Photo Diary: Costa Rica

We Became Snapchat Famous in Costa Rica

For all those of you who have and use snapchat, I’m sure you are aware of the super fun snapchat passport stories where the app will make a montage of stories from a particular city or country. Well, it just so happened that as we were in Costa Rica, snapchat decided to make a Costa Rica Snapchat Story! It was my goal the entire day to get on to this story (to the complete indifference of the friend I was traveling with who barely knows how to even use snapchat). Considering the title of this post it’s no surprise that we got on!!!! 4 millions views later and I can officially call ourselves snapchat famous! 

Climbing Cherro Chato Volcano

To begin this story let’s just mention that I was not mentally prepared to hike a volcano in the extreme humidity of Costa Rica and 37 degrees Celsius. Your skin literally just becomes sweat and you have to accept this 3 minutes in to the climb. Climbing Cherro Chato wouldn’t be so difficult if it weren’t for the insane heat and humidity. It’s a steep 1500 meters up to the top. For the first three quarters it’s a steady climb but the last quarter you’re basically rock climbing.

My Bucket List

Continents: 

North America
South America
Africa
Europe
Asia
Antartica
Australia

Places to go next: 

Iceland
Tanzania
Salt Flats in Bolivia (both dry and wet)
Malaysia
Nepal

Things to do: 

Swim with whales
Semester abroad 
Shark Diving 
See the Northern Lights in Iceland
Blue Lagoon in Iceland
Zanzibar
Climb Kilimanjaro
Skydiving
Base camp of Everest
Get diving license
Travel to all 7 continents
Run a marathon
Roadtrip in California 
See the Golden Gate Bridge
Go to NYC 
Live in NYC
Go cliff jumping
Live abroad for a year
Travel by yourself  
Backpack Asia
Go on a safari in Africa
See the Eiffel Tower
Play with Pandas
Get a dog
Go to the Greek Islands 
Graduate university
Sell a photo
Travel somewhere first class
Hot Balloon in Cappadocia, Turkey

xx S

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Liebster Award

Hey guys!!

I have been nominated by the wonderful dantigress for the Liebster Award!! If you haven’t already checked out her blog then you are missing out and need to do so, asap! Thank you so much the nomination and support  xoxoxox

If you haven’t heard of this award before, it’s passed on from bloggers within this amazing blogging community and if you are nominated then you follow these rules and keep it going:

1. Tag the person who nominated you and thank them.
2. Answer the 11 questions you are given.
3. Nominate 11 new bloggers and tag them.
4. Give them 11 new questions to answer.
5. Notify your nominees.

Here are the answers to the 11 questions I was asked:

Taking The Next Step

Exciting news!!! I have finally booked a real adventure for the first time in almost a year. I had a mini -okay not so mini- mental breakdown last week. Being in my final year of university I am constantly having a personal crisis with what I will do next year. But quite honestly the question is much deeper than what I will do, it is what will make me happy? What kind of life do I want to live? Where do I want to start? So many people experience this crisis and I know that it’s something I will figure out. Regardless of what I’ll be doing I know it will all work itself out in the end. Unfortunately, I still panic and fear the unknown. How am I supposed to feel comfortable or calm when my whole life thus far has been essentially planned out. Every year for the most part I have known what I will be doing. Now, I have NO idea. I don’t know where I will be. I don’t know what I will be doing. I don’t know for how long anything will last. And that, is scary.

This fear of the unknown has made me struggle to make any moves whatsoever. The unknown has me very still and cautious. I don’t want to take a step in fear that it will be the wrong decision, and a better one will come minutes afterwards and I will regret it. It makes me not want to spend any money in case I think of something more useful for it later. So I haven’t been living, I have just been alive. It is this terrifying feeling where I have just made no decisions or taken any steps. Until I had a full-blown mental breakdown. This non-existent way of living was eating me up inside and I needed to do something. So regardless of the fact that I still don’t know what I’m doing, and that I am broke and terrified and so confused and lost, I spontaneously booked an adventure two weeks from now. I have a week off school so a friend of mine and myself will be road-tripping to St. Paul, Minnesota, flying to Miami, Florida and then taking a cruise to the Bahamas. To some people it may not seem like much, and to others it may seem like too much. To me, it’s an opportunity to un-plug, to get away from myself and my small hometown, to escape the harsh northwestern winter, and to just be present and enjoy every minute. When I broke down, I was so low that I couldn’t even recall the pleasure of travelling — one of my greatest pleasures in life. So hopefully, this will help remind me of who I am, it will remind me to enjoy every day, and to live in the present.

Here’s to life, 

xx

S

10 Travel Necessities

1. A large scarf

My personal favourite and what I find the most useful of all travel necessities: the scarf. It’s your comfort. It’s your pillow. It’s your blanket. It makes you look cute AND it keeps you warm. What else do you need? This past Christmas I was given the worlds greatest travel scarf – it has a hood and pockets. What was already the most useful accessory now can work to block out light and I can put my lip balm/ipod in it without losing them or having them fall in between seats.

2. Entertainment

You are bound to get bored with the long waits, flights and layovers. I always travel with my journal so worse comes to worse I can write about my boredom. Other ideas to pass the time are to bring some sort of paper game book (crosswords, sudoku), listen to music, bring books or magazines, and if you have the space then you could even bring your laptop and put movies on it.

3. A reusable water bottle

It’s so important to stay hydrated while travelling which is why having a reusable water bottle is a really good idea. You can’t bring water through security so it’s easiest to just keep a reusable one that you can keep refilling. If you’re travelling somewhere that doesn’t have safe drinking water, it’s even cheaper to just buy a big water bottle and then keep refilling your reusable one anyways.

Weekend Away

Of all the weekends to go away during a busy semester, I chose the worst one. Right smack dab in the middle of midterms, here I am in Toronto. I should be writing papers, and studying until the wee hours of the night… but I’m obviously not. In a way it’s actually helpful being here and not in the library until 4 am. I’m being reminded of a bigger picture and it’s making my papers easier to write, and my exams less looming. It’s reminding me that no matter how stressful and overwhelming school gets, its not what really, truly, matters. Obviously, it is important and I don’t take it for granted at all. But it isn’t the end of the world and it shouldn’t be something that consumes my life. Exams and papers and presentations are a small fraction of the bigger picture. Maybe I should leave town more often the weekend before the most stressful week of the semester? 

50 Things I Am Thankful For

A year ago, I was sitting in an airport in Barcelona eating a stale rice cake when I got a loving e-mail from my mom, wishing I were home celebrating Thanksgiving with my family. A little less inclined to finish my thanksgiving dinner rice cake, I began to think about all the things in my life that I was grateful for. I grabbed a pen and paper and on my flight home, I scribbled down 50 things I was grateful for in that moment. I think it’s important to be grateful every single day. I think it’s important to be grateful when we least want to be grateful. Regardless, it is Thanksgiving, and as an honour to the tradition I started last year, here are 50 things I am grateful for today, and every day.

1. Coffee and cute coffee shops

2. My dogs!!

3. Sunrises, sunsets, mountains and oceans. Thank you for making me feel small and humble and filling life with your constant beauty

Explore Alberta

I put this short video together after my hiking and camping adventures in Alberta, Canada. Enjoy!

xx

S