Over the next few months, Jim & I are visiting 6 of our favorite countries in Europe. We have been to all of these countries previously, but never to the cities we will visit on this journey. We plan to live in each city for at least 2 weeks, some places, an entire month. During this trip we want to immerse ourselves in the culture and experience what it feels like to be a “Local”.
When we finished planning this trip, I gave a lot of thought as to how we can best memorialize our experiences. After much research, it seemed writing a blog would be the most effective way to capture the essence of our experiences and create a diary to memorialize daily living abroad. It also allows us to easily share our journey with family and friends. I decided to name the blog alohaonthemove.com, which has a very personal meaning to me.
As most of you know, I have Parkinson’s. If you have PD, it is critical to “keep moving” in order to manage the symptoms of the disease and slow its progression.
As part of managing my disease, I am in the Rock Steady Boxing program which teaches us to fight PD through a diverse program involving both physical exercise and learning new ways to keep moving. As boxers and fighters of PD, we each choose our fighter name. My fighter name is Aloha!
I chose the fighter name Aloha for a few reasons. First, I love Hawaii and all of its charm and feelings of good karma. Jim and I have been traveling to Maui annually for more than 23 years. We have come to learn from the Hawaiian people that Aloha means more than “hello” and “goodbye”. Aloha is a joyful sharing of life energy; an attitude of living positively and with compassion. I try to practice living Aloha (some days with more success than others). Anyway, this is why I chose Aloha as my fighter name. So as I (“Aloha “) will be on the move traveling these next months, I hope to move the aloha spirit along throughout all of our encounters!
So, Day 1, get started with writing a blog. Easy, peasy, right? No, absolutely not. It turns out that writing a blog is not as simple as just sitting down to write in one’s diary. Blogging requires discipline and creativity (ok, problem #1, I have neither of these in abundance) and I came to learn that it requires patience (problem #2, this is definitely not a virtue one associates with Moi),
Just creating a name for your site can be daunting. You learn that creativity is important but even more important is picking something “easy to remember and meaningful” (according to the blog-writing-gods and goddesses). After spending hours trying to come up with a clever, unique, easy-to-remember and meaningful blog name, you then have to ensure that no one else in the world has the same name for their website to avoid any possible legal drama. If you find that after spending hours coming up with a name that someone else beat you to the punch, it is back to square one. Luckily, no one else had chosen the naming convention that I came up with for this blog.
That’s where my “good luck” ends. Turns out, starting a blog requires hours of study and preparation. Site managers, platforms, design masters, blah, blah, blah, the list is endless and captured in no fewer than 2000 individual tutorials. One must get through each before getting to the point I am at right now – writing my first blog post.
Are you kidding me? I start to chant: “I am living Aloha, I am living Aloha….”
Simultaneously, I “patiently” begin to tackle the tutorials. Well, I get to Chapter 4 of tutorial 1 (which is exactly half way through tutorial #1), I fast forward to tutorial #2000 to get to the bottom line. Oh no, you cannot do this – it is against the 100th Commandment of Successful Blog Writing. So, I reached out to the Online Chat Desk and expressed my frustration at having to watch 2000 YouTube videos about how to create widgets, blocks, templates, and the goddesses-know-what-else, when all I wanted to do is write a simple one-page diary everyday. Within seconds, I see the little bubble indicating that a response from the Chat Desk is forthcoming. Surely they will see the ridiculousness of making me study for hours when all I want to do is a grown-up version of my 16-year-old self’s diary. Ha! The response to my on-line rant is “someone from the “experienced Help Desk” will call immediately”. Oh boy, nothing good can follow that chat response.
Sure enough, not even 2 minutes later, the phone rings and someone who I am certain just graduated from Kindergarten informs me that “if I can only get some patience, I can get through the tutorials and learn about the wonders of blogging”. I kid you not – you just can’t make this stuff up. I assured her that Patience does not appear anywhere on my resume as a core strength.
I tell her that even if my middle name was Patience, I do not want to watch 2000 videos. All I want to do is create a simple blog. At that point, she informs me that is not possible to bypass the videos, wishes me a good day and asks that I stay on the line and complete a survey to reward her for her good customer service. I told her that I had videos to watch – I have no time for surveys.
So much for Living Aloha!
Fast forward and here we are at the end of my first blog page! And no, I will never divulge the contents of the blog training videos. Why, you ask? My NDA with the blog-writing gods and goddesses prohibits me from discussing how I came to write this blog.
So, I hope you find enjoyment and much aloha in the stories of our journey. Please don’t forget to let us hear from you as I am certain we will be homesick in short order. We would also love to hear about your experiences this summer.
“Aloha” on the move with England as the first stop…