keys and beds

Back before our year traveling, I had the crazy idea that I wanted to take pictures of all the beds we slept in and what key we used to get into our hotel/motel/hostel/shack at each stop.  

I like the concept of trying to catch a glimpse at just one simple thing in all of these different cities and cultures that could be compared and contrasted.

This proved ridiculous and never happened.

As life goes, some of the beds we slept in were not the quality I'd want my mother or grandmother to witness, and the keys....kind of boring!   Or I just never remembered to take pictures of them, even from the very beginning.

When it came down to it, when I was surrounded by beauty, nature, exciting street vendors and adventure around every corner, the last thing I wanted to do when I got home to a hotel was take a picture of a bed or a key!    I just wanted to put my pak down, brush my teeth and in all likeliness, in truth, zone out playing a game of solitaire on Rodolfo's I-phone.  We fought over this simple pleasure daily...who got to play solitaire on the I-phone.

But back to my big idea....looking back.

Here's my current keys:

 

These include: House keys, work key, car key, gym scanny guy, and of course, the required in Wisconsin beer key!

When the trip was upon us, I still remember losing key after key (I had a much thicker keychain before we left to travel) as I quit my job, then moved out of our apartment and lastly left/sold our car to my mother and left her the car keys...traveling, you have no keys!  There's something cleansing about this process.  Keys are a sort of chain holding us to responsibility.  If we lose our wallet or our keys....it's a huge deal.  We know where they are at all times and if we don't, it's trouble, so not having that chain holding you down...just imagine it!  It feels fantastic!!!  Like being a kid again or something!  Responsibility free!

Something that is kind of funny about staying at hostels and hotels in most other countries outside of the States, most places attach a funny looking big thing to the key so that's it's harder to lose or forget...in that, it's really hard to carry around in big cities!  This funny looking log thing hanging out of your pocket!  Or, just a big piece of wood or metal in a rectangle shape with a number or letter on it.  Very rarely did we have those credit card type plastic cards.  Only in bigger cities in the more expensive hotels.  Thank god, because the last 3 times this past year I've stayed at hotels in the States, I've had those plastic credit card keys fail me when coming back from the free Best Western breakfast and had to ask the front desk clerk which room I was in...with a styrofoam coffee cup in one hand and a free donut balanced on my ipad in the other..because I couldn't remember and didn't want to wake someone up unexpectedly while flipping my card thru the magnetic scanner of a strangers door!

So there's a strong momento of the trip!  There's nothing like a real key with a real number connected to it!  This electronic scanner barf is bull crap.

(The same thing would happen to me in Santiago with Rodolfo's fathers door.  I would stare at it for 5 minutes before feeling totally confident that I was on the right floor before sliding the card thru the door scanner and hear that soothing click, that meant, Sarah, you're home free, you didn't fudge it up.  Go you.

Here's our current bed:

I love our bed!  Love it!  Best bed I've ever had!  A Serta mattress lovely thing purchased incredibly cheap (almost scammed really) by some lovely friends of ours who had to move out of town in a hurry....we've slept so amazing!  Nothing like what we had on the trip...or before the trip...really, it's the best sleep of our lives!

I will say I do remember the worst sleep I had on the trip.  Both Rodolfo and I had melt down panic attack moments on the trip that we can laugh at now, but in the moment it was terrifying....feeling like you're trapped in a place you can't be and there's no way out and both were related to not being able to sleep..due to horrible sleep depriving circumstances.  Things we take for granted here in our comfy bed/room/home.  

Chiang Mai.  Son kran week. The hottest days of the thai year. I'd decided that we needed to stay at the cheapest place possible of course.  The room was similar to a prison cell.  The bed was a wooden board with a thick blanket for a mattress and a sheet.  I think there was a very small sink as well.  Well...some time around 1am, I started sobbing.  It was hot, I was tired, there were loud drunken noises from a bar close by and I remember repeating over and over again, I can't do this anymore!  I can't do this anymore!  Rodolfo had to calm me down rubbing my back telling me we just had to try and sleep and that it would all be better in the morning.  The next day we booked ourselves into one of the more mid range hotels that included a lovely breakfast, air conditioning, tv and a MINI FRIDGE!  (which I used to keep Rodolfo's birthday cake in, yes...I was going to make him sleep in a shit hole on his birthday, I'm a horrible wife).  It was heaven!l

I do however remember a certain routine R man and I got into at every pit stop.

When you sleep in a lot of different places, your backpak becomes sort of like what in my imagination is a tortoise shell of many different rooms in one bag.  A Mary Poppins bag of tricks if you would...or layers upon layers of artifacts that need to excavated daily!

We packed our bag in an order of need....necessaries on top and less important further down...the hard to reach spots filled with presents or gadgets, shoes and sweaters.

The very top was always, ALWAYS pajamas, tooth brushes, iphone charger and plug adaptor so after a long day of walking and wandering, we could easily just plop down without thinking and fall asleep.  Under that would be a change of underwear and under that, a plastic bag of clothes and a bag of toiletries.  We kept the laundry detergent and scrub brush in a side pocket (to wash our undies in the bathroom sink....(praise to edificio underwear once again) and our cotton sleep saks, and pillow covers in a bottom pocket of the bag...(pillow covers were actually cotton sarongs we used on the beach as well, but were perfect for all other sorts of needs...even a skirt at times.)

So my big idea never came to fruition.  But it was a cool idea!

Other ideas included, taking a picture of: 

our breakfast every morning (in many countries, breakfast doesn't really exist) 

all types of transportation

the hotel rooms themselves

toilets

all the kinds of crazy fruit

Things that would have been cool to have documented looking back:

 - one spot of skin....I'm pretty darn certain, my shade of skin changed drastically between climates, as did my hair color

 - it would be neat to just know how much I weighed throughout the trip.  I have hunches, but we never had access to a scale.  I do know I lost muscle mass in Asia from the heat, and probably lost bone mass or something in Africa from malnutrition, but boy did we puff back up in Spain and France!

 - the signs/names of hotels we stayed at

 - the signs/names of restaurants we loved

 - the signs/names of parks and cities we loved 

(all 3 I would have used to write good/bad reviews now that I have reliable internet at my finger tips - some places should not exist, others deserve praise!  Also, perhaps some day, it would be fabulous to get to go back and see some of the places we loved the most!)

Yes!  Winter makes me itch for adventure!  Luckily for me, I have a ticket booked to Puerto Rico this coming February with my great and dear friend Maria for a ladies road trip!  Whoo hoo!!!!!