lessons for me.

My style of travelling is panic.  A quote from my journal, written when I was backpacking Europe by myself a few years ago: "Travelling stresses me out to an almost hilarious extent.  I'd laugh at myself if I wasn't so sweaty with panic."  I happen to know I wrote that panicked line while sitting in a peaceful train station in small-town Italy over-looking the sunrise over the ocean.  I was even eating amazing left-over artichoke pizza from the night before!  What on earth was wrong?

panicking in budapest

As much as I like to pretend I'm spontaneous, I do actually like to have every detail hammered out before I leave, especially heading to somewhere as unfamiliar to me as South-East Asia.  I just spent an hour researching and highlighting the visa entry requirements for a bunch of countries I'm not going to be in for another three months.  The health section of my travel guide is my best friend.  I'm going to the pharmacy tonight to stock up on every medication I can think of.

I need to chill the fuck out.  Parenthetically, I also need to clean up this blog's act, swearing-wise.  What's up, family friends tuning in for the duration of my trip!  Anyways, I'm going to spend the next four months trying really, really hard to try less hard.  Relax and let come what may.  Try not to hypochrondiac myself into having not only malaria, but also polio and probably typhoid and what's that rash?  Yes, preparation is good.  It's nice to know what to expect at border crossings and airports.  It's also nice to be able to actually enjoy yourself instead of just freaking out about border crossings and airports.  DON'T GET CROSS ABOUT THE CROSSING, LADY.  Hmmm, puns.

this is basically what I looked like as a child

So I'll keep you guys updated on my relative state of panic throughout the trip.  Hopefully I'll be the carefree child above, but less lumpy.  Cross your fingers for me!