travel

“Adventure is just a perspective”

Two months ago I was crossing Europe’s largest continental glacier… a lot has changed since then. The only thing I am crossing is the North Beach Pool bridge, as I walk the length of the pool yelling for Makos to “kick! kick! kick!”

 

I’ve had trouble adjusting to my seemingly adventure-less RVA suburbia life. I’ll periodically scroll through my posts and watch the adventure level dwindle away as my most recent posts appear. As I was deciding whether or not to post about my coaching job, I was told that:  “adventure is just a perspective.”

I was then prompted to look up the definition of ‘adventure’ on dictionary.com. 

Ad·ven·ture [ad-ven-cher]

verb

¹An exciting or very unusual experience

²Participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises

So, I began thinking of my swim coaching job as an adventure. Coaching a summer swim team is definitely an ‘exciting undertaking.’ As coaches, we invest time and energy into the team, and in return a passion grows within us. That passion makes things that might seem ordinary to some, very exciting. Whether it’s watching an angel shark blow their bubbles, or cheering on the neck-to-neck relays at 10:00pm every Tuesday night, it’s exciting.

Unusual. Most might ask: ‘what is unusual about being a swim coach?’ Well my response to that would be: when there are kids involved… it’s most likely unusual. Kids have an innate tendency to be brutally honest, inspiringly imaginative, and cheerfully silly. There are so many moments when I am left thinking: ‘How am I supposed to answer a question like that?’ Or: ‘How does their mind come up with that sort of thing?’ And not to mention: “What on Earth is that kid talking about?!” A fellow coach of mine, Elena, and I have an ongoing discussion about how excited kids get over the smallest things. We try to do the same– jumping up and down, and exclaiming our joy over minuscule things such as a new straw color at Starbucks… it just doesn’t work as well for us. Unfortunately people grow out of those traits I mentioned before, more often than not. But that’s a whole different topic– let’s save it for another day.

I know calling my everyday job ‘an adventure’ might be a stretch– especially compared to survival trips and foreign city exploring– but if there’s one thing I’ve recently realized*, it’s this:

Life itself is one large unknown, and it doesn’t get any more adventurous than that. 

So despite my current (and TEMPORARY) mountain-less, tent-less, non-risky, travel-free life… with the right attitude, it can still be exciting!

*Disclaimer: ‘Realized’ might be a tiny exaggeration… I still haven’t fully kicked the travel-blues. Tips?

A Quick Trip: Boulder, Colorado

Last weekend I packed a bag and headed over to Boulder Colorado for my University of Colorado Boulder orientation. Yes, I am going to University, and it sounds weird to me too.

 

The trip began on a poor note. I won’t share the scream worthy details of the horrible experience I had with United Airlines, but I’ll throw out a few hints:

Emergency Landing… multiple hour-long lines… 9 hour delay… stand-by lists… horrible customer service… sitting on the runway for 2 hours… miscommunications… lines… and more lines. 

I think it was a healthy reminder of how horrible travel can be at times.

After arriving at my dorm at nearly 3:00am… I collapsed in bed and set my alarm for 6:30 am. Do the math, and you’ll find that there wasn’t so much shuteye. I won’t bore you with the details of orientation, although I don’t think I could even begin to explain how boring it  actually was. We sat through hour after hour of informational sessions that made it too easy to begin to doze off. In between sessions we walked in herds- none of us too sure about where to go or how to get there.

We were obligated to stay up until at least 10pm that night, which (at the risk of sounding anti-social) I was not too happy about. I was hanging out on the field listening to the people around me that had such a fresh-out-of-highschool attitude. Their eyes were glossed over with pure excitement- it was their first real night away from their parents. Some of them commented on their freedom, “Dude, we can like, do whatever we want… this is awesome.” But none of them actually knew what to do with this ‘freedom,’ so they continued to just talk about how ‘dope’ things will be in the fall.

Despite some of the people I met that turned me off, I also met a lot of cool people. I enjoyed spending time with my roommate for the night and her two friends. I also got to officially meet my roommate for the fall, Hannah– pronounced [Hah•nah], not [Han•uh]. I went to dinner with Eli and Kelsey, two TES alum that were kind enough to let me store a suitcase at their house until August. And of course I met a hand full of other nice people that I hope to run into on campus next year.

While killing time in a Starbucks before my flight, I struck up a conversation with a lady sitting across from me. She then invited me to join her son and his friend on a hike. Since their flight was at the same time as mine, I hopped in the car with them and we headed to the flat irons. We didn’t have too long to hike, but Nate, Tomoki and I made the most of it. Although we didn’t make it all the way up we have plans to finish that hike in August. It was the perfect way to end the trip, so a HUGE ‘thank you’ goes to Nate, his mom, and Tomoki!

The trip was overall positive- getting me excited to head out their in a few months. I have to admit I’m most excited about being in Colorado… but I’m slowly and surely warming up to the whole school thing too.