Traveling & Closed Borders

Travel is one of the greatest freedoms and privileges in our modern time. We have the ability to dream up a location, consider how we want to get there and then to head out towards the horizon. But what feelings arise whenever we can’t just go? How do we navigate restricted boarders and the red letter “no” travel?

In the past two years I have left the country to visit foreign countries. I felt free, I felt alive but did I feel grateful? Time and time again we find ourselves taking things for granted. I think in this year alone, we can all agree that we learned that taking things for granted turned out to be our secret talent, special language and or way of life.

Travel restriction goes one step further because not only can you not travel to surrounding countries but city to city travel is limited and not encouraged. I found myself frustrated and suffocated for not being able to explore, wander and feed my curiosity.

Frustration, anger, confusion, bitterness and even apathy are all normal things to be feeling in life and in 2020. But the big question that I want to ask you, are you ok with living life through these feelings? Or do you want to stop taking things for granted, putting off plans, staying in bad habits, choosing to put yourself last, delay that one thing another year, or anything else under the sun?

I think we all want to live lives that are well loved, cherished and free even when life throws a criss-crossing moment at you. Please know that at the end of the day, no matter what this year or the next looks like, that you have a choice to start living your ideal adventure today.

This is my challenge to you, find an area in your life that you want to love better, make a plan and walk into that plan today. And because our chances of reaching our goals increases whenever we tell someone else, comment your goal down below or share it with your bestie! Not only do you achieve more goals when you let someone else in on the journey but you can find yourself to be more motivated throughout the process.

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You are loved!

-Kriss

Traveling Berlin, Honeymoon Style

Here’s to the start of our Honeymoon story! A moment in our relationship that we have been planning for and have been swimming in excitement for during our 11 month engagement. And I can give you a spoiler right now, it was everything and more.

We left for Germany on a Tuesday afternoon. This leaving looked an awful lot like: millions of kisses on our dogs head, a 2.5 hour drive north to a friend’s house whom was taking us to O’Hare Airport, riding in her car for over an hour, sitting in the airport for 3 hours, 6.5 hour flight to Iceland and then a 3.5 hour flight to Berlin- all with a time zone change of 6 hours. *** and breathe***

But we got in Berlin around 6 p.m. on Wednesday. After finding our Airbnb we stretched, changed, hugged and set out to our new neighborhood streets of…

Wanting to keep our first night simple so we got dinner, grabbed a bottle of wine to celebrate and some mini German chocolates because why not!

The next morning we were ready to go! We laced up our shoes, threw on some jackets and grabbed our umbrellas before heading out on our only rainy day of the trip. This day was spent adjusting to the life lived in the city. And since you can’t live in the now without knowing the past, we joined a walking tour of Berlin. I have been on this tour twice before our trip but every time I go, I never regret it.

The tour itself begins at the Brandenburg Gate then heads out towards a Holocaust Memorial as you wander down the busy streets and end up in a massive courtyard of majestic cathedrals.

In the evening we walked around the gray streets of Berlin and through the lush woods of the Tiergarten, holding hands and talking about life. We tried food here and there as our stomachs saw fit but really just used the day to take in our surroundings and taking in our first trip as a married couple.

On Friday we made a huge decision. At the start of our honeymoon planning process we were going to do day trips to three other locations. Those locations being: Munich, Cologne and Amsterdam. We decided to scrap all of our previous plans and stay put in the beautiful city of Berlin. But with still wanting the castle and royalty feels that we had hoped to find in Munich we headed in the direction of Charlottenburg Palace.

There rest of the evening we viewed the East Side Gallery and kept our fingers crossed for other street art in the city. With not finding much on Friday night, my hunt continued into Saturday. We visited the Mall of Berlin where we stumbled across a huge fashion show with a live concert, Humboldt University where Einstein taught and finally victory finding a huge, beautiful wall mural.

Sunday was a day of highs and lows! None of it being negative but literal high points in the city and the low, watery moments offered in the city. We took a river cruise on the River Spree and then climbed to the highest point in the Berliner Dom.

One of the days that I was looking forward to the most was Monday. Before our honeymoon we decided that there would be one night that would be a dressy night for us. We’d wear something that made us feel good, find a good place to eat and celebrate our last night there. I chose a red velvet dress with strappy tan heels while Jacob chose straight tan pants, a polka dot dress shirt and the same suit jacket that we wore on our wedding day.

Thank you for joining with me today and hearing a snapshot of our trip. I cannot wait for next week and sharing more with you! Look forward to two of our favorite parts of the trip: Food and Drinks!

XOKriss