Yikes.
I just realized that I haven’t blogged at all in 2013, and I can only attribute this failure to a variety of different reasons below:
A. I suck
B. I suck
C. I suck
D. All of the above
And it’s a shame that my suckitude exists, because 2013 was a hell of a good year. Far be it for me to attach hyperbolic meaning to things like these, but as the end of a year approaches, I get into a hyper-reflective mood where I think about all the awesome (see: husky sledding), new (see: dyeing my hair pink), crazy (see: jumping off the world’s biggest swing) things I’ve done in the past 50-some weeks, as well as the lowlights. 2012 felt ridiculously stagnant, and by the end of it, I was getting several months’ worth of cabin fever — which helps explain why I went nuts in 2013. Maybe decades from now, I’ll still look back on this and think, holy hell how did all of this happen in one year, but trying to encapsulate all of this in a nutshell only begins to scratch the surface. I’ll give it a shot though, and make an attempt to give you Cindy’s 2013, the Abridged/Instagrammed Version™, aka what I’ve been up to this past year:
I kicked off the year with a week in the world’s classiest place: New Orleans.
Shortly after, I got accepted to volunteer at Obama’s inauguration, which led to a birthday trip spent in New York and DC.
In February, I went to Japan (Tokyo, Nagano, and Kyoto), and got to see the places that I had only read about in my Japanese Civ textbooks.
In March, I joined Elena for a quick weekend in Montreal, where I stuffed my face stupid with bagels and poutine.
The following April was spent in California — but considering the fact that I participated in Holi, spent the weekend in Santa Cruz, and made a crazy mad dash towards Half Moon Bay, I ain’t complaining.
The latter part of May was spent traipsing around Norway, Sweden, and Denmark — a trip that Melinda and I had bought tickets for 9 months ago — with four of my friends.
In June, I spent a superfun weekend in Austin (TEXAS, y’all — and the place where I almost ended up working!) with a few friends who had been prepping me for Texas months in advance.
I also happened to meet Neil Gaiman and visit San Diego for both the 4th of July and my cousin’s wedding.
Then in August, my family and I went to Hawaii, where I joined them for a few days in Kauai and learned that I don’t suck as much at surfing as I had previously believed.
In September, several of my friends from NY moved out to SF, joining me on the West Coast, and then I switched apartments.
I also found out that month that I got approved for a last-minute business trip to India, which meant that I found myself flying on what remains the longest flight of my life (17 hours!).
Hyderabad was lots of crazy fun, and I figured if I was in the vicinity, I’d visit Bhutan, a country that had long been on my travel bucket list. And visit Bhutan I did.
I barely spent the month of October at home, given that I had just gotten back from India/Bhutan and I had a high school friend’s wedding in Nashville to attend. A total far cry from my previous trip, but with so much good food, who was I to complain.
The day after Halloween festivities at Google (props if you can recognize my costume!), I was on a plane to Dublin, where I’d spend four weeks for a work ambassadorship.
Ireland was super, but there was no way I was going to bypass the ease of travelling within Europe, so I ended up in Munich for a weekend where I checked off another bucket list item: seeing Bayern Munich (my favorite football team and also the main determinant of my blood pressure levels) live.
After my ambassadorship was Thanksgiving week, so I used the holidays to go to Finland and Iceland, thus putting the rest of my Scandinavian adventures from May at full circle.
And finally, to round out the entire damn year, I went to New Zealand with my family on a trip that we had delayed for a few years, and goddamn I love this country. Instagram filters do a piss-poor job at capturing the awesomeness of the NZ landscape, but unfortunately, these photos are all I have as this trip is still in progress. π
The point is, despite the fact that I have a chronic habit of falling by the wayside when it comes to blogging otherwise known as Cannotus b. arsedus, I plan on blogging more, especially in this coming year. I even have a queue of over 30 blog drafts at the ready, waiting for me to post! I’ll ramble on about the new places I’ve been (India! Bhutan! Ireland! All of Scandinavia! New Zealand!), the places revisited (Japan, Austin, DC, Canada, Nashville), and everything that happened in between. And I’m sure 2014 will be hustling along as I’ll tell you guys everything, and if it even holds a candle to the ridiculousness that was 2013, then let’s just say I’ll be blogging for a long, long time. Bring it, 2014.
I’m so happy you’re baaaack, so to speak, and I can’t wait to hear about the rest of your NZ trip in detail. Flick me a message any time if you need anything! I can’t believe you went somewhere different every month, it’s so amazing!!! Also β I guess it’s awesomer that you spent this year living it all, rather than being stagnant but blogging more.
Oh man, NZ was too much fun! π Definitely one of the best places I’ve ever been, no joke. I’m going through my memory cards and I’m kind of floored by the amount of photos I have — crazy!
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Hi, you do not suck. YOU ARE MADE OF WIN OKAY IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SUCK
And eeeeeee, your photos are seriously the amazingest. I LOVE THEM. And your 2013 was very kickass.
I am excited for all the upcoming posts! (but especially the India/Hyderabad ones, ahem) π
Girl, I’ve got a Hyd post with your name on it. <3
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TIME WE MET UP IN SAN FRANCISCO AND WORE BIBS AS WE GOT UP TO OUR ELBOWS IN CIOPPINO?????????
Um, AWESOME?!?! AS WAS THAT TIME I WENT TO DC AND SAW YOU. π
Ahhhh I love it! π So many beautiful photos and can’t wait for all the blog posts.
Grace! Thanks a billion — I’ll be sure to post more for you!