwest is overrun with tech bros and thousand-dollar badge holders. Things aren’t like they used to be, everything is a parking garage. You know.

The ending of Luc Sante’s chapter in Beastie Boys Book follows the same formula. After pages of name dropping that I oh-so wish I could recognize, he writes “and so your club will become a bank, your rehearsal space a parking garage, your greasy spoon an eyeglass boutique, your dive a sports bar.”

The talking heads in the Austin episode of Sonic Highways would agree. (Anyone who lived in Austin before 2010 – maybe earlier – would agree.)

As Dr. Melfi said in The Sopranos, many Americans, she thinks, feel that way. Cheap apartments and the financial ability to create the life you want for yourself feel inaccessible. Even if you can afford to pay rent, you’ve still got to cough up money for student loans. Members of older generations could get a house; college graduates are paying a mortgage just because they were pressured into getting a degree.

But I don’t have to tell you this if you live in America. You know this. We all know this, and live this.

But Was It Ever That Great?

Okay, it’s very easy to get very dramatic when touching these subjects. (It’s very easy to get very dramatic when I am me in general.)

Millennials aren’t the only generation dealing with an apocalyptic worldview, financial burdens, and serious limitations on “making it big.”  

The American Dream, while it’s recognized and dreamt by people all over the world, can be very easily written off as a privileged narrative that was never as accessible as it seemed in stories. And in the hangover from a manufactured nostalgia that doesn’t belong to me, I remember that hindsight is the buff and polish of a dollar-store nail file.

The Beastie Boys, the beat writers, the hippies, and Foo Fighters weren’t living in the perfect world that we choose to picture when we read their stories. The Vietnam War and the AIDS crisis took the lives of people who wouldn’t get to share their stories in a glamorized music documentary. The summer of love was all fun and games until Charles Manson sent Hollywood into a screeching halt. Grim political and cultural events serve as nothing but a glamorized montage to “set the scene,” when in reality, things didn’t feel that great at the time, either.

And the feeling that “we missed the good old days” isn’t exclusive to one generation. I mean, that quote at the top of this blog post is from the pilot episode of The Sopranos, a show that premiered in January 1999. Have Americans been feeling like we missed out on the American dream for 19 years? Or longer?  

Of course, when Tony Soprano talks about the good old days, he probably wasn’t talking about how he would have loved to hang out with the Beastie Boys or at Studio 54 or watch Nirvana do a basement show. But the “things ain’t like they used to be” attitude seems to be everywhere in America. It’s the attitude that, after a few months of observation, is the reverse culture shock I was feeling when I came back from traveling around the world.

So…what now? What do we do with a feeling that we missed out on the ability to have a fair shot at success (or even just a cheap apartment in Brooklyn?) How do we grapple with the idea that even a generation who “had it” feel like they were missing out? Where do I get an affordable apartment, dammit?

The answers aren’t satisfying because the future is unclear. And if the hamster wheel of missing the good old days keeps on spinning, we’ll only continue to make ourselves and future readers miserable.

Maybe I’m Just Spending Too Much Time in New Jersey

Offhand, I remember bits and pieces of the first episode of Sonic Highways. Buddy Guy was interviewed and the Cubby Bear was featured as a iconic venue for young punks in Chicago. (The first time I passed by the Cubby Bear in 2016, I heard a Sublime cover band playing inside.) Dave Grohl had a punk cousin. Cheap Trick was involved.

But the moment that sticks out even further isn’t a moment when I was breathing the same air as Dave Grohl. It’s when my friend and I were watching a dark New Jersey highway slide under my tires on our trip back to Philly. We were JAZZED. We were so determined to write. Not just write; we wanted to created something important. I remember picturing us individually flying through sheets of notebook paper at our desks, furiously building something magical. I was confident that we could do it.

This moment, and many like it, help to shush the green-eyed monster and smack talk of the “good old days” in the back of its head. Until the days of the calendar run out, it’s not over yet. As inaccessible as some things may be, we have the ability to access networks and audiences that were unheard of to people “back in the day.” As grim as the future looks, we still have the ability to create and write and get inspired.

That magic book or novel or story that I want to write is still waiting with its number at the deli counter of my consciousness. I don’t know when, how, where I’m going to call it forward, but at least I know I haven’t missed out on my chance to create it yet.

(The photo is from a nice little walk in Ubud, Bali. It’s one of my favorite pictures from 2018.)

Hello hello! It’s been a while since I posted personal updates, mainly because I’ve been hacking away at writing something about being back in America. (Stay tuned.) 2018 is almost over! I don’t think I made any New Year’s Resolutions last year (my trips to New Zealand and Melbourne were enough to keep me occupied) so I thought I’d write some down this year.

I’ve also got some travel updates for you if you’re out of the loop! In general, I’m trying to plan less, but I have a rough idea of how January-April is going to look. Exciting!

So without further ado, here are some resolutions that I may or may not stick to in 2019:

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Hello hello! I have a fun little post for you today about all the weird stuff I brought home. I am a bit of a hoarder, but in a fun, charming, crafty way. My Cancerian nature (for anyone who is into astrology) gives meaning to every article of clothing or pretty much any item in my backpack…except receipts. (A regrettable exception around tax time.) So here you go, some weird souvenirs that, if not used to make something cute, will probably end up in a scrapbook.

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(Photo by Becky Da Silva, who was very good at capturing my most genuine smiles during our road trip through New Zealand.) 

Last night, I watched my mother as she flawlessly did what mothers do: fussed over the house.

“Are you sure this is ok?” she asked. She was referring to the queen-size bed where I was sitting and working. My brain immediately jumped to the feeling of sitting on top of a squeaky bunk bed situated six feet off the ground. The only queen-size beds that existed in my reality over the past 16 months were those belonging to generous friends or cheeky Tinder dates. There was one hostel in Phnom Penh and a splurge of a hotel in Bali where I enjoyed Starfish-ing for eight hours, but those were literally a year apart.

I’ve been home for a week, so the novelty of a queen-size bed has not worn off yet.

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It feels like I was just writing reflections on my year abroad yesterday, but time is just moving fast. Since July 5, I drove up the East Coast of Australia and made my way back down again, worked at a yoga retreat, and volunteered at a music festival. Throughout this journey, I’ve completely supported myself financially, which brings me to this latest one-year anniversary. About a year ago, I started supporting myself as a freelance copywriter and travel blogger.

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The month I spent in Kuala Lumpur was, for lack of a better description, not my shining moment. The work I had arranged for accommodation wasn’t worth the exchange, the city itself didn’t entertain me, and I was limited in my ability to pursue activities like yoga that kept my anxiety in check. At one point, I called my parents and expressed thoughts – that I would have rather not expressed on my blog or social media – about coming home. I missed the life I had built for myself in Austin, including my friends, potential career, and routine.

My dad’s response put everything in perspective for me. He essentially told me, “This is why you did the trip in the first place. You wanted to see if this was a journey that was right for you. If it’s not, it’s not. So you come home and pursue something that is right for you.”

Oh. Right.

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One of my favorite clients is a psychologist who creates online courses related to dating, sales, and personal development. I regularly write scripts for videos that he records to promote his courses. Each video introduces to different concepts and theories related to the courses, i.e. “The Pomodoro Technique,” “How to Read Body Language,” “Anchoring.” My current project is focused on different aspects of setting goals. This assignment comes at a very interesting time…the one-year anniversary of leaving home.

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