What to expect when you're (not sure what to be) expecting

... to go somewhere new, I mean. I don't want anyone to read a single line further and think that I'm pregnant.

I am, however, on the verge of a big life change. Tomorrow at 7 PM I will board a plane to Hong Kong. I'll be spending the summer there working for a well-known international magazine's Asia bureau. For legal and Googling reasons, I should probably not say which magazine this is--it definitely isn't Thyme magazine, I'll tell you that--but just in case you figure it out, I should also say that all thoughts I write in here are my own and do not reflect the opinions of my employer.

Anyway--

Since May of last year, which is when we last left off, dear reader, I sure have had quite a lot of adventures. I ran a crowdsourcing campaign that successfully funded a trip I took from Helsinki to Beijing by train over seven weeks. I blogged about that elsewhere, for the funders of my trip, but am in the process of turning that blog and the experience in general into a book proposal. I moved to California and worked harder than I ever have in my life over the course of my first year in journalism school. I ate a lot of burritos and forgot about how it feels to wake up to the sound of rain. And I applied for, and was accepted to, this internship. My job this summer at not-Thyme magazine will be to work on their breaking news blogs. I'm pretty excited about it. I also intend to pitch the editors for the chance to do my own reporting; I'm even more excited about that. Lastly, but certainly not least, I'm planning to eat my weight in dim sum. It's possible I'm the most excited about that.

Here's the odd thing: I don't actually know what to expect when I get off the plane on Wednesday. I've now traveled to more than 40 countries. I've lived abroad in both the west and the east. But Hong Kong exists in this sort of odd gray area between the two, a mix of colonial history and post-colonial innovation, whatever it is that happens when two very different worldviews and political systems butt up against each other like tectonic plates. It's an incredibly exciting place to get to be, but it means I have no way of guessing what my life will be like there.

How Western will it be, how similar to my life in America or in Spain? How will I feed my coffee addiction, with fancy espresso or terrible Nescafe? Will I be able to find peanut butter and yogurt in the grocery store? How much will I be able to speak to people on the street in English? What percentage of people I interact with will be expats? Will I eat most of my meals with a fork?

How Eastern will it be, how similar to my life in Kunming or my other Asian travels? Are we talking squat or sit toilets? Can I drink the water? Do shops close on Buddha's birthday? Will excitable tourists ask to take their picture with me? How much will I use my Mandarin? Will I have to cook all my vegetables? Is there a market I can go to to bypass the grocery store altogether?

These data points, which by now I use almost automatically to orient me when I arrive in a new place, are uniquely not-quite-plottable in Hong Kong. I can't really anticipate where on this plane my life for the next three months will land. And actually, I find that--discovering that hidden vegetable market, ferreting out wherever the best/most acceptable coffee is, figuring out what my breakfast routine will be, going to the grocery store in search of peanut butter--pretty damn exciting. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

Guest post! Food diary for Yummyfoto

Have you ever wondered just exactly what I'm eating over here? My lovely friend Linda blogs about food over at Yummyfoto, and she asked me awhile back whether I would be willing to write a five-day food diary for her in the style popularized by New York magazine's Grub Street blog.

Well, I finally found time to keep the diary and write it up this past month-- it was fun to do! I timed the whole shebang to coincide with an American friend's visit. We ate well, as you will see... very, very well.

Click here to enjoy five days of deliciousness!

Summer hiatus

After weeks beating myself up for never posting, I have decided to give myself a blogging vacation. I have a lot of ideas to share with you all in the fall, when I will move to the Toledano town of Talavera--and I aim to put less pressure on myself as a blogger and accept shorter or simpler or less perfect pieces in hopes of publishing more often. So, I encourage you to watch this space starting in early September. Much like the majority of continental Europe, Wide Eyes Wider World is off during August.

Coming in the fall:
-Reflections on "Coffee and Confidence" and my Linares experience, a year on
-An essay on the challenges and joys of learning flamenco
-RyanAir 2.0: my personal tips and tricks for a painless experience

Hasta pronto!

The big news is here!

 Midsummer bonfire at the cathedral in Segova-- just one of the photos you'll see and locations you'll learn about at 48 Horas

I'm so excited to finally be able to share with you all that 'big news' I mentioned a few weeks back. This weekend we finally unveiled months of work/organization/planning. I am super psyched to announce a new online travel blog-magazine (blogazine?), 48 Horas, which looks to help travelers and expats explore Spain in bite-sized pieces. We've got a pretty awesome staff living all over the country, ready to share their expertise and personal adventures about life in Spain. The site will feature articles on 48-hour adventures in various Spanish locales, plus spotlights of our writers' favorite hidden haunts, great pictures, and our favorite personal adventure stories. I think this could be awesome.

Check it out, and tell your friends! We're at www.48-horas.com 

Lucky/Stupid

Well, hello there. Fancy meeting you here.

It's been awhile, and the time stamp on the last entry here is solid proof. I stuck in one place for quite a bit-- following my stint in Mexico I got a job at a small, cozy private ESL school and settled into an exceedingly lovely life for the next 16 months. I really hit this one out of the park, I must say: a fascinating gig as a reporter for the Chinese/English bilingual newspaper the Sampan; an incredibly fulfilling internship at NPR affiliate WBUR; a fun-filled routine packed with pub trivia, folk dancing, karaoke, and lectures; a fantastically-located apartment stocked with goofy roommates; and a group of friends who often felt more like family. It may have been "only" a few months, but I put down roots during that time. Or maybe I should say roots upon roots-- I bonded in an adult way with a city that I've known and loved (and that has known me) since childhood. I have been excited, stimulated, fulfilled, loved. Many everyday bumps (and a few not-so-everyday ones) aside, it has been one of the best periods of my life.

Which leads me to the next thought: why in the world would I leave!?

For leave I have: on Thursday, September 15 at 3:30 PM I boarded a plane that took me in a rather circuitous route to Berlin, Germany. Following a four-day layover, another plane took me to Madrid, after which a bus ferried me to Palencia (pop. 75, 000), the small Castilla y Leon city in Spain that will be home for the next 10 months.

In the run up to my departure I crammed as much wonder into my days as I could. I organized bowling trips and group dinners; took river cruises to cement the layout of my beloved city in my mind’s eye; and overloaded myself with Asian cuisine and diner fare, two varieties I did not expect to be offered regularly in my new home. And every night after tiring myself out dancing, listening to live music, or spending blissful time with friends, I would wonder to myself: what am I doing, leaving? Am I making a terrible mistake?

One thing I’ve realized as I’ve adjusted to the beginnings of adulthood is that the singular dream is a myth. Sure, some of us have one thing we wish for that hangs on tenaciously as we mature, but dreams transform as we do, molded to fit the new selves we’re growing into. I always dreamed of being a writer, but that dream has been refined and altered from author and illustrator to travel writer to journalist, and back. And in just the same way, when I returned home from my trip around the world, I had a new dream to join the old ones. I had adored my nomadic existence, but I wanted to know a foreign life from the other side. I wanted a home away, cozy bakeries that I frequented for bread, a coffee shop whose barmen knew my name, a Sunday morning market routine. The pull of understanding life so thoroughly in another place was remarkably strong.

And so I applied to the Spanish Language Assistant program, run by the Spanish Ministry of Education, which brings Canadian and American citizens to Spain to help teach English in public schools. I wrote and re-wrote an essay, put all my documents together, got a recommendation from my boss, sent everything into the embassy, and waited.

But of course part of the point here is that life doesn't stand still, and by the time I was accepted to the program in March my dreams had changed. I was deeply ensconced in my new life, busy drinking cheap beer in little bars in my neighborhood, trying new foods in the countless ethnic restaurants surrounding my apartment, writing a series of articles on Chinese life in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood, and pitching stories about Sudanese politics or dolphin communication at my radio internship. As far as I was concerned, I was living my dream. Spain seemed very far away, in all senses of the phrase.

But, I thought, what do I know about what comes next? I feared that this supremely fulfilling life might be just a brief phase, a period of pretend that would be followed by the confusion, general unsteadiness, and angst most of my friends were experiencing. And hadn’t I always wanted to learn Spanish, to live in Europe? Hadn’t my 2009 self dreamed of siestas, salsa, and sweet, hot espresso in tiny silver cups? I accepted the position, although with trepidation.

The summer wore on, bringing with it details of the year to come (and increased anxieties which may well be discussed later in this blog.) I finally found rhythm and confidence at my internship, I spent more and more time with a close-knit circle of friends, I joined a Zumba class and went dancing, I attended barbecues and went on dates. And I thought: what’s better than this? What person in his or her right mind would voluntarily give this up?

In the weeks before my departure a lot of people I love and respect took time to tell me how brave they thought I was being to leave and try all this newness. They told me that they admired me greatly; some even admitted to feeling jealous. I thanked them and felt the warmth of mutual affection spread through my chest, but some part of me was also thinking: “Am I being brave, or am I being stupid?” And also: “I don’t want to be brave. I want to stay here.”

I wish I could tell you the exact moment when I realized I was half-blind, but I think it was more of a gradual realization. Nevertheless, here it is: really, for me “lucky” and “stupid” are two sides of the same coin. I’m lucky to have enjoyed that life which, for a few short months, was so perfect for who I was and what I needed. And I’m incredibly lucky to have a chance to leave that life and try out a dream I once had, even if it’s not the dream that most recently spoke to me the strongest--many people who cherish this dream will never realize it, and it's easy to forget that. But even with those opportunities, I think perhaps you need to be stupid about risk taking and going out of your comfort zone in order to accept the lucky circumstances offered to you.

Ultimately, I don’t deny the fear that comes with “stupid”—fear that things will never be the same (they won’t); fear that I might lose people I love (I might.) But I can also see the incredible luck I have in tasting this life for a year. I can make room for both sides of the coin at once; I can stand it on its edge. With that perspective comes a new question I have to ponder: if I follow a dream that once belonged to a person that was once me, what does that mean? Should you trust your dreams to know you better than you know yourself? I am either stupid enough or lucky enough to have a chance to find out. Maybe both.

Vamos!

I have some exciting blog-related news! I decided, as of about a week ago, to take a risk and have an adventure: I will be spending the next 6 weeks in Mexico. The first four of these weeks will be spent in Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city, taking a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course earning a certificate that will help me get a job teaching English worldwide. The second two weeks will be comprised of a short beach holiday in nearby Puerto Vallarta and some Mexican exploration whose destination is thus far undecided. This decision is based on the fact that TEFL courses are fabulously expensive in the States: so expensive, in fact, that for the same amount of money I would have spent on just program tuition here in Boston I will be paying my program tuition AND for four weeks of a homestay AND for my round-trip ticket. So-- why not?

That means that although there may be some last-year hijinks dotted in here and there, you can expect the next 6 weeks of WIWW to be largely focused south of the border. There will be Spanish street wandering, market exploring, and weather adoring. There will be taco eating and mariachi listening, tequila drinking and salsa dancing, Spanish learning, and a whole lotta homework. Get excited! I definitely am.