Meet Me.

Hi. I’m Michelle and you’ve found me.

Welcome to my little space on the inter-webs; nice to meet you– I’m so glad you are here.

My blog, Adventure Adikt, is my blog 2.0.  The first one started way back in 2006. I kept it private and it had a different name. Then and at some point around 2010 I upgraded to a ‘proper’ WordPress and set off to explore an entire continent. In 2015, I graduated from nursing school, took a European vacation with my friend DJ, and updated my blog.  I changed formats, and did a major re-design. In 2017, I bought a house and acquired a cat from (one of the sweetest) patients I have ever taken care of… (He was a WWII vet, recently had a frontal lobe stroke, as moving into an Assisted Living facility and the only, I mean ONLY thing he cared about was ‘Who is going to take care of Molly?  Turns out–Me–I’m taking care of Molly [and she’s a super sweet cat to boot]). Also in 2017, I accepted an invitation to join the Peace Corps as a maternal child health volunteer.  You can believe I’ve got some stories from that–and not all social justice warrior ‘I want to save the world‘ stories. In a nutshell, my blog is a (very) vaguely chronological timeline of life events, travel, and mishaps along with some life lessons and musings thrown in for fun.  

So why did I start blogging in the first place?

My very first blog post contained a hate filled diatribe about an ex-boyfriend who was not an ex at the time that I caught dating another woman.  On my birthday, no less. Yes, I’m still bitter. No, that post is not anywhere on this blog.  Then I did disaster relief during Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi, and oh boy, was that a steep learning curve with medical and social triage.  It was physically & mentally draining. I needed a place to get those feeling out and the blog was it. Over the next few years, I traveled a lot, changed careers, bought a house, changed careers again, rekindled my love for hiking, took up fencing and boxing, and went back to university as an adult.

The blog has been my one constant for my adult life.

So is it a travel blog?

Not exclusively. Traveling is one of my favorite activities, but I’m not exactly in the most ideal position to write a blog that focuses on traveling the world. I haven’t even been to Africa, yet. (Peace Corps changed that). I have yet to go to South East Asia, or Central Asia or any parts of Asia, really. I haven’t made it to Australia. Or New Zealand. Or the Middle East. But I want to, one day, and my bucket list gets longer every day. So, obviously, I can’t really give any profound travel advice about going to places I’ve never been. I always hurt myself without even doing anything adventurous and I always forget something crucial. Like my passport. It’s no secret that I honestly don’t have a clue when it comes to round the world planning, or packing, or malaria pills.  I actually got malaria while taking said pills.

Is it a personal blog?

Well, not exactly. I mean it’s personal to me, but certainly not a daily log of my life.

I am passionate about travel, heading outdoors as often as possible, grass roots health care, education and conservation, reading, learning to do things myself, and creating the perfect combination of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. These days I drink apple cider, hot or cold, but preferably fresh-pressed, and during the hot summer months, nice, cold lemonade. 

I’m a recovering wine fiend, vodka-lover, whiskey drinker, and tequila connoisseur, and even though I don’t drink alcohol anymore, I think wineries are spectacularly awesome, breweries are uber cool, and distilleries are ummmm, interesting. On my blog you’ll find a collection of travel stories (and misadventures), kitchen experiments (also more misadventures), and things I find interesting. Occasionally I write stories about things that I thought were a good idea at the time, but in retrospect turned out to be a horrible idea.

I have studied monkeys and tagged turtles in the wild, fell in love with lemurs, chased cats all over the world, rescued sea turtles on the coast, taught health classes in Spanish [and Kinyarwandan!], built stoves with proper ventilation in the Andes mountains, brought babies into the world and seen them out of the world, been regaled with WWII veterans’ tales, helped people die with dignity, and dealt with the dangers of addiction on a personal level.

I am cynical but optimistic, tough but kind, honest, sarcastic, introverted, yet assertive.  My filter has giant holes in it which means a lot of things get through that probably shouldn’t.  Working in health care has given me an appreciation of dark humor. Political correctness does not live here. I call a spade a spade, so if you are easily offended, here’s your advance warning.

Myers-Briggs calls me a INFP — It means for the life of me I cannot make concrete plans; it means that I am an introvert (I agree with that one), intuitive (agreed), and that I am sensitive (whatever). When you figure out what that means, let me know, OK?

Life is not meant to be rush through– hurried, anxious and rushed. We’ve been told many times before that this is not a dress rehearsal, but know all too well that this is also not a play. This is life and the only one we’ve been bestowed with – let us occasionally remind ourselves of that. My life has never followed a linear grid and I’m constantly taking what most people consider ‘a chance.’

So it’s not a travel blog or a personal blog,  or a cooking (HA-HA), or fashion (OMG, I’m dying) blog?

No, it is not. I write about all of those, except fashion (I essentially wear pajamas or wilderness clothes all the time). My bucket list gets longer every day. Since joining the medical profession, I’ve contracted malaria, the flu, and a touch of the plague. I broke more than a few bones, required stitches, and fell down so many times it’s even not funny anymore.

Stick around. I promise… you’ll want to see what I do.

Still curious as to what this blog is about? Can’t wait to get started?  Read on for some of my most popular posts:

• Interested in staying healthy while traveling through harsh environments.  This post outlines how I’ve avoided (or more accurately, recovered from) a host of injuries/illnesses I’ve managed to have while outside the friendly confines of ‘home’.

• I’ve done a lot of things people might call crazy, but this one absolutely takes the cake.

• Everyone has a cultural symbol that they’ve fallen in love with:  mine is Berlin’s Ampelmann.  In this post, I explore Ampelmann’s history and future.