PISA - Where It All Began #amore

 

I love to hate Facebook. HOWEVER, thank you Facebook Memories for the sweet reminder that August 2015 was when I opened my eyes to a whole new world (yes, just like Aladdin on a magic carpet).

What is so special about Pisa, you may ask... 

Take a picture pushing the Leaning Tower. Take a picture supporting the Leaning Tower. Prove to the world your super strength, and that is it. Bye. Well, that's what I did 2 years prior, in 2013.

HOWEVER, in 2015, Justine (my super hot friend... one of them, cause I have two 😁) was invited by a friend, to his friend's grandparent's place in the mountains, just an hour drive out of Pisa. Lucky me, they were super kind and offered Justine to bring a friend. SOOO, technically, I was the friend of a friend of a friend... enough of this, onto the good stuff!

At dawn, following our arrival in Pisa, we drove to the mountains and as we reached our destination all I can remember thinking was, WOW. I was in love! The place is called Parco dell'Orecchiella. 
I suck at remembering names of places (I did part of the Camino de Santiago and the only names of villages I can remember are the start point and end point!), however, this spot I will remember FOREVER. 

The grandparent's place was a 2 story, 3 bedroom wooden hut with a patio perched to one side. Oh! and no mobile connectivity whatsoever.

I cannot recall the exact amount of people, however, I'm comfortable saying there were about 16 of us. Different nationalities, super chill, super cool people. 

Looking back, I find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that we actually only spent 2 full days in the mountains. It most probably is the only occasion where time stood still while I was enjoying the moment.

The only shop around was a short walk away. A very quaint place full of pasta and home-baked pastries, and not much else. Therefore, we might have emptied the hut's pantry while cooking lunch! 

It was great though, everybody pitching in. And when we were too many hands in the kitchen, some retired to playing the guitar or making sure the fireplace was still burning.

On both days we hiked. I was surrounded by complete strangers, yet I surrendered myself to the group and trusted them blindly, truly believing they knew the way, so I happily tagged along.

At night, we were so high on the mountain top I swear we could almost touch the stars; they sparkled so bright. I also managed to see multiple shooting stars! 

Speaking of mountain elevations... during a hike, on our first afternoon, we actually walked through clouds! 

And the alcohol! The wine, the whiskeys, the Cointreau, the challenge we gave ourselves to ascend from one alcohol percentage to the next. We actually only had a sip each, considering the amount of people we were. I still feel a tad guilty that we probably left the drinks cabinet drier than the desert after our 'intervention'.

Thank you Justine, Thank you Pisa, Thank you Destiny, Thank you Opportunity. This experience truly ignited my fire for adventure.

With lots of love and happy memories,

Jess x

PS. The BN picture I use for the start of every post is taken at Parco dell'Orecchiella.

Let's Try Again #LTA

#LTA

This is me, running out of excuses. Fed up with myself for not fulfilling my silly, petty life goals.

I was blessed with craziness. 

The feeling of a fire burning within.

The feeling that pushed me to take the plunge countless times. 

I have let this blessing slip away.

2016 was the year I was ‘too busy’ enjoying myself to continue writing in my blog.

Then, in 2017 I was ‘too mentally exhausted' by first having my world turned upside down; yet managing to get the job I always wanted… No time for blogging there.

2018 : managed to travel some more (with the man I later promised to spend the rest of my life with) which rekindled my desire to put my traveling experiences into words....

...HOWEVER, I kept repeating the same excuse… I have to feel when the time is right, and I have to be kind to myself and give myself time. 

Since 2018 I have had my blog permanently open, as tab on my mobile internet app. At what point does being kind to yourself turn into laziness? Where do you draw a line between ‘self-care’, giving yourself the time you need and loosing your appetite for life?

Whenever I gave in to guilt and tried to write a post, I would have already forgotten the first sentence while think about the second. I think I was frustrated, yet the feeling was muffled. I just stopped feeling the fire burning.

EVEN NOW, re-reading what I wrote, ready to press Publish, I cannot stop thinking "but what's the point in this?" Thing is, I DO NOT KNOW. I should not think much of it either. Just do it DAMN IT!

2020, and here I am freshly, happily married, working my dream job with a place to call my own… which in essence threatens the actual existence of the name of this blog…. since now I do have a home :) 

YET, I am a nomad now more than ever, my thoughts are too scattered and sometimes lost. A mental-nomad, if that makes sense. I need to work hard and push myself (self-care my arse....just had to!). 

Cruel to be kind works fine for me.

Stopping, taking a moment and evaluating all achieved and experienced thus far makes me realise this is what I always aimed for. NONETHELESS, somewhere along the way, I left my fire behind, or simple forgot what fed it.

Now I can understand what some mean when life struggles are mentioned. It just happens. They are lucky enough to identify points in their life as such and work to improve on the dull phases. I feel like it took me months to finally realise.

This whole post is truly a word-vomit, or rather thought-vomit, with the hopes that it would lead me to finding my passion and helps me to once again, give meaning to the seemingly insignificant things.

I cannot bring myself to commit to writing a post every so often, yet. I will list it down as one of the petty goals though - To write about past travels, when I manage to force myself to gather my thoughts :)

PS. I love all the people in my life so much! This is all sounding so melodramatic (oh boohoo - you think you have problems girl... I have problems, mela int), yet I smile every day cause of them!

Jess x

It Will Never Happen To Us... Or ...

So it's been a while since I last wrote a post. I did actually start writing one but saved it and just left it there... After what happened in, not just Paris, but all around the world last month, it felt strange and almost wrong to write about the joys and excitement of travel.

When a tragedy happens, it just feels right to go silent as a sign of respect for the people closely effected by the event... Is it because we feel that is the only thing we can do? Do we feel so insignificant to actually do something that will help change this world for the better, other than just going silent? Or perhaps we just cannot begin to grasp or understand the significance of what actually happened, and going silent is what we are "wired" to do in situations like these?

Against our friends' and loved ones' advice, my friends (Justine and Sarah) and I traveled to London to meet Michelle last week. As expected, my not-too-keen-on-travel grandma just could not get enough of calling my crazy... Do I really blame her? Well, truly? I don't. All she saw and heard on the news, radio and papers were theories and discussion about terrorism.

Was I scared of going? Not at all. I do not feel safe anywhere at the moment... (well Greenland actually seems pretty safe, if it's deranged human beings we are trying to get away from...hmm) 

Having said that, after all these tragic events unfolded right in front of us, do we seriously believe it could happen to us? The Paris tragedy, that was so heavily broadcasted, shook everyone to the core. 

However, people still go out, still go to work, still travel and still frequent considerably crowded areas. Mostly because we doubt it will ever happen to us. If you are sitting on a train or a bus, do you seriously believe that someone is randomly going to appear and terrorize or harm you? 

Yes, it crosses our mind and the thought scares us. But do we really really believe it will happen to us?

Before we left for London, my friends and I promised ourselves not to use the underground/ tube or visit areas which are usually crowded.... We basically took this promise and flushed it!

We were so caught up with work before leaving, we did not have time to plan our journey from the airport to the hotel. We went from considering a taxi, to asking about bus routes, to sitting on a train East bound to Russell Square. Apparently our gut 'told us' that we were safe enough, as we ended up using the tube to travel all over London for the whole stay.

We stayed at Hotel Cavendish on Gower Street. It was the cheapest and closest to Russell Square we could find, and it was surprisingly very nice. 

On this trip I have sinned! Was so close to Starbucks for 4 whole days and did not set foot inside a store! I missed out on their festive latte specials! O.O 

HOWEVER, we did stumble upon a bakery/ store. Le Pain Quotidien This place is HEAVEN! 

Check out The Thirst We heard them play on Brick Lane and they were great!

 

                                           [Air Malta flight MLA - LHR]

             [East bound to Russell Square]

                                [Oxford Street]

                                                                                          [Winter Wonderland]

Jess x

Travellers Apply Here

Today, 1st of November, 2015 marks the start of a very important month... The month in which the Turkish Airline's offer on Malta to Miami flights ends.

This promotional offer is open up to the 20th of November, for traveling from now up to the 20th of March. The last time I checked, this round trip was just 400 euros per person! 

This is an opportunity I do not wish to miss... For this reason, I have started my own countdown; 18 days. Before the 19th of November I must :

- Make sure I research Miami well

- Possibly find someone to travel with (optional)

- Book flights

- Tell my grandma I'm going to the US alone

The last one on the list is going to be very very VERY challenging. How could you explain to an elderly woman who has never gone abroad (and freaks out every time I tell her I'm traveling in Europe), that I will be hopping on a plane and traveling to the other side of the world by myself? Am seriously considering telling her I'm just going to Gozo!

And why traveling solo?

Well.... my dear dear besties have abandoned me on this one, they are leaving this ship to sink, ditching me completely, cutting me loose... well you get the general idea. 

SO, am looking for a potential travel buddy to join me on this trip! The crazier the better... JUST KIDDING... Murderers, kidnappers or any kind of crazy please do not contact me!

On a different note, and totally off topic, am seriously loving this song from Groove Armada At The River

Jess x 

The First One

After what seemed like an eternity to find a name for the blog, and after almost giving up on the whole idea altogether, BecomingNomad just seemed to miraculously make sense. 

Everyone seems to have a freaking blog lately!... and this made finding a COOL name for the blog such a pain. Just Another Blog; I wrote, you wrote, we wrote; She wondered; Blog be thy name; all taken, can you believe it... was so desperate that was considering "A blog with no name", but that was taken too! 

My friends and I were actually going to start blogging some months back. Singlings | The Diary. However, that failed before it even started. We were too caught in wrecking our brains, trying to find the right topics to discuss and how to go about writing a post. So here I've decided I'll just sit in front of my laptop and write without much 'pre-thinking'. Never kept a diary/ journal in my life. Tried to begin writing a journal numerous times, but I just sucked at it... so we'll see how this goes #fingersandtoescrossed 

Why BecomingNomad?

Well, routine and stability were all I was about, until recently. Suddenly home does not feel so comfortable anymore, it feels as though I do not belong. There is this growing need to get out of the house and explore. I'm far from being a Nomad, but the thought of Becoming one is just damn exciting.

 This is me ...

..... Hello =)

Seems I wrote enough for the first post so will write about when and where the photo was taken another day.

OK here it goes! *clicking the publish button*