Stratso Goes

If you're wondering why I don't blog very often, it's because blogging while traveling is a bee eye tee sea h. It's hard.  Flights from London to Amsterdam were so cheap that I couldn't afford not to go. I needed to take a little break from the city life, so I booked a bed and breakfast out in the country. I didn't relax very much though. I ended up taking the ferry to Marken Island, a cute little old Dutch town. It was a fail of a R&R stop, but it was worth it to see the little town. After that it was time to go to Amsterdamngirlyoullookfly (which I said to myself on a daily basis). I didn't take a ton of photos of Amsterdam for two reasons. I traveled the city by bicycle so it was a hassle to carry (and I was just kind of tired of it) and I did a lot of Amsterdam-y things that you just don't document. Amsterdam is Vegasx10 so you can figure it out.

Amsterdam was the biggest melting pot of Europe that I have seen. Maybe it's because it was Easter weekend and people from all over the world chose to spend the holy weekend in the this city of sin, for whatever reason, but I met people from all walks of life. My favorite part however, was meeting a group of New Zealanders on the canal cruise. The cruise itself was not that great, as we didn't have headphones for the audio guide and didn't realize until we were exiting that they had them for free (thanks, captain). But I did end up hanging out with the group most of the weekend. The best part about meeting them was that they recognized me from earlier that day just a few hours before we met when they saw me doing the most American thing I could have been doing: sitting on the patio eating a burger and fries. I was dubbed "burger girl" the rest of the time. At one point in the trip one of them said, "Did you ever think a girl from Texas would be leading us to the Red Light District?" It made my night so much that I made sure to put it here and immortalize it forever. Anyway this post is dedicated to them.

Let me take a moment to talk a little bit about camera maintenance.

1. Charge your batteries.

2. Don’t delete your images before you transfer them.

Pretty basic, right? But when you’re in three countries within four days, it’s kind of hard to keep up with everything. Unfortunately I had both of these things happen to me with my London images. I was only there for about a day and a half, and my camera died the morning I was leaving, so a lot of my photos of the Tower Bridge area were taken on my phone. On top of that I was out of storage on my phone (go figure) so they were mostly taken on Snapchat and then saved to my phone from there... super high quality. I got in to Amsterdam pretty late at night and I thought I transferred the images over, but I really just made a “London” folder and left it at that. Luckily I already have software that recovers images that have been deleted from my CF card, so I was able to get everything back except for the photos I took of the Palace before the changing of the guards. Not a big deal really, as I saw it with my eyeballs and you can’t take that away.

London was by far my favorite city. I’m not sure if it’s because I wasn’t there long enough to get tired of it or if it was the accents, but I absolutely loved this place. Even though I lost 60 pounds at the casino (about $90), I am adding this to my “must return to” list. I loved the mix of old and modern buildings in the skylines, and watching the changing of the guards was one of the best free shows I have ever experienced. Even though a local lied to me and told me, “of course you will see the queen!” it was well worth it! And why would I need to see the queen anyway? She’s right here.

I don't think I can talk about going to Ireland without mentioning my Spaniard send off. While going through security I got stopped for what I'm assuming was a random check. I don't know, because none of the security people would talk to me in English and they barely talked to Camille and Albert en espanol, keep that in mind during this tale. They pulled me to the side and did that hand paper wipe test to me and when the lady put the paper in the machine it beeped and the screen turned red. She had a guy come do the same test and use a different machine, same results and they motioned for me to stay where I was. They grab another random guy, do the test on him, only his paper gave them a green screen and they let him go. They tested me a third time, same red screen. The lady wrote something down on a piece of paper, and called for Policia. Then Policia came over on a Segway, he couldn't speak English but he asked me for my documents. Luckily I had my translators with me, but this dude was in no hurry with the paperwork. I don't know what all the questions were on the paper, I saw him write "No" a lot, and he wanted to know specifically where my laptop was from (??) and that was it. We had to run through the terminal to catch our flight. Luckily RyanAir is always late so we made it to the gate on time. Still don't know what the deal was but I'm sure my name is on a list somewhere. When we got to Ireland, our first destination was the Cliffs of Moher. Poor Albert had to drive on the opposite side of the road, while three girls and a navigational system told him where to go mostly in a language that is not his first language. He did a great job, thanks for being a chauffeur, Albert!

I often wonder if I've been spoiled by the views in Hawaii, but I was in absolute awe here. I wish I had more time to explore the entire coast. It was so hard to put my camera down, but I knew I needed to take a moment to just sit and enjoy the view. The girls enjoyed their views via Instagram. Jk they only did that half the time.

We took a little day trip to Madrid on our way from Barcelona to Ireland. The city, people, and culture were so different than in Barcelona. If you can’t tell from the amount of building photos in my blogs, I’m pretty obsessed with all of the architecture in the different countries. We waked around to a few big tourist areas, so I got to see and photograph a lot of buildings. Things were a lot more colorful in Madrid. They were also more sketchy, so I made my backpack my frontpack to keep an eye on my $20 cash. Wouldn’t want to lose that.

Not a ton of photos from this day but I figured I would still share because I know that at least my mom and (maybe) Nicole will be interested, and that’s what matters.

My favorite part was definitely the row boats. I rowed while Camille kept an eye on traffic so I didn’t crash our boat into someone else’s.

With this blog, my blogs will be out of order. I could have just posted this without anyone knowing that, but I wanted to emphasize how excited I was to share this.

I don’t think I’ve ever called something “moving” and I’ve definitely never cried from seeing something that was manmade. That changed the second I walked into La Sagrada Familia. I almost didn’t even go inside the cathedral because it was 15 Euro, I already plan to see a ton of others while I’m in Europe, and I’m extremely cheap (hence why I could afford to save for this trip in the first place) but Camille told me it was well worth it. When I got of the metro, I was already in awe of this magnificent building. If I stayed outside to photograph every detail, I would have been there for days. After about a half hour of taking in what I could see on the outside, I finally went inside and it literally took my breathe away. I spent a good 20 minutes taking photos of everything, but I knew my photos weren’t doing it any justice, so I put my camera down and enjoyed the views.

This is a place that I know for a fact I will return to later in my life. If not just to experience the feeling of being in the presence of such beauty, but to see it when it’s completed. Construction on the Cathedral began in 1882, and only a quarter of it was completed at the time of the death of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi in 1926. It is expected to be completed around 2026. I kind of ripped off that info from wikipedia, so if you want to read more about it or Gaudi, click here.

Thankfully this guy helps hold up the cathedral in his spare time.

Ha sido una semana fuera del país, y estoy fluidez en español!

Well, I am getting comfortable saying, “Hola! Habla Inglés?” (When Camille isn’t with me) That counts right?

I have done a toooon of stuff during my week here in Barcelona. But I’m not here to blog about each individual thing that I saw or did (that is coming in a later blog). I am here to tell you, my fellow American, that we are doing some stuff wrong.

Why I’m upset about being from America: I can’t speak a different language, we don’t have siesta, we use butter instead of olive oil (why????), and we don’t have buildings so beautiful that they bring me to tears.

Things I’m not upset about: We eat in large portions. (Pictured below is a doughnut for ants)

In all seriousness, this past week has really been an eye opener. I’ve never been to a place where I can’t understand a single person that I talk to, or read any sign that I see. I took Spanish in high school and college, I tried Rosetta Stone and Duolingo, and on paper I've always done well. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just good at taking tests, because when it comes to actually communicating in this language I fail pretty hard. Here is a great example of my bilingual abilities here: I heard my hosts Albert and Camille talking, and I heard one of them say a form of correr, and I said, “wait, what happened in Korea?!” They started laughing, which only got me more excited to hear about what happened. When they finally caught their breathe they told me they were talking about running. Estupido!

Besides attempting to figure out what the heck is going on during every outing, I have been trying to catch up on my sleep and adjust to the schedule. When I first got here I was so jet lagged and I tried to get caught up with the time change right away. Spain is 11 hours ahead of Hawaii, so it was rough. Luckily it is perfectly acceptable here to stay up until 2 and sleep in until noon, a schedule that I’d like to adopt. Between running around this amazing city and taking siestas, I’ve had very little time to upload and go through photos. So for now this will have to do, but I will post a lot more photos from here when I have a chance to catch up.

Well, it’s almost been a week since I left the island, and I’ve officially been off American soil for a few days. Here is a blanket update to people texting: Yes, I’m having fun, yes I’m being careful, yes I’m still alive! I have my data turned off most of the day so I can enjoy the moment, but let’s be real it’s mainly because my international plan only includes 800 mb of data for the month, and I think I usually burn through that in one day.

I don’t like flying, (who does?) and I don’t like being in confined places for any amount of time really. No matter which way I chose to fly to Europe, I was looking at 20+ hour travel days. So, I decided I would make a little pit stop in New York to get out of the airport and off of the planes for a while, and to check another city off my list. My friends Courtney and Kelly met me there from Texas. It’s very rare that the three of us are able to get together, so it was a nice way to spend my last two days in America. I was also glad to have them there because I would have been bored af the second day.

Anyway. Here are some photos and some stories from our 2 day adventure. And a random rating system based on little that I decided to add last minute.

THE SUBWAY 5/10 would not do everyday

The subway was SO exciting at first that I added it to my list of things I would like to have in my ideal town (yes I have a list for that). Despite the smell that eventually showed up and being crammed together with strangers, I really loved the experience. We also got to see a few entertainers in the stations, including a child pianist prodigy, and this guy who had “sittin’ at the dock of the bay” stuck in my head all day.

KELLY BEING MISTAKEN FOR A LOCAL 10/10 would like to see this face every day

Wow what can I say about this. Kelly, pictured in a very elegant and classic basic look here, was mistaken for a local. A tourist asked her for directions and I’ve never seen her smile so big. I took this photo immediately after she proclaimed “they thought I was local!!” I told her that couldn’t be true because she was smiling.

“This is my moment.” - Kelly

BICYCLING ACROSS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE 6/10 would only do again if someone was chasing me through the city

ICE SKATING 10/10 would do every hour of every day, but never again at Trump’s rink

COURTNEY HAILING A TAXI 5/10 she did not succeed but did she did learn how to whistle again

“I can’t whistle ever since I got my braces off” - Courtney, 30 seconds before whistling.

WALKING 7.5 MILES IN ONE DAY 2/10 would do with different shoes

I had to stop and get some Dr. Scholl’s for my shoes. This girl was jealous. They see me Dr. Schollin’, they hatin’..

OMG I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT FREAKING CEESAY 10/10 would let him drive me around every day

This was actually one of my favorite parts of the trip even though I forgot to write about it until just now which is 5 minutes before posting this blog. Ceesay was the BEST tour guide in Central Park. He literally carted our asses around in his bike buggy, and he put up with our dumb questions, even when he didn’t understand what we said, he gave very informative answers for other topics that maybe we will need to know about one day. THANK YOU CEESAY for the best bicycle tour of my life.

RANDOM PHOTOS & DOGS OF NEW YORK

I have a confession: I think I’m a bad photographer.

I shoot so much for work that during my down time I can be a bit lazy about taking photos. That’s an awful thing because I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I don’t take nearly enough photos. I will admit that I make excuses for not constantly having my camera on me, and there’s been many times where I regret it. I decided that in 2016 I would change that and start to take more photos for myself because I get to do and see some pretty neat things.

That new goal also coincides with my first ever international trip. In about a week I will be heading to Europe for an unspecified amount of time (my favorite length to plan trips) and I want to capture everything that I see, because the reality is that I will never get to experience those moments, views, and feelings ever again. Capturing time was the reason I wanted to be a photographer in the first place. It makes me feel immortal in a sense and I’m ready to get back to it and start sharing my experiences again.

I’m assuming you know who I am because you probably got this link from my Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. But if you don’t know me personally, here are the basics: I’m 26, I up and moved to Hawaii a year ago, and I have since built my photography business on the beautiful island of Oahu. I don’t believe that life was meant to be lived in one place, so I have spent the last year focusing on how to create a life that allows me to go where I want, when I want. It’s not as simple as it sounds (I didn’t become a multimillionaire in the past year, I’m barely a multithousandaire), but I have finally reached the point where I am able to invest my money into my number one dream - travel.