Throwback post!

Some people take selfies of their face; I, apparently, like to take selfies of my feet.

They aren’t particularly cute feet so I don’t know what that’s all about, but the resulting collection of photos tells the story of my year abroad (2012-2013) teaching English in Thailand and traveling in Asia and Europe from the “ground up”.

😉

My year abroad in foot selfies:

Ode to my Chacos, an unintentional sacrifice to the Full Moon Party gods.

But at the time of this foot selfie, the Full Moon Party wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye. I had only been in Thailand for two weeks by this point. I was sitting at the BTS stop in Bangkok on my way to Khao San Road (for the first time!) to celebrate my 22nd birthday.

Yes, I went clubbing in Chacos. And I won’t even try to defend the orange nail polish. Sometimes we make bad choices.

I was standing in the shallows of a magical waterfall in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

I escaped Bangkok and the exhaustion of teaching grade 5 for this weekend trip to Kanchanaburi. It was my first time doing something travel-related in Thailand, and it helped to remind me why I wanted to go to Thailand in the first place. Also, thanks, fish, for the sweet free pedicure! It tickled so good.

I was SO happy. This beach on Railay down south was the Thailand of my dreams. It had been a rocky road getting to this point: I was not only exhausted from administering and grading tests during finals week, but physically drained from a bout of food poisoning directly before this break.

This is one of my favorite photos from those ten days down south. It doesn’t get better than this.

Read more: The Best Plan is No Plan: My Solo Trip to the South of Thailand

COOL, THANKS LEECHES.

It sucked (pun absolutely intended) because I was so excited about exploring the jungle… I had just gotten to Khao Sok National Park and headed straight for the hiking trails. Epic attack of the leeches, and here we are.

I was pretty psyched about my December holiday in Koh Phangan until it happened and then I kinda freaked out.

I think it was one of those situations when you’ve been counting down the days, creating elaborate fantasies in your head, only to lead to disappointment because reality could never match up. There were some notable high points, namely the Full Moon Parties and meeting people but overall my mood stayed grey and rainy just like the weather.

Didn’t get a tan, but I DID get a tattoo.

I got in trouble for wearing my Chacos (see the first foot selfie) to school, so I switched over to these super sparkly jellies I bought on the street in Bangkok. Rubber shoes were great during the rainy season and my preschool students loved to try to stick their tiny fingers into the holes during circle time.

Also, why aren’t jellies a thing in the States btw?

These are my happy feet. A new backpacker friend and I were on a SCUBA boat our way back to Koh Tao after a day of diving. I want to say these feet did lots of happy dancing in the sand that same night but I can’t remember if that was this night or another one or both…

These are my sad feet. Dirty feet. I’ve-been-on-a-train-in-India-for-13-hours feet.

Bavaria. Stop it.

I stayed in Füssen for about three weeks working at a hostel in exchange for food and accommodation. A walk around the corner brought me to this incredible view and I had my own “the hills are alive”/Windows desktop background foot selfie moment.

Read more: My Füssen Fairytale

I finally got some time off from my vacuuming/mopping gig at the hostel in Füssen, so I spent the day exploring the castle Neuschwanstein in my fishnets. I couldn’t find anyone to take a decent photo of me in front of the castle so I just took one of my shadow. Same same?

This was the night I sat by the Seine River in Paris and drank really bad wine with some friends. I got to see the Eiffel Tower light up.

It was an intense sensory experience, stepping across these faces that were installed in the Jewish Museum in Berlin as a memorial. Clanging echoed in the room from the metal pieces jostling each other as I stepped on them. The faces were screaming without a sound.

Berlin was my last stop before flying back to the States. Bittersweet, but I was ready.