10 travel resolutions and predictions for 2010

Not shown: the sombrero-wearing stick-figure drawn on the other side.

My friend Rachel took the above photo on New Year’s Eve. She was running short on glasses, so we had to write our names on our disposable cups. Rand followed suit, even though he had an actual glass. When simple directions elude you, it’s time to stop drinking.

But that is not the moral of this story, dear friends.

The moral is that it’s a new year. And that’s a very, very good thing. Because anything is possible this year.

Maybe it’s because I accidentally ate some hair product (by first playing with my hair and then biting my nails) and then listened to Cat Stevens, but I’m now convinced that our opportunities are endless, and the world is an amazing place. And I want to see all of it. Every damn inch of it. And quite a few of my tickets are already booked. Including one to New Orleans to celebrate Rachel’s wedding (I’m bringing my own Sharpie just in case).

But I’d better calm down, because I’m full of cyclomenthicone and good-intentions now, but who knows how long it will last? Hopefully 350 odd more days. During which I’m going to set out to meet these resolutions:

1. I will improve my Italian. Because right now I sound like a drunken sorority girl on foreign exchange from SoCal. Which is fine if you are trying to meet an Italian guy. I, however, am not.
2. I will eat one entirely new and unusual food (no sex jokes, please). And for me, that’s gonna get weird.
3. My camera will not be lost.
4. I will get at least 250 blog posts up in 2010.
5. I will appear in more photos (since most of them are of other people and random crap. Besides, it’s not like I’m getting cuter as the years go by).
6. I will get my EU passport.
7. Yoga will be attempted, by me, in a country that is not the U.S.
8. I will teach my husband Italian. Sort of. A little, at least.
9. I will stop over-packing.
10. I will stop pouting when I don’t get upgraded.

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And, to accompany those resolutions, I also came up with 10 predictions for 2010.

1. I will make some serious translation error while attempting to speak a foreign language. Something along the lines of the time I told a friend that we “were going to his bed” when I meant to say we were all going to hang out in the hotel lobby.
2. I will get wicked food poisoning, similar to the time we went to Australia and I spent two days eating crackers and drinking Gatorade in an attempt to recover.
3. I will probably lose my camera.
4. A large number of my 250 blog posts will be hastily-put-together crap composed in an attempt to meet quota. Examples blog post ideas include: “Things often found in cabs that you shouldn’t eat,” and “Who I would cannibalize first if this flight went down.”
5. I will continue to delete photos because I don’t like how I look in them, then will wonder why I don’t appear in more photos.
6. Getting my European passport will prove to be way more of a pain in the ass than I had previously anticipated.
7. I will discover that yoga sucks even harder when instructions are delivered auf Deutsch.
8. In his effort to learn Italian, Rand will also make a serious translation error, consequently propositioning me to “hang out in the hotel lobby”, when he really wanted to suggest that I go to bed with him.
9. In my attempt to not over-pack, I will freak out that I did not bring enough (or enough appropriate) clothing for a trip, will proceed to shop with abandon, and ensuring that my bag, at least upon my return, will be over-packed.
10. I will totally continue to pout when I am not upgraded, and then, when I eventually stop (four or five hours later), I will argue with my husband that I did, in fact keep my resolution: I did stop pouting after not getting an upgrade. It just took a long time.

I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen and what won’t. One thing I can say definitively: We’re going to have a time.