Never compare your average to someone else's highlight reel

So far, Thailand hasn't impressed me. But you're not going to hear me complain about my dream travel life, so keep reading- I’m still committed to finding the bright side, I wont let you down.
I’ve had a lot of down time to meditate on these things, and I've come up with two main reasons why I'm not having the TIME OF MY LIFE right now (except for the simple statistical reality that by definition, it's not possible to have the time of my life continually. Or even just more than once, come to think of it). I’ve also had enough down time to come up with a way to fix this issue to some extent. Not enough time to know how to fix it to the I’M GOING TO CONTINUALLY HAVE THE TIME OF MY LIFE extent. But that's because I’m not a mathematician and I don't want to put the time into becoming one. It's not really something I’m worried about though.
Ok. So here's what I’ve got.
Mostly, I’m addicted to stimulation. I’ve got one of those personalities that feeds off of drama. Like if I walked into a room and everybody was meditating and singing “ommmmm” and perfectly at peace with the world I’d probably explode from boredom. On the flip side, if I walked into a room where everybody was talking loudly and there was just generally a lot of not being at peace with the world going on, I'd feel perfectly relaxed and comfortable (if you don’t believe me, please google “extrovert”). Naturally, some of my favorite memories were made in the presence of LOTS of other people, in rooms with LOTS of things happening all at once. I didn't have to meditate to figure this out though, I’ve spent enough time listening to my mom to know that I’m not the calmest person around. I did have to meditate to figure out a way to fix it. By meditate I mean spend lots of time rolling around in the sand. I don't know how to actually meditate, plus sitting still for that long sounds terrible.

Part 1, The Stimulation Hunt
There's something about doing nothing that's really really stressful. We spend our working days rushing around trying to take care of all of our responsibilities, but as soon as we are left free of responsibility we don't know how to use our time.
Every time I travel I remember how hard it is to sit down and relax for long amounts of time, to have nothing to do, to be peaceful and calm without stimulation.
I was raised in a real Waldorf family (I’m defining real Waldorf family as one that didn't have a TV) I’m going to assume this played out on me in some sort of positive way, not just in the way that I don't have enough attention span to finish watching a movie which probably saves me a lot of wasted time and makes me really good at getting stuff done on the weekends while everybody else is just busy watching movies.
In my family, media and stimulation were seen as inherently negative. Of course, when you’re young, everything is stimulation, everything is entertaining. Why? I think it's because we're always learning. Its hard not to be entertained when you're seeing new things everywhere. As we get older, I think our brains become less strong because we stop learning. But there's got to be a solution to it. In reality, there's always something else to learn and there's always a way to hone your brain. But our RESPONSIBILITIES take over. Our day to day duties and the mundane tasks we see as so important to our survival take over the majority of our time and we forget to make time to learn, to really learn. This is why it's so important to have relaxation time, to do nothing so that we feel we will have the space to do something that is important. Something that's not built just from habit, or from duty, but something that stimulates our minds and our creativity. Rather than taking this step, it's easy to stuff our lives with stimulation that won't achieve anything. To become hooked in habit and in the mundane, to never make time for our minds.
So how does this relate to solving my need for entertainment? The important part is that I don't want to have to be entertained. I want to have the space to learn. And that's what traveling does for me, it forces me to be away from all my regular sources of entertainment, which eventually leads to me opening my mind just a little bit. The first week or two of being in a new place is always frustrating. That's why I'm frustrated at Thailand right now. Because I’m forcing myself to be in a place where I can be calm, where I can try new things (like blogging, ha).
One of the best adventures of my life was doing the Camino de Santiago last fall. But you know, most of the time I was walking I was ridiculously frustrated. I remember ranting to a Camino friend about how pissed I was at the whole thing. How I wasn't learning anything. How it was hot and boring. How my legs hurt but I wasn't getting fitter. How there was no point in walking through all those tourist trap towns eating their tourist trap food. But at the end of the walk, I'd created some of the best memories of my life. But that's going to be a separate blog. Once I get around to it.

Part 2, The Food Hunt
Thus far in my trip, the food has been terrible. Not just bad, but really, really, terrible. It makes me sick, I’ve been nauseous after almost every meal, it's overly sweet, they put sugar in every dish, savory or sweet. I’ve only been in highly touristed areas though, so I think the bad food is just a result of high demand.
I realize that what we put in our bodies determines a lot about what we feel, how our bodies function, how much energy we have. The food we eat affects everything we do, and when we put nourishing, delicious foods in our body it increases not just our physical wellbeing but our emotional state as well.
The best place I've ever been, thus far in my life, was Crete. When I think about my time on Crete, what really stands out are the foods I ate and the setting in which I ate them.
I'll never forget a specific zucchini flower that was lightly fried in olive oil and served with feta, at a restaurant set into a cliff side overlooking the beautiful Cretan mountainside and the Mediterranean. Or a squared, crispy goat cheese with honey I ate at a table underneath an arch of flowers miles into the mountains. (Once again- that's a story for another blog post).

P.S. Sorry for making you read a whole lot of what you thought was going to turn into a really cool story about a lot of really cool people. I tried to give it a boring title to discourage you but you just can't take a hint.

P.P.S. Little update on the food situation- I've recently rediscovered my childhood McDonalds infatuation and it's done wonders for my mental and digestive situations- I've been McNugged into gastronomic heaven.