San Francisco, Yosemite and awesomeness while getting tattooed

Hi everyone,

Who knows me, knows that I’m already back home – I haven’t written something since, because: jetlag. I thought that because 6 years ago I didn’t have a jetlag from Australia I wouldn’t have any trouble getting back to the real world this time either. How wrong was I! My lovely Lilian reminded me: I’m getting old!

I’ve been home for about a week now, and I still miss my last city, San Francisco. Not just because of the city, also because of the people I met during my hiking trip to Lake Tahoe and Yosemite NP and the fun I had getting tattooed. I didn’t just get a tattoo, but opened a new chapter of my life and my awesome tattoo artist set me up with a new favourite word + tic. Thanks Kim, it was my favourite tattoo session EVER!

San Francisco
I arrived at the airport in the middle of the night and managed to get on the last train to the city center (thanks to a local at the airport who helped me get through the airport and to my train station!), and the next morning I grabbed myself a map and wanted to explore the city immediately. I looked on the map and decided to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge and explore that part of the city. It didn’t look that far on the map, but JEEEEZ San Francisco makes it a sport to make streets go up and down so steep you can’t stand still because you’ll start walking backwards.

Not-Used-To-That! Definitely not as a Dutch person. But I had a lot of fun exploring the city. After a loooooong time I finally saw the Golden Gate Bridge. Which was awesome! Didn’t walk across because I’d been walking all day already, but I am going to come back to SF as soon as I can and then maybe rent a bike 🙂

I didn’t do much in SF except for walking around and seeing stuff, but most of my photo’s are on my camera (and I only have my phone with me right now) so you’ll just have to believe me when I saw that I had a great time!

Lake Tahoe & Yosemite
I had booked a 3 day tour to Lake Tahoe and Yosemite, and to be honest it was quite disappointing… Instead of 5 hours per day in the bus we had an average of 8 hours on the bus and just a few hours to spend at Yosemite. Lake Tahoe was a little better, because our campsite was near the lake and we had an evening program on a boat, but in general I expected more of it – and I heard most people felt that way – which is a pity. But well, the time I did get to spend there was AWESOME!

The last photo has a great memory! I was walking in Yosemite with one of the girls I met on the tour and we both wanted to go to Mirror Lake (see picture above). After a while I was just looking around to see the mountains around the lake and suddenly I heard: “Sam, are you coming or what?” – and there she was, already halfway in the lake! We had too little time to do the entire hike so we had to make a shortcut somewhere. She decided that with the warmth this was the best solution. At first I thought she was insane, but I thought it was awesome that we actually walked through the lake.

Getting tattooed
Thursday was one of the days I looked forward to most. Which at first I thought was strange, because you can get tattooed anywhere. Why would this be so special? Well, because I wanted to get a tattoo while traveling, about my travels and special memories. So, a few months before I left for the US I found an awesome tattoo artist online (Kim Stace Thomas from Mermaids Tattoo Studio in San Francisco) who was so great in helping me out with designing my tattoo concept. So I really looked forward to meeting her and getting tattooed by her.

And I was not disappointed by the experience! My new tattoo consist of a combination-skyline of the Sydney Opera House, the Golden Gate Bridge and a ferris wheel – partially because every big city I’ve been to has some kind of ferris wheel, and partially because it reminds me of my sister and grandpa going on the ferris wheel and taking pictures all the time 🙂 And of course the nights sky and water to have a reflection of the skyline.
Normally when I get tattooed the artist doesn’t talk much and doesn’t let me talk much, because they have to focus, but Kim warned me that either she or I should be talking because it helps her focus. I came in to the studio at noon and I think I left by 5pm, and there wasn’t a minute of silence or awkwardness. Just complete awesomeness. Awesome (and variations of that word) is my new favourite word. I told Kim I have Tourettes and occasionally get a new tic, so she put emphasis on one of the words she said most during our 5 hour meet, which was the word awesome. I think she wanted to give me a tic – and I have to say it is an AWESOME tic. So thanks!

My tattoo is on the outside my underarm, where I had a pretty bad chemical burn from a year ago. And now you can’t see there’s ever been scars in the first place! It’s so good to have people not give me sad or judging looks because of that. I’m happy and grateful that Kim believed my skin could take it and to try it anyway. Getting the tattoo truely hurted worse than all my other tattoos combined, but wow it was SO worth it!

When it’s healed up properly and I’m allowed to post a picture of it I will, somewhere!

Back to reality!
I loved my trip, definitely my days in San Francisco were the best and I’m going back there as soon as I can! I miss SF but had the most fun in a long time. Now I have 5 weeks left to prepare for my next internship (as a psychiatric nurse intern on a closed ward in a mental health hospital), so on monday I’ll be starting with my assignments and research!

And OMG I’m soon going to do something I’m terrified about: take up a martial arts class again at an MMA center near me – it’s been too long since I’ve done something with that! Going back to my strong self. If I don’t die in my first classes I’ll write about it soon.

Big hugs for all of you, stay awesome!

Love, Sam

US Travel Adventures 4 – New York City part 1

Day 8 (Monday 20th of June): Flying to NYC
Today Lilian and I went our seperate ways for the coming just-a-little-more-than-a-month… Oh my lovely how I am going to miss you. We had to go to seperate gate points that weren’t connected, so we had to say goodbye 1,5 hours earlier than expected.

My flight was exactly on time, and I arrived 15 minutes too early at Newark. I had booked a shared shuttle bus instead of going with public transport – because I knew I’d get lost. After 2 hours of driving I FINALLY made it to what I thought was my stop, but the driver had decided for himself to not look at the address I gave him, but to bring me to another hostel that he found would be mine. I thought I was going to be scared but actually I just said: I refuse to get out at this stop, take me to my hostel. And so he did 🙂

I was put in a 6 person dormitory, and I think my roommates are all okay. I just said hello and went straight out of the hostel to have a look around in the city. After that I went straight to bed. In the middle of the night Lilian arrived at her changing-airport and we Facetimed for a while before I headed back to bed again.

Day 9 (Tuesday 21st of June): Figuring out a city on my own
I stalled and stalled and texted with everyone I knew before finally heading out into NYC. Oh gosh what was I scared. I have a map luckily, and I have been told that you can’t get lost in NYC easily, so with a 750 ml smoothie in my one hand and my map in the other I went looking for the American Museum of Natural History (you know, the one where Night at the Museum was filmed ^_^ ). I found it and bought myself a CityPASS!

After that I went and got myself something to eat, but I was SO tired and didn’t understand the subway system here (and nobody willing to explain it to me, not even at the hostel) that I went back to the hostel to look online and find out myself.

I was supposed to do a Highline toured walk, but it started 15 minutes ago 🙂 I got myself distracted and fell asleep for an hour, whoopsie! But I can still go to the Top of the rock Observation Deck. So I guess I’ll grab a bite to eat somewhere and then head off to Times Square and the Observation deck 🙂

Day 10 (Wednesday 22nd of June): Taking the subway and Ticcing my brains off
Yesterday I did go to the observation deck, YAY! To my surprise, at 9pm (3am in the Netherlands) my sister was still online on Whatsapp, so we decided to Facetime each other… we watched the sun go down and the city turning dark while chatting about all kinds of stuff. Phototime!:

Ok, on to today! It’s 32 degrees outside, a lot of sun and a lot of people around! I looked in my cityPASS and I saw that I could go to the 9/11 Memorial Museum. It’s a long walk from my place (1,5 hours or so) and though I am scared of public transportation I decided to try and be brave and just go for it. And so I did. It wasn’t as bad as I expected in terms of me getting lost (because strangely enough, I haven’t been lost in this city yet!), but it was loud and crowded and all the noises made me confused. Then, because of all the new impressions I started Ticcing like a mad person and yes – then people start staring at me.

Eventually I arrived at the 9/11 Memorial. So impressive. I was only 11 when it happened, but I can still remember watching it on the news and seeing the 2nd tower being hit by a plane. My stepdad went to the US 25 years ago and he went inside one of those towers. I was able to see the memorial falls and the museum.

I also went into the museum, which was so impressive. Can’t really say much else about that, except for this quote that really sticks with me:

After that I thought that it would be time for something lighter. So I went to the High Line, where I was supposed to do a tour yesterday. I couldn’t find Gansevoort street – and I asked a couple of people – and of course I can’t say Gansevoort the English way, only the Dutch way, so nobody knew about which street I was asking. I accidentally bumped into a guy who also has Tourettes, we talked for a bit and then I finally found the Highline!
The High Line is a former train tracks above the streets that they made into a park. It’s 2 miles long and ends near the Hudson river.

(yes that’s a tree sticking out of a car)

When the Hig hLine ended I saw that I was near Pier 83, where the Ferry’s were that I could take with my City PASS. So I went on a 1,5 hour boat trip on my own, around Manhattan! I love skylines ❤

After this I walked to Time Square to try and get a ticket for Waitress, but they only had partial-view tickets that were still $100,-… So I went back to my hostel with a large fruit smoothie  and Whatsapped with my lovely Lilian ❤

Right now it’s 7:30 and I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Probably read a bit, take a shower and see if there’s nice people in this hostel I can watch a show on Netflix with (YES they have netflix in the hostel 🙂 ), and otherwise I’ll just fly solo for another day and a half! No biggie 🙂

I’ll end this blog here, and do the weekend in a seperate blog, because this one is getting LONG!

Hope you liked it, and and if you have suggestions as to what I need to be doing the next couple of days, let me know 🙂

Love, Sam

 

US Travel Adventures 3 – Toronto

Hi everyone,

As I’m writing this intro of the blog it’s day 4 of my US/Canada trip, I’m sitting on my bed in the hostel in Toronto. At first I was a bit scared because I didn’t know anything about the neighborhood and if we could get to the city center fast and easy, but we arrived a couple of hours ago and it’s amazing! During the next couple of days I’ll write some things and will post it probably on day 7 or 8, right before I head for New York City and Lilian will leave for Amsterdam…

Day 4 (Thursday, 16th of June): Traveling from Niagara Falls to Toronto
We woke up in our hotel in Niagara Falls around 5:30am, we had a nice long morning walk and bought some souvenirs for our families. After that we went back to the hotel and relaxed a little before checking out. We left the hotel at noon, and we decided to grab something to eat before heading to the Greyhound busterminal. We thought: oh, it’s 30 minutes walking, we can do that! But it was HOT outside and we were carrying our big backpacks and day-backpacks… it felt like we were walking for hours… But finally we got on our bus to Toronto (which is about a 2 hour drive, if you don’t get stuck in traffic like we did…) and we had wifi, so we heard some good news: Lilians’ younger sister passed her high school exams!! Yay for her! And we Facetimed with my mom for a bit, which was nice!

We arrived in Toronto, saw the big CN Tower, and walked straight to our hostel. And what we found was a big surprise!

We’re in a street that is totally my thing: a lot of veggies + fruit stands, vegetarian/vegan restaurants, art all over walls and buildings, people from all over the world walking around and people who sing publicly while just walking around the streets. So much fun to watch!

(Wanda’s Pie from the Sky in Toronto)

Day 5 (Friday, 17th of June): Facing our fears!
Today we had an extremely busy day, we had breakfast at 8am and directly after that we started walking to the entertainment district and the CN Tower. We went in, obviously, all the way to the top! At the top there was a glass floor and Lilian just walked up on there. I, being a bit of a scaredypants, was too afraid at first but in the end I jumped up and down with joy because it was so much fun!

After the CN Tower it was HOT outside, so we went to the aquarium, which was next to the CN Tower. I like aquariums so much, I start acting like a child again. We had lots of fun there!

In the afternoon we walked through Old Toronto,  went to the Lawrence Market (which looks a lot like Paddy’s Market in Sydney, Australia!) and sat for a bit to rest our achy feet.
We decided to go to the movies in the evening, and what better movie to see than Alice – Through the looking glass?!

I forgot my hearing aids and in English speaking countries they normally don’t provide subtitles, but they had this funny selfie-stick sort of thing with closed captions. New experience, but I liked it a lot!

Today we walked for about 10 hours, so we have to let our feet rest a bit more so tomorrow we’ll be able to do some more walking and sightseeing!

Day 6 (Saturday, 18th of June): Casa Loma + Movies again!
Because we bought a city pass we were able to get into Casa Loma. We met up with our couchsurfing host Michael, who hadn’t been to Casa Loma before either. Not much to say about it, except for that it was amazing!! From high up in the castle you could see the skyline of Toronto, and I love skylines 🙂 Now it’s time for us to sit down and have a nice meal at the Hungarian-Thai restaurant we went to on Thursday as well, and then go and see Finding Dory in the cinema! With my CC-selfie stick! ❤

Day 7 (Sunday, 19th of June):
Today we went to the islands that are below Toronto. We went with a crazy-crowded ferry to the center island. Lilian really wanted to rent bikes, but when we went there were dragonboat races, and the lines for the bikes were so long that we decided not to – but instead walk around, have nice and long talks, and then Lilian came up with a scary idea: she thought it’d be fun to rent a canoe. A CANOE! Since it was her last day of vacation I decided to face my fear and go along with her. The first minutes I kept saying “I don’t want to, I don’t want to!”, but after a while I started to actually like it and I started to understand how boats work.

And the luck of traveling by ferry is that you can see the pretty skyline on your way back!

Now it’s off to bed, because tomorrow we’ll be leaving the city…

Day 8 (Monday, 20th of June): The day I have been dreading
Lilian is leaving today to go back home. And I’m flying from Toronto to NYC in the evening. It has been a great week, but from now on, the next 6 weeks I’ll be depending on myself, trusting myself to make the right decisions and make the most out of my days. During this week I’ve been doubting a lot – will I stay here or join Lilian and just go home? It comes down to being scared of the unknown, and not trusting people easily lately. But, the people I’ve been talking to about this have all said: if you don’t try, you’ll never find out.

Time will tell if I’m able to do this on my own. I certainly hope I can. See you when I get to NYC!

Love, Sam

US Travel Adventures 2 – Niagara Falls

Hi everyone,

Today is the 15th of June, which means we (my lovely Lilian and I) have been abroad for 1,5 days. A lot has happened, and I’d like to share some photo’s and stories with you.

Day 1: 15 hours of traveling
Is a LOT. For everyone. We were at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport at 8am, and our first flight was delayed so we left at noon. At our stopover in Frankfurt we originally had to wait until 5:30pm, but left an hour later. Not really a big deal, but we had booked a shuttlebus in Toronto and it wasn’t going to wait for us. We did have a really nice big airplane with individual tv screens so we could watch movies! Lilian watched X-men and I attempted to try and watch the Big Bang Theory… 1 earplug didn’t work and I could barely hear anything out of the other one. Too bad nothing had CC.

Arriving in Toronto we had to go through security, which was HELL! We were in line for like half an hour and I felt the time ticking away (and I was ticcing away, which caused a bit of people staring at me). At one point I was so exhausted and scared and relieved (I’m scared to death of flying, so I was happy that I survived my flights) that I started to sob uncontrollably. Poor Lilian, she had to deal with a lot in that hour! Luckily we made it just in time to catch our shuttlebus from Toronto to Niagara Falls.

Arriving in Niagara
I knew that I immediately wanted to see the falls. We were both really tired, but went anyway – in the summer the falls are lit up with pretty lights and colors between 9pm and midnight. We arrived just minutes before midnight and this was our sight (sorry my camera isn’t really good with taking sharp pictures at night:

After this ended we went to our hotel again 🙂

Day 2: Our first real day
We walked around Niagara Falls a bit and then decided we wanted to go to the American side. While walking the bridge that would lead us to the US, there were some army men and police officers standing there. Apparently the torch for the special olympics went through there that day. Pretty awesome!

After going through security (YAY Lilian also got a stamp in her passport for the US!) we went to the visitors centre to get ourselves tickets for the Maid of the Mist – have I mentioned that I don’t like boats either? I have to admit, IT WAS AWESOME! We got these funny blue ponchos (not sure if that’s what they’re called in English, but whatever) and found ourselves a spot at the top of the boat right at the front.

We went past the American Falls and went almost into the Horseshoe Falls. The falls are so high up and pretty and I really loved it. Especially because I was with my lovely girl.

 

 

Cave of the Winds + surprise
After our first adventure we went to get ourselves some ice cream, since it was a lovely sunny day. We asked for a SMALL ice cream, and compared to what we get at home when we ask for 1 scoop, we got 5 scoops, it was crazy! I can’t imagine what a large ice cream would look like, would that be a liter of ice cream?! It was nice though, we ate it while sitting in the park chatting.

Lilian found a map and found out that we could go down by the falls and be literally beside the falls. Again, we were given (this time yellow) ponchos and very comfy sandals. We didn’t understand why we were given the sandals, but it was so slippery and windy that our own shoes wouldn’t like it at all!

And right there on the left where you see people, right next to the fall, I did something that I had been planning for for MONTHS!

I told her she was my everything, and I wanted to stay with her for the rest of my life. I asked her the big question: do you want to marry me? and she said YES!!!

Day 3: Last full day in Niagara Falls
It’s 8am now, we’re about to find ourselves some breakfast, do some groceries, relax a little, sit in our hottub(!!) with a Lush bubblebar and walk around some more to the old part of town. In the evening we’re going into the Skylon Tower to see the night’s view and the fireworks! Then tomorrow at 3pm we’ll leave for Toronto to spend the rest of our week there. Time is flying by so fast already… on Monday Lilian will go back to The Netherlands and I’ll be traveling on to the US for 6 weeks… Long time to miss the one you love most. Luckily it’s not Monday yet!!

Have a great week everyone, I’ll give a Toronto update soon 🙂

Love, Sam & Lilian

US Travel adventures 1 – preparations

Hi everyone,

I haven’t been writing much. It has to do with the fact that I am preparing for my biggest adventure in ages, which is: traveling through the US + Canada! There’s a lot more to arrange than I thought, and time seems to fly by so fast that I am in a hurry to get everything finished on time! Aaaaah, stress! But it’s going to be worth it!

Booking flights + making a plan!
This was the first thing I did a couple of months ago, I went to a student travel agency and told them where I wanted / needed to go to. I sat there for about 2 hours to arrange everything, from connecting flights to small tours in cities, but the final result is:
June 13th – 16th:
– Flying to Toronto, Canada with my lovely girlfriend
– Taking the bus to Niagara Falls
– Get to the hotel and see Niagara Falls and surroundings for 3 days

June 16th – 20th:
– Take the bus to Toronto
– Meet our couchsurfing host there
– Hang out in Toronto for 4 days

June 20th – 26th:
– Flying to NYC and sending my girlfriend on a plane home 😦
– See and do a lot
– Meet my dad’s friend
– Meet a friend from camp

June 26th – 30th:
– Take the bus to Washington DC
– Stay at a friend from camp
– Go to Gallaudet to visit a friend
– Do stuff you do in DC

June 30th – July 9th:
– Drive to Athens, Georgia
– Camp Twitch and Shout
– Lots of fun!!

July 9th – 15th:
– Fly to San Francisco
– Do a 3 day tour to Yosemite
– Get tattooed
– See the city

July 15th – 24th:
– Take the nightbus to Los Angeles
– Do a 4 day tour to the Grand Canyon
– See the city

July 24th – 28th:
– Fly to Chicago
– Hang out in Chicago

July 28th:
– Fly to Amsterdam and then go home and be sad for a few days

Getting in to Canada/the US
Luckily, as a Dutch person, I only have to fill in an ESTA-form online and pay $14,- to be granted access to the US. For Canada the same, but then it’s called ETA. I thought it was scary to fill in the forms, because what if they decline my application?! So I postponed everything until last week and then got over myself and did my applications. Within the same hour I got the message that it was all arranged 🙂

Finding places to stay
I tried finding locals on couchsurfing who were willing to host me, I found 3 people, of whom 2 cancelled on me last week 😦 But I’m very grateful that 1 person didn’t and I’m looking forward to meeting him!

Other than that I booked beds in shared rooms in hostels, which will be a great way to meet people. When I was in Sydney, Australia, I saw 20-person rooms, and that isn’t necessarily what I want. So I booked a bed in a 4-person room – enough to meet people, but not too crowded. My hostels are mostly in the city centres, since I like to walk around cities and not take metro’s or trams because you can’t see the city that way (and, I hate public transportation and find it scary!)

What to do when you’re in a strange city, ALONE?
Yes, this was a bit daunting to me at first, the idea of spending time ‘alone’ and doing things ‘on my own’… not doing activites with friends or family, but deciding for yourself and by yourself. I found a website that sell the CITYPASS, where you get to do all kind of activities for a discounted price. I will buy one for NYC and perhaps Chicago.

I won’t go to fancy restaurants by myself – or ever, to be honest. Since I stay at hostels, and hostels tend to have kitchens, I’ll cook my own meals, bring a tupperware box from home and will eat in parks, or in the common area of the hostel. That way I can see a bit of the city, or talk to other people in the hostel. And if I don’t want to be around people I just sit by myself – take my hearing aids out and I won’t be bothered by anyone!

Blogs for the coming months
This blog will be transformed into a temporary travel blog, combined with what I experience as a Deaf person/Touretter abroad! I hope there’ll be lots of pictures and nice experiences written down.

Love, Sam

Question: Have you ever been to the cities that I’m going to? If so, let me know what in your opinion are things I need to do/see!

Preparing for Camp Twitch&Shout

Hello everyone,

I’m counting down the days until Camp Twitch&Shout starts. I almost cannot wait until it’s finally there! 74 more days to go and then it’s there!!

Travel to the US
As I am an ocean away from the US, I have to take a plane or two to get to Athens, Georgia for the preparations of the camp. Or I’ll just take a rowing boat, but I think I might have to get started a bit earlier on that if I plan on doing that. Just kidding, the only thing I fear more than flying is boats!

I had a meeting at the student travel agency, and we set up the following plan for the first weeks:
– Fly from Amsterdam to Toronto on the 13th of June, where I will hopefully stay with a host until the 20th;
– The 20th I’ll fly from Toronto to NYC, where I hopefully will stay at my father’s friend’s house until the 24th;
– The 24th a fellow camp counselor will join me in NYC and we’ll go to see gay pride and festival on the 25th and 26th of June.
– Then on the 26th of June I’ll leave in the evening with my fellow camp counselor to Washington DC, where we’ll stay until the 30th.

THEN WE HAVE CAMP! *jumps up and down hyperactively*

After camp I fly from Atlanta to San Francisco, where I will do a tour to Yosemite National Park. Then I’ll have a few days left in SF before I take the bus to LA. In LA I will do a 4 day tour to Las Vegas, Route 66/Hooverdam and Grand Canyon.

On the 24th of July I will leave LA and will head for Chicago for 4 days. Only then I can leave again to Amsterdam.

Preparing for my trip
Since I’m not an US citizen, I normally would have to have a visa of some sort. Since I live in a country where the Visa Waiver Program applies I can stay in the US traveling for a maximum of 3 months. I will stay for 6/7 weeks so that’ll be no problem.

Meeting new people
I love meeting new people, and at Camp Twitch&Shout that’s certainly going to happen! Funny fact about me: In my own (spoken) language I am quite awkward socially, am not always able to make contact with people. In signlanguage I’m not awkward, but a bit shy, and in spoken English I am very outgoing and happy. Strange how different languages kind of make you a different person (more about that in a later blog!)

Because I literally couldn’t wait until I could meet my fellow camp counselors I asked some people to skype with me to get to know each other a little bit beforehand. And they actually wanted to! Only downside to this is: time difference! When I wake up and am most hyperactive and want to socialize the US-people are asleep. And when it’s afternoon and most people are still at work there, in my place it’s the end of the evening.

Surprises
All my hosts and even my girlfriend will be surprised by things I’ve got set out for them, but I’m not going to share those things ghehe!

More on my travel plans and how they’ll be working out, you’ll see later on when I’m traveling 🙂

Love, Sam

Traveljunkie with a fear of flying

Hello everyone,

The title explains my biggest dilemma I always have when traveling. Yes. I admit. I’m terrified of flying. I can explain where I think it kinda comes from, but am not sure 100%. Not that it matters WHY I am scared, I just want to know how to get rid of it 🙂

First time flying
was to Australia.. from Western Europe to Australia… which was I think around 1 flight of over 12 hours and a second flight of around 8 hours. So 20 hours total. I had never thought of the idea that I might be afraid of flying.
So there I went, in the plane, being all excited for going to Australia for a roadtrip with a friend. The first flight wasn’t scary at all, I watched movies (or… I have to say, movie. I watched Avatar 3 times in a row) and slept a little. The landing part in Hong Kong was a bit scary, because it looks like you’re going to land on water and then right before you hit the water there’s suddenly ground that has appeared. Creeeeeepy! But when I saw this, I knew I had made the right decision:

First time scared of flying
was on my way from Adelaide to my home. Around 18 hours of flying. The day BEFORE I left they showed me ‘Final Destination’. IMDB gives a brief summary: “After a teenager has a terrifying vision of him and his friends dying in a plane crash, he prevents the accident only to have Death hunt them down, one by one.”

This wasn’t helping, but at the same time I had a hard time adjusting to the fact that I was going to go home again, my OCD played up a bit. I had continuous thoughts about how I would die, and had to think out those thoughts completely. The flight home was terrifying.

Obsessive Compultive thinking
I had to think out how I’d be run over by a bus, but still being alive afterwards for a little while, and people just looking – but not acting. Or how I’d ride my bicycle to work and a car would hit me from behind on purpose. Or, and here comes the part about which I’m writing: the pilot that would make the plane crash just because he got tired of living. Or there would be a defective part of the plane that hadn’t been noticed until we were already in the air. I had to think it through from beginning until end, otherwise the things I was thinking about would actually happen. Now I have to think out those thoughts every time they cross my mind, and while boarding the plane it always happens.

What do I do about my fear of flying?
I always tell the one I’m flying with that I’m scared, and with the question that if it gets too hard to deal with on my own, if they want to distract me. So far I have only flown 3-4 hour flights maximum since my trip to Australia, and had nearly always someone with me.
In May I’ll be at a conference in Helsinki, Finland, and the flight to there is around 3,5 hours. I will be flying with my girlfriend who’s been through my OCD-moments, but still I hate being so fragile at those times.

In June I won’t have a buddy to travel with me to the US, so I will have to deal with this. I have an 8 hour flight to NYC, and in July I’ll have a 4 hour flight from LA to Chicago, and an 8,5 hour flight from Chicago to Europe again. I am sure I won’t take any other flights while in the US, I will travel by bus, car or train!

So, what do I do that’s effective? A couple of things:
– 1. I take my benzodiazepines. They are calming pills prescribed to me to help ease off the worst anxiety attacks while on the plane (besides having a “Bomb”-yell Tic, screaming in an airplane is probably runner up worst idea to do on a plane).
– 2. I take games and books with me. Easy games and books about travel with some pictures, because when I’m that anxious I can’t really focus a lot, so sometimes I’ll just be looking at pictures to distract myself.
– 3. Since it’s an intercontinental flight we’ll probably all have our own TV screens, so I’ll be watching movies. A lot.
– 4. My trusty notebook and pencil, to write about anything that comes to mind. Things I have to do, things I want to see, what I mustn’t forget, or poems and stories… that way I can clear my mind as much as possible from things that get stuck. That way I only have to deal with my obsessive thoughts, and nothing else.
– 5. Tell the person next to me, or someone of the flight crew, that I’m afraid of flying. They might be able to help me calm down if I freak out.

Keep your mind set to the goals you have
That’s my biggest advice to anyone, and it was something that somebody told me last week: “keep in mind that the reward will be when you leave the plane again and are in a different part of the world you can explore“.
That’s the best I can end a post with!

Love, Sam.

Question: Are you afraid of flying? Why or why not? Do you have any advice for people who are, like me, afraid to fly?

My upcoming adventures as a Deaf Touretter!

Hello everyone,

Since the introductions of my Deafness and Tourettes are done, I thought I’d write something about the upcoming adventures I’ll be undertaking in the next 6 months. It’ll be so much fun, and I’d like to share my thoughts with you.

ESOSLI 2016 – Helsinki
This year in May I am going to Helsinki for a 4 day conference on Signlanguage and Interpreting. You might think: well Sam, you’re not an interpreting student, so why on earth would you want to be going to a place that will only be a confrontation of the fact that you cannot hear?
I’ll tell you why! Two years ago I co-organised ESOSLI 2014 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Back then I wasn’t an interpreting student anymore either, but I wanted to do something Internationally, for all student interpreters in Europe. It was a big success, I met loads of people (Deaf and Hearing interpreter students!) and most of all had a lot of fun learning new things about organizing things.
This year I’ll just be attending the ESOSLI conference with some of my friends (for more info, see ESOSLI 2016 ), and learning from Finnish Deaf and Hearing professionals. Can’t wait to meet the (Hearing and Deaf) interpreting students! Before and after the conference, my girlfriend Lilian and I will be sightseeing around Helsinki – so if anyone knows good places to go, let me know!

Camp Twitch & Shout
My next adventure will be in the USA. I’ve never been there before, but I’m going to be a counselor at a camp called Twitch & Shout. It’s for children and teens with Tourettes Syndrome. It’ll be a week full of activities and recognition for the kids there. As I said in my first blog: they’ll be accepted for who they are, no matter how ‘odd’ their Tics are or how much their anxiety/ADHD/OCD/depression/autism get in their way. They’ll just be part of a group, a family, for an entire week. I wish I had something like that in my childhood. Now I accept that I have Tourettes, and am losing my hearing all together, but that has only recently happened. I wish for those kids to have the best week of their year, and I hope I’ll be part of this community for a very long time!
For more information about the camp, go to Camp Twitch & Shout.

I will write more about my preparations for camp Twitch&Shout very very soon, and probably very very often!

Online meeting page of other counselors for Twitch&Shout
WOW. I love the other counselors! I posted an introduction and got a lot of nice responses. Since was 3 am when I found the meeting page and after 4am when I’m typing this you can guess that my hyperactivity levels are going through the roof right now.
So many nice people, so many stories, and one common goal: to make this camp the best camp that has yet been done!

USA travel
As I will be in the USA for the camp, I’d be bonkers if I didn’t take that opportunity to go and travel a bit! I have a friend living in Washington DC, who’s attending Gallaudet University (for who doesn’t know what that is: it’s a university where mostly Deaf students go to, in other words, ‘The Deaf University’). So I will definitely go and see her (Hi Chelsea! *waves*). My other plans are of course Atlanta, since it’s nearby where camp Twitch&Shout is, and I’d love to see the following cities:
– Chicago;
– San Fransisco;
– Los Angeles;
– Portland;
– New York City;
– Orlando;
– Washington DC;
– aaaaaaaaaand I don’t know what else, but those cities are definitely on my list. If you think I missed an amazing city, please let me know in the comments! Or if you think: Sam’s nice, lets invite her over for a citytour, always welcome! 😀

Starting a new study + internships
In september 2016 I’ll be starting (again) with the Signlanguage program at my University, but this time I’ll be attending the Teaching program. So I will become a Signlanguage teacher in a few years!

Next to that I have to re-do my 3rd year Nursing internship, which I will hopefully do at a mental health facility for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing. That way I can support people who suffer from mental illnesses, and show them that there’s light after darkness. As someone who has Tourettes (and the added anxiety/OCD/ADHD/depression that commonly comes along with Tourettes) I can relate to them, and that will be my strength!  And all of that in Signlanguage – so my ‘lack of hearing’ won’t be any issue there!

Right now
My life is pretty chaotic at the moment, but when I think about all the things I’ve written today, life’s not so bad at all! I have many things to look forward to, and many great people around me. Life’s good.

Love, Sam