Backpacking through South Africa

 Hello all! It's me, Maesha.

To be honest, I had every intention of regularly maintaining this blog since its inception during my baby years of 2013 but a combination of laziness and not entirely knowing what direction I wanted to take it in kept me from doing so. I'm more realistic now so I'll be honest and say I don't know when my next post will be :)))))) BUT a lot of friends have asked about my trip & what I did because they want to visit SA so I decided to consolidate my thoughts into a post. 

So first, why South Africa? I was initially hesitant to visit because I knew that the effects of apartheid are still overwhelmingly apparent and I had personal ethical dilemmas with being a tourist where that was the case (I think about the political space I occupy when being a tourist & think it's important to be conscious of that. Turkey (Kurdish occupation) & Israel (Palestinian occupation) are the highest on my list of places to boycott) but post-visiting, I saw that South African politics/society are actually extremely parallel to US politics/society and I was able to relate to South Africans on a very personal level. I really learned from every conversation I had with my South African pals so I encourage those of you who will be going to have them too. 

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Layovers

I know, I know, I've disappointed yet again. I think it's safe to say that I'm just horrible at blogging - or making a commitment to things (such as blogging as we can see from my post about Colombia from last summer that I wrote 3 months after the fact but also in general). In my defense, I've discarded a couple of posts from here that I found were not relevant to what I'm hoping to accomplish here so that's why it's a little bare.

Anyway! This summer was simultaneously one of the busiest and one of the quickest of my life. I spent the first half taking classes, working at this cool art gallery, and observing Ramadan. On July 29th, a week and a half after Eid and a week after my last day of class, I boarded a plane to Thailand. A lot of people have been asking so here are some answers: yeah, I went alone! My parents were kind of ifsy especially as the date of my flight loomed closer (especially because there was a trafficking/murder scandal on the news like a month before I headed off) but I'm immensely appreciative of their support without which I obviously couldn't have endeavored to do any of this. Only brave cause they came first. I'll write a separate post just about parents if you guys want because that seems to be the biggest question!

I chose my flight on purpose through Student Universe (a great resource) because 1. it was one of the cheapest offered but mainly because 2. it offered a long layover in a country that wasn't on my agenda. My dad keeps reminding me to this day how I should've chosen a direct flight but I'm really happy with my visit to Tokyo.

Vivir Mi Vida

I promised myself I'd allow a little time to write a blog post after I'd finished my chemistry homework (it's good incentive considering I only remembered yesterday (while procrastinating) that I had a blogspot. So here I am, my dear dear readers. Can't promise regular maintenance of this but other bloggers give me motivation so we will see. Anyway, enough banter, I want to write about an awesome trip I took over the summer.

I'm only 3 months late but before my spring semester ended, I spontaneously decided to go on a volunteering trip (with IVHQ) to Colombia literally a month before my flight was scheduled to take off. I mean, the decision wasn't so spontaneous, quite frankly, because I'd been wanting to go for a while. But the couple seconds of courage I had to muster in order to process my ticket purchase was faster than the speed of light (which is 3.0 x 10^8 m/s ladies and gents (I just had my second chem exam sorry)). I was extremely scared to endeavor on this trip because it was my very first flight alone. I'm not even ashamed to admit I shed a couple of tears too at the JFK airport terminal.

On Bangladesh

Dear Readers,

Today I want to make one of my (always) long overdue travel posts about somewhere I've been recently. I've been very m.i.a. from the blogosphere recently because of a number of things but I have a pretty good excuse for 3 of the many weeks during which you've gotten no posts from me. I'd been visiting abroad for quite some time over the past winter break and it's been hectic since we've come back. 

Where did I go, you ask? Bangladesh. It was a spontaneous trip because my dad had some work he needed to get done there so he took us all along because we'd been whining about going for the longest. So we dropped absolutely everything and took a 3 week leave (my siblings missing 2 weeks of school because of it). I don't know how many of you have been on an airplane before but it truly is magical, isn't it? Cities grow so small and at night the lights look like pure gold. Anyway, Bangladesh was amazing. I don't think I'm able to coherently express how different the atmosphere is in that country. It's not conventionally attractive, it's traffic jams would put New York's ones to shame, and its politics are enough to make a small child sob. But there's a lot of beauty in simplicity and in people making gold out of scraps - making do with what little they have. I've witnessed the strongest people in a developing country and I've witnessed the most beautiful. 

Here are some photographs:

Chicago

I've gotten tired of posting about the road trip we took 2 weeks ago (I should've just put all of the states in one post) but I hate leaving things unfinished and our last stop was NOT Indiana so let me carry on. After Indiana and a few bathroom breaks/rest stops along the way, we reached out penultimate stop - Chicago. At last! I've got to be 100% honest with you guys, Downtown Chicago is much more beautiful than Times Square will ever be. I don't know why NYC is more famous than  Chicago, people romanticize it too much. Of course, I still love New York more but I have to admit that Chicago is more aesthetically appealing. Here are some photos from the Botanic Garden (the most beautiful I've ever been to and that's saying something because NYC has like one in every borough - all of which I've visited) and Buckingham Fountain.