Just when I thought I was all set to relocate not once, but twice, life had other plans: a global pandemic and a shocking robbery. Dive into the untold story of resilience, change, and the bumps on the road to an international lifestyle. This episode isn't just about my setbacks, it's about finding the strength to regroup, refocus, and plan the next adventure, no matter what life throws at you. Perfect for the modern young woman who dreams big, but encounters bigger obstacles.
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Just when I thought I was all set to relocate not once, but twice, life had other plans: a global pandemic and a shocking robbery. Dive into the untold story of resilience, change, and the bumps on the road to an international lifestyle. This episode isn't just about my setbacks, it's about finding the strength to regroup, refocus, and plan the next adventure, no matter what life throws at you. Perfect for the modern young woman who dreams big, but encounters bigger obstacles.
Instagram @katshortsleeve
Tik Tok @katshortsleeve
Youtube Shortsleeve Travel with Kat Shortsleeve
Welcome back everyone. You are tuned into the short sleeve travel podcast, the place where we mesh luxury with affordability and always built on the foundation of pure adventure. I'm Kat Shortsleeve and once upon a time, I was deep in the world of finance and wealth management, but then the siren call of global explorations pulled me away. Now I'm on a mission to show you how to have those champagne experiences on a beer budget. Just as I've done over the past 15 years across 40 countries with tales from my travels Hand picked guides and golden nuggets of advice. I'm here to be your personal travel compass Let's fill in your life with as much travel as you desire very excited for today's episode because I'm telling three stories that I have told Almost a hundred times each, probably. These are the tales of my international escapades, specifically the three times where I thought I would be moving abroad. Two of these times actually never even happened. But what's wild is my bags were completely packed, at the front door, ready to go. I had flights booked, I had accommodation, whether it be an apartment or a villa booked on the other side, and I thought for sure. I was moving and I came to find out for these two experiences that I wasn't going to be moving either the day before or the day of the travel. I personally haven't had many people close to me that this has happened to. I think it's a bit obscure. But since building my travel platform, I've come to realize there are so many people that have had big life events and things like this happen. And so I want to share my stories in hopes that I could potentially help other people and just illuminate the idea and the fact that not everything always works out the exact way that you thought it would. The first time I went to study abroad or move abroad was in 2016. I was going on my gap year during my fall of my junior year at Georgetown and I had chosen to study in Prague. This was my first trip where I was moving abroad and it worked out perfectly. I ended up getting on my flight, didn't think anything of it, and I moved over to Prague and I lived with a bunch of girls there and that was a very successful experience, which I will get into later in this episode. The second time, which did not work out, was in 2020. This was March of 2020, of course, when the pandemic was just really beginning to ramp up and take shape. And I was planning to move to Singapore for work. I was transferring with my company, which was based in Boston, over to their Singapore office. And I found out just a few days before that I wasn't actually going to be moving to Singapore. Which was an entire experience in and of itself. And the third time actually just happened about a month ago. Exactly a month ago today. And I was supposed to be moving to Bali. I had my flight booked. And I was just a few hours away from getting on my flight and moving over to Bali. And of course that experience did not happen to me. And I want to begin with this one because it's the most recent and of course I just went through it. I posted a bit on social media about what happened and why I didn't move over to Bali, but there have been so many questions and so I just want to walk through the entire experience and explain really what happened. So to take a little bit of a step back here, I was at Columbia Business School for the past two years. Getting my MBA and I graduated in May of 2023. Before school, I had worked in wealth management for four years and worked in finance. I went to Columbia because I was hoping to transition either into private equity or to start my own company, but I really had no idea what I wanted to start a company on and what that would be. So I kept the idea in the back of my mind while still moving forward with all of the Interviewing for internships while in school. I landed one of the most coveted jobs. I was working in real estate, private equity, and I worked about 20 hours a week while I was in school, which was pretty intense. But most people at Columbia business school did the same thing. We all had internships throughout the entire experience for the most part. This helped keep some money coming in because living in New York City. It's very expensive. And of course, getting an MBA is also a very expensive experience. And so I was glad to be able to supplement being a student with creating some income at the same time. After graduation, we graduated on a Sunday. And I began working the following morning at 7 a. m. full time at this real estate private equity firm. It was incredibly intense and I was working 10, 12 hour days, 6 to 7 days a week. And it was crushing me. The company was not really doing too well, and I was laid off at the end of July, and I had to lay off my team as well. And at that point, I was floundering. We had just graduated. I'd only worked here full time for a few months, despite having worked there for over a year. Everyone was searching for jobs, and I just hit the ground running, sending my resume to all of these different companies, consulting firms. Real estate private equity firms and investment banking roles and wealth management and finance roles I just was looking for anything that was going to stick and before I knew it I had all these Interviews lined up and I was ready to slot myself into the next very intense job My parents were looking at my situation and kind of realizing that I had been so unhappy working in my previous private equity role And they were worried that I was just going to end up at another very intense company doing something very similar. I got far down the road in the interview process with Blackstone, and I was ready to join their global strategy internal team. They're in the office five days a week, and it was going to be extremely intense. But at the same time, I was also working on building my travel company, and I was beginning to see some great traction there. I created my website myself from scratch, I created a blog and a podcast and was posting on social media and seeing a true ramp up of people that are interested in what I had to say about travel and I was really enjoying it. I was deep in these interview processes and if I was going to join Blackstone, that was going to start on October 1st and so I thought I had about 2 months where I could Continue to work on my travel company, keep these leads warm with Blackstone, for example, and still potentially go travel and do some of the things that I've been wanting to do for a while. So back in 2019, I had visited Bali for two weeks. And I fell in love with the country and had always wanted to move back there. I had visited with my boyfriend at the time. And we started in Canggu. But we went to Ubud and all throughout the country meeting tons of people who are extremely interesting. And even since 2019, I continued to keep up these relationships with the people I'd met there. So many people in Bali are working on digital companies and they're working remotely while living a very inexpensive lifestyle in Bali. And I'd always wanted to do this and felt as though because I had just been laid off. I was working on my company, and I wasn't going to be joining another big firm for a few months. I would just get over to Bali and see if I could make some things happen for myself with my travel company. So I had ended my job at the end of July, as I mentioned, and it was just ten days later that I bought a flight in the middle of August to head off to Bali. I had some things at home that I had to wrap up, and so I wasn't able to fly over to Bali until September 10th. I'd been searching the flights and trying to figure out which routes would make the most sense because it's a very long travel day going from Boston to Bali. It's about 24 hours of flying, not to mention the two layovers that you have to take along the way. If you're very lucky, sometimes you can make it in just one layover, but it's still an extremely long travel day. So I found this great flight that took me from Boston. I would layover in San Francisco for a weekend. And I'd never been to San Francisco, so I thought this was a great opportunity to see San Francisco, break up the trip, and then continue on from San Francisco, laying over in Hanoi, Vietnam, and finally getting on to Bali. I booked this flight, and I was so excited to go. And of course, before you... Get on a flight and move over to Bali. There's so much that you had to do. So I'd gotten all of my medications, all my prescriptions. I'd stocked up on these things thinking that I was on this one way flight and I'd be back in maybe a month or two. Who knows? I could be over there for even longer. But it was going to at least be four to six weeks. One of my best friends lives in LA and we have always talked about how we wanted to go to Napa Valley together. I thought this was the perfect time where we could go to San Francisco, head up to Napa Valley because it's just a 45 minute drive north of San Francisco, do some wine tasting, and then I'd head on for the rest of my journey. And that's exactly how it went. I flew from Boston into San Francisco. We met up and got a great rental car. We were so excited because it was this great... Jeep truck and actually when I was getting the rental car I didn't want to have the Jeep truck because I knew this was a very fancy nice car and I was worried about the increased liability with having such a nice car on my hands, but it was the Cheapest car that I was able to get at the rental agency and I was automatically upgrade Upgraded and I know this sounds silly, but I did not want the upgrade Because I was worried about the liability. And of course, the entire trip and the story takes a turn, as you might expect or remember. But so far, it had been so good. And so we went up to Napa, we spent the weekend exploring all around, and we had the best time. It was Sunday afternoon, and my friend went off to the airport to fly back down to LA. I had a few hours to kill, and I'd never been to Big Sur, and so I thought I would spend the time driving over to Big Sur and seeing Pebble Beach, which I'd never been to before, and get some sights in before jetting off. I was driving down the highway, ready to go grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and had mapped myself to head to the closest Starbucks right off the highway. And of course what caught my eye because I was in California was In N Out. And so I thought, okay, first I'll grab a little burger and maybe some fries. But then I will get over there to Starbucks, grab a coffee. I pull right up to In N Out. It's about noon. And I parked the car, lock it, and I made sure I locked it twice because I had all of my items and all of my personal belongings in that car. I walk into In N Out and I go up to the counter and I'm ordering my food and just as I pay and hand over my card, I hear someone run into the In N Out and say, Who has the Jeep truck outside? Someone smashed into your car and is taking all of your things. And I whip around so quickly and I said, That's me! That's my car! And I couldn't believe it. I had left my purse on the counter. I was so shocked. frazzled and worried and I just ran out the front door and luckily the people working it in and out had grabbed my bag and held it for me. It was a pretty surreal experience but I run outside and I could not believe my eyes. The entire Jeep, the front window and the, and the window right behind the driver seat had been smashed. There was glass all over the ground, all throughout the car. And I just remember glancing in and I could not believe my eyes that both of my away suitcases had been taken. It was wild just to see the back of the car completely empty. My camera bag, my laptop bag, my backpack, everything that I had back there. Even a sweater that was lying down on the seat. It was all gone and the car was completely empty. All that I had on me was what I was wearing, and then luckily inside I had that very small purse which had in it just my ID, my credit card, and I had a hat. And of course the car key. It happened so quickly, but people swarmed all around the car. And there had been a security guard in the parking lot who took photos of the people as they were leaving with all of my stuff. When I ran out to, I also saw the men driving away in the white car because the security guard had been pointing saying, There they go, that's the car. And so I saw them with my things actually leaving out of the parking lot. And they changed the license plate on the car as they were leaving. And they actually had an entire stack of license plates, and I guess they do this pretty often. It was a very professional operation. I was so overwhelmed, but I wasn't even crying. I just felt so confused, and I didn't really even know what to do next. But without my even calling, the police showed up. Within 90 seconds, I want to say, and they started to ask me what had happened, what had gone on, and I was relaying the story to them as the crowd around us continued to grow. It was a bit of a surreal experience because this crowd of people were just looking at me, and I remember it was all these parents and little kids, and I just felt like... They were looking in on me and I was a zoo animal on the other side, and it was crazy that this was something I was going through as they were just going about their day and going into Target and going into In N Out to grab some lunch. So I shared with the police what had happened, and they had asked me if there was anything in the car that they could track. And I said yes, of course. I had three pairs of AirPods in there and a laptop, which, all of which they were able to track. And so I could see on my phone where these things were and the AirPods, I think the thieves are pretty smart. They took one AirPod and threw it out the window and took another AirPod and threw it out the window to help, help them get us off of their track. But I was also able to track the laptop and we could track it to a very specific location. And so I handed over my phone to the police and they took my phone and went to try to go track down some of these things. I do appreciate that they were actually going and looking, but it does seem after the fact that there really isn't anything that can be done, and it's kind of wild that not more can be done to figure out who these people are, because it does seem very widely known across social media who it is doing these types of things. And so the police took my phone to go look, but came back with nothing. And, of course, eventually the tracking had been turned off on all of the devices, including my iPad and my camera and everything in between. As soon as I got my phone back, I realized I needed to cancel some of my cards. So I was cancelling all of the cards that were in those bags, including different debit cards and credit cards, and of course I had lots of cash that I was ready to exchange once I'd gotten to Bali, and you can't really do anything. You can't do anything at all about that, actually. It took way longer than I'd expected to cancel these cards and to put holds and freezes on these things. I felt so frazzled in the moment. And of course I wasn't thinking clearly, but it was also frustrating to call Chase and to not have the best customer service. I had explained to them all of these things got taken. I'm standing here and I'm worried they're going to be using my debit card to take money out. And they were asking me, okay, do you want to pause it? Do you want to freeze it? Do you want to hold it? Do you want to cancel it? And there are different stipulations for all of these. There's different ways that you can choose to handle the cards, and I was having trouble thinking clearly. I have my parents calling me, my brother calling me, I have the police trying to do the report, also trying to track my belongings. It was so overwhelming, and I wish that they had just kind of risen to the occasion and thought, Okay, these were taken, this is what we need to do, let me advise her a little bit. And so I want to make sure going forward that I'm able to know exactly what to do, and I can help other people know what to do in the future too. And so what you do is you put all of your cards on a freeze and on a pause. And if you have to, you cancel them. But just make sure that they're frozen and unable to be used. At the same time, you probably don't want to cancel your credit card if it hasn't been taken. Because you might still need to use it. And of course, I did. I needed to go to the airport that day and use my credit card. And luckily, my credit card was still with me. physically, but also I had Apple Pay on my phone, too. But had the credit card been taken, I'm honestly not sure what I would have done in terms of buying a flight. I think that the airport was probably going to help in some way, shape, or form, but it's daunting. I had tens of thousands of dollars of gears lost because of my podcasting equipment, my camera equipment, clothing, all sorts of things. And so in the moment I was also extremely worried after I'd been able to cancel my cards. And I called Chase on the reserve helpline for my credit card and just asked them briefly, hey, this happened. Do you think that it's going to be likely that I'll be able to have the damages of the rental car covered by Chase? And do you think that it'll be possible to cover some of these items that I've been that I've had lost and They made me feel a lot better. They were so sorry and apologetic about the situation. I remember they were the first ones to Apologize to me that this had happened to me. Of course, it's not their fault but even the police officer hadn't said so sorry this happened and And of course the people around me weren't saying, I'm so sorry this happened. They were just saying, Oh my gosh, this happened to you. This is crazy. This is awful. And it just felt crazy and awful. And so I did appreciate that from Chase. And it has been an entire saga. I haven't gotten any money back actually from Chase because they need so much documentation and paperwork and Luckily, they did cover the damages of the windows from the rental car, which I'm so grateful for, but you have to make sure that you've read the fine print on all these things, and the only reason why I was able to get the rental car covered and the smashing of the windows covered to be repaired is because I luckily had waived the damage insurance that comes with the rental car companies, so you have to automatically make sure that you're waiving those things in order to be covered. and have your credit card cover you. The next thing that I did is I call the rental car company and I asked them what to do. I told them that the car windows had been smashed and all of my things were taken and I asked if they could have someone come tow the car because of course there's glass everywhere. And a lot of times, I think this is a misconception, but people think that car glass isn't sharp and that it just It goes into a million pieces, and so it's not sharp and it doesn't hurt you, but it actually is extremely sharp, and it's fully glass, and it's these shards. So, I asked the rental car company if they would come tow the car back, and they said, no, you actually need to drive the car back. And if you decide that you don't want to drive it back because the car and the seat is covered in glass, you're going to need to pay 1, 000 to have it towed. That will be the fine. Which I was not prepared to pay. I could not afford that. And so I had to drive the car down the highway for 45 minutes with, of course, no windows. All by myself, back to the rental car company. It was a surreal experience. It was really hard to do, honestly, and even before that I had to clean the glass off the seat and it's all these miniature shards and so I was getting it stuck in my hands and bleeding. It was a pretty terrible experience. I'd gotten back and dropped off the car. Oh, and even not to mention, this, um, this happened as well. When I was getting in the car, I'd cleaned off the seat with all the glass and there was glass all down by my feet where the pedals are. The rental car company had the audacity to call me and say oh and by the way You need to make sure that the gas is full and the tank is full. Otherwise, you'll be charged additional for that and I just felt so beaten down at that point. I really couldn't believe that they had the audacity to say that. I understand that it was part of the contract and part of the agreement, but it was pretty crazy. And so I did have to go bring the car to fill it up with gas, but even the small act of Opening and shutting the car door, all these additional pieces of glass would fall down and fall all over me and fall all over the seat. And of course, I go and I'm trying to fill up the car with gas and the pump's not working and so I'm in and out of the car and have to drive around to a different pump. And I'm going inside and speaking to the gas station attendant trying to pay and I only have my credit card and they weren't accepting credit cards. It was just such an experience and I'm sure because I'd been so stressed that day that. It was all too overwhelming, but it was a lot to go through by myself. So I finally had gotten back and I had dropped off the rental car. And then I actually got a call from the police officer who had been working on my case. And he said, hey, we heard that there is some luggage found on the highway. Two blue suitcases. And they're opened and I guess the clothes are flying all over the place. But we're going to go check it out and see what we can find. And. I wasn't even sure if I was happy at that point. All I was hoping to get back was maybe some of my extremely valuable things like my camera, my laptop, my podcasting equipment, my iPad, my Bose headphones, my AirPods. And so then I had to call a Uber to take me from the rental car company over to the airport. And I was eight hours early before the next flight that was taking off to Boston. So I went in and I asked them for a flight to Boston. Asked them if there was anything I could do to leave earlier on another airline or anything at all. And they said, no, this is all we can do. This is all we can offer you. And so I waited in the airport for eight hours. I needed to buy, and I was able to buy, luckily, a phone charger and some headphones. So I could make some phone calls and... Speak to people at home and also make sure my phone was charged But it was pretty wild to be sitting in the airport with just the clothes I had on, this tiny purse with my ID and my license And The hat that I'd been holding And I look back on the photos that I had taken when I took off from Boston When I set out just two days prior thinking that I would be moving to Bali. It was very surreal and of course I don't even know if I need to mention this, but I was not able to go to Bali because my passport had been taken. And I didn't have anything with me anymore. All of my equipment for work was gone, and so I needed to go back home and rebuild and restart and start fresh. I had spent so much money on things like makeup and... Prescriptions and medications that I needed to be over there in Bali. And what's wild is, even my credit card company, anything that they did cover was only going to be things that I bought in the last 120 days. Not including anything perishable, including makeup, prescriptions, food items. And so, it's not very much that I buy. In the past 120 days or four months, that is just hard clothing items or hard, hardware. I mean, my camera I bought two years ago. My laptop I had bought back in January. Podcasting equipment I had bought about six months ago. And so none of those things were going to be covered, which was, of course, the largest expense. And. When I talk about my camera, it wasn't just the camera itself. I had spent two years working on programming this camera to be absolutely perfect for everything that I was doing and for my work. And I loved that thing. Similarly, on my computer, I had lost, of course, all the video and photos that I had saved on there, which now I'm learning to save them all into the cloud and in places that are just a bit safer. But it's a learning experience, and I don't know anyone who doesn't have a couple things saved down on their desktop. Simple things, too. My resume, my most updated resume, was on my desktop. And I guess I'm lucky because I've never had anything stolen from me before, but this was pretty intense. While I was at the airport, the police said that they were able to recover the shells of the suitcase along with a few other items. clothing items, shoes, makeup, and I was so excited. So the police officers took everything back to the police station and they put everything in trash bags, massive trash bags. And I called an Uber that went and picked up the items from the police station and it brought it to me at the airport. And I was so excited. I went out and retrieved the two trash bags from. The Uber driver, who was nice enough to bring these things over. Of course I paid for it, but he was nice enough to go pick up some random trash bags and bring it to the airport for me. This also became a bit of a tough experience. I was grateful to have the two shells of the suitcases back, but it became very clear to me that the shells had been thrown out while the cars were flying down the highway. And so the shells were cracked and smashed and pretty destroyed, with tire marks and skid marks all over them. And when I opened up the trash bags, I saw that half of the clothes and things didn't belong to me, and there was a lot of dirt and trash that was picked up from the side of the highway and thrown in with my things. So I did have a few things recovered, a couple dresses, a couple pairs of socks and shirts and things, but the nicest dresses and the nicest materials and all of my hardware, my camera, of course, none of that was returned. And even the dresses that did come back had tire marks and it was clear that they'd been run over a couple times on the highway. So it was a little bit hard to sift through all of that and pick out the trash and bring home the things that were still mine. And the airline was very nice enough to check my bags for me. So I could bring them back to Boston and I really just at the time did not want to be near them and around them and I'm glad I didn't have to sit through the airport with my, my suitcases. It was just a hard day. So I then flew home to Boston and it was about a six hour flight, brought me back and I took an Uber and was able to get right home where I just, I landed, it was a red eye, I landed at about 7am and I went straight to bed for the entire day and the entire night actually. I just felt very drained and luckily it was a Sunday or a Monday and so I just slept through it. Really needed to take that time to reset. And that's kind of bringing me to where I am now. This was exactly a month ago that this all happened. And since then, I've been building my travel company, seeing some great traction, I've been going on dates in Boston, I've been seeing my girlfriends, I went to New York where I saw all of my Columbia Business School classmates and friends, and it was a really nice grounding experience to be back with people who really love me and care about me. And... It's wild that I thought I'd be in Bali right now, and I thought I'd be doing this, but I think there's a reason that I'm home here now, and just trying to work through it and figure out why, and figure out what my next steps are from here. And I really don't have it all mapped out, and I know people on social media were very excited for my Bali adventure, and I do hope that I can get to Bali and do something like that, but I still feel like I need to take some time and reset. And so if you have any other questions about that entire experience, I'd love to speak more about it, answer some more questions, but I also just like to share this because it was intense and I know that other people have gone through something similar. And so if you can hear about my experience and if it can help anyone, um, that's my goal. Okay, let's move on from that sob story to my 2020 Singapore work saga. This story will be a lot quicker. So I went to college in D. C. at Georgetown University and After graduating, I had this great job in wealth management working in Boston. I was a part of the business development team of which there were about 60 to 70 people doing business development Where we'd work with private, wealthy individuals and universities as well as pensions to help them invest their endowments. I worked in the Boston office for a year and a half and I really liked the role. I'd learned all of the best practices, became very familiar with the business, and I realized that the company had a true opportunity in Asia. No one had been focusing on business development in Asia for our Singapore or Beijing offices. As well as for our Hong Kong office, and I thought it was a perfect opportunity for me to take on a bit more responsibility, use these best practices that I had learned in business development, and go help our investment teams in Singapore bring on new clients. I had always really wanted to move abroad, but the boyfriend that I had been seeing right before all of this, he could not move anywhere else and did not want to move out of the country, let alone to Asia. And so we had broken up a few months prior, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to do something like this. Because I thought that anyone I would date and anyone I would be with just wouldn't want to move abroad, which I have since realized is ridiculous, and of course there are so many people that want to do that. I was excited for Singapore because this was going to be the perfect launching point for me to be able to explore Asia, see lots of places, and I expected I would stay there for about five years. I started working with the Singapore team and had fully transitioned to working almost entirely with people in Asia, beginning in December of 2019. At this time, I saw that there were some crazy things happening through the end of December and the beginning of January. There was this thing called COVID running through, making all these people very sick and overwhelming the hospitals. People in Boston knew that this was happening, but they weren't paying so much attention. And I was really one of the first people to be honed in on this, and actually one of the first people wearing a mask, because I'd been tracking it since the end of December, and it kind of came onto people's radar maybe closer to February. And so every morning I would go into work and I would Google, Singapore, COVID. What was happening, what were the numbers, what was the update, and every day it exponentially grew. I knew this was going to be an issue. I had set up an apartment in Singapore for two months where I would get grounded and learn all about the city and figure out where it was that I wanted to live full time. I had a flight that was ready to take off on March 2nd of 2020 and of course that flight did not take off for two reasons. One... Singapore was on lockdown at this point in time, and so no one was allowed into or out of the country, including citizens. I needed to get a visa in order to be able to work there. That flight did not take off, and it had been delayed two weeks, and I thought, no problem, I'll go in two weeks. And then after two weeks passed, I thought, okay, I'll just go in two more weeks. After those two weeks passed... I thought, okay, I'll just go in a month. And I always thought eventually this would all dissipate, it would all go away, it would be a moment in time. And, of course, that is not the case. I remember this one fateful lunch, it was on March 13th, we were all in the office, and I met with a bunch of my friends We had lunch together around noon, and by 3pm we had all received an email saying, Pack up all of your things that you will need for the next two weeks, you all need to go work from home. Which, none of us had ever worked from home before. Eventually we all adjusted to the remote work, thinking, like I said, this was a moment in time. I got used to the dynamics of my team in Singapore. And because I really wanted to capitalize on my opportunity with the Singapore team and show them how invested I was, I adjusted my hours, 13 hours ahead, so that I basically worked the night shift and would connect with my team in Singapore. One month turned into three months turned into six months. And instead of moving to Singapore, my sister and I packed up in Boston and we moved out to Colorado, where we truly made the most of the pandemic. It was a silver lining. We were hiking and skiing and just spending so much time in the mountains. It was such a perfect place because we could be socially distanced and remote from everyone and also enjoy the outdoors. I felt like it was such a gift in time that we were able to do that and do that together. I'd love to expand more on my time in Colorado and I think that might be the next or maybe a few episodes from now. While I was living in Colorado, I began to realize that 6, 7, 8 months had gone by where I was working remotely, adjusting my hours to work with my team in Singapore. Eventually I came to the hard realization that I was not going to be able to move to Singapore and I was living in Colorado at the time and When I was at Georgetown, I knew that I wanted to go to business school, and so I had taken the entry exams back when I was a senior in college, and so at that point in time, I began looking and I wanted to check how good were my scores, would I be able to get into some of the schools that I thought I wanted to go to, and my dream school had always been to go to Columbia University in New York City, and I checked out my score and I realized applications were due in a month. This is a whole whirlwind, but I ended up going to business school a year later. So I didn't end up going to Singapore. I did not get to end up moving abroad. I fully had planned to, I really wanted to. It was a huge dream for me and it's pretty wild that it actually never turned out to happen. And I visited Singapore two years later and I was able to see my team and to actually be there on the ground. It was my first time in Singapore. I actually was planning to move there without having, having ever been there before. And... From the one little visit that I had there, it was nice, but I'm grateful that I didn't move there. I'm sure I would have loved it either way. Now, finally, moving on to segment number three, the successful trip to Prague. So, this was when I was studying abroad in 2016, and I studied abroad with a few of my friends from college. Which was really sweet because it was such a nice thing to be able to have them there with me. I also had one of my lifelong friends that I grew up with spending the summers in Maine. She just happened to be in the same exact program. She went to a different college, but we ended up taking the same classes together and we traveled all throughout Europe. And then I also, this is a story for another time, but I have a lifelong twin. I actually have a parent trap twin out there. Her name is also Kat and she ended up being in the exact same program too. And need to tell you this story, but she and I met. In fifth grade, we went to a field hockey recruiting camp and we met each other there. Or I guess it wasn't recruiting at that point in time, we were just doing a summer camp. And we went to a recruiting camp a few years later at Middlebury College and ended up meeting again. And then we met again in Prague. So when I studied abroad in Prague, I remember having a layover in Zurich on my way over and I didn't even know where Zurich was at the time. It's funny just to think how far I've come in terms of my travels and I've been to Zurich a few times since then and to think I was taking off and I didn't even know where Zurich was and you know, the more you travel, the more you become used to the world and the bucket list continues to grow and grow. But I had a boyfriend actually at the time who was studying at a different college and so we were long distance the entire time studying abroad. Which was intense, but we made it through for the time being and then broke up a year and a half later. Um, I'll need to do an entire segment about my study abroad in Prague and everything, but just to give you a little overview, we had to study the local language, which was Czech, and we had to interact with locals. We We would use our check actually to order coffee and order lunch, and we could do simple things like have conversations, uh, with people next to us on the subway about simple things. And we could definitely say, Tansujuviklubupitpivo. Which, pi, pitpivu. Which is all about dancing and drinking beer, which we did a lot of in Prague. Our school was a castle on top of a hill. It was C I E E. And we have so many memories just up at that beautiful campus. But in conclusion, to wrap this up, the two non successful and the one successful journeys abroad, uh, you know, life and travel are just extremely unpredictable and no matter how much you might plan or have insurance or, Triple check your ticket. Things don't work out the way that you always might expect them to. And I'm the type of person who just has to think that everything does happen for a reason. So is this fate? I definitely am not sure. To be seen. But the lessons learned are to roll with the punches. Each of these experiences have helped me to grow. And just because one experience does not happen, Doesn't mean that future experiences also can't happen. So many people were saying, It's a blessing you didn't go to Bali, something awful is going to happen. Maybe, but I still really want to go to Bali at some point, and I definitely will. One of my favorite stories, and I want to keep this very brief, but just give you the overview. It's about the farmer and the farmer's son. So the farmer and his son, they have a few horses. And one day the horses all run away. And everyone in the son is so upset and so sad that the horses are gone. And the farmer says, We will see. We don't know if this is good or if this is bad. And then a few days later, the horses come back, and they bring a whole bunch of other horses with them, and they bring cattle and sheep, and everyone rejoices, and they're so happy, and the farmer's son is saying, Dad, aren't you so happy? The horses came back and brought all these other animals with them. And the farmer says, I do not know, we will see. I do not know if this is good or if this is bad. A few days later, the farmer's son is riding one of the horses and falls off and breaks his leg. Everyone's upset, and the farmer's son is extremely upset. But the farmer says, We will see. I do not know if this is good or if this is bad. A few days later, the army starts to come around and knocking on doors looking for young able bodied men and the farmer's son, of course with a broken leg, is unable to go off to war. And the son is happy that he does not have to go. And the farmer says, we will see. We do not know if this is good or this is bad. And so often times when things happen, like just last week I had my car towed, I just have to say, do not know if this is good or if this is bad. Similarly, not going to Bali, not going to Singapore. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad, but it's almost not either. It's just middle of the road and it's kind of what you decide to make of it. And it's how you decide to handle that experience that shows a lot about your character in my opinion. So I'm excited to get into more of the stories about Colorado, moving out west, and Prague, but those will be a story for another time. Hey, if you never go, you'll never know. Thank you all for listening, and thank you for hanging out with me. I really appreciate all of you who do come listen, and if you enjoyed this, you can subscribe to the Short Sleeve Travel Podcast. New episodes coming out each week. You can follow me on any platform, whether it's Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, all at Kat, that's K A T short sleeve, Kat short sleeve. If you want to see what I'm up to, you can also email me if you want at katshortsleeve at gmail. com. Can't wait for next week. Thanks everyone. Cheers.