Tripaversary 2018: A life update, a throwback to the Balkans in 2015-16, and plans for the next adventure.

Three years.

Three years since I hopped on an Icelandair plane to Europe, not knowing when I’d be back.

Fifteen months later (not including a quick hop over in May 2016) I landed back in the states and picked up where I left off.

As is tradition, I wanted to give you all a quick update on what’s been going on in the last year since I wrote a two year travelversary post in 2017.

I want to acknowledge that living in the United States is kinda rough right now. There’s been a lot of bad news coming out of DC this week, and it’s hard not to let it seep into your psyche, affect your daily routine, and darken your thoughts of what will happen next.

I had the privilege of hearing NYT columnist Thomas Friedman speak on Tuesday evening. This was after the Supreme Court upheld the Muslim ban, and it wasn’t just me in the audience who was feeling hopeless, for lack of a better term. I think all of us were looking towards Friedman, a Minnesota native, to give us something to lift our spirits.

He gave a great speech, which I’m sure he does on the regular, but one sentence stood out to me that I’ve been using as a mantra the last couple of days: “Don’t always focus on what’s coming from the top down, but see and feel what’s emerging from the bottom up.”

He’s right. It’s hard to put any trust in our federal system right now. But communities across the nation are coming together in solidarity, to organize, to protest, to elect people that will fight for them in government, to give people hope that life isn’t going to always feel as shitty as it does now.

A few of our badass Minnesota Women's Collective members

In the last year or so, the Minnesota Women’s Collective, an organization that I helped to found, has been lowkey working to support women in their personal, political, and professional endeavors. Last night we had our Pride event, which resulted in a dozen women sitting in a black-owned coffee shop in St. Paul, talking about resistance, sharing our stories, and participating in a sort of group therapy that left me feeling better than I had been when I walked in. It’s times like that where I know that our energy comes from the bottom up.

This summer is too busy to count as a summer. I’ve way overbooked myself with work, my public health field experience, and taking online classes. What ever free time I have left I’ve been filling with political events and bingewatching Broad City, my current path to escapism. The only reason I have time to write this is because someone canceled a coffee meeting I was supposed have this afternoon.

But I can’t complain. It’s what I need to do to pay my rent, to graduate on time, and to support the things I care about most.

This August, I’m taking a break from the states and heading back to the Balkans, where I have not been since June of 2016. Thanks to all the student loans I took out last year, I got a pleasant tax return, which I decided to use to travel, and was able to coordinate work and school accordingly-minus the fact I’ll be taking an online final somewhere on the Montenegrin coast.

Kotor, Montenegro. Not a bad place to take a final, imo

The current plan is to hit up places I’ve already been, but some in more depth (and with much better travel conditions) than the last time I visited. After I fly into Zagreb, I’ll be spending some time down on the coast of Montenegro, exploring seaside towns like Herceg Novi, Perast, Kotor, and Budva.

I’ll head up into Bosnia and spend a few nights in Sarajevo, where I’m hoping to learn more about the city and its inhabitants, and get out and do some hiking. Number one on my list is going out to where the 1984 Olympic bobsled track is situated up in the mountain that overlooks the city, and where Serbian snipers set up camp during the 1425 day- long siege on Sarajevo in 1992-6. Now, it’s moss and graffiti-covered, and apparently a unique place to walk around.

Ivan and Ramen

I’m heading back to Novi Beograd to visit my dear friend Ivan, who is planning to emigrate to the states sometime in the next year. Hoping to do some sort of day trip with him.

RIP Night train

The night train to Sofia that I once took two years ago is no longer in operation, so I’ll be figuring out another way to get from Serbia to Bulgaria. I’ll be making my way back to the village Hotnitsa to visit my ex-pat friends and enjoy the Bulgarian countryside for a weekend.

Outside of Hotnitsa, BG

The former bathhouse in Sofia

I’ll make my way back to Sofia, one of the cities I wish I had spent more time in, and will spend a few days there before I fly to Ljubljana to hang out with Marko and Petra, some of my first Couchsurfing hosts, and my favorite Slovenian couple. I’ll go back to Zagreb and spend a couple of days with my adopted Croatian-American family, Matea, Jackson and Kaya, before I head back to the states to start school two days later.

Me and Matea in 2016

Overall, I’ll be gone for about three weeks, and my budget is about $2000 (including flights- Condor has some pretty affordable flights to Europe from Minneapolis these days). I’m looking forward to hopping back on the road- I bought a new backpack!- and seeing friends, making new ones, and challenging myself to better understand the world outside my bubble.