On living anonymously

It's OK to fear starting over, to stew about the person people know you to be and how you want people to know the New You. It's scary to build yourself from scratch, to leave behind the people and places whose smells and smiles you recognize, whose presence is so intricately linked to your identity that you don't know who are are without them. 

We all have those people and places that help define us. There's that restaurant you go to when your diet crumbles and then there's the one you go to when you start anew. There's the rundown party house that reminds you of morning-after struggles with Captain Morgan and the tacky bar that'll always make you think of The One Who Got Away. And then there are the people who give these places meaning. 

In your new home, no one will be a pharmacist, cook, biggest fan, friend and listener quite like Mom. No one will affectionately and intentionally annoy you like your big brother. And no one will grip your secrets as tightly as your best friend. But there's something refreshing about living anonymously. Each day when I walk down the street, I see no one from my past. I only see people who may or may not be part of my future, people who may turn out to be my roommate's cousin's tutor or the worthless woman at the bank who's at work to do everything but her job. It's both terrifying and invigorating that people here aren't tied to milestones or mile markers back home. Restaurants and parks and street corners here aren't tied to memories. Everything is new, and so am I. 

With every person I meet, I can define my identity. No reputation precedes me. No yearbook entry tells people here I'm the most or least likely to succeed. No two degrees of separation tell a new acquaintance her roommate didn't like me in high school. I am Teresa, whoever that may be. I'm not saying I'm here "trying to find myself." That's a cliche, and nobody knows what the heck it really means, anyway. But starting over has an interesting way of sparking self-reflection, of making us question which parts of our former selves we'd like to conserve and which ones are better left to die along with the previous Me. So, as I stumble through this latest adventure, here's to Teresa being more thoughtful, less catty, more selfless, less volatile, more delicate with feelings and altogether less like the worst parts of the Old Me. Because sometimes it takes leaving behind who you were to realize who you'd like to be. 

On my decision to stay

I've accepted a position to teach again next year in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, where I work now. With that said...

No one said following your gut was easy. Constant goodbyes are awful. Distance is awful. Tough decisions are awful. But so is forgoing an opportunity that will change your life out of fear that it will, in fact, change your life. Don't let your dreams be dreams, as they say.

My decision to stay will fray relationships and jeopardize career opportunities I could've taken. I'll waste money I should be saving and postpone the adulthood I should be planning for. I'll miss moments, birthdays and holidays with the people who are most important to me. I'll see cake-smeared nieces and nephews on Facebook and wonder if I should be home watching them evolve from infants to toddlers to schoolchildren. I'll see Husker tailgates and wonder if I should be connecting with old friends, rebuilding bonds naturally strained by distance.  I'll see family photos and wonder if I should be sitting at my grandparents' kitchen table while I can. I'll think about my unworn wedding dress hanging in a closet and wonder if sacrificing a marriage to my very best friend in order to stay here was foresighted or careless. I'll wonder about regrets and everything that was but isn't anymore. And when I leave let again, there will be more tears and more hard-as-hell goodbyes.

I have very little to show for the last six years of my itinerant existence. I have a college degree with honors and a hard-earned résumé that don't necessarily apply to my current pursuit. I own almost nothing, I have meager savings, and I can fold, stuff and Space Bag most of my life into 100 linear inches. What I do have is an email inbox and a blog full of travel dispatches, a Paleolithic computer full of photos and a memory full of characters and chapters.

I really hate "what ifs" and "could've beens," but there'd be no avoiding them next year in Nebraska or Spain. Anthony Bourdain (goodness, I really can't stop quoting him; the man's a machine) said, “[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.” So here's to another year of adventure, discovery, growth and independence in Europe. Here's to another year of being poor, lost and foreign. With that, The Nomad Chronicles continues...

Un saludo,
Teresa

An ode to CouchSurfing

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, if you’re reading this, you should probably stop now.

Really, you’re not going to like what my roommate and I did last weekend.

I know you’re still reading this post because my warning has piqued your curiosity, but really, I can’t imagine this will make you any more comfortable with the way I travel. 

We found a stranger on the internet.

We asked if he had an open couch or two.

We let him pick us up from the airport on the Spanish island of Mallorca (Majorca in English) at 11 o’clock at night. 

We stayed at his house for two days and let him feed us fajitas and serve us wine.

And it was awesome.

CouchSurfing is awesome. 

Nice and literal. Source

Does what we did sound incredibly, you’re-just-asking-to-get-murdered-with-an-ice-pick crazy? Absolutely. But sometimes when traveling, you have to take risks to reap rewards.

CouchSurfing is a social network that links travelers with hosts willing to let them stay for free, assuming the freeloaders will offer some sort of cultural insight in return. It’s a way for footloose nomads to meet other like-minded souls.

As far as I know, there are no background checks, no official verifications that the person you’re staying with or the person who’s staying at your house didn’t just get off a train after chopping someone up with an axe. But perhaps that’s the allure of it all: meeting someone completely new, with nothing to go off of except for an internet profile that can either be sincere or entirely fabricated. 

This could be your host. Source

As it turns out, Samuel, our host, had a sincere profile, and to our knowledge, he hasn’t murdered anyone with an axe or an ice pick. 

That's Samuel on the left, of course.

He was ridiculously gracious. Ridiculously gracious. As I mentioned, he picked us up from the airport late at night even though he had to work in the morning (he’s a lawyer).

He opened his home to the fullest degree possible, allowing us to hang around by ourselves while he was at work.

He left coffee mugs, coffee and a giant breakfast muffin on the counter on our first morning there.

He drove us around the beautiful Balearic Island of Mallorca and waited patiently as we took way too many nonsensical photos of trees, signs, sunsets and ourselves from more flattering angles. 

I believe this is the town of Valldemosa.

Valldemosa

We stopped at a lookout point to catch this sunset.

Portals Vells cove

Portals Vells cove

He answered a mountain of “how do you say that in Spanish?” questions from us (he spoke impeccable English).

He took us to his workplace on a Saturday so that we could print off our bus tickets because he didn’t have a printer at home.

He took us to the most amazing, traditional Mallorquin (the adjective describing people and things of Mallorca) restaurant that looked exactly like what I would expect from a Spanish grandmother’s home. They (Restaurant Hostal Ca’N Marió) served the best food I’ve had in Europe, no doubt. 

Frito mallorquin, a typical dish made of meat, liver, blood, potatoes, onion, red pepper and tomato. It was fantastic. We also had wonderful stuffed eggplant, but we don't have a photo.

Arroz brut, a rice dish similar to paella but with broth, and green peppers with lemon, which is apparently typical of Mallorca.

Entrance to the restaurant.

Then, he tried to not let us pay for dinner.

That, my friends, is the epitome of CouchSurfing.

We, two young American women, came to stay at his house, and he treated us like platonic, longtime friends. No funny business. No shameless attempts to snag a foreign girlfriend.

I’ve travelled around a decent amount for someone my age. I’ve stayed in lots of great hostels and a fair share of rotten ones.

I’ve been to London, Paris, Rome, Lisbon, Madrid, Sevilla, Florence, Munich and a ton of other amazing, straight-off-a-travel show places.

But one of my best travel experiences thus far in my life was in Mallorca, a charming plot of land off the eastern shore of Spain.  

View Larger Map  

And it was great because we hung out with Spaniards. Speaking Spanish. Doing things that real people who live on the island do. And that’s what I’ve wanted this whole whirlwind year in Spain to be all about. 

So, maybe, somewhere else in the bowels of the interwebz, you’ll find a cautionary tale about a CouchSurfing host wielding an axe. I can’t imagine there’s nothing bad out there about the experience.

But keep in mind that if you don’t go out on a limb, you’ll never reach the fruit.

And “adventure is what happens when you just did something stupid” (Professor Bernie).

And lastly: “Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise it would be called sure-thing-taking.” – Tim McMahon   

Profound, eh?

Here’s to that proverbial limb. 

Un saludo, 

Teresa

Also, as a sidenote, anyone who tells you to avoid Mallorca in winter is a fool.

The harbor in Palma de Mallorca.