Travel & Thank: Day 3. First Night Alone

Visited the small piece of a beach by one of the best hotels’ here with mom and aunt. .. And realized I’d never once been to the beach with my aunt before. It's definately good for additional bonding, which is in turn always a good thing to be thankful for!

Later that day mom and aunt had to be getting ready for their flight back home, which meant I was to stay alone and have all the house to myself. Must admit it’s a weird feeling to be sitting here alone like that. I’ve never been alone abroad in a basically my own house… Hotels, yes. I’ve traveled alone more than enough to be completely comfortable in doing so. But actually staying in a house where I have to do some cleaning here and there, prepare my breakfasts or snacks, do occasional laundry and dishes - now this is something new. It feels weird but it also feels liberating.

I’m sitting outside now as I type this, sipping on my green tea and overlooking the prettily lit pool, some palm trees and other bushes…  I’m feeling really thankful (not to mention lucky) to have this opportunity to spent almost 2 weeks really living alone, and what is more, living alone abroad. Such a priceless experience for the future, such a great step in learning extra independence. I’m just more than sure that it will prove so useful sooner than later.

P.S. As if the perfect picture I’ve just painted for you wasn’t enough, I’m now watching fireworks!! Right over the palm trees!! Let’s pretend they’re in the honor of my first night alone here…

 

Disclaimer: Travel & Thank™ is a mini-project within and is part of The ‘Thank You’ Project blog ©2009-2010. Travel & Thank™ updates are featured twice a week, are pre-written and not made in real time - each post was created during the author’s actual vacation in the mid-fall of 2010. For privacy reasons, the names of the persons, places and geographical locations may have been shortened, abbreviated or changed and are not subject to disclosure.

Travel & Thank: Day 2. No Longer ‘a Girl With a Star-Shaped Tattoo’

I used to refer to the star-shaped tattoo on the back of my neck as a sort of a ‘power tattoo’ – an ultimate attention magnet. It was getting frustrating how much “fuss” it would create at times. In having it inked on my body, I meant it to cater to my social nature, the fact that I enjoyed getting attention and loved being the soul of the company, but I never really thought it would live up to this popular ‘expectation’ - tattoos’ ability to change one’s life, one’s perception of the world and the world’s perception of them.

For a long time most people seemed to only really remember about this one tattoo I had, forgetting all about others or just not remembering what or where they were, but all knew and seemed to really care about my “star” and it was the single one most attention grabbing and chat provoking body ‘art piece’ I had. It was getting old being referred to as “that girl with a star-shaped tattoo on the back if her neck”. The tattoo seemed to really leave up to its meaning of an “attention lover”. Frustrating, really.

I was really wondering when this would change or if it would ever change at all. After all, I had other tattoos to talk about, if people really wanted to talk tattoos. Or, I must admit, deep inside I even hoped people would just stop noticing it that much and stop paying it so much attention and stop asking about it (what’s there even to talk about, really?). No such luck. Until tonight. 

Me, aunt and mom had another great day in country C. – wandered a little more through the old town’s central part, walked down to the seaside, strolled all along the beach walk, been to the harbor, saw some historical sites by night, and later went to have dinner at a lovely Japanese spot. The place was discovered by mom and aunt on one of their nighttime seaside walks – they said when they saw this restaurant they immediately knew they would take me there once I joined them in country C. The dinner was all we expected, and the place lived up to our expectations, but what was the most pleasant surprise for me personally, was the ‘tattoo encounter’. I was wearing my hair up, so the back tattoos were on full display. The hostess noticed those and asked me… what my “think & thank” tattoo was all about!! The star tattoo finally got ignored, and for that I am thankful. Me and her even chatted about the importance of being thankful for what you had – now that’s something new. What a beautiful night!


Disclaimer: Travel & Thank™ is a mini-project within and is part of The ‘Thank You’ Project blog ©2009-2010. Travel & Thank™ updates are featured twice a week, are pre-written and not made in real time - each post was created during the author’s actual vacation in the mid-fall of 2010. For privacy reasons, the names of the persons, places and geographical locations may have been shortened, abbreviated or changed and are not subject to disclosure.

Travel & Thank: Day 1. There Are Two Sides to Any Story

What a perfect start to the vacation! What a fantastic first day!

At the C.-Country airport I was met by some guy with my name written on the plate he was holding – mom and aunt arranged a car for me. I was at aunt’s house door early, at just 20 minutes past 6 in the morning: it was still dark outside, and even though it was already technically a morning it still felt like deep nighttime. Regardless of it being so early, both mom and aunt were up waiting for me. I got all the warmest greetings, hugs and kisses and was invited to the table to have my early breakfast after a mostly sleepless night flight... And I was served nothing less but pancakes with red caviar!! One of my most favorite meals! This unexpected fix of luxurious Omega 3’s in the morning felt truly indulgent.

A few warmly mellow hours were spent chatting and catching up. After all, it’d been almost two weeks since I hadn’t seen them – mom and aunt left for country C. before me and were to leave shortly after my arrival. At 9 mom and aunt announced we were all to go lingerie shopping at this new boutique they had discovered with the help of a helpful neighbor… They actually even presented me with a garment they bought for me already, and at 9 am off we went to indulge some more. I was encouraged to try on absolutely everything I only laid my eye on and when I chose two beautiful bikinis and a gorgeous beach dress my aunt just paid for them all – she said my birthday was coming up soon anyway, so I could totally use an early present. Stunned and happy, off I followed them further into town to visit a few more shops, have lunch at a cute outdoors café and shop for fresh fruit at the local market. This vacation is off to a luxurious start!

Sounds pretty good, eh? However, there are two ways to look at it. all Being me, I chose to focus on all the positive things. But maybe someone else would have rather moaned about getting a bad tummy ache during our lunch break on the town, would have mentioned having to take painkillers for it and having to go back home sooner because of it. Maybe if I looked at the negative side of the day I would have whined about those 5 hours I had to spend in bed and not being able to enjoy the pool or even be out in the sun much. I could’ve focused on that, but instead I chose to realize how amazing my day was and be thankful for it.

I’m thankful the stomach cramps didn’t bother me during my flight – it would have made it hardly bearable. I’m thankful I had a chance to start my morning so beautifully, I’m thankful the stomach  cramps weren’t yet there when we were shopping and I could actually try on all the clothes comfortably. I’m thankful I was cared for and catered to by my loving mom while I was in bed and aching. I’m thankful I still felt well enough to get better fairly soon and got a chance to meet the neighbors, chat to the friendliest ones and be goofy with an adorable and incredibly social 9 month old Jacob, who looked like a little turtle in his bathing toddler gear. I’m thankful I had a perfect relaxing finish to a perfect first day in C.-Country, and I’m thankful I had my beloved laptop that I could take with me and had an opportunity to write down all of the above.

What would have YOU chosen to focus on?

Disclaimer: Travel & Thank™ is a mini-project within and is part of The ‘Thank You’ Project blog ©2009-2010. Travel & Thank™ updates are featured twice a week, are pre-written and not made in real time - each post was created during the author’s actual vacation in the mid-fall of 2010. For privacy reasons, the names of the persons, places and geographical locations may have been shortened, abbreviated or changed and are not subject to disclosure.

Traveling Update

I am sorry for my prolonged absence from visiting your blogs! The original plan was to be away for two weeks only, but due to a certain circumstance that wasn't planned I had to change my traveling schedule. I intend to be back in the home country within two weeks, which means I'll be catching up with you in two weeks time also. Thank you all for the understanding!

Travel & Thank

Greetings to all from one of the lovely islands out there! I'm still traveling and enjoying my first vacation since the start of this blog project more than a year ago - can finally allow myself the luxury of living offline (and traveling) for a bit! 

Traveling, however, didn't make me forget all about being thankful. The first day of my vacation was such a fantastic start to it that I immidiately wanted to share all those things I appreciated with a dear friend of mine. I didn't have the internet access at the time, so I turned to my cell phone, but guess what, there was absolutely NO way all those thankful things would fit into one text message! That's when I got out my laptop and started typing it all down - just so that I don't forget and can pass on the thankful info later.

Looking at those traveling thanks displayed on my computer screen, I decided I wanted to do this every day and I sticked to it. So, my question to you, would you be interested in me featuring those daily travel thanks on this blog once I'm back in a week?

Space for YOUR Thanks

Hi all! First of all, thank you so much to everyone for being so supportive about the book news. It's my new challenge and my new journey, and I can't wait to be sharing more news with you as I go!

One of the things I'm looking forward to is sharing the results of the Thankful Survey once we reach its 100% response capacity (we're at 26% right now). If you still haven't done so, either click here to take part or use the "Thankful Survey" tab above to take it.

We're also working on the 'Thank You' world's re-design, so you'll be seeing some new things and features here and there. The latest addition to the blog is the new "What are YOU thankful for today?" tab above: remember how I used to ask this question at various social networking platforms? Some of the beautiful thankful answers made it to the tab and are now displayed there for all to read and be inspired! Reading those beautiful thanks always lifts my spirits, so I wanted to share them with everyone. Check the tab to see if your thankful reply is up there, or if you didn't participate last time or new to the whole thing, feel free to submit your thankful thoughts in the tab's comment section.

As I'm no longer internet-dependent, I'm thankful I can be free to do some traveling, so for the next 2 weeks I'll be unusually quite - I'll be traveling but doing a lot of writing too. Exciting!