I just read Vicki Pott’s (@ redheadedtravels) about me page which has inspired me to write this long overlooked and overdue post. Vicki’s first sentence is, “I can remember the exact moment I got the travel bug…”
And I realized, hey, I can too!
I was a child, so it wasn’t like a “I’m going to travel!” declaration, it was more like a piqued interest in a culture different than mine.
We had family friends visiting and one of my uncles (all adults were either aunts or uncles) brought his German girlfriend to our modest town house in Mililani Hawaii. She was so exotic to me, with her hairy armpits, mermaid blond hair, and fried potatoes.
My mom cooked Thai, Chinese and American food and by American food, I mean, steak, spaghetti and blueberry pancakes. We had baked potatoes but fried potatoes in this foreigner’s special German way, was not only really tasty but different.
I remember reading a beginner German/English book that either she or her boyfriend had brought to the Islands. I studied it and when I travelled to Thailand with my family at age 16, I got to say Guten Tag to a German family on the train to Chiang Mai.
They were thrilled.
I also said flugnummer which means ‘fight number’. Why I remembered that, I don’t know. Maybe because it was funny sounding to me and very close to English.
Now let’s time travel to Las Vegas where I got my first kiss at the Stardust resort and casino (we met in the arcade), and where my family took frequent road trips to from Barstow, California. My first diary entry was also here. A momentous occasion because I haven’t stopped journaling ever since.
Which leads me to this: I wrote about the drive through the desert. I wrote about going somewhere new. I was on to something. At 14 years old, I was moving in the direction that said, Hey! This is worth writing about.
Life, the Universe, and Lani 
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