Wanderlust: France

France, Paris especially, is one of the places that’s high on my to-see list. I fantasize about wearing a sun dress, riding a bicycle around with a baguette in the basket on my way to gaze at anything and everything beautiful and think about going to sample macarons. In this fantasy I am fluent in French, a zillion pounds lighter and my hair is much longer and less fluffy. So essentially I am fantasizing about being someone else.

No matter.

When my friend Megan told me she was going to France, I told her she needed to bring me back macarons, the Eiffel Tower and a postcard. I got the macarons (After sending her quite a few pictures so she knew what they were) and some awesome Moulin Rouge coasters.

Megan agreed to let me share her beautiful photos in exchange for me talking about how awesome she is (or really, she asked what my blog was for and I just sighed because she should already know these things).

Though the Eiffel Tower picture is my favorite, the others are quite stunning as well so enjoy! And feel free to imagine yourself on a bike with the perfect temperature on your way to taste lots of amazing wine. You’re welcome.

 

Oh! Let’s not forget!

 

xo.

Melanie Kristy

Wanderlust Italy 2

Most of these photographs I don’t even have words for. They just are.
See Part 1

Wanderlust Italy 1

This is the first of many posts where I share pictures from my trip to Italy five years ago. I can’t believe it’s been five year. Italy was a country I was homesick for before I’d ever been and I dream about going back there every day. It was eating gelato multiple times a day, living in a walled city, discovering how to communicate all over again, the most delicious food I’ve ever eaten, hurry up and wait, so much sunshine, postcard days, comfort in something foreign, trying limoncello, pizza with whole olives rolling off the slices, daily markets, siesta every afternoon, magic unfolding everywhere.

 

* I recently discovered picmonkey and I’ve been addicted to making pictures look awesome. So that’s where these were all edited.

Wanderlust: How To Discover Your Hometown

(weheartit)

Wanderlust is a serious disease. It causes people to lose track of their lives, walk out on loved ones, sleep through work, muck up their credit and live restlessly. It also creates amazing experiences, memorable adventures and lots of opportunity for learning, photographs and a slew of stories. It has to be done right. You have to act calmly when suffering from Wanderlust otherwise it will cause you to act rash. If you don’t have the funds or the time or the partner to travel anywhere right at this very moment you can

*Take a walk only taking left turns.
*If there’s public transportation, ride it to the very end, or set a timer for a certain amount of time and after the timer goes off, get off at the next stop.
* Pick a theme song for your town. Or rewrite lyrics to a different song to fit your town.
*If your town is known for something, do something related to that. For example, my town is known for it’s Renaissance Faire and for the cranberries it grows. I could make cranberry scones or drink cranberry tea. I could dress up in a dress from 1600.
* If you grew up in this town, what did you do when you were a child? Do it again. * For me, that would be riding my bike everywhere.
* If the answer to your above answer is not ride a bike, then take out your bike now and explore the world going less than 30 miles per hour.
* Take your dog for a walk, or borrow someone else’s. Vow to take twenty five photographs while you’re out.
* Send people you love postcards. Write on the back, “wish you were here.”
* Go to museums and read historical information on your town. Do the touristy things that you never do because you’ve always lived there.
Pretend you’re from another town. Talk with an accent if you can get away with it.
* Spend the day supporting local businesses and only local businesses. Fuel up your tank with gas that’s not from a convenience store, get a bagel at the local coffee shop, go to your library instead of heading out to a bookstore.
* Read up on the official bird and flower of your state. Learn to recognise the state flag.
* Buy vegetables off the side of the road, stop at someone’s flower shop they hold out of their house to buy a plant, call up an in house masseuse and book a massage.
*Bury or dig up a time machine. Inside put pictures of your town and lists of what you love today. Or, similarly, go Geocaching
*Write up something about your town. Make a brochure or an ad for a newspaper. Write a blog post about your town.

I’ve decided that Fridays are going to be dedicated to Wanderlust in all sorts of forms. I’m excited to fill this void for travel in ways that don’t include purchasing plane tickets or booking hotel rooms. It’s only a temporary fix, but they, it’s better than nothing.

California Here We Come

I bought melaniekristy.com and I’m pretty excited about that. The snow has STOPPED, it rained yesterday. I can see a little bit of the actual ground. This is amazing. I cannot even express it…

You know that song Boston by Augustana? Every time I listen to it, I wish he was singing the other way around. I absolutely love Boston, but I wish that song had the sentiments of leaving. I wish it sang about wanting to see the sunset, about going to California, instead. (Does anyone find it ironic that he sings about going to Boston where “no one knows my name” when the exact opposite was the theme song of Cheers, the TV show that took place in Boston?)

I’ve been missing California a lot lately. There are two places I am homesick for: California and Italy. The last time I was in either place was in the summer of 2007, and I’m finding myself at a loss as why I am not back at either place right now. But California and I have a much deeper relationship than what I have with Italy. In California there are people to miss, friendships I’ve lost touch with, relatives who live there. I miss simple little things like pesto bagels and In N Out signs. I miss the sunshine and that fact that I felt like I could breathe there. I miss driving by hills and watching cows grazing on the sides. There are so many parts of California I never got to explore, and just as many that I want to see again.

I want to take a road trip down the 101, listen to Phantom Planet and drink smoothies while wearing sunglasses and singing loudly. I want to see San Diego and spend more time on the beaches. I want to go to all of the places Francesca Lia Block talks about in all of her novels. I’d design my own FLB field trip. Take pictures of everything. I want to go to Santa Monica and sing Savage Garden while I ride the ferris wheel. I want to make my way through Hollywood, put my hands inside hand prints of stars. I want to drive up up up until I’m in San Fransisco. I want to eat ice cream at Ghiradelli and drive over the Golden Gate bridge, through the rainbow tunnel into Sonoma County where I lived for almost a year. But that’s not all, I want to keep going. Up along the coast, down the scary roads that are on the sides of cliffs that over look the ocean.

I want. I want. I want. But I am here right now. So you might be subjects to tales of wander lust, picture posts and lots of… me.

I’m working on writing more. I know this is my blog and there’s no need to apologize for anything I say or don’t say in here. But promising to write makes me feel a little more accountable, like there’s enough people out there reading who are excited to see my posts.

<3.Melanie.Kristy

Looking For My Radio

(credit)
I’m looking for a song to sing
I’m looking for a friend to borrow
I’m looking for my radio
So I might find a heart to follow

I. T. Z. Hanson

Sometimes I just want to say things into the Internet and press “publish”. I want to write one line and make it into a post. And then I think, why not? This is my space to do whatever I please.

The problem with Mondays is they already have such a bad reputation. You can’t help but anticipate the bad-ness of Mondays to the point where they are just not that good. (And this goes for other days of the week that act as “Mondays” but fall on other days).

I’ve been thinking a lot about life lately. Though I guess I’m always thinking a lot about life. About the human condition. About what we are, who we want to become. Last night Olga asked, “Do you think we’ll ever stop searching?” And, really, I couldn’t answer.

My immediate thought is, “no.” And the reason is because she and I, we don’t know what we’re looking for. We want to experience everything. We are going to go from country to country from novel to novel looking, searching, experiencing. I don’t think we’re going to stop searching.

Where as my parents, I think they stopped searching a long time ago. They have the house, the jobs and the kids. They are happy and content in their love and their lives. They have these things that I may never even decide to want. That picket fence love with two children,  and a dog (we don’t really have a picket fence, but everything else… that’s us.) Olga and I, we don’t need a ring to know love, we aren’t looking to settle for the rest of our lives.

But in turn, we don’t know what it is we are looking for.

I was driving home from work last night wondering what is it that makes me feel like I need to go places? What is it that makes me full of wanderlust, homesick for places I’ve never been? Why do I get anxious when I spend too much time in Massachusetts? I need to get out, and go somewhere.  But what is it that makes me so anxious when I feel stuck? Are any of us ever really stuck?

Maybe I should mention, Olga is currently in South Korea teaching English. She’s been in Togo, Africa through the Peace Corps, lived in MA. She grew up in Mexico and Guatemala. All of these continents don’t have what she’s looking for. It’s somewhere else, maybe. Inside someone else?

It’s inside us somewhere, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stop the search.

I want to teach English in Italy for at least three months. That’s at the top of my TO DO list. It’s something that might get me through the next year, if I can make it a possibility. I’m turning 26 at the end of this week, everyone. This entire week is going to be filled with reflections and lists and goals. It’s going to be filled with me in ways that I haven’t filled posts with before. Because, why not?

I want to know if you’re still searching. Do you know what you’re searching for? Can you pinpoint when it is that you stopped? Do you think you’ll ever stop?

<3.Melanie.Kristy

Italia.

I achieved Italy through student loans and a summer art history class. It had to be done and I needed to get there the fast way. We rode bikes around the city, took the train to Rome where we got lost inside ourselves, and we wandered around speaking broken Italian to interested and disinterested natives alike. I ate the best food I’ve ever had in my entire life and gelato was a daily treat. It’s been three years and I ache tonight just as much as I ached three years ago while we walked away from the city we temporarily called home.

it's no secret that pizza is my favourite food

the mediterranean

oh yes, it is love, Tuscan countryside

some espresso

St. Peter's Basilica

I left part of my heart there in the toes of those sneakers.

<3. Melanie.Kristy

Wanderlust Haikus

suitcases are packed
spontaneous departure
live within the world

homesick for your land
in love before we had met
i long to breathe you

one culture is not
enough for this country girl
please bring me with you

away we go and
promise me we will not stay
for eternity

he said that you should
remember the way fingers
feel against sidewalk

Some days I feel more longing than others to get out of this town and go exploring. Tonight my heart is bursting with homesickness and a feeling that can’t be filled by dreams and pictures.

I long for Italy. I long for other countries I’ve never been to. I long to see other parts of my world, America. I want to learn new languages and see new people and take cheesy tourist photographs.

If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?