abroad and beyond

A personal blog from my experience as a Colombian living in the US

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Things I learned from of travelling alone

As a 21-year-old I have got to say I have been travelling for quite a while.My parents always planed for trips around the year and now as I grow up I still have the chance to keep travelling.

In the time that I have been in the US, I have learned that we shouldn’t be afraid of being alone in a public place and that if you want to do something and keep waiting for people to follow you, you will wait an eternity. So here is to the things I learned while I travel alone.

1. Nobody cares if you have dinner alone. Sit down, relax and enjoy your meal. The first time I did this, it terrified me and I remember I had to bring a book into the restaurant to appear busy. Sometimes we need to threat ourselves.

2. You want to see that artist perform but no one else wants to come with you? Go to that concert. It’s music not a popularity contest.

3. Don’t be afraid to also ask strangers to take pictures of you, it might be uncomfortable, but this is the only memory you will have left after your trip is over.

4. Having the liberty to go on your own rhythm. It is only you the one that chooses what to see and visit. Nobody rushes you, you make your own decisions.

5. You sometimes meet the most extraordinary people. As I told in my post from Israel, I met this man that helped me go through customs while my baggage was delayed. I met him while waiting to boar the plane in Iceland, and he had the most wonderful life story. And as well as him, I have met tons of people and heard their stories on airports, planes, or bars.

And to finalize, remember people come and go, and sometimes what stop us is this fear of loneliness. So just embrace that you are alive, and able to enjoy it because I will assure you it will make the best stories. 

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Long long flight to Israel

Israel, was a wonderful experience for me. It was the first international trip I had made in a long time and how in meeting different cultures we meet the right people.

My first flight was to NYC, it was the flight that connected me to my next 24 hr adventure to Israel. I stayed in an airbnb on Newark 5 minutes from the airport but 1 hour to Manhattan. I had just enough time to grab a coffee on central park, visit Time square and go back home. New York is always amazing. However, the big nightmare started when I grab my plane to Israel.

I had an overlay in Iceland for 8 hours, in which they offered me to volunteer to stay because the flight was overbooked. I enthusiastically accepted and I got my bags taken down from the plane. They just told me to wait until the flight departed. I waited for a couple of hours because the flight got delayed and when all of the people were already boarded they called my name and told me I should board. To my surprise I was the only volunteer that was called to board but the difference is that I was the first to volunteer. I got a upset for a minute but I accepted that I will travel that day and that my chance to stay on day in Iceland was not possible.

When I got to the plane all of the seats were taking and the one that I bought to have more leg space was taken by a 6-year-old and her mother. I couldn't protest about it as they needed to stay together, but I did protest to the flight assistant that chose to took the seat that I bought and put them there. She told me I will be relocated and because I was the last passenger on the plane I had... the last seat of the plane.

Yeah! The one where you can't stretch your legs or recline the chair, the one were the only "perk" is that is next to the bathroom but not if other people have emergencies. I had to be between a family of 7 yelling at each other during the whole flight and did not even have an opportunity to take a nap.

Finally, I saw (or barely through my neighbors window) the beautiful beautiful desert covering the whole landscape that announced that I had arrived after all this ride. I got into the carousel with all the bags and waited for my bright orange bag to come. And I waited for 5 minutes and people were leaving, and I stood still, hoping my bag to come and finally get out of the bad experience that certainly couldn't get worse. It could. As I saw families, couples, and tourist leaving happily with their bags I stood there with only one black bag going round and round for about 15 minutes now. I just couldn't believe it. I looked and asked around if they were more bags coming and in a broken but clear English that the black bag was the last one.

I desperately thanked him and asked him what could I do next. He said I needed to go to immigration fill out a form and do the line in customs. While I went to the line I saw that the whole paper was written on Hebrew, a language I am not familiar with or even remotely could at least try to understand. Fortunately, I had met this passenger on the plane that helped through all the process and guide me safe and sound to the station that would leave me where I needed to get.  Lots of things actually happened after, the train station was actually closed, my bag was not traceable and did not arrive after  5 days. Nevertheless, everything worked out in the end, and I have lots of memories from Israel that fill my heart with joy whenever I think of them. 

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me vs languages part 1

When I was four, my parents had the idea that is was time for me to go to school. Probably because I was -and still am- really energetic and they did not have the energy nor the time to take care for me. My dad being a doctor and finishing his specialization and my mother working as a dentists and taking me to her work whenever she got the chance. 

After going to various schools and, presenting interviews and tests (how do they interview a 4-year-old?) my parents sat me down as if it was a trial and told me to choose which one I liked the most. I said with all my energy, “the one with the cube”, my parents a little bit confused asked for more details and I kept protesting that I wanted the one with the cube and the slide, they immediately understood it was about the private school on the other side of town and remember how my dad almost had to beg me to go back to the car because I was still at the playground after 2 hours. They actually agreed with me as the school had a good accreditation and other lame certificates that suit my parents demands and the “needs” of a four-year-old. 

In this school I learned English and I would consider it my “second maternal language” as in the moment I stepped foot into a classroom, not a single bit of Spanish I would hear. When I was 12, I learned french from a teacher that actually barely spoke in class french. However, my last years in high-school we got the most challenging professor of French, he was rough and wanted all of us to learn the language right away. At the end of the first semester I knew more french than what I have known in 4 years of studying it.

I went for exchange to France for only a month and in one of the breaks I got lost in the middle of Rue Rivoli and did not know how to get back to where the group was. At that time cellphones were not used internationally and I did not have a way of communicating. I had to use my “amazing” french skills to get back to the hotel. I am grateful I learned it and that it is a tool that I can use for my advantage in more of my travelling adventures. With time I have been forgetting French and I wanna start learning it again.

I will continue my encounter with languages in an other post. 

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The red string that connects us

||This is a little different that what I have been writing, but it still was one of the best but harder exeriences I have had in my journey abroad||

Dating someone you know it will leave in the next few days and having the uncertainty when will you see them again can be exhausting and heartbreaking each time you see them catch a plane again. However, the only thing that gives you sanity is knowing all of this will be worth it at the end. 

There is a famous story from Chinese mythology called, “The Red String of Fate”,  according to this myth, the gods tie an invisible red cord around the ankles of those that are destined to meet one another in a certain situation or help each other in a certain way. When I met my current boyfriend, I never actually had been in a relationship or believed something like that could exist. I never bought into the fairytale and I almost always never opened up to anyone that wanted to enter my life. And thi might sound cliché or cheesy, or call it whatever you want, but with him... it fit. 

We met four weeks before he would finish his exchange and in only two weeks he managed to become the biggest part of my life. We had lots of obstacles besides the distance and the onth after he went back home was full of nostalgia and uncertainty. But something will always bring us together. I remember in this break looking at this small card with two string bracelettes that said: "The two people connected by the red thread are destined lovers, regardless of place, time, or circumstances. This magical cord may stretch or tangle, but never break." And I took it as a signal, I decided in this moment to take a risk and even cross oceans if it was necessary, because after all this time we still had that connection and it was the first time it felt right. After this our dates became, nights hanging in the line, syncronizing movies to feel like we are next together and hope that we will see each other soon. 

The distance can be your worst enemy and it can make some nonesense become in a 4 hour discussion about why instagram can be addicting and why this is a problem in the relationsip. every little thing can be turned into arguments because when you miss someone and you have not seen them in a while, every little detail is like a time thicking bomb. 

But at the end, even if it is getting hard, I think about finding that myth on a random market. I think about how things fall into place and if we are really meant to be with one another “the cord will strech or tangle but never break” 

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Being a tourist in my own country.

Living abroad can sometimes be difficult, besides the living alone and paying your bills. It's about how as soon as you move from your town, city, or country you feel your heart divided into pieces. From that point on, you do not have a home, you have your heart divided into various places and you try to fit them all in. After a while, you just end up feeling like you have two different homes, two different lifes you keep living and two different universes. 

Going back to my home country after 4 years living outside it, feels like I am a touristin a place I used to know so well. It’s kind of poetic to see the streets you used to walk when you were 17-years old converted into something completely different to what you used to know. People around you, your loved ones, adapted to that but you just get struck by this completely different landscape in front of you.

That is the price you pay when you become a nomad. Your soul never will belong to one place only, it will linger into different places.

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Abroad and Beyond

 It was August 15th, 2 p.m. at El Dorado Airport of Bogota, Colombia. I was about to get on the plane that would take me far away from home and will make me experience the last best 4 years of my life. I was excited and ready to start my undergrad journey full-on American. I had seen it in the movies and I was ready to experience it for myself.

I moved to Pensacola, Florida, a wonderful paradise that could be a little too small for a girl that comes from a big town, but that I fell in love with every month that passed. I came to pursue my degree in Musical Theatre. But as people always say, “God moves in misterious ways” and as I learned since I was a child the famous quote that relieves us from the guilt of making a bad decision, “things always happen for a reason”, I had to drop that degree and start over on my Junior year, almost about to graduate. My journey has been rough, stressful and overwhelming but I have learned to make something good from a bad situation. 

I started discovering parts of myself, I learned about self-worth and to overcome my fear of abandonment. I live in a town of passing, which means that every year (or even semester) people leave this town to pursue their dreams and follow the next step after graduating. Every year, I lose people and have to adapt to new changes and learn that life is ephimerous and that I need to learn to love my solitude and my silence.

 College for me has been an opportunity of the lifetime. I have found myself, and the road I always wanted to look for that provide me of amazing experiences, travel stories, endless laughter and crying when people leave.  I want to dedicate this blog to my experiences with traveling, the struggles and the advantages of becoming a nomad.