As the snow begins to fall on the Rocky Mountains, we are reminded that we are at head with another winter season in Vail, Colorado. My home, my pride, my family, my friends, and my life. Just to remind me how precious life is and can be at times, I was able to visit my family this past week in England. A place my brother and I were fortunate enough to visit one to two times a year when we were younger to play, laugh, and get to know my mothers side of the family who lived half way across the world.
Traveling for us is in our jeans passed down by our parents. My father ditched college a semester before his graduation from North Western University to persue his long ambition to travel to where his roots came from, Greece. He survived by having a small beach business on the well known and beautiful island of Mykonos renting snorkel equipment, umbrellas, and taking the many tourists water skiing behind his speed boat named 'SEA'. My mother, a retail sales clerk for Marks and Spencers in London, had already back packed around Europe with her girlfriends and decided to take a spur of the moment visit to Greece with her best friend at the sweet young age of 23.
Of course my parents ended up meeting, having fun, splashing around, laughing and sharing a few bottles of wine over the course of a week. My fathers impression did something, because the day my mum was supposed to leave, she met her friend at the boat harbor to let her know she was going to spend another week on the island! Pissed, angry, furious she was, but it didn't change my mums idea to stay. After many more sunsets, sunrises, and bottles of wine overlooking the Agean, my parents knew that they were meant for eachother. They had found each other to be one another's soul mates. Engaged after two weeks, married in a year, and pregnant with their first of two children, me after three.
Lucky for my brother and I, vacations to Europe were in the norm. Reaching 50,000 air miles by the time I was four, 42 stamps from seven countries by the time I was six, and I'm still going. For me, the biggest learning experience any child, adult, or student can get is from traveling.
The one thing I unfortunetly see here in the US are people who are so closed minded and uneducated about the world, people who think that it's the US and only the US, we have better everything. Well, we don't. Get out there, live, learn, experience what you dreadfully cannot even imagine. Don't get me wrong, there are some nice places here in the US, but we lack the history, the real culture, the fashion, the food, the education, the government and it's officials. Take Spain for example, everyone closes shop from 2-5. Can you even imagine leaving your desk or your cubical for a few hours to go take a nap, relax, catch up on some reading and meet your friends at the local cafe to talk about sports, travel, and life? If you can, then you've been somewhere, if you can't, then you are stuck in this pressurized, typical, set the rules and stick to em' life. BLOODY HELL PEOPLE, GET OUT THERE AND LIVE!!!!!!!
The one thing I'm not saying is work. My parents worked themselves silly to ensure that we could travel, see our family and friends overseas, and have the most unbelievable memories. Today, I work hard so I can play hard. I work non-stop from August to April coaching snowboarding, then in May, I say ciao to everything I know and head somewhere. Last spring my boyfriend and I went to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Last week I was in England with my mum an brother visiting our family and the week before that we were in Spain.
A two week family trip thanks to the hard work my mum did to take my brother and I to see, learn, and engrave more amazing and epic memories to our already beautiful lives. Of course it's my mums Christmas, Birthday, Christmas, and Birthday present to my brother and I. But as my brother and I get older and start establishing our lives, my mum saw the importance of this trip as one of the last times that we can take a family vacation, the three of us, and my father watching from somewhere, to go see somewhere we've never been, educate ourselves with a new culture and have some everlasting memories as one of the last family vacations the three of us might have. At least for quite a while!
Traveling for us is in our jeans passed down by our parents. My father ditched college a semester before his graduation from North Western University to persue his long ambition to travel to where his roots came from, Greece. He survived by having a small beach business on the well known and beautiful island of Mykonos renting snorkel equipment, umbrellas, and taking the many tourists water skiing behind his speed boat named 'SEA'. My mother, a retail sales clerk for Marks and Spencers in London, had already back packed around Europe with her girlfriends and decided to take a spur of the moment visit to Greece with her best friend at the sweet young age of 23.
Of course my parents ended up meeting, having fun, splashing around, laughing and sharing a few bottles of wine over the course of a week. My fathers impression did something, because the day my mum was supposed to leave, she met her friend at the boat harbor to let her know she was going to spend another week on the island! Pissed, angry, furious she was, but it didn't change my mums idea to stay. After many more sunsets, sunrises, and bottles of wine overlooking the Agean, my parents knew that they were meant for eachother. They had found each other to be one another's soul mates. Engaged after two weeks, married in a year, and pregnant with their first of two children, me after three.
Lucky for my brother and I, vacations to Europe were in the norm. Reaching 50,000 air miles by the time I was four, 42 stamps from seven countries by the time I was six, and I'm still going. For me, the biggest learning experience any child, adult, or student can get is from traveling.
The one thing I unfortunetly see here in the US are people who are so closed minded and uneducated about the world, people who think that it's the US and only the US, we have better everything. Well, we don't. Get out there, live, learn, experience what you dreadfully cannot even imagine. Don't get me wrong, there are some nice places here in the US, but we lack the history, the real culture, the fashion, the food, the education, the government and it's officials. Take Spain for example, everyone closes shop from 2-5. Can you even imagine leaving your desk or your cubical for a few hours to go take a nap, relax, catch up on some reading and meet your friends at the local cafe to talk about sports, travel, and life? If you can, then you've been somewhere, if you can't, then you are stuck in this pressurized, typical, set the rules and stick to em' life. BLOODY HELL PEOPLE, GET OUT THERE AND LIVE!!!!!!!
The one thing I'm not saying is work. My parents worked themselves silly to ensure that we could travel, see our family and friends overseas, and have the most unbelievable memories. Today, I work hard so I can play hard. I work non-stop from August to April coaching snowboarding, then in May, I say ciao to everything I know and head somewhere. Last spring my boyfriend and I went to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Last week I was in England with my mum an brother visiting our family and the week before that we were in Spain.
A two week family trip thanks to the hard work my mum did to take my brother and I to see, learn, and engrave more amazing and epic memories to our already beautiful lives. Of course it's my mums Christmas, Birthday, Christmas, and Birthday present to my brother and I. But as my brother and I get older and start establishing our lives, my mum saw the importance of this trip as one of the last times that we can take a family vacation, the three of us, and my father watching from somewhere, to go see somewhere we've never been, educate ourselves with a new culture and have some everlasting memories as one of the last family vacations the three of us might have. At least for quite a while!
