sometimes, you need to do the things that aren't ordinary for you

i have been agonizing over where to go next. i had decided on turkey and morocco, but somehow, didn't feel excited about it. i was reading a lot of stuff that sounded interesting, but i keep being drawn to india...india is the #1 country i want to go to, followed by tibet, nepal...and then fiji and indonesia, amongst other places. i want to go to argentina, chile, peru...

so t and i had a talk, you know, that talk couples have after they've been together for a while. no, not the down-on-one-knee-talk; the practical talk. the i-need-to-figure-out-if-we-are- traveling-aka-celebrating-getting-married-so-i-don't-use-all-my-vacation-time-talk. oh, maybe it's not such a common talk.

anyway, so chances are good we'll be going to bali in dec. if not, well, then i'll go someplace for three weeks solo. i hope that we are celebrating our love by traveling around another country.

so i still have extra vacation time. i could totally wait for my race-filled next few months (march: sarasota half marathon; april: boston marathon; june: quebec marathon; july: jay ultramarathon challenge; november: nyc marathon; possibly also moab ultramarathon), and i do have burning man...but i kind of want to go someplace warm. plus i've been depressed and hating the winter.

so i randomly checked on expedia to see what the prices to costa rica were....without taxes, less than two hundred u.s. dollars!!! i think i have to go!

so i debated. i asked my mom if she would mind (i'd be yet again missing her birthday), "GO!" she was actually encouraging. t was a little miffed as he had wanted help--he'd be moving in while i was gone--but he ultimately thought i should go. everyone told me, "GO!"

i'm a huge planner; i spent MONTHS planning for my other trips. this is very different. this is spontaneous. if i had known, i would have spent more time brushing up on my spanish, staring at maps. instead, i just bought my lonely planet guidebook today, and i'm skipping novels for spanish textbooks and flashcards.

i'm so excited. this is huge....11 days in a spanish-speaking country, exploring rain forests and beautiful beaches and snorkeling and running and being alone...it's a little scary, but those are the things that make me grow.