Yep. You read that right. We’ll get to that moment in the story later. The first thing you need to know is that prior to this story, I had ridden quite a few camels. I wasn’t a professional, but I think it’s safe to say, I’ve been on more camels than the average person.

I had some friends in town, and they really wanted to see a camel. Well, we were in the desert, but in a city….a city I was pretty new to and didn’t really know where to find the camels. However, I love a good adventure so I was up for finding one, or several. I found a Camel Hospital on google maps and I figured that was an OK place to start…so we headed that way.

The Camel Hospital was closed, but we did find ourselves in a little village area with several tents and you guessed it, camels hanging around outside. It was summer, hot, and during Ramadan, which meant it was the perfect time for people to be sleeping in their tents and not willing to be aggravated by a bunch of over-excited Americans.

I hopped out of the car and slowly approached the tent opening. None of the aforementioned “friends” got out of the car…thanks guys. In my most apologetic voice, I gave the traditional Arabic greeting, “Salaam Alaikum,” honestly not expecting much. Within a few seconds, a very nice man popped out of the tent and greeted me in return. In my best attempt at Arabic, I asked if my friends could take some pictures of the camels and he was happy to oblige. After a few pictures, by friends said, “Ask if we can ride them.” The owner/camel caretaker explained that we would have to some back at night since it was so hot and we agreed.

That night we rolled back up to the tent…the only light coming from our car’s headlights. A camel was saddled up and we were ready to go. One other person in the group had ridden a camel and she volunteered to go first. Up until this point, I had only gotten on a camel in tourist spots. These camels are so used to people climbing on them that they barely move. I noticed that this camel stood up really fast and made a quick mental note of it.

I went next. I was super confident and was ready to go (my first mistake). I put my hand on the saddle (piece of rope) and began to throw one leg over the camel’s back. Well, that stupid camel decided to stand up without me on it fully. Before I knew it, I was spider-manning the side of the camel, hanging on for dear life. I was looking straight at the camel’s neck and could only see the ground (which felt 50ft away) from my periphery.

The poor camel guy immediately tried to get the thing to sit back down, but he had literally just stood up…so I didn’t really blame the camel for being confused. One of my friends said, “Susan, you really aren’t that far from the ground if you just swing your legs down.” Being super freaked out, I only managed to say, “I can’t move.”

Finally, the camel sat back down and I made it back safely to earth. I turned around and most of my friends stood there dumbfounded…..one was rolling on the ground laughing. I started laughing too. What just happened?? I tried to go again, but the camel stood up before I could even grab onto the saddle this time. I decided to take a break and let other people have a go.

All my other friends got on that freaking camel with no problem at all. What was happening?!?! My pride started kicking in big time. I was the desert dweller. I was the most experienced riding camels. I was not gonna leave here until I got on the back of this thing. These people were not gonna show me up!! (We’ll talk about my issues with competitiveness later)

I stepped back up to that camel. I looked at the guy and said, “He’s OK now?” The camel guy replied, “Yep.” “You promise?” I said. Through a little laugh he nodded his head, which didn’t make me feel all that much better. I knew I had to get on the camel quickly, so for the perfect visual….I jumped and pretty much cat pounced the camel and hung on for dear life.

I made it and all my friends cheered. I just shook my head at my life…again. We tried to pay the man, but out of awesome hospitality, he refused. We thanked him, jumped back in the car, and I swore them to secrecy. Praise the Lord it was dark so pictures were impossible. And by swearing them to secrecy, a couple days later I got a call from another friend on the other side of the world saying, “tell me the camel story!” Thanks a lot guys.

Hey Everyone!

Be proud. I imported all my old blog posts from the blogspot site. I put it off for a while because that’s usually my pattern in life and I thought it would be really hard. Well a quick google search proved me wrong and they’re all here. Feel free to travel back in time to when I posted even more sporadically than now…and barely used pictures. You’re riveted already?? Yea, I figured.

So I know most of us have long forgotten our New Years Resolutions. I have all these goals written in the front of my calendar and we won’t talk about how all of them are going. I did, however, tell myself that I wanted to read 25 books this year. I’m usually the girl who reads a couple books on vacation and then takes months off. I’ve just finished book 9 of 2018 so far I’m really enjoying it. Yall…all those teachers were right…reading is fun. I’m giving you a short run-down of some of the books so far in hopes that you will get hooked on phonics too (and that I would have some accountability that I will actually stick to this goal).

Sisters First by Jenna B. Hager and Barbara Bush is a memoir type book about them growing up in a family of presidents and they’re sister relationship along the way. As an only child I have always been fascinated by siblings. I built in friend forever sounds like a dream, and Jenna and Barbara  definitely keep that dream alive. They also have a really cool family that was fun to read about.

Jamie Ivey hosts “The Happy Hour.” It’s a successful podcast where she chats with all sorts of speakers, authors, etc., and I really enjoy listening to it. In her book, If You Only Knew, she talks about the messy parts of life that people aren’t willing to talk about and how she’s found freedom. I devoured this book in a day. It’s a book that makes you feel a lot less alone.

I read a lot more novels this year than usual…and I’ve loved it so far.  I finished Forever is the Worst Long Time by Camille Pagan last night. Yall…I cried my eyes out the last three chapters. I didn’t see the ending coming at all and when I figured out what the author was doing, I couldn’t control myself. That…and it was probably time for a good cry anyways. It was the perfect storm for me apparently.

Obviously, this is only 1/3 of my 9 books for the year, but they were my favorite so far. Hopefully I’ll have some more recommendations later…I mean I better… I gotta stick to the one goal I haven’t given up on yet.

I used to play tennis when I was growing up. Honestly, it was more like home run derby, but I still really enjoyed it, and went to tennis camp and did the whole thing. I had always planned to play through high school, but my small little home town school system got volleyball a couple years before I started school athletics and that changed everything.

I still enjoyed watching tennis. All the Grand Slams were on our home television and every year my mom would travel to NYC with some of her friends to watch the U.S. Open.

Was I ever invited on these trips? No.

Am I bitter? Kinda.

In other news my mom used to be a pretty great tennis player. Even though she did not pass down her tennis skills (or I didn’t really try to use them), she did pass down her love for the game and favorite players. Steffi Graf, Pete Sampras, and Roger Federer forever!! Don’t even try to change me!

So I lived in London last summer, and mom was quick to point out that I would be there during Wimbledon…the fancy Grand Slam with a great accent, the Grand Slam we all want to be. I quickly began to research how to get tickets…which turned out to be difficult because the process is a little confusing…and I’m not that good at research.

I read as much as I could, and talked to some people. Mom booked her ticket to come see me and we were gonna do this thing…well, we were gonna at least try to do it. Turns out, Wimbledon does this really cool queue process so more people will have a chance to see some tennis. The people I talked to had gone a little earlier in the tournament and their number in the queue was in the 8000’s….yea this is gonna be a major line (“queue” if your fancy).

We got up super early one morning and made our way to the queue. London and Wimbledon are really great at signs, so we made our way to the field where the line forms pretty easily. I couldn’t help but notice that the line didn’t look that long. After a few minutes, the numbers start getting passed out….and our numbers should have been the first clue to our awesome day

That’s right people….we were in the 300s! Before we go any further, we need to talk about mom and mine’s expectations. We in no way actually thought we would get in. We have never done this before and the line process seems weird and we just didn’t think it would work out. In all honesty, we were both gonna be happy if we could see the Wimbledon gate….if there even was a gate…maybe it was just a door or hallway situation.

Yall! it’s a gate! And it was open!! And they let us walk through it!! We couldn’t believe it. Because we came during the last half of the tournament, all the big names were in the biggest stadium that was sold out. There was so much stuff to see though so we didn’t care. After a quick trip to the gift shop to buy EVERYTHING…we basically skipped through that whole place.

We saw wheelchair tennis…which is incredible. We jumped from court to court trying to see as much as we could. We walked to the top of that famous hill, ate strawberries and cream, and just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, we saw people like Martina Navratilova and Lindsey Davenport- people I had grown up watching!!

We stayed until the last match of the day was coming to a close. Our feet ached, we had weird sunburns, and we couldn’t collapse in our beds fast enough. It was one of those days that was so good it didn’t even make sense. It was a day where we kept shaking our heads because we couldn’t even believe it was happening. It was a day that we hadn’t even dreamed of,  because we didn’t actually think we would ever experience it.  Mom and I still turn to each other randomly and say “Can you believe that happened?” Who do we think we are??

I hope you have days like that.

Days that are so good and unexpected and make you turn into a kid.

Here’s to more days like that.

It’s about to be the best 2 weeks ever. The Winter Olympics start February 8 in Pyeong Chang and this girl is happy about it. Me and the Olympics are great friends…..more like I love the Olympics with all my heart.  I love a good accomplishment. I have been known to tear up at any sort of accomplishment. A video of someone finishing a race, or another giving an award speech never fails to pull at my heart strings. Since the Olympics is accomplishments on steroids, I’m pretty much a mess of happy emotions the whole time. To this day….if I even think about Kerri Scruggs landing that vault on one foot to win the gold…I literally start weeping.

I can’t wait for all the athletes who are gonna step up their game and surprise the whole world. I can’t wait for all the back stories and the daily run down of events by Bob Costas (please don’t get another eye infection Bob). Now, I’ll be the first to say that I’m more of a summer Olympic girl….but that doesn’t mean I won’t jump in fully to all that is about to happen in the world in the coming weeks.

My favorite event is the snowboarding half pipe…which means I’m looking forward to watching this guy…

Shawn White!! I’ve grown up watching him and can’t wait to see what he can do.

Then there’s Mikaela Shiffrin who is the best skier in the world. What!! What if that is the sentence used to describe you?! I cannot imagine.

There’s also some new events coming this Olympics: Mixed Curling, Alpine Team Skiing, Big Air Snowboarding (cannot wait for this one!!), and Mass Start Speed Skating. Speaking of speed skating…I have a question…who chose the awkwardly colored uniforms??

Carlijn Schoutens reacts after competing in the women’s 3000-meter during the U.S. Olympic long track speedskating trials, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/John Locher)

There is a Winter Olympics preview on Netflix and it does a really good job of introducing a lot of the team and getting you pumped up…so check it out.

Yall, let’s all love the Olympics together. I’ve named 2018 the “Year of Working Hard” for myself…and I am ready to be inspired by all of these athletes who have put in countless hours to achieve their goals. I am probably never gonna have one of those Olympic rings tattoos…but I sure am gonna enjoy watching people earn theirs. Happy Olympics Everyone!!!

Yall!! First of all….book your trip to Norway now. It is amazing! I only had time to spend a long weekend there, but that was more than enough time to want to return over and over. I flew into Stavanger and stayed with some friends. It is such a cute city right on the water and surrounded by mountains (hello, perfect place for Susan).

There are so many things to do, but my friend suggested we hike to Kjeragbolten (don’t ask me how to pronounce this…just call up any friend from Norway and they should be able to tell you). I obviously had never heard of this place, but after a quick google image search, I was in.

The trail head was about 2 hours away, so we woke up early one morning with snacks in tow, and were off. I went to Norway because I happened to be working in London for the summer, so I didn’t exactly have hiking equipment with me. Picture an Eastern NC girl in the snow. None of my clothes matched, I was wearing running shoes, and had a light rain jacket since rain was on the forecast for that day….obviously.

Right before we started, there was an employee in the parking lot who asked where I was from. He knew NC from working at the Outer Banks every year (yes—he’s one of my people). I joking asked if I was gonna make it to the top….”it’s just like Jockey’s Ridge, right?” He literally laughed in my face.

Another important fact about this girl is that deep in my core…I think hikes should be on flat land (Eastern NC and living in the desert strikes again). Yall…Norway doesn’t play on their hikes. The trail to the Kodak moment was literally over multiple mountain peaks. At some points there were ropes and chains to help you climb up the mountain. I put on a brave face because I was with friends who didn’t know my core beliefs about hiking, but it was pretty rough.

After about an hour and a half, the trail finally opened up and I began to see people jump on and off this rock for their picture. Before this moment, I hadn’t fully committed to standing on this thing. It is in fact a rock suspended between two mountains and nothing underneath it. I’m a big talker, but honestly, I was pretty nervous. One of the friends I was with wasn’t planning on doing it again since he had done it previously, and the other friend knew she wasn’t doing it from the start. Adrenaline started pumping when I saw that rock though….and it hid all my previous nerves. I looked at my friends and said, “I’m doing it.”

You have to walk around to the back of one of the peaks to get to the suspended rock. That was the first time I got really scared. I finally saw the drop off…and it was huge. Google says that the rock is 3600ft about ground. Yall, that’s high…that’s make a wrong step and it’s gonna be bad high. I did it though…not very gracefully but I did it. I kinda crawled out to the rock, stood up really slowly, got my pictures, and then crawled back to safety.

Immediately after I thought to myself, that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done…but it was awesome. I knew it was worth it. My sense of adventure had been satisfied that day for sure. I’ll never forget the feeling when I got a clear view of the edge for the first time. My heart shot up to my throat and I immediately had respect for that piece of nature. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. There are plenty of things to do in Norway that don’t involve standing on a suspended rock…but you know you want to do it too.

 In all my travel, I’ve learned that some of my favorite cities contain both historic, natural, and modern day elements. In Athens, for example, there are fun restaurants and shopping, but from just about anywhere in the city, you can look up and see the Acropolis. I love that! I love walking strolling down a street and being able to look up and see something that has stood the test of time. Many future blog posts will be dedicated to my favorite cities, but we’ll focus on Athens for today. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to Athens multiple times, so I’ve had the opportunity to do the tourist thing, as well as wonder around without much of a plan to see what I could find.

One of the greatest things about Athens is that it’s so walkable. On first glance, it is a big city with so much to see, but most things are centrally located and not that far away from each other. Also, major landmarks like the Acropolis are elevated so all you have to do is look up to find your way. There are lots of little alleyways and  paths leading to major landmarks, so you can take different ways and maybe find cool street art or a fun shop.

The food. Yall…the food. Greek food is amazing. You can go family style at most local restaurants and try a bunch of things. There is fried zucchini everywhere and they do magic things with feta cheese. I never got tired of eating the local food. There are so many outdoor areas to eat with a view of the Acropolis. My favorite included live music. When they started the one traditional tune that everyone knows…everyone in the place lit up…it was so fun.

My favorite place in Athens is Mars Hill. It is a small rock face just below the Acropolis that allows you to see the whole city.  Paul also hung out there which is pretty overwhelming to think about. You can read about it in Acts 17.

If you only have a few hours or a few days, Athens is a great stop. Don’t pass by the local food or you’ll be sorry. You are guaranteed to find the perfect leather sandals as well. Win. Win. Win.

Well, it is after Thanksgiving and officially time to put up all the Christmas decorations. Honestly, you can do whatever you want with your decorating schedule. I broke my own rule and put them up early this year because I felt like the desert needed some Christmas cheer ASAP.

I travel a lot and I’m also a shopper. Guys, I’ve tried to fix it, but hasn’t worked yet, so I will continue to pack an empty duffle bag on all trips just in case I find all the treasures. One of the things I always try to find in a new place is a Christmas ornament. It’s a fun trinket that has a story, but doesn’t have to stay out all year and make you look like a pack rat. I already kind of look like that…so anything I can do to help works.  Another fun thing about only seeing them once a year is that you kinda forget about some of them, so it’s fun surprises when you’re unpacking them. A few friends do the same thing…so there’s a group of trees around containing lots of adventures…we should get them all together. Anyways, here are a few of my favs:

This one came from a Taylor Swift concert in Singapore. Now you can have whatever opinion about T Swift, but this ornament represents such a fun memory. It makes me smile every time.

I have a bunch of ornaments from the same store in Vietnam. I could not pick my favorite one so I just bought a bunch. They also unfold to be stored flat…so way to go efficiency.

This little guy is super cute…and as you can probably guess…he’s from Scotland. And he matches my tree skirt. I’ve never been a huge plaid girl (guys I know this is tartan, but you get the idea), but Scotland will make you re-evaluate all your previous opinions on patterns.

A super tiny African basket that I transformed into an ornament

There is no telling how many of these snowflakes my grandmother has crocheted. They are scattered on all the trees of my extended family. I am so happy to have some way out here.

I went to Disney, turned into a child, believed in all the magic, and bought several ornaments.

Every part of my tree holds a memory and it’s so much fun! I’ve never been one for a cohesive, uniform tree…and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Happy decorating!!

There are pros and cons to anywhere you live and that is true in the desert, where I have been residing for the past few years. One of the big fall backs for me is the outdoor color scheme. The people are great and it has always been fun to live in and learn a new culture, but the sand-colored palette affects me more than I originally realized. It’s one of those things that kinda sneaks up on you. I didn’t realize how much a mono-toned outside affected me until I had a vacation and saw grass again. That pop of natural color….good grief it made me happy. You’re more thankful for things you don’t get to see a lot, and it’s completely that for me and grass. I know it sounds ridiculous, but talk to any ex-pat desert dweller. I bet they’ll agree with me. I don’t know if it’s reminiscent of childhood summers where your bare feet were constantly going in between soft grass and the slip in slide, or its just the shock of not seeing it for a long that makes me so happy when I see a green landscape.

My patient, kind friends listen as I exclaim….”oh my goodness, it’s so green!” for the 932073207 time. To this day I can’t get over it. My last time in the States, I couldn’t stop taking pictures outside the car window of the grass and trees….beside the interstate. A few years ago my travel buddy came to my neck of the woods and we toured around the desert. At the end of the week she casually said, “I get it now….why you love green so much.” My head grew so much with pride, it nearly pushed her out of the room.

My latest vacay was to Scotland and Ireland. Yall, it almost made my brain explode. I couldn’t comprehend it!! Most of the time I can function with just staring and exclaiming about how green it is, but sometimes the urge is too great….and I just have to lay in the grass for a while. And by “a while,” I mean a really long time and have to make myself get up because it is getting dark and people passing by are looking more and more nervously at the weird girl.

So I’ve decided to use a super popular hashtag to highlight some of my favorite spots in the world. I’ve had plenty of adventures, and most of those come in multiple cities back to back. Thanks to my faithful travel buddy, BB, I’ve developed the habit of going to several places in one trip. The cost of this strategy is not spending as much time as you might want in a particular place and spending some nights in corners of airports, but seeing more places in the world has always been worth it.  So #tbt will be my attempt to spotlight certain places, share my thoughts, and hopefully get you to add some more cities to your travel bucket list, or even better……start a travel bucket list!!

I’m kinda setting myself up for failure  on this first one, because Cinque Terre is so amazing. Most people know the big Italian cities (Rome, Florence, Venice,etc.). They are hyped up and well worth all the popularity. Italy is one of those places where the more I go, the more I want to go back….and we haven’t even talked about the pizza (Praise Him/moment of silence).

Cinque Terra is a series of five villages along the coast. There are several ways to travel in between the villages…by boat, train, or hiking. Fun fact about Susan….she loves a boat! Unfortunately, the day we were exploring, the water was too rough so we were down to the train and our feet. I couldn’t get over the villages set on the mountains that led straight to the ocean. There were cute fishing boats and kodak moments everywhere. Each building is a different color and created this rainbow of colors. Colored buildings, mountains, and ocean!! I mean, why are you finishing this blog post instead of booking a ticket right now?! We hiked between the 1st and 2nd village, which took about an hour. Don’t think of a flat land Eastern NC hike. There were lots of stairs involved, but the views do not disappoint and there were lots of other tourists suffering along with us. I’m including the most famous view and good grief it’s famous for a reason. I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Thankfully, I’ve had this happen a few places around the world…..where I just had to take one more picture, and look back as we finally had to leave, trying to burn every detail in my memory.

We only had a day here, which was the biggest tragedy of all, but it quickly got put on my come back to list. Come back,  spend more time, and learn the ends and outs of each of the villages…..and wait for a calm water day so I can get on that freaking boat!

Don’t worry….it’s still Italy so there’s still pasta

And gelato!!