Thankful

For people. That I love people, and that I need people, and that on some days, people need me, too. For eggs, and all the ways you can cook them. For the strangers who smile back when I smile at them. For the song Valerie. For sneezing, and for white russians. For weekends at Rogues, and for the neon lights at Burgos in the wee hours of the morning. For being excited about the day.

For airplanes, and trains, and boats, and cars, and for the promise of an adventure ahead that they hold. For the lovely places I find myself in when I'm in between sleep and awake. For cold pillows, and mornings when I can go back to sleep. For free samples. For free anythings. For Dr. Seuss, and for puddles (and galoshes). For midnight road trips. For the road. For the ocean. For chocolates, and tents, and the smell of books. For twigs and branches and trees. For the sparkling asphalt. For kisses, and for holding hands, and for being in someone's arms. For light, and for the little invention that was made to capture light. For peeling sunburns. For the places that are staying with me. For coming home, and for feeling loved.

For the times I saw things that moved me to tears, and for all the world I have yet to see.

Little Girl, Big World: Barcelona, Catalunya

I left the South of France with Rachel at 6 in the morning bound for Barcelona.  The slow, scenic train ride through the Pyrenees was perfect, as we barely had any sleep, and my head was aching from the night's Leffe. But moving between the snowy peaks to the clattering rails passing beneath us gave me comfort.

Rachel, my security blanket 

lost, tired girls at La Tour de Carol

This would be the last time on this trip I would be traveling with someone I knew.  Rachel had been my security blanket on the first leg of my trip. She knew where to go and what to do. She had a phrasebook app.  She could also read a map.


 Before I left, I asked Lonely Planet and KLM to let me delay my flight home after the sponsored week in Toulouse. I wanted to stay three more weeks and travel Europe on my own.  At that point, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn't know then traveling alone for so long would be so difficult-- it just seemed like right thing to do at the time.

train station, and people making out everywhere

my tiny bodyguard Rachel sent me off, bringing me to my first host's flat

the couch where I slept in Barcelona

Barcelona was the first city I traveled alone. It was also the city of my first couch. Traveling alone forces you to trust strangers. I really had no choice--I didn't want to pay for a hotel with no one to split the expenses, and couch surfing seemed like a lot of fun. I wanted to learn how the people in the city actually lived, instead of passing by the city as just a tourist.

Streets at night

Cured meats shop
The Rose Tree Door of La Sagrada Familia

La Sagrada Familia Interior

My host, his Harley, and Catalunya at night

Barcelona was a good beginning. I got lost finding my host's apartment and my back was starting to ache from the weight of my backpack. But it was all worth it. My host took me around Catalunya on his Harley (which he fondly refers to as his girlfriend). There was really no better way to see the city at night--my hair blowing in the wind, holding on for dear life to a man I had just met a few hours earlier. I learned about cured meats, and paella, and tapas. I also had the most surreal walk down Las Ramblas in the rain by myself, just watching tourists and street artists while very happily drunk on sangria. Finding out that I could enjoy my own company was comforting. :)

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This entry is part of a series of photographs from traveling around Europe by myself with nothing but a backpack, a EuRail pass, and my camera in the autumn of 2012. I went couchsurfing, I stayed in youth hostels, and even slept on the floors of strangers' homes. I had no plan (only the intention to keep going until I was tired and broke), but I ended up with a great adventure.

Thank you KLM for sponsoring my flight!