Bucket List

This is hard. I am not one for singling something out (never ask me what my favorite anything is).  There are a whole bunch of things that I want to do before I die, or graduate high school/ college. Whichever one comes first.  I’m not going to put “be happy” on here because of course I want to be happy. To me, a bucket list is a list of seemingly unattainable things you always wish to do and you give yourself a whole lifetime to not put pressure on yourself. Unlike New Years Resolutions because just a year is way too stressful. My bucket list has things like eat cake in Rome or get bumped up to first class on a long flight but some other things that other people think are more important.

So, before high school is over my priority is to travel alone. (I really don’t appreciate the time requirement though because this takes some hard core parental convincing and time is running short.) I have been made aware by some very trust worthy sources (the author of Eat, Prey, Love and my host mom to be exact) that traveling alone is the way to go. I don’t mean going by yourself on a plane somewhere and then meeting up with someone. I mean everything by myself, alone. This is supposed to be the prime way to travel because you can do whatever you want – wallet permitting, and when people see you are alone they are much more likely to start talking to you and tell you about/take you to amazing and unknown-to-the-guide-book places. In a totally non-creepy way, of course. But do you see how it will be hard to convince my parents?

My college goal is tied between going to Jerusalem with my dad and interviewing my grandparents and writing down all their stories so I haven them when they are gone. I want to go to Israel with my dad because that has always been a plan of ours and he lived there for a year so he knows all of the foods I should order. Plus he has people to visit there and I like to hear the things they know about him while he is struggling with his disappearing Hebrew. It’s a win-win. That and the history there is pretty cool. On the same note, I want to know the things my grandparents have done. When you get them started they have pretty fabulous stories to tell, the kinds of stories you really don’t want to forget.

Before I am dead I better have eaten cake in Rome, learned how to make a butterfly in the milk of a latte, read some Goethe in German…the list goes on. Mostly I don’t want to have a cookie cutter life. I want to go places and meet people that surprise me. My main goal is to never forget the people, places and experiences that have changed my life because they are pretty important. Its not really about eating the cake in Rome but meeting people who tell me where to get the best cake. You know, the journey and all.