Experiencing "Happy" Culture Shock

I had the goofiest smile on my face as the fellow students and I stared out the bus windows, mesmerized at the beauty of Rome. It felt like we were inside a movie set, only this time it was for real and not through a TV screen of a replica somewhere in Los Angeles.

The first time I stepped foot outside the United States was in May 2011 during the opening tour for my study abroad program. We were to spend four days in Rome, and I was a mess of emotions ranging from excited to hysterical on the trip over. Once I had collected my bags and was on the bus to the hotel, all my reservations subsided as I was immediately transported into extreme culture shock - the good, happy-feeling culture shock that comes when you're off the charts excited about experiencing a completely new destination for the first time.

The architecture was so different and so beautiful. The colors, the palm trees, the "lion king trees." The streetside cafes. The old men in suits walking a tiny dog or the ladies donning high fashion on their scooters.

Everything was so different. Everything was so incredible.

As we checked into the hotel, we made plans for first things first - Italian food. We found a cafe and ordered our meals - me, pronouncing "caprese" totally wrong. Rookie mistake! Then we set out to explore, finding our way along the Tiber River and posing for photos along the way. "Guys, can you believe we're in Italy?!" we kept saying to each other.

That extreme boost of happiness carried on throughout the whole weekend, and still stayed strong as we made our way into Florence. I remember walking up to the Duomo for the first time and thinking wow - being frozen still, staring at its dazzling enormity.

Seeing the lights glitter along the river at night, the fluffy pastries in cafe windows, the cobblestone streets, and hearing the Italians speak their musical language. It was all part of the culture shock, and it was positive. I was so happy to be in Italy.

The goal of this blog is to inspire you to travel, whether it's your first trip abroad or your fiftieth. Have somewhere you've always wanted to go? Take the opportunity to go and just book the trip. The excitement that comes from planning a trip and the burst of happiness that occurs during will be worth it 100%.

It's Time To Start Living

It's almost March. Where are you on your New Year's goals? Did you set any goals to "travel more," do more of "this" or "that," or simply experience life to the fullest? To take advantage of every opportunity coming your way?

As we've settled into the routine of 2015, our New Year's goals may have gone to the wayside. We've become blind to the list we've had taped to the refrigerator since we see it every day, and as we go about our days, things start to blend together. Now's the time to take a look at how you're keeping track of your goals. (The SMART goal system is my favorite method).

Have you been keeping up with them? Do you need to create a new list in a different color and tape it to a different part of the refrigerator?

Or were your goals crap? I know I've set goals in the past that were over-eager and unattainable for the time frame. Maybe you can throw away the weak goals you've had and just focus on one thing: to live life to the fullest, however you define it for yourself.

It's time to start living. Now, more than ever.

For me, that means focusing on experiences. Specifically, travel experiences. I love traveling so much and to me, traveling as much as possible is living life to the fullest.

So what have I been doing since the new year started? 

-Not traveling, unfortunately...

-Working. A lot. Full-time during the week and part-time at a restaurant on weekends. Which leads me to the next point...

-I'm quitting my weekend job. Working full-time is my priority, and while the extra money has been nice to have (and is going toward my travel savings), I'm beyond excited to have my weekends back. Being able to have the time to relax, recharge, and write is much-needed in life right now.

-I'm planning weekend trips to San Diego and the Grand Canyon, which I can finally put into motion now that my second job isn't holding me back.

-I made a logo for GSE, which was one of my blogging goals. I like it enough for now, and I may look into getting a professional design in the future.

-Reading blogs and travel books. They're enough to satiate my wanderlust while I'm not traveling.

Most of all, I'm taking another look at my goals for the year and tweaking and changing them where it's needed.

You're not tied down to the goals you made almost three months ago. You've probably even changed a little in the past three months. Reflect on if you're living life to the fullest - the way you want to live. Because it's time to start living, and you owe it to yourself to do the things that make you happy.

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10 Quotes To Inspire a Creative Life

1. "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." -Maya Angelou

2. "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."

3. "Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." -Albert Einstein

4. "Creativity takes courage." -Henry Matisse

5. "An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." -Oscar Wilde

6. "Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while." -Steve Jobs

7. "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"

8. "If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got." -Albert Einstein

9. "The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the soul." -Dieter F. Utchdoorf

10. "Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order look at things in a different way." -Edward de Bono

5 Temporary Cures For Wanderlust

We all know that aside from traveling (and continuing to feed the travel bug when it acts up), there is no real "cure" for wanderlust. Temporary fixes in the meantime only feed us for so long, but they're better than nothing. Here are 5 ways to satisfy that ache to travel in the meantime.

1. Google Street View

Occasionally I'll find myself needing to look up some random info about somewhere I've been, and somehow my Google session turns into a Google street view session where I "re-visit" the streets I've walked on in other cities. This is pure nostalgia at its finest! It's also fun to look up cities you haven't been to to see what certain places look like.

Here’s an example from Google Street View:

Rue de Caumartin

hotel athenee view

2. Read travel blogs and books

The best way to get inspired for travel? Reading about others who have done it/are doing it! You're bound to find new places and tips about where to go. Make sure to vary the blogs you read so you get multiple perspectives on places.

And as far as books go, there's nothing better than sitting down with a good read and transporting yourself to a faraway fictitious land of adventures.

3. Watch shows or movies set in places you want to go

Whenever I'm about to go to New York, I always watch Gossip Girl. If I'm going to Southern California, I watch The OC. On the flight to Italy I watched Letters to Juliet and a few months upon returning home I was missing it, so I watched Under The Tuscan Sun. It's fun to anticipate your trip (or dream up future ones!) with shows/movies set in that location.

4. Draw inspiration from Instagram and Pinterest

Like reading travel blogs and books, seeing other places through someone else's eyes is always a nice way to temporarily feed your wanderlust. Visuals are even better! A picture says a thousand words.

5. Map out RTW routes

Go to a RTW planner website (like AirTreks) and map out all the different routes you could take to circumnavigate the world. Oh, a stopover in Dubai would be on the way? Add it to the itinerary! I know I can't be the only one who does this as procrastination to more important tasks.

Extra points if you draw it out on a physical map.

And bonus points if you actually book the ticket!

I Wasn't Running Away From Life, I Was Running Toward It

ireland asd

I don't like change, but I'm afraid of commitment.

Yeah, I'm a treat.

I thought I was running away from everything: from facing The Real World and getting a 9-5 job that I would be at for the next few decades. From the "American Dream" - I was now in my 20s, and my parents got married and had kids in their 20s, so if I didn't find someone soon, then I was destined to be alone forever. From living in the rainy Pacific Northwest, a great place for some people but definitely not the place for me.

I was 21 years old and fresh out of college. All of those "What  are you doing after graduation?" questions that had constantly been thrown at me and all of my friends senior year were not only getting redundant, but when my answer was, "I don't know yet," I felt like I was doing everything wrong. I felt like I should have a plan.

Since preschool, our plan was always to get up every day, go to school, then go to college, and then at 21 or 22 years of age, we're done. "What next?" is the scariest and most intimidating question that looms in our minds as we edge toward graduation day, especially when we no longer have a plan.

Purple Flowers in Sorrento

All I knew was that I wanted to travel. I was aching to get back to Italy, where I studied abroad one summer. I was aching to see more of Europe. I was trying to come up with all these bazaar plans to save money after graduation so I could go travel around Europe for a few weeks that fall.

But then I found a job in Italy that started in August. And then I found a summer job in Washington, DC and New York. Things were falling into place. But I still felt like I was running away from the life that society expects recent college grads to do.

Turning my back on the traditional 9-5 work day and getting out of Seattle was intimidating (especially since where I went to college, everyone and their grandma moves to Seattle for a 9-5 job). I didn't know anyone in DC or New York. I didn't know anyone in Europe. And I had only spent six weeks in Europe prior; how was I going to last five months?!

These types of questions floated in the back of my mind...but a number of exciting ones were at the forefront: Will seeing Matilda on Broadway be as good as Jersey Boys? (Well, it was different of course, but it was definitely amazing). Will it be hard to communicate with the international students? (Not at all. They're all fluent in English and it makes me wish I could speak at least three languages, too). Is the pasta in Italy going to taste just as good? (Yes, it was just as delicious). Will I get to sunbathe on the beaches of Positano? (Of course, that was the first trip I led for work, and most of my time was spent by the beach). Is Oktoberfest really that cool? (Yes, YES it is). Will I be able to go somewhere "exotic," like Morocco? (Well, Morocco didn't work out, but Turkey did). Will my new coworkers and I become friends? (Absolutely, and they are people I'll never forget).

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I wasn't running away from life, I was running toward  it. Toward new experiences. I was running toward LIFE. It was amazing, it was spectacular, and it made me happy. I found joy and happiness in exploring new places, and knew that working in Europe wasn't the final fix to getting rid of my travel bug - it was the beginning to creating a life of adventures.

Now that I'm back in the States, I've moved to Arizona (Sun! Warmth! No daily overcast skies!). I'm working full time and I'm okay with that. I prioritize travel whenever I can, while (trying) to be responsible with my money. Balancing both travel and work can be exhausting, but to me, it's worth it. Because travel brings me joy. And I wouldn't have experienced the joy that travel gave me if I hadn't taken the leap to travel in the first place - and run toward life.

Find what brings you joy. Whatever it is, I urge you to do it.

Cool App Translates Languages in Real-Time

Some of the greatest/most frustrating moments you'll come across while traveling are when you're trying to get past the language barrier. It's always helpful to learn key words and phrases before you go, though if you're traveling to multiple countries, it's just not practical to become fluent in each and every language.

Signs, instructions, and menus are all important things to be able to read when you're traveling. You don't want to be stuck in a situation where you're unknowingly disobeying certain signs (let's not get arrested in a foreign country, please) or you order the completely wrong item on the menu.

Enter: World Lens, a cool (and free!) app that translates languages in real-time.

You hold the phone up to text and the camera shows a translated version in your desired language.

Languages: English <---> Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese

Before I had an iPhone, I was using the Bing Translator app on my Windows Phone. That app worked well, especially when a friend and I were trying to figure out what to order on a menu written completely in Turkish while in Istanbul. Luckily the restaurant had wifi so we were able to use the app and figure out the menu without having to ask the server in attempted, choppy Turkish. There are some aspects of World Lens that I find better than Bing Translator, though.

What I like about World Lens compared to Bing Translator

-No need to be connected to a network: Anyone who travels internationally and doesn't buy SIM cards in every country knows the importance of being able to access an app like this without wifi.

-Pause feature: Once you get your words translated, you can pause the camera so you don't have to continue hovering in the same spot. You can take the phone away from the text without losing your translation.

-Speed: The Bing app is fast, but when comparing the two, World Lens is faster. The faster the speed, the quicker you understand what the words mean.

-Other features such as a translate dictionary and an off/on light switch. It's the little things like this that make things so much easier.

However, Bing Translator has more language options.

I couldn't use World Lens to translate Turkish, because as of now, that's not one of the language options. Hopefully they update the app with additional languages in the future, especially because Bing Translator isn't available for download on iOS.

Have you used this app? What are your thoughts? Please suggest any other helpful travel apps!

This is not a sponsored post. Just wanted to share this cool app with all of you!

This Video Will Make You Want To Travel Right Now

While scrolling through Facebook the other day, I came across this video that Kelsey posted by a group of guys that compiled three years of travel into one inspirational video. They're awesome! Now I'm just itching to do a round-the-world trip... Watch and you won't be disappointed.