No Sleep Till Brooklyn
/So guess who just discovered the AIRBNB app? 🙋🏼🙋🏼🙋🏼🙋🏼🙋🏼.
I swear I feel as if my whole world has expanded, which it has. This app is so addicting because it's fraught with real, viable possibilities. It's teaching me a lesson I've been dying to learn; how to travel in an affordable, exciting, authentic manner. I hated taking trips and sitting in some boring, sterile lobby. I much prefer getting down and dirty while getting a real feel for where I am. Otherwise, I don't see the point of just physically relocating my body, in order to snap a couple of obligatory photos. It's a shitty feeling to be posting pics of a carefully planned vacation, while feeling that you're not really having fun. It's super depressing. If you've never had a trip that, well, I don't believe you.
My BFF SF and I always say we love people who can admit that their trip sucked. That the kids fought, that it was a tad too much togetherness with the hubby. These are uncomfortable things to admit. After all, trips cost a lot. They are laden with expectation. It's hard when we reasonably attach results to a few days and it's disappointing. We all want to feel we maximized our hard earned vacation days, and be proud we pulled off real quality family time. SF tells me I'm one of the few women who can give an honest, post trip report. It's not statistically possible that every time everyone you know boards a plane, that it's "the best trip ever!" 🙄🙄🙄. It's a tough pill to swallow, when after presenting yourselves with the ingredients for a perfect, frolicking, loving, reconnecting week with the fam, well, that you were all kind of over each other after two days. It feels like a failure. I've been there, and it's very normal. After all, most of "normal" is comprised of less than ideal circumstances.
First on my new travel agenda: Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Land of Hipsters. I'm actually here right now, typing this in front of "my" brick walled fireplace. My good friend FM is here with me. We came for two nights for a "stay cation". Sure, we live 45 minutes away, but so what? We decided to live somewhere else for 48 hours, and enjoy a part of New York that's famous for its food, energy, vibes, shopping, and man buns. We are eating in cool, delicious restaurants. We walked around for hours, shopped for quirky, vintage finds, each got new ear piercings (a third for her left ear, a fourth for mine), and saw incredible street art at every turn. The weather is pretty warm, a tropical 52 degrees, so the streets are packed with cool, smiling city folk who are happy to be outdoors. I feel like I'm in San Francisco in the late 60's. We hung out in DUMBO last night after dinner, and are going to a party in the Gowanus area tonight with assorted peeps. I bought a hat and bow tie that make me feel like Pharrell. I've made the prerequisite jokes about how I'm in the throes of a mid life crisis, but I'm not. I'm just at the beginning of starting to explore life, and that only stops at death. How wonderful it is to see couples in their 80's traveling, doing, going, laughing, holding hands. Me please! Wanderlust has no age.
The apartment I took looks like a Pottery Barn catalog. The bed was amazing. I stocked the fridge with overpriced, organic essentials. It feels like home, which is exactly what makes leaving your real home so yummy. My hosts have been great. The place looked like the photos. I'm sure there a couple lemons will pop up, but I'll chalk it up to life experiences. I'm excited to save money traveling this way. For the price of one first class seat, I can take several trips like this. Goal for 2018: do more with less. Live more simply. Collect experiences, not things. Trust me, if you need that first class seat or huge suite to feel like your trip was a success, that's a huge red flag. Folks who are having real fun don't think about that. Be those people. Be so busy and happy that you forget to post. Be open to new experiences, you'll never regret trying. Write new stories for your life. Our lives are a book, what's on the pages is in your hands entirely.
Safe, happy travels, the 🐝 in Brooklyn
