30 cool things that happened while I was 30
Well, hello from the right side of 31!
I enjoy birthdays. I treat them as my personal new years - measuring myself against who I was, and where I was the years before at this time. The week leading up to my birthday generally consists of a lot of reflection, introspection and alone-time. It's been a roller-coaster of a year. Lots of highs, and lots of lows. Traveling, falling in love, falling out of love, breakups, injuries, burnouts, resignations etc.
So, in the days leading up to my 31st birthday, I made a list of 30 cool things that happened while I was 30. I tried to put them in chronological order as much as I could.
Here they are:
1. Winning the Freedom Swim on December 16th, 2016.
Pre Swim Focus
2. Spending Christmas and New Years with my parents in Abu Dhabi
Selfie at Bab Al-Shams
3. Yas Island fireworks on New Years
Crazy firework show!! This photo does not do it justice.
4. Running on the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Track
5. Road trip to visit all the remaining UAE states I haven't been to.
On the highest point in the UAE.
6. Having one of my best friends become my flatmate.
Clinky!
7. Walking the Vegas strip
Yes!
The Strip.
Trump Tower Selfie.
8. Visiting the favelas in Sao Paolo
9. Sleeping in a houseboat on the Amazon River
Sunset from the houseboat.
Our houseboat. My hammock out in front.
Houseboat office.
10. Seeing the meeting of the rivers on the Amazon
That's our boat. Photo credit to Rich Hamman and Kelvin Trautman.
11. Just being in the Amazon (!!)
12. Meeting an Aboriginal Elder in Australia
13. Seeing the 3 Gorges Dam - the biggest dam in the world
I know it looks small. It's not.
14. Visiting the Yichang and seeing the Yangtze River gorge.
Busiest river in the world.
View from our house. Insanely beautiful!
Hello Yangtze river!
15. Visiting my friends Dawid & Gussie in Shanghai
16. Dinner with David Fenton and his wife
He is the founder of Fenton Communications.
17. Traveling the length of the Thames River
18. Running 100km for water awareness with Kelvin in Cape Town
Meeting Mayor, Patricia De Lille, during our 100km run campiagn
Finishing our 100km run, 24 hours after we started on top of Lion's Head.
19. Solo Mountain Getaway
20. Presenting the #RunningDry100 campaign at Love Our Trails Film Festival
Pre presentation selfie.
Presentation. Thanks Rory for the photo.
21. irst art exhibition at First Thursdays in August
22. Getting Mina verified on Twitter
23. Running my 1st ever marathon
24. Becoming the co-founder of JOLP
25. Solo trip to Turkey and finally seeing Istanbul for the first time
26. Visiting Cappadocia: trail running, cave exploring etc.
27. Hot Air Balloon Flight in Cappadocia
28. Seeing Josh, one of my best friends from university, get married
29. Deciding to go completely gluten- and dairy-free
The last pizza I ever ate.
30. Getting into bio-hacking, complete with blood-markers
There were LOTS of lows too. And I've learned plenty from all of them. So, here's to 31. A new year, with new opportunities, and new challenges.