About
About My Deeper Dream…
While in Maui in November, my cousin recommended I read an old book he was carrying with him. It was tattered and yellowed and falling apart. It was The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran. I read the first two pages and stopped at an excerpt…
‘How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.’
In that moment it was the most beautiful thing I had ever read. Mostly because it resonated so much with me. I often ask myself whether I am in a state of dreaming or awakening. I often wonder if life could truly be this good or crazy or beautiful or insane. Something that I’ve especially learned through my travels is this… reality is fluid. This is the meaning behind the name of my blog.
For You…
Although this site is largely an outlet for my own personal journaling and the logging of personal perceptions of my travels and life experiences… I also hope to share helpful information on traveling. Â I am often asked for recommendations, tips and information on traveling through countries around the world… especially as a solo traveler and as a woman. Â Here I hope to log some of my discoveries, my favorites, helpful tips, and most important information on traveling to and through various lands to help you feel confident to get out and enjoy your own personal experiences and create your own perceptions and realities of the world and of your life.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions that I might be able to answer. I’m a very friendly person! If I don’t have the info you need, perhaps I can point you in the right direction. Also, I’d love to hear from you! Your comments and response to my blogs are warmly welcome.
Until your next adventure, I invite you to  journey the exotic, crazy, bizarre and amazing depths of the world through my eyes and through my blog. Thanks for reading!
About Me…
Now a little about who I am on the surface and in the center.
I love life SO much, sometimes I can’t help hollering it off balconies. Literally. Life to me is a wild enchanting game of experiences… all good and bad and mysterious and magical. I can’t get enough of it! People often tell me that I find incredible amounts of joy in the ‘little things’ in life. In simplicity.  I am a barista and can make an elephant, a fern, or a heart on your latte. I am a self-taught photographer and love travel photography and creative portraiture (SashPhotography.com). I love to connect with people and have been volunteering, barbecuing hot dogs and ‘helping’ homeless people for the past three years. Mostly I just sit and listen. I’ve discovered there’s a great need for that. My blog (StreetQuotes.wordpress.com) is a source to introduce the stories of individuals and to connect people to Portland’s homeless world. I find my ‘spirituality’ in nature. You’ll often find me on an amazing trail somewhere (usually in the Columbia River Gorge since it’s closest to my home in Portland). I am a traveler. An explorer, experiencer, seeker, lover of cultures. I mostly travel alone. My world travels started at the age of 13 when I boarded a flight, alone, to Germany to visit a girl I had met for two days on a ferry from Alaska. It was my initiation into the reality that life exists outside of the US. Since then I have traveled to over thirty countries on five different continents. I often feel more alive when I am lost in another land and another lifestyle… when my senses are alert and life is removed from my conscious reality and twisted and molded into something new… in a living dream.
I love these things:
Hiking, sushi, Wide open expanses, fall in Oregon, crisp air and sunshine, the first sip of morning coffee, culture, cheese, colorful umbrellas, finger food, dog ears, cowgirl boots, ghost towns, ice cream (esp. mint, green tea, & Chunky Monkey), old fashioned hospitality, morning fog, people riding bikes, road trips, waking before sunrise (doesn’t happen often), rivers, water, sharing, small people with big voices, visitors, rainbows, warm summer nights, the smell of chimney smoke in winter, sleeping under the stars, trains, Amelie (the movie), Michael Jackson (Thriller), purring cats, foreign accents, people trying new things, warm sand between my toes, kayaking, barbecues, baths, languages, angry weather, nargile (hookah), being read to, creativity, salsa dancing, eye contact with strangers, accordions, intimate times with friends, not needing to know, lights, family, people, love, Stiv.
Countries Visited:
USA, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Japan, Indonesia, Morocco, Australia, Singapore, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Bahamas, Greece, Jamaica.
I have stepped foot in over 30 countries, on five continents. And never intend to stop.
