I know I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog the last couple of weeks so here I am.  The purpose of Jet Set Zero is tell the coolest, most amazing travel stories.  Well I’ve been in a bit of a slump and it’s hard for me to fake being super excited when I’m very clearly not very excited at all.

So here is my honest story, the not so fun part about traveling.

When I arrived in Istanbul I was stoked beyond stoked.  Everyone was new, the surroundings, the people, the language, the food and I was completely out of my element.  I was in the honeymoon period.  Istanbul could do no wrong.  The fun part was trying to find jobs and housing because it really gave us a chance to go out and wander around and get to know the city.  About 3 weeks in, we had housing and we had jobs.  I went off and started my new job at a travel agency in Sultanahmet.  I thought this job would be really exciting, getting a chance to learn about Turkey and meet other travelers as they came though.  But like any job, it gets old, and this got old fast.  Suddenly I had the Monday to Friday 9 – 6 job.  Wait a minute….. didn’t I just leave that back in Calgary?  Except at my job back home I made 10 times as much money, I worked with some of my best friends and I had real honest responsibility and it was really fun.  Now, I make a very small amount of money (I think I’m doing alright according to Turkish standards though), I don’t work with my best friends and I spend a lot of time sitting and staring at the wall waiting for something to happen.

Then it started to happen, the homesickness.  I was thinking to myself, why did I give up everything to come and do the exact same thing I was doing at home but to a shittier capacity?  Not to mention that I don’t have my family, friends, dog, bed, pantry stocked full of all sorts of food and my Xbox.

So everything just started to pile up and everything about this started to suck.  The little things became huge things.  I got super irritable (sorry to my poor roomies for having to deal with me). I’ve been told that everyone hits a slump about 3-4 months in and if you can get past that you’ll be alright.  In the past, when I’ve traveled it was for a few months at a time, I had a return ticket and i knew when I was going to see my family/friends and I always had a pocketful of cash to go do whatever the fuck I wanted whenever the fuck I wanted.

I’ve lived a relatively stress free life and for the first time in years I’m stressed, I can honestly say that I don’t have the coping mechanisms wired within me to deal with it.  It usually takes a lot to get me to this point but here we are.  What a terrible feeling, I can’t believe that people live like this all the time.

This may just sound like ridiculous bitching because honestly, this is probably going be the greatest experience of my life.  How many people get a chance to do something like Jet Set Zero?  I think I’m starting to come out of my dark hole of existence now though, today is my last day of work.  I’m going to see a Besiktas football game on Saturday, I’ve planned a weeklong excursion to take me down to the southern coast of Turkey where I’ll live in a treehouse and hang out on the Mediterranean sea and I have a ticket to Ho Chi Minh City.

I guess this is what I came here for, the experience, the good and the bad.

I’m not ready to give up yet, things are starting to look up.

Sometimes the hardest part of traveling is the part that you think will be the easiest….

Honestly, I haven’t seen much of Istanbul yet.  However the other day we met Jen at work and took the long way back, up past the blue mosque, and through the park.

And the rest of the trip home…

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Totally thought she was taller.

I’m really more of a tattoo kind of girl but they’re pretty expensive, so last night while eating a delicious ice cream cone, I decide on a whim that I would get my lip pierced instead. We found a little piercing place in Kadikoy run by the most unlikely people to ever run a piercing place, an incredibly sweet middle aged clean cut couple that could be your mom or dad. You know, the type of parents to help you with you math homework and would be in the front row cheering you on at all your soccer games.

I’ll admit, I was a little sketched out at first because they kept their tools in a little closet and I just sat down on a stool in the corner of the shop, it wasn’t all shiny like tattoo and piercing places back home. I was thinking ‘Infection City, here I come!’ But once we got started, I felt better, everything was clean and sterile and handled in a very professional manner.

Enjoy!

I am proud to announce that I am the first member of Jet Set Zero to have a missed connection.

Two weeks ago we threw a party at our house and at that party there was an absolutely gorgeous man there. We chatted very, very briefly. Unfortunately when you have nearly 100 guests at your place, 96 of whom you’ve never met before you tend to get busy chatting with people and names slip through the crack. So now I am on a quest to find my male ‘Cinderella.’

If you’re the guy I’m looking for, send me an email Jen@JetSetZero.tv

Please note: Any emails, pictures, videos, flowers, candy and small cash donations may be posted on our website.

At the insistence of others…. here is my audition video. Turns out all you need is a pocketful of dreams and a bacon tattoo to impress Jet Set Zero.

Hey Everyone!  My name is Jen and I am the newest cast member to join Jet Set Zero.  

Two months ago, I was sitting reading the local newspaper, checking out the travel section and dreaming of far off adventures, then I came across an article called “Jet Set Adventures on a Beer Budget.”  I immediately checked out the Jet Set Zero website and watched every episode obsessively, in the end, I concluded that I had to be a part of this.

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