ⓉⓇⒶⓋⒺⓁ 𝒯 𝓊 ℯ 𝓈 𝒹 𝒶 𝓎 ✈: One of the best trips of my life was the two weeks I spent in Morocco for Christmas and New Years last year. Studying and living in Madrid, Spain, I wasn’t about to spend the time and money going back to the USA when the goal of my year abroad was to travel, see, and go to as many other places as possible. And this trip was super special because there were a total of 8 women from all over who made the trip, most of whom I knew from church back home in the USA. Such a God thing, because it was too crazy good of a trip to not be set up by the One above.

Anywhoo, part of me thinks that girl trips are THE BEST. Two weeks spent laughing ourselves to sleep amidst no judgment with the amount of selfies we took because we were all doing it. Plus the magic of traveling by bus from city to city eating loads of tagine, getting treated to mint tea at every turn, and learning the history Morocco, such as Fez boasting the first university of the world, now used as a mosque.

This trip We rang in New Years under the desert stars as bright and long as the eye could see. We rode camels that we got to name and discovered that Algeria and Morocco share the desert with each other. We went to a hammam and laughed as we deep cleaned ourselves in the weekly Moroccan ritual together.

Here is the thing, my Morocco trip was there for a moment and then gone forever. I have the photos and videos to help me remember. I’ll forever be grateful for the flashes of dusty landscape and seeing a leather tannery. The trip was both an answer to prayer and a promise to myself that the good things that come to us should not be taken advantage of and dismissed, but instead seized, rung out and used up, every last drop. I could cry and complain that those good times are done and the trip is over. Or I could realize that it was a gift and more good gifts, different gifts are yet to come from God above.

I will NEVER get today back. I will never get last weekend back. I will never get my trip to Morocco back. But I can seize the moment, day, season I’m in now ringing it out to dry for all the good that’s in front of me, knowing that God is leading me down wonderful paths to places I only dream of now, set up by Him, just like my Moroccan trip.

A dream here and gone– don’t take advantage of where you are at, instead find the good, and soak it all up. In another day, week, month, or year, it will all be gone and you’ll be in a new place in life with just the memories.

Travel doesn’t have to be far across the seas. Sometimes it means visiting an overwhelming city just four hours from you. Though not far from my home, New York’s big city vibes, rushing working people, and gawking tourists might as well be another country. Nothing. No where. Is like New York City. And with the amazing city that NY, NY is, I think people forget that New York state has mountains to ski, woods, farms, lakes, and even Amish!

My first trip to New York city was for an 8th grade choir trip to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway. At the time I had a disposable camera that I still have photos from in a little scrapbook. How times have changed– yet New York proper with its Times Square,  lights, noise, people, and busyness never has.

A few years later in high school, I joined a group of students from my church to do a Thanksgiving food giveaway for the homeless. Inviting people to join us, we invited people of every kind to eat a hot meal which we gave and served with smiles and joy. I never knew that a pair of socks, or new jacket could mean so much as we handed those out to the people we came across as well.

Then, there was the first time I drove through the city in college. My big brother was in the passenger seat next to me, coaching me how to navigate driving amongst the oceans of people and anxiety producing honks from cars lined up behind if I didn’t move fast enough. A few times I’ve made actual day trips to the city just to run errands like dropping someone off at JFK or needing a foreign consulate office. NYC a hub of all kinds is never a first choice for a day trip– but I’ve made the drive with no other choice.

The most enjoyable NYC trip was an actual business trip, spending a week at a time for two weeks at big hotels in the city. You know, the fancy kinds with doormen, elevators that act like spaceships with their speeds, and food I didn’t even know how to pronounce on the menu. Those two weeks with the basketball team I worked with were a taste of how famous and business people live every day flying in and out of the city on other’s money.

From Times Square to China town, riding in the train from Jersey, getting lost by myself in the financial district one night after midnight on my way back to Brooklyn, discovering the Christmas trees and hotel from Home Alone, and kissing my boyfriend in Central Park the very last trip I took, I truly have memories to spare of my trips to NY. I cherish each visit, though I am never sad to leave the smoggy, overwhelming place. New York– a place of wonder, lights, the best of Broadway, homelessness to be tackled, cockroaches to be killed, and food and drinks that always looks like it should be in a magazine all in one bright package.