Nicola Butler

I don’t believe I’m the first to come up with this, but I have a theory that human beings were not designed to sit in airplane seats for prolonged amounts of time. My body backs this notion 100%.
China is a looong way from Orlando.
To make this grueling journey whizz by, Carro and I decided to eat some sleeping pills on the 14-hour flight from Detroit to Beijing. Fast forward to 1 glass of wine and 2 hours later and we were contorted into positions worthy of a Cirque Du Soleil performance.
Note to self: be more like Carro.
When we arrived in China I would come to find that this little setback was to be the least of my worries. It all began with our desire to see The Great Wall.
The journey to the Great Wall went as follows:

• Wake up at 6am - hooray for Jet lag!
• Have $8 hotel coffee with Bradlee in the lobby and discuss World Politics.
• 7am skate with the rest of the crew to find semi-westernized breakfast.
• Find a Costa coffee and have a delightful breakfast filled with cappuccinos and croissants.
• Think to self, “This is gonna be a good day”.
• Realize we are close to the Forbidden City and decide to skate there before TGW.
• Skate in the wrong direction for 30 minutes courtesy of my inaccurate directions.
• Ask several passersby to lead us in the right direction - no one speaks an ounce of English.
• 45 minutes later eventually stumble upon extravagant looking palace and acres of tourists.
• Despair turns to happiness once again.
• 10:14am Enter Forbidden City.
• Chinese tourists become much less interested in the Palace and begin taking photos of white people doing silly things for photos.

• Said tourists begin to line up for photos with the latest and greatest attraction: Blonde Swedish Girl.
• Finally lose the papz and walk to the end of the City with a lot of oohs and ahhs.

• Get our fix of Forbidden City knowledge and skate in right direction to hotel, which takes approximately 8 minutes.
• Shower, change and prepare selves for the epicness of tobogganing down TGW.

“What’s greater than seeing one of the seven wonders of the world? TOBOGGANING down one of the Seven Wonders of the World!!”

• Go down to lobby at 1:05pm
• Hopes and dreams shattered when receptionist tells us TGW closes at 4pm and cars have to be requested 2 hours in advance.
• Prove her wrong when we pile 5 people into a taxi, while waving 600 Chinese Yuan and reassuring the taxi driver that 4 people in the back is a great idea.
• Sit in taxi content that we are on track to seeing the one thing we came there for.
• Fast forward to 30 minutes later: Arrive in parking lot.
• Not the Great Wall.
• Driver insists it’s Great Wall.
• I repeat: Not the Great Wall.
• We get out at the ‘Summer Palace’ in a foul mood. I’m sure it was a beautiful place but we did not care.
• Hopes of Great Wall sightings steadily declining. 
• Finally convince new taxi driver to take us to TGW. He seems unsure. Start to question if Great Wall even exists.
• Fast forward 2 hours of extremely uncomfortable taxi ride and we are sitting in complete standstill traffic just minutes from TGW entry.
• We stay here for 30 minutes while our souls drain of any happiness or excitement we once felt.
• Eventually arrive at Great Wall to find that it’s closed, but convince the ticket guy to let us in. He sees the immense sadness in our eyes and pities us.
• Things are looking up.
• The Great Wall is WONDERFUL.

• Paid taxi driver another 600 Chinese Yuan to wait 30 minutes for us and then drive us back the 90 minutes to our hotel.
• Paid total of 1500 Chinese Yuan to see Wall for 30 minutes.
• Took hour taxi to the airport in the morning
• Paid 57 Chinese Yuan. 

As it is, we are merely bolting our lives—gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in—because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being. If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable? But suppose you could answer, “It would take me forever to tell you, and I am much too interested in what’s happening now.” How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment—from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies—how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?

~ Alan Watts

Travel everywhere, love everything, eat that cupcake, and kiss that boy because you never know when you'll get another shot ;)

“I’ve carried the shame of being a ‘creative’ since I came to the 
planet; have been asked to be something different, more, less my 
whole life. Thank spirit, my wisdom is deeper than my shame, and 
I listened to who I was. I want to say to all the creatives who have 
been taught to believe who you are is not enough for this world, taught that a life of art will amount to nothing, know that who we are, and what we do is life. When we create, we are creating the world. Remember this, and commit.” 

― Nayyirah Waheed

Well, once again I'm hurt. But that's the nature of my sport and an 8 week break ain't so bad. It means a lot of downtime, and of course my life feels a little emptier without wakeboarding, but it also gives me a chance to focus on some of my other hobbies.

Whenever something awesome happens or the light is hitting someones face just right, I always wish I had a camera in my hand. I just want to capture that moment forever. I want to shoot everyone and everything. I love to capture people candidly and allow them to see a little glimpse of just how beautiful they look to others.  I'm sure people with an artistic eye can relate but I think I see settings and people differently to most. I love shooting portraits because, hey, eyes really are the windows to the soul. Turns out a lot of people don't like to have a camera pushed in their face but they're warming up to me. I've decided to start blogging the little photo-shoots I do so if you like it give me some feedback, and if you don't, well, I don't care! Unless a lot of you oppose, because then I do care and I'll probably become a recluse and stop social media-ing all together.

Well my first, and most approachable subject, would have to be my sister. At just 18 months apart we get along superbly but we differ in many ways. She's sharp and witty - a wordsmith, whereas I'm blunt in comparison. She's graceful, I'm... athletic. She's more reserved, I'm outgoing. She understands grammar, I use commas at all the wrong times. She surrounds herself with words, I choose water. She's blog famous but she still has time for the little people. She worships Beyonce, I bow down to the likes of Kelly Slater. I think you get it.

Speaking of Queen Bey, I chose the quote 'I Woke Up Like This' from her song Flawless for the title because my sister really does... well, wake up looking like this. Enjoy!