The first morning I woke up in Rotterdam, my brain started to create different plans for the day even before I had washed my face. It mingled with ideas like: “The day after the next I'll leave for Utrecht, and I'll only have one full day there, so if I want to go on a day trip to Leiden or Amsterdam or Delft it should be today or tomorrow”, “Where to find canal tours here?”, “What an opportunity that I'm here right when the tulip season is starting. Mom also hoped I'll visit a tulip field. Should I spend a few hours traveling out from the city to reach the field though?”, “ Is seeing a tulip field with bare eyes that meaningful to me? Why are canals more meaningful to me?”, “Should I bring my laptop when I go out? It'll be heavy… but if I leave it in the hostel, I won't be able to write, and I will need a locker for it too…”, and more. Everytime I'm in a new place, my brain is like this, even when I don't want it to do so. Especially when I'm solo — it does this to make sure that I will as safe and as happy ****as possible.
I appreciate my strategic brain a lot.
It's just that when my brain plans too much, its plans fail.
The first time I solo traveled to NYC for Thanksgiving 2021, in the mornings at chi Khue Anh's house in Brooklyn, my brain would be planning when I'd start the 1-hour journey to Manhattan, when I'd reach there, where I'd have breakfast, what I'd do after breakfast and before the time I'd meet my friends, which restaurants I'd pass by on my way that had vegan food and good reviews for me to stop by for lunch/dinner… and when I'll start to head back to Brooklyn to be back at Khue Anh's place before 11pm. When my brain and I finished our research on Google Maps, however, I was already late to leave the house according to my brain's plan. If I kept following the plan, then I'd reach the breakfast place too late, and I'd have to rush to finish it to be on time to meet my friends. So I just ate some random energy bar right away, and headed on a different route to go straight to the meeting point. And then afterwards, because I ate so little for breakfast, I settled down for lunch at a different place from what my brain had researched and chosen earlier.
If I had been more comfortable with not having everything planned out, I'd have left the house earlier, and wouldn't have felt too rushed to do what I wanted to do throughout the day.
Similar incidents happen on ordinary days at Mount Holyoke as well.
As I was sitting on my hostel bed in Rotterdam and made plans on Google Maps, my stomach made a sound telling me it needed breakfast. Suddenly these memories came back to my mind. I was not gonna make the same mistake again! So I turned off my phone, telling myself that okay, one thing at a time. I am not on a mission to complete any travel checklist. I am here to have a good time. So I just jotted down a few things I needed to do that day (do laundry for some necessary items, wash my hair, and reply to ORNL emails), and headed down to make breakfast, letting what were meant to come next to just come. This has become one of the most life-changing mindsets I have adopted.
Since I wanted to buy some bread at a local bakery just a few blocks away, I headed out just with my phone and wallet (leaving my backpack with no valuables and locked suitcase with laptop in the hostel). After the days walking around with the heavy suitcase and backpack, this morning I felt so light. The quietness of the streets and the fresh air of the morning were also so refreshing. As I walked lightly and did stretches and twists freely, it once again made sense to me how full body physical movement is a key component in making any day anywhere feel good. Lots of the time, a day sitting around in a luxurious hotel or walking many miles around a pretty park doesn't make me feel as good as a day with a good mix of movements for my whole body (like hiking and yoga, jogging and basketball, or stretching and taekwondo) and some time sitting (ergonomically) at a desk letting my brain doing some good focus work. This is probably also why many of my days at Mount Holyoke feel good. Now that I reminded myself of this, I became more sure of how I would make my days in Rotterdam good days.
After I brought back the bread (+ soy yogurt!) and prepared my classic breakfast with the fruits and peanut butter I had, I was passing by the front desk when I caught sight of a free walking tour advertisement. As I'd had an amazing first experience in Zagreb, I immediately scanned the QR code and registered for a tour. The available tour was 12:30-2:30pm — see, if I had made concrete plans for the day, the timing of this tour would break all the plans.