24 Hours in Baltimore

If you give a girl 24 hours in Baltimore, she will probably:

1. Attend a board retreat at a super sweet hotel. 

2. Solidify her reputation to the new board members as "the girl who loves food the most" while delighting in a Cuban dive-bar's epic cuisine. 

3. Make some time to be a good Catholic tourist and visit the first Cathedral in America.

4. Take some selfies with gorgeous old buildings in the background, while wondering if the selfie is really the safest choice given the number of cracked-out looking people standing nearby. 

5. Freak out when her best roomsicle and lover face (and her husband) drive up for dinner at ze best place. You can sit outside on the bay with heaters! It's stunning and gorgeous and so fun and only made my better by the company of two of my fondest loves (one fond love, one fond love's husband).

6. Crush crabs with mallets! Remain hungry after working so hard for food. Order brownie to tide you over on plane.

7. Delight in impromptu visits and dinners, which reassure you that some people are just meant to be friends forever. 

What was the highlight of your weekend?

Have you ever been to Baltimore?

Dear Vicki

Dear Vicki,

I don't know if you know it, but you're carrying precious cargo in your glove box. My TomTom charger and USB cord. I know. It's hard to believe you've had such precious goods in the recesses of your car for so long, and knew nothing about it.

I know. It's equally hard to believe I never had the chance to ask for it back in the middle of dealing with your son's fake bouts of depression. What? That's over now? That's good. But there's still one thing, Vicki.

I need those cords.

I know you resent me for never wearing enough Charger blue to home games, or making up for it by bringing a hefty plate of baked goods. I know you think I'm stupid when I get nervous when you interrogate me about why I'm not wearing Charger blue and I mumble "Uh, uh but it might rain." I know, Vicki, I know.

But I need those cords.

Can we make a deal? I'm picturing something tense and emotionally charged on top of the dam overlooking the river. The sun will be setting and our cars can roll slowly across the gravel. We'll step out. Our fingertips brushing only for the brief moment when you take the bottle of wine from my left hand and I take the cords from your right.

I know, Vicki, I know. I don't like the idea of me driving all the way through Ohio anymore than you do, trust me. But you know what's worse than the thought of me driving all the way through Ohio? Having to spend even more time in Ohio because without my TomTom I get lost and confused and paralyzed by fear.

What's that, Vicki? I can have my cords back now?

Thanks, Vicki.



P.S. In case you missed it, it's road trip week here on The Unreal Life. Follow along with my snarky sass as I voyage through the midwest this weekend via twitter and instagram. 

Come home, TomTom

All I can think about today is my missing TomTom charger. Which means all I'm going to write about today is my missing TomTom charger.

Here's the deal. That TomTom and I have been through a lot. A few summers ago, I made an epic road trip from good ol' Michigan to Seattle. Coast to coast. Alone. Did I mention I planned this road trip in oh, two days?

The first day was brutal. I stopped somewhere in the middle of Illinois after getting on and off the same highway exits for about 45 minutes (Literally. When I realized I was just going in circles on the same clover-shaped highway exit paths I broke out in instant tears.). I pulled into a CVS and called my boyfriend at the time, sobbing. Straight up sobbing. 

"I can't do this," I blubbered, "Everything is really hot and fuzzy and I don't feel good and I just feel like I'm gonna pass out. And I'm clammy. And I have a fever. Oh my god I think I'm sick. Oh my god. How can I do this?"

"Autumn," he said calmly, "Is your AC on?"

Oh. Remember that summer? The great summer of country-wide heat wave when the electric companies literally shut off power for a few hours each day because they were overheating their machines? You know, that one. I had been driving in that god-awful heat wave (97 degrees at the time?) for four hours with no AC. 

Once I got the AC on, I made my second mistake of the day by hitting the 'refresh' button on my iPhone map. Insert fresh round of sobbing when my map and directions completely disappeared because I was in the middle of nowhere and not connected to the right network (who goes on a cross-country road trip with just their iPhone?!?!?!). This time, I called my parents sobbing who insisted that I stop at the next major town and get a real GPS. The next major town: Hannibal, MO. 

Every stereotype you have ever heard, and more. I pulled over at a gas station and interrupted the female cashier (missing four teeth, leather skin, smoker voice) and a nice young man (missing one tooth, freckled skin, cowboy hat) chatting.

"Excuse me," I said. "Do you have a Best Buy around here?"

"A what?" she said.

"A Best Buy? You know...like a technology store." She stared. "I need to buy a GPS? I'm taking a road trip?"

"Ohhhh...no we ain't got one of those anywhere around here. But we do have a WalMart. They should have most everything you need."

I took down some directions from her and was about to leave when she literally jumped up on the counter, reached over, and grabbed my necklace "Wellll lookeeeee here!" she shouted, "That right there is a real pretty necklace! I've never seen such a thing before!"

Now I don't know about you, but after driving for four hours with no AC, getting lost countless times, and pulling into the world's sketchiest gas station in America's most poorly named city, the last thing your heart needs is some woman you've never met grabbing at your necklace. Surprisingly, she genuinely did just want to compliment my crucifix (praise Jesus!) and send me on my way with well wishes. In the end, I got my TomTom and everything after that was relatively smooth sailing.

The point is, TomTom, I went through a LOT to get you, and I can't quit you even though sometimes you try to be a straight up biatch and send me into the middle of nowhere Wyoming (still hatin' on that, yep). And now, you're gone from me. I have a road trip this weekend across four states, and I need you. I need you, boo. I can picture you shivering, alone and cold, in my ex-boyfriend's mother's car. I hope she treats you right. Do you hear me calling for you TomTom? Do you think we could organize a trade? Bottle o' wine for my TomTom? We could have a nice little chat and bitch about our mutual hatred of PTLs? TomTom, come home. 

Where it all began

40 year old men love me. And strangers. Strangers love me.

Examples:

• 40 year old single dad who followed me around in the grocery store
• 40 year old man who came up to me at Starbucks and asked if I wanted to get coffee
• Homeless man who offered me his phone number because he "thought everyone could use a friend"
• Stranger who let me eat their hamburger
• Stranger who offered me a ride home from the Megabus
• 40 year old man in airport who told me I looked beautiful that day
• Three 40 year old men who came to my rescue that moment and helped me find a cab
• 40 year old man at Chicago Union Station bar who told me he "wouldn't creep on me too much"
• Stranger who tried to hook me up with his son at a bar
• Strange taxi cab driver who gave me a kiss on the cheek

And the list goes on and on. While I can't seem to find any men my own age to hit on me, never fear...a 40 year old is near. Sometimes I ask myself, why? Why me? Is it my baby pudge cheeks? My lack of makeup? My split ends? Do I look young enough to be a prize, but just hot mess enough to be attainable? When did this start?

Answer: 2006. Junior year of HIGH SCHOOL. And the proof is in this photo. 

My friends and I went to France on a school trip, and my friend Cade and I shared a camera. Flipping through our photos a few weeks later, we found this gem (ignore my model half-smile). 

WHO IS THIS MAN?!?!?!

I'll tell you who...my first-ever creeper.

The Unreal Life: attracting strangers and old men since 2006. A legacy of creepers. 

I Am My City

The other day I was reminiscing about my city (this is a common occurrence for me. I am torn between a great love of Grand Rapids and a great love for travelling and trying the new. Some days, my love of Grand Rapids wins out.).  I started talking with a coworker about "home" and what does "home" mean. Is it ever fully possible to make another city your "home"? Or will your heart always have a tendency to draw you back to that first home, because it was there that you learned about yourself, shaped yourself and grew the most. In a way, going "home" is going back to yourself.

This led me to start thinking about how much where you grow up affects who you are. This is obvious on a continental and country level, but I challenge you to think even about the city level. Grand Rapids got in my heart and my blood and my bones and my soul and I couldn't be more blessed. Honestly. If you have to have a city that shapes who you are, count your lucky stars if it's Grand Rapids. From the city itself, I learned how to approach my life, interact with others and hold myself. Here are the ways my city and I are alike:

1. Young
While Grand Rapids has been around since the 1840s, it was only within the last 10 years that we earned our well-deserved spot of the No. 2 largest city in Michigan.

2. Religious
When you drive through the city, you will see office buildings, skyscrapers, art-deco glass buildings, hospitals, schools, clock towers...and steeples. We were founded with a church on every corner, usually one for each ethnic group that moved to Grand Rapids. Instead of destroying that part of our heritage, Grand Rapids built around it. Every building twists and turns and juts out in perfect geometry to allow these churches to continue existing. They are exquisite, and often overlooked. They are the heart beat of our city, and of our people. The city runs around them, but without them--it's people, and then the city, would suffocate.

I spy with my little eye one, two, three steeples...and this is just on one 5 second stretch of highway. I can think of at least 15 steeples off the top of my head that I saw on a regular basis driving through downtown.

3. Charitable
GR has consistently been ranked among the top 10 most philanthropic cities. We celebrate helping our own, and teach it to our children from an early age. Philanthropy is everywhere.

4. Adventurous
GR is always trying new things. New festivals, new markets, new community initiatives. We're a young city, and we use that to fuel our desire to try new things.

Lantern lighting as a city. Beautiful.

5. Growing
Like me, GR is growing. It has its hiccups, it has its moments, its debates, its wandering...but still it grows.

6. Quirky
GR is composed of a number of different "neighborhoods." East town, Heritage Hill, Downtown, Medical District, Finance District, Gaslight Village, Homeless Row, Ghetto. They're all these very distinct parts, with different people, businesses and restaurants marking them as their own. You can travel to one and get a gyro in the back of an Arabic convenience store that only sells imported Arabic foods, to a preppy, pretentious, Yacht Club neighborhood in ten minutes. There are silent lines. Distinct, but complete. Because at the end, we're all part of this great city. I think that this is similar to the way I am filled with quirks and juxtapositions. I'm smart, but funny. Love books, but also the Kardashians. Could be happy in the city, happy in the country. Introvert, extrovert. It goes on and on.

7. Unapologetic
But even with all its different neighborhoods, GR never apologizes. It never apologizes for putting homeless row behind the bankers. Or the chic bars and nightclubs right next to the churches. It never apologizes for being new and growing. It is what it is. And from that, I've learned to stand proud and be unapologetic (except when necessary, obvi) as well.

My city is vibrant, hopeful, charitable, eclectic and growing. And so am I.

    

Travel Tuesdays: Dajabon

Once upon a time, during my short-term missions trip to the Dominican Republic, we had the opportunity to take a "day trip" to Dajabon. Dajabon is the only marketplace available on the border between Haiti and the Dominican. Because of their intense history, the Haitians and the Dominicans are filled with distrust and tension. Think: the Dominicans feel about the Haitians the way many Americans feel about illegal immigrants. In the DR, they will stop your car frequently at any given road and check to make sure there are no Haitians. And while Americans think that the DR is a second-world country deserving of aid and support, in comparison to Haiti, Haitians think the DR is a land of wealth and opportunity. Dajabon is only open (granted, haven't been there for four years so forgive me if this is outdated info) two days a week for four hours each day.

What does this result in? Mayhem. For the Haitians who visit the market, their livelihood depends on those eight hours a week. There is no one who will (or can) buy their goods in Haiti, so they are desperate to get as many goods over the border and sold to the 'wealthy' Dominicans as possible. They run back and forth over one bridge with cart after cart of goods, dumping it at a family stall before running back for more. Literally, running. I saw men pushing huge horse carts or dragging trailers behind them.

There is one central road for all the traffic to go across the bridge. It is literally one lane wide, but since the market is only open for four hours people rarely care about that. It is a sea of humanity. You look to your left, there's a horse cart. Look to your right, trailer. Look above, the bags of goods people are carrying on their heads jilt with their steps and threaten to fall on your face. Look behind you, people are pushing against you--desperate to get more, more, more sold. Look ahead, there is no end in sight. A constant stream of desperate people running. I kept watching for cameramen from the Discovery Channel or National Geographic.

Aerial shot of the bridge leading from Haiti to the market

If your lucky, things on top of their heads are in soft bags. Or, like this man, they're just straight up dangerous. A wheel barrow? On your head?!?

Of course, my friend Nikki and I got separated from the group (would you expect anything less?). The road had erupted into even more chaos, because there was a full-blown military truck coming down the single-lane road. Military truck, meet horse carts. Horse carts, meet the military truck that does not care if your sole means of transportation/work is crushed by it's overbearing wheels. Because there were so many people in the road, we had plenty of time to watch the truck role towards us at a slow speed. We saw women try to squeeze sideways between carts and truck, getting hit in the chest by the side-mirror or barely escaping with all toes intact. Needless to say, panic started rising. We couldn't go left, we couldn't go right, people were crushing into us from behind and we certainly couldn't go forward because the only thing waiting for us there was the front of a truck. Suddenly, a small, dark hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled me smoothly between two people and behind a horse cart he was pushing. He wrapped my hands around the cart handle and held them tightly for a few seconds, as if to say "stay here." The cart was like a boulder in the sea of humanity. People flowed around us, and for a few seconds, I felt like I could breath again. The man started smiling and singing chipper songs (which of course we couldn't understand) until the truck safely passed us and we could go back to our group.

Maybe this is why I'm not scared (enough) of strangers. Because in the end, it always works out. He only had eight hours a week to make his living at this chaotic, insane, dangerous market. And he spent ten of those precious minutes helping me, a stranger.

If you like, I have many more stories from the DR that I can share =) 
Don't forget to link up with Helene and share your stories!
Also, these photos are from good ol' Google. Apparently the majority of my DR photos 
didn't make it on the trek from MI. I have some cute ones of the kiddos though for future use =)

Friday Fun Hikes

Today I'm linking up with Helene for Travel Tuesdays! I have been so blessed to be able to do a little traveling so far in my life, and a lot of days when I get stressed and think I'm too far behind in life, I think over some of my adventures and realize 'Hey, I'm not doing too shabby.' But don't worry...they're all in fitting with the spastic, awkward-adorableness that you've gotten used to in The Unreal Life ;)

A few summers ago, I had the good fortune of living and working in Seattle, Washington for philanthropy-guru World Vision. We had to work a minimum of 25 hours a week to get paid, but we didn't get paid any extra for working any more. So, of course, some of the interns and I decided to take every single Friday off and explore a new spot of Washington.  Best. Decision. Ever. We called them "Friday Fun Hikes."There were four of us 'regulars': Me, Mathias, Kelsey and Stephen. New people would come in and out every week, but the four of us were troopers all summer long.

Funny story about Mathias:

He would ask the same three questions to every single person, every single hike. 

-What was your favorite day in high school?

-Tell me about your "community"--by which he meant friends, family, etc

-What is your favorite movie?

While these questions annoyed me to no end, Mathias also knew that if he brought exceptional snacks for the hike, I would still come. (I'm talking like...Farmer's Market plums, goat cheese, sausage and once he even bought like a Bunsen burner type thing so he could grill for us. On a rock. In a stream. By a waterfall.)

Funny story about Kelsey:

Kelsey and I were both from the Midwest, and began calling all other women on the trail "Northwest Women." They were intense. They would run up these mountains, while Kelsey and I were huffing and puffing and breathing up a storm. Sometimes they even ran with babies on their back. We were convinced they were an entirely different breed.

But now the real excuse for this post: I just want to show off some pictures!!! =)

(Video of the view from the top. Please excuse the moment where I'm a 

total dufus and decide to start taping sideways.)

Mt. Rainier
This one is deserving of a post in itself. We showed up completed unprepared. Read: leggings, tennis shoes and shorts. The ranger thought we were crazy, but we decided that we had driven for too long to not play around on America's tallest mountain. We slipped and fell and ran around the snow like small children, had a group of 'serious' mountain hikers ask us if we were lost and OK, until eventually we were so exhausted that we spread out a tarp and took a nap. On Mt. Rainier. It was the only time I got tan all summer (go figure) and I have to admit that it continues to be one of the best days of my life, ever. Until Mathias told us we needed to leave him in the forest so he could 'be with God' (AKA get over a girl) and that he had a tarp, can of tuna, and a knife. We did. He survived.

Midwest kids finally feeling at home--SNOW!

Lost, again. In shorts and tennis shoes on America's tallest mountain. We are by no means the smartest cookies.

The view from our nap spot.

The best nap I've ever taken.
(And I've taken quite a few)

People who actually knew what they were doing.

If you want to read more about my time in Seattle, check out 'Sentimental Seattle.' And for stories of the adventures that got me there, check out this post about my road trip =) 

Sentimental Seattle

It's true, the Bachelor made me sentimental this week. I could barely focus on Sean catching the fish because I was too busy jumping up and down on the couch screaming "I've done that! I've done that!" And, since Wednesdays are allowed to be completely random, I've decided to reminisce about my time in Seattle. Sometimes I forget how lucky I've been in life and how many cool things I've actually gotten to experience so far. I get so busy harping on myself for the future, I forget to congratulate myself for the past.

 




So, without further ado: Seattle Favorites. 

Favorite people in Seattle: The housemates I found on Craig's List two days before driving across America by myself.

Instant kindred spirits who supported my constant desire to see how long I could go without grocery shopping by always making heaping pots of food, showering me with love and pissing me off by playing fooseball 24/7.

Elliott - who never thought it was weird that I wanted to climb into hobo tents we found on the beach, and made sure I never sat in my room alone in a strange city for one day. Though he promised he'd show me seals...and he still hasn't.

Favorite weekend trip: traveling up the coast to Ruby Beach

Camping at Ruby Beach. I saw a small child climbing the rock in the right and kept demanding "Where is your mother?!?!"

 Favorite view: From the top of Rattlesnake Ridge

 Favorite spot downtown: Pike's Place Market (but then again, who doesn't love this spot??)
I can still smell the gyros, pastries and flowers now. I love the crowds, the happiness of everyone and the mad chaos.

Favorite street performer: this guy. At one point he balanced the guitar on his chin while playing AND hula hooping!

Favorite place to tan: Mt. Rainier
First of all, I didn't see Mt. Rainier on the horizon for nearly a month. And then out of nowhere I saw it. I went into work and was like "guys, what is that huge white thing?!?" Either way, a few of my fellow interns and I decided to go on a day hike there (a blog post in itself). We were completely unprepared (read: I was in leggings and tennis shoes and the boys were in shorts), but we were determined to play around on a mountain we could only see once. We were Midwest kids finally in our comfort zone: snow. We spread out a tarp, took a nap, and for the first time all summer...woke up tan.

 Favorite fireworks: over Puget Sound.

 Favorite random friends: my coworkers. My friends tell me I have a knack for meeting the oddest people, and suddenly forming friendships. These women, immigrants from Columbia, were no different. We quickly became friends and they taught me all about boudoir photos, hula-ing, immigration problems and Colombian pregnancy myths. I was there when the one in the middle renewed her vows (she had originally threatened her boyfriend that if he didn't propose she would get deported, and always felt guilty for not having a big celebration), dancing the night away on a harbor with a pink sky and mountains in the background. Oh and I won $8 from the lottery ticket she put at all the center pieces because they were "lucky in love." First time I've ever won money from the lotto!

Of course, I could go on and on about my favorite places: parks, restaurants  coffee shops, dive bars, grocery stores where creepy 40 years old men hit on you, and restaurants specializing only in buffalo but...gotta save something for a rainy day ;) Thanks for reading! Where are some of your favorite places?

Random Wednesdays--what's your random?