I first moved to Spain when I was only a year older than she was now. My first great adventure overseas was when I was 19 and I studied abroad for a year in Salamanca, Spain’s renowned university city, and also (equally important) home to the most bars per person in the country with a nonexistent drinking age.
I would call home and chat with her and she was only a little girl.
But back in the day, we didn’t have iPhones and used calling cards at internet cafes and you could still smoke inside the bars and Instagram wasn’t a thing, travel insurance didn’t even cross my mind, and flying by the seat of my pants was the only way I knew how to live.
If I had a couple hundred bucks in my bank account, I was stoked! I used to save money by couch-surfing and sleeping in airports, spending every euro on a trip or an adventure. Consumed by curiosity for the world and the newfound freedom of adulthood, I wanted to see and do it all!
In retrospect, I also can’t help but reflect on all those crazy moments that led me to developing a lifelong passion and love for travel. And also all those memories where now I’m all like, man, how did I survive?
I won’t go into details (perhaps because I truly can’t remember) but your girl was FUN.
The very definition of winging it without a care in the world, I lived perilously close to the edge for a long time, convinced of my own immortality, with a very whimsical “c’est la vie” attitude that kept me going. The “what-ifs” and “oh shit” moments back when I was 19, didn’t seem to matter.
Consequences were temporary, but a damn good story lasts forever. Trust me, I’ve got heaps.
I was unstoppable.
And so began my 10 day walk down memory lane with my sister through Spain, beginning and ending in Madrid with a jaunt up to Northern Spain for a week in between. Is there anything better than summer in Europe when you’re young?
It didn’t take long for me to utterly bore her with those “oh when I was your age…” narratives that promise nothing but eye rolls and deep sighs. I mean, I get it. No one likes that condescending life lesson from older people, it’s super annoying; and yet I couldn’t stop myself.
And therein lies the deeply personal conflict I felt on this trip – wanting to both bond and have an unforgettable time with my sister but also remembering how wild I was when I was her age and I would honestly lose my mind if I saw her do the things I did.
Lucky for me, she is a good egg, as we say in New Zealand, and the genes of wanting to push every single button possible and laugh while doing it skipped her generation. Phew!
Beautiful, sweet, kind but also fun, I couldn’t think of a better person to share my favorite country with. My face hurt from smiling so much to see her joy in visiting all of these cool places and watch her fall more in love with travel too.
It took a decade for me to hone my travel intuition and skills, a decade of screw-ups and unpredictable adventures, that taught me more than I could have ever learned anywhere. That’s what I hoped to share with her, to teach her travel skills and preparedness but also the sweet joy of spontaneity while on the road.
It’s a delicate balance in travel, walking that tightrope in between being prepared and smart AND not being too anxious or fearful.