Birthday Blog 2018

1.    What personality trait has gotten you in the most trouble?

Probably my perfectionist tendencies… my instinct is always that I should be good at everything I do, which usually means that I give up immediately if I’m not great at something the first time I try it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at working to improve when my skills were lacking, or deliver on something that was hard to do, but for a long time that meant that I got an A or an F and never anything in between.

2.    What’s your favorite family tradition?

I have a love/hate relationship with Ayden’s favorite tradition: watching old family videos together on Christmas Eve. I don’t really like to see my younger self in those videos, because I can see exactly how much I want to be liked/appreciated and that makes me sad, but I do like to see everyone else. My family is funny!

3.    Would you travel to space if you could?

Yes, definitely. It would be existentially terrifying but I think it would also give me a lot of interesting perspective, and, of course, it would be really cool.

4.    Would you choose to be the worst player on a winning team or the best player on a losing team?

This is the hardest question on this list. Like I said, I think I should be great at everything I do. I guess I think that being the best player on a losing team would be better, if it meant that I could be encouraging to everyone else, share my skills, and practice being resilient in the face of loss.

5.    What would you like to learn to cook?

I’d like to learn how to make a pumpkin roll the way my mom does. Ayden knows the recipe and I don’t, even though I’m the oldest, and I think that’s really messed up.

6.    What are ways that you have grown and changed in the last year?

Well, I entered my thirties, which feels like a bigger milestone to me than just turning 30, though I’m not sure anyone else would know the difference. I’ve gotten better at taking care of my body and brain, built more self-confidence, started saving more money, let people I care about see me for who I am, practiced showing up when I say I will, and learned to be a better traveler.

7.    What was a time in your life when you had to be brave?

I think the time that I’ve spent in Germany so far in my life has required some bravery. Learning a second language is really hard, and it’s very humbling to struggle to understand other people and to be limited in the complexity of the ideas and feelings that you can express. Going back this year and doing my best to communicate with depth, and failing, was hard.

8.    What qualities show a person’s maturity?

Empathy! I haven’t been great at really seeing and understanding painful situations that I haven’t experienced myself, or letting myself be a character in another person’s story instead of putting the spotlight on my side of it. That’s something I’m trying to practice more often, and I’m still not good at it, and I admire anyone that puts time and focus into understanding and helping to support other people.

9.    Who had the most influence in shaping your work ethic?

I am pretty sure those same perfectionist tendencies drive my work ethic, so I guess myself? If I have to do something, I want to do it well, and I don’t want anyone to see me struggle at it. So I’ll work really, really hard to get good at it until I feel confident about it.

10. If you could take a class on any subject, what would it be?

Emergency medicine. I don’t have a lot of tangible skills that would be useful outside of my current career and lifestyle, and I also tend to panic under pressure. Having the skills to handle a medical emergency would be a real dream for me.

11. What are your top three hopes and dreams for our kids?

I don’t have any kids! But, I guess, hypothetically: that they’ll be able to find something that they passionately love and enjoy, that they’ll know safety and support no matter what they are like or choose to do, and that they’ll learn to do their absolute best to be kind.

12. What actor would play “you” in a movie about your life?

Alia Shawkat would be nice.

GUEST TRAVEBLOGGER AUB:

Hey, I’m Aubri. I recently went on a Real Big Trip, and my mom asked me if I wanted to write about it. So here I am. Writing about my Real Big Trip.

 

The company that I work for offers a pretty amazing benefit to employees after they’ve stuck around for four years: four consecutive weeks of paid leave, on top of your regular leave. My four-year anniversary at this company came around in March of 2017, and this year, I actually took advantage of this policy. On April 22nd, I flew from Las Vegas to Frankfurt, and spent three weeks traveling around Europe by myself.

 

My first stop was Berlin, since I had lived in Germany for a year in high school (‘05-’06) but hadn’t had much of a chance to explore the big city. I got there by train, after an 11-hour flight from Las Vegas to Frankfurt, and it was really hard to keep my eyes open on that train ride. I reserved an Airbnb in a neighborhood called Prenzlauer Berg for the entire three weeks, so that I could use it as a home base and leave my big suitcase there while traveling with just a backpack on my smaller trips. The first few days of my paid unemployment were mostly spent exploring the neighborhood, grocery shopping for the weird German foods I’d missed, and sleeping.

 

The first weekend, I took the three-hour train ride over to Prague and stayed in another Airbnb in the city. April 27th was my 30th birthday, and I felt very lucky to spend it in such a beautiful place, even though I did not understand even one word of Czech. Seriously, find a Youtube video of someone saying “Thank you” in Czech – I challenge you to try to learn how to say it! I did enjoy my time there; I spent a few hours in a workshop learning to bind my own notebook, explored Petrin Tower and the park below it, walked across the Charles Bridge, visited the Old Town Square, and enjoyed a canned Czech coffee drink called Mr. Brown. If I were to go again, I would definitely try to make it out to the bone ossuary in Sedlec. A chapel built out of bones!

 

I spent the next several days in Berlin, doing some more exploring, buying and eating chocolate, visiting the zoo (largest collection of species in Europe!), and learning a bit about sailing from two Italian guys that had a sailboat on the Wannsee. Both the sailing experience and the workshop in Prague were booked through Airbnb Experiences, which I would definitely recommend checking out. Since I was traveling alone, both experiences were really good ways to meet people, do something fun and interesting, and learn a bit about the locals and how they spend their time.

 

After that, I spent a couple of days visiting my friend Sam in Cologne. Sam and I know each other because I lived with his family (in his room!) while he was doing an exchange year in California, which is kind of a strange way to know someone. We only met after the exchange year was over, when his family came to visit mine in Utah the next summer. Sam now has a few different jobs in Cologne, doing social media coordination for a tech company and also teaching grade school kids how to create their own news show at a local TV station. He was a great host, showing me all of the cool spots to eat, where the college students hang out, introducing me to a few friends. It was a short visit but it was really nice to reconnect with a friend I hadn’t seen in years.

 

From Cologne, I went to Brussels, which was my favorite city of the trip. It was beautiful in a gracefully old way but still seemed modern. I only spent a day and a half there, but I was able to visit the Atomium, which is a 300-ft building modeled after a cell of iron crystal that was built for the World’s Fair. You can go inside each of the individual “atoms”, and there are exhibits about the building and temporary art exhibits. It was cool, and I appreciated that they forced me to take a picture with a guy dressed as Tintin as I walked in so that I could buy a souvenir keychain to send my family once I came home. I also visited the palace and Grand-Place, which were so beautiful it really blew me away. I would gladly go back to Brussels again any time.

 

My final excursion of the trip was to Gospenroda, which is the small village I lived in while I was an exchange student. My host family, the Simons, put me up again for a few days, and welcomed me with a lot of grilled bratwurst and good German conversation. Up until this part of the trip, I had gotten away with not speaking much German, other than to order in restaurants or ask for a bag when grocery shopping. I wasn’t sure how much would come back to me in the moment, but I was able to get along pretty well in Gospenroda. I also really enjoyed being back in the house, around the family, and being reminded how generous and cool and great they are. My host sister Naemi came to see me the first night with her dog Clint Eastwood, and my host brother Johannes was also visiting with his pregnant wife Maike. Naemi is married with a stepdaughter and is a theater director in the nearest big city, Eisenach, and Johannes lives in Dresden and works as a grade school teacher. It was a very fulfilling moment to see them grown and doing such cool things, when they also looked and acted exactly the same as they did when we were teenagers. My host parents also brought me to a Christian music concert they’d organized at a local church, which was a really unique experience. I loved being able to go back, and wish that it were much easier to do.

After all that, I spent one more day in Berlin packing up my things and buying a few last-minute souvenirs before heading back to Frankfurt and then directly to Portland. I had a few days of “staycation” before my four weeks of leave ended, and if I could do it over again, I might have spent a few more days in Europe instead. The whole experience was so positive, with the unusual opportunity to choose to do only things that engaged me and interact with people that I actively wanted to interact with. Each day was a new challenge, whether it was figuring out the local public transit, trying to parse a Berliner accent, spending focused one-on-one time with someone I hadn’t seen in years, or deciding which chocolate to buy. Only three more years until I get to do it again!