While gettin’ my kicks on route 66 last month, I discovered something shocking: I don’t hate country music. In fact, I kind of like it.  Wuhhhhhhh??????

Maria, my roadtrip companion extraordinaire, had me listening to Brooks & Dunn, Josh Turner, Trace Adkins and more, as we navigated the roads of Arizona and New Mexico in her Mini Cooper. Little Big Town’s Pontoon became my jam for two weeks and it will forever remind me of our roadtrip last month.

Who knew? I’m a good old-fashioned Amurrrrican girl. Yee-haw!

Call it blasphemy if you will, but on my two-year journey around the world, I traveled without any of my own music. None! Nada! i just listened to whatever was around me…whatever the bus driver was playing…whatever the locals were listening to.

I can certainly appreciate the normal person who loves his or her music and has to have an iPod readily available while on planes, trains and automobiles.

But I’m not one of them. I’m one of those weirdos who’s not “INto” music. Yes, I like music. I just don’t seek it out or escape into my own little world with it. When I’m traveling, I love eavesdropping on conversations around me to see just how well I’ve caught on to the local language; the drone of traffic and local sounds as a city comes alive in the morning; the laughter of children splashing about at the beach; chatting with the passenger next to me on the airplane (yeah, I’m THAT girl). I love engaging with my environment. I need it. It’s my comfort.

Music, of course, is part of those environments and I do find comfort in it too. I’m just not fanatical about it. You can give me anything from reggae to dance punk, indie pop to gangsta rap, dub step to showtunes, jazz blues to bubblegum pop…and there’s a very good chance I’ll like it (although I do draw the line at death metal, sorry).

I particularly love songs that have some nostalgic value for me, songs that bring back warm fuzzy memories. Below are a few random tunes and the countries and tales I associate with them.

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CROATIA

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Budjav Lebac
By S.A.R.S.

By the time I made my way to Croatia, I’d been traveling for over a year and a half. I’d long abandoned my diligent practice of researching a city or country before I arrived. I just started showing up places and seeing what happened.

I LOVED Croatia. Not knowing what I was getting into there is precisely what made my travels there so memorable.

And I have this song, Budjav Lebac (which is actually a Serbian song), to always remind me of it.

Have you ever heard of Plitvice National Park? I hadn’t. So naturally I hadn’t planned on going there. In fact, I didn’t have a plan at all when I arrived in Croatia. And even if I did, it would’ve mostly involved islands and beaches (summer was about to begin, and I’d just spent the last couple months freezing my ass off all over Europe).

But then I made some new, adventurous friends who quickly changed my mind: Igor from Croatia, Ivana from Bosnia, Julie from France, and Alejandro from Chile. Together, with this song playing over and over in Igor’s car, we ended up on an unpredictable journey that would take us to Plitvice and beyond, and it blew. My. Mind.

Apparently my mind was the only one blown though. Everyone else had already seen pictures of Plitvice in travel magazines and online. Me, I had little expectations. I dunno…some old trees? A couple walking trails? A rare bird? But I was in for a surprise.

Stepping into Plitvice National Park felt like stepping straight into a fairy tale. It is one of the most strikingly gorgeous things my eyes have ever laid eyes on. And those eyes started to water immediately (yep – I cried). The emerald turquoise lakes, the lush, vivid greenery, the hundreds of flowing waterfalls…it didn’t look real!

Had I known what Plitvice looked like in advance, there’s no way I would’ve felt the way I felt. Its beauty really caught me off guard. I was awe-struck to the Nth degree.

And the surprises just kept on comin’. Originally, we were all going to part ways in Zadar. But the five of us had become so close on this trip, Igor decided to first take us to his grandmother’s house in Donji Karin! It’s a humble beach town (population 100) near where hostilities against the Serbs took place during the Croatian War of Independence.

For three days, we would party hard with the locals, get downright dirty in the natural mudbaths, swim in the Adriatic Sea, and get schooled on Croatian history. Here we are goofing around at the site of some war remnants.

(As silly as we’re being in these photos, there’s no escaping the realness of how that war affected this country. In some neighborhoods we drove through, bullet-riddled homes were the norm.)

And here are us girls with Igor’s mother and grandmother. These fine ladies made us drink Rakija (hard liquor) for breakfast every morning!

I treasure the adventures I got into with that crazy group of peeps. To this day:

• I still remember how to order a beer in Croatian (sounds like “dye me peevo”).
• The memory of Plitvice National Park still makes my heart flutter.
• And I’ll never forget the sound of Ivana’s voice singing along to this song, Budjav Lebac. In the 300+ kilometers we drove together, Ivana must’ve played this song at least 30 times.

It’s an adorably silly song. The chorus lyrics translate roughly to: Hey guess what I’m having for dinner…moldy bread, moldy bread…yum yum yum yum. The song was stuck in my head long after Ivana and Igor left us in Zadar to head back home to Zagreb.

And my journey through Croatia would go far beyond the map pictured above. I’d end up going camping with Julie and Alejandro on Olib island, HITCHHIKING to the city of Split, and hopping three islands before ending up in Dubrovnik. Ohhhh, I have many, many more tales to tell you about that! Croatia was one of my favorite countries to travel in. I love that I have a song to bring it all back!

For a more entertaining rendition of the song, you MUST check out the man-on-the-street cover by Cigo Man Band. Complete. Genius.

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GREEK ISLANDS

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Something To Be
By True Live

This song is not Greek at all (I think it’s Aussie), but it’ll always be Greek to me. And a little bit French.

When I arrived solo on Santorini Island after an overnight ferry from Athens, a pair of French stooges would take me in as their third. Stephane and Matthieu – not gay! as they would repeatedly declare – were easily the two funnest and funniest travelers I met in Europe. There was so much laughter when I was with them, I think my face went numb. They just had a way of making ordinary things hilarious, and their lively energy was infectious. Their insistence that they weren’t gay was especially endearing because they were always making googly eyes at each other and acting like an old married couple. Ohhh, how I adored them.

There was always music when the Frenchies were around, whether it was coming from their iPods or when they were randomly busting out in a capella. Something To Be, this catchy upbeat melody, was the source of immediate smiles and dancey energy. We didn’t know any of the words, but would “da-da-dadadada-da” to the song as we made our way around the Greek Islands.

This fun little song was playing when we discovered a “romantic” road sign while driving around the backroads of Santorini.

It was the perfect opportunity for the guys to prove how not gay they were. (Sure!)

And the song played several times as we drove around the island of Paros, looking for Stephane’s shoes.

We’d been navigating dirt and gravel roads for hours exploring hidden beaches all over the island (totally awesome, by the way), when Stephane realized his shoes were missing. We had to backtrack half a day’s worth of remote beach-hopping in search of them – and just as all seemed hopeless, a Greek farmer saved the day. We had galloped through a field of tall, thick grass to approach him, and discovered he didn’t speak a lick of English (or French). So we used our hands to communicate what we were looking for, and the man eventually nodded…disappeared…and returned with Stephane’s beloved shoes. Awwwwwww. (Seriously, Stephane was one happy dude to be reunited with those kicks! And PS don’t laugh at his shorts.)

The three of us spent only a few days together on those two islands, but we still get in touch every now and then. By the time I’d backpacked my way to France a few months after, Stephane and I would be able to meet up again for a couple beers in Paris. Matthieu, lucky bastard, had moved to Madagascar with his girlfriend. Not gay after all

Just as it was in Croatia, the song I associate with this journey has little to do with the song itself or even the locale in which I heard it. For me, what’s special about the song is the people it reminds me of, the memories we made while listening to it, and the smile it brings to my face whenever I hear it.

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VIETNAM

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Nobody
By Wonder Girls
(song begins at 2:00)

If you have ears and have been anywhere in Southeast Asia in the last three to four years, you’ve probably heard this song.

K-pop is HUGE in Vietnam. I couldn’t go to a single bar or restaurant or karaoke lounge without hearing this poppy little tune titled “Nobody.” It’s everywhere. It always gets girls on the dance floor, screaming what I assume to be the Vietnamese equivalent of, “Omigod I love this song!” (read: Woo Girl).

It even cheers up little kids and ends temper tantrums. Really! I was riding in the back seat of a car with precious little Tina one night while she was crying for her mom. She was inconsolable, but when I asked my cousins in the front seat to turn on the song, the tears stopped immediately. Not only did Tina stop crying, she started singing! How cute is that, really.

As a side note, my cousins (who love American music) would later play Dick in a Box by Justin Timberlake / Lonely Island. I started to giggle when I heard the song, but when they started SINGING ALONG to it in their Vietnamese accents, I lost it. Though they were singing the correct words, they had no idea what they were actually saying! I tried translating the song for them with my broken Vietnamese -while pointing at my crotch (pure comedy) – but it was useless. Unexplainable laughter would suffice.

Anyway, the song Nobody is cheeseball and catchy and all things that make a pop song a hit. The sheer fact that it was always playing makes it my Vietnam anthem. It will always bring back memories of the seven months I spent there…zipping around on the back of a motorbike through the complete chaos of traffic…the rich taste of an ice cold Vietnamese coffee in the morning…squatting on tiny plastic chairs on a dirty sidewalk while taking in the succulent flavors of nhậu food.

*Sigh* There’s a special place in my heart for Vietnam. Even if a cheesy Korean song is what reminds me of it.

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NEW ZEALAND

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Rock & Roll
By Eric Hutchinson

Sea lions, penguins and sheep – oh MY!

If you ever go to New Zealand, I beg you: GO to the Otago Peninsula.

It’s not a major tourist attraction (which makes it rad), and it is my fave NZ destination. Just outside the city of Dunedin on the south island, the Otago Peninsula is home to fascinating wildlife.

Where else can you sunbathe on the beach next to a sea lion? And where else can you see a penguin emerge from the ocean onto shore, waddle waddle up a grassy hill, then yield to a passing flock of sheep?

Oh yeah, it’s a thing…or maybe I was just lucky…anyway…it’s amazeballs.

There are a few companies that offer eco-tours throughout the region and they’re worth a go because they have access to restricted areas (I went with Elm Wildlife Tours). But I was so enamored by the insane CUTENESS of the penguins – seriously, it’s kind of scary how much I love them – that I rented a car so I could go back and explore the peninsula on my own.

First thing to note: They drive on the “wrong” side of the road in New Zealand. For me, that was quite an adventure in and of itself. Pictured here is me on said “wrong” side of the road (and car, for that matter). Do I look frightened? It’s because I am. But driving on the left side is not what’s scary about it – it’s when you get to an intersection and make a turn. THAT is when things get tricky!

Second: Every time I turned on the radio, this Rock & Roll song was playing. The artist is actually American, but this song of his was a huge hit in Australia and New Zealand at the time. It was inescapable.

It’s a pleasant, happy song, and I didn’t mind one bit that it became my New Zealand wildlife roadtrip song. While trying not to kill myself by driving on the wrong side of the road, I made my way through the peninsula, and even drove down the Southern Scenic Route through the Caitlins Forest and to the southernmost tip of the island (about 400 kilometers in total).

But again, it was the wildlife gem of the Otago Peninsula that moved me the most. And it was this song that had me rockin’ behind the wheel.

My lil penguin

Here’s something I’ll probably never ever see again in my life:
A penguin giving the right of way to a flock of sheep. Gah! I melt!

And look – a baby seal. Gah! I melt again!

And is it just me or is this sea lion SMILING? Gah! I mellllt!

There is something really magical about seeing animals like this in their natural habitat. Although, if I ever return to NZ, I might just steal a penguin. Just sayin’.

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So there you have it. Some of the random songs from my world travels. If you were to put these songs on your iPod, you’d have what could possibly be the strangest travel music collection of all time.

But it’s mine and it means something to me