The Next Chapter

Hey, my name is Andrea and my girlfriend’s name is Karina (she’s the one in the picture.) So far this year has been rather tough on us and we have been surrounded by a lot of death which in turn really made us question our lives and how important it is to go out and live it to the fullest capacity before it’s too late. For months we had been planning to go on a trip, I waitressed and she worked at a meditation center, both of which aren’t high in pay especially to survive living in Miami but we knew we had to go away at least for a little bit. As it turns out, signs pointed for us to not only take a trip but to move from Miami and start over someplace new. We packed up our most valuable things and other small necessities and donated everything else. We have real goals and ambitions and plan to start over in LA after this trip but unfortunately during this trip we have run into quite a few snags. We made plans and confirmations using the sites Couchsurfing, Hostelworld, and Airbnb. On our very first day our hostel information never went through on their end though it did with proof on ours and at the last minute we were forced to find someplace else but everyplace else was already booked. Scrambling for ideas we decided to message the person we were to be couchsurfing with the next day only for him to not message us back (it’s been over a week.) To make a long story short we’ve been granted miracles from God to stay with a stranger we met on the bus at 1am when we were just shy of utter desperation. Since leaving him we have donated even more of our things and are truly down to our bare essentials. We thought that since the countries are closer together in Europe and Asia we would buy one ways for transportation so that we could have the freedom to explore more and actually learn different cultures. Coming through all these hiccups and losing money (a lot more than even anticipated) we have been through an emotional rollercoaster. A “trip of a lifetime” turned into survival 101. We’re already skinny/underweight and have lost more weight from not being able to eat in order to save money. We come from poor backgrounds which is why our family hasn’t been able to contribute and it’s also why this trip was such a big deal for us in the first place. Not to get into race but in social media, traveling is glamorized especially by young adults our age in their early/mid 20’s and it’s mostly Caucasians that you see. We wanted to publicize this trip, being two brown girls who could make it. We forgot to really take into account that many (not all but many) of these Caucasian people that flood the media are also rich and have families that can provide for them if they were in a situation like ours. I’ve had to push a lot of pride aside in asking for help and I believe that’s one of the many lessons to be learned on this trip. So this is me, officially asking for help, from anyone, for any amount. I don’t want to feel like a failure, not when I know we have so much we are to achieve in life. We are currently in Portugal (our first stop) we will be in Italy in a few days then Bali. I know it sounds ridiculous to ask for money when we’re going on such a trip but there’s so much more to it. We don’t have flights to leave Bali yet because we were unsure of where we were going to go next but now it’s sure that we are to go straight to LA afterwards only now we don’t even have enough to get back. Afraid we will be stuck at the airport not even able to enter Bali until we can prove we aren’t staying there illegally/indefinitely though it would be nice. Even though we won’t have any money or a place to stay once we get to LA that’s something we are still working out, tackling one problem at a time we are asking for 2,000$ to help pay for our flight from Bali to LA and for some food to get us by. This is embarrassing for me to even ask but I’ve reached a point where that’s all I have left to do. Thank you to all who bothered to read and thank you to anyone who donates, we’re keeping our heads held high and our spirits up. We are full of love and have big plans on spreading that throughout the world, but in order for us to start this new chapter and give back we need help in sustaining ourselves first.