20 Adventures from my 20s: #3

As if it wasn't crazy amazing living in Bordeaux, France (in the most dreamy, storybook apartment in the centre-ville above a flower shoppe, across the street from a patisserie, with rooftops and church bells out my windows next to the fireplace in my bedroom), every day in France was a new adventure. I spent almost every waking hour interacting with non-Americans and traveling throughout Europe. The chance to integrate into a culture rather than pass through on vacation truly changes your life, your perspective, the way you see the world and see humanity and shifts your decision-making process. Or at least, it has the ability to, and I think it did for me. (I watched some very stubborn and arrogant Americans stomp through that year unhappy and irritable and return home in a huff). However, the next adventure was when it really hit me that I was LIVING IN EUROPE and that was due to the...

ROAD TRIP TO SAN SEBASTIAN, SPAIN

A German friend had driven to Bordeaux for the year, and therefore, had his car with him. My roommate Katie and I threw a small housewarming party one night, and I got pulled aside and asked if I would like to join two Germans and another American girl on a quick weekend jaunt to San Sebastian for the weekend, and I immediately accepted.

We left first thing in the morning, and we drove down the French coast, into Basque territory. Crossing into Spain was a little uneventful, but I remember coming into the San Sebastian area and just how mesmerizing it was, because it was so distinctly different from the dreamy, classical France. We wandered about the town for a little bit: checking out sites and restaurants, and I'll never forget passing through a small square on what was clearly siesta - a couple laid down passed out together on the grass, right next to their stroller, with the baby sleeping soundly as well. Adorable!

San Sebastian is famous for something like having the most bars and clubs within a square mile, and it was no joke. We found a hostel right in the thick of it. We took our own siestas and went and hit the clubs, however, Patrick and Kirsten ended up calling it a night early on. That was the night that Jens and I stayed up until the sunrise, bar hopping and partying with all of Europe that was there, me having to do to the bathroom so bad that he guarded me while I peed on the beach. I remember that while Jens and I were teaching each other to count to 10 in German and Romanian, and watching the sun rise over the bay and seeing a double rainbow come out, that it totally hit me like a brick to the face: I AM LIVING IN EUROPE. My weekdays and weekends will be filled with European things and visiting European places and speaking European languages! I was LIVING here, here where I spent my whole life learning about in history, seeing in the movies, studying in my textbooks! I like to believe that I didn't take a single thing for granted from that moment on.

When the sun was fully up, Jens and I went back to the hostel, stopping for pastries for breakfast, and getting a good 2 hours of sleep before we had to wake up, check out, explore the city some more and then head back up to Bordeaux. I was actually living my dream, and from that very specific moment, it could actually grasp that concept too.

20 Adventures from my 20s: #2

My years being 20 and 21 were one big ball of adventure, so prepare for those to come raining down on you in the next few days. But, I would say they would be as proportionate to my 20s as how much it affected and grew me (aka a lot). This adventure would be:

SAYING THE BIGGEST GOODBYE OF MY LIFE.

I applied to study abroad without a second thought. It was like I always knew that I would do it, I was just annoyed having to wait so long, and as soon as I could, I did. I got accepted March 13 (the day before my 20th birthday) and then had to wait until August to leave to start the program.

It didn't hit me until a few weeks before, that I actually had never been away from home for even longer than a month. My college was a 3 hour drive away, and while the central coast was certainly a new land than the Inland Empire, and it all felt very new... I still was driving home at least once a month for school breaks, or for a mental break, or to celebrate something with my friends still in the area. And now I was going to have to say goodbye for almost a YEAR!

I was so excited to go to France, that the excitement was overriding everything. I remember my flight was out of LAX on August 27, 2006, and that I spent the entire night before out with the guy I was seeing, and didn't get home until well into the early hours of morning. When I woke up on the couch with my suitcase only half-packed in front of me, my cat Belle was laying protectively over it. I told myself she didn't want me to leave. I started to get really nervous, but I channeled it into excitement. I still remember the last picture me and my sisters took outside of our house before we all got in the car to head to LAX. All I was, was nerves nerves nerves. [CANNOT FIND COPY - SRY]

I remember Belle went on the lawn and sat with her back towards me. I knew that she knew, and it made me sad. She was old, and I was worried that she would die while I was away (joke was on me - she still lived another 5 years!!) and I couldn't believe I was saying goodbye to her for so long! I think that was the only time in my life that I was able to do that guy mind trick and just file it away instead of feeling the emotions.

I absolutely remember the moment, off the 105 freeway, when I saw the sign that said LAX - NEXT EXIT and that was when my stomach completely dropped, and panic and fear took over. (As a matter of fact, that sign still gives me flashback memories whenever I pass it - I think that's how traumatic it was, that it triggers me like that).

There was nothing to do about it, especially because everyone else was acting melancholy and I couldn't take on their emotions because I had my own, so I started snapping at people. I was really scared. I have never gone somewhere so foreign, for so long, and so alone. It was scary to take the first steps into the security line... and then go through where I couldn't go back anymore.

I've said similar goodbyes since... like when I moved to New York, for instance. The feeling was still sad, but this time it was familiar. I'll probably always compare it to this first goodbye, which is funny now, because a year is nothing, but it was a big deal when I was twenty.

I read a quote years later that was something to the effect of "Saying goodbye is the hardest thing in the world... until it's not anymore." Whatever it was, it was completely true. The hardest thing is to say goodbye... after that, it's over, and the future is all adventure.

20 Adventures from my 20s: #1

For my first adventure:

TURNING TWENTY.

My turning twenty in and of itself was a fun memory. First of all, I was a sophomore in college at UC Santa Barbara. I lived in Isla Vista, in a three bedroom house with 5 other girls, my roommate was a senior named Amanda who I loved and still admire. She has the most pure heart of gold ever but still loved some good mischief, and I took pride in occasionally getting her riled up.

My roommates that year on Halloween. It was my genius idea to do Clue!

Me and Amanda!

In leading up to turning 20, I was lamenting about it to Amanda, who at the time was 21 and going on 22. I told her I was getting old and I distinctly remember telling her "But now I won't be able to sing Teenage Victory Song by Weezer!" but Amanda assured me that your 20s were way better than your teens.

While on the UC quarter system, my birthday always fell during finals week, which as you can imagine, was not cool. People were either stressed and needing to study (myself included) and/or done with finals and already bouncing out to maximize their spring breaks. Oh but that year, Amanda was willing to help me celebrate. Honestly, I have no idea WHERE we got the idea from, but we stayed up til midnight the night before, and then we decided to go chalk up the school campus. This included us making chalk outlines of ourselves and writing HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIKI everywhere. Not only was it gloriously satisfying, but the next day I actually heard people talking about it everywhere! "Who is Kiki?" I even had a dinner later in the week and heard my waiters at Chili's (who were likely all UCSB students) talking about the Kiki birthday chalk along the Arbor!

That whole adventure made me realize not only that I had so many great friends, but it really encapsulated the whole college spirit of being able and willing to do such dumb things at all hours of the night, and I owe a lot of that to the UCSB campus and Isla Vista itself, whose very nature and proximity always lended itself to such crazy and memorable hijinx.

20 Adventures from My 20's

I truly have not been, and remain, unworried about entering my 30s. It really doesn't bother me at all. Maybe it will when it happens? But I haven't cared. My 20s were so full, so exhausting, so lively. Pam and I talked about it once and we were musing about how we felt as though we had done so much and were so exhausted, we felt as though we were already 30, so the fact that we weren't just felt like free 20s!

So, in honor of the last 20 days of my 20s, I will be posting 20 adventures/memories/lessons from my 20s before I start in on the next decade. And it starts tomorrow!

Coronamageddon

The 91 shut down this weekend, and with it... all of my hopes and dreams.

That is to say, that I did absolutely nothing this weekend. But let me start at the beginning.

On Friday I went to a conference in San Bernardino at the CSUSB campus. You know, it actually is beautiful... set in the desert amongst the foothills, etc. It's just that the nearby demographic was... hmm... intimidating. The funniest part was that we were reviewing protocols for transferring international students between institutions, and look what they used as an example...

Not only was this my former employer, it was the San Diego office. This was my exact job, signing forms like these. That email they blocked out could have been mine! (Or Chrishon's, who had the job before me - and I texted her and Jayna with this craziness). Ahh the memories!

While I was listening to conversations on international student services whilst sucking down cup after cup of coffee (the whole coffee bar even included flavored syrups... let's just say I got everyone's money's worth... even though this meeting was free LOLOLOL) my mother dropped by my house to pick up her camping supplies and sent me this text of my beeeeeautiful little kitty!

The meeting was over by 2:30 and I was free (score!) and I was supposed to get my hair done, but my hairdresser was sick. So I replaced that with some good ol' Trader Joe's grocery shopping. I must have gone wild that night because I don't remember what else I did.

On Saturday I worked on a bunch of projects, and then went and got my taxes done which ended up taking close to 3 hours UGHHHH. I was too irritated when I got home to do anything else. I knew I needed to clean my apartment, but was waiting to get that "wind" of motivation to do it. It never came, and I was annoyed at how dirty it was, so I forced myself to clean. It wasn't a fun cleaning... the kind where you're in a good mood and put on music and enjoy it. I was in a bad mood and didn't feel like cleaning and everytime you clean one thing, you notice there's another thing that needs to be cleaned too. But, I was in a fabulous mood when it was over and my place was so much cleaner!!**

**My apartment was built in the '30s. It will never be actually clean, just cleaner than normal.

As a reward for the cleaning, I allowed myself to go to Target, and can you believe I couldn't really find anything I wanted? I just got boring stuff on my list, like new Burt's Bees chapstick.

Today there were plans to go to LA (via the 60 fwy) for AJ's birthday lunch, but family members ended up getting sick and it was canceled. I was secretly relieved (sorry Ayj!) cause I didn't want to drive out there and figured the traffic would be very unpredictable with the 91 down. I watched a lot of Daria, and then work on getting my porch in order. I swept it and re-planted and watered and made a new batch of hummingbird food for the feeder (which had been out since last summer) and I finallyyyyyy put bird seed in the bird feeder my neighbor gave me a yearrrrr ago and hung that up too. Then I opened all the doors and windows, put on Florence + the Machine and got to finishing a painting from almost TWO YEARS AGO. I know because on the back of it I wrote Started: March 28, 2014. I dug up the progress photos I took all that time ago... look at the progression!

BTW, it is modeled after a picture I took in New Orleans while on the soul cleanse roadtrip home from NYC with Jayna, at the gate of the Place d'Armes. First I finished my painting session with this:

And then after researching linguistics while watching Inception (seriously, the best movie in the entire universe, it gets an award for Best Movie in Kristin's Lifetime) I got a second wind and finished it up with Rudy on.

I'm starting to find that I really enjoy painting, and a lot of it is due to the fact that I don't feel particularly good or talented, I don't expect it to ever become much, so it really is just for fun, just for me, completely relaxing and leisurely, no undue stress or negative talk or high standards. I have no idea what to do with the painting now, but I told AJ I might try to sell it to an eye dr in exchange for free LASIK.

And I got this picture of my kitty sleeping while I was working on my painting.

The Revenant

AJ and I went to see The Revenant last night. He haaaaaaaaated it! Hated with a Capital H! Hahahaha. This movie is more of a "film" for whatever that's worth, and even I felt a little bored at times, mainly because I was expecting more of a plot-based movie with dialogue. I didn't hate it, but I wish I had been more prepared for the type of film that it was. I probably could have waited to see it on DVD.

They really don't lie when they tell you a man is attacked by a bear, left for dead, and then seeks revenge. That is literally what happens, and it is all that happens. However, it's a lot more like a frontier Cast Away, a lot of silence, a lot of survival, and instead of a volleyball, Wilson is a bear who tries to kill him.

With that being said, the cinematography and the scenery is truly breathtaking. The film is visually STUNNING, and I not only loved watching the extreme authenticity of it, but after having come from a weekend of camping, still wonder how he survived this in SOUTH DAKOTA SNOW!! I also love seeing how our ancestors survived and am obsessed with what life was really like in all these different places at all these different times. I was mesmerized by this portrayal of the American frontier in the early 1800's. But again, wish I had known it going in, got a little bored at times, and could have waited to see it on DVD.

Also, while I am TOTALLY TEAM LEO and really want him to win the Oscar (although I will miss all the thirsty Leo memes and Internet trolling) I didn't necessarily think this was his best movie, and (dare I say it?) Tom Hardy upstaged him with his amazing acting. Leo just did more crazy stunt stuff. I got home late after the movie and am sleepy today.

Fun fact: just learned that the song Six Weeks by Of Monsters and Men was inspired by this true story of frontiersman Hugh Glass!

Sign Twirling School

The other day I was on my way home from work la dee da and got stopped at a light. I casually look around and continue waiting. Then it suddenly hits me that something weird is happening to my left and I do a double-take. Upon closer inspection I notice that all the people in the field of the community complex are all being led in instructions for sign twirling.

This hit me as the most ridiculous thing ever. I thought those people just kinda made it up on the spot out of boredom because you know, they're just standing on the corner for hours. But apparently this is a true acquired skill.

It reminded me of that episode of Flight of the Concords where Bret and Jermaine go to get jobs holding signs and the guy running the operation is super serious about it, asking them if standing and holding the sign in the correct direction sounds like something they could do. Jermaine says "Well it sounds like something a lamppost could do" so Jermaine gets sent away and Bret gets the job and every day they just show up and guy distributes random signs and tells them where to go stand.

Sounds like a joke but now after seeing the sign twirling school in Riverside, I know that it's real!