Goodbye Dallas Hello World: Travel Lessons: Laundry

100 Before 100

1. Learn to knit

2. Write a cookbook

3. Learn how to clap to the beat of music on my own (No, seriously. This is an issue)

4. Start a by-mail book swap with my amazingly smart high school friends

5. Learn how to use photoshop

6. Get a puppy and train him so well that I can go for a run and she/he will follow behind me with no instruction

7. Go to every continent

8. Be fluent in French

9. Watch all of Hitchcock's classic movies

10. Celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary

11. Throw a party that people will be talking about for years as one of the best events they've ever been to.

12. Write in a journal daily for a year

13. Learn to scuba dive (I received scuba lessons as a Christmas present! I'm one step closer to knocking this off my list!)

14. Ride an elephant

15. Read War and Peace

16. Have a white christmas

17. Wear a tutu in all seriousness in public

18. Build my dream kitchen (subway tile, giant stove, sofas for hanging out....)

19. Work on conquering my fear/phobia of needles to the point where I can get a shot without being slightly hysterical

20. Learn how to make delicious Indian food (there have been some very failed attempts in the past)

21. Live in a city that is no more than an hour drive from the mountains

22. Create a 5-year plan that is feasible, interesting, and exciting.

23. Go to the World's Longest Yard Sale in Tennessee.

24. Win the weekly cartoon-captioning contest in the New Yorker.

25. Go 12 months without losing a cell phone.

26. Donate 10+ inches of hair to Locks of Love

27. See the Taj Majal

28. Collect and record stories about my family from my grandparents

29. Break the habit of picking at the skin around my nails. Youch! It hurts!

30. Bungy jump from the world's tallest bungy jump from Bloukrans bridge in South Africa.

31. Have a “signature dish”—something that everyone will ask me to bring to a potluck.
32. Go ice fishing.
33. Get all of my amazing girlfriends across the nation together for an unforgettable weekend.
34. Spend a month in the woods with nothing but the pack on my back and whatever I can carry in it.
35. Use the phrase “the last time I was in Thailand” in a completely legitimate way.
36. Own my own company.
37. Learn how to clean and cook and entire fish.
38. Play with a baby elephant

39. Run a 7-minute mile.
40. Compete in a hot air balloon race.

41. Live in a foreigncountry
42. Play tennis at a 4.0 level (right now I'm a measly 2.75)
43. Learn the names of the constellations
44. Beat my Mom at Scrabble (never. going. to happen.)
45. Start a compost pile
46. Buy a gorgeous piece of stained glass
47. Learn how to be a good haggler
48. Wear a two-piece with ease again
49. Be an extra in a movie
50. Learn how to play chess

During my three months backpacking in Europe laundering facilities were hard to come by. They were expensive. And when you only have two pairs of pants with you and 6 shirts it's annoying to pay for an entire washer and dryer.

After a while I became a little creative:

(Nice, France)

In a French hotel? Use a bidet to soak your clothes!

(Riomaggiore, Italy)

Let them soak in a nice bubble bath!

(Riomaggiore, Italy)

Stir them around to get them nice and clean!

(Paris, France)

If you are stuck in a hostel where the windows don't open, try to find a space to hang a clothes line inside. This one is draped across the end of my hostel bed. I slept with the clothes hanging over me all night.