Moving out of my parent’s house

At the beginning of the month I was lucky enough to have both a holiday at work and an extra vacation day for a long weekend. With only four days off, I thought about visiting friends in London, but when I found a cheap ticket home to Columbus, I knew a family trip was in order.

Kay was in the army and couldn’t come, so I wanted to use the opportunity to try and pack up the rest of the things in my mother’s basement that I wanted to move to Switzerland. After moving all my possessions out at 17, it was a little depressing to move a lot of things back to her house at 21 with no idea how long they would sit there in that basement. Do you know it had already been 7 years since I moved them down to her basement in preparation for my move to be an au pair in Switzerland?

With such a short weekend, my mother and sister planned a family party so that I could see almost all my siblings in one go, and it was such a lovely party. Any time with my last Grandma below is priceless.I was happy for the extra time I got with my siblings who picked me up from the airport on Saturday night and also really thankful that I got to see all but one at the party the next day.

With eight siblings, it’s really not easy to visit with all of them, but we made it work and I saw seven of them and their wives, girlfriends, husbands, and my nephews. The Hickey family adds up fast!I was also happy to see this pair below who were recently engaged the week before I arrived. What nice timing to congratulate them! ๐Ÿ™‚On labor day we visited Ohio University’s campus to see my little sister who couldn’t make it to the Sunday party.The weather was gorgeous in Ohio that weekend. A nice humid 31ยบC. Our temps have already dropped to 15-20 in Zurich already, so I welcomed the summer again.

Here we were visiting the old asylum at OU. Pretty creepy!Athens is a very pretty little town. The blue skies and fluffy clouds made it all the more picturesque. Back at my parent’s house, I enjoyed the last evening and morning with another visit to Grandma before heading home.I was all worried about packing before I arrived because I come to Columbus only once every year or two, and it’s really easy to forget how many things I have in my mom’s basement. This time it had already been a year and a half since I was home for my brother’s wedding.

I brought four suitcases with me, expecting tons, but this time there were only a few boxes and a trunk full of books to pack up. I’d really overestimated! I could have squeezed it into two suitcases if I’d jam-packed my carry-on, but I paid for the third checked bag and used the extra weight allotment in the last suitcase for maple syrup for Kay.I can’t describe the relief I feel that allll my earthly possessions (that I want) are now with me in Switzerland. Now, whenever I visit Columbus, I can just focus on visiting family… and maybe outlet shopping. Let’s be honest here…On the way back through Philly, I managed to squeeze a trip to Wendy’s in, because unfortunately the Wendy’s in Port Columbus turned into a Burger King and we have those in Zurich and I’m just, well, not impressed.

How long did it take you to finally move out of your parents’ house?

Oi, Brasil! Learning Portuguese.

Never in a million years did I think I would be learning not one, but two languages, but the time has finally come to start learning Brazilian Portuguese.

Knowing how lazy I am, I really needed to book an actual course and go to school to start learning. I need the pressure and I need the vocal help from teachers, so I booked a course with Migros Klubschule.Portuguese courses are limited in Switzerland, but offer the Brazilian variant more often than Portugal, simply because we have so many Brazilians and Swiss-Brazilians here. Still, they are only offered in 6 month chunks, and at over 1000CHF a pop, it’s quite an investment.

With our trip to Brazil coming up in December, it will be my second time visiting Kay’s family and I hope this time traveling as his wife instead of girlfriend, that I will be able to say at least some small things to his family. They are really sweet and loving and we communicate a fair amount via Facebook translating, but it’s always different in person.

Here’s to getting my tongue around the pronunciation hurdles!!

Saturday Climbing

After our first jaunt sport climbing on our own, several weeks passed by with either busy weekends or terrible weather. When I finally spotted a good forecast, I started mentally planning that I would not be sleeping in on Saturday, but getting up to go climbing instead.

Kay was surprised by my sudden “Let’s go climbing before it’s too late!!” plan on a Friday evening, but he was delighted that I suggested it because the weather was spectacular and a day climb fit in well with our other plans that weekend.We headed back to the same wall where we took our first course. I remember being intimidated to start our first top-roping climb and some parts where I climbed too far past the next anchor point and had to climb downwards. Nooot fun. This time we seemed to zip up the wall in record speed with our new confidence in the materials and our technique. It’s always really hard to show the grade, because the incline feels so steep when you are on it, but shows up flat in photos. This part below was pretty steep and really scared me the first time we did it. This time, it was pretty painful because both Kay and I were getting killer blisters in our shoes and dealing with very painful feet while climbing.

The view at the top was pretty nice. ๐Ÿ™‚It’s fun to look down on views like this while perched against a rock wall.

We also tried to take some selfies to show the vertical drop. Not that successful. Kay started packing up the rope and then we began the long descent down.Throwing the rope out.It actually took way longer to abseil down than climb up because on the way up we climbed using the full length of the rope attached to one another, and with abseiling, we could only use the half length of the rope, one at a time.Happy about a successful climb. ๐Ÿ™‚

Carry-on and travel packs

You guys, I am a little obsessed with backpacks. Blame it on Kay. I had one when I met him and now I own three. He has like ten.

Thanks to Kay, I am always thinking aboutย  getting more bags that fulfill needs that mine don’t quite meet. For the most part, I use my trusty Mystery Ranch bag for backpacking and overnight hikes or my handy Osprey for day hikes and weekend city trips, but there is always a reason to “window shop”.

Mystery Ranch Glacial: $349 69L

The Glacial bag is my first backpacking backpack. I bought it for $435 (ouch!) back in 2010 and it’s been going strong for five years already. It’s not perfect for me, but the carrying system of Mystery Ranch bags is phenomenal and you probably won’t find a more comfortable pack for long hikes anywhere else.

Mystery Ranch makes pretty industrial, military and firefighting oriented bags, so they are usually fairly basic and rough for a woman’s bag, but you really can’t beat the durability or comfort with a heavy load. I’ve used mine to backpack in Hawaii, Bali, Thailand, Oman, Australia, and soon Peru.

Osprey Sirrus 24: $120 24L I LOVE this bag. It is the perfect day pack size for a hike with camera, water bladder including ports for camelbak hoses, clips for stowing hiking sticks, an ice pick, integrated rain cover and more. It’s also wonderful for city trips because I pack light enough for 2-3 days that I can still fit my clothes, toiletries, camera, and jacket in here.

The mesh suspension system keeps me and my water cool, everything about the bag is really comfortable and built for female bodies, and I like the handy hip belt pockets and shoulder strap pocket for tissues and goodies to eat while carrying. The original bag was $99 on Amazon, but it looks like they have upped their prices recently with the more recent version. I got mine a little on sale for $79 in 2012.

My only qualms are that at 24L it’s perfect for a day pack, but I need [want] something a bit bigger for carry on for longer trips.

These are a few backpacks on my list that I would not mind having:

Mystery Ranch Big Sky: $279 49L

This pack says it would be just within the carry on requirements of Delta (22″ x 14″ x 9″) which makes it really ideal for maxing out your carry on, but Kay has their Sweet Pea, the smallest pack in this series, and it is definitely taller than their listed 45cm, leading me to believe that they are not taking into account everything here. It would be quite an expensive mistake to buy a pack hoping it will fit as carry on, only to have to check it, because then I might as well use my current 69L pack.

Mystery Ranch Snapdragon: $197 38LLike Big Sky, the Snapdragon pack is also bigger than Kay’s Sweet Pea, but again, I can’t be sure if this or the Big Sky pack are actually within carry on limits for most American airlines. There is very little information about owners using these packs as a carry-on in planes because they most often use them for hunting or local outdoor activities .

Mystery Ranch also mainly operates remotely, so it’s not like you would ever find these in stores in the States, let alone Switzerland. Although they are used in the Swiss military because they make fantastic packs!

Osprey Farpoint 55: 179CHF 55L (40L + 15L)In theory, this pack looks really cool and has tons of wonderful reviews all over the interwebs about using it for backpacking all over Brazil and Peru, which is exactly where we are headed later this year. The main bag acts a bit like a suitcase, opening up on the side, while the day pack clips off so you don’t need to carry everything with you when you are out and about. Sounds perfect!The reality is that even with tons of reviews discussing using this as a carry on and how it just slides by, the consensus is that this is NOT a hiking backpack and would be very uncomfortable to wear for several hours. That takes it out for Peru where we plan to hike for several days in a row and camp, so I don’t think it’s worth it to get this pack, even if all the other ideas it includes are great. A good harness for hiking is indispensable, and something I need.

Lo & Sons OG: $295 This is not a backpack. I know…. but so many friends have recommended Lo & Sons bags for carry-on and they are even reviewed across several sites as sliding by as your personal item, even as a large purse. The OG is the larger of the two I looked at and people even claimed they could use this for a personal item under their seat.

Expensive? Yes. Luxury? Yes. The bags look beautiful and chic, which are not usually words attributed to me during travel. I would use a bag like this on travel to see family or “hotel” travel. Weekend trips when I want to ditch my Lulu bag from Epiphaniebags that is falling apart at the seams.

Lo & Sons OG: $275 The OMG is the slightly (slightly!) smaller version of the OG. But that just might make it a little more plausible as a personal item on planes. Spoiler alert: I ordered it. ๐Ÿ™‚

Osprey Ultralight Stuff Pack: 37.50CHF 18LAfter I decided the Farpoint 55 was probably a bad idea for me personally, I wondered if I should just go with a packable day pack to stick in a larger, easy to carry bag like my Mystery Ranch. This looks so small and handy to have with you on trips. I often want a smaller bag for day trips while traveling, but would like something larger as my carry on.

Exped Typhoon 25: 85CHF 25LFor the more adventurous, there is the Typhoon series by Exped. Kay has a dry bag backpack like this from Exped, but his is an older model with some holes by now… so it wouldn’t be much help in a river these days. Something like this also looks packable, although a little less than the Osprey.

What you give up in flexibility, you gain in protection against the elements. The bag looks a little more durable than the Osprey, is obviously completely waterproof and submergeable, and unlike Kay’s pack, it even has water bottle pockets, which was something we missed on our trip to Brazil when it was pouring at Iguazu Falls.

Outlander Packable Lightweight Pack: $21.99 30LI had never heard of Outlander before, but this pack has wonderful reviews and is so darn cheap. It also has so many more pockets than other brands, but it’s not necessarily water resistant.

Sigh. There are always so many good choices. I splurged on the OMG bag, but after that I decided to be a little more budget conscientious, so I decided to just stick with my Mystery Ranch for Peru and go with the OMG and my Osprey as carry-on for Brazil.

What’s your dream travel bag?

Chopping it all off

After I burned my scalp in May, I immediately wanted my old hair back. It was the last straw. I hated how light my hair was, hated how dry and completely damaged it was, and I hated my tan skin and platinum look. But you can’t go back in time, so I knew I would need to wait several months before I tried to deal with my roots.

Kay enjoyed the summer because he loved the blonde, even if I wouldn’t let him run his fingers through my hair anymore for fear of snapping more hair off. But after the Adriatic Sea destroyed my hair in Montenegro, I wanted to end this hot mess, so with great trepidation, I dragged myself into a salon to explain my mess and schedule a long Saturday appointment.

I wanted to be very clear even in German that I wanted to go back to my natural color, which is why I freaked out a bit when the hairdresser brought out bleach and started bleaching my roots as we started. NOOOOO. “But I want BROWN hair!!!” I told her. She assured me we would do that, but she wanted to bleach the roots so that everything would be uniform.Still, I was not happy that I waited the whole summer and several weeks of icky roots to fix my hair professionally, only to have my scalp suffering through bleach again. It wasn’t terrible, but as they were washing it out, it really started burning on my lower scalp and the next day I noticed scabbing again like when I burned my scalp.

It might be that I burned my scalp enough that it will always react this way to bleach in the future, but after this whole ordeal is over, I think I will go natural for a good, long time.I was also not a happy camper because I’d slept on my neck wrong, and it actually was really painful to turn my head left or right or look upward, which made getting my head in and out of the washing basin a bitch.

After the bleach, she put on the layer of orange/red that I was expecting. Here, she tried to explain it not to freak me out, but I knew she would have to put this undertone color on to give the brown a base to hold on to. Without the orange color underneath, it’s likely that brown on top of blonde hair turns grey or greenish. No thanks!

After the orange was done, the stylist assistant washed it out and I begged him to be gentle with my hair as he started combing it. I told him how my hair broke off very short on holiday and he tried to brush it off that they were baby hairs by my face, but baby hairs don’t extend that far back and I knew it was likely all my hair would rip off if he would continue abusing it.I sent the picture to Kay and he made some Joker references. I had tried to warn him that if my hair didn’t turn out well, I would have to cut most or all of it away. It was that damaged. But he was crossing his fingers that this would not be the case.

Next up it was time for brown.

The hairdresser was funny. She apologized that she kept switching to High German instead of speaking Swiss German to me. She asked if I was really sure I wanted to go dark. Yes. Natural. That’s the point. Maybe a medium blonde instead? NOPE. Brown. Please. So brown it was…After all the dying, we surveyed the damage. Some of the hair was so damaged that even the orange layer didn’t help it take the dye. It was too porous and wash washing out.

We had discussed styles beforehand and I had said that I wanted a shorter bob, but we agreed that at this point, a longer pixie would be better to cut more of the damaged hair off. The hairdresser was really excited to cut so much because it’s more fun for her than always trimming people’s hair. We had agreed that she would cut my hair to part it on the other side, but she got a little snip happy. While I’d said I want the long part to come down to my nose, she cut an extra 6cm off, and now when I part on the other side, it will only come down to my eyebrows, which is quite short for me!The hairdresser also loved how “cool” I was. She kept saying how surprised she was with how calm and relaxed I was while she hacked my hair off. Other people would gasp or cry she said, but nothing fazed me. Go dark, go short. It’s just hair… and if she’s a little scissor happy, there’s nothing I can do once she cuts a section off.

It’s not exactly the cut I imagined, but I am enjoying how short it is because I haven’t had hair this short since I was six for fear of being asked if I am a boy again. And it’s just hair, it will grow back.

I’m so happy to be brunette again!