In October 2015, I went to Antalya, Turkey with Kaleidoscope. These are the 12 worst things about my trip.
1. This view. Ow, my eyes. Seriously? I can't look directly at it.
2. This girl: worst boss ever. Who else force-feeds you plates of baklava every night at dinner, buys you cat mugs, and entrusts and empowers you to do way more than you think you can handle? No thanks.
3. These kids. They hug too tight, they laugh constantly, and all they want to do is hang out at the pool. What's their deal?
4. Mercury poisoning. I can't speak for everyone, but I will say that having a mini mountain of smoked salmon at my disposal every day, three times a day, did nothing good for my toxicity levels. Training did not prepare me for this.
5. Jet lag. I could go on and on about this, but really, I think that's enough said.
6. Confusion about the seasons. Nothing is worse for this than spending a week on the Mediterranean coast, then coming back to a windy Midwestern weekend in late October.
7. Living like Beyoncé, only to have it ripped away. Walking into the buffet at our resort made me feel what I can only imagine it must be like to be the Queen: everything as far as your eye can see is available to you and your taste buds. I was all too quickly whisked back to a McDonald's in Chicago, counting out my change for the warmest, cheapest coffee I could afford. Other people don't live like this, pin-balled between worlds.
8. Running out of pages in my passport. Drake said it best: I'm getting exactly what I asked for, it's just now I have to order more pages.
9. Glitter everywhere. I won't make a certain age-old joke about glitter and its ubiquity in the craft world, but it really is everywhere; in my eyebrow, for instance. I just picked a piece off my knee.
10. Professor Pineapple. This chick is the worst. What's with her horrible British accent and her 80% success rate on experiments? She's not really from Venus, is she? Also, nature walks are not science experiments. We see right through you, Pineapple.
11. Forgetting my age. It's hard to remember I'm a college graduate with a bachelor's degree when I'm busy playing "drip, drip, splash," making sparkly collages, and frolicking in the kiddie pool. Kids who think I'm either 18, 33, or 85 don't help much, either.
12. Forgetting what country I'm in. This has proved an issue in my life before, and a week and a half with Kaleidoscope did nothing to remedy it. From Colorado to Chicago to Antalya to Istanbul and back again, I had trouble differentiating between the different cities, countries, and continents in my mind. Whatever country I happen to be in, though, I always feel like I'm at home in the "third culture" when I'm hanging out with peeps at a Kaleidoscope event.
Oh, I'm sorry, did I say the 12 worst things? I meant the 12 best. Clumsy me.