The Dirty Side of Travel

       Here I am sitting in the Barcelona airport at 4 o'clock in the morning. Every single Spaniard that passes by has stared at me and my home girl. And, although I feel a bit like a circus side show attraction, I can't blame them.  Home girl is lying next to me dead to the world under a mountain of of blue camping blanket, and I am sitting here with bare feet that are dirty from dancing through abandoned terminals and eating a foot long cucumber like an apple. 

 I flip through breathtaking, postcard-worthy photos and slightly infantile sketches depicting all the sights we have just experienced in Iceland. I may post one or two but I wish that I had other, better pictures to post. Because, people wont understand anything of the experience from that waterfall photo. They will repeat something to the echo of "oh traveling is so glamorous and wonderful" but it is not these moments that changed me. 

I wish I had a picture of us rocking every layer we packed with socks and sandals through the winter tundra of Iceland because we didn't want to have to pay for checked luggage or carry heavy boots on our hike across Spain. I wish we had a picture with the painter who brought us into her warm house, gave us tea, and let us use her wifi after we got lost on dirt roads and got locked out of our air bnb. I wish I had a picture of our many dinners of street hot dogs or of chips, cookies, and peanut butter (because food is sky high expensive in Iceland and their hot dogs are bomb). These are the moments that I cherish. These are the moments that change me. 

They are anything but glamorous or dignified. But that is the best part. Life is not a string of waterfalls with rainbows coloring the mist. Sure, the goals and plans of getting to see those are present and important, but it is the obstacles in life that bring you so low that you just have to sit in the sulphur mud and laugh, those are the ones that really change you. And I wouldn't have it any other way. As one of our hitch hiker friends would say, " I wouldn't trade the company with me in this sh*t for nothing." 

      All this is to say, in life and in travel, learn to savor those unwashed and unkept moments. Learn to embrace the unknown and the unsure, because you cant very well be pleasantly surprised if you have planned and researched every step of the way.