WASHINGTON, D.C.

How does one express the full breadth of sentiments about a place that raised you? It feels cheap to write a segment on the best food, shopping, or site seeing in Washington, D.C. I can’t remember if I had expectations when moving there. The bar must have been low as I made my entrance on a Megabus whose ceiling glass shattered minutes into my journey from New York to D.C. after having spent the previous 10 days in Israel post college graduation. I’m not one for doing things the simple, less encumbered way. I stared at the spidered pane for hours waiting for a piece to come undone and coat my hair. It would be a good story, I thought. I have a disposition for the dramatic, at least internally. I arrived with one suitcase to meet my mother who had my other suitcase which eventually became multiple homes, furniture, decorations, heartbreaks, letters, and memories over five full years. We think with every move we only transfer, acquire, or rid ourselves of the material. We also bring or shed the threads of what make us who we are.

My plan was to stay the summer for my internship at the Capitol and hope for the best. I was “building” my resume for my assumed application to grad school. For what? Who knows. On paper I come across as someone calculated and methodical in the decisions she makes. Even now at 29 I don’t know if I can own that designation. For better or worse, and I mean heavy on the worse, I put one foot in front of the other. It’s fitting that my favorite pastime is walking. Those steps have lead me into rooms with people who propel me forward, I find myself on websites with applications, or in church listening to a sermon God himself wrote for me. Other times my feet lead me to a hamster wheel. I found myself in all those situations at one point or another during my time in D.C. There are no regrets.

One of the first rooms I stepped into led me to a job with a Senator merely 3 weeks into an internship. I quickly discarded the ideology that you must gain everything in life solely on merit. It dawned on me that who you know gets you places, but more importantly, it is your work ethic and what you do that keeps you there. Nearly a year later I walked out of the Capitol and into corporate America where I eventually graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in the real world. I enrolled in the proverbial classes of identity, faith, professionalism, love, heartbreak, friendships, establishing boundaries, and crossing them. With every smile, laugh, tear shed, mile walked, and decision faced, I grew. Though I stayed in my second job for roughly three years, I walked in and out of many other rooms during that season. The footsteps I took varied - sometimes I stumbled, sometimes I ran, sometimes I hit a stride, others times I was pushed, and on occasion I quietly and unassumingly tip-toed in.

As I reflect it’s evident that what I’ve accomplished, on all fronts, has often been because someone else saw something in me, not because I thought I deserved to be in that room. And I don’t think thats a nod to being humble, I think it’s about being insecure. The tug-of-war in me is at a standstill between “I want that and I’ll do anything to get it” and “I could never and I’ll be found out”. I still carry some of that weight, but the burden is lighter now.

The evolution of my time in DC is not only marked by haircuts, but the acquisition of the assurance that things work themselves out even when you are in the middle of the knot. I’m still learning to believe that each day - it’s funny how amnesia settles in on a pendulum’s schedule. Just when you remember, you forget again. In every wrong room there is still a door. I overstayed my welcome in some rooms - mental states, habit loops, daily routines. At times I walked out of one wrong room only to enter another, but I learned to leave quickly. Familiarity is a magnet.

In 2021 I naively signed the dotted line for my final 15 month lease in my favorite city, unbeknownst to me. In the moment I was certain I would live in D.C. for as far out as my mind could comprehend. I loved my job, my church, my routines, my friends. As long as those things stayed constant, what could possibly change my mind? I time travel back to when I decided to leave and I may have convinced myself that work was the motive. I would move back to Florida temporarily and then come back. Or maybe explore somewhere else and then come back. D.C. was, and perhaps still is, both my safety net and paragon. Like many other decisions, I stepped into a room where one Facebook Marketplace post lead to another. Admittedly I stumbled into that room. Eventually I found myself in an empty apartment in June ready to leave the place where I grew into the most myself I’d ever been up until then. A place where I felt the full spectrum of the emotional color wheel in a span of 5 years - that is one my greatest treasures.

When my thoughts linger to wonder whether I should have stayed I question if there was more juice left to squeeze from that season’s harvest. The change aversion in me craved the ease of my paved patterns, but I know comfort kills. The lessons of living alone and in community, and sometimes feeling alone in community stretched me. I learned to make the most of day even if the agenda was just me, an audiobook, sneakers, and a destination. I could let people decide my steps, or I could decide for myself. The latter is a muscle I slowly, but consistently, exercised during those years and am still training today.

Florida seemed like the easy option to the naked eye, but to me it was an act of surrender. As you can tell, I seldom prepare an exact plan of what I want to do, but as far as I can remember I have always been vocal that I would not move back to Florida. Yet here I was, a liar. In my first months as a Florida resident there were still residual lessons from living in D.C. that I was learning. The one in cemented in me is that you can change your mind. Florida was not, and is not, my preferred place to live, but it is also good. D.C. was not on my radar prior to the last semester of college and it changed my life. I can change my mind and allow seasons of life to surprise me.

I made the 13 hour drive down to Boca Raton, Florida in a Nissan Armada so filled that there was no rearview mirror visibility. Barely out of the Mid-Atlantic and the symbolism of putting my faith into whatever this next chapter had in store for me was ironic. As the hours passed I thought what I would do with so much silence in the suburbs. Where will my mind wander to? I was already getting practice during the barren stretches of highway. I vowed to be intentional. Although I was not going to be in a place that inspired me, I could still find and cultivate moments of inspiration, just as I learned to do the previous 5 years. Autopilot is easy, but effort is rewarding.

I miss the cues the city taught me. The mundane has a purpose if you pay attention. All of a sudden you notice that the incline building as you navigate towards downtown means I’m no longer close to home, but steps from the White House and National Mall. The yellers on the street corner are urban roosters and begin promptly at 6:43 AM. The tree on the way to the supermarket begins to blaze red in the Fall, every single year. I miss her.

I visit D.C. every so often and as I land in Regan it makes me want to cry. The memories flood with every monument, street sign, restaurant, and apartment building I see. The people who became friends who became strangers and the recollection of the fleeting hopes and dreams I once cultivated there. So much was born and so much died in the District. I remember and hold onto each iteration of who I became in D.C. Some versions I try to keep tucked away, others I try to resuscitate but today I am an amalgamation - each persona reflecting when the sun hits just right.

COLOMBIA

These accounts are works in progress and subject to change as new memories come to the forefront. Check back for updates as you please. Last updated March 5, 2024.

Half of me is always in Cartagena, Colombia. Once you experience the type of sticky heat that quite literally suffocates you, but makes you fall in love, you can’t get it out of your mind. There are so many directions I can take this. To put it bluntly, Colombia is my childhood and it’s where my most cherished memories emanate. As an adult we live for the weekends, as a child you live for the summers, and I spent most of mine in coastal city of Cartagena, Colombia.

It sounds so luxurious, but when I look back I was so envious of my friends packing up their sleep-away trunks. I could not believe people had those in real life, not just in the movies. As my friends were setting off to the acclaimed “Camp Highlander” in North Carolina, my mom was hiking my luggages from the Swap Shop into the trunk. These enormous leather contraptions were packed to the brim with impeccably folded clothes, toiletries all lined with plastic in case of mid-flight explosion, and of course, a gift for every distance relative I may encounter. I can picture the image so distinctly as my mom prepared all the details for my flight the immediate next day after school let out for summer. You see, my mom raised and supported me on her own. Summers without Colombia as my version sleep-away camp would have been a nightmare for my full-time working single mom. Things have changed since then, but I knew the drill.

Every June marked the beginning of two months of scorching heat with my grandma, uncle, aunt, and two cousins in the apartment and many adventures to follow. I’ll admit, part of me dreaded going and I don’t think there is anything anyone could have said to make me appreciate it at that time of my life. But as I look back, I cry thinking about those memories. Unencumbered days with my grandmother, who I now look at and wonder the days I have left with her. My time with cousins who I barely speak to now but have memories that could fill rows and rows of bookshelves. The street corner store where I can recall the chips and Bon Bon Bums perfectly stacked up against the transparent plastic walls. And my two months of fully immersive free Spanish class. I would not trade any of it for the world. Not the lice I caught from the girls across the street who became dear friends. Not the acne that would appear like clockwork in the humidity. Not the boring afternoons when everyone was in school and I had no choice but to actually do the summer reading. Not the fear of an onion appearing in my chicken soup because I could not tolerate vegetables at that point in my life. When I look back these minor inconveniences in the moment make it mine. And they are padded by the most joy filled times, too. Like visiting my cousins in their small town of San Cristobal where I was the token American with a Gameboy and Skip It. Or when my grandma would surprise me with a bike-cart ride home from the grocery store. I can’t talk about Colombia without mentioning the relief when you walk into an air conditioned building since all we had were standing fans at home. The afternoon naps were also mandatory and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced any like it here in America. The street food, the culture, the people, the ambiance - to me, Colombia is magic.

I remember a friend once asked me how I went to the bathroom in Colombia. It makes me laugh now but at the time I was so embarrassed. My friends think I am so poor and that my family doesn’t have a functioning home, I thought to myself. It’s fair assume we use a hole in the ground if you conjure up a third world country in your mind. To clear up once and for all, I have always used a proper toilet in Colombia. They always say that in Colombia you are either really rich, or really poor. Since apparently middle class doesn’t exist I guess that would make my family poor since we were definitely not rich, but I never once felt something missing. What always struck me however was the extreme poverty that was so naturally woven into the culture. So many children on the streets without shoes, but always joyful.

To be continued

Work In Progress

Personal Recommendations

• Crepes and Waffles

• La Cevicheria

• Playa Blanca

• Alquimico

• Gethsemane

Other’s Recommendations

• Blue Apple - Tierra Bomba

Where else to go in Colombia

• Medellin

• Cali

• Bogota

• Eje Cafetero

SOUTH KOREA

These accounts are works in progress and subject to change as new memories come to the forefront. Check back for updates as you please. Last updated March 5, 2024.

Imagine it’s your Junior year of college and one of your best friends is off to South Korea for the semester. The only obvious decision is to go visit. In retrospect it’s astonishing, yes astonishing, that my mother allowed me to go quite literally across the world with my other best friend, Caitlin, who had never traveled alone. It’s funny how naive you are in college, but swear you know everything. It’s been eight years since our trip as I write this in 2024, so forgive me if the details are a little blurry.

What I do remember so vividly is sitting in the kitchen of Caitlin’s college apartment in Gainesville. “Omg, are we seriously going to do this?!”, we stared at the $1,300ish price tag of our roundtrip ticket to Seoul, South Korea. I called my mom no less than four times to confirm I had the credit card and code numbers right since she was helping pay for some of this as a “gift”. My mom is and has always been so generous to me, for no reason other than being my mom. Memories like this only confirm I want to be more and more like her when I grow up. So, the time came. We clicked confirm and officially booked our roundtrip flight. A few months later we found ourselves in Miami International Airport, a place I don’t wish upon anyone, and we were off. We flew the airline Finnair which is its own unique memory in and of itself. The whole flight crew was tall, blonde hair, and blue eyes and our first stop was Helsinki. Yes, we flew the less efficient route but we didn’t care. Cait and I were no doubt the giddiest people on the plane. Every time they fed us a meal or snack, which felt like every hour on the hour, our eyes widened and we couldn’t contain our excitement and curiosity of what the next treat would be. To this day nothing has changed.

I’ll admit, when it comes to logistics and planning I tend to take a backseat. I’ve gotten way better, but in college? If Caitlin was involved I knew I’d be okay because she knew everything that needed to be done (and still does). I couldn’t tell you how we we managed to get from the airport to our AirBnB but because I was with Caitlin, I just knew it would get figured out. Thank you, Cait, for carrying me on your back, always. So, a critical detail to consider is that for some reason I was convinced everyone in Seoul spoke English. Talk about a jump scare when we get into a taxi and genuinely could not communicate with the driver, in a huge city, across the world, and every street just happens to look the same. Truly by the grace of God we made it our AirBnB. At $26 a night for our room, we were not expecting much. And it met our exact expectations. For about two weeks we were to sleep on the type of mat they give you in kindergarten for your daily 30-minute nap. Thankfully one of my strong suits is being the heaviest sleeper across any and all environments, so I gave Cait the mat with an extra two centimeters of thickness.

After about 24 hours of travel, we really had delusional confidence that we would make it out after a quick nap to meet up with Morae. We slept somewhere between 3-4 hours and totally missed the plans. Instead we awoke to the exciting news that I had lost my passport. I can clearly recall looking in the front pocket of my NorthFace backpack to find an empty said pocket. My stomach still drops when I think about it. I had two options, text my mom immediately…or text my mom immediately. She of course thought I was kidding, but as soon as she realized this was no joke my passport was reported stolen and I had an appointment with the Embassy in Seoul a couple of days before heading back to the US. Amidst the chaos, I had let the AirBnB host know the situation. She was so kind to contact every train station, police station, and public institution she could think of to see if they had come across it. Nine days later, and the day before my 21st birthday, our host received a call that the passport had been located and could be picked up that afternoon. I truly cannot make this up. At the determined time Caitlin and I set off to the Hongdae Tourist Police Unit. When I walked in, no questions were asked and I was handed back my Catcher in the Rye book which held my passport as its bookmark. Right where I left it. Let me be the example and demonstrate the tough way to learn that important documents are not good bookmarks.

Thankfully this crisis didn’t take away from the adventures we filled our days with in between getting my passport back and going to the embassy. I have so many takeaways from the trip and South Korean culture, but the ones that stick out are:

• South Korea is incredibly clean and incredible safe - If you have trash, you’re going to have to wait a while to find a trash and when you do, there will be five different types of trash cans for any type of trash. Also, don’t even think of throwing it on the perfectly swept floor. On one of the few nights we got home in the early morning, we literally saw old ladies sweeping the floor. Imagine if we cared that much in the US. If I run for office we are mandating communal road sweeps. And for that reason,I’ll never win.

• South Koreans are the most loyal people - I believe my passport story says it all

• Their walking culture is unparalleled - I remember one of our day trips was to N Seoul Tower. Cait and I took the long way up only to realize we were being out walked by several groups of elderly people. And I mean this was the original 12-3-30. Straight incline, no breaks, and they were booking it. I don’t know if this trip is where I caught walking-itis but in my book, any distance is walking distance.

• Matching is cool - Matching outfits, t-shirts, hairstyles, etc. Matching is a mindset.

• Churros and Baskin Robins are on every street corner. I don’t know what this says about them as a society, but this has stuck with me.

Must Do’s

To be expanded on

• Korean Spa

• Restaurants

• Busan

• Karaoke

• Street Food