“Hey, how was your trip?!”

Whenever you come back from any sort of excursion, very nicely, this nicety will follow you for weeks. How have I been answering this question? The first adjective that pops into my mind is “exhausting”.

I was exhausted before the trip, exhausted during the trip, and here I am, a week after returning, still exhausted.

But there’s nothing technically wrong with exhausted, right? Exhausted is good! Exhausted means that you are getting the most out of yourself! Why buy a bottle of wine and only drink half of it? Or eat only one slice of a pizza? Or not eat an entire box of Oreos in one sitting? Stupid! Much better to exhaust every last drop, crumb, what have you, even if what you’re left with is useless, rotting garbage. I may be useless rotting garbage, but this garbage was, at one point, seriously delicious.

I just mentioned to my friend Rachael that I have not really had a day to just relax since December 18^th, even though I did just come home from this vacation. Really tragic stuff. And let’s talk about that word “vacation” – does it come from the word “vacate”? I’m just going to go ahead and assume that it does because I took Latin in high school and that should be useful for something. Some synonyms for the word “vacate”:

* leave * quit * evacuate * empty * abandon * clear * void *

A vacation is meant to be an opportunity to leave your cares behind, to empty your brain of all the daily stresses of home and work, to delve into, nay, surrender to the void and abandon all of the eventually-pointless-because-we’re-just-going-to-die-anyway things that worry us in our day to day lives.

Antonyms for “vacate”, on the other hand:

* fill * occupy * overflow *

I believe that in this case, we would call this trip an “occupation”.

I’m not complaining because I saw a lot of worthwhile, thought-provoking, experience-garnishing, beautiful things, and, you know, my family . . . so it was worth the exhaustion. So don’t worry – you don’t have to feel so badly for me.

I’m going to write a bit about each destination as their own separate post, which I resolve to get done quickly! Funny stories, remarkable good luck, and lots of cool experiences and subsequent advice to ensue.

For now, here are some pictures.

Boldog Új Évet!

Šťastný Nový Rok!

Frohes Neues Jahr!

Happy New Year!

1.)     There isn’t a magic age where people figure things out: everyone is generally clueless for the vast majority of life;

2.)     Stick to one kind of alcohol per night; and

3.)     The time between August and Christmas is 10x faster than any other period of the year

You guys, really . . . is this the next stage of old age? No more prolonged anticipation periods? Am I going through anticipation menopause? No more anticipatory cramps? No more moodiness? Because it wasn’t that long ago when, if I had something exciting coming up on the horizon, the time would s l o w l y  d r a g  b y  f o r  w h a t  s e e m e d  l i k e  f o r e v e r .  .  .

Now, everything happens in the blinkofaneye and it’s really disturbing me.

For example, I’m going on another trip, a relatively big trip, in 13 DAYS and it’s coming up so quickly that I don’t even know how to feel about it. I haven’t even had time to brag about it!

For those of you who don’t know, my sister has been living in Berlin since May. She’s in an au pair program, taking care of two little boys, and living with a German family. I don’t know why my family is being infiltrated by all things German, but it’s starting to get a little ridiculous. Thank god my brother doesn’t like white girls or else I’d be calling the History Channel. I think they’d be interested in a conspiracy theory about Germans weaseling their way into American families by seducing their most promising youth.

Oh, right, I’m not a youth.

Or very promising.

Aaaaaaanyway, when my sister moved to Germany, it was always my intention to go visit her at some point during her year there, but again, time has passed in a blink and half of her year has already passed.

Luckily, my parents must be part of this conspiracy and had the great idea to send me and my brother to Berlin for New Years’ as our Christmas presents. So perfect and amazing and so, so generous! Great parents to the rescue yet again!

Somehow (these things tend to happen in my family), this little rink-a-dink snowball of a sibling trip to Berlin has rolled into an 8-person, multi-country, multi-city, multi-currency gigantic snowman of a trip that can only be described as nothing less than a Euro-Extravaganza! Final headcount is me, my sister Brighid, my brother Conor, John, my cousins Katie and Colleen, Brighid’s best friend Cheyenne, and Brighid’s German boyfriend (see! it’s happening!) Erik.

I mean, why would 3 people meet in Berlin? That is so ridiculously boring. It’s much more fun to have 8 people travel from Budapest to Vienna to Prague and then to Berlin to ring in 2012 at a pace that would disturb Usain Bolt. Duh.

And if you can believe it, we actually have everything pretty much under control and at a low cost. All hotels/hostels are booked (including one slumber party night of all 8 of us in one dorm room), buses and trains are booked (well, mostly – anyone know the cheapest bus or train from Vienna to Prague?), and fun stuff to do and food to consume has been thoroughly researched. We’re going to be stuffing ourselves full of currywurst, goulash, schnitzel, glühwein, beer, and trdlo!

Haha, trdlo.

Traveling with a group as large as this is really challenging – I think especially when you all know each other. It’s hard to make sure that everyone is included and no one feels like they’re compromising their (especially in this instance) precious time by doing things that they don’t want to do. I don’t really know the best way to go about it, but I’m thinking that it’s probably good for everyone to be up front about what they want to do and feel free to split up into groups or go off alone, and then have a meeting point . . . whether it’s a meal or drinks or just hanging out in the hotel.

But, as we all know, when you travel, shit happens. Hotel reservations get lost or end up costing more, buses are cancelled, you miss a flight, you get freaking pink eye or the bubonic plague – you name it. I guess the best thing that you can do is to be prepared but remember that plans don’t normally work out the way you, uh, you know . . . planned.

But enough with the Greek chorus!

I just can’t believe that I’m going on a trip with this group of people! I can’t believe that I’m going to visit my sister who lives in Germany! There are so many crazy parts to this crazy trip that I can’t even really wrap my head around it, and as I said, it’s seemed to have happened so quickly that I can barely believe it’s real. Christmas time in Central Europe! With a very good selection of some of my favorite people on Earth! Unbelievable. When will it seem real?

Oh, probably when I contract some bizarre gum infection in Budapest.

That’s when I will be par for the course and shit will get totally real.

Can’t wait!

Christmas Market in Prague

You may have noticed a trend of me writing “John surprised me”, and you’re probably getting super bored by it, and maybe you’re wondering if I’m still surprised by all of this surprising.

Well, sort of.

See, my birthday happened to land on the Monday of Columbus Day weekend, and we had been talking about going to Salem, MA around Halloween, so I had a hunch that we’d probably go then, and I was right.

BUT, I never suspected that he’d also want to drive all the way to Acadia in Maine! I was totally floored and so happy.

I was not so happy when he urged me to rush home from work at 5:30 one recent evening, and instead of the flowers or elaborate dessert I thought would be waiting for me, I found a locked, dark apartment.

SURPRISE!

I guess he tries to keep me on my toes.

Anyway, so on that Friday evening, John and I shipped up to Boston and stayed downtown for the night thanks to my mom, Queen of Marriott Rewards. The next morning we picked up our rental car and headed over to Concord, home of Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne so that I could cross off the MA portion of #5 on my Life List.

And really? Someone should study that coordinate. The air just felt smarter and more transcendenty. I was most interested in visiting Orchard House, home to Alcott and the setting for her most famous work and one of my personal favorites, Little Women. My grandma gave a copy to me when I was pretty young, and it was the first “classic” I read on my own. I loved reading about girls who, even though they were living over a hundred years before me, were genuinely relatable, which is why the book was so popular when it was published, and continues to be today.

To see the inside of the house you have to take a tour, and even though our ancient tour guide was a little repetitive and slow, it was still worth it. So many things that belonged to the Alcott family have been preserved and restored, so it looks very much the way it did when the family (on which the book is based) lived there. Really fascinating to hear how intertwined the lives of the famous philosophers and writers of the day were, which is obvious in their work, but in Concord, MA, the evidence is geographical.

Afterwards, we stopped at another literary hot spot, Walden Pond. The weather was unseasonably warm, so families and their cars were out in droves which made things probably slightly less peaceful than, say, when Thoreau was hanging out  . . . but it’s so beautiful that you can understand how one would be inspired there.

From there we headed to Salem to check out their Halloween festivities. We picked a good weekend, because it was the day of the Annual Zombie Walk. Salem takes their spooky Witch Hunt history very seriously and so this is a great time to visit an already really cool city. My cousin and his husband live there and, being the good citizens that they are, fully partake in all of the festivities! It was a total coincidence that we ran into them at the festival! The ghost of Tituba must have been working some magic. We were having so much fun that we really wanted to stick around, but we had a long drive to Maine ahead of us, so we left that evening . . . you know, after I had my tarot cards read. She didn’t mention anything about brain tumors or lottery winnings or George Clooney, so I don’t really remember what she said.

Boring future read, off to Maine we drove, figuring we’d find a place to stay on the way. I mean, it’s Maine, right? Who goes to Maine? Like 40 people live in Maine – why would anyone possibly need to go there? I began calling hotels on the road to find that this is not the case. EVERYTHING was sold out. Did you know that Maine’s slogan is “Vacationland”?? No? Well it is! And apparently EVERYBODY knows that but us. We couldn’t stay at a Motel 6 if we paid them. Even a creepy roadside knock-off, Motel 5, was totally booked. We were beginning to think that we’d have to sleep in the car when finally we got the very last room at the Lakeside Motel in Winthrop which was totally creepy and obviously haunted by angry deer-hunting ghosts. Very surprisingly, we weren’t killed or haunted or eaten alive by bed bugs, so all in all it was a good night. We survived! Onward to Acadia, 1/4 of #5 on the Life List!

sign outside of the fabulous Lakeside Motel

The weather was gorgeous the next day, and after my big outdoor adventure out west, I was really excited to have another National Park experience. I had my tennis shoes and sporty looking pants on, and this adorable Lululemon hoodie, which I wore even though it was too hot because, hello, it’s outdoorsy and cute and so am I, damn you.

The foliage was just beginning to change, the clear blue water was sparkling in the warm October sun, I looked like an outdoorsy Californian who knows what she’s doing and it was a birthday surprise: what could be better?

The park. The park could have been better.

I mean, ok, yes, it was beautiful, but it was east coast beautiful, meaning pretty, but not impressive; awkwardly good looking, like Anne Hathaway, but not staggeringly mountainous, like Courtney Stodden.

Look, I just went to Utah. It would be like going to Paris and then, a few months later, going to whatever city the “Paris of Alabama” is.

Ok, just kidding, it’s not that bad. At all. It’s gorgeous and the foliage really was just starting to turn and the colors were radiant and the water really was unbelievably clear and sparkling, and we did have a great time there. I think I was just expecting the kind of overwhelming wow factor I got at other National Parks. I mean, I’m like a super experienced outdoors woman, so I really wanted to be challenged with a strenuous hike that my outfit was clearly meant to handle. This is a different kind of park.

ok, fine, it is beautiful!

Fall or summer is probably the best time to go . . . which I guess is why we had to stay at the Lakeside Motel. Make reservations!

The park is right outside of Bar Harbor, which is a darling, typical New England coast resort town, full of pubs, lobster restaurants, Victorian-style houses, and t-shirt shops. We rewarded ourselves for all of the driving that John did with delicious lobster rolls, blueberry ice cream, and Allagash. Luckily found a hotel in Portland that night, which is a weird, but cool, but not really, city. It sort of reminds me of the hipster sections of Baltimore, but also sort of like Alexandria, VA, with a population of rebellious suburbanites whose suburb was an hour outside of the city and not on a Subway line.

Make sense?

But it was cool, and I’m sure that with more time and more exploration I would have really liked it, however it was an early night because we (meaning John) had to drive all the way back to Boston in the morning . . .

But not without stopping in Kennebunkport!

We really don’t like to relax.

Anyway, it was a totally packed three days, but that’s how we like to do things and that’s how we get things done.

Seeing as I’ve only completed 10% of my still incomplete list, I think we might have to move a little faster.

When we were planning out logistics, the idea of cutting camping from the trip came up and I probably did one of my “wide eyes, tight lips” glares at John in which he could sense my internal freak out.

That was the end of the camp-cutting convo.

We don’t have room in our apartment for an ironing board much less camping gear, so it’s not something we’ve ever thought of purchasing. Plus, we’ve never seriously considered going camping before this. Plus, how would one suggest I travel cross-country with a tent? And a lantern? And those roasting marshmallow pokey things? Am I allowed to carry those on? And a small stove, right? Because we’re going to be cooking fancy campsite meals, aren’t we? OMG sleeping bags! Duh! But those are kinda big . . . but maybe we should bring our air mattress, too?

This was not helping the case for camping.

So we decided that the easiest solution would be to buy all of our necessities before we headed out on the road at a Wal-Mart outside of Vegas.

Wow, this really was an All-American trip.

When we got to Wal-Mart, there was some more hesitation about whether this really was a good idea or not. Pretty valid points like, “uh, what are we going to do with this stuff when we’re done?” and “is it worth spending all of this money on camping stuff when we can probably find cheap hotel rooms for the same price or less? Isn’t staying at a Motel 6 kind of like camping anyway?”

Even I was being swayed.

Plus, everyone was speaking German and so I was off looking at bullets and bait and DVDs.

Eventually, however, it was decided that we were doing this for the experience, not to necessarily save a ton of money, and so we started piling stuff into the thankfully gigantic carts.

We ended up buying the very bare camping necessities: two small tents, two fleece “sleeping bags” (in quotations because these were more like thin, cheap blankets that had zippers), an LED lantern, and that’s it. No tools for s’mores, no fancy-pants camping stove, no fun stuff. We then bought copious and completely unnecessary amounts of snacks. I chose surprisingly sensible things like granola bars and apples. Omesay othersay oschay ingsthay ikelay an eakingfray FUN PACK of 24 agsbay of ipschay. Oh, and a Halloween bag of oppersWhay.

Ateverwhay.

It wasn’t totally planned out where or what nights we’d camp, but I definitely tried to slyly suggest instances in which it would work out to be a day that I had taken a shower in the morning and wouldn’t need to wash my hair that night, things like that. “Tonight? What? Didn’t you just feel that raindrop?” It pretty much worked out for me. I think the trick is to be high-maintenance one or two nights a week so that you can be low-maintenance the rest. I did that with the following tools:

Flat Iron: straight hair is just easier to take care of and wear for a few days of non-washing

Oscar Blandi Dry Shampoo – this makes the non-washing thing possible. I’ve been intrigued by the idea of dry shampoo because I don’t like to wash my hair everyday. Sprinkling a good amount of white powder into my hair made me a little apprehensive, but it works!

Andrea Eye Q’s – the best eye makeup remover I’ve come across. Is gentle, works like a charm, and no water necessary.

Huggies wipes – ditto. There are fancier makeup removing wipes, but I don’t mind using plain old Huggies because they’re cheap. You can clean your whole face in-tent, without having to trek out in the dark to the slightly creepy bathrooms.

And no, not wearing eye makeup is not an option. My ipchay-ovinglay endfray was earingway ivefay oundspay of akeupmay every day, and I didn’t want to look completely slovenly. Plus we were taking like 5,000,000 pictures . . . I don’t want ugly memories.

Anywhoo, where was I? Oh yes, right, camping.

This trip was the first time I’ve heard the term “backcountry camping”, which basically means camping in a place, typically after hiking to the bottom of some canyon with your crap strapped to your back, that has no facilities . . . like toilets or showers or power hook ups. Like real manly man camping. This is what I wanted to do, but . . . see the photo of “dry shampoo” above.

We camped on campgrounds with campsites and toilets that flushed – the fancy kind. I was sort of disappointed but mostly relieved. I don’t know about the backcountry campers, but the campsite campers? Soooo hoity-toity. They’ve got all of this sexy camping gear and gadgetry that, I mean, I’m my pathetic little “sleeping bag”, I really looked down my nose at. Why not just stay home if you’re going to completely replicate the comforts of your own living room to a campsite? Wusses.

Not us, though. We didn’t even have pillows!

Correction: I didn’t even have a pillow! I brought one inflatable pillow because over the years my mom has given us some really random crap that at the time seemed totally useless. “Um, thanks mom, a solar powered radio, wow, cool, this is going to be, like, totally useful to me seeing as I don’t even listen to electric-powered radios.” Or, “yeah, this mini-flashlight with your company logo on it is super-rad, thanks.” “An inflatable pillow, how did you know?” I let John have it because I’m the perfect girlfriend like that. Plus he was doing all of the driving and, you know, he sort of deserved it.

It turned out that all of her weird, random cast-offs were completely and utterly useful on this trip. It’s like she’s a Jedi or something.

All in all, my introduction to camping was a good one, despite one night of absolutely inhumane temperatures (upper 40s! Come on! I slept in JEANS!), and I’d like to do it again. As with other experiences on this trip, this was a great introduction. Now that I know a bit more about this world and know what to be prepare for, I think I’d actually like to try out the backcountry stuff.

If not, I think I could do something like this . . .

No, seriously. Time me.

Well, kinda.

Ok, probably not.

But I loved my trip to the Wild Wild West! I always get a little nervous that places won’t live up to the hype or that I get so excited that things won’t meet my expectations . . . but they do! They always do!

They usually do.

I really can’t wait until I have the chance to go back. There is so much more to these parks than I got to explore, and while it was a great overview and introduction, I am dying to go back and focus on one park to really have a full experience. It sounds like most people do what we did and spend half a day to one day at each park, and that’s awesome, but if you’re serious about hiking or canyoneering or biking or rafting, you really need a couple of days at least to do the real trails, and I have now decided that I’m serious.

No, seriously. I told John that I want to move to California and be a two-armed Aron Ralston.

This is a trip that every American should do. It’s like nowhere else in the world, and I have to say, I did feel some pangs of patriotism . . . even though I had to constantly explain why people are so fat. And why there are so many fast food places. And why people are so poor and dirty. And listen to why everything is better elsewhere. There were times at which I felt like I understood the mindset of Sarah Palin. Mostly the gun part.

So anyways . . .

There is a lot that happened on this trip that I really, really, really want to write about because it would be so entertaining and hilarious and gossipy and fun, but it would come across as mean and when I was little and really into writing in a diary (because I loved Anne Frank and Jo March) my mom taught me not to put anything in writing that I wouldn’t want to have read. Which, hello, is the point of a diary for a young girl, but nevertheless it kinda stuck with me. But you guys . . . really. Some of this stuff is golden, cannot-make-this-scheiss-up stuff that I would LOVE to gab about, so let’s plan a dinner, you’re all invited, and I will fill you in.

Let’s just say:

Me = Maureen O’Hara

Someone-else-on-the-trip-that-shall-remain-nameless-let-me-throw-in-some-untranslatable-words-into-this-like-skidamarinkydinkydinky-cromulent-embiggens-atchison-topeka-santa-fe-dinglehopper-so-that-it-confuses-non-english-speakers = forgettable actress that plays the stepmother

Such an understatement. And while it didn’t uinray the iptray, it did idday akmay emay an ittleay . . . annoyed to say the eastlay.

But whatever, it got to the point of being comical, so not too big of a deal.

Bitching aside, this was the (loose) itinerary . . .

Vegas – fun, but you know, it’s Vegas . . .

Stop in Williams, AZ – typical little town on Route 66 with stores wherein you can/should buy things like this . . .

Grand Canyon – it’s just so . . . grand. Too grand. Literally too large to even conceive.

Petrified Forest/Painted Desert – Interesting. Sort of cool. Skipable, so here’s a picture of the group . . .

Hubbell Trading Post – The only reason I’m including this is because this is an example of precisely the kind of dorky, historic places that I wanted to stop by, but was met with glazed eyes and bored stares. OH god I mean azedglay eyesyay and ordbay arestay! Oops.

Canyon de Chelly – Amazing. So beautiful. Astounding. Needed more time there.

Monument Valley – This is in Navajo Nation, and you can pay an entry fee ($5 per person) to drive and see the “monuments” up close and personal. We did this, but the roads aren’t paved and our family van couldn’t deal. We drove through the “normal” road, however, and it was just as impressive. I think.

Camp in Bluff, UT – You can drive for very long stretches in this part of the country without really coming across any civilization. Or having any 3G connectivity. But then every once in a while, little towns like Bluff pop up and have a campground and a few restaurants. We found (meaning, drove down the one street in town) a really cool restaurant here.

Arches – More amazing than I thought it would be. It’s hard to believe this wasn’t a movie set or an art installation. Visiting this park was #12 on my life list, so I’ll write about it in greater depth soon.

Moab, UT – Not one of the little towns. This place is relatively booming and full of outdoor adventure outfitters, hotels, restaurants, & shops. We went rafting.

Canyonlands – This is sort of like a miniature Grand Canyon. In fact, Thelma and Louise, who supposedly died driving off the GC in actuality died driving off a cliff in Canyonlands. It’s gorgeous and compact in comparison, plus nowhere near as crowded. I’d like to have spent a few days here.

Camp in Capitol Reef – We didn’t really have plans to go to Capitol Reef, but we read that the campground is really nice so we decided to visit there for a night. Gorgeous, not fun. So cold. So, so cold. Ground, so hard. But, we did wake up to a beautiful view and ate goodies made from apples from the orchards in the park, so it was in a way worth it.

Bryce Canyon – When we first got to Bryce, I wasn’t that excited. It’s weird looking. But it’s got a few easy-peasy hiking trails, and going that extra mile really changes your experience. I ended up loving it and it turned out to be one of the most memorable (not to mention picturesque) points of the trip.

Zion – Was. Not. Expecting. Zion is one of the most incredibly beautiful places I’ve ever been. Have you seen the Land Before Time? No? Well they make this trek to a place called The Great Valley, a wondrous place where everything is lush and there is water and happiness and an endless supply of love . . . this is Zion. Unreal. I need to go back for a week at least.

Back to Vegas – Ick. Don’t get me wrong, Vegas is fun. And it’s funny. But I’d rather have been in Zion. There is absolutely no reason to be in Vegas for longer than 2 days. You can only eat and drink and spend money for so long. OMG, listen! I really am a wilderness girl now!

I crossed a few things off the old Life List, so stay tuned. And let’s plan that trash talking dinner.

One that’s particularly loathsome (and yet one often ensuing of much slapstick hilarity) is that of the prissy girl who isn’t “outdoorsy”. “Ugh, (hair flip) I don’t do camping” is a phrase that has come out of many an uptight, high-maintenance city girl’s mouth according to modern pop culture.

As such, we’ve been led to believe that there are only two types of women on the planet: the Mary Anns and the Gingers:

. . . or better yet, the Vickys and the Maggies:

What we can assess from these characters is that nice, smart, cool girls are just as comfortable in the wilderness as they are in pig tails or flannel shirts. It’s the manipulative, sequin-wearing, gold-digging whores that would ship sweet little Hayley Mills(es) off to boarding school who can’t hack it out there in the wilderness.

There’s just one problem, though . . .

I, like, don’t do camping.

And yet, here I am, finding myself in a position where, yup, I’m probably going to be doing some camping-like activities in the next few weeks. I need to un-Vickify myself posthaste.

My next trip is something that every American should probably do, and so naturally it’s something that, as a bad American, I haven’t really done much of: visit National Parks.

It appears that, like the stereotype or not, I am kind of a city girl. I am usually drawn to places because of cultural attributes, not necessarily by nature. I like food, art, architecture . . . “things”; scenery is nice, but it’s most beautiful when one is looking at it from the terrace of a really lovely restaurant, holding a glass of wine. Is the ocean not more magnificent while looking at it through rosé colored glasses?

It never even occurred to me to question this mindset until I met John, and his ability to inspire me to see all sorts of things from a new perspective is one reason why I fell in love with him. We’re like a reverse Pocahontas & John Smith.

Ok, I really need to lay off the Disney movies.

While John has never sung to me about painting with all of the “colors of the wind” or anything (that I’m allowed to talk about in public, anyway), he has been on three cross-USA road trips. He’s got photo albums full of impressive canyons and arches and mountains and wide open space: things that I’ve sort of seen while playing Oregon Trail, but never really felt the need to see in person. He’s done these types of trips several times, so obviously he really enjoys them, and when you love someone, you get a particular kick out of seeing them in their “element”, even if it’s not necessarily something that you get. The last USA road trip John took was with his very good friend from Germany, and so for historical accuracy, he will be joining us along with his girlfriend, which is really cool.

We’re retracing some of their steps, meeting in Vegas, and then heading off into the sunset to the Grand Canyon, followed by Canyonlands, Monument Valley, Arches, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and all sorts of other anti-Vegasy things that will allow me to expand my horizons. Jury is still out on whether the other girl is a Vicky or a Maggie, but the point is, I’m really going to try to not be an uptight whore: I want to be outdoorsy. I want to prove that I can sleep outside and do things like raft or bike or eat beef jerky. I want to be able to survive without my flat iron. I want to wear a flannel shirt, and if I didn’t just have my hair chopped off at Frederic Fekkai, I would try out ponytails too.

These things, combined with living in Manhattan and craving the novelty of unused space, are why I’m particularly looking forward to this trip.

Right now I’m in my typical travel-only-type-A mode, mapping out a route and doing all sorts of research on must-sees and creating The Perfect Playlist on iTunes, you know, the most important stuff. Next, we’ll talk packing for a trip unlike any I’ve ever been on.

Anyone been to these places and have any suggestions? More importantly, what are you favorite road trip songs?

I mean, seriously, it takes a special kind or person with a special kind of patience to learn how to fiddle, or play any instrument really, and I, my friends, am not one of them. There seem to be hundreds of thousands of rednecks playing away like Charlie-fecking-Daniels below the Mason-Dixon line alone, however, so how hard can it be, right? OMG HARD.

But, in an effort to continue the checking-off my way towards my impending demise, I enrolled in a class called “Absolute Beginners Fiddle” at the Irish Arts Center of NYC. The class was described as one suited “for those with no prior fiddle experience”, with instruction on how to hold the fiddle and bow, tuning, and producing a good tone. Best of all, it declared that “by the end, students will be able to play one or two Irish fiddle tunes”. Intriguing – tell me more.

The class was to meet once a week for an hour for two months (that’s 8 hours, BTW), and I immediately pictured myself fiddling away like Sharon-fecking-Corr and participating in jam sessions at local pubs, you know, wearing like an Aran sweater, or perhaps something more sleek and all black, like they do in Riverdance. “Who knows, maybe I have an unrealized gift? Maybe my destiny is to play the violin! Maybe I will be an adult prodigy!”

No, you guys, seriously, these thoughts went through my brain and I now know what it’s like when fat people see weight loss pill commercials on TV: “Wow! You mean with through hardly any work at all and very little commitment I could be on the cover of Shape magazine?! And wear jeggings?! Sign me the hell up!”

Ah, but what do we live for if not those momentary glimpses of hope?

So I rented myself a violin (by the way, a violin and fiddle are the exact same instrument – the names are just more descriptive of the style of music being played, sort of like “piano” and “piany”) and was ready for my first class.

If there is one sound more horrifying than nails on a chalkboard or silverware scraping a plate or a baby crying for more than 5 minutes, it’s the sound of beginning violin players en masse. Unlike with small children, there’s nothing really endearing about beginning adult violin players.

Oh my god, I cannot even begin to tell you how horrible I was – by far the worst in the class. Everyone was supposed to be an absolute beginner, but I was the only one without any real training in instrumental music. One guy’s mom was even a violin teacher! Come on! That’s just not fair. How can I compete with that? Needless to say, I was an absolute beginner in the sense that it sounded like I drank a bottle of Absolut and then headed off to class.

But, I did learn how to hold the violin and bow, finger placement, and the got the general idea of the instrument, which I suppose is something. An earnest attempt was made, so I think it counts.

I can’t play any songs.

I sort of tried.

Fiddle-dee-dee.

I love Paris. I’ve always loved Paris. You know that song I Love Paris? I could have written it and maybe even have done a better job than Cole Porter. In fact, I love Paris so much that I loved it before I ever even went there – it was love before first sight. That’s how much I love Paris.

But then, who doesn’t love Paris?

Paris is the most beautiful city in the world. There’s really no contest. And I’m saying that without having been to all of the cities in the world, so you know it must be true. Its dense beauty is just overwhelming, like humidity or a huge, dripping willow tree. It hangs heavily on your being, drenching you in butter, Chanel No. 5, and all of the other things that make life special.

So much imagery sparked my appreciation for and deep-seated desire to visit this city from an early age . . .

. . . but unlike so many things that are built up beyond reality, Paris did not disappoint when I visited for the first time. I fell in love with the style, the innate romance, and the Parisian appreciation for beauty and history. Oh, and the food and wine aren’t half bad either.

If you love Paris or have the feeling that you will love Paris, I get the impression that it’s the sort of place that you want to visit with someone special or like-minded. It’s too wonderful to waste on someone who won’t get it. John had never been to Paris before, so I’ve really wanted to experience the city with him. I knew he’d get it. Unfortunately, it just didn’t seem like it would be in our travel plans for the near future since I had been there relatively recently, but he surprised me.

I’m not big on my birthday. I don’t want a party, I don’t want a lot of attention, and I really don’t want you to get me a gift. It’s not really the age thing, it just hasn’t been in my personality since age 11. My last birthday, however, happened to be 10-10-10, and since that was something unique I wanted to do something special. Obviously this trip counted a million times over and I couldn’t believe we’d be making our way through Europe on the big day.

So on 10-8-10 we had made our way into France from Spain, to Avignon, to attend our friends’ wedding on 10-9-10. It was in a gorgeous cathedral built in the late 1300s within the really cool, picturesque, artsy walled city. Their reception lasted well into the wee hours, and it was a fantastic way to ease into 10-10-10. Not only do we love celebrating with these friends, but they also served a traditional Provençale meal that was one of the best I’ve ever had: lamb, endless cheese, brûléed foie gras, some of the best wine I’ve ever tasted, just to name a few highlights, and all until well past 3 AM when we left the party early and headed back to our secret garden of a B&B, La Violette.

I won’t go into all of the details because it makes me look really horrible and we really don’t need to discuss anything that makes me sound less than awesome . . . but I said some things to John on our way to the hotel that could have been taken in a slightly, ahem, bitchy context were you someone as obviously sensitive and insecure as he. I mean, surely it couldn’t have been me and we don’t need to go into any of it, but the point is, it was 3:30 AM on 10-10-10 and I had single-handedly already ruined my birthday. Shocker.

We were both mad, and I said in what I’m certain was a snippy, clipped “Jesse Eisenberg does Mark Zuckerberg” tone, “so, where are we going tomorrow? Nice? St. Tropez? It’s going to rain all day so it doesn’t really matter”, and I probably threw in an eye-roll for good measure. John sighed, exasperated, and asked me why I have to ruin everything all the time or something like that, and let me in on his secret: we were taking the high-speed train to Paris at 7AM where, unlike Provence, the weather would be sunny and warm, so I’d better shut up and go to sleep.

And then I cried. And apologized for being the worst person in the world. And went to sleep.

I am the worst person in the world.

It’s very rare that I’ve been somewhere that John hasn’t, so I relished in playing tour guide as best as I could. When we got into the city I knew exactly where we should go, and so we headed straight for the Louvre, walked around the courtyard and then down to the Seine where we had a little breakfast underneath the Pont Royal. From there we walked to Notre Dame, the Latin Quarter, down Boulevard Saint-Germain to the St-Germain-des-Prés, Invalides, the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars, the Trocadéro, the Champs-Elysées, Place de la Concorde, the Tuileries, Les Halles, and all the way back to the Rue de Rivoli and the Louvre. We had no real destination, no place to go, just took our time and wandered the whole day in perfect 70 degree, sunny weather.

So, ok, we didn’t technically picnic in the Jardin du Luxembourg, but we drank champagne on the waterfront of the Seine and split a crepe on the Champs-Elysées, so I think it counts. Once again, there is wiggle room.

As usual, I didn’t deserve it at all, but it truly was the best birthday present of all time and a thousand times life-list worthy.

We each (secretly, of course) made a list of the places we’d want to go were we told we’d die by the end of the year, then made another list of trips we want to take in an order that makes the most sense (financially, timing-wise, etc.). We shared these lists with each other, which were similar, but not identical by any means (come on people, we’re not like soulmates or anything), and then made our collective top ten.

The only thing that did match exactly was our number one “if I were going to die next month, I’d want to go here now” trip: the Mediterranean.

I don’t really need to tell you why I wanted to go, as it’s one of the most explicit pieces of travel pornography on Earth:

These were all images that played a part in inspiring my idea of this trip. It’s one of the few areas of the world that oozes with glamour, beauty, and sultriness, but is also full of rich history and culture. In fact, maybe it’s the only place on Earth with this killer combination. Because of the images that one can conjure dreaming of southern Spain, France, and Monaco, and because I’m an American and I want my life to be impossibly cinematic, I pictured myself as nothing less than the Grace Kelly of my own life’s movie (I don’t have the boobs to be Brigitte Bardot). I would curve through sun-drenched cliff-sides in a sporty little convertible, my scarf blowing effortlessly in the wind, each strand of hair staying perfectly in place, my golden-self would lie on the beach surrounded by the cast of The Talented Mr. Ripley by day and eating countless rounds of tapas by night.

But then I remembered that I’m not blonde.

And I wear a lot of sunscreen.

And that renting a convertible in Europe is really, really expensive.

And crap, I forgot to pack my silk scarves.

So maybe we didn’t vacation exactly under the eye of Alfred Hitchcock or Anthony Minghella as I had originally intended, but it was still incredible, despite the lack of requisite accessories. It still counts. Hey, even Princess Grace in real life drove a not-so-sexy Rover P-6.

Road tripping in Europe was fun: the speed limits are seemingly non-existent, the roads are newly paved, our car was roomy, and the landscape is varied and gorgeous. The company/driver couldn’t have been better, the choice in music was flawless, and the directions were, too. Well, sort of.

Europeans don’t have the same road trip mentality that Americans do. By nature, we’re pioneers. We like to roam. We like to be on the go. We like to get to the next thing. In short, we have ADD, and road trips are perfect for this because you’ve always got something new to look at. The United States is totally pimped out for road-tripping. We have road signs for fast food! We have lids for our cups! We have TVs hanging from the roofs so that our annoying children will not bother us! I didn’t think I was the kind of person who is into that stuff, but oh my god, I so am.

I love the idea of not rushing in the morning, of sitting down to have a lovely cappuccino in peace the way it’s done in Europe. It’s the right way. Drinking coffee out of anything but a proper cup and anywhere but at a proper table is just wrong. I get it.You’re right. But HELLO! I HAVE PLACES TO GO! Put that shit in a paper cup, slap a lid on it, and let’s roll! There are scattered “rest stops” along the way, but they usually don’t have those magic 7-11 style coffee machines. I’m not even a big coffee drinker, but that was rough. How can you go on a road trip without a giant cup of delicious, life-giving coffee?

Much to my delight, one place in France actually did have a pretty fancy looking coffee machine. I was so excited that even though we were almost to our destination and it was 11 PM, I had to try it out.

Oh, France, you’re cute.

I stood there, inserting too many golden coins into the flashy machine, drumming my fingers together in greedy, jonesing excitement, awaiting my black gold.

You guys, the cup was one of these . . .

. . . which can only be described as a pathetic, flimsy, plastic, dentist office cup that is intended for rinsing and spitting only.

I cursed the machine, kicked it, and grabbed it on both sides, shaking it violently. “What am I supposed to do with this?! What is this, a shot?! How am I supposed to drink this in a moving vehicle?! I will spill this before I walk out the door! GAHHHHH!”

John, standing in the doorway, looked at me as if to say “you are embarrassing me on my own continent, get in the car now!” So I grabbed the stupid little cup, walked out the door, and spilled the entire thing all over myself. No, it wasn’t very glamorous of me, and Mr. Hitchcock would not have approved, but whatever.Coffee or not, the point was this scenery. And even though I totally failed at being Grace Kelly, it did not.

This, I suppose, is one of those easy ones since I live in New York and “Rhapsody in Blue” is only 12:37 long, so surely I’ve been able to find twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds of solitude in which to bask in this life-fulfilling task.

Look, I’m a really important person and it just so happens that I haven’t.

Hey, I bet one of you believed me.

Like most of these easier-to-cross-off items, it’s been more about waiting for the right moment. I didn’t know what exactly I was waiting for or how I wanted to feel, but it came a few weeks ago, and it turns out that I was looking for a completely depressing, suicidal-but-I’m-only-saying-that-because-I’m-mostly-just-a-drama-queen-and-I’m-not-that-brave-so-I’d-never-actually-do-that kind of moment. Huh. Imagine that.

So when I’m feeling particularly Ophelia-esque, the best thing for me to do is to wander around somewhere by myself. My favorite place for this used to be in the National Gallery of Art, but now I live half a block away from another fantastic place seemingly designed to remind you that life doesn’t suck: Central Park. And as I self-pityingly wallowed through the Women’s Gate into the Park, it just seemed like the right moment to take on Number 25. In the end, the combination of the eerily quiet park with the late Fall light and the perfect Gershwin score left me feeling nothing but gratitude, and shockingly that always seems to wipe out the depressiveness.

So why did I want to make it a point to do this in the first place? The truth is that, thanks to iTunes shuffle, I’ve probably already done this passively; I wanted, however, to take the time to really think about it.

I was probably 5 or 6 the first time I saw the movie Manhattan. By “saw the movie Manhattan” I of course mean that it was recorded on the same VHS that Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation was on, and sometimes I would be wrapped up in fashioning a complicated Barbie hairstyle before realizing that things were suddenly black and white and definitely not in the Kingdom of Care-a-Lot.

I must have been about 12 the first time I actually watched the movie.

I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to grow up to be the kind of person who spends the weekends walking around art museums with friends who would pepper our conversations with culturally significant witticisms and occasionally ponder the meaning of our existence . . . in black and white, naturally. And nothing made that more clear than those first three and half minutes. Those images! That song!

Putting this item on my list was to force me to stop and soak in this dream of mine come true. I’m pretty sure that my life, for better or for worse, does not currently resemble any of Woody Allen’s films, nor does it necessarily resemble anything I could have imagined at age twelve. But, I there I sat at the Bethesda Terrace, listening to that song surrounded by those images, in my home, thinking about what’s become of my own story.

Rhapsody in Blue also happens to be one of my all-time favorite pieces of music. Because of its connotation with New York City, yes, but it’s one of the most emotionally rich orchestrations ever composed. To put it simply (because I’m an idiot), it’s sad, and then it’s fun, but then it’s sad again. Suddenly, it becomes unexpectedly hopeful – a beautiful hopefulness that is halted by startling, overwhelming suspense, and then it’s all over with an ending that leaves you breathless. It’s exactly like life in New York City, just like the movie suggests. But as I become more and more of an adult, I realize that maybe it’s just like life everywhere and that there will probably never be a moment in life where I’m not feeling all of these things at the same time.

Of course, New York is more fun than anywhere else.

Moments like the one I had wandering through Central Park listening to George Gershwin remind me of how grateful I am to be living here. Dreaming into reality is possible, but it never happens easily or the way you think it will, right?  For a control freak with an overactive imagination, sometimes that fact is too hard to accept. Whenever I feel that way, all I need to do is go for a walk in the city that I love, and I remember that things are incredible.

And now, you must watch this. It’s my favorite interpretation of the song (complete with artwork inspired by Al Hirschfeld), and perfectly visualizes all that I’m attempting to say.

Number 25 and the pressure, and promise, of finally living in New York.