I have my three inch pointy-toed pumps perfect for work attire. They make my legs look longer in pencil skirts, and allow my pants to stay off the ground. In New York I replaced them every three months since I walked through the heels and constantly scuffed up the toe.

I own numerous other four inch heels in a variety of colors and patterns. I cannot resist cute shoes. It used to be my therapy; when I was depressed or angry about work I would go shoe shopping. I must have been pretty depressed often if my current shoe collection dictates that. My favorite pair of shoes are a pair of stilettos with a pointy toe that are zebra printed and are…well, for lack of a more technical term, furry. I love them.

When I traveled through Europe I couldn’t bring my shoe collection. I remember sitting in my nearly bare apartment with my backpack filling up and picking through my shoes wondering which ones I would take. I chose a pair of black leather flats which could be good “going out” shoes, a pair of black flipflops and a pair of my merrill walking shoes. I figured they’d be plenty for my adventures. More than enough, really.

Then I started going on hikes. I clambered up rocks to Priekestolen, hiked through muddy trails in the rain storms of Scotland, wandered out to an abandoned monastery in Granada and hiked several mountains in Morocco, including up the Todra Gorge near Tinerhir (Tin-er-rear). The problem with these walking shoes was that they lacked traction, they lacked the ability to keep water out for more than a minute, and weren’t very good from protecting my feet from pointy rocks. Whenever I was out wearing them, I was usually pretty miserable and was wondering why I did not prepare myself better.

I have never video blogged (vlogged) before, but I started watching over my videos from Europe the other night, getting all nostalgic for traveling again, and found one of me walking through the gorge, which was amazingly beautiful in all it’s red-brown sandy vastness, where I actually had a full conversation with my camera. Sure, it’s rather short, and it probably shows that at about month two and a half of being alone, I had indeed started talking to myself, but it is a vlog nonetheless. Also, please notice that I even use hand gestures when talking TO MYSELF. Towards the end you can see my shadow and that one arm just flailing about. I do this all the time while talking on the phone, imagine me in person!

For my next trip I definitely plan on wearing smarter, more sensible shoes but for now, I will continue wearing my non-sensible shoes that are ridiculously cute, if not very bad for my feet and ankles! I will also continue to dream about the Louboutin’s I will one day own.

What’s your favorite pair of shoes?

I have a list of things I want to buy as soon as I have money and it gets longer every day. Things I remember I want for my apartment, the dream book I want to create for my next big adventure (Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, in case you didn’t know!), new clothes, paint for the walls, canvases for artwork I want to create, a new pair of shoes, new lingerie, new workout clothes, a large piece of artwork depicting the world, a handful of CDs and maybe a DVD or two. It’s months and months of stuff that has built up in my mind of things I want, links to Etsy sites and wish lists on Amazon.

I’m a materialistic person. I cannot help that fact since I was born to a mother who loves to shop and bargain shop at that. I grew up in Marshalls and TJ Maxx, Macy’s and Sears, malls of all sizes. I stopped shopping August 17th, 2009 when I left for Europe for what I usually shopped for, like clothing and shoes, instead trading my money for things like bus fares, hostel bookings and baguettes.

When I usually shop, I like to take my time. I’m a horrible decision maker so I will often ponder over an item for ten minutes, walking around the store with it and looking at my other options. Sometimes I end up with ten things in my hand, narrowing things down as I go along (or sometimes buying everything). When I was in Morocco I had a hard time with this. It was the one country I could actually afford to purchase things because you could barter and the exchange rate was much better there than it was in Europe. It also happened to be near the end of my trip so I could carry things around with me easier, knowing I’d be going home soon. But it was the one country where window shopping doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as “Just Browsing.”

I remember first arriving in Fes and wandering the old medina, it’s narrow streets lined with merchants. I wanted to stop and look at teapots, or some brightly colored textiles and quickly learned I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t linger at any store and look at items. I had to be positive on what exactly I wanted and exactly how much I was willing to spend on it before I even entered the little shop because the store keeper was on me from the time I entered his sight. A particularly bad incident I had involved a blanket. I had stopped to look at one as we wandered the confusing streets, being lead by someone our friend had left in charge of us but unfortunately that “friend” failed to tell us that he had given us a tour guide, one we did not want. The shopkeeper started in on trying to sell me it, opening it up and we all had to agree: it was gorgeous. I offered 250 durham for it but he wouldn’t accept. According to my friend Richard, if a tour guide was with us, they would charge a commission to that store so the shopkeeper automatically would attempt to sell it for more. So I walked away. The shopkeeper followed me, grabbing my arm and pleading with me to buy this blanket for a good twenty minutes. He followed us OUT OF THE MEDINA, offering it for as low at 150 durham, approximately 14 USD (this was after our guide had disappeared) but I was so rattled, so stressed and so upset (combined with our “guide” asking us for money which had us a little riled) that I wanted nothing to do with it. He finally left us alone when we climbed into a taxi. I felt bad, his family probably needed that sale but my nerves were so frayed at the end of that day that I just couldn’t be asked to spend money on something that I’d have such a bad memory of getting.

After a few days, I started learning new techniques for shopping. When my friends were in shops looking at something I would discreetly look across the pathway at another shop, scoping out their merchandise. It worked pretty well, sometimes I was able to tell if there was anything worth having a conversation with the shopkeeper over or whether I should just keep going. Most of the time I just kept going. I never looked directly at a shop, I never made eye contact with the shop keeper and I kept moving pretty fast as I walked down the aisles.  Another thing I learned, in an ever elusive search for a blanket that Anneke and I found ourselves on, was that I was a HORRIBLE barter-er.

Like ridiculously awful. I would feel horrible when I would give them my price, knowing it was low, knowing it was lower than my maximum, hoping that after a few rounds we would settle somewhere closer to what I was willing to spend. And the shopkeepers could instinctively catch on to this and so would hard ball me even further. Anneke ended up having to do most of the bartering for me, her game face much better than mine.

It was hard shopping this way. I couldn’t just take my time anymore, I had to be quick and decisive and I had to work for the price I wanted, things I am not very skilled at. Morocco was amazing, beautiful, a sensory overload; it was stressful and the hardest part of my trip but you can’t say I didn’t learn a lot from those eleven days, even with shopping–a pastime I’m very well trained at!

Is there a method to your shopping?

Not only did I learn a lot of lessons from my experiences, but also from the people I met. There are three people that stand out as having had a profound impact on my life during the course of my travels; three people that I plan on keeping in my life for a long time.

The first was a gorgeous Dutch boy named Joakim (the most gorgeous person I have seen in person…he was MESMERIZING) who was the first person I met who played on the street for money and totally changed my perspective on being even more open minded to people. We spent hours (and many beers) talking about life, our individual perspectives and on traveling.

The second was The Messenger who gave me the biggest scare of my life then helped me become more spontaneous, even more open to new experiences and taught me how to love people with everything I’ve got.

The third was Anneke, whom I’m going to talk about today. I have mentioned her before and now I’m going to tell you about the lessons I’ve learned from her. Or at least one lesson.

We met in Amsterdam, when I couchsurfed with her and then I traveled to Morocco for 12 days together. We became fast friends and it wasn’t just because we had a lot in common and she was all sorts of fabulous. When you travel to Morocco together, you will inevitably learn more than you ever care to know about another person.

Like, when you share a room with her and the bathroom does not have a door.

If you know anything about Moroccan food, it takes a toll on your digestion system. For the foreigners like us, our stomachs were having a…hard time with all the different spices, the tons of bread we were eating…you get the picture.

We quickly learned that we could either hold it in forever or just do our business with someone else in the room. At first, it caused us both to apologize a lot and basically freak out. You see, I’m the kind of girl who can’t…well…take a shit in a public bathroom or where anyone could hear.

I know, boys. Girls don’t poop–we fart roses.

Either way, after a very short while we learned how not to give a fuck and just deal with it. We spent the rest of the vacation laughing at ourselves and each other and joking how we now knew more about each other than even our closest friends. (We even got very naked together.) If we happened to be particularly…loud…we would comment on it. Oh, that sounded like a good one! or That sounded like it hurt.

What doesn’t embarrass the shit out of us (no puns intended?), only makes us stronger, right?

I learned a lot about not caring what people thought of me while I was overseas and this was one of those moments. It wasn’t the first, it wasn’t the last but it definitely was the one that left the biggest impression on me. Now, I’m not saying I go into a public restroom and just let loose, but I’m slowly learning how to just be myself.

How to not care what people think of me. To live life outside of my comfort zone. To be able to laugh full-heartedly at myself.

And that’s how life should be. Full of laughter, honesty and love for people and all their flaws (or farts). (I’m sorry, I can’t stop.) Lately, my heart has been overwhelmed with love, with passion and with the desire to create. To create love around me, to create even more happiness, to be creative.

This blog has been pouring out  inspirational crap (SORRY) lately but I can’t help it. I’m surrounded by inspirational people, I feel like I’m on fire out here, that I can do ANYTHING and I don’t want this fire to ever be put out. I have learned so much about myself over the past six months–about my strengths, my weaknesses, what makes me tick and what I want–and need–out of life. It’s an amazing feeling when you start making these discoveries.

Who knew taking a shit in front of someone else would lead to such grand lessons?

One of the funniest moments of the entire trip was when I was in Essaouira (essa-weerrah) in Morocco. A little backstory: this Morocco trip was kind of one of those domino moments. It would never have happened if I had not been pranked by The Messenger who I dragged out for drinks who then followed me to London and who, in turn, dragged me to Amsterdam. I was only supposed to stay in Amsterdam for two days but I fell in love with the place and decided to spend the extra money to change my flight to leave from Brussels on Sunday, instead of from London on Thursday. Seeing that hostels were pretty damn pricey in Amsterdam, I needed a cheap way to stay there. That’s when the Messenger suggested I try Couchsurfing.

I had heard of it from previous people I had met along my travels, but I had never really pursued it. It seemed like a good option, seeing how now that I had made the change to stay there, I needed to be able to actually sleep somewhere–outside of a park bench. I started emailing people and heard back from this girl, Anneke. I ended up staying with her for a few nights and had a great time. In the middle of all this, I was also babysitting The Messenger who was suffering from a really bad hit off of a special brownie. That’s another story for you, though.

One evening we were chatting about our travels and she mentions she was going to Morocco. She didn’t have anyone to go with and she was worried about traveling by herself. I asked her when she was going and when I heard it aligned with my travels in southern Spain, I mentioned that I’d love to join her. And that’s how Morocco came about.

I do want to talk about the entire Morocco trip and experience but since this is longer than I had already planned, I will just discuss this one event. It was at the tail end of our trip and it was just Anneke and I, having shed our third traveling companion, Richard. We had just been in Marrakesh where we indulged in freshly squeezed fruit juices, fruit smoothies and excellent shopping. We also had a bit of a bad experience on the last night there with the couchsurfer we were staying with but that wasn’t stopping Anneke and I from enjoying the last of our stay.

We took this ridiculously hot, local bus that took 5 hours to get us out there and we pledged NEVER to take a local bus in Morocco EVER again. (Seriously. If you go to Morocco only take the CTM buses. Air Conditioning is your best friend.) We stepped off the bus in Essaouira and were instantly met with a cold breeze. Not just a breeze but a strong wind. We quickly learned that based on it’s location on the coast, it had some pretty strong winds and was a major mecca for wind surfers. The cool air was a welcome refresher and the fact that we were staying in an AMAZING hotel, with separate beds, a sit down toilet and a hot water shower, all things that were terribly exciting at that stage in our trip.

We ate dinner at this little shack on the beach where you could pick out whatever super fresh seafood you wanted and afterwards took a walk on the extremely windy beach. We watched the wind surfers and the kite surfers playing in the waves and then started noticing these three local boys trying to learn to kite surf on the sand.

I’d seen this done at my parent’s lake house on lake michigan but it was by professionals. The guy learning clearly had no idea what he was doing. In fact, he had absolutely no control over the kite whatsoever. The wind was intense and it was just dragging him around the beach.

To help him out one of his friends grabbed him to ground him more. When that didn’t work and the two of them were being dragged around, the third guy grabbed the two of them and eventually they were sitting on the sand.

At this point we had stopped and were watching them from a distance. The kite was literally hitting the ground at all sides and we feared for our lives. We also didn’t want them to hear us laughing, which we were doing plenty of.

They’re all sitting there, just like that, and all of a sudden a gust of wind comes along and the kite TAKES OFF.

They all lose control and the two anchor guys are shed like kleenexes. It drags the poor guy who is attached to this kite face first along the beach and meanwhile, the two guys who were shed at the initial take off are running after him.

Anneke and I are on the ground laughing so hard we are CRYING. (I’m not kidding. We had to sit down.) My stomach muscles were hurting by the time we managed to control it to a slight giggle and it was by far the funniest moment of my entire trip to Europe.  We kept walking down the beach after that and passed them again, as they were putting away the kite, and couldn’t help but laugh just a little more. Hopefully they hadn’t heard us cackling at them, or at least realized just how amusing the situation was.

Essaouira was probably one of my favorite stops on this trip and one of the few places in Morocco I would actually visit again. It’s very chill, laid back and a lot less stressful than the bigger cities. If you get a chance, go to this blue, windy city on the coast and stop by the beach. Maybe you’ll see some locals losing their battle to the wind.

Best 09: The Best Lesson Learned, or How I Learned Not To Be A Prude

Have I told you the story of how I stayed with a nudist stoner in Spain? I didn’t? Well, I think I’m going to have to.

How does a nudist stoner have anything to do with best lesson learned, you may ask. Well, we will need to go into some background basics. You see, I’m an American Prude. Dictionary.com defines Prude as One who is excessively concerned with being or appearing to be proper, modest, or righteous. While that definitely does not describe me and many of my friends would probably choke on their own laughter, I have somewhat prudish tendencies when it comes to my body.

That’s not to say I wear turtle necks all the time and dresses down past my knees. I can rock a vneck and mini-skirt like the next one. I’m just….not really into getting naked around other people. I’m fine with nudity in my own home, I’ve been known to walk around naked all the time when I think no one is watching (unfortunately that doesn’t mean I remember to always close the blinds. Hi neighbors!) I sleep naked, I have no problem being naked in front of a significant other if that’s the stage we happen to be at, but put me in a locker room full of other people? And I get all self conscious and shy and shit.This was born around the age of 12 when I sprouted boobs. Puberty was not kind to me. Most girls were in trainer bras at that point but me? OH NO. I shot right past that stage and straight into C cups. It was mortifying. But anyway, this post is not about my boobs and how I was a traumatized pre-teen.

Before we get to the nudist (aka the good part of the story), I have to start at the beginning of this learning process. AKA Learning How Not To Be a Prude. I was in Morocco and Anneke, my traveling partner, wanted to go to a Hammam. I was fascinated by this concept of going to a ridiculously cheap spa and bathing. More fascinating was the cheap massage. The only problem would be there would be lots of other people. Who were naked. Who were going to be looking at me being naked.

The night before Anneke gave me a pep talk in our hotel room. She read stories from the Lonely Planet and I got alittle uncomfortable. I didn’t want women discussing my lady bits much less asking me about them. (I didn’t understand why mine would be any different from THEIRS but I guess the blond hair complex they had extended to…other places.) But I was determined to do it. Of course at the very last minute I started dancing around the idea of not doing it because ohmygod I HAD TO BE NAKED. VERY naked. WITHOTHERPEOPLE. *hives*

We went to a small hammam in the center of the town we were staying at and got paired up with our very own naked bath attendants. We had to strip down to nothing but our bikini bottoms and sit in a room full of other very naked women.  Let me tell you. Those bikini bottoms? Didn’t stop this woman. They bathed us, they exfoliated and they put their hands in places I never wanted anyone other than a boyfriend to put there. Even Anneke, an Amsterdammer who was a far cry from even a sixteenth-prude, was feeling uncomfortable as we were manhandled by the woman with the largest breasts I had ever seen.Also the worst case of gravity I had ever seen. Ew.

Sure, the amount of skin that was lost was incredible and I was the cleanest I’d been in two months but the part where the woman put my leg between her massive boobs and and then leaned and called that a massage? COULD HAVE DONE WITHOUT THAT.

It certainly went well beyond my comfort zone (I don’t think I’ll ever get manhandled in a locker room) and yet, I survived. And while I may have turned several shades of red writing this (believe me, this post has been edited a LOT. TMI may be my middle name sometimes), I’m not as shy about my body anymore. [Side note: The whole Morocco trip was actually a lesson in loosening up: we often had to share bedrooms with doorless bathrooms and have you heard rumors about Moroccan food? THEY ARE TRUE. So um yeah. Lesson in Losing Prudishness LEARNED.]

So where does the nudist stoner come in? I think I’m going to have to take this post into a.. PART TWO.

Yep, I’m going there. Going to the TO BE CONTINUED guns. Until tomorrow…

December 16, 2009: Tea of the Year.

If there’s one thing the Moroccans eat its bread. A whole TON of it. If there’s one thing they drink? Mint tea. It’s what they affectionately call their Moroccan Whiskey. The very first night I was in Fes I was hanging out with this hilarious spanish couple, Nani and Rodrigo, whom I had met in line at customs when I got off the plane. We decided to share a taxi, which lead to us getting a pension to stay at together right in the Medina. After wondering the streets of the Medina (Fes has 9,500 of them.), and somehow not getting lost, we ended up at this restaurant where we had to try two very Moroccan things: Mint Tea and Shisha.

I was instantly hooked on both. Especially the tea. I had to get them to cut back on the massive amounts of sugar they used but once I got it to the right sweetness that didn’t put my teeth in jeopardy, I couldn’t get enough of it.

While I was in Marrakesh we wound up in the spice markets, getting the royal treatment at one particular stand. Free tea, smelling all sorts of spices and Anneke even got a facial. She ended up with several bags full of cooking spices and while I couldn’t justify getting half a kilo of cumin or cinnamon, I could justify getting half a kilo of mint tea. I mean, where else could I get something so yummy?

The only problem was that it looked eerily like marijuana. All green and crystallized and shit. I knew I’d have a problem with it going through US Customs but I thought I could use it up before then. I pulled it out in the hostel in Seville and had a tea making party right there in the lobby that caught the attention of the owner who was watching on a video and came in to see what all the fun was about. Once you smell it you know immediately that its NOT pot (i wish it was. That would be one hell of a big bag of pot!) but it still draws a lot of attention.

I had completely forgotten about it by the time the end of my trip came up in Paris and when I was halfway across the ocean, filling out one of those customs sheets, I realized IT WAS STILL IN MY BAG.

At customs I was asked to go over to the side table to have my bag checked. I was sure that I was going to get thrown into lockdown and yelled at by the FBI for smuggling drugs from Amsterdam (the stamp I was positive they must have seen in my passport). Two women were my handlers and I thought I was in for it.

They then asked to see the tulips I was carrying.

Oh. Yeah those. Never had to show the rest of my bag and I managed to come into the country with a bag of Mint Tea That Looked Like Pot without them even realizing it.

PHEW.

Now if a FBI agent shows up at my house in the next day I’ll know why…