JTR Travels: Learning to Pause

"PAUSE — and take the time to find out, what’s important to you. Find out what you love, what’s real and true to you ..." Travel with me as I embark on a journey in being. To learn from my surroundings. To feed my soul with new places and people and experiences.

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Seaside descent

Steps of Lyme Regis, 2015

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First European Football experience. We did not get kicked out, despite having “contraband.”

Newcastle @ Aston Villa, Champions League 2015

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Visiting Hogwarts Oxford, where even the streets are smart.

2015

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2015 Women’s World Cup Final - just before kickoff and the USA scoring all the goals.

This was a magical sports experience, and I can’t wait to experience some World Cup magic again next year in France.

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🌽 + 🎃 + 🏔 = Fall 2015

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Purple mountains majesties

Amber waves of grain

Wyoming may not be high on your places to visit, but you should change that.

Summer 2015

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Important to treat your hometown like a tourist every so often. We take for granted the beauty around us.

June, 2015

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This guy may be the one that ate all the salmon from the locks, so they sent him down to California, but he swam all the way back, so they sent him to Seaworld. 😔

Shilshole sailing, May 2015

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Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus

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"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." - Tagore #Seattle

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When you meet Chainsaw Pumpkin Carvers at Fremont Oktoberfest, there is no other option than to throw an epic house party. We invited friends and family old and new, plus an open invitation to the neighborhood and we learned: there ain't no party like a Chainsaw Pumpkin Carving Party.

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Shit happens.

This the lesson learned from getting my phone and wallet stolen while in Valencia. You can be as vigilant as you want for three weeks, but then the call of the Mediterranean Sea gets you at 3 a.m. and you go swimming with new friends from Austria and the UK and in a matter of an hour your stuff is gone.

Previously I might have been hysterical about this, but new learning to pause me just had to take things in stride. Luckily I had taken precautions so something like this actually caused minimal setback and loss. Being rational and calm allowed me to even recover my purse finding it discarded a little bit down the the beach, and while our phones and wallets were gone luckily my friend got her passport back because of that! A few emails and cancelled credit cards later and everything was taken care of. Photos are backed up and although I'm bummed about losing easy camera taking abilities for the rest of my trip, it could have been so much worse.

This trip has been full of incredible memories and its only fair that some poor ones have to sneak their way in to balance things out. While getting your things stolen is never fun, I think the memory of swimming under the moon in the Mediterranean is one that you can't put a price on, and one that no thief could take away.

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What to do when you arrive at Valencia at 5am!? Go directly to la playa and watch the sunrise over the Mediterranean!

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Pausing is reading a book in a beautiful place.

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I climbed a scary bell tower, but the view was worth it. #Granada #Spain #Alhambra

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The setting sun casts my shadow onto the sand. I sit reading on a crumbling bench as the beach slowly empties of people and the colors of the sea and surrounding mountains shift into twilight. I do not leave until the light is too dim to see the words on the page. A majestic day on the Mediterranean has become a mysterious evening, and I return to the city streets to see what adventures await.

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Shadow selfie in the sea