With a Little Help from my Friends...The Bucket List

What's in the future for my trip? You can help decide.It's not surprising this post has been the hardest one for me to write: it's the one where I have to ask for help.

I'm not good at asking for help. It doesn't come naturally to my interverted personality. Plus, there's that part of me that fears rejection.

But then, if you never ask, you never get. And so I'm asking. I'm asking you to be part of this project and journey. I'm asking for your help in setting up experiences and excursions. And in the process, I'm so excited to think that my friends and community will help shape the future of my trip. 

So many of you have already made a major impact to my plans. With your help, I've been able to arrange the following experiences:

• Food tour with a Parisian
• An experience searching for the elusive Gibbons in Laos
• Visits to places where Portlanders are "keeping it weird" including a coffee shop that sets the coffee on fire!
• Tour of Iceland's hot pots and landscapes
• African safari
• Arranged personal driver in India
• Attendance at the World Summit Domination Conference in Portland 
• Taking photos for Shukuru, an empowering, educational non-profit in Tanzania
• Tours of Cambodia and Vietnam
• Interesting museums to visit in Amsterdam
• Possible excursion to Turkey

I am truly grateful for each of you have that offered your assistance. It's meant a lot to me and has kept me going when I've had moments of doubt.  

Now with three weeks out, I'm hoping to add a few more experiences to the list. A lot of people have asked me if I have a "bucket list".  While I'm the type of person that can be happy doing anything and loves to leave room for synchronicity and surprise, there are a few things I secretly hope to do on my trip.

These things include: 

• Tour an urban farm in Brookyn (extra points if there are chickens)Local street fairs, festivals, celebrations - I want to be a part of it all!
  
• Attend/dance at a tribal dance in Africa
• Connect with a distant relative: A Breinholt in Denmark or a Romanisyzn in the Ukraine
• Stay in Freetown Chistiania in Copenhagen
• Work on a winery (secret wish: to stomp grapes)
• Meet a glass blower in Venice
• Stay in a: house boat, lighthouse, palace, tree house, castle, haunted house, etc.
• Have a spiritual experience in India and Africa
• Enjoy a traditional family meal in Germany
• Go to a yoga class in India
• Get a hug from Amma, the Hugging Saint
• Stay at a capsule hotel in Tokyo
• Attend a Japanese TV or game show
• See a baseball game in Japan
• Meet a fisherman and go deep sea fishing
• Sail down the coast of Croatia
• Work as a barista or bartender for a day (despite lack of required skills) 
• Work on a farm (extra points if I can milk a cow or goat)
• Ride an elephant, a camel, a motorbike, a Vespa, in a hot air balloon, etc. 
• See an Icelandic heavy metal show (Tickling Death Machine anyone?)
• Meet a street artist in Berlin
• Learn to Tango in Spain (ideally with someone 6"2', dark and handsome!)
• Take an accordion lesson in Germany
• Attend Loi Krathong in Thailand
• Paddle down the Mekong River
• Attend a local fair or festival
• Cycle around Copenhagen
• Learn how to make Pho in Vietnam
• Go vampire hunting in Romania
• Crash a party, get invited to a wedding, do really bad karaoke somewhere  (Would be great if all three could be achieved simultaneously)
• Soak in the Turkish baths in Budapest Anyone need a mean triangle player?
  
• Learn to cook the local dish, dance the local dance, experience the local experience, hear the local music
  
• See a soccer game in Europe
• Play in a band (I play a mean triangle and a really awful bass)
  

I'm asking for your help to connect me with anyone that may be able to assist with these experiences. Share with me your own experiences (after all, the bucket list is never complete). Comment or contact me with your ideas or resources for people to talk to or places to stay. I'll be forever grateful. 

I am excited to think of all the things that can be accomplished by my community of friends and I promise to capture the best photos possible, thank you profusely and send you all my love, where ever I am...

Laos on the List!

Over Cinco de Mayo celebrations this weekend, Laos officially made "The List". Keeping with my motto of "all good things come in threes," Laos has been mentioned three times in the last two weeks, therefore making it worthy of a visit. Here's how Laos got on my travel list: 

• On a flight from SFO to Newark, I sat next to a "talker", who in addition to telling me I needed to go to Laos, also schooled me on the bio-agriculture movement, probiotic studies done on rats, friends in LA that studied metaphysics, mind-boggling, new age modalities that somehow involve lying in the buff on a massage table (what?!?) and his latest psychedelic folk album (that was before he became a venture capitalist). Whew!
• While enjoying cocktails at my friend Siobhan's new swanky pad, my friend Angie mentioned she had heard good things about Laos.
• At a friend's Cinco de Mayo party, I was told if I go anywhere in Southeast Asia, I must go to Laos. I was treated to stories about elephant rides, friendly locals and tubing down the Mekong, where supposedly you can stop by huts for a drink as you ride along....

Something about riding down a river sounds simply sublime. And an elephant ride that moves deliberately and slowly, so unlike our every day lives, is something my soul could use. Friendly locals are an added bonus. Hope they are friendly to photographers.

And so Laos is on the List as an excursion from Vietnam in November. I already have a feeling it will be a place I'll never want to leave...