Flying

During my most recent flight, I converted my fear of flying into art. Oh and the song choice: I do it for the pun.

 

xCarla

Currently:

A weekend at the beach

Some photos of our quick getaway to St. Petersburg this weekend:

Upcoming Travels

Hi,

I am currently drinking wine, watching How I Met Your Mother and working on my piece for USA TODAY College due tomorrow at 8 a.m. Quite the multitasker I am!

But as of right now I am procrastinating all of the above and writing a quick post about my upcoming travel schedule.

I will be flying to SF on July 30th, and returning to Gainesville on August 17th. Natalie and Jenny, two of my best friends from high school, will be there during this time so it’ll basically be the most perfect, picturesque reunion EVER. But really, there are some promising posts to come!

Stay tuned ~

Something old: A personal essay

I found this buried beneath the myriad of documents in my Mac. It was written as a personal essay for a magazine writing class I took some number of semesters ago. The timings are off, since I wrote this a while ago. But considering this blog is about my travels as a young, independent student-journalist, I thought I’d share:

9 hours. The time it takes to visit my grandmother. 8 hours. The time it takes to get to my father’s house. 6 hours. The time it takes to set foot on my mother’s doorstep.

These are the approximate flight times from most airports in Florida to Porto Alegre, Brazil; then to Sao Paulo, Brazil; and finally to San Francisco, California.

I have a frequent flyer’s card for four different airlines. I have two passports. I am bilingual, and I have about four different places that I can refer to as home.

Within the past 22 years, airports have become my rest stops, and the sky a comforting reminder of the welcoming embraces soon to come.

The year was 1990, and my dad Carlos had been living in the U.S. since the age of 10. He was visiting family in Brazil when he met my mom Claudia and actually swept her off her feet and asked her to join him in Miami, where they would create a life together. He was 30, and she, a fleeting 20.

That is why, I, their only child, grew up in Pembroke Pines, Fla., away from my family in Brazil. When I was two months old, I took my first leap into the Southern Hemisphere and officially gained two identities: American and Brazilian.

When I was 3, my father and mother got divorced. Shortly after, my father’s job moved him out to Atlanta, Ga., where he’d live for the next 15 years of my life.

Growing up, my mom was the only immediate family I had year-round.

What I’ve noticed is that people like us create a pseudo family of close friends around ourselves. People in similar situations seemed to flock to one another, as if there is an unspoken mutual understanding:

“I am alone in this country, and so are you. Let’s stick together.”

My Brazilian neighbors became my fictitious aunt and uncle. My mom’s best friends’ children were my pseudo cousins. (And everyone was always Brazilian.)

But in reality, I became my closest family. Growing up away from everyone else did wonders for my independence.

Even as a child, I remember being content playing with Barbies or Polly Pockets, or whatever I chose for the day, by myself. I was also an only-child, so I’m sure that played in as well. In elementary school I kept my own agenda and always knew what homework I had due the next day. My mom never hovered over my shoulder because by age six she realized I had it covered.

Among other factors, the traveling accelerated my level of maturity. I was invited into two different cultures at a young age, which forced my mind to wrap itself around the inconsistencies of both.

I would usually fly to see my father about twice a year, and I’d spend the three summer months in Brazil with my family. Either way, having my entire family – mom, dad, grandmother, aunts – all in one place at the same time are very rare memories.

Every trip I took added a piece to the person I would become. I was slowly molded between visits with my dad, my grandmothers and aunts, and the life I had with my mom.

By age 12, I was flying alone – a huge step for me considering my irrational fear of heights and flying. “You’re a big girl now,” my dad would say. “ I’ll be right outside the gate when you arrive in Atlanta.”

At age 15, my mom would say, “Sometimes, I wonder who’s the mom and who’s the child.”

I grew up with the stoic reality that sometimes life just gets in the way. You learn to live without the physical presence of those you love because you know they are present in your every thought, decision — and essentially, a phone call away.

When I was 18, I received a phone call from my dad. He said, “Carla, I may have to move back to Brazil. My company wants to send me there for two years, but I made sure they included a yearly plane ticket for you in the contract.”

I said, “All right then. I guess that’s one less plane ticket we have to buy.”

By now I had a little brother — Roger — from my dad’s second marriage. He would spend the next few years of his life in Brazil.

In Portuguese we have a word for the physical and mental feeling of missing someone: “Saudade.” It’s a feeling I’ve battled with for most of my life. Fortunately, my experiences have set me up to look it in the face and say, “Yes, I miss my family. But it’s OK.”

So it came as no surprise to me that when I moved to Gainesville for college, my adjustment period was short-lived. I have grown accustomed to being on my own and away from my family.

Sometimes my mom complains to me that I don’t miss her. “You have your own life now … You don’t even want to come home and see me.”

Of course, she’s mistaken. She spent 20 years growing up alongside her family, so it’s harder for her to understand.

I tell her I was engineered this way. I was forced to see myself as an independent person. I became familiar with the struggles of living away from family early on, and I have learned to surpass them.

Being on my own is easy, I tell her. I’ve been prepared for this all my life.

Which is why, four months ago, when she told me she had been offered a job in San Francisco, Calif., I was ready to grasp this piece of life-altering information with a calm and collected response.

“Okay…” I said, taking it all in.

“California?” I thought to myself. “As in the state across the country from where I am? Move? As in leave behind the one place I had consistently called home for the past 20 years?”

My mother, the one solid piece of family I had in a span of 4,000 miles, was leaving me? The mother who was my dad, grandmother, grandfather, aunt and uncle all at once?

At first, it was like someone had pulled the rug from beneath my feet. I was sitting there, by myself, not knowing what do or feel. But then I remembered: I was engineered for this.

I had to stop wallowing in self-pity. I remember telling my friends, “Isn’t it interesting that this would happen to me, as opposed to one of you, who have never experienced being apart from your immediate family growing up? I can handle this, and that’s why it’s happening to me.”

It’s been four months since my mom has moved to San Francisco, and I have been there three times to visit her. It’s my favorite flight to take; flying over the snow-tipped mountains is a sight I will never get tired of.

I’m a Florida girl, with a mom in California and a dad in Brazil. I’d say that’s not too bad, right?

Four days ago, my boyfriend of nine months found out he is moving to Tampa for an internship. We haven’t been apart for more than two weeks in about a year.

What was my response?

“Looks like another excuse to travel,” I said with a grin.

Hacking Vegas ($)

As you may remember from a few posts ago, Derek and I had the brilliant idea of making a trip to Vegas while we were in San Francisco.

Well, it happened.

And it was an incredible time.

I’m going to share some of our gained knowledge on how to “hack” Vegas, and possibly come out with more money than you flew in with … Just kidding. If you choose to gamble, the odds are quite against you and your soon-to-be-empty pockets.

“The House always wins.”

But — there are easy ways to make your trip virtually inexpensive.

First let’s talk about flights and hotel-stay. When you book a flight through Expedia, there are a series of “package” options to choose from. By booking a flight AND a hotel at the same time, these package deals are generally a better steal than booking each separately. I found a flight to Vegas for less than $120 on Expedia via Spirit airlines (watch out for the checked-bag fees), and with that I began going through all the hotels that had those package deals available. I ended up booking a room at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino for two nights, and my total was $200 … Flight included! Granted, the Hardrock is about a mile off the strip, but compared to similiarly-priced hotels in the area, the HR was definitely the nicest.

Transportation: A mile-long cab ride could easily amount to $10+ with the initial surcharge and Vegas traffic, so take advantage of staying on the Strip (It’s a lot of walking, considering each enormous hotel is about a half-mile long, but it’s doable. Especially at night, when it’s cooler) If staying off the Strip, like me, then take advantage of the free bus or shuttle services that take you to the Strip. The HR had one, and other hotels in the area usually do as well.

Wining and dining: A Long Island Ice Tea cost me about $20 in a club… so if you’re not trying to drop $100 in a single club, take advantage of the many liquor stores around and make drinks in your hotel room. A beer at a pool party cost me more than $10, but the same beer (and about triple the size) was sold at the Walgreens next door for $3. Luckily the lack of open container laws allow one to drink as they please, wherever they please. I made the mistake of wanting to order fancy drinks while I was out … Not worth it.

Oh, you also drink free while you gamble, even if you’re just sitting at a slot machine. But it takes a while for the waitress to come around and then another while for her to bring you your drink, so, if patience isn’t your virtue, bring your own.

Getting into clubs/day parties: Go to this site, and sign yourself up. I was skeptical at first, thinking it could not be that easy to get my name on a guest list. I mean really, who am I? But the process was surprisingly efficient. You simply sign up, choose the clubs/parties you want to go to and you’re name is put on a guest list, which allows you to skip the line and enter for free! Once you arrive in Vegas, you will get a text message and/or email from a promoter, explaining what time(s) you should arrive and what to say at the door. It works. I went to Pure‘s rooftop club (which is now apparently closed from renovations, at Caesar’s Palace), which had free drinks for ladies until midnight, and the Marquee day party at the Cosmopolitan through this site.

As for gambling… stay off the penny slots. They’ll really get you. And if you sit at a Blackjack table, good luck getting up.

Zen

Today my two friends and I ventured out to High Springs, a quaint town just north of Gainesville, for a dip in the crystal clear waters of Ginnie Springs. The water was cool but comfortable, a stark contrast to the enduring Florida heat. Two hours floating down a river does wonders to my levels of relaxation. It’s almost like a less expensive form of therapy. It was a beautiful day.

My month in SF

It’s upsetting that it takes both my mother and father to bring up my lack of promptness and overall neglect toward this beautiful blog to get me back on it.

In my defense, I’m used to working on deadline. Working under pressure is my thing. A loose schedule? Not so much.

That being said, we have some catching up to do.

I spent about six weeks in Northern California following the end of the school semester in May. Derek spent three of those weeks with me. After being apart for a semester (in the college-lifetime-perspective, that’s a significant amount of time), it was a sigh of relief to spend a weekend with him without worrying about how quickly Saturday would turn to Sunday — or the day that was stained with goodbye every two weeks or so.

The trip started out interestingly enough: We were flying from Tampa, Fla. to Houston, Texas, but the weather was not in our favor. Our 6 p.m. flight was delayed, then canceled. We were then sent off to the Marriott within the airport for the night. We caught a new flight at 6 a.m. the next morning and one stopover later, we arrived in San Francisco.

This time around we decided to visit one of California’s inescapably elegant yet scandalously sleazy neighbor: Vegas. But that trip deserves a post of its own.

Derek and I spent days wandering the city by car and by foot. Like any other city, the spontaneous finds during a stroll through San Francisco do not disappoint — walk in any direction and you’ll stumble upon a strange bar, in this case, one combining Mexican beer with a live Bluegrass band…

El Rio

Or a grassy hill taken over by PBR-drinking teens and 20-somethings, overlooking San Francisco’s downtown skyline

Dolores Park

Or THIS view

Twin Peaks

At one point, we took our aimless walking to a less urban setting: Muir Woods. Trading in skyscrapers for 100-foot tall redwoods, Derek and I hiked the Ocean View Trail through Muir Woods National Monument, a redwood forest. Hiking is one of my favorite hobbies, especially when doing a new trail within a new setting. The weather was so pleasant and the air so clean, life really just seemed to pause for a moment — a relaxing escape from reality across the bridge.

It’s 1:37 a.m. I’ll save the rest for a future post. (Coming soon this week — promise!)

Summer for a student journalist: Struggle Edition.

With four days left in the semester, there is one thing on everyone’s mind: summer.

But for that segment of the student population that call themselves journalism majors, something else gets in the way of summer-time thoughts: internships.

As a journalism student, the biggest asset to a resume, besides a degree, is internship experience. For those that aren’t aware, the internship battle field — and yes, I call it a battle field — is highly competitive. By competitive I mean thousands of journalism students with more than enough clips, reputable internships, stellar GPAs and a list of extracurricular activities are applying for the same two positions within the same one organization. This happens over and over and over again, until all the spots are filled.

In total, I’ve applied for 22 internships across the country. I started applying in December, which is surprisingly later than most deadlines (the deadline for a summer internship with the New York Times is Oct. 31). Here’s a partial list of what the organizations I applied to:

• LA Times
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Google (Journalism Fellow)
• TIME Magazine
• Chronicle of Higher Education
• Business Insider – (Phone interview. Never heard back.)
• Mashable – (Skype interview. Still waiting to hear back.)
• USA TODAY (Collegiate Correspondance Program) – (Pending)

Trust me, the list goes on. After realizing that my chances of getting a paid internship were slim to none, I started applying for unpaid positions. These, however, are limited to where I already live. Without a paycheck, I can’t afford to pay rent in a city like New York. Fortunately for me, my home is now in San Francisco, so that’s not an awful Plan B.

I’ve applied to six internships in SF ranging from social media to editorial positions. I began following up on my applications this week (something we all should do more often), and I was simply told to wait.

That’s what it’s been like: a waiting game. I check my email about three times every ten minutes. My most recent searches involve the word “internship” in some way or another.

I’m a firm believer that if you try hard enough, you’ll achieve your dreams. Yes — It’s sappy, corny and cliché, but it keeps me going. I decided to change my major to journalism four semesters ago. Since then, I’ve secured three internships.  I wasn’t chosen for those positions by chance. I’ve been putting my heart and soul (excuse the sappy clichés again, sorry) into this major since I chose it. 

“Keep trying. Keep at it. Don’t give up.”

That’s the general consensus between editors and professors alike. So, to other student journalists that share this boat with me, I leave you with one piece of advice:

Let’s listen to them.

The wonders of an iPhone camera

So far, my favorites: