Regular readers will note that I have changed my blog theme recently.
Whilst I had been thinking about changing my theme as a bit of an inspiration to write more posts, the change comes about as an uninformed oversight and quick scramble to make it presentable, instead of a researched and planned upgrade.
I was browsing themes to see if any caught my eye, and in the past WordPress allowed you to see how your blog would look in a particular them before committing to it. Maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places, but I couldn’t see that option, so instead I decided to activate a new theme and thought that if I didn’t like it, I could simply revert to my old theme of Bueno. Then I read an article saying that Bueno got retired. Nooooooooo!!!!!!
Bueno was one of the most popular themes so I never would have imagined that they would retire it. Sure, being so popular means it’s not so original, but I loved that theme. Unfortunately I feel as though I had the wool pulled over my eyes because there wasn’t a button to revert to my original theme, or a warning saying that I wouldn’t be able to return to Bueno if I didn’t like the new theme. 😦
So I tried on a few more themes and in the end have stuck with Bouquet for the interim, or maybe long term if it grows on me. It has two columns and full posts on the homepage and it is also pink, a colour I feel rather attached to. I would love to go for a magazine style or featured posts, but I don’t think my photos are eye-popping enough and my content publishing is hardly regular at this point.
What are your thoughts on the new theme? Should I stick with Bouquet or go with something really different?
I think this would be the modern-day description of ‘accomplished’.
If we fast forward Jane Austen to the twenty-first century, her characters wouldn’t be praised for their accomplishments but for knowing how do to things.
Last week we had three visits from mi novio‘s younger sister (my cuñada), her older husband and nine-month old baby – all visits by virtue of the LaSuegra staying with us – and on all occasions she said “Camille sabe hacer cosas.” (Camille knows how to do things). It only struck me the third time in a short period of time that she is in awe of what I do and I realised that almost every time she visits she says the same thing.
She comments on little things that to me are the product of a little bit of curiosity or interest in something. On the third visit I was decorating LaSuegra‘s birthday cake and accompanying cupcakes when they arrived, yet later when I opened the fridge to take out the giant cupcake and the other normal cupcakes, she asked in the most surprised voice if I’d made them myself and was I sure I hadn’t bought them. She then went on to say I should open a cake shop, a comment which her husband seconded heartily.
I should note that I used a packet cake mix and the decorations were not as I had hoped because I messed up the ratio of cream to white chocolate so the ganache was runny and hardly stayed on the cake as I’d envisioned. I guess by Colombian standards, my cakes were pretty special because I made them myself. I don’t know any Colombian who bakes a birthday cake. Birthdays always mean a trip to the cake shop to buy an overly creamed cake.
My other accomplishment, in the eyes of my cuñada, is the cross-stitch I am working on. While sitting around on the couch during these visits, in order to be at least partially social and keep my interest piqued in something, I have taken to working on my cross-stitch. I hadn’t done any cross-stitch since high school, but recently the desire came over me, so I bought a little colour-coded kit of a ladybird to work on. Apparently knowing how to do cross-stitch is also something amazing, even though I’m just following the instructions and have ignored the suggested stitches for large areas because they look too complicated.
What would also be amazing is if I knew how to knit, crochet and embroider, but alas, this fair maid knoweth not these feminine arts.
I have always wanted to lead an interesting life, and I think that for my cuñada, my life has been like a fantastical latino soap opera that flirts with the borders of the possible. In contrast to her, I’m not content to sit and do nothing except watch soaps on TV. I like to explore, travel, learn new things, experiment, be creative, read, write, get crafty, visit museums and I like to work.
To her, my inspired, but lacking in finesse, activities and crafts are the most amazing things. However, it’s all about exposure and experiences, and based on my experiences I admire and am awed by my friends who post elaborate and perfectly decorated cakes on Facebook, who produce the most darling little crochet and knitted pieces, who can sing or play a musical instrument, who can design and make their own clothes, who can take and edit incredible photographs, who envision and create films, who are disciplined and prolific writers, who renovate and decorate their homes, who are talented sportspeople, who have beautiful and paradisiacal gardens, who can paint or draw, who can fix machinery or make anything they can imagine, who plan and prepare extensive dinner parties, who can prepare a perfect latte, who can make a divine floral arrangement, who can speak other languages fluently, who commit to further study, who can design memorable posters and documents, who can build their own furniture and who live their passions.
I’m most interested in giving things a go, it’s not so much about the quality of what you are doing, but rather that you are actually doing something. Particularly if it is a creative pursuit, there are many benefits to be gained by exercising that part of your brain and it makes life enjoyable. I mean, I like watching television, but I don’t gain any enjoyment out of it. I get enjoyment and satisfaction out of baking, making some little craft, reading, wrapping presents and the like.
My dad always says that a man’s got to have a project. This is coming from a man who has many, many projects (both completed, uncompleted and pure ideas) and this from a man who knows how to do lots of things. I agree with him. Having personal projects is productive and enjoyable, it is interesting and most of all, it is a great way to continue learning and growing.
So whilst the nineteenth century term of accomplishment has gone out of fashion, it is still very much alive. So don’t be shy, don’t say you don’t have time to follow your creative pursuits. Make the time, try your best and keep learning new techniques and ideas. You never know who out there will admire your efforts.
We just got back from what was my fourth visit to Argentina in 10 years, to celebrate the wedding of the friend I met and travelled with from Quito, Ecuador to the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia in mid 2004.
It’s funny how travel friendships are solidified. Emily and I met sharing a hostel dorm in Quito after I’d spent a week studying Spanish there. She was at the very beginning of her 18 month South America, New Zealand, Australia and South-East Asia trip and I had already spent four months travelling in the US, Brazil, Northern Peru and Ecuador. We both had the same vague plan and decided to travel together for as long as we could stick it out. Two and a bit months and the addition of another travel buddy later, we parted ways with sad hugs and promises to keep in touch as she went to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile and I went back into Bolivia to make my way to Paraguay.
Little did we know that that was just the beginning of a long-standing friendship as when I returned to Australia I met up with Emily twice and then she came to live with me in my hometown for a bit. Five years passed before we saw each other again when I took my mum on a trip to Latin America which included visiting Emily as she had moved to Buenos Aires with her Argentinian boyfriend.
Another two years later, minovio and I stopped in to visit them in Buenos Aires on our way back to Colombia. Leaving our two boyfriends to speak Spanish together, we laughed and joked about how we never would have imagined that we would both end up living in South America with Latino boyfriends. It was just too many stars aligned.
We are now just two months away from the 10 year anniversary of when Emily and I met and I know we’ll be friends forever. That meeting at the Posada del Maple in Quito and that first daytrip to the Otavalo markets was the beginning of this long-standing friendship that has withstood a lot of distance and dozens of home bases.
As I am a travel buddy from far-off lands, I hadn’t met any of Emily’s family or friends and her wedding was the perfect opportunity to meet them. Her family greeted me like some kind of adopted daughter they’d never met and her friends were all so fun and friendly and also eager to meet her South American travel buddy they’d heard about. It was the most perfect experience and we got to spend a few days together with her family and friends where they became my friends too.
It got me thinking about what is the secret of travel friendship longevity. I have quite a few friends on Facebook from that year of travel in 2004 and I love to see what they’re up to and how their lives have changed in the past decade. Those that I’m not in touch with via Facebook, I still think about as I recall my travels and the many wonderful experiences I had. So much so that one of them could contact me out of the blue saying they will be in Colombia and I would go out of my way to help them or offer them a place to stay.
If I had to explain what makes a travel friendship work in the long-term I guess it’s similar to my thoughts on making a long-distance relationship work – you have to plan to meet up again. Once you see a travel buddy outside of your trips, you are more likely to maintain closer contact with them. If they visit you or you visit them, you have additional shared experiences together in a more homely, real-world setting, and your stories span multiple time periods and give you more of a platform for the friendship.
It’s also important the amount of time you spent travelling with someone. The more time you spend together on the road, the better you get to know someone, and the more you know about a person, the greater the connection and the friendship will start to bloom as the connection is more emotional and less geographic. If you only have a short amount of time travelling together, but you maintain that friendship with numerous visits or phone calls, that will also help preserve the friendship beyond the life of your passport.
There’s something about travel that helps you to open up and share things with people that you might not normally do. Perhaps this is because we may never have to see them again, or perhaps it’s the conviviality of a mish-mash of people all just trying to get by in a foreign country where they feel at sea in a small lifeboat. Sharing the experience is what bonds you, but sharing more of you is what helps bind you to others.
One of the things I’ve found has helped cement my friendship with Emily and others that I’ve met on the road, in addition to the above-mentioned, is that we don’t live in the past. While we have wonderful shared experiences of the road and of course those stories come up regularly, that’s not all we have because we are interested in what our friends are doing now. These friendships live in the present and we have the expectation that they will continue into the future regardless of if we communicate frequently or not. Like any good, true friendship, time nor distance do not diminish the friendship.
Do you have any long-standing travel friendships? How have you kept these friendships alive post travel?
June 2004 – hiking the Colca Canyon in Peru
May 2005 – Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia
October 2005 – sightseeing in my hometown, Victoria, Australia
April 2010 – Buenos Aires, Argentina waiting to eat steak
a little cameo 