JTrek

I'm a... Wizpert?

2012-01-31T20:33:00.000-08:00

I was just invited to join Wizpert.com as a paid expert in Travel. Thank you, Michael Weinberg!

It's an interesting concept. I give them my skype name. People find me on their site as a qualified expert on budget travel. They call me on skype for advice. I'm paid an expert's fee by the minute.

For JTrek readers, friends, and family, this does not mean I am now charging everyone for advice. Just if you find me on Wizpert and don't actually know me. If you're reading this, and you want travel advice, please feel free to contact me, and I will not charge you a dime. I like helping people with travel because it means more people go traveling.

That said, Wizpert looks like an interesting concept, and I'll be curious to see how it plays out.

Grilling in Paradise

2012-01-20T17:25:00.000-08:00

“...you want to buy a fish?” Dexter asked us.

“Yeah.”

“Like, to cook?”

“Yeah. Where can we get one?”

A surprised smile crept across his face, different from when he had been going through his spiel trying to sell a boat trip to my girlfriend, Dana, and I.

“Wow,” he said, “That’s unusual. You guys aren’t like most tourists! Especially from America...” he trailed off, then gave us specific directions to a place nearby where fishermen sold their catch for the day.

We thanked him and turned our back on what had been, unquestionably the best beach we had found on Tobago. It had taken a bit of a hike to get there, and we’d been drenched by rain twice on the way. But at the end we found white sand and calm turquoise waters on a gentle slope with just the right amount of shade from the nearby palm trees. We even had a rainbow show up for most the afternoon. We didn’t need to look for another beach after that one.

I came for a vacation. Not quite like the adventure or immersion or anything I usually seek out on my on on the road. I was just here to relax. As long as I keep my impact as positive as I can, I’m okay with being a tourist for a few days. But that didn’t mean completely staying in the bubble.

Dana and I walked past the first place the guide had told us about. It was a roadside stand near a wooden fence and corrugated metal roof, in a line of buildings sandwiched between the rainforest and the Caribbean Sea. You could see the boats the fishermen had been using, anchored just on the other side of the beach. The only fish available though, was a large kingfish. We hadn’t brought much cash to the beach, so we passed it up, heading back to our room about half an hour away.

We wrestled with the internet connection for a bit, and Dana found another possible fish market listed online. Between the two of us, my aunt Dane, and my cousin, Joyce, we had decided to rent a car for a couple days. Since we still had it, we thought we’d go check out the market listed in the next town over. I was one of the two listed drivers. Joyce was the other. Since Joyce has been a vegetarian for most of her life, Dana and I were definitely going to be the ones picking up the fish.

It was a simple drive, except for a few minor obstacles. First of all, the cars drive on the left side of the road. The driver sits on the right. I must have turned on the windshield wipers when I meant to signal a turn about a dozen times. The next problem was that the roads, while well paved, tended to be just wide enough for two cars side by side. Which would be fine, if people didn’t park on them. The parking created natural bottlenecks which the locals tended to take the way they took the numerous steep blind corner switchbacks: at about 30 km/hr above the speed limit.

I’m not going to pretend the roads were anywhere near the most dangerous I’ve seen. The drivers were competent, helpful, and calm, for the most part. But among other odd habits, they tended to drive right down the middle of the road unless they had a good reason not to. As it got dark, it started to seem like everyone was using their high beams, making it very hard to see.

So it was with some relief that we spotted a building marked “Mt. Irvine Fish Market” and pulled over to park.

The room inside was made almost entirely of white tile and linoleum, and the metal counter and washing stands were clean with running water at the kind of stations you’d see dishwashers in restaurants in the US, with a big sink and a dangling trigger hose. They had kingfish and mahi mahi. I was hungry, so we picked out a 4.5 lbs shiny mahi mahi. An old man came seemingly out of nowhere to take the order and ask if we wanted it filleted and skinned. We paid a large man in a yellow rubber apron TT$90 for the fish and tipped the man filleting it another TT$10. The fillet was handed to us in a double-wrapped plastic bag.

The complex we were staying in had public grills next to its hot tubs. Dana prepped the fish (well) and I grilled it (...less well). Joyce and Dane contributed their own spicy take on the local chickpeas with rice dish.

While other nights I’d tried local “Sunday Stew” Chicken, the massive curry-filled rotis, Calaloo soup, and a lot of other tasty meals, that meal with the fish was probably my favorite. I felt like we’d earned it.

(Check out Pictures from this Trip)

Next Trip: Tobago

2012-01-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

I've been posting tips from time to time, but for the first time since I came back after my big trip, I'll be leaving the country again! I'm just going for a week, but I'll be somewhere I've never been before: Tobago.

Tobago is a Caribbean island, the smaller of the two main islands of the nation Trinidad and Tobago. Located just north of Venezuela, it's an English and Creole speaking country that requires no visas of American nationals staying for less than 90 days.

I leave Saturday morning, with my girlfriend, to meet my aunt and cousin. A little break from the acting life in the Big Apple.

It's beach time.

Drop Everything and Go

2011-10-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday afternoon, around 3pm, I was sitting in front of my computer in my Spanish Harlem apartment watching an old episode of a British Sci-Fi TV show in something like its thirty-second season, of which I've seen the latest six. I was waiting for the newest episode to come out in some form I could watch it. I don't think I was actually eating a bowl of cereal or sitting around in my underwear but I might as well have been, if it gives you an idea of the scene.

I won't say I was bored. I wasn't. Doctor Who is good stuff, if you're into that sort of thing. But I was sitting in front of a laptop, by myself, on a weekend.

Then I got a text message. It was my friend, Barry. It said "Hey I know it's last minute, but if you want to take the train out to Montauk tonight, you're welcome to stay here."

If stopping a spoonful of cereal halfway to my mouth while I'm mostly undressed, crouched in front of a computer screen helps get the gist of the image across, feel free to imagine it that way. I knew almost nothing about Montauk. I knew it was on the end of Long Island, and I vaguely remembered it mentioned in some movie I'd seen. That was it.

Didn't matter. That was all I needed.

I jumped out of the chair, called up Barry and started pacing. He was apologetic. He wanted to hang out, but it turned out there were no trains. Since I'd need to be back in the city by the next evening, it might not be worth the travel time. There was a bus, but it either left the upper east side at 5:30 and got in at 9:30pm, or left there at 3:30. And since it was already after 3:00pm...

I thought for a moment. Back at my computer, after a little searching, I pulled up the timetable and took a good look at that 3:30 bus. It made stops all along the east side before leaving, the upper east side, the closest stop to me, was the first. It passed just south of Grand Central Station around 4:00pm. Perfect. If I timed things just right...

I jumped up, packed a bag, called Barry up again to say I was coming, and dashed out into the rain. I raced up to 125th steeet to grab an express subway to beat the bus down to grand central. I swung out in time to grab more cash from an ATM for the bus fare, and rolled right up to the stop less than two minutes before the bus itself did. I was on, and on my way.

Getting on the bus felt good. But weirdly, what felt better was running through the rain with the bag on my back, out to catch the subway. Because once I was on the bus I was safe. While I was running, I was on an adventure. And it's been a long time since I had a taste of that. I'd forgotten how much I liked it.

That said, the evening and next day was some of the most relaxing time I've had away from "The City," as everyone calls it out here. Montauk is a beach town just east of The Hamptons. Technically it might be part of The Hamptons,depending on who you ask. But if you ask the people at the kinds of places Barry and I went, they would probably not take kindly to the insinuation. But that was because we were going into the kinds of places that didn't allow cell phones, yapping dogs, or, frankly, tourists.

So my Saturday went from sci fi tv on my computer alone to seafood, drinks on the beach, watching mysterious paper lanterns and fireworks off in the distance... it was not how I'd pictured that day ending when I got up that morning. And then of course the next morning was more good food, more beach time, and then even more good food (first ever lobster roll at the place that made them famous, along with their seasonal pumpkin crab and lobster bisque). It was a great way to spend a weekend. All thanks to one text from a good friend.

Though I have to admit, the ability to pack a bag in under five minutes does help.

Next time you have a chance to just drop everything and go somewhere. Do yourself a favor and just go.
---
This entry cross-posted to my acting in NYC blog: Constant Audition.

Not All Who Go Missing Are Lost

2011-08-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

I was home in Seattle for the last week. Eating breakfast, my mom handed me an article in the Seattle Times. It was titled “Social media's power: People around globe search for Stanford student”

The first paragraph was as follows:
“It is every parent's nightmare: a normally reliable child sets off on a journey, then vanishes without a trace. But through the power of social media, a small army of thousands of volunteers produced a happy ending in the case of Jacob Boehm.”

From this, you’d think that, while he was traveling Malaysia, he’d been captured by a militia, gotten lost on a mountain climb, or kidnapped by organ harvesters, only to be rescued in the nick of time by facebook. If you want to read the article without spoilers, do so now before reading the next line.

He wasn’t in any of those places. He was happily hiking through a Malaysian national park in a group with a professional guide. He just didn’t happen to have cell or internet service in the park.

So why did this make the newspapers, including the New York Times? The huge number of people who became worried enough to get involved looking for the poor guy. Thousands of people, alerted by Facebook, Google+, and other parts of the social media sphere went looking for him. The US Embassy got involved. The Malaysian government went looking for him. They saw he’d last checked in at a town near a national park. So they sent in the park rangers to find him, and voila, there he was.

The “rescued” backpacker’s only public comment? “It’s a long story.”

I can’t really blame him. He wasn’t lost. He just made a lot of people scared on accident. Woops.

What’s really incredible is that there is now almost nowhere in the world where you can’t be found. Think about it, a 22 year old was just found in the Jungles of Malaysia by government officials at the request of his parents on the other side of the world in the USA. That’s nuts.

So, three lessons to learn from this.

First and most importantly, for travelers: If you’re going off the grid for multiple days, alert someone back home. You don’t have to issue a plan, just give Mommy and Daddy a timeframe after which they should start worrying.

Second for parents: If your child is traveling in the third world, remind him or her to let you know if they’re going off the grid. And if they don’t answer you phone calls or emails, it’s not because they’ve been kidnapped. The rest of the world is far safer than the news would have you believe. In many ways it is safer than the United States. So, I’m aware that you’d rather have your child safe and embarrassed than missing, but give it some time before you send out a red alert.

Third, for the media: Nobody is rescued unless someone is in actual danger. When you find a person and they were actually fine all along, don’t treat it as a heroic rescue. The story isn’t in that they found him, the story is in what happened when they tried to find him. And while yes that is mentioned in the last paragraph of your story, it should be right up there in the first.

image courtesy of Wikipedia

Travel Tip: Choosing a Travel Companion

2011-06-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

I mostly travel alone. I do what I want, where I want, when I want. But not everybody likes doing things that way. I have teamed up with other travelers a few times and it 's true, traveling in pairs or groups has its advantages:

-Sharing rooms is usually cheaper than getting a single room, and sometimes even cheaper than getting a single bed in a dorm.
-You can go places you wouldn't feel safe or comfortable going alone.
-You can pool together funds for experiences you couldn't otherwise afford solo (renting a car for example).
-Someone you trust can taste that weird local delicacy made out of insect larvae and tell you whether it's any good before you try a bite (Stephen, I'm looking at you and your Korean silk worms).

A good travel buddy can let you go further and have more fun. And they will probably get you to try things you would never have tried on your own, many of which you will really enjoy. Some you won't, but that's the risk you take.

A bad travel buddy can make both of your trips an absolute nightmare. So you want to choose wisely. It's like having a roommate who you see almost every hour of every day for the duration of your trip. Even some of your best friends, and yes, your significant other, can be terrible travel companions.

Here are a few things you need to discuss before deciding to hit the road together, with a few extra notes for couples at the end:

-Budget. This is probably the main cause of friction between travel buddies that aren't romantically involved. If your budgets don't match, every time one of you spends money, one of you will feel like cheapskate and pressured into buying things you can't afford, and the other will feel like an extravagant showoff and like they're being forced into second rate... well, everything. Compare notes on how much you want to spend on food, transport, and lodging, and what your idea of a reasonable price for a day's activity is.

-Travel Speed. Some people like traveling slowly. Some people don't. This also ties into budget-- faster is more expensive. But if you feel rushed or bogged down by your companion, you're going to start to resent them. NOTE: The more people you travel with, the slower you usually travel, just by virtue of everyone having to see if everyone else is ready to do anything.

-Conflict Resolution Skills. You could both be saints, but at some point, I can almost promise you, something you do is going to get on the other person's nerves, and vice versa. When you two have differences, can you resolve them in a mature, efficient manner that leaves both of you feeling okay about it later? This should be discussed, and possibly tested before you hit the road.

-Interests. Having different interests is fine-- the problems start when your buddy is actively disinclined to try something you want to do. For example, if you're an avid rock climber, and your buddy has a panic attack if he's outdoors for more than four hours at a time, you're gonna have issues. Likewise, if your goal is to try every different kind of beer made in a region of the world, and your buddy hates bars, trouble is brewing (sorry). Having different interests usually ends up opening new doors for people, showing them things they wouldn't ordinarily have experienced. But if people prevent you from pursuing the interests you hit the road to pursue, it's going to be a problem.

-Cultural Respect. It's embarrassing to travel with someone who continually puts their foot in their mouth. We all do it once in a while, but some travelers seem to do it every five minutes. If you are going somewhere with a different culture, make sure you're going with someone who will treat it with respect. They don't have to know all the little rules for being polite, they just have to be thoughtful about figuring out what they are and doing their best to abide by them. Having to apologize for your friend's single mistake is a good story. Having to apologize for your friend's repeated mistakes over and over is just aggravating. And I can tell you firsthand, the fifth time you hear "Well I'm just not used to having to _____, because we don't do that back home," you're going to want to smack someone.

-Physical Condition. If you want to go walking all over town every day, and your buddy has to stop for breath after a flight of stairs, you might not want to travel together. Yes, the out of shape one will get in better shape, but it's going to be a long and arduous wait for both of you before that happens. It's hard to predict how much you'll be walking around, but you can guess what your tolerance is, and choose someone with a similar level, so you can walk as much as you want, and don't feel bad calling a cab when you don't want to walk anymore.

-Special Needs. Diabetic? Vegan? Pack-a-day smoker? Your potential traveling buddies need to know before you leave, because it will affect their travel experience, too.

-Alcohol/Drugs. Similarly, if you intend to get hammered and stoned every couple of days, you need to make sure its on your buddies' agendas and budgets as well, since they're likely going to be the ones that have to take care of you when it happens. It's easiest to just travel with someone who wants to try what you want to try when you want to try it, because then at least you can take turns being the designated responsible guy who knows where the hostel is and can walk straight.

Now I would like to include a couple special notes for a special brand of traveling companion: those in relationships. You could be married, you could have just met in a hostel last week and really liked each other. Either way, you need to be clear on a couple (ha) minor points:

-Make an effort to know the cultural norms of dating and public displays of affection. Some places have couples making out on every corner. Others are scandalized by hand holding. Still others find it offensive to even see a woman traveling with someone who is not their husband or relative. For these last places, choose one of those two stories and stick to it. This is not an opportunity to try to force your cultural norms on another nation, even if they seem more progressive.

-If you're sexually active, think about when you will and won't be able to get private accommodations, and bring plenty of whatever birth control methods you use with you. Local variants are not always reliable.

-This is a tough one to approach, but if you are planning on traveling together for more than a month or so, and have never traveled together before, it might be worth discussing the worst case scenario: a mid-trip breakup. Even if you can't imagine it ever happening, being together 24/7 in completely different surroundings and occasional discomfort can bring out sides to people you never knew existed. Is your plan and schedule flexible enough to allow you to go your separate ways?

-On that note, even if you are really happy, you should plan some time apart. You'll each get to do your own thing that the other person doesn't like, whatever it is. And after that, it makes meeting up and being together again feel that much better.

And there you have it! Hope this help you find a traveling companion or three that makes your trips more enjoyable and memorable.

One Year Later

2011-04-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

It's been exactly a year since I returned to the US. I've been in this country the entire time. I think a couple of my friends had bets riding on that, so congrats to whoever won those.

The year has been the best answer I seemed able to come up to the following question: "If you accomplish your life's dream at age 23, what do you do next?"

Choose a new dream, I guess.

I remember at one point in college hearing that a high school friend of ours was spending her summer acting and waiting tables in New York City. That sounded pretty good to me.

So, above you can see a wall of my Manhattan one-bedroom apartment. Almost eight months since I moved here, and I've just been cast in my third show. I'm not waiting tables. Sort of tried it as a banquet server briefly, didn't like it much, got jobs elsewhere. I just got home from tutoring a brilliant student from a wealthy family in physics and math. Between tutoring gigs like that and some office work in a voiceover recording studio, I'm able to pay rent and occasionally do fun things. Like skipping town with my girlfriend and some of our friends to see Atlantic City. I think one or two of our friends drank more than I did over the course of my whole trip, and that's including Oktoberfest. I digress.

Nobody seems to know what to make of what I did. It's a bit like a veteran coming home from a war. It's amazing how nobody ever seems to ask you about what it was like. I tell people what I did and they're clearly impressed, but nobody knows what to say next. So they drop the topic and go back to gossiping about what happened on facebook, complaining about their work/school, or talking about something else that's actually current and relevant to them.

I don't want to be the guy whose stories all come from last year. I think a lot of my life has been driven by my innate fear of being boring. I don't honestly think I'm in much danger of that anymore, but when you set the bar at a certain height for "interesting", your perspective gets a little bit warped.

But it's been a year since I've had to think about being a foreigner anywhere. I mean, in a lot of small ways, I'll always feel like a foreigner anywhere I go now. I haven't been home recently or long enough anywhere to really claim native stats. But the people here mostly speak my language, use the same measurement units I do, are used to the same political system and if not the same customs (I still refuse to accept how hard it is to recycle in this town or what kinds of comments about race and gender pass as acceptable), at least most cultural stuff here is kind of similar.

So, I'm an American in America, and have been for a year.

Weird.

Travel Tip: How to Host Couchsurfers

2011-03-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

Hosting couchsurfers is a great opportunity for people who haven't yet traveled much, or who have traveled a lot and miss travel and travelers. Instead of going out to meet the world, have the world come to you.

Generally speaking if you make a couchsurfing profile and list yourself as having a couch available, you're going to get a couple messages a week asking if someone can stay with you. Hosting is a lot of fun, and usually results in a free drink, meal, gift etc of some sort (or at least a grateful backpacker doing your dishes). Not to mention invitations to stay with new friends all over the world.

If you're not comfortable opening your home up to strangers, that doesn't mean you can't help. One of your status options is "Meet for Coffee." Surfers often take people up on this. It's good for them to meet locals who can tell them about all the best things to see, do, eat, drink, etc in town. Plus you get to meet people from all over the world.

If you are ready to invite travelers to stay on your couch, switch the status to "yes" or "definitely." As the host, you have complete control over who comes to your place. Read profiles, talk to people a bit, and then choose who you'd like to host.

There are a few things you can do to make your experience a safe and fun one:

--On your profile, there is a section you fill out called "couch information." If you want to make sure people are actually reading your profile before sending requests, in the middle write the following sentence: "If you've read this section, please include the word "______" in your request." Obviously you pick the word. I do this to sort through people who actually want to stay with me vs people who just want a free place to crash and have spammed 100 people in town.

--When you get a request, look at the person's profile and check it for references and vouches. If any are neutral or negative, read them carefully before dismissing the surfer outright. If there are no references or vouches, it's your call, but I don't recommend hosting that surfer.

--Familiarize yourself with your local couchsurfing events and make some friends in the CS community. They can help you out in most situations.

--Never feel it is your obligation to host anyone, no matter how desperate they claim their situation to be. If they're out in the cold at midnight in a rough city and claim you're their only hope, that is entirely their fault, and it's not your responsibility to save them. They screwed up their planning. If you want to help such people, find a cheap hostel online and direct them to it.

--If for whatever reason you don't feel like hosting anyone for a time, do yourself a favor and change your couch status to "Maybe," "meet for coffee," or "No couch available."

--If you find you really enjoy hosting, change your couch status to "definitely" (you will come up in more searches) and consider joining a last-minute-couch-request group. Most cities have their own, just search for your city under the community tab, and look at the groups. These are for people whose hosts have backed out on them at the last minute, had planes canceled, or who are just lazy. You'll find a lot of very grateful friends this way.

Next, a few tips to make your guest's stay a good one:

--Know the cheapest public transit routes to your home from airports, bus stops, and train stations. Most couchsurfers are on shoestring budgets and are used to sitting on public transit for a long time.

--Get a couple maps of your town for surfers to borrow. These are going to be very useful to them.

--If you don't have one, open a Skype or Google Voice account. This will let you text international cell phones cheaply and easily, which is handy if you're trying to rendezvous with a guest who brought their cell from home.

--Don't feel that you have to provide constant entertainment or information. Couchsurfers as a rule are very self sufficient and grateful for you simply letting them come to your home. Usually, if they need something, they'll ask for it.

That should be enough to get started. Happy hosting!

Travel Tip: How to Couchsurf

2011-02-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

So you're ready to make like this puppy and crash somewhere new? We all need a place to sleep, and if you've followed the last couple of posts, you'll know why I think couchsurfing is a great travel tool. This post will help you surf your first couch.

First things first, go to couchsurfing.org, and set up your profile. Fill it out as completely as you're willing to, and go ahead and be a little quirky about it if you like. Memorable and interesting people have a much easier time finding hosts. Make sure you upload a recent picture.

Next, get your profile verified. This means locking your address into the system, getting your postcard, and entering in the validation code. I also suggest donating to complete the verification process, but that's a personal decision.

You're almost ready. Here's the most involved step. It will take a little time and help to do, but I highly recommended it if you want' to find a host: get another couch surfer to write you a reference. The best way to do this is to find a friend who already knows you and is on couchsurfing.org. (Seriously, if you're someone who I know well, and you want a reference, email me with your profile address and I'll write one for you). Post a status on Twitter of Facebook saying you've just joined and want to know if anyone else you know is involved. You'd be surprised which of your friends and family might respond. If it's an especially close friend or family member who has more than three vouches, they might vouch for you (don't ask for this though, it's not polite).

If you really don't know any other couchsurfers, it's time to go out and meet a few. Go to the community tab of the website, and search both events and group for your hometown. Then go out and meet the surfers. You'll have a good time, and you'll make some friends on the site, who can then, if you hit it off, write a reference for you.

Once you've got a completed profile with picture, verification, a good positive reference, you're ready to start looking for a couches.

A good time in advance (a week or more before your arrival date, if possible), start searching for a host. Hit the Surf/Host Tab and hit Couchsearch. Enter in the location you're going to surf (and if you feel like it, some qualifications about gender, age, interests etc) and you'll get a list of hosts. from this list, you are going to choose several to message, asking to stay on their couch.

One trick, before reading profiles: I like to sort the search results by "last login date." The surfers who appear at the top are probably the most active hosts who log in the most often and check their messages. They're often sent fewer couch requests than the people who show up at the top by default, and are more likely to respond to you.

Here are the things to look for:
-Do they appear trustworthy? What do their references say? Do they have a picture on their profile? Have they been vouched for/verified?
-Do they like where they live? After safety, I consider this the most important thing to look for. A host who is passionate about their home can make your stay absolutely incredible. A host that hates where they live will not.
-Do they speak your language? All users list the language(s) they speak and rank them in terms of proficiency. Their grasp of English of course is usually evident from what they've written on their profile.
-Where in town do they live? Is it somewhere you want to stay? Is it safe? Convenient?
-What's their "couch" like? Do they smoke? Have pets? Are you going to be on the floor or in a spare bedroom of your own? Most profiles will have pictures and all will have a description of their "couch" and their house rules (if any).
-Does this look like someone you would want to spend time with? Do you have interests in common? Do like to party as much/little as you? Did you study the same things, or are you pursuing similar careers?

Once you've picked out a few of your favorites, it's time to start sending them request. As a surfer, nobody minds if you message more than one person. I usually send requests to 5-10 people every time I want to couchsurf. However, quality of request is far more likely to get you a place than quantity. Here's how:

Read your potential host's profile carefully, and then in your first message to them write something that makes it obvious that you read their profile.

This is the most important thing you can do when requesting a couch. Hosts like knowing that a surfer has chosen to write to them for a reason. Even if I copy/paste a request message to several people, I always include at least one sentence specific to each host showing that I read their profile, know who they are, and actually want to meet them.

After that... just wait. You should get responses soon.

Or not. There's one other trick you can use for major cities. Under the community tab, click search group, and then search for your destination city. You'll find a message board for surfers in that city. Go to their group's message board and look for something along the lines of "emergency/last minute couch request group." Drop them a message there. If you're lucky and have a good profile, you might find a host that way. But make sure you read your potential host's profile carefully before accepting.

And that should get you on your way to surfing your first couch. Best of luck! Stay tuned for tips on getting started as a couchsurfing host.

Travel Tips: Couchsurfing Safety

2011-02-21T13:34:00.000-08:00

The very first question most Americans, especially American women, ask me when I tell them about couchsurfing, is "How can you know if you're going to be safe?" It makes some sense, you're staying with someone you don't know. How do you know that this isn't an axe murderer whose couch you're sleeping on? How do you know you're not hosting a kleptomaniac? How do you know that couchsurfing is safe?

The answer is in three pieces of security provided by the website's structure: References, Vouching, and Verification. Together, these things make Couchsurfing just as safe as (or safer than) any other method of travel. These items are all listed on every couchsurfer's profile. The goal of listing them is to make couchsurfing more like staying with a friend of a friend than a complete stranger. Every surfer has an online profile much like they do on facebook-- pictures, listed interests, a bio, lists of other couchsurfing friends they've connected with. So before you meet the person, you know a little about them. But it also has these three items that you won't find on any other site.

References- Anyone who meets, stays with, or hosts any couchsurfer can write a reference on that person's profile, listed as either positive, neutral, or negative, categorized as to whether they were a guest, host, and/or travel buddy, along with comments. When someone writes you a reference, it appears permanently on your profile-- you can't edit or delete it, only the writer can do that. If someone was a great guest or host, they'll have a lot of positive references. If they steal and break things, or put people in uncomfortable positions, they will have negative references. If you see someone who has a negative reference, it will be featured prominently on their profile. When you have negative references, it becomes hard to surf anywhere or host people, so you always want to do you best to get positive references. Conversely, if you find someone who has a negative reference, always read the comment section to see the reason. Sometimes people leave negative references for reasons that might not affect you (miscommunication, personality clashes, etc). and it is up to you to decide whether it is really a red flag or not.

Vouching- A vouch is an icon you see at the top of someone's profile, once some other user has "Vouched" for them, saying they have complete and utter trust in that person. Here's the thing that makes it special: you can only vouch for someone once you yourself have been vouched for by three different people on couchsurfing.org. Each of those people in turn must have been vouched for by three different people, etc, etc. Anyone who has been vouched for has made deep connections in the couchsurfing community, and is known and trusted by those around them. Ideally you should only vouch for someone who you have both hosted and been hosted by, but failing that, just make sure it is someone you trust-- once you vouch for them, anything they do is reflected back on you.

Verification- It's the first and easiest step you can do, because you can do it by yourself. It's a three step process that leads to yet another prominent icon on your profile. The first step is locking in your name and physical address. Once you've done this, the couchsurfing team will mail you a postcard with a code on it. When you get it, you will enter in the code to verify you live (or at least get mail) at this address. This is the bare minimum of verification. The functionality of it is that in the unlikely event that any sort of legal complaint is lodged against a user, the local authorities can at least track them down by physical address. The last step to Verification is optional and only really shows dedication to the concept of couchsurfing- a monetary donation.

Now I know some surfers who object to this donation on principle-- they say that every other aspect of couchsurfing is 100% free of charge and always should be. But creating and maintaining a community that has more users than facebook had just a few years ago costs an enormous amount of time and money. Since couchsurfing.org has no advertising anywhere on its site, donations are its only source of revenue. I say they've earned it. It's a different amount depending on the country you came from, but it's almost always about the price of one night in a hostel dorm bed in your country (Americans for example pay US$25). It's well worth it.

Together, with the fact that all messages through couch surfing are recorded, these safegaurds make the backbone of couchsurfing security and should be the first things you look for when considering any potential host or surfer.

Speaking of looking for surfers, here's a special concern for those wondering "is couch surfing safe for women alone?" First of all, yes, it is. More than a million women are on the site and have had no problems. But if you're still worried, I would like to point out that you can be very specific in your search by gender, age, keywords (good way to find common interests), and specific location. A lot of women tell me they wouldn't feel comfortable staying with a strange man they don't know. Simple answer: restrict your search of hosts to women only.

If you want to read further, I recommend what the couchsurfing.org has to say on the subject themselves.

Up next, Tips for surfers, followed by tips for hosts.

Travel Tip: Couchsurf

2011-02-16T09:34:00.000-08:00

If you don't know what "couchsurf" means, you are missing out. Couchsurfing.org has begun to revolutionize world travel. It is a social network of over 2.5 million people across more than 200 countries worldwide. And just about all of them are willing to let you sleep at their place for no charge.

It's a simple concept. You let travelers crash at your place, and other travelers will let you crash at theirs. Not just any travelers of course-- people can only come stay once you invite them, there is a sophisticated reference and vouching system to determine if they're trustworthy (and how to hold them legally accountable if they aren't). But as accommodation is typically a huge chunk of any traveler's budget, this method can be a huge boon to those trying to see the world for less.

However, couchsurfing is about more than just a free place to stay. It's about all the things you can learn by being the guest of a different culture. A real guest, not just a lone customer in a hotel room. If you are a thoughtful and conscientious guest, you can learn far more from your host in an hour than you might have learned in a day with your guidebook. Finding a couchsurfing host who loves their home is the best and fastest way to get to the exciting, authentic travel experiences that the people on the tour buses can only dream of.

Likewise, as a host, this is very cheesy, but it's true: you're opening your door to the world. Not only are you meeting people from other countries, but you're meeting travelers from other countries. People with stories from literally anywhere. And from a personal perspective, it's a great way to deal with travel withdrawal, comparing notes.

The majority of couchsurfers are single travelers in their twenties. But I've hosted teens, stayed with 70 year olds, and met entire families surfing couches together. There are added challenges to these things of course, but they can be done.

If you're curious about couchsurfing, go to the website's community page, and search for the place where you currently live. You'll find a forum of couchsurfers near you. If you're in a major city, they probably have one or several weekly gatherings-- usually just hanging out at a bar or coffee shop. For example, If you're in Seattle, the group usually hits happy hours in various bars around 5pm (rotates every week, check their board for details). In New York there's a Thursday evening event at Affair on Eighth in Greenwich Village that usually gets going around 8:30. Go join them, they're probably the friendliest crowd you'll ever meet.

If you want to learn more about this site and community, stay tuned. I'll have more posts coming soon-- first about what makes the site so safe to use, second about the basics of surfing for couches, and finally a little bit about hosting.

Travel Tip: Beyond the Flight, Rental Car, and Hotel

2010-12-13T12:36:00.000-08:00

It's taken a little while for me to realize this, but when I tell most people, especially Americans who haven't traveled much, about my trip, they tend to assume a couple things about how it worked. The assumptions kind of make sense, but they're mostly wrong.

They're based on the way that most Americans travel long distances: you book your flight a month or more in advance, you get a rental car so that you can get around, and you book a hotel room based on how plan on staying.

Since that's how they travel, they tend to assume that over the course of 19 months and seven continents, I was continuously doing all of these things. Nope. I had a handful of flights over the course of the trip-- not many more than most college students do if they fly home for school breaks. I might have reserved myself a hotel room twice. I'm not even certain of that. I never rented a car.

When you think about it, it's a little absurd to think that the flight-rental car-hotel reservation method is so predominant that nobody seems to know another way to travel. I'll admit that routine probably affords the most creature comforts for those who have the money, but it's also probably the most expensive, restrictive, and stressful way you can plan a trip. Even if I'd had the millions of dollar required to do my trip around the world that way, I doubt I would have ever done it.

I think a lot of the strength of this travel regime is that it gives the illusion of security. You'll be guaranteed a way in and back home, at good place to sleep, and a way to get from one to the other. So long as your flight isn't delayed/canceled, your hotel is as advertised, and you can spring for all the little surprise fees etc at the rental car counter.

But I think the other real strength this idea has is that it's all these people know. So here is an incomplete list of alternatives. I'm not saying you have to do things one way or another, but I think more people would travel if they knew more about cheaper and more rewarding things they can use:

Instead of buying tickets months in advance, dealing with airport security, baggage restrictions etc of flying try:

Train. In many countries, this is THE way to travel. In Europe and Japan it's often about the same price as flying, but elsewhere it's a bargain and you can buy your ticket the day of travel without any price repercussions. In some places it even rewards you for buying at the last minute (Trans-Siberian rail, anyone?) You see more of your destination, you can stretch your legs and walk around without fear of turbulence, and you'll meet tons of people. Maybe it's just me, but I almost always end up getting free food from fellow passengers, too. Just bring some snacks to share in return. Check seat61.com for good train resources.

Bus. This is how the rest of the world travels by default. You can buy your ticket five minutes before boarding. In developed countries, if you do it in advance, you can pay as little as US$1 for your fare. It's slow, and a bit more restrictive than train travel in that you can't walk around, but if you're someone who can sleep in a car during road trips, bus may be just the method for you. And in the US, forget the stupid urban myths you've heard about Greyhound-- Bolt bus, Megabus, and Go Bus are just a few of the cheap, reliable companies that are very safe and free of the whatever weird characters you're so scared of.

Boat. These are slower than you probably think they are, but boats are looking for passengers and often crews, and they don't always expect the crew to be experienced. Make sure you meet the captain and other crew first (and always ask for permission to board before boarding, it's just good manners) and think hard about whether these are people you want to spend all day, every day with for the length of the voyage. Look at findacrew.com and even craigslist listings for crew.

Rideshare. Check websites to find someone on a road trip who needs company and some extra money for gas. Multiple websites exist for this but I'm not yet aware of a comprehensive global site. Rideshare.com is probably the closest, though it is quite Europe centric.

Now instead of the hassle, fees, insurance and licensing headaches of renting a car, try...

Public Transit. It is much more widespread than you think. Even if it's just a rowboat or a van that comes by every day with some dude sticking out the window yelling their destination, you can find public transit anywhere. You might think it's slower, but it's actually often faster than fighting traffic, finding directions, and trying to figure out traffic laws that a local bus driver grew up knowing. Like which side of the road to drive on. It's also a lot cheaper.

Bicycle. This depends a lot on local traffic and weather, but a bike rental is a quick, cheap and easy way to get around most places. Insist on a helmet and lock with your bike, no matter how crazy the locals think you are for doing so.

Walking. You'll see more, you'll get more exercise, and you'll open yourself up to a lot more opportunities than you ever could inside of your rental car by virtue of meeting people and smelling/hearing interesting things and following them. You'll remember more than you would have otherwise as well. Once you get used to it, you'll be amazed how fast and far you can go by foot.

Finally, instead of booking a hotel room, locking yourself into solitude and constrained dates, try...

Connections. Tell everyone about your trip. Someone will almost certainly know someone else who can either put you up or knows someone else who can. One of my most enjoyable stays anywhere was in Hong Kong, where I spent a week with my mother's second-cousin's ex-girlfriend's sister and brother in law. Don't ask outright for a place to stay, but do not be ashamed to say you'd like to meet people. Most people will invite you by reflex alone, if they possibly can. And bring a gift or take them out for a drink/meal sometime. You'll get a free place to stay, and some orientation to your destination by locals.

Hostels. Contrary to popular opinion, in the vast majority of cases hostels are clean, you can get a private room, you can stay all day, you don't have to be a member of any organization, and you don't have to be a certain age to stay there. You will meet far more travelers than you ever would in a hotel. Most travelers you meet will be really interesting people from all over the world. You'll almost always have access to a kitchen and several dozen strangers who would love to cook with you. Plus there are discount activities, tours, and guides available to the destination. I often find that most hostels are better located than most hotels, especially if you like seeing places on foot. Check Hostelling International, hostelbookers.com, and hostelworld.com.

Couchsurfing.org. This website is revolutionizing budget travel. It's only been around for a few years, but it's already at more than 2 million members scattered across virtually every country in the world, and it's growing daily by the thousands. The idea is simple, you make a profile, you get other members who trust you to write you a reference or two (which appears on your public profile and that you cannot edit), and you can then search for other people who live in your destination who have done the same. If you like their profile and they have been endorsed by enough people to make you feel comfortable, you can ask if you can crash on their couch/spare bed/floor. If they like your profile and see you come with good references, they can accept. The result? A free place to stay, and a local host to guide you around. Make sure you bring a gift or buy them a meal/drink. That's actually only the beginning-- there are international meetups, parties, roadtrips, and a lot more all based on this growing online community of travelers. Once again, it's all at couchsurfing.org.

Apartment Swap Craigslist and other sites are good places to look for apartment swap opportunities if you have a pad you'd like to exchange for someone else's for a week or so. Search for apartment swap and your city of choice, or if you're feeling gutsy, just search for the the city you live in, and see who wants to come to you, and where they can give you a place in exchange.

All these and more can be found in any good guidebook on your destination. I have the most experience with the budget end of things, including Let's Go, Lonely Planet's Shoestring series, and Rough guides. If you have a slightly higher budget, I can also recommend Rick Steve's guides.

Travel Tip: How to Access Your Money While Traveling Internationally

2010-11-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

This post isn't going to be about budgets (that might come later). This post is going to be about how you can get cash in different countries. This will be particularly helpful to those who haven't yet left on their trip and are just now planning how they can best get at their cash while abroad.

As an American, I will be writing this from the perspective of someone from the USA. However, you'll find that while some of the particulars in how to prepare for a trip at home are different in different countries, once you're abroad, the principles are all pretty much the same.

Here's what I recommended that you carry with you:

-Credit and Debit Cards with Good Foreign Exchange Rates (One Visa and One Mastercard at least). This is the modern way to pay for things internationally. Visa and Mastercard debit cards work in ATMs in major cities across almost every country in the world, including Syria, Ethiopia, and other places where, if you search online, you'll find warnings claiming they don't work. If you've read more of my blog, you know how many countries I've traveled across. The only one that wouldn't let me take money out of an ATM was Rwanda, and that was only because I had a Mastercard. Visa works in ATMs there just fine. This just meant I had to go inside a Rwandan bank for a withdrawal, plus a fee. When you use your card in a local ATM, you will always have the option to operate the ATM in English, and you will always be given local currency (unless you specifically ask for something else).

Here's the big catch: most major banks slap massive fees on these transactions. Chase, for example, charges $3 for each withdrawal, plus 5% commission on all withdrawals. You can do a lot better than that.

How? By researching better options. I recommended getting a credit card and small checking account with a smaller bank or a credit union, making sure to ask them about what they charge for foreign transactions. Since I'm from Seattle, I use Boeing Employees Credit Union. Last time I checked, their credit card charged 1% on foreign charges, and their debit card charged 1% on ATM withdrawals. Much better.

In fact, if you look hard enough, you might be able to do better than that. For example, if you or a close family have any ties with the military, you can apply for a checking account with USAA-- not only are there no fees for foreign withdrawals, but they refund any other fees charged by the bank you draw the money from. That's unheard of and amazing. Rumor has it Charles Schwab has a similar deals for people considering opening up new accounts with them (the hope being that you use their investment services when you get home, since you'll already have an account with them).

Once again, make sure you have at least one each of Visa and Mastercard, between your credit and debit cards. Visa seems to be slightly more common abroad, but really you should be fine with either. American express will work in a handful of other countries, not very reliably. Discover card is not going to help you.

Finally, don't keep both cards in the same place. If what you keep one in is stolen, you're probably going to need the other one right away.

-American Dollars. This applies to citizens of other countries as well. American Dollars are the closest thing there is to international currency. Euros are the perpetual second, and also not a bad thing to have around in cash. British Pounds are a distant third. I always kept a stash of US$200 for tight spots. Part of it went in my money belt, the other part in a hidden place in my backpack. You will end up spending this at times. The way you can replenish it depends on which countries you're going through. Sometimes it makes sense to change your leftover currency back into dollars, but more often than not it's better to spend it on something useful and withdraw local currency in the next country from an ATM, which will probably be located very near the border. In several countries you will find that you can withdraw American dollars from the ATMs (Hong Kong, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cambodia, and Ecuador all come to mind).

-Phone Numbers to Contact Your Bank Internationally. Most banks offer numbers that will accept international collect calls for travelers in tight spot. You'll need this in emergencies. Keep it where you keep other documents, like your travelers insurance (you do have travelers insurance, don't you?)

And that's it!

...but wait, some of you are saying. What about travelers checks? The answer is, in my opinion, don't bother. They used to be the way to carry money around abroad. And they do still have more security than cash-- if they're stolen you can get a refund, provided you still have the stubs, and they can't be used by anyone but you. The problem is, nobody uses them anymore. This means that in 90% of the world they aren't accepted for anything, and in the remaining 10%, the exchange rates you get for them are terrible. Add to the fact that most places charge you a fee to even issue them, and I think you have a losing proposition overall. At best, they're a good emergency stash. I tried using them in India, and I don't plan on ever using them again.

Oh and one more item. Some people talk about pre-paid ATM Visa cards. They go by a variety of names. They sound like a neat idea. Basically it's a disposable ATM card with a set amount of cash tied to it. The problem is that the ones I've seen get even worse rates than you get from major banks for debit cards. Maybe there are better ones now, but I have yet to see them. Do a little research. If they charge you more than 3% on foreign transactions, or charge you any kinds of flat fees for anything, don't use them.

And that's a wrap! I may follow this up with more in depth tips for money management while abroad (how to most effectively have a parent or other highly trusted person to help at home, plus online banking). But this should help with the access-to-cash question.

Nostalgia

2010-10-07T22:59:00.000-07:00

I came home from a regular night out in New York. The NYC couchsurfers go to a place in the village called "Solas" on Thursdays. $4 mojitos, margaritas, sangria, and sex on the beach, being sipped by about 50-60 couchsurfers upstairs with masking-tape-and-sharpie-nametags from a few dozen countries.

Around 1am my friend, Barry, dropped me off after the straight shot up 1st Ave to Harlem. It's surprisingly easy to drive from 14th St. to 118th St after midnight during the week. The lights are synchronized, and the only other traffic is cabs. They drive like cabs, but when it's just them, they aren't quite as aggravating.

So I walked up to my apartment, let myself in, scanned my mail, dropped my keys, and plugged my phone into my speakers for a little music. I put on Jamie Cullum's Catching Tales album, without thinking about it much, then wandered over to the fridge to pull out my massive costco tub of hummus from inside and my sack of pita bread from the top.

Then I started listening to the music. That album was the first one I downloaded while traveling. I spent the first year or so without any of my own music. I didn't have my iPod. I'd decided I wanted to listen to the world around me, and the cheap FM radio I'd brought with me. The radio didn't work out that great for various reasons (chief among them the fact that when I most wanted to listen was on buses between cities... where there weren't any radio stations). So by the time I got to Croatia, I decided to download a couple things to my little laptop. Jamie Cullum's Catching Tales was the first thing I got.

And there I was, hearing that music again. Only I wasn't in my apartment in Spanish Harlem. I was in Sarajevo, in an uber-sketchy 5 euro hostel room I had to myself, despite the fact that there were twelve beds there. They were stacked in threes-- a top bunk, a middle bunk, and a bottom bunk. It was halloween, and I had a party to go to, and no costume. My laptop was on and playing "Photograph" by Jamie Cullum. And while the laundry I'd done in the sink was drying across on the elastic line I'd strung between two bunks, I spotted the container of toilet paper rolls on the busted shelf above the busted sink. Voila, halloween costume.

And then I realized I was not in the Balkans, but leaning wistfully against my fridge in New York, with hummus dripping down my bread onto my hand.

It's a lot like having been in a wonderful relationship that's ended. After a while, you move on. You're doing your new thing. You've changed a bit. You're happy with the new you. But every once in a while one of those songs you used to listen to comes on, and it takes a little bit out of you. For that minute or so, all you want is to be back then, they way things were, for just a little while.

Acting in New York is a dream. And things are going pretty well so far. I'm going to auditions. I'm acting in a student film. I just had a free class with a great Shakespeare coach. I've got a deal on a new set of headshots. I've just been invited to be a regular blogger with Backstage.com. Life here is working out.

But sometimes all I want is to be back on the road again. The way I had been, the way it used to be.

So, as a side project, I'm starting to do the next best thing. Writing about my travels. Several people over the years have told me I should write a book. I think I'm going to. I've batted a query letter around for a while, and now I'm putting together a book proposal to send to agents.

My basic premise will be a bit like this blog. Mostly stories of my travels, with a few helpful tips and hints thrown in. My goal is not just to tell my story, but to inspire other people to travel. Not just little tours of western Europe. I mean big travel. Wander with penguins travel. Hitchhike Tanzania travel. Get stranded on Caribbean island and volunteer at a hospital travel.

I will say that I'm not planning on making a guidebook-- there are people who have been backpacking for decades who have already written guidebooks. Saying I could do one better I think would be presuming a bit much. What I have that's unique are my stories, perspective, and personal experience.

But that's just my idea. What's yours? I'm interested in feedback here. If you're still reading this blog, you probably know my story well enough to have an idea. What kind of book would you most be interested in buying, given the trip I have to draw from?

Travel Tip: Stay Safe at Night

2010-10-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

This is a something I get asked about a great deal. How do you stay safe in a strange place? the answers seem like common sense to those who already know them, so often when you ask, you get not very helpful answers like "just... don't be stupid." So I'm going to try to break things down a bit. If you live in a city, some of this is going to be pretty familiar to you already.

First, the basics. You are not in as much danger as you probably think you are. I've heard inexperienced travelers tell me a lot of ridiculous horror stories of shooting, kidnappings, and random killings of tourists. This is very unlikely to happen to you in the vast majority of places you will visit. The places where it does happen are the ones that are very hard to travel to, and where you probably don't want to be right now anyway. Like Baghdad or Mogadishu. I can guarantee you that if you come to Beijing, you are not going to be stuffed into an unmarked car by people looking to harvest your organs. I hope you're laughing, but somebody I talked to was seriously concerned about this possibility.

What you are in danger of are scams (which I'll cover in another post) and theft. Possibly via mugging, depending on the area. Also, women, I hate to say it, but you are more likely to be targeted, not just for theft, but for sexual abuse. However, in most places you are not in any greater danger than you would be in your home city. So don't panic.

The places where you are in the most danger are in very very packed crowds (as in you are literally squeezing through people) and at night. Since you're probably going to be traveling through more nights than crowds, I'm going to focus on how to keep safe at night.

The basics, you probably already know:
-Walking alone is not ideal. Walking drunk is not ideal. Walking alone and drunk is just dumb. Don't do it.
-Act like you know where you are going, even if you don't
-Be aware of your surroundings- don't look at the ground all the time or talk on your cell phone
-Look relaxed but alert-- panicky people look like they're good targets because they probably don't know the area, and might be carrying valuables.
-Don't access an ATM at night. It makes it obvious that you're carrying cash when you walk away.
-Stick to well-lit areas with some people walking around, and give generous distance to dark, shadowy hiding places
-Don't pull out or show anything of great value (ie cameras, jewelry, money belts, or iPods)
-If you are confronted and told to hand over your valuables, don't argue or act like a hero, hand it over.

Now, here are a few slightly less well known ideas I liked to use to stay safe.

If you don't know where you are and don't know how to make it look like you know where you are, pick a random point a couple blocks distant, and walk to it, purposefully. Once you get to it, choose another and do the same thing. Keep doing this until you find a well-lit populated place of business where you can pull out a map or get directions without problems.

Plan ahead of time when you're going to need a map. If you have to pull out a map, make sure it's folded down to the part you need so that you can pull it out and have it in one hand without unfolding. Basically, make it look like it's something other than a map. Ideally, you'll have already done this before walking out into the street.

Use reflections. Shop windows, car mirrors, and anything glass are all your friends, because they can give you a view of what's going on behind you, without you twisting and turning. If you still have sunglasses on your person, you can pretend to inspect the lenses-- the curved lens is a great way to see what's behind you.

If you suspect that someone is following you, walk all the way around a city block until you're going the same direction you were originally. If they're still behind you, they are following you. Step inside a shop, hotel lobby, or any open, lit building with someone working inside, and tell the person that you are being followed.

If you keep a wallet in your pocket, keep it in the front pocket. If you must keep it in the back, tie a couple rubber bands around it so that you can more easily feel if someone tries to slip it out.

If you are in a place where mugging is reported to be common, carry a second wallet with a small amount of cash and some expired cards inside it. If you are mugged, throw this wallet to the ground and run, if you can.

Finally, use the city around you. The vast majority of wherever you are is trustworthy and hates thieves and criminals more than they could ever hate you, regardless of your demographic. The vast majority of the city is your friend, and criminals are running scared of being caught by your friend. This is something that will help you stay calm if you're caught in a situation that feels unsafe.

I hope that helps. Safe travels!

International City

2010-09-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

I exited the subway at Grand Central station and nearly steamrolled a 5-foot-tall lady selling Mexican flags. 'Of course,' I realized. 'Mexican Independence Day.' People like this woman were all over midtown chanting 'Bandera, bandera!' and waving flags for sale. Men, women and children were sporting green national soccer jerseys and waving flags.

Two blocks later, I'd walked into a Turkish street fair. Baklava, cured meats, and photos of Cappadocia, Istanbul, and Ephesus everywhere. Turkish music on the loudspeakers.

Five minutes after that, I was buying computer parts from a man in a yarmulke, in a long line of men wearing yarmulkes, comparing notes on the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the Israeli Sheckle. After making my purchase, the attendant noticed I'd given a Seattle billing zip code.

"What brings you to New York?"

"I just moved here, actually."

"Really? Welcome to New York! This city will chew you up and spit you out again."

I grinned. We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

I came to this city because, among other reasons, it seems like the most natural place for a world traveler to settle for a bit. Everyone from everywhere comes to New York if they can, and they always they bring a little of their home with them. So you can walk three blocks and cross a Mexican parade, a Turkish Street fair, and then emerge on the other end right onto Broadway. The one all the other "Broadway"s are named after. I can see echoes of the world everywhere in this town. It's like noticing an author hiding Easter Egg references to past books in a later story. A bonus for those who know the other parts.

But while I'm enjoying the throwbacks to everywhere else, I'm still having fun with the classic New York moments. Walking back from my free* yoga class, my first ever, I came up Broadway and saw that I was behind two very very drunk guys, straight out of a frat party. They staggered across a street against a red light. One was slightly ahead of the other, and a taxi coming up at speed honked at him.

The first guy kept going, but the second guy stepped in front of the cab, turned unsteadily to face it, and stopped. The taxi skidded to a halt about half a foot from his legs. The man looked the driver in the eye, then very slowly and deliberately bent over and kissed the hood. Then he walked his way.

Maybe you can find that somewhere else, but I've only ever seen it here.
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*and by free we mean $2 mat rental. Plus donation. (Plus, in my case, $2 extra because the route between the studio and my subway stop is intersected by The Strand bookstore's $1 book racks outside). Check it out: Yoga to the People. I wanted something cheap to correct my posture and make me more flexible. I think I might just become a regular.
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This post cross-posted to Joel's new blog about life as an aspiring actor and writer, Constant Audition.

A New Chapter, A New Blog

2010-09-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay. I'm going to be doing something a bit different from here on out. What you see to the left is my new home town: New York City.

I had the opportunity to take a monthlong pass with JetBlue airlines to travel around the country. I was sorely tempted. I've missed my travels, and this little trip around has only made me miss them more. But I've turned it down.

I'm here in NYC to do something different. I'm going to act. And yes, you're still going to get to read about it. But not here.

JTrek is, always has been, and always will be a travel blog. If I hit the road again, I might have new stories to share here, and I do have some periodic travel tips to share about travel safety, budgeting, and more to share here. But the juicy stuff about acting, writing, and living in New York, is not going here.

It's going to my new blog: Constant Audition.

Constant Audition will be a place for me to share stories about what it's really like out here, doing what something lot of people dream about doing but never actually try. I don't know what to expect, whatever it is, I'll do my best to make it interesting. If you've read this blog much, you can judge for yourself how good I am at that.

So, I hope you've enjoyed what I've written here, and will enjoy what I will write there. All the best!

The American Capital

2010-09-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

This was the last stop for this trip before moving into my new home. It was the only one where I wasn't visiting relatives.

I've been to Washington DC twice before, once when I was ten, sightseeing with my parents, and once when I was seventeen, looking at colleges.

The place feels like a stage. I spent most of my time exploring the National Mall. The whole thing is open to the skies. It's a combination of the height limit on the buildings (nothing can be taller than the Capitol), the wide, right angled streets, and the low-flying airplanes following the Potomac River to National Airport, as per security regulations.

After having seen a lot of other national capitals around the world, it's a strange feeling seeing and comparing your own to everyone else's. I'd have these funny moments from other places. Flags flying that I remember flying in their own countries. A tour guide saying vaguely that the capitol's dome was designed after one on a cathedral in Russia, he didn't know which. Then me realizing that I did know which, and that I had taken several pictures of it in St. Petersburg. Flashbacks like these.

Above all, DC feels American. That's weirdly not something I could have said before, the last couple times I was here. Having been away for a long time and looking back through a lot of lenses, I now have a much clearer idea of what we Americans have in common and what makes us different from other people.

Politicians throw a lot of rhetoric around about "freedom" and "democracy," but those aren't unique to us, and anyway, they're pretty nebulous concepts when you think about them, especially how they're used today. But there's one thing you take for granted growing up here, and that is a fierce sense of individualism. An American believes that s/he is in control of his/her destiny. If an American succeeds, it's due almost solely to their hard work. If an American fails, it's their fault. And encroaching on any American's ability to do something they want to do is a serious offence, usually accompanied with heated statements about "rights."

We're cheerful. Sometimes a bit absurdly so. "Good" is the default answer for "how are you?" I don't just mean that to say we've got good lives, I mean that even when we're not so happy, we tell people we are, almost out of habit. We smile when we meet new people. And by the way, our customer service is legendary (though people are appalled at the tips we expect).

We have some pretty strange ideas about guns. We eat huge portions of food. None of us admits to liking small talk, but we're a lot more comfortable being chatty than silent. And more than most nations, we, as a country, like to put on a show. Love or hate us, nobody ignores us. Contrary to popular belief, we're not dumber on average than any other nationality. It's just that dumb Americans know how to attract a lot more attention than dumb people just about anywhere else. We make TV shows so the rest of us can laugh at the stupidest among us, and then export the shows to other countries, where they watch it and say "gosh, so that's what Americans are like." It's not true, it's just our flair for the dramatic-- if we're gonna be dumb, you can bet we'll be entertaining while being dumb.

All this is reflected in the green center of this city, our capital. The place we send representatives from every corner of our country to argue over what we should be doing, just so that we can deride them for how little they're doing and how much of what they do annoys us. But they do it dramatically on big stages of marble, broadcast to the world. For most everyone here, it's all business in this town.

Except when it isn't. Like when a couple of my friends from college led me to an unmarked apartment building, nodded to a guy standing outside, and were led into hidden bar serving some amazing cocktails. Or when we all competed in a pub trivia contest under the team name "The Last Time I Pulled Out Of Iraq, I Hit Herzegovina." Then again, that might tell you more about my friends here than the city.

So, another fast visit down. I write while this sitting on a bus to New York City. By the time you read this I will have arrived, and I'll have something of an announcement to make. Stay tuned.

Part 4: The Lees

2010-08-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

Back at what we call "the little house" at the Putnam Ranch in Washington, there's a tiny embroidered thing in a frame that says something like "To be a Virginian, whether by birth, marriage, or even on one's mother's side is a passport to any country, and a benediction from Almighty God." That almost certainly came from my grandmother. My grandmother was left-handed, a twin, and Virginian, all things of which she was very proud. Especially the last one.

My grandpa likes to tell the story something like this: he was a soldier in World War II, on leave in Hampton, Virginia. As usual for those days, a local family came out to the church and invited soldiers back for a home-cooked meal. My grandpa went home with the nice family named Lee, and found that they had some daughters they were trying to get rid of. So, he took one of them.

The rest of the siblings, including her little brother, Henry, pictured above, spent most of their lives back east in Viriginia. But Henry, himself a fighter pilot in the war, and great lover of road trips, has always been an active part of the Putnam family out west. My last opportunity to return the favor and come see the Lees in Virginia was almost fifteen years ago.

A side note. For those of you who know your American history and are putting two and two together, when I talk about the Lees of Virginia, yes, they are the Lees you're thinking of. And for the record I'd just like to say that my ancestor was asked by Lincoln to head the Union Army, and only sided with the conferderacy because he couldn't bear the idea of fighting the people he grew up with in his home. Anyway, that was a long time ago, things are little different in 2010.

One thing about this branch of the family-- we keep track of ourselves. As my cousin, Regina, drove me around Hampton, she started pointing out the street named after our cousins, the house the belonged to our other cousins, the cemetery where half of our family is buried outside the 400-year old church where we have a reserved pew, where my grandparents were married and my mom and uncles were baptized. The same one where a few years ago, my grandpa visited, got to talking to someone, and told them that he and his wife had been married there sixty years before. The man responded that he'd been there and pointed to the pew where he'd been sitting for the ceremony.

Henry has a house full of history. I mean that about as literally as you can take it. I've never seen a house piled with so much old stuff. I'm six feet tall, and there were stacks and boxes I couldn't see the tops of. As we were leaving, Regina pointed to the back corner of the covered porch and said "look, there's his canon." I spent a good five seconds looking for a camera before I noticed the spoked wooden wheel peeking out from under the piles of other stuff. The one attached to the canon. The kind you fire small cannonballs with.

Henry himself is a talker. He has his way of doing things, and his way of thinking about things. Not everything he says are things you will want to hear, and if you don't agree with him, he will not let go (I wasted about ten minutes trying to explain the rationale of printing signs and instruction sheets in multiple languages in this country). But he loves his home, his friends and his family. And he loves to talk. Funnily enough, the rest of the family loves to talk about him. If there's ever a lull in the conversation in a Lee household (unlikely), just bring up Henry and everyone will have plenty to say.

Henry and my grandmother had several other siblings, including my grandmother's twin brother, Bev. I got to spend a day with Bev's kids and their families while we ate, laughed, argued, and swapped stories. Especially stories of family and friends. I've never heard of such antics performed with nail guns as when the conversation turned to the brother's work in construction. Scary. But fun.

And in case you're wondering, whatever good things you've heard about southern hospitality, it's all true. And it goes double if you're family. Regina dropped a day of work ("I'm on vacation now!") and drove me all around town, then beyond to Colonial Williamsburg, where we got to see some of our country's heritage, my favorite being an actor who sat under a tree with a cane and talked with us for over an hour in the persona of Scottish-American newspaperman Alexnder Purdie. Then after she drove us home from that, I could swim around in the pool, and was fed more food than I knew what to do with while I batted away offers of even more stuff. I might just have to come down this way more often now that I'm moving to the east coast.

No matter how long you give these visits, they always seem too short at the end. That goes for each one of the family visits I've had these past few weeks. And it especially seems true now that this round is over. I've seen most of my living relatives now. I'm writing this on a train that's taking me to Washington DC.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Part 3: The Stones

2010-08-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

At some point around the McCarthy period, somebody in the FBI asked my dad whether his sister, Jane, (or Dane, as we call her), was a Communist. My dad, a Communist himself at the time, immediately said "no." He was telling the truth, Dane was a Trotskyist, and, as he put it, "would sooner die before calling herself a Communist."

Aside from her political activities, not just among "the reds", but also in the civil rights movement, Dane is also one of the most well-traveled people I know. At this point in my life, that's saying quite a lot. There are very few people who I can have a normal conversation with where both parties can relate stories spanning four continents. It's really nice.

Her branch of the family took the name of her late husband, Bill Stone, himself an active member of similar political lines, a union activist, and a college professor of English. I got to see a little over half of the family branch that survived him over the last week. Joyce, the carpenter was busy at home in Minnesota, and Dan, my best chess teacher was busy with the adult education program he runs on the north side of Chicago (called simply and accurately, "Fun with Learning"). So I spent a little time with their big brother, my cousin, Dave, the teacher and delegate to the teacher's union, and his wife, Debbie, who is a lawyer for the ALA, and whose main job is legal defense for the first amendment of the American bill of rights. Then their daughter, Elizabeth (English major and improv actress), and I flew and drove out to the town of Duck, North Carolina, to see Dane at her time-share.

Duck is on the Outer Banks, a tiny strip of land between the sound and the ocean, a few minutes drive north of Kitty Hawk (and the equally oddly named but much less famous town of Kill Devil Hills). I'd never been on a time share before, and wasn't sure what to expect. It was weird. After all this time traveling all over the place, I was, for the very first time, doing the classic thing most Americans associate with travel: getting off an airplane, renting a car, and driving out to a resort where we had a reservation. Surreal. The rental car (a white Kia Rio) is clearly a special Hertz reserved for the under-25 customers. It has manual locks you have to lock individually, crank windows, and no cruise control, yet it comes with satellite radio receiver, and audio and usb jacks. It's like somebody in 2009 wanted to make a car that reminded them of 1999, then got an unexpected donation from the Sirius/XM corporation.

The apartments here are enough to fit ten. There are three of us. I have what amounts to a one-bedroom apartment to myself, a five minute walk from a beautiful Atlantic ocean beach.

It's been a good vacation. Aside from swimming, visiting Kitty Hawk, and climbing the only migratory lighthouse I'm aware of, we've been swapping stories and eating very well. I managed to go swimming in the ocean and not get horribly sunburned, which is always a victory.

But my favorite moment might have been on my second night, when I walked out around midnight to go take a look at the ocean. The weather forecast had been threatening us with thunderstorms, and the place was cloudy when I started down the drive. I walked to the shoreline, pulled out my headphones and cued up Jamie Cullum's "I Love This," right as I hit the beach. Like magic, the clouds scattered, giving me a near-full moon and stars to walk with on the beach with the crashing Atlantic.

I think I might go see if I can't do that again.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Part 2: The Bergmans

2010-08-22T22:54:00.000-07:00

My father, a man raised in a Jewish family in largely Jewish Chicago neighborhood, jokes that he makes a point not to marry anyone who isn't Episcopalian. Our family gets complicated that way.

In most practical senses, I grew up an only child. But I have a half-brother and half-sister through my dad's previous marriage. I've been an uncle since just before I turned nine years old (a cause of much disbelief in 4th-grade Spanish class family tree projects). As of last February, I now have five nieces. What you see here is my dad with one of the two youngest. We came out to Chicago for the baptism of my brother's new baby twins, Sophia and Madeline. As my father says, they're "clearly superior babies."

Recently, for the first time, a good friend asked me point blank why I came home. My immediate answer was my nieces. I'm not letting them grow up without their Uncle Joel around. Supposedly there was a betting pool going among some friends of mine that I'd never come back. At least one side of that pool hasn't met these girls.

Or my half-siblings, come to that. My sister lives with her family just a few blocks from my parents place, in a gorgeous house they've remodeled from the basement on up. I say goodbye to them with pizza made from a stone oven that had been hauled up on a trailer into their driveway. Great pizza, and a great time my my sister and brother-in-law, their two daughters, and the three respective packs of friends acting as entourage. If I'm going to spend my last night in my hometown with anyone, it'll be them.

Well, them, and some theater friends later that night, but that's another story. We'll skip ahead to the 6am flight to go see my brother, and baptism of his baby girls instead.

My brother is busiest person I know. Like me, he got the travel bug, and like me, he decided to go traveling after college. The way he did it was to become a flight attendant "for a little while," and he got some travel perks that would be almost impossible for me to give up if I had them.

Well, he still hasn't. He became an active and very successful member of the union, led a strike against his company, and won. Then he decided his family could use a little more income. So, while keeping his job, he became an RN, and took another job as a nurse, specializing in hospice care. Then, while still working both jobs, he decided to run for a local political office as a democrat against an entrenched republican in a traditionally republican county of Illinois. Then his wife gave birth to twin girls.

As soon as we walk in the room, the in-laws greet us enthusiastically, and hand us envelopes to stamp for the campaign. Soon after, my brother is checking with his airline's internal system for our sister's chances to join us via standby flight. I'm swapping jokes and bouncing babies with my oldest niece, my brother's daughter by his first marriage. Meanwhile my mother and my half-brother's mother are quite happily making a salad together in the next room.

Because of my dad's legendary appetite (his friend, author Calvin Trillin once wrote him up as "an eater of serious scope"), we end up ordering eleven Indian dishes take out for nine people. I tour my end of the table around the paneer, baigan bharta, and biryani while people rip chunks of spinach and garlic naan to chew with the talk of politics, medicine, travel, and of course, the babies. After all, just like most babies, they're the cutest babies in the world.

None of us get enough time with each other, but we never feel like we do, anyway. Part of working two jobs, running a challenging, winnable political campaign, and having twins. It's all a whirlwind. We roll to the church, The babies are each in pretty white dresses longer than their heights (lengths?) combined. Someone hands me a video camera, and I get to work. Reception. Cake. Book signings. Back to the house for sandwiches, laughs, stories, and whoosh. Gone.

We need to do this more often, we think.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Travel Tip: $499, Unlimited US Air Travel for a month! (Must buy by THIS FRIDAY, August 20th)

2010-08-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Heads up, If you're fast, for US$499, you can fly anywhere that JetBlue flies for a specific monthlong period (Sept 7- Oct 6th), as many flights as you can stand (as long as they aren't on Fridays or Sundays).

Here's their summary:

AYCJ-5: $499* for 30 days of unlimited travel (excludes Fridays and Sundays)

Pass travel valid on JetBlue-operated flights in the JetBlue route network only
Domestic taxes and fees included
International and Puerto Rico taxes and fees not included
On sale now, while supplies last
Travel dates: Tuesday, September 7, 2010 through Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Each flight must be booked and ticketed no later than 11:59 p.m. EDT or 11:59 p.m. local time, whichever is earlier, three (3) days prior to the flight's scheduled departure
Last seat availability
Nonrefundable/nontransferable/no name changes permitted

A couple other points I found looking through the fine print. Airports charge usage fees, and the numbers don't seem to quite add up as to how much they cover-- so most of the fee will be covered by the pass. For domestic flights, this looks like it could cost you about another $9 per flight. For international/ Puerto Rican flights however, it might charge you close to $200. (Alaskan flights also have a slight surcharge, but nothing near the three digit mark-- a moot point as Jet Blue doesn't appear to service any airports in the state). I've included fine print at the bottom.

Now this is Jet Blue, they don't fly everywhere, so before you jump on this, take a careful look at their route map.

Apparently they did this last year and it was a huge success. Traditionally airlines have very few customers this time of year. Summer vacations are ending and the holidays haven't started yet. So it's a good way for them to fill up their aircraft.

Very, VERY tempting. However seeing as I've just agreed to pay rent in Manhattan for most of that period, I think I'll be finding another way, another time.

If you do get one of these, leave a comment-- tell us all how it goes and what you're going to do with it!

Buy the Pass here.

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Just for posterity, I'm including the fine print of their summary, broken down for slightly easier reading:

*Passes may be purchased by 8/20/10 or while supplies last.

Each Pass includes unlimited coach class air travel for one person on JetBlue-operated flights between any cities in the JetBlue route network.

AYCJ-5 "Restricted Passes" exclude travel on Fridays and Sundays. Passes are valid for travel between 9/7/10 and 10/6/10.

Each Pass flight must be booked and ticketed at least 3 days prior to departure, but no later than 11: 59 PM ET, October 3, 2010. Changes or cancellations of flight bookings made within 3 days prior to the flight's scheduled departure will incur a $50 change/cancel fee. "No shows" for flights will incur a $100 fee, with Pass suspension until fee is paid.

Passes may be used only to book new travel and may not be applied to existing reservations.

Travel is subject to availability and seats may not be available on all flights. Passes may not be used for code share or interline flights, Getaways packages, Cruises, Gift Cards, or products and services sold separately.

Pass does not include taxes and fees applicable to international or Puerto Rico travel; in the case of international travel, government fees and taxes of up to $170.00 each way, and; in the case of Puerto Rico travel, a US Departure/Arrival Tax of $16.10 each way.

All taxes and fees must be paid at the time of travel booking. Passenger Facility Charges up to $9.00 each way; September 11th Security Fees up to $2.50 per enplanement at a U.S. originating airport; Federal Segment Taxes of $3.70 per domestic segment are included in cost of your Pass. Passes and Pass travel are non-refundable, non-exchangeable, and non-transferable.

An additional fee of $85 applies for each Pass flight for an unaccompanied minor. A second bag fee of $30 applies. Other restrictions apply; see Terms and Conditions for complete details.

Part 1: The Putnams

2010-08-16T00:09:00.000-07:00

Meet one of the best storytellers I know. No, not the cute cow chew toy on the right. The rancher in the easychair. That's my grandpa, the reigning patriarch of the Putnam clan. I'll tell you a story he told me this morning. It might explain a little about the Putnam sense of humor:

Decades ago, there was a bit of a uranium craze in the pacific northwest. People were looking for places to mine it all over. Including our family's ranch.

One day, a salesman came up to my great-grandfather and said "do you know you've got something up in the hills there?"

My great-grandfather raised an eyebrow and asked "can I get at it with my plough?"

The man paused and said "no."

"Well, then." Said my great-grandpa. "If I can't get at it with my plough then I'm not interested."

After getting rid of the guy, he did a little investigating, realized that they wanted Uranium, and that not all the people like them were dealing on the level. So when they came back to ask again, hoping to buy either the land or mining rights, he told them "Nope. Sorry. I've just got enough uranium up there for my purposes. There's really not enough to go around."

This continued until one day my great grandpa put a couple small piles of rocks on either side of his front gate. The man cam back, asked again, and again my great-grandpa replied, "I'm sorry, but I've only got just enough for me."

The man reportedly wandered back and got in the car with his associate and told him,

"That Putnam's completely crazy."

"Is he?" The friend replied, "Why don't you take your geiger counter to those piles of rocks over there?"

Sure enough, they were radioactive.

I think this demonstrates (and possibly explains) a lot about the subtle kinds of jokes my mom's side of the family pulls around here.

I came out not just for my grandpa's stories but for a tradition that's happened every year since my parents got married. I've already explained a little about the place last time I was here. Now I'll explain the occasion.

Nearly thirty years ago, my parents got married on this ranch. More than 100 people showed up. They had a fantastic time. Somebody, I think my great aunt who I only ever knew as "Auntie" until she died at age 99, said they should do it every year. And thus the Putnam Ranch Roundup was born.

It's a reunion that hits mid-august every year, not just for family, but everyone in the surrounding community, and anyone anybody already there feels like inviting-- close friends, girl/boyfriends, colleagues, whoever. In my entire life, I've only ever missed one, and that was because I was in S outh Korea at the time.

The leadup varies with camper vans and tents springing up around the property, but the routine on the Saturday doesn't change. Mid-afternoon, half of us troop down to the Columbia river beach, about a ten minute walk from the main house, because it's too hot to do anything else. Six-thirty we gather at the main house and pile on every dish we can haul to an empty hay trailer covered in a table cloth and feast on the family classics (Nancy's tortilla soup, Warrens famous corn, etc). After that we take every chair we can over to the big machine shop where, traditionally led by my grandpa and his fiddle, we play music and sing till long after dark. The kids usually sneak off at this point to play Sardines (hide and seek, except backwards).

This year was no different. Lot of people, lots of laughs. One extremely friendly and somewhat overwhelming airdale terrier. Lots of cool nights looking up at more stars than you can see just about anywhere. And the same laid-back, sly humor that has always been a part of the ranch, ever since my grandpa first walked up to something or someone standing between him and where he wanted to go and amiably asked "are you in my way?"

It's true some things are a little bit different each time. Like the two cousins who came in playing didgeridoos. Or the massive 1970s Army truck another cousin had completely rebuilt and repainted that could run off of anything from french-fry grease to the cocktail of motor oil and transmission fluid he could get for free from his old base. But things like that aside, it all looked pretty familiar.

There's a lot more history to the place than I'll ever be able to write about here, going back to the Oregon trail pioneers, the Applegates, right up to the current Putnam Ranch llc's busniess dealings. But this might give you a taste of what we do around there.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

The Aftertrip Begins

2010-08-11T00:55:00.000-07:00

This fuzzy little picture is what I snapped from my night tonight in Seattle. This is how I want to spend more nights: listening to a Jazz-Funk band from Mali while I alternate between dancing with childhood friends and chatting up visiting Spaniards.

So, yeah, I'd say my life's pretty good right now. Even if I haven't written here.

It's not a coincidence. This is a travel blog. It's been a long time since I've been on the road. But you're going to start seeing more posts here again soon. I'm going back to traveling for a little while.

This won't be the massive round-the-world trip like last time. This is just for a couple of weeks. They say that travel writing teaches you more about the writer's home than their destination. I guess this little trip is a way to do that a little more explicitly. This time, instead of reaching outward, I'm going to reach in.

This means my land, my history, and my family. Anyone who knows me well knows how much my family means to me. I am starting in the city I was born in, going to the cattle ranch where my mom grew up, then next to my father's childhood and my college days in Chicago. From there it's off to North Carolina with My father's sister and my cousins. Then up to Virginia where the most famous of my ancestors called home. A pit stop in my homeland's capital city, then back up to its biggest hub and the place I've decided will be my new home: New York City.

It will feel good to dust off the backpack and hit the road again. I've been reasonably busy here in Seattle, among other things, breaking into the theater scene with my first professional gig as an actor (good part, too).

But it's a weird feeling. It's almost as if I'm not entirely here sometimes. For me, it feels like I've been here ages. For everyone around me, old friends, family, I guess it feels like I basically just dropped in to say hello before I left again. When it takes you a week to plan having coffee with someone, you perceive time differently than when you spend that same amount of time visiting four or five Japanese cities, exploring the most famous Edo-style style castle, and summiting the island's tallest mountain. Everything happens so much more slowly when you're home.

Too slowly for me, now. It's time to get out and roam again.

Welcome to JTrek!

2010-07-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

For those of you who've never been here before, this is the blog that followed an American backpacker's adventure around the world-- over a year and a half and more than sixty countries across all of the world's continents. You'll find stories of being stuck on tropical islands, walking with penguins, romping through palaces and cave-homes, roasting marshmallows over hot lava, and much, much more.

Click below on the continent that interests you most, and you'll find posts in reverse chronological order (after all, it's a blog).

(Please note that clicking on India will take you to the blog of a different trip, a study abroad experience and video podcast done by the author with NBC Universal Studios.)

You'll also find some of the better pictures from the trip, with explanations on a sidebar to the right. Just like the posts, they're roughly divided by continent (with a few liberties taken--yes we know the Middle East is actually part of Asia, sorry) Down at the bottom are some other great travel blogs and useful travel websites.

Finally, scattered throughout are posts with tips dedicated to first-time international backpackers, and any other travelers who consider them useful. I like helping new travelers out and would love to answer any specific questions for anyone out there. Send me an email.

If you like what you see, you might find more at my main website: www.JoelRPutnam.com. (A bit of a work in progress, to be honest.)

Enjoy!

Traveler Alert: USA Passport Price Hike, effective July 13

2010-07-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

Want to get, renew, or add pages to one of these? Apply in the next ten days, or face a steep price increase.

According to the US State Department, passport fees will be increased on Tuesday, July 13, 2010, as follows:

Those getting a first passport will pay $135 (before 7/13, pay $100).

Those getting their passport renewed will pay $110 (before 7/13, pay $75)

Here's the kicker that affects few travelers, but affects them in a big way: those adding pages to a valid passport will pay $82 (before 7/13, FREE of charge).

So, if you don't have a passport, you passport has expired, or especially if you need more pages, go get that taken care of ASAP. Click here to find the place you can do this nearest you.

Traveler Tips: Q&A from the H.I. Event

2010-06-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

So for those who didn't get to go to the Hosteling International event on Monday, I've pulled some of the questions I got that I don't think I've answered before here, and some that my friend Pam answered that I didn't know, plus at least one good suggestion from an audience member.

Q: Should you ever deal with the black market when changing money?
Not if you can help it. It used to be that you could do this in many countries and get a much better rate than you could through an official moneychanger. I've heard rumors that this might still be true in places like Venezuela, but for the most part, not only is this no longer true, but the black market has almost exclusively been filled by scam artists, especially the ones that just operate in the street at border crossings and major cities. You will get fake currency, bad exchange rates, and slight of hand to trick you into thinking you got more than you actually did.

If you must use the black market, then it's a situation where someone official can point you to the reliable guy on the black market. I have asked police and border patrol personnel and they have helped me with this. I got a good rate with real currency. You'd think the people I asked would rather arrest the people instead of giving them customers, but in some places (mostly Africa), they know this is the only way to change money, so they'll just kind of give you a "if this doesn't work, it's not my fault" spiel beforehand.

Q: How would you feel about driving a car in the developing world?
Eh... I'd be nervous. I wouldn't do it until I'd spent enough time to become familiar with the driving local driving style, roads, and traffic police habits. In East Africa, the police pull over foreign-looking drivers all the time to try to fleece them for bribes. If you don't pay, they find something to fine you for. In South America, people will take blind corners on steep mountain highway with no shoulder or guard rail, and just drift into the lane of opposing traffic. As driver, I know I wouldn't be able to handle these sorts of things without a good amount of practice and familiarization first.

Q: If you need medical attention and you don't speak the local language, how do you find a good doctor and someone who can translate for you?
Doctors all over the world are expected to learn some English. It's the international language of many disciplines in the hard sciences, so they're expected to know some as part of their studies. Finding an English speaking doctor or pharmacist shouldn't be nearly as hard as you might imagine. As for making sure it's a *good* doctor, use local recommendations. If you have made friends where you are, ask them. If you haven't yet met locals, talk to the staff of the hostel or hotel where you are staying, or the local tourist info center. They all know better then you possibly could. Some travel insurance providers will give you an emergency number you can call that will tell you where a doctor they recommend is located.

Q: What are some things you had a hard time finding on the road that you should get at home?
Most things you can get at home, you can also get abroad, but not necessarily the brands or quality you want. Pam talked about how she was never satisfied with foreign band-aids (I never had a problem with this personally, but I didn't use many). I could never find peanut butter when I wanted it, and very few people outside of the US know what root beer is. Also, if you're like me and have big feet, shoes can be an issue in many countries. I had to get special imported ones from an American mall in Quito once. It was expensive, and a little embarrassing. Finally, I get picky about my clothes being packable, quick-drying and decent looking. Shirts I could usually find. But for some reason, finding pants like this was often a challenge.

Q: What's a good way to help secure your room if you have a private one?
Get a little doorstop. I never had one of these, but it was suggested after the event, and I think it's a good one. This assumes of course that you aren't sharing the room and the your door opens inwards, and that the bottom of the door is close enough to the floor for it to work, but in those situations, a doorstop could be handy to make you more secure.

Hope that's helpful. Thank you very much to all who attended! If any of you had a favorite question I haven't included here, comment or email me, and I'll add it.

Come See Me In Seattle!

2010-06-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

Next Monday, June 28th, thanks to Hosteling International USA, I'll join fellow traveler Pam Perry to answer your questions about traveling less developed countries.

As it says on the pretty flyer to the left, this event is free and open to the public, at the American Hotel (also known as the new HI Seattle hostel) at 520 S. Kings St. We'll be in the common room at 6:30.

I plan on bringing some of my gear, including my backpack, to show what kinds of stuff I packed for my trip, and what I do and don't recommend that you bring as well. We're not just going to talk at you, this is going to be an open discussion, addressing concerns and questions of whoever is there. The focus will be on helping first-time independent travelers who want to go to less developed areas, but there might be a few stories to share as well.

So, come and bring friends! I'll see you there.

(BTW, for the facebook inclined, the event is online here.)

Unpacking

2010-05-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting to write this entry for a long time. I've had a million ideas about what to say. Sometimes, only halfway through my journey, I'd think I knew exactly what I was going to say at the end. But those things are not what I thought they would be. They were what I thought at the middle.

As much as I hate writing it, this is the end. For this trip. My backpack is sitting in my closet, empty. This trip is over.

I'm not technically home, but in some ways I'm closer to home now than I could be when actually there. I'm sitting in the house my grandfather built out of stone, all those years ago, after coming back from World War II. I'm sleeping in my mother's old room, which wasn't ready for her to sleep in until she was almost a teenager. It's very pink.

Outside is the river valley my mother and her brothers played in up to adulthood. If you see how my uncles spend time with their tractors and dirt bikes, you could argue they never stopped. Halfway down the dirt road between the stone house and the barn is a half-disentegrated truck, the back of which was the playhouse for my cousins and me when we visited. I think we spent most of our time making gourmet meals out of mud. Maybe they were just pies.

Surrounding us is the garden my grandmother spent most of her life tending. Just up the hill, along the road that bears our family name, is the stone that marks her final resting place. The cows we kept have been sold, but the horses are still around. I can't remember being somewhere with so many birds and wild deer, something I never really appreciated much before leaving.

This ranch is one of the few places I know with no cell phone reception. My aunt and uncle's place on the other end of this part of our property has the only internet, connected by satellite. Every month, my mother comes for a long weekend. Growing up, every couple of months, depending on my school schedule, I would come up with her.

I used to think of it as being not that worthy of note compared to the other wonderous things in the world. But now I've seen those other things, and, this spring, this place looks as beautiful and deep as the best of them.

It makes sense to end my journey where my journey began. It's not exactly the same place it used to be when I left, but I'm not the same guy I used to be when I left it, so I guess fair's fair.

Ever since I turned about eighteen, my life has had a lot of goodbyes. I got good at them. Either they came with leaving Seattle for college in Chicago or coming back, every break, or to some other place entirely and home again. Parting ways with people and places is like going to sleep. Part of life.

The secret to handling it is knowing that, short of death, none of them are permanent. I never really say goodbye. I just say "see you later." Because there's no way of knowing you'll never see each other again.

So when I say goodbye to this adventure, it's not goodbye to adventure. Adventure and I go way back now, and I expect we'll cross paths again sometime. Maybe sometime soon. But for this trip, it's time we went our separate ways.

I've learned a lot. I've become more of a risk taker, comfortable with anyone I meet, adaptable to any circumstance, and resourceful in any situation. I hope for new chances to put all those things to good use.

So while I sit here at one of the places that smiles when I call it 'home,' I can relax, trying my best to hold on to all the memories of the world, knowing at least half of them will slip through my fingers back to where they came from. I'll have the photographs, the journal entries, and the tidbits I wrote here. Beyond that, it's going to be me trying to hum the tunes somebody played for me somewhere far away, hoping I still get some of the notes right.

So, what's next for me? Well, I'm in a play, going up in the end of June, in Seattle (EDIT: No I'm not. The show has been canceled. Twice.). I'll be making some music, spending time with my family, keeping myself busy with all those things I could never do on the road. After that, unless some big opportunity grabs me somewhere else, I'll be heading to the next adventure in New York City. Before that, I have a lot of things to sort out from this trip. Tickets, guidebooks. Pictures. Videos. And I'll keep writing.

This blog will be reorganized, to put emphasis on the places I've been, rather than the most recent thing I've written. And any future public announcements regarding my travel, writing, music, new blogs, or anything else interesting will show up here, the usual online outlets (twitter, facebook, google buzz), and on a new website I'm tinkering with (as of this writing, still under construction): www.joelrputnam.com.

But this will probably be the last blog post of its kind. I'd ike to post a few more tips. Maybe a "where is he now" sort of post in a few weeks. I might even upload a couple of those videos I mentioned, if I think they're good enough. That's all.

Thank you, everyone, everywhere. This adventure has been everything I hoped and more. I will leave you all with three words that I think sum up my feelings nicely:

Best. Planet. EVER.

---
Check out this entry's Photos.

What I Think

2010-05-31T09:38:00.000-07:00

Halfway through the trip, sitting in the Beijing bus station, before heading to Mongolia, a Chinese man asked me about my trip. I told him what I was doing.

"Well, what do you think?" He asked.

"What do I think about what?" I asked.

He looked confused. "You're going everywhere. You've been to many places."

"Yes."

"So... what do you think?"

I wasn't prepared for that question. I still only think I understood the gist of it. But it's something I thought about a lot over the next half of the trip.

After getting back to Seattle for the first time, I had lunch with a couple good friends of mine. They're smart people who I've known for a few years now. When I made an offhand joke about how everybody asks me what my favorite place was, one of them immediately nodded and said:

"You see, Joel, what they mean when they ask you that is, 'what did you learn?'"

Whether or not that's always true, it's a good question. Reminded me of Mr. "What do you think."

I've spent a lot of time writing. Not just this blog, but just... stuff. Things I thought were interesting. True stories that were too long for posting. Fiction, and lots of it. And some of the things I read, was told, and observed that made the most sense to me.

Often I get cagey about my opinions or life lessons. Partially it's because I'm only 23, no better than anyone else, why should I try to pretend I know something others don't? Partially it's because I don't want find out I'm wrong, and have someone in the back of the room get up and yell that everything I just said is a lie

But I've been around the world now. And I have learned a few things. Maybe they aren't all correct, but after going halfway to everywhere, they make sense to me. Now that I'm home, I figure I could share some of those things.

We humans are great at finding what we look for. When we travel, we look for something new, out of the ordinary. When we're at home, we have the same opportunities, but don't see them because we're not looking for them. People are fascinated with what is foreign to them. Things that are far away. So much so that sometimes, when they come that distance, they keep everything around them far away. When they come home, it's as if they were never actually close to where they went.

Time may be money, but good information can be worth more than the two combined.

People usually believe anything you tell them, unless they have reason not to. We tend to obey authority figures, or even just those who seem to be authorities/have symbols of authority.

Telling people you care is often better help than just doing their chores or feeding them. Everybody loves to be given a genuine smile. People have a hard time focusing on altrusitc things if they are dealing with personal things.

When you're the last of your kind, you get stuck in conservative ways to preserve your culture and status. When you're in a big group of your kind, you try to do things differently, to innovate, to stand out. People all over the world want to be accepted, yet they want to stand out. They refuse labels, but they will vigorously defend those they feel to be like them. People have a nasty disposition to decide people who aren't like them are less than human, or at least inferior to those like them. Usually they will have logical reasons. If you treat people like scoundrels, they'll often start acting like them. If you treat them like responsible adults, they'll often start acting like them. Peace usually isn't bought about by moderates. Lasting peace is when two most extreme enemies come together in agreement.

The fastest way to convince people of your point of view is not by arguing based on shared facts. It's by teaching them different facts. Most disagreements come not because people disagree about what should be done about a problem, but because they are operating on a different set of facts. The easiest way to get people to do something is to offer it to them as a choice. Nobody wants to be acted upon, everybody derives satisfaction from control. Some people thik that's where happiness comes from. Let them choose as if it is completely of their free will.

People often observe their actions in order to determine their beliefs, instead of letting their beliefs guide their actions.

People love to say the world is getting smaller every day. Well, I've seen the world, and I'm here to tell you it's still pretty big.

Maybe you don't agree with everything I say. Probably a lot of it is wrong. But I hope it will make you think about yourself, people and the world we live in.

The Trip by the Numbers

2010-05-26T00:16:00.000-07:00

This is a rough idea of my route, thanks to google maps.

I've been spending the free time over the last couple days re-reading my journals and sorting the photos I took. I'll have some big fancy homecoming blog entry for you in a few days. But first I thought I'd throw this and some facts at you to make curious people happy.

So, here's the trip breakdown. Request other statistics and I might add them.

Departure from home: Sept 23rd, 2008.

Departure from USA: Sept 27th, 2008.

Continents visited: Seven.

Countries visited: 63-69, depending on how you count.

Country list (*-indicates v. brief stay, layover, or not really independent country): Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Galapagos Islands*, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile*, Antarctica*, Brazil, Uruguay*, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong*, China, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland*, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Vatican City, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestinian West Bank*, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, USA.

Return to USA: April 27th, 2010-- 19 months after departure from USA.

Final(?) return home: May 23rd, 2010-- 20 months after departure from home.

Longest bus ride: 3 days, Ushuaia to Buenos Aires.
Shortest plane ride: 25 minutes, Quito to Guayaquil, en route to Galapagos islands.
Longest plane ride: 13 hours, Buenos Aires to Auckland (slept through the whole thing)
Number of times crossing equator: Six
Plane rides: 18
Long distance boat rides: Six
Long distance bus/train rides: 1 metric f--- ton.
Photos taken: More than 11,000

In Memory of Tommy Nez, 1926-2010

2010-05-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

A picture of pictures. Us sharing memories of Tommy most of us were too young to ever have ourselves. This was after the service, before we came to his home to find his final message for my father. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, our arrival.

The first thing we did was to get ourselves a hotel room. That way, when we visited each family, we could say "Oh, no, thank you but we already have a place to stay!" The next was to figure out who to visit first. There was no right answer to this. So we just went. The next tricky bit was remember not to compliment them on any of their material possessions-- if we did that, they would insist on giving them to us, and would only be dissuaded after a lot of haggling. Hosts don't get more hospitable than this, and I've met some hospitable hosts.

Weirdly, what it all reminded me of was my experience in Japan. It's a very different culture, but it's similar in that I was expecting a somewhat closed, subtle people with cold undertones. Instead, I met friendly, vibrant, easygoing people who could chat about anything seemingly without end.

There are some rules to observe. Eye contact is not encouraged. If you shake someone's hand, a firm handshake is not appreciated nearly so much as lightly holding their hand for a second. Silence is not the awkward absence of conversation, but the presence of something familiar. If you do say something, there's not much need to be short and to the point, or to connect it to whatever anyone else happens to be talking about. Things like touching and hugging happens between only close friends and family.

Which is why it was a surprise to me for my father, mother and I to get warm, long hugs from almost every person we met. That's what really drove home the love and respect my father commanded in this community. He'd lived in the area for about 17 years, so I shouldn't have been surprised. I don't think I heard a single person call him "Bob." It was always "Dr. Bergman," or "Uncle." Tommy's son, upon meeting us before the service, gave him a very long hug and told him "I guess I'm going to be calling you 'father' now."

While the hugging is unusual, a friendly greeting to everyone present is customary. The morning of the service, we got full demonstrations from each person who drove up to the front of the little church, just over the border into Arizona. Like all the other dry, high plains I'd been too, it was cold at night and hot in the day. We were out early enough to still be comfortable in jackets. We stood in a circle, quietly chatting. Some crying, most smiling. Ron, Tommy's son, was smiling when he excused himself, and as he walked away, called over "Uncle." My father and he stood apart, talking quietly for a moment before coming back to us.

"He want's us to come back to the home after the service" My father said. "Apparently, Tommy left something for me."

I'd known the Ron had moved into Tommy's old house on the part of the reservation called Wide Ruins. We'd heard how he had performed the traditional rite of keeping a fire burning there for the four days after the loved one has died.I had only the vaguest memories of the place, small buildings at the end of a dirt road in the Arizona desert.

The Franciscan monk, charged with leading the service, arrived, and promptly showed his lack of cultural know-how by walking right through the crowd, acknowledging it, barely, without a single handshake volunteered. He was surprised when the one person at the end wanted to shake his hand. A few minutes later, we followed him inside.

The pink-beige stone church was tiny. We had come early, and were asked to sit in the very front with the immediate family. The place filled up slowly, even as the ceremony began. The first and main part of it was awkward. It was Catholic. Very catholic. The monk had the repeated and awkward habit of talking about how devoted Tommy was to Jesus. Some of the principal mourners clearly had no intention of participating in this. After all, this was the funeral for a road man (spiritual leader) of the Native American Church. In the sermon, the monk admitted freely that had actually never known Tommy. But I did like the story he told of talking with the family: "I asked whether I should call Tommy by the name of Thomas, or Tommy. They told me 'if you called him Thomas, he probably wouldn't answer.'"

The service went on, accidentally skipping the eulogy, on out to the procession to the graveyard.

To my mind, this is where the real funeral began. A tall Navajo man with two eagle feathers in his hat stepped forward, and explained he would be singing a few songs and saying a few words to the best of his ability, and that those who could were welcome to join him. He was the head of the local NAC.

He started with a long, thin whistle. An eagle bone. It made a noise that made me think of seagulls. He dipped an eagle feather in water, and flicked it to the four directions: east, south, west, then north, to follow the course of the sun. And then he, and those around him, began to sing. It was a desert kind of song. The melody wasn't so important. It was the rhythm and words, rocks bouncing on the ground in the wind. More whistle, more water. Some from the feather, some tears.

But it wasn't over after that. Next was the military. An honor guard of ten Native American Indian veterans had come to honor their fallen comrade. A speech, a three-round gun salute, and taps on the bugle. The American flag on the coffin was removed, folded, and handed from the ranking officer to private, with a salute. Several men in the audience, veterans of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, quietly joined the salute. Then from male soldier to female soldier. Then from female soldier, to Tommy's widow. Another salute. Then a big hug. A man in the crowd gave two sharp hoots and an "oorah" of the marine corps.

The coffin was lowered six feet. Then its plywood cover. Then the first flowers and fistfuls of dirt, one mourner at a time. Then we pulled aside for the earthmover to do the rest of the burial. It was there that the family finally got to read Tommy's eulogy.

This is where we finally got to tell the world about the Tommy Nez, born into the Red House People Clan to the Towering House People Clan, February 6, 1926. Veteran of WWII and the Korean War. Roadman to Navajo, and throughout the western United States and Canada, receiving his fireplace from one of the originals, and heralded by his family as the last of his kind. A father, brother, uncle, grandfather and great-grandfather. A charismatic and compassionate leader with a legendary sense of humor and love for seemingly all people. Loved in his life, much missed in his passing. With this, and the flowers on his grave, the service ended.

A few hours later, after we had shared photos, memories, and a lot of food with the "dearly beloved gathered there that day," my parents and I set out in our rental car, and made several false turns trying to find Tommy's old home. Even though the desert is made of rocks and not sands, Wide Ruins' dirt roads have the habit of shifting when your back is turned for a few years.

When we did find the place, we were invited into one of the buildings-- a one-room home, the kind I'd seen in so many developing countries, with simple walls covered in posters and calendars, and in this case, an American flag. Ron sat on the bed, My father on an overstuffed easy chair and a blanket. Ron pulled out a case, opened it, and lifted out two ceremonial rattles. Then he glanced up at us, gave a mischievous grin and said, "No. No." Just the way tell off a dog staring at your dinner.

He dug a little bit further and pulled out what he had been looking for: an elaborate, beautifully decorated ceremonial fan, made with white feathers.

"Before he left, my father said you'd come down here." Ron said, "He said 'when your uncle gets here, you honor him, and you give him this.'"

"You think he knew that he probably wasn't coming back?" My father asked.

Ron nodded. Tommy knew.

Driving away from it all, my father said that part of him still doesn't believe it. I've never known anyone who called me brother to die, but from what I know, it's a long time before any of us will believe he's gone. Maybe we never really will.

---
Check out this entry's Photos.

We're Not Done Yet.

2010-05-18T23:19:00.000-07:00

I thought my trip was over. I was wrong.

Thursday, I leave for my next destination. Something tragic has happened. I love travel, and I'm going somewhere I wanted to go. But I didn't want this to be the reason why.

A long time ago, there was a young doctor who went from Chicago to the southwestern corner of the United States. To avoid being drafted into a war he didn't believe in, he had taken a job with the Public Health Service. The job was on the Navajo reservation. Most people who came to Navajo for these jobs do it for two years and then leave.

This doctor didn't leave. He stayed. Soon after the two year mark, he was approached by a medicine man of the tribe named Tommy Nez. It's not clear what expectation either man had of the other. But it's doubtful that either could have predicted then what later occurred: the doctor was adopted into the Nez family as Tommy's younger brother.

The doctor rose became the chair of mental health programs for the Indian Health Service. While he climbed the ladder of his career, his adoptive brother showed him things he didn't think were physically possible. Miracles.

Years later, after the doctor had given his position to an Indian man, as seemed proper, he fell in love with a young woman who lived in the north. They married. They wanted to have a child, but they weren't able to. The doctor told his brother, the medicine man, and asked for his help. Together they held a ceremony in a sweat lodge.

Nine months later, I was born. My father still credits my existence to my uncle, Tommy.

Since my father's time on Navajo was long before I even existed, I don't know that much about that side of the family. I've been to the reservation only twice when I was old enough to remember, and most of the time I spent playing with kids. The last time I saw Tommy was when he showed up at our door one day when I was about fifteen. I was the only one at home. Neither of us recognized the other at first.

He was up in Canada these last two weeks, visiting his friends and family. He suffered a heart attack and had to be hospitalized. My father came out to see him. They spent some time together there. My father knew that Tommy wasn't in good shape. The doctors didn't think he was in any condition to undergo any procedures. It could very well be the last time they saw each other. Knowing all this, as the visit came to an end, my father said goodbye, and left the room.

He went down the hallway, turned into the washroom and looked at himself in the mirror. Then he turned around and went back to get the hat he had forgotten in Tommy's room.

"I guess I'm reluctant to leave." My dad said. Tommy smiled at that.

The next Friday, Tommy died quietly in the hospital.

I'm going with my mother and father to his funeral. We fly to Albuquerque Thursday morning, rent a car, and drive a few hours from there to look for his family. Our family.

This isn't the usual sort of adventure I like to post about on here. But it seems like it may be a story worth telling. I don't know hat we'll find. The service could be Catholic, or if could be Native American Church, or something else entirely. But I'll see what I can share, in honor of a man who might have made me possible.

Home.

2010-05-13T23:41:00.000-07:00

I'm home. I'm sitting in the room I grew up in, typing on the laptop that lasted me all through college.

I didn't know for sure that I would be coming home until about ten minutes before the flight from O'hare left the gate for Sea-Tac. But that's exactly what happened. So I'm back in Seattle.

First impressions: Look at this picture. This is my room. I have way too much stuff. Part of it is all the things I sent back home, some of it is mail that piled up while I was gone, some of it is stuff I never sorted out after coming home from college. The rest is just me having too much stuff. You look at the amount of stuff you own differently when for a year and a half, all your worldly possessions fit in a 55-liter bag.

I was looking forward to wearing stuff I haven't been wearing every day for a year and a half. But none of it feels right. It looks funny. I feel funny wearing it.

But my first few minutes in my room were... well, I felt like I was somewhere more foreign than I'd been in years. What is all this stuff? Who was this mysterious person who owned and arranged it all? He's disappeared, and nobody has heard from him for a long time. But I did remember something he did. He wrote a note on his old laptop. For me.

I found the old Compaq in a backpack in my closet. At first it didn't want to boot up, giving checksum errors, and the power giving out completely halfway through the little windows XP splash screen. I went into the BIOS, fixed the clock, got the charger plugged in more securely, and booted. It was very slow. But on the desktop was a little word file. "Letter to self.doc"

I didn't expect it to be so sad. Some of it's pretty personal, so I won't go into details, but there's a lot of uncertainty. Nowadays, I think that was exciting. But this was a letter of doubts, written by a lonely guy. It's signed "I hope you’re a better man than I am. I’m sure you are. Good luck in whatever you choose to do next." I just want to go back in time and give the poor guy a hug.

But if there's one thing I came home or, it's my family, and I've already seen all five of my amazing nieces, both my siblings and siblings-in-law, and of course, my parents. I've eaten the pac nw oysters and dungeness crab cakes I've been craving for months. And I have some very big plans for my immediate future. But this blog isn't about that, is it?

I'm going to need some more time to adjust. It's all very intense, new and old all at the same time. I'm excited to be back to get started on sorting out my past and future. I'll have a lot more to say here once I've adjusted and am able to process things. But there's a lot I want to say with this next entry. Figure out some take home thing for what happens after you go around the world. Say something from what I've learned. But I'm going to need a few days to process the here and now before I can reflect on what I've done and where I've been on this adventure. When I do, I'll have something worthwhile for you. So do check back.

Back to ..."Normal Life?"

2010-05-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken on campus of my alma mater, The University of Chicago. Inside this building, Rockefeller Chapel, around 10:00pm, Friday May 7th, Jane Goodall had just finished giving a speech. She had moved to the front vestibule. The area inside the vestibule was quiet, and reverent. Ms. Goodall sat and smiled patiently while she autographed books and had pictures taken. She was there for each and every one of her admirers who had attended, being let in from the outside at a controlled trickle. On the other side of these doors, beneath the vaulted neo-gothic ceiling was a throng of giddy fans waiting for Goodall. They lined all the way up to the altar.

Past them was a small group that looked a little out of place. For one thing, they were all wearing tuxedo-print t-shirts with green tentacles printed on the front and back. For another, they weren't that excited about Jane Goodall. They looked nervous.

I was one of these people.

I was standing there, looking at the line and hoping, when my friend Daniel, also in a tux t-shirt came up to us.

"Go out to the front."

We stared at him. And all started talking at once.

"What's there?"
"Who's there?"
"Do you mean they--"
"But its not 10:30 yet!"

"No," he said, "Just-- just go and look!"

I darted for a side door out of the chapel and ran with a couple others down the lit-from-the-bottom stone wall of the church to the grand front entrance, and stared.

Roughly a hundred people were limping their way to the front door, groaning and occasionally screaming. Their clothing was dirty rags, their faces were covered in blood and boils, and a few of them were missing limbs and chunks of flesh. The seething mass was inching closer to the heavy front doors of the church. The ones with Jane Goodall and several hundred fans sitting sedately and reverently on the other side.

This wasn't a zombie attack. This was a scheduling conflict. The world-famous primatologist and UN Messenger of Peace had simply had the bad fortune of being scheduled to speak at the same place as an event from the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt.

Now, on your average scavenger hunt, you'll have a list of, maybe, 30 items to be completed by teams of two or three. Items will be things like, a licence pate from Hawaii, or a photo of a red robin. It might last a few hours. But the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt is not your average scavenger hunt. It lasts four days, is completed by teams of around 30-80+ people, and has over 250 items. This is one of them:

Item 161: May 7, 2010, 10:30 pm. A foul wind tosses decayed leaves in my face with almost willful malevolence as I trudge toward the Chapel. Its soaring belltower, once proud, now seems craven, afraid of the unhallowed Mass it will soon host. The sagging gambrel roofs of the campus architectures likewise cower as we approach, their weathered walls and ruined faces a mockery of the pustules and pockmarks that cover my companions. Shunned by the campus, denied by the hospitals, we march onward, determined to revel in our grisly condition. Our masks may do little to conceal our Afflictions, but in a fit of gallows humour we have decorated them gaily, and will throw a Masque in our dying hours. Each family has appointed its most wretched specimen a Seed of Corruption, whom we venerate with savage glee; their twisted countenances defy description by even a madman such as myself. When the clock strikes midnight I expect we shall all be dead, but until then we shall dance as though to tire Death himself.

So we had a mass of university students and alumni in costumes inspired by nine or ten awful diseases (plus one one team inexplicably dressed in World of Warcraft outfits) descending on Jane Goodall and her fans.

Now what kind of crazy people would write an item like that, you might ask. Well, they're the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt Organizing Committee, but nobody calls them that. We call them The Judges. a.k.a. The Cabal, a.k.a. Hot Side Hot. They're a group of lunatics that cobbles together this list and awards each teams the points they deserve for completing the items. I've been a member of this group for three years.

Having been out of town for over a year and a half, I didn't have any part in making this year's list, but I was able to come to Chicago in time to help organize and judge the hunt itself. We walked campus watching the insanity unfold as each dorm's team (plus a handful of independent teams) did things like freeclimb math buildings to perform "extreme partial differentiation," carry around people on their backs in teams of four, whacking balls with a ten-foot-long mallet as part of "human elephant polo", play "lean on me" on a hospital crutch like a flute, sneak into firehouses to film themselves yelling "Theater," and doing anything and everything they can to get their hands on an authentic Stradivarius violin, cello, or viola. All the while their workshops back on campus were frantically making six-foot-tall pennies, antigriddles, life-sized marionettes that imitated a dancer's movements, plasma in a mason jar, and a lot more besides.

A lot of my old friends who had also graduated came back for this year's Scav Hunt, and when they weren't concentrating on constructing a Jollyball exhibit, they would ask me how my trip was and what it was like being back. I'd tell them it was strange being surrounded by things that were so familiar, like the voice on the CTA trains and the old campus buildings. The things that really drove home that I was back. But that it was good to see everyone wearing bizarre captains costumes, having roller-skate dance-offs in the quads, and running from giant foam monsters roaring to reclaim #1 foam hands, "just like in old country."

Every once in a while, people would ask me how I deal with culture shock, and what I think the weirdest cultural experiences I've seen have been. It wasn't until, four hours after the midnight list release, judge headquarters received its fourth or fifth delivery from scav teams of a fully cooked and glazed ham, bone in, that I started thinking maybe it's because, sometimes, the weirdest place in the world is right at home. As the hams piled up the refrigerator, kitchen counters and hallway in the wee hours of the morning, it's hard to think of any place to call normal, anyway.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Also, if you're curious about U(c) Scav Hunt, check out this year's list, the hunt's official website, and also a blog written by a few members of Hot Side Hot.

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

2010-05-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

When I stepped out from JFK airport into the streets on New York City, it didn't feel real. It was like walking around a memory of some place that had been lost a long time ago, and that I'd wake up to the real world at any moment, the one where I was a foreigner adapting to something new. But the longer I walked, the more I saw that was American, and the less real it felt. Temperatures measured in Fahrenheit, distances in miles, weight in pounds. The month coming before the day in the written date. Streets running at right angles. People everywhere speaking my language with something a lot like my accent. And yet...

When I left the United States, George W Bush was president. iPhones were the rare toys of the rich and famous, and the really nerdy. Facebook was still mostly something for people in college or who'd just graduated. We'd pay $7 or $8 to go see a movie in theaters and complain about it being too expensive. Nobody really cared about Twitter. Looks like things have changed a little.

In some ways, it still doesn't feel like I'm home yet. While I've been to NY three times before, I've never lived there. It's been this weird hybrid of travel as I know it in a new destination and coming home. I've spent my days mostly seeing all these people who knew me before 2008. A couple of them before 1998. One even before 1988, though since neither of us was three years old yet, our memories are a little fuzzy on that point. But the neighborhoods, sights, and sounds are still fairly new.

You can learn a lot about this town by riding the subway. People talk to each other in more languages than you can count (it seems like everybody I meet is talking about this article in the New York Times). Strangers talk to each other, yell at each other and fight, and laugh and help each other. Some sit and mind their own business, others play their music for everyone to hear and dance in the middle of the car. The stations and cars are the dirtiest and most run-down subway stations and cars I've seen in the world. Seriously, formerly soviet Hungary and fiscally-collapsed Greece have nicer ones. But the people and thing happening inside the New York subway system are something to see.

The one thing I keep seeing inside the subway and around parts of town is an alert defensiveness. Signs that say "If you see something, say something" in English and Spanish. And emergency preparedness ads. Drills. Ads on TV for burglar alarm systems. This is city that has once been a victim. At first I thought it was a culture of fear. But that was what I'd seen in South Africa. This was slightly different. There, the people were divided and scared of each other. Here, they are united to keep an eye out for everyone, regardless of color or language. I didn't expect to see this demonstrated any further than reading the posters.

New York has some of the best theater in the world. I spotted a poster for a show entitled Behanding in Spokane, by a very famous playwright named Martin McDonagh, and starring Christopher Walken. My mom was born in Spokane. This was too good to pass up. So, yesterday, I got rush tickets in the morning (deep discount for the last minute).

I came down to 8th and 45th, right next to Times Square, around 7:40 for the 8:00 show, but had a little trouble figuring out a way to get to the theater. Some of the streets had been blocked off, including a chunk of Times Square. At first I thought it was construction, until I noticed the cops.

I backtracked a bit and tried to take an alleyway I'd spotted before, but the police had started blocking that off as well. I asked one what was going on. He said there was a car fire, and the street was closed. I turned back and passed the word along to some of the swirling theatergoers looking for the open part of the street they could use to go see their shows.

Everybody was backed up onto 8th ave. Nobody could go down the streets to the dozen or two Broadway theaters putting on shows within minutes. People were wringing their hands trying to figure out how they were supposed to get into the theater in time before curtain. One lady started asking a cop, who replied angrily "Why do you care about this show? You should worry about your safety here. Your safety is a lot more important than seeing your show."

I walked further and saw at least one other street had been closed. For a car fire? Exactly how big was this car, and why wasn't there any smoke? I found a number in my cell phone I'd used before-- telecharge, the NYC theater ticket agency. After five minutes on hold, they told me the shows were delayed due to fire.

That's when the cops decided to clear the street of the hundreds of theatergoers milling around anxiously with their tickets. nobody really seemed to know what was going on, but it came out that there was something unknown about the car. They didn't know what was inside it.

I walked back and forth listening to confused people confer with their spouses, kids, friends, speculating on what was happening. I told several what I knew. I asked a fireman sitting on the bumper of his truck what was going on, and he said that the car wasn't on fire, but that they didn't know what was inside it. Before I could ask more, I was interrupted by some 30-something women in short skirts and lots of makeup, gleefully making a beeline for the NYFD so they could have their picture taken with them. A couple fat guys passing by started laughing and loudly making fun of them.

Telecharge repeatedly said the shows were delayed. The cops stated yelling into the bullhorns that they were all canceled. But you could tell they just wanted the crowd to disperse. It wasn't until an hour and a half after the shows started that we finally started getting some of the story. The theaters had delayed but then started the shows with the few people in the audience who had come more than an hour early. The street was still closed, and would remain closed for an unknown amount of time. I asked some of the news crew that had arrived what was going on. Their two word answer: Bomb scare.

So I went back to my friend's place and found pretty much everything I had just experienced on the front pages of the New York Times, BBC World News, and Al Jazeera. This morning, we got this.

It's been an interesting introduction to being back.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Point of Return

2010-04-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

This is it. I'm still in Barcelona, technically, but a few minutes ago, I legally exited the country of Spain. It's a phenomenon I've gotten used to. No man's land. A new country on the other side. Except this time, this country is the one that issued me my passport.

In a few minutes time, if all goes well, I will board my flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, New York State, of the United States of America.

I told a friend last night, I feel like I'm leaving something unfinished. A bit like looking over a hotel room, bag in hand, just before you check out and turn in the room key, and having the distinct feeling that you're forgetting something. Nine times out of ten, you haven't forgotten anything. I hope this is one of those times.

Today marks 19 months since I left my country, and soon, I hope, the day I return.

I will see you soon.

Q&A

2010-04-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

I've been spending the last week in Spain, knowing that this is the last step before coming back to the United States of America. If I do come back on the planned 27th date, It will have been exactly 19 months since I left. I'll come within four timezones of regaining the day I lost to the international date line and have been earning back, hour by hour, for more than a year. I'll be one time zone from being able to say that I have, literally, been around the world.

I used to picture this point of my trip. I remember one time, getting off a plane from Cairns to Darwin, walking down the jetway, and imagining: what if this were the jetway onto SeaTac airport in Seattle? To be honest, it scared me. A couple times last year I had this weird recurring dream where I had flown home, and everybody was happy to see me, but kind of wondering why I was back. Then I'd realized that I hadn't gone to Africa, that I'd come so close to hitting every continent but had just missed out. My closer friends and family would console me by saying "well, you can always go there on another trip" and I'd sit there with five days growth of beard, nursing a warm beer, muttering "You don't understand, I coulda been a contender."

Anyway it hasn't turned out like that, thank you very much. Instead, I mostly ended up rereading something I wrote a few years ago, at the end of a different trip. Especially one line: "And when someone on the street asks you 'how was it?', you’ll never be able to give them an answer that captures the whole thing no matter how hard you try."

In a backpacking culture that tends to ask people where their from before asking their name, there's this moment I've gotten very used to. It's the one where the person you're talking to turns to you and says, "So, what brings you here? Vacation?"

I've been playing with how to answer that one for a while. Sometimes I'll be subtle but wanting them to ask more, so I'll say "something like that..." Or if I don't feel like explaining, I'll just say, "more of a gap year thing." Or sometimes I'll be blunt and go for shock value: "nope. Round the world trip." Then they, thinking of your standard, round the world ticket of Australia's East Coast, Thailand, and Western Europe, will say "oh yeah, one of those. How long have you been doing it for?" That's when the jaws usually hit the floor.

Then come the questions. It's funny how varied they can be. It's like when I tell people I'm from Seattle. They immediately say one thing off a long list: Nirvana/Kurt Kobain, Sleepless in Seattle, Grey's Anatomy, Frasier, Starbucks, Microsoft, Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam (always a good one for me, since I went to their high school), Boeing, and of course, rain. The funny thing about it isn't that they they all do it. It's that they all pick only one thing off the list, and then say something about how everyone must always say that one specific thing. Usually they're really surprised to hear about the others. "Oh, wow. Hadn't heard/thought of those."

Same thing with the questions people ask when they hear about my trip. They're always hesitant because they think the one question that occurs to them is the same one question that occurs to everyone else, something I'm sick of answering. Usually it isn't. Honestly what happens is that most people either have no idea what to ask me or are just so intimidated by the idea that they change the subject.

Unless they're one of the 10%ish that asks me what my favorite country is. Then they're absolutely right to hesitate, because I cannot stand that question. Especially from the people who, when I ask for a category or some qualifier, refuse to budge and demand my favorite country, period. I've been trying to figure out a way to explain why that's impossible to answer, but every time I try to use a metaphor, they just don't get it.

"It's like, lining up all your friends and pointing at your favorite one." I say.

"Yeah, I could do that." They say. Apparently they don't have that many friends to choose from.

My favorites to answer, on the other end of the spectrum, are the ones who want to know either something about a place they want to go, or how they could do something like I've done. I want people to know how easy this is, and how much they stand to gain. We all dream of adventure. Every once in a while I'll get something on facebook telling me I'm the most inspiring person friend X knows. This has swollen my ego to seriously dangerous proportions, and I'm very grateful for the other set of friends I have who can tell when my head has swollen to the size of a blimp and can go get the sharp needles out. But my point is while I'm flattered-- really flattered-- by stuff like that, I'd be even more so if what I have done gets someone else to travel abroad independently for the first time.

...that would be your cue to go look up flight prices, hostel availability, shared ride deals, travel destination info, travel insurance, and to sign up for couchsurfing. Have fun, kids!

In the meantime, Weathorr (scavvies, that one was for you), in its infinite wisdom has granted me an extra weekend in Spain before crossing the Atlantic. It was a tough call. Barcelona bhas been great, and weekends here are supposed to be magical, but there's also a little something happening in Seville called the Feria de Abril. And with a few friends over there, I've decided to go check it out.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Iceland Volcano: how you can help stranded travelers

2010-04-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

Across the world in hub cities are people stuck in airports for days without money, sleeping on chairs and living of vouchers for one (usually McDonalds) meal a day. Flights are starting again, but some travelers can still use your help. Here's what you can do if you live near an international airport.

First, online solutions for the tech savvy:

If you use facebook, check , and When Volcanoes Erupt -- A Survival Guide for Stranded Travelers. You'll find people looking for and offering help and advice.

If you use twitter, follow these hashtags: #getmehome, #ashtag, #putmeup and #roadsharing.

If you're on couchsurfing, search for your hometown, using the drop-down menus, and look for your city's group and any last minute/ emergency request groups.

If you're in New York City, and can host someone, contact the French Consulate. They need people and can point you to who else needs people.

Finally if these things seem too intimidating or you don't use the sites and can't sign up, do things the old fashioned way. Call or go to your airport, bring food, and look around. You can approach people, or even ask an airline check in desk to make a PA announcement. You might find more hungry people than people wanting to leave, as several will want to stick around to see if there are more flights.

Thanks to Tracy Staedter of Discovery News for the twitter and fbook links, and "Stephanie" at airbnb for the NYC/France tip.

Please pass this information along.

Under a Cloud of Ashes

2010-04-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

The short story is that while things looked tight for a bit thanks to the Iceland volcano eruption, I will be flying to New York a little later than planned. It's too soon to say with any certainty, but my guess is I'll be in the US by next Tuesday, the 27th.

The long story is that Eyjafjallajokull (pronounce that one for 10 points) blew up, sending a cloud of ash covering most of the European continent at 30,000 feet-- right where the planes fly. Spain was not covered by the ash cloud. So you'd think Spain would be unaffected, right? Wrong.

Madrid has buses to Barcelona running about every 30 mins any given day. I wanted to get one at 1:00pm. I couldn't get one until 7:30pm, because all the others were booked solid. In fact, I wouldn't have been able to get even that if somebody hadn't cancelled-- I would have been waiting until the next day.

Stranded travelers from all over the world have diverted their flights from London, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dublin, Copenhagen, and beyond, and directed them to Madrid. Then they're taking ground transport home. Buses are jammed. Trains are jammed. Spanish car rental companies have been forced to issue decrees saying their cars aren't allowed to leave the country, because too many people have already taken cars and driven off the France and beyond.

When I finally arrived at 3:30am, I met a group of stranded study abroad students trying to sleep in the only room of the bus station open between 2 and 5:30am. They had been waiting for over 24 hours after their domestic flight to Madrid had been cancelled. Fun times trying to sleep and waking up next to homeless people. They were pretty miserable.

I don't have it so bad. I was counting on a method for flying involving waiting lists. That doesn't work very well when an entire continent is trying to buy tickets for your preferred flights. Briefly, it looked bad enough for me to take a trip down to the port and ask about boats crossing the Atlantic (there basically aren't any from here). But now that Eyjafjallajokull has calmed down a bit, it looks like I'll be able to fly from Barcelona in about a week.

So that means less time traveling around the US when I get back (I've got some judicial responsibilities to attend to in Chicago for a certain four days), but I'll make NY and Chicago as planned. We'll take it from there.

Ash Thursday

2010-04-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

My original flight date to the US was Thursday, April 23. That was before Iceland blew up. Now, all bets are off on my coming return to the US. I have no ticket, and no probable return date. Yet. I'll post more details on this blog in a few hours.

Avenida de la Memoria

2010-04-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

I stepped off the bus and out into the street, translated for a Texan backpacker who needed to get a taxi, and stood up with my bag properly for the first time in this city. I hadn't quite gotten used to it yet, where I was. I looked right and started to walk. It was a waking flashback, the kind that are only supposed to exist in the movies. You remember all the sights and smells from that time in your past, and the sounds, taste of the air, dirt under your shoes feel just as real as if it were now.

Well, it was real. For the first time in 19 months, I had returned to a city I knew. In 2003, a handful of my friends from high school and I came to Spain for three weeks, as part of a mini exchange program. It was my first time in Europe without my parents. One week touring Castilla y Leon and Castilla la Mancha, then two weeks in Seville, the first being Holy Week. I was sixteen.

And after a 30-minute ferry ride from Africa to Europe, and a bus from Tarifa, I was back. Back in Seville, for the first time in exactly seven years, almost to the day. The buildings looked right. The streets looked right. The smells, the signs, everything looked...

...better. It was like I'd lost contact with a cute girl from middle school and run into her again, grown up into a beautiful woman. The streets were cleaner, the trash was gone, the peeling-paint buildings I remembered with weeds growing from the roofs had been refurbished and renewed. Bike paths with their own signals ran down the sidewalks with public bike kiosks for rental. A streamlined, futuristic streetcar hummed along the major thoroughfares. The new is purring alongside the old which still has all the history and character I remember. The marble and stone is cleaned up to how it must have looked all those centuries ago when it was new. It's the elegance of the old world with the polish of the new. I could see a station for the brand new metro system down the street from where--

--yes, that was definitely it. That's the bridge my roommate and I crossed every day to go to our Spanish class. That's the Plaza de Cuba, and the Torre del Oro on the other side. The first sight of my life before this adventure, since it began.

It's warm, the birds are singing to the sunset, the people look happy, and even though they're not speaking English, I can actually understand what they're saying again! Mostly. Sort of. Maybe I'm kinda rusty. But still!

I spent the first full day sightseeing. There was usual stuff, but it wasn't for the usual reasons. I found was the back avenue leading to where we saw the flamenco dancers. I sat under the fountain where I thought I was going to be squeezed to death by the crowd but where I got the perfect view of a holy week procession under the senset. I climbed the clock tower of the cathedral where I'd tried to take pictures out of, and where I'd forgotten that my old film camera's viewfinder didn't line up with the lens, giving me half my pictures blocked by a metal railing. Even the stupid Texas-themed bar behind the cathedral some of my friends stumbled into one night was still in business.

I think I found the corner where my host family's apartment lived. I definitely found the square where I'd meet a couple of my friends and they'd tell us stories about how their demented host granny kept yelling things at them like "No peleas en la calle!" (Don't fight in the street!). I retraced a chunk of the path where the four of us, without saying a word about it, kicked a coke bottle down the street for at least ten minutes. I sketched out the rough route home we took the first time I ever had to take care of a drunk person, being the only sober one to shush them when they go too excited about the spaish word for "wall" and when they tried to throw discarded glass bottles from the bridge. Even with them drunk and me sober, they were still better at navigating the streets than I was. There aren't any beer bottles or any other kinds of trash on that bridge now.

I walked along the river, remembering how seven years, three days, and about six hours before, I had moodily strolled along this same spot a night with a coke to have some time alone and to think about something that seemed terribly important at the time. Probably girls, knowing me at sixteen. But also the decision that I needed to call home. I used a payphone across the river and an MCI calling card my parents had given me with 560-something minutes advertised. For overseas calls, it gave us 34. Enough to wish my family a Happy Easter. Afternoon for them. Three am the next day for me.

This time, I hopped into the couchsurfing scene for rooftop barbecues, poetry and music, bars, and of course, tapas. Because reliving old memories is nice, but it's even better making some new ones while you're at it. More paella, bocadillos, and churros con chocolate, more exploring hidden alleyways, more parties, action-packed nights under the stars and lazy mornings that saw us up just in time for siesta again. Even met a couple old friends I'd met in other parts of the world. This was a good return.

I'm not in Seville anymore. I'm in Lisbon. Maybe a little frustrating, going from a country where I (theoretically) understand the language, to one where everybody seems to be speaking the same language's nasal equivalent of pig latin, too fast for me to get any words through my ears into sense. But once more I'm with friends I made in other parts of the trip. It's not often you get to explain that the friend you're staying with is someone you met over mulled wine in a village of mud and wood on an island in Siberia. I love this planet and I love my life on it.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

All that talking

2010-04-07T03:37:00.000-07:00

A group of backpackers are sitting around a hostel lounge in Turkey. They're talking about touts, the hustlers that try to grab backpackers on the street and sell them something at inflated prices, take them to a hotel or bus for a commission that the traveler then has to pay, or just generally try to lie, cheat, or steal to get a fast buck off of unwary foreigners.

"India was unreal. So many of them!" One says.

"I dunno, Cairo was pretty bad." Says another. "One guy followed me in and out of five stores. Five. Just so he could get a commission from whatever hotel I went to. I told him to go away and he just wouldn't listen."

"I had some bad ones in Thailand." Says yet another. "Guys kept telling me whatever place I wanted to visit was closed and I should go see this other temple I'd never heard of. Then it would be a gemstone scam! Tried to sell me these pieces of green glass he called 'uncut limestone.' Ridiculous."

"But you know what the worst country was for this?" The first guy says. "Morocco."

"Worse than India?"

"Oh yeah."

I'd been part of this conversation more than once in different parts of the world. Morocco was a byword for hassle for travelers. So when I landed, I had my guard up. Especially after a stern talking-to by my hostel owner-- basically said "Don't talk to strangers here, you can't trust them." Went on for quite some time about it.

So, my first morning in Fes, I walked into the 700-year-old ville nouvelle (only in this part of the world could a 700-year-old area be called "new town"), and waited for the plague to descend. Nothing. People hardly gave me a second glance. I walked down the street. One or two restaurant owners called out 'Bonjour' and gestured to a table, but that was it.

I tried an experiment. I walked by a cart selling sunglasses and let my gaze linger on a pair for three seconds. In many countries, this would cause the merchant to chase me down the street, bellowing "Hello my friend! Special price for you!! Hello! Hello!" Here? Nothing. I grew bold, walked back, and openly looked, taking my time. Still nothing. I walked up to the display and inspected a specific pair. It wasn't until I caught the merchant's eye and said 'salaam alekum' that he even gave me a second glance before returning to sipping his mint tea.

Was this even the same country that the others had told me about?

In some ways it wasn't. It was when I came to one specific part that was mentioned in the guidebooks that I suddenly found myself surrounded by English signs, chintzy decor, doubled prices for food on actual menus, and White and Asian tourists. But even there, hassle was minimal. It was on the outskirts of this area that I started meeting a few hustlers, one who gave me a little push in the back and told me to 'go away' when I ignored him.

And once I was past that part, they melted away. Just some curious glances from other pedestrians, and some cute kids playing tag and yelling "bonjour!" when they saw me.

Later, I was having some mint tea with a Moroccan guy who spoke English, and he told me a story from a couple years ago. He'd been sitting in a cafe, speaking to a British guy in English, and another foreign woman came over and asked if she could ask a few questions. She was from the National Geographic, she said, and she was writing a story about Moroccans who come back after a long time in Europe. She offered to show them what she had so far. He read it, and was so disgusted by the amount of lies and factual errors, that he made her tear it up into pieces. He gave her a couple hours a day, just to set the facts straight about Morocco and Moroccan culture.

"People go to these places and they think they know what they're talking about but they don't. Not really. They just take whatever s*** they read about it before coming. Or they talk to people here who don't really know what's going on. It's true! They don't know. Not like me. I know."

I don't think he saw the irony when, later that evening, he proceeded to outline his complaints about European society, never having been to Europe himself, but defending his assertions with a heated "I know what it's like! I watch it on TV and I talk to friends! I know!" But, after my talking to in Fes about not talking to strangers, I was a amused that one of his assertions was that you could trust strangers in Morocco and not in the West.

I've heard a saying that a fool thinks he knows everything, and a wise man marvels at how much he doesn't know. Because after all that talking, you never really know that much, do you?

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Check out this entry's Photos.

...and back again.

2010-04-04T06:21:00.000-07:00

I found this sign in Johannesburg. It's a reminder of one of the many lessons I learned on this trip. No matter where you are, someone thinks it's exotic.

A few days ago, I was headed this way. But I was still very much on The Trip. Rambling through the Drakensburg mountains to Johannesburg, walking in the rain with my couchsurfing host while he ran me through some of the contradictions of his hometown. But that wasn't what I had come for. I came to catch a flight.

Half a year a go, I broke my old estimate of "year or when my cash runs out, whichever comes first" so I could see Africa. Three months ago, I made it to Cairo and started my way south.

But this flight wasn't for that. This flight was for something else. Yesterday, I reversed my last three months of travel and returned to Cairo in a little under eight hours. I spent twelve hours there, mostly in a hotel room, courtesy of EgyptAir. Then I got on another flight, to Casablanca.

I'm writing from Morocco.

It could be the start of something new and big. I could loop down West Africa, cross up to the UK, skip across Scandanavia into Poland, across more of eastern europe like Ukraine, drop down to Iran, the Persian gulf, cross into the safer 'stans, down west China through Tibet and Nepal into north India, across Burma to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and, and, and...

...no. That's not why I'm here.

After over a year and a half of adventure, I'm here on a little side trip to see Morocco and to visit some memories in Spain and Portugal. Then, a sentence I've been waiting to write for a very long time.

I'm coming home.

It won't be direct. I have a lot of people I want to visit and thank. First I will arrive in New York City, then make a stop or two in the east coast, then turn to Chicago. After that, it'll be time to come back to Seattle, put down my backpack, eat dinner with my family, pet our cats, and go sleep in the little twin bed I grew up with.

Then we'll get to see how true that sign in Joburg is.

Now in Southern Africa

2010-03-31T04:29:00.000-07:00

I think we need a break from social and political commentary. So, let's take a moment to explore the concept of time. I promise you it'll be less dry than these first three sentences, so you can wake up... now.

I like to tell people that, in my experience, there are three kinds of countries. There are countries that run on time, like Germany, Japan, or Singapore. Then there are countries where being on time doesn't matter so much, and most things are chronically late, like Mexico, Syria, or Thailand. Then there are countries in Africa.

I first heard the term “now now” in Zambia. Foreigners had taught locals the meaning of the word now. The problem is, Africans kept using it like the foreigners would use the word “soon.” This gets confusing when your question is something “when is this bus leaving?” So the foreigners invented “now now” to mean not soon, but now. Same thing happened to that as happened to “now.” For example, I was one sitting in a truck and told that we were arriving at my destination “now now,” just was we passed a sign saying it was 40 kilometers away.

So I should've been prepared when I went to catch my Greyhound bus from Umtata to Durban. 3:00 was the scheduled time, but my hostel in Coffee Bay told me it could show up anywhere between 2:30 and 3:30. So when I stepped off the 1 ½ hour shuttle from Coffee Bay to Umtata at 2:00, I wasn't too concerned, even as I saw a Greyhound bus pull away in front of us. At 3:30 though, I started to wonder. By 4:00 I was getting concerned. At 4:15, long after all the other companies' buses had left, I called my hostel. They gave me the Greyhound bus telephone numbers for their offices in Umtata, East London, and Port Elizabeth, plus a national call center I was told only to use as a last resort.

I called Umtata first. No answer. I called East London. No answer. I called Port Elizabeth, got a confused woman with a lot of static on the line who, after asking me to repeat my question four times, asked to call back in twenty minutes. I waited twenty minutes and then called back. No answer.

I called the national call center and was told the number didn't exist. I tried a few different combinations. Same result. I called Port Elizabeth again, twice, and finally got the same woman and static telling me they still didn't know and asking me to call the Umtata office. I told them they weren't picking up, and she said they should be there and answering their phones. So I called Umtata again. This time I heard someone pick up and an immediate click. They had hung up on me. I called again. No answer. I called a third time. This time I got a man who didn't know where the bus was because the driver and crew weren't answering their calls, and would I please call back in ten minutes. Nine minutes later, just before 5:00pm, the bus arrived.

The speakers were picking up engine noise, and a lot of the more elderly passengers were comlaining about the lack of bathroom stops (despite the bathroom on the bus). The bus also played the same Will Ferrell movie twice (one I'd never heard of but that seemed to be a two-hour excuse to shoot a five minute scene where he gets into a shouting match with Mike Ditka). But, though over two hours late, we did make it to Durban.

In Durban, my friends explained the African concept of “just now” (roughly translates to “in a minute or so”). I asked them what you said if you wanted to say now the way foreigners meant the word. They said they couldn't think of a way to do it. Apparently it doesn't come up that often.

My advice if you find yourself in a place like this? Just go with it. Don't try to fight the system, you'll just make yourself angry.
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Travel Tip: How to Plug in Your Electrical Gadgets in Another Country

2010-03-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

So, you've brought something electric from home into another country. Most travelers do. Cell phones, digital camera, maybe an mp3 player. These things need charging. To charge them, you need to plug something into a power outlet. So you've got to find a power outlet, and that's when the fun starts.

See, not every country in the world uses the same shape plugs. I've heard of about thirteen distinct sizes and shapes of electrical plug. Worse still, some countries have outlets that put out about twice as much power as others. So even if you managed to force the wrong shape plug into the socket, that hair dryer might just explode. And that's no fun.

So, what's a traveler to do? The answer has two parts: plug adapters and voltage converters.

Read this next line carfeully and remember it: you might not need either of them, and even if you need one, you might not need the other.

A lot of people make the mistake of bringing too many gadgets to make their devices work abroad. It doesn't hurt to be cautious, but some of these things just weigh you down. The most common mistake is to bring a voltage converter when you don't need it. But I'm getting ahead of things-- first I'll explain what these things do.

An adapter is the thing you use to make the plugs from home fit in the sockets of the country you're traveling through. So if you have a flat, two pinned US plug, you stick it in a little adapter with a round, two pinned European plug sticking out. Voila, European power to your American device.

The converter is an extra box that goes between your cord and the outlet to make sure you're getting the right amount of European power to that American device. European power outlets for example, give out twice the voltage of their American brethren. So something designed to handle half the voltage could be fried. The converters take care of it by either cutting the voltage down or raising it up depending on a little switch on the back.

Most people get this far on their own. Here's the stuff not everybody gets on adapters and converters:

First, with adapters, yes, there are tons and tons of different kind of plugs you can get adapters for, but no matter where you go in the world, you only need three. There are four basic kinds, and your devices almost certainly already have one of the four, leaving you with three you'll need adapters for. While the outlets might be different in thirteen different ways, one of these four plugs will almost always work. They go like this, as pictured above from right to left: Two thin, flat, parallel prongs (North America, most of South America and Asia), Three chunky rectangular prongs (the UK and most of its former colonies in Africa), two round prongs (continental Europe, a small chunk of South America, most of the Middle East and northern Africa), and thin, flat prongs at diagonal angles to each other (Australia and New Zealand). I've traveled with these four in all of these places, and while I occasionally find an outlet that I can't plug into, I can usually find one in the same room that I can. South Africa, Namibia, and India, for example, all use three round prong plugs, but so many devices are sold in these countries with european plugs, that almost everyone has at least one euro adapter lying around. So even if you don't see it in the wall, a euro plug will get you by just fine.

Second, converters. If you're packing only electronic devices (cell phones, iPods, laptops), you probably don't need a converter. If you're packing more basic electrical plug-in stuff like a hair dryer, you probably will need one. Look at the power cord for an A/C adapter. It'll be a chunky thing at the end or in the middle of the cord somewhere with a sitcker or writing etched into the side. Here're the magic words you're looking for: "Input: 100-240V" If it says this or something a lot like it somewhere, it's designed for travel and doesn't need a converter. If there's nothing like that on the plug anywhere (ie it's just a cord with a plain plug on the end) it will need a converter.

In my opinion, if you need a converter to use it, you shouldn't bother packing it. Converters are big, heavy, and cost a lot more than a simple adapter set. I don't carry anything that needs a travel converter.

Finally, if you've got a little bit of extra cash, consider going solar. If you look online, you can find compact solar arrays for basic electronic devices like cell phones and iPods. I have one for rechargeable AA and AAA batteries (though it does also plug into the wall). I've met other travelers who have the ones for other devices, and they have been quite pleased with them. Obviously they're only really good for charging batteries where you have some sunlight or flourescent bulbs, but sunlight is often a lot easier to find than a free electrical plug.

Enjoy, and be thankful I'm not ending this with a stupid pun on the word 'power.'

The Pot Calls the Kettle

2010-03-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

To a lot of people Cape Town must feel wonderful. To me, it felt like the twighlight zone.

A lot if had to do with the first 24 hours there. I came in on a very comfortable overnight bus run by the Intercape company with video programming called Intertainment (hardy har har). The video programming stated that it the company was porud to provide quality service and to glorify God. It then went on to advertise Christian feature films as if they were the only feature films in existence, advesrtise evangelical gatherings implying that they could cure HIV/AIDS, and pause to tell any potential advertisers that the company could broadcast their message on Intertainment to an audience that was 65% white, and 35% "other." A gentle reminder, we are in Africa. Does anyone else see what is wrong with how that stistic was written?

I got to my first hostel in Cape Town, The Penthouse on Long, and asked them to sell me on the place; to tell me why I should stay longer. They told me that they had great facilities, clean private showers, a nice bar upstyairs and a rooftop terrace, that they didn't allow any locals to stay-- pausing upon seeing my facial expression to say, "that's a good thing." I asked why. They said they don't want poor people hanging around long term, not paying their bills, that they were a security risk.They then tried to sell me on one of the more popular backpacker establishments in South Africa-- something called the Baz Bus. It's selling point is that it picks you up at your hostel, and drops you off at the next hostel you want to go to. Which is great. If all you want to see is hostels and the inside of a bus full of backpackers. I will admit, the place was very comfortable and had great facilities. I did not stay a second night.

Downtown Cape Town felt like downtown Sydney to me. Buildings were all a similar age and style, and the ethnic breakdown appeared to be about the same. But in Australia, White people make up the vast majority of the population. Most poeple I ask around here put the white population of South Africa no higher than 10%. That first night, I went out with some people I met top a punk rock show at a bar downtown. It was only a few blocks away, but on the hostel staff's advice, we took a pirvate cab to get there and back because "it wasn't safe" otherwise. I still don't know whether that's true. I do know that we were looking around at the show and were only able to spot one non-white person there. He was collecting empty glasses and bottles and cleaning the tables.

Apartheid is over. Isn't it?

The thing that's most striking to me is just how much fear there seems to be in oridnary middle class people in Cape Town. There are so many things they say that "aren't safe" or are "bad areas" that you don't really know what is and isn't safe anymore. For example, I stayed with a friend in the college suburb of Stellenbosch for a few days, using the train system to get between there and downtown Cape Town. The trains had the irritating habit of leaving about ten minutes ahead of schedule, meaning I would miss them even if I arrived early, but aside from that seemed to comprerable to the El in Chicago or the subway in Rome. At one point in downtown Cape Town, one white guy told me I should I only take the trains if I was brave, saying that was a taste of "the real Africa." I don't even know how to start unpacking everything rolled up into that statement.

As far as I can tell, White people live in central Cape Town, and everyone else lives in these settlements called "townships" on the outskirts. A couple of these aren't that bad. But several I saw as we drove by made tiny towns in Tanzania and Malawi look prosperous. Everything was made out of sheets of tin. I was lucky enough to stay a copuple nights with some documentary film makers who were shooting a movie about artists in the townships. You could hardly beleive they were filming in the same country.

We're in country which seems almost unique in its mixed-race heritage, this large population of colored (once again, that's the polite term here) people, that you don't find in other parts of Africa. I for one would like to learn something about their culture. It's just a tiny bit irritating to be told that the only "safe" way to do this is to go on a tour of a township with white tourists paying money to white tour operators so they can point cameras at locals like they're museum exhibits.

Right. Enough venting. I will say that the times I've stayed with people here have been great- first with friends which is always good because you're with friends, and second with couch surfing with the filmmakers, which was the closest I felt I could get to what was really happening in town. Both were fantastic hosts and I had a great time with them. I also got to spend a day in Cape Town on bicycle, which I highly recommend-- Riding from Observatory across the foot of Signal hill to the waterfront was a beautiful ride, especially since the day I did it, I was able to sneak back to the Company Gardens for a free concert by the Hip Hop Collective. A great last day in town.

I'm not in Cape Town anymore. I'm in a place howse actual name is Wilderness. It's a nice little place. The people staying here are great. There is a working farm with a vegetable patch guests can take stuff from for free. There are all kinds of activities in the nearby national park or the beach you can go do. So far, on the hostel grounds, I have seen on black person. She cleans the kitchens. Nobody seems to talk to her, except for one Afrikaaner I overheard asking if she had any family members they could hire to do some cleaning.

The worst part about it all is how familiar it feels.

I went to a college that whose student body and faculty was by the vast majority white, and whose working staff was almost all black. I may complain about people here confusing "different" with "dangerous," but where I went to school was known as a "nice neighborhood" surrounded by "bad neighborhoods." I knew people who would frequently complain that to get to anywhere in the city took forever because you had to take a bus or train across "bad neighborhoods." I myself spent four years in this town, and I can remember walking around these neighborhoods only once.

I've heard some people say that the faults that annoy us the most in others are the ones we see reflected in ourselves. Maybe, as someone who lived in Chicago, that's why these things about Cape Town bother me.

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Between Sand and the Skeleton Coast

2010-03-10T02:07:00.000-08:00

Halfway up dune seven, I asked my host something to break the silence. He didn't answer. I looked back and found he was sitting down about thirty feet below me. It was a hot day, and he wasn't twenty-three anymore. I'd been walking everywhere, but I didn't object to a break myself, so I paused, letting my feet sink in sand up to my ankles.

The dogs ran circles around us. Chester, the barrel-chested black lab mix, had the odd habit of staying right in front of me and then stopping, blocking my path, his legs half buried in sand, until I'd scratch his haunches. Bobby, the russet cocker spaniel, was always either coming up or going down. Up and down. I figured by the time us humans reached the top, he would have scaled the dune about five times.

Every step forward in the loose sand was another half step back, and would loosen up the sand up to shoulder level, just to bury your feet. I had instant shifting sand arch-supports within minutes. It was noticeably easier to climb where someone else had left tracks, only slightly compressing the sand.

At least I wasn't carrying a snowboard this time. The morning before, I'd gone sandboarding, after a five or six year hiatus from snowboarding. I relearned that I was way better at heel turns than toe turns, accidentally switching from goofy to regular stance twice, and then falling down. It was fun, but I found myself really missing chairlifts.

This time it was just us scaling the dune. The tracks I'd been using ended about twenty feet form the top. Swell. I slogged up, a step at a time, watching the sand at my eye level collapse with each foot placed directly below it. Then I hit the sharp ridge.

The setting sunlight left the side I'd been climbing in shadow and the other side bathed in yellow light. I clambered a foot over and sat down, reaching for my water. Chester hopped up and sat there, panting. Bobby leapt up and over to the other side, then ran all the way to the bottom on that side in about thirty seconds, leaving new tracks on the fresh sand. Then he turned around to look at us. I can't read minds, but I could pretty clearly get the 'now, what did I do that for?' from Bobby and the exasperated 'you idiot' from Chester, watching his companion slowly climb back up through the sand on the hot side.

The other bipedal member of the party joined us a couple minutes later. I handed him my water. He thanked me, but only took a sip.

"You climb that every day..." he panted "and you'll be... really fit."

We sat and watched the sun go down over the Namibian dunes in front of us. You could just see the reflection of the ocean in the distance.

"Last time I climbed this was..." he paused, "Thirty-nine... no, forty years ago."

Bobby made it back up at this point. I started snapping pictures.

"What was the story?" I asked.

"You ever heard of a forty-day party in the army?"

"No."

"It's a party you have forty days before your service ends. We call it the forty day party. It's a real drinking party. I woke up early the next morning when one of my friends shook me and said let's go board down dune seven. So we did."

From the dune-boarding instructor the day before, I knew that before seven years ago, dune boarding had meant going down headfirst on a dune, riding a waxed piece of thin wood like a sled. Said you could hit 80 km/hr.

"I dragged my hung over body up this thing twelve times that day. Went over a rock and it left a mark. Still have it" He pointed to a white mark above his hip.

I grinned. "I bet there are a lot of guys with 39th day marks and scars." No comment. We'd both been distracted by Bobby deciding he wanted to go back to the bottom of the dune yet again. Poor dog was no longer running. He slowly and sadly walked back up, step by step.

We spotted a car in the distance, in the middle of the flat sands. Sure enough, it was stuck. The sun was about to set, and the driver would have a tough time getting back to town in the dark on foot. So we slid back down the cool side of the dune to where the car was parked, next to some palm trees that had been half buried by the sand drift. After some discussion in Afrikaans and some digging and tire deflation, we pulled them out before the sun set completely.

We headed back to Walvis Bay, the second biggest city in Namibia. Since Namibia has a total population of about two million, it still felt like a small roadside town to me, sandwiched between the desert and the Atlantic Ocean, the roadsides peppered with red and white triangular signs with a big exclamation point in the middle and the word "sand" underneath. I was still getting used to the country. Clearly more developed than its neighbors to the north, it used to be a part of South Africa, after it was wrested from Germany following the first world war. German city planning prevailed. ninety degree angles, wide, long, empty streets. I still haven't seen a building taller than three or four stories in the entire country (though I haven't yet seen the capital).

The other thing that's taken some getting used to is meeting citizens of my own race. There are a small number of white Zambians and Zimbabwaens, but before that, anyone who saw me immediately assumed I was from Europe or the US, the distinction was a little hazy. At least two people I met seemed to think London was part of the US. But here, people occasionally come up to me and try to talk in Afrikaans or German. I still don't really look like a local, but I'm close enough to be given the benfit of the doubt.

Aside from the white people, the other group I've met here are of mixed race, the polite term for which here is still actually "colored." I'd been wondering why I hadn't seen more of this in so many former european colonies. In Latin America, the people took a lot of pride from their mixed race heritage. Namibia is the first place I've been in Africa with a significant mixed race population. I guess it shouldn't be that surprising. In a region where you can still ask most local people what tribe they belong to, interracial marriage must seem like a very big step. But not here.

After we got home from our climb, poor Chester just collapsed, panting. Bobby had some water and padded right along, looking for a little food and attention. We switched on the TV to a university rugby came between two Cape Town area schools. I noted out loud that almost all the players appeared to be white. Edith, my other host, said "well, they're from Cape Town." As if that explained everything. Maybe it does.

Where I come from, most people are scared to talk about race. Me included, I don't like offending people. But this is something I'm going to have to keep an eye on as I continue south.

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Meeting People

2010-03-03T01:21:00.001-08:00

A face of the Nguni tribe. By pure luck, I passed their homeland on the day of their annual Nc'wala ceremony. When I'd got up that morning, I didn't know it existed. Thanks to some bored Zambian border patrolmen and some luck, I attended the ceremony with an official contingent from the Malawi government ministry of Youth, Sports, and Culture.

There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people there. The dress you see here wasn't the norm, but there was plenty of it. Headbands from the skin of various big cats floated in and out of the crowd packed with grilled meat, drums, tents from various NGOs promoting health concerns, and big banners from the new sponsors, a big bank and a big cell phone provider.

There would be long speeches by beureaucrats, singing, dancing, free food and drinks for all,and then the main event, a bull would be slaughtered by a spear to the heart, and the chief would drink its blood. A secruity guard told me confidentially that it used to be a lion they killed, but with modern safety concerns for the crowd getting pics with cell phones and video cameras, they'd reduced it to a smallish bull tied to a tree.

The main ceremony happened in a compound with gaurds at every entrance. When one of the Malawian delegates tried to get in, he was stopped and asked for ID. But they waved me on through without any questions. I stepped by, and stopped when I heard another one of the delegates asked for ID. I turned to the guard and said "excuse me," loudly, about to ask some pointed questions about waving white men through and not others. But when he turned to me, I got a better idea. And that was how I found myself in the absurd position of telling security that, no, it's okay, they could let in the official delegation from the government of Malawi because, "they're with me."

After talking to a few people, I managed to get up close and personal by pulling out my camera and mingling with the paparazzi in the middle fo the grounds. We moved around in a herd, getting the best lighting for our shots, and staying out of the way of whatever chieftan or group would be processing onto the grounds. I had to keep reminding myself to keep the camera out instead of just watching the performance. It was better than a front row seat.

It was a good day. On my ride out to the next town, I got to hear a lengthy debate on the future of the tribe. The appointed butcher had taken three stabs to bring down the bull instead of just one, much to the shame of the tribe. One man maintained this meant that "things had cvhanged" and it showed the weakness of the Nguni. Another fiercely defended the tribe, saying it was just the one man, who would pay dearly.

It's been a show of how the last week or so has gone. Most of the highlights haved been unplanned, and totally centered around the people I've met. I've been approached and shared afternoons with a huge cast of characters, almost all with legal first names to make you do a double take. I hung out with a private gaurd named Innocent, a 71-year old night watchman named Morning, a science law student named Advantage, and even a cab driver named Gift Master. All of them very eager to meet and talk a stranger from a far off place.

The big exception to all this, was one highlight that was very much planned: Victoria Falls. The rainy season is just ending, and the massive waterfall is at it's highest flow. There are three main paths in the national park. One is impassable at this time of year-- it's right across the top of the falls to an island. The next is a far-off trail with strategic viewpoints for photography. The third is right in front of the falls, across the rocks, and one long bridge. On the photographers one, you get sprayed with a lot of mist. Guyess what happens in the close one.

I put my camera in two ziploc bags in my pocket, and my money and passport in another ziploc bag. Then I went in for some walking glory of water and wind. It wasn't a shower, it was a pounding. As I walked, across the green cliffs surrounded by white mist with the falls as a backdrop, a full circle halo of rainbow stayed around my feet for as long as the sun shone, moving with me as I walked, ran, skidded, and slid in the water I could breathe. Watching the water flying into an invisible whiteness, you start to get an idea what the sirens sounded like when Odysseus had himself tied to his boat. Very few things that deadly are that beautiful. 1.5 million liters per second go over that cliff around now onto some very sharp rocks. So you just lash your mind top the mast, and walk through the water and rainbows.

I think I'll miss this.

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Service Disruption

2010-02-26T12:59:00.001-08:00

Bad news, folks. Halfling, my trusty netbook from New Zealand, has
spontaneuously and myteriously lost the use of its keyboard. This will
affect the blog, as internet and computer use in this region is
generally charged per minute. I'm trying a homebrew fix involving a
washbasin, dish washing detergent, and a ziploc bag of rice, but so
far results haven't been good. Such is troubleshoot hardware issues in
Malawi. Next few posts might be short and without photos. Or I might
get lucky. Hoping for the best...

This Week in Zanzibar

2010-02-23T08:39:00.000-08:00

This week was indulgence week. Joel takes a break and goes to a(nother) tropical island paradise. A swahili music festival's finale, swimming, fresh fish and octopus, street-side mangos, and sugarcane juice with ginger and lime were all on the menu. I even got a few precious minutes with a piano, behind a 3rd floor balconey overlooking a gorgeous sunset view. Welcome to Zanzibar.

It's a strange place, truth be told. As you can probably tell, I had a pretty good time. But not all is perfect for all. Since around Christmas, electricty was cut off from the mainland. This doesn't mean there is no electricity, it just means that there are hundreds and hundreds of generators loudly growling and belching diesel into the 300 year old facades and intricately carved wooden doors of Stone Town, as well as every other settlement on the island. It's a real problem for the residents, many of whom have no running water without electric pumps. Those who could afford generators also needed to buy lots of diesel. A lot of Mzungus and other tourists shook their heads and said how the lack of solar power and presence of the fume belching generators just went to show how the local population only thinks in the short term. I think a lot of us forget how thinking in the long term costs more money than some of these people have.

It's something I've run up against in every tourist spot. It seems like a parallel world between the lives of locals struggling to get running water in town and the tourists sipping evian in the restaurants. As a backpacker, you end up in some weird middle ground, eating with the locals because it's far cheaper, and then spending far more than they earn per month on things like scuba diving or a boat tour. It makes the two sides hard to ignore, even if you wanted to. Life on the edge of the bubble-- It's good to pop it when you can.

We spent time in three towns: Stone Town, the biggest and oldest settlement on the island, Jambiani, a south-eastern local shallow beach with a couple resorts lining the small village, and Nungwe, a better beach up north with a lot more tourists to show for it. To give you an idea, we were first persuaded to stay in Jambiani by the reaction of two Swiss guys we shared a taxi with from Stone Town. They took one look and said they were leaving to go back north to Nungwe because Jambiani looked boring.

"I mean," one of them said, "there are people reading here." I couldn't tell from his tone if he saw this as more comprable to scratching tally marks in the side of a prison cell or to eating babies, but we got the gist and decided parting ways would make everyone happier.

We did later join them at the party beach, for Friday night (good dance party-- turns out it's a lot easier to do the moonwalk when you're standing on loose sand. Who knew?) But before that, the rest of us got to sit back, play cards and eat free fish curry by candlelight while we swapped stories. Some of the most interestig came from a Zambian guy who had taken up adventure racing, dodging venemous snakes, strict fundamentalist christian schoolmasters, and other assorted wildlife. Then later I would be sitting around the fire, chatting with volunteer nurses and medical students while some of the guys living there played bogo and djembe drums, singing, and dancing. That's when I'd start to wonder, when did this kind of thing stop becoming an exotic cultural experience and start becoming my social life?

And what happens when I come home?

I still don't have an exact end date, but the range is narrowing. I'm sitting on a plane ticket from Jonnesburg to Casablanca at the beginning of April. It's the first one that's unquestionably pointed homewards. I do want to spend some time in Morocco before heading up into Spain and Portugal, but after that, if all goes to plan, my next move is across the Atlantic. Another run through Europe, maybe the British Isles, is sorely tempting, but I have been multiple times, and if there's one set of countries I can come back to later in life, it's Ireland and the UK. So that leaves one of the very few regions I haven't seen since September of 2008: the one stamped on the cover of my passport.

But in the meantime, I've got a lot of ground to cover, After long drizes across gorgeous Tanzanian countryside (including a lot of Giraffes and Zebras), a bit of Ugali and sima, and me getting crushed at checkers (I was never any good when flying kings are legal), I'm writing this far from Zanzibar on a completely different beach. A small black kitten is curled up, purring between me and my computer as I type. She lives a pretty nice life here on the shores of Lake Malawi. The length spans a big chunk of the country and its full of fish. Dinner time is soon, perhaps I should do something about those facts.

PS. just want to tell people that I'm sorry I haven't been responding to comments as usual-- internet out here in sub-saharan africa is finicky at best. Thanks for leaving the messages, and know that even if I'm not responding to all of them, I am reading them all.

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Development after Death

2010-02-14T23:57:00.000-08:00

I knew that smell, I thought. I remember that smell. I don't like it. The last time I smelled it, it was a few minutes after walking away from a tower of human skulls. It was closest I'd ever seen to evil. This must be what we smell like when we're killed and buried in crowds.

The atmostphere was entirely different this time. Instead of bones sticking up from the ground, with simple stark signs of fates being left over, I was looking at a beautiful, well manicured garden, and listening to a hand-held audio guide. At first it was only the smell and the things the guide were saying that made this different from any other garden. Perhaps a few of the unmarked slabs a couple meters square were a bit out of place as well. Until I found one with a sign saying something I'd seen before, all those months ago: 'Please don't step on the mass grave.'

Sitting in the center of one of the biggest continents on earth, Rwanda barely measures up to half to size of Scotland. Mention other countries like this to the average non-African, maybe Lesotho, Burundi, or Djibouti, and you won't see much recognition. Mention Rwanda, and you get one. An atrocity put this little land-locked dot of a country on the map.

In 1994, a population found itself divided by tribal lines highly exagerrated if not totally made up by colonial powers who had left decades ago. One side began to systematically exterminate the other. It was one of, if not the most efficient killing machines in history, slaughtering over 1 million Rwandans who either happened to have the word "Tutsi" on an ID card, or didn't but helped another Rwandan who did.

As I made my way through the memorial with the lagely superfluous audioguide to my ear, I took in the story. It was not a new story for me. I'd studied this event in both high school, to learn it had happened, and college, to figure out how and why. The colonial division by the Germans and Belgians of those who owned more than this many cattle to the ruling minority, everyone else but the twa, or pygmies, to the other. ID cards. Enforced rule of the minority over the majority. The last minute switch of power before independence. The first blood a few years later. The warning signs so blatant they couldn't really be called signs but announcements. The UN commander asking for troops and being rejected. Then the start in earnest of torture, murder, and rape on a scale only known to crimes aainst humanity. I could go on, but you might not forgive me.

My point was to pay my respects. See how they handled the tragedy sixteen years later. This, the main, (though by no means only) memorial pays compact and fitting homage not only to the Rwandan genocide, but a few of the other genocides in world, including the Holocaust, the Armenians, the wars of the Balkans, one I'd never heard of before in Namibia, and the one whose memorial I'd been so strongly reminded of before, Cambodia.

I studied international politics in college, hoping to make this planet a better place in a big way. I know lots of people like me from all over. We had our training, We want a better, more peaceful world. Now there I was getting a briefing on our enemy. This is genocide. This is what we're up against.

But looking around, I remembered something else I wasn't seeing in this memorial. It was back in Chicago, Pick hall, bottom floor lecture hall, Professor Stephen Wilkinson and spring quarter's course, Ethnic Conflict. We'd just put down our copies of "We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With our Families" and listend to the latest reiteration of the phrase "never again." The professor looked at his students with a pause, until one of us finally said what everyone was thinking: Darfur.

It wasn't until I was sitting in a coffeeshop with an experienced photojournalist and human rights activist that I got any mention out of it. It's a situation so many people know the name of yet don't know the story. To oversimplify, the ruler of Sudan, wanted for war crimes, is backing arab muslim militias that are systematically killing black muslim villages. The Rwandan genocide lasted a few months. This has been going since 2003. And once again the UN and UN Security council is hamstrung from acting. Two of its most powerful members, China and Russia, refuse to recognize the situation as Genocide. Entirely coincidentally, these two also receive a massive amount of oil from Sudan.

As one of my friend's old history professor likes to say: "Remember class, history has absolutely nothing practical to teach us."

It makes me think about the places on this map of Africa that are no go zones for me. Sudan, Somalia, northern Uganda, the Domocratic Republic of the Congo. I know people who've been to all of them, the "safe parts" of them, but what they have to say is either entirely about being a tourist or isn't too encouraging. The stories out of the Congo are so horrific I don't feel comfortable repeating them here. I've never heard of a human doing anything like that to another human in real life or fiction.

But equally remarkable is how Rwanda isn't one of these places. Sixteen years after the chaos, and this ambitious little place is the most developed country I've been to in a full month. In a region where traffic police expect $2 bribes and issue tickets when they don't get them, and trash is thrown out the window anywhere you go, Rwanda is an amazingly clean and corruption-free place. The Kigali taxi-motorcycle drivers not only all have helmets, but they carry spares for their riders. Plastic bags are outlawed because of their environmental impact. I've never seen either of those things anywhere else in the world. I had one Swedish foreign service officer tell me the place is so ambitious that they keep having to be told to slow down or they'll miss steps.

And as for tribal divisions, I won't say there aren't any, but there is a very big movement to forget them. If you ask people who they are, they don't tell you Hutu or Tutsi. They tell you Rwandan. In other countries, when asked in a registration book at ahotel or border what tribe they belong to, I've seen all Rwandans put an emphatic slash through the space. They're done with the distinction.

I used to divide countries into the categories of "developed" and "developing." But I've definitely noticed that some of the latter deserve the title more than others. From my brief stay there, I'd say Rwanda deserves it fully, it's not sitting there undeveloped, it is actively developing. This will be a place to watch in the years to come, when hopefully it will be known by its successes rather than its tragic past. And maybe someday we can expect the same from some of its neighbors.

In the meantime, I've hitchhiked my way to a very different place. I wrote most of this entry sitting in the passenger seat of a 2100kg gas tanker (that's the weight when it's empty). Now I'm I'm going to the coast, and then a little bit further. At noon today, a boat sails for a place you can't say without thinking of adventure: Zanzibar.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Inside a Small Ugandan Home

2010-02-08T23:02:00.000-08:00

I've seen some good views in my time. But this one was very good. As usual, the photo doesn't do it justice, but it gives you an idea. This is Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda. Almost on the border of Rwanda. This was the last stop of a week in the country.

This view wasn't the viewpoint the Dutch acrobat and I were headed for, but the loud, dark clouds were coming in fast behind us. So we spent a few minutes just enjoying the scene from where we were, then heading back down.

We'd been warned that the path would be slippery if it got wet. With the leaves and smoothed out ground, it was already pretty slippery when dry. We picked our way downhill, passing men with machetes and women with boxes and baskets on their heads going up, going home. I almost took a picture of one of the many cows I'd seen with horns big enough to pick up a small car, but the herder decided he'd want 2000 shillings. I knew I could get a better picture for free later, so I skipped it.

We passed a small family, a man with a cowboy hat, a small boy, and a tiny little girl. I complimented the man on his hat, and we each answered the same question from the little boy that all little boys and girls ask in Uganda: “How are YOU?” The only understandable answer is “fine.” We kept going, both kids watching us. The boy waved a bit and said “bye.” We smiled and said “bye” before moving on. We passed behind some trees and heard the boy yell something in Luganda or whichever local tribal language was more popular in the area (I have so much trouble keeping them all straight). A moment later, he nailed my friend's backpack with a small rock. Two or three more rocks followed, to the embarrassment and surprise of the next set of Ugandan adults we met coming up the hill.

We split up just as the rain started to come down. She'd ordered a pasta dinner at our place as a treat, having spent the last five weeks eating Ugandan food where she'd been volunteering. I ducked under a roof where I saw people with half-liter sized mugs, figuring I could get my own meal for cheap. I asked what I could get. The answer was 'porridge.' I ordered one and sat down on one of the wood benches. I answered the obligatory how are you with the obligatory fine, and talked a little more extensively with the one man there who knew some English.

Soon I had my own mug. Inside the mug was a milky brown liquid. I gingerly took a sip. The closest thing I'd ever tasted was sour mare's milk, a Mongolian specialty. Remembering what a bowl of that had done to my insides in Ulan Bataar, I put down my mug.

“Is good?” One of them asked.

“Yeah. Good.” I said. “Different.” I said.

“Different from what?” He asked, “you had porridge before?”

“Not like this.” I said.

“Ah yes. This porridge, sits four days now. You can get drunk from this porridge.”

Right. I took another couple sips to be polite, cracked a few jokes about not making it back to my place, then decided to give the mug to the man to my right, who would probably enjoy it a lot more than I would. I paid on my way out.

The rain was getting harder, cutting channels in the dirt road. I considered a shop advertising chapati from behind chicken wire and wood, then spotted some smoke coming from a nearby wooden house. It was yet another roasting pot of beans, potatoes, and plantains (known here as matoke). I asked about meat, then looked closer and realized the meat being served was either tripe or some other inner organ I didn't recognize. I asked for the basic vegetarian special. The pot was on a patch of dirt covered by a tin roof. I was invited to sit in an unlit cement and mud room next to it about the size of my closet back home.

It was dark inside, but, stepping over the pile of potatoes in the doorway, I could see a woman in an elaborate wrap and headscarf with her small boy sitting on a makeshift bench. There was a small table, and a pile of corn husks in the corner. I sat down next to the woman, nodded and said hello.

The food was heaped into the bowl, just the right amount of beans and sauce to matoke and potatoes, and was just the right temperature. The boy was finishing his portion and watched me curiously as I dug into mine. He first moved away from me, then to the side, then came to sit next to me and look up at my face. At one point, overcome by curiosity, he grabbed my calf with both hands, just below the knee, where my shorts ended. I remembered being told that people wouldn't take you seriously if you wore shorts here because no Ugandan adult would wear them.

I like kids. I always have, and I like to think I can get most kids to like me. You don't need a common language to do this, you just need to know how to play. So when he started waving his hand left and right, I mirrored him carefully, waiting for him to catch on. As soon as he did, he started giggling.

I showed him the way I could give a low whistle with my hands. He was a little young to understand when I tried to show him how to do it. So I settled for how to make the little popping noise with my middle finger and cheek my dad use to entertain me with when I was his age.

His father walked in. He saw me and said hello. His breath smelled like the porridge stuff I'd just been drinking. Turned out he knew a bit of English. It is the national language, something I'm still getting used to. He introduced himself as David and his son as Joshua, his firstborn. His wife was never mentioned or introduced, even though she was sitting less than a foot away.

I'd finished my food, and something in David's look told me he was going to ask me for money, just like so many others before him had over the past week. So I thanked him, and made to leave. But he said, no please stay, let us talk. I didn't feel I could turn that down, and anyway the rain was really going at this point.

Conversation was halting and laborious, but questions and statements came from David in slow spurts. He had six children. His youngest was named Joel, like me. This little room was his house. What did I think of his house?

I knocked a fist on the walls.

“Strong.” I said. I tried telling him about some of the mud huts with grass roofs I'd seen in Ethiopia and how here in Uganda the brick and mixed mud and cement structures with wooden reinforcement was much more durable. I don't know how much I got across.

Joshua coughed. He picked something in the back of his mouth. He coughed again, this time the something landed in his mouth. It was red liquid. Blood? His father looked a bit disgusted, and sent Joshua away.

An ear of roast corn appeared. He split it in half and gave me half. Joshua reappeared and sat down next to me, hugging my leg. After a couple bites, David split his half of corn in half and gave a piece to Joshua.

More halting conversation. David offered me porridge. I thanked him but told him I'd had some already. He talked more while I ate corn, wondering who I could split my half in half for. I ended up finishing it on my own. David then tried to get me to eat the rest of his. I insisted that he finish it himself.

He asked where I was from. I told him. And he slowly pulled out a piece of paper. I wrote my name and my home town. He looked at it and asked for a number. I gave him my voice mail number in the US. Then he asked if a letter would reach me there. He thought I'd just given a mailing address. I pulled out a notebook and asked him to give me his address instead.

He wrote down his name, David Baine, and then C/o Richard with a completely illegible last name, and then a Ugandan phone number, missing a digit. He explained that Richard was doctor in a nearby town, and that the phone number was his, not David's. He tried to explain something about “grafts” on “papyrus” and lake water that I didn't understand. He asked a neighbor who had just stopped by for a translation. Instead, the neighbor told me about his job before he left.

The rain had slowed to a trickle. David looked out and then at me.

“I live here.” He said. “This my house. I have six sons.”

“Six boys?”

“ehm. Four girls, two boys.”

“I see. Good house, good kids.” Josh was still hugging my knee and trying to make the popping noise with his finger and mouth.

“So you see.” David said. “I am not happy.”

He just looked at me, hunched over in his tiny place outside a mud road. He lived just off the shore of a beautiful lake. He was literate, but with six little mouths to feed. And the 'porridge' was talking to him.

I nodded slowly, looking at the scene. Before, I'd thought more than once that I'd wanted a picture of the perfect lighting on the potatoes and plantains on the dirt floor, but didn't feel comfortable asking for a picture. But the man's face was one of the many moments I never would have dared photograph yet wanted to keep an image of much more than some nicely lit food. Not for the beauty, but for the reminder that there are people who wear this expression every day. It's not sadness or hopelessness. It's just a blank. I am not happy. That's how my life is.

When I crashed at an aid worker's place in Ethiopia, I pulled a book of the shelf by Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank. It was about how we can eradicate poverty. One of the last chapters was all about the museums that we would create to show kids what poverty was like after we'd eradicated it. When it would be history, something our kids would never know. The picture I never took of David's face would have been just the exhibit Yunnus had in mind. Maybe if we all work hard at this, someday that's the only place we'll ever see that expression again.

But in the meantime, when I got up to pay and leave, and he asked me if I'd send something to his impossible mailing address. I didn't know what to say. I still don't.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Travel Tip: Clean Drinking Water, Anywhere

2010-02-04T01:51:00.000-08:00

I thought about contacting the company and asking for a sponsorship deal before I posted this one, but I didn't. This is not a paid advertisement, I am under no obligation to tell you anything but the truth.

With that out of the way, I am here to recommend one of the cooler travel gadgets I've been using this trip. It's called a Steripen. It makes just about any water safe to drink, one liter at a time.

When I first heard about it, I was skeptical. But, before leaving, I asked one of the doctors in my travel clinic about it. She had nothing but good things to say. So, I found one on sale at REI (they're not paying me to write this either), four rechargeable AA batteries with a little solar charger, and I was good to go.

The Steripen looks like a plastic stick with a long lightbulb sticking out of it. The way you use it is to fill up a water bottle with a liter of water, press the button on the steripen, wait for a flashing green LED light, and then stir it around in your water. The bulb end will light up. After you still for a couple minutes, the bulb turns off, and the LED flashes green. The water is now safe to drink.

The way it works is that the bulb is a UV bulb. The UV radiation destroys any parasites, bacteria and viruses swimming around the water. It's the biological equivalent of boiling the water for a few minutes, only you don't have to wait for it to cool down after. The water must be clear (no dirt) for the thing to work, and you need to keep it in and stirring the for full period of time or it won't do the job. If you pull it out too early, you'll get an angry little red LED flashing and have to start over.

I have been using this device in seven continents for over a year, and I have not once gotten sick from the water its treated. I trust it with just about any tap water in the world. I will say that it doesn't make the water taste any better, but as long as the water is clear, it can treat it and drink it, (unless it's from one particular cheap hostel in Siam Reap, Cambodia, because that water tastes foul enough to make your stomach turn, even when sterilized).

Bear in mind that this doesn't do anything for water with nasty metals like lead or mercury in it. This is very rare, I've yet to run into it. More common is a few cities where they just dump too many chemicals like chlorine into the water for it to be drinkable in large quantities (so far the only ones I have had this problem with are Moscow, Istanbul, and Damascus) If you're in doubt, ask if the water would be safe to drink after boiling for a few minutes. If so, you can use a steripen.

The only problems I've run into are with the button itself. After several months in my backpack, the button sometimes doesn't respond to the first press. I often have to try pressing it several times or pressing it very hard in just the right direction to start the thing up. But I just put that down to normal wear and tear, given what it has to go through inside my bag.

This is my answer to the problem of drinking water. The traditional method to this problem is to buy bottled water wherever you go. If you're keeping yourself properly hydrated (which you should be), this causes a huge amount of waste in plastic bottles (most of the developing world, where you'll use them most, can't recycle them). You also have to start getting paranoid about seals and whether bottles you're buying are really just old bottles being re-filled with tap water by local entrepreneurs. Finally, last, and in many ways least, while water is very cheap in places where tap water is undrinkable, it's still an expense that's nice to cut out.

So, my advice? Get a sturdy, 1-liter water bottle, and then go get yourself a Steripen. Now anywhere you have tap water, you'll have safe drinking water.
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I'll use this opportunity to point out a little something on the site I'm trying out. I've labeled it (are you ready for the cheesy cheesiness?) the JTrek Store. I quietly put it up months ago on the right sidebar, but never explained it. Here's my explanation:

If you click the link to the store, you'll find a few things, including several models of Steripens. These are things that either I carry or are a lot like things I carry (smaller sizes or womens' versions for example).

You can buy them there. If you want. A very small portion of the price (1% on most items) goes to my trip. The rest goes to Amazon.com and their affiliates. I encourage you to use the store mostly as a reference list-- if you think you can get a better deal somewhere else, go for it. Check your local outdoor and travel stores as well as the internet.

One other thing, I can add anything you can buy on Amazon.com to the JTrek Store. So if, for example, there's something I've talked about that you don't see on there, feel free to suggest it, and I might add it later.

Or, if you want to buy something crazy like a Segway or a car on Amazon and feel like donating 1% of the price tag to my trip, let me know, and we'll get it on the store for you in time for purchase. I kid. Mostly.

Anyway, that's the deal behind the store. I hope it's useful to you and your adventures!

Safari

2010-02-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

The first movie I ever saw multiple times in theaters was The Lion King. I've had the soundtrack running through my head for about a week.

When I was about the same age, maybe a few years younger, my grandparents gave me a subscription to Ranger Rick magazine, a magazine for kids devoted to nature and wildlife. Back when I was first dreaming about this trip, the main thing I wanted to see more than anything else was the different animals all around the world.

I was one of those kids that always figured there was a secret alliance between kids and animals, and that if I tried hard enough, I'd be able to talk to them. I had all these elaborate fantasies about the adventures I'd go on, talking to them all. mostly starting with our cat, Charlotte. Charlotte never seemed very impressed by my attempts, or by my corralling her in with my stuffed tiger, Mark, who I was also sure I'd be able to talk to.

I never pulled off the Doctor Dolittle thing, but my grandmother (among others) would remark that I seemed to have a way with animals, especially cats and dogs. I can read them fairly well, and I still get made fun of by some friends for finding just about any animal kind of adorable.

So you might understand why a three-day safari in the Kenyan side of the Serengeti, the Masai Mara national park, might be kind of a big deal for me.

I won't write too much, I written a lot lately without giving too many pictures. But now that I've got a good camera again, I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking. Enjoy!

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Rough Truck Ride to Nairobi

2010-01-29T11:12:00.000-08:00

This story is abridged. I'd love to put in all the good parts. Maybe in some other format some day. For now, we're just going to give you the basics.

Up to this point, I've refused to specify an ending date to my trip. This isn't just to keep people in suspense or some ear of commitment. This is because I knew that transport in a lot of Africa is notoriously unpredictable. I'd been warned. So when I found out that a 700km journey was going to take me three days instead of the seven hours it would have taken in any developed and most developing countries, I shouldn't have been surprised. The buses in southern Ethiopia leave when they are full, not before. They stop whenever someone inside or outside wants to stop them, be they passengers, chaat sellers, or the cops looking for a bribes. In a surreal moment, one of the cops told the driver he was fining him for having more passengers than seats. May seem reasonable back home, but if you've ever ridden any form of Ethiopian transport, you know this is a bit like ticketing someone for driving with only one hand on the steering wheel.

There was a stay in the closest thing I've ever seen to a wild west frontier town before I finally made the border, knowing I'd just finished the easy part. Getting from the northern Kenyan border to the capital of Nairobi over land was the legendary challenge, one that native Kenyans had tried and sworn off.

The road is a dirt road, corrugated by lack of maintenance with potholes big enough to hide a VW bug. A few years ago, Somali bandits made this road impassable without an armed convoy. Now the Kenyan army has cracked down enough so that you just pay your way onto a truck carrying cattle or beans for a day and a half to Isiolo, 3 hours north (by paved road) of Nairobi. You pay a bit more to sit in the cabin up front, otherwise you're out in back, sitting on metal bars above the truck's load. It's quite safe, so they tell me. They also tell me that the ubiquitous dude on each truck, riding on top of the cab, in camo carrying a rife, is just another traveler going home.

I crossed out of the famously (mostly) unconquered African land into the ashes of the British empire. Slightly more infrastructure, cars on the left side of the road, and clunky UK-style electrical plugs are back. So is English as the dominant language. Except for trilingual Lebanon, this is the first English speaking territory I've been in since Hong Kong, back in July (though Amsterdam could make a case as well). Kiswahili is close on English's heels. You hear it everywhere, even if finding it written down takes effort.

Kids no longer stare at me or yell you you you. Musungus, as we're known around here, aren't an oddity anymore. We're just a cash machine. The best description I have seen of Moyale, Kenya was a fellow blogger who posted a picture of a seatless overflowing toilet in his hotel, calling it a metaphor. Upon entering town, I was beset by seven touts (or “brokers” as they call them here) in less than twenty minutes. One cussed me out for ignoring him (and got really scared when I asked if he wanted to speak to me), another followed me into my hotel, offering to wake me up the next day for the truck he wanted to sell me a ride on, and another after that found me in an internet cafe and insisted it was time for me to get on his truck right then and there.

As usual, I got lucky and met people. The people this time were a Kenyan reporter doing an investigative piece on tribal conflict, an Israeli backpacker who'd fallen head over heels for the country, and a very quiet friend of theirs. We spent a little time trying to make a local NGO's internet connection work before the Israeli and I made arrangements to head south together on the same truck, the reporter acting as our negotiator for a fair price.

One of the brokers actually did track me down to my room at 7am the next morning to wake me up, insisting it was time to go on his truck. I politely told him to get lost, and another followed me to my room after seeing me across a balcony on my way to the bathroom. More hilarity ensued.

We made our way through it all and got on a truck at a fair price. With one thing after another, the Israeli convinced me it would be a better ride on the back of the truck instead of in the cab. We'd each save at least $13, and we'd get a better view.

At first I thought she was right. But I was picturing just the two of of us, maybe two other locals, on soft bags of... something. Turned out we were squeezing ourselves onto sacks of ginger or the metal crossbars above them with twenty-two other passengers, and though we didn't know it yet, we'd be picking up even more.

That was an adventure. I'll cut the details and just leave you with the headlines and hooks. The lush greens did gradually give way to spectacular rock deserts. We had a very nice catholic Kenyan man who just couldn't believe there could be someone from Jerusalem who hadn't accepted Jesus Christ as the messiah. We blew a tire with a sound that prompted our armed man to load and ready his rifle, causing half of us drop from the crossbars and hit the ginger sacks. There was a long discussion of the merits of communism while sitting atop the spar tire, witching the stars. Then there was the dinner stop where they never turned off the engine, convincing me that we wouldn't have time to eat.

In other brilliant moves by yours truly, when everyone set up to go to sleep, I noticed that nobody was going for the covered back area, they were all packing themselves into the front in uncomfortable positions. It did occur to me that there was something they knew that I didn't, but I figure they just didn't like being in the covered section. So I found a stack of cardboard and laid it out in the back. I realized my mistake when we started moving. My position put me right above the back axle, meaning every time it hit a bump (roughly once every ten yards), I would be shot up a foot into the air. Sleeping on cardboard I can grudgingly do. Sleeping while flying up into the air and landing on cardboard every few seconds is just a little too much. So I headed back forward. One of the Muslim girls helped me find a three-foot spot on the ginger sacks crunched between three people and a sack of hard-heeled shoes. If you've ever gone camping and found you'd put your sleeping bag on a root, you understand that this isn't very comfortable. Ginger is a root. Imagine sleeping on a sack of tree roots. Now imagine trying to do it after you've been bouncing up and down on a steel rail for ten to twelve hours. I gave up within fifteen minutes.

I ended up sitting in an improvised sling big enough for one modestly overweight person, strung out between the rails. I was sharing it with the guard, who was bundled up with about five layers against the wind chill, which I'm guessing was around 65 degrees Farenheit. I spent the night trying nod off with half of my extremely sore butt in a burlap sling with the butt of a rifle lodged across my lap, while four old guys chewing chaat leaves (a stimulant similar to coca) yelled at each other. The sling didn't rip in half until we'd nearly arrived.

The only upside was the scenery and the animals. Among other things, I saw tons of African hares, the smallest deer I'd ever seen, not much bigger than a large cat, lot of birds, and the silhouette of my first wild African Elephant.

When I finally arrived in Nairobi, twelve hours later, I was sunburned, severely dehydrated, and very very sore. I was also filthy. People in the microbus from Isiolo to Nairobi tried very hard not to look at me. I hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours. I had slept about half an hour. I dragged my stinking unshaven body across to the first restaurant I found, spent what felt like an eternity just putting my bag down and sitting. When I washed my hands, the water coming off of them may or may not have stained the sink dust brown permanently. The chicken in my stew was the toughest, chewiest fowl I'd ever eaten, so I haven't been back to check.

I got information from my usual sources. I wasn't sure I was in good enough shape to pull off the stunt of getting a free tourist map and orientation from the local luxury hotels, but the internet cafe was the cheapest in town and gave me the number of a hostel, though it had no formal adress. After a half hour hike uphill, I shoved past a group of evangelical Christians in residence, and finally got myself a much needed bed and shower.

And that was how it started. I've spent a lot of time since then getting errands done. My passport has had yet more pages added, right side up this time. After a lot of frustration wandering through camera shops full of nothing but sony and kodak, I scored big time and found a fantastic deal on a pocket Canon compact with manual controls and a 10x optical zoom. Combined with the 4x digital, that's a virtual zoom of 40x magnification.

And starting in about ten hours, I'm going to be putting that particular feature to very good use. Just how I'll do it is for you to guess. Until next post of course. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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Check out this entry's old fashioned film camera Photos. Because we're blogging likes it's 1999 (...before blogging existed. yes.)

The Craze Must Be Godly

2010-01-22T10:36:00.001-08:00

I got to spend one of the biggest fesitvals in Africa, Timkat, in the
town most famous for celebrating it well, Gonder, Ethiopia. Timkat is
actually the Ethiopian orthodox celebration of Epiphany, the baptism
of Christ. For the purpose, the arc of the covenant is brought to a
place called the Fasil Baths, a pool constructed in the seventeenth
century by the king of Gonder. Vigil is kept all night by worshipers
in white shrouds. Come morning, a hour or two before sunrise, more
people start to come by candlelight. Those who have spent the night
sleeping next to the baths start to wake up and rise. Then comes the
singing. And that's just the beginning.

It was a wonderful sight, and for me it justified my having stayed so
long in town for the festival. For a few minutes at least, until one
of my few superstitions was unapologetically smashed to bits.

I'm not a superstitious person. I tend to walk around ladders because
I don't like things falling on top of me, I think breaking mirrors is
stupid and dangerous, and I avoid saying the name "Macbeth" when among
fellow theater people in a theater because it freaks them out. But
I'll open an umbrella indoors, I like black cats, and spilling salt
doesn't bother me except that it's a waste of salt.

But I did hold a superstition that a religious population would
refrain from commiting crime on religious ground, during religious
ceremonies, or under the eye of religious leaders. So when I came to
one of the biggest Christian festivals in one of the most fervently
Christian countries I've come across, filled to the brim with priests,
on the most traditional spiritual grounds around in sight of what most
of the people there beleived to be the true arc of the covenant, I let
my usual guard down.

I paid for that mistake with my camera.

Looking back, I'd walked right into a pickpocket's dream. Big jostling
crowd to distract people and explain the feeling of hands on your
pants, lots of rich farenji (foreigners) for targets. I had both my
hands full, moving up to a viewing platform, one with my water bottle,
another with a lit candle, both raised above my head to navigate. So
when I felt the hand go into my left pocket, I couldn't believe it. It
wasn't even a skilled pickpocket attempt, I've foiled half a dozen
much smoother ones, but this one got me by virtue sheer surprise. I
couldn't believe anyone could be so clumsily blatant, so I for th
crucial split second decided they weren't actually trying aything.
Woops.

And there went my camera, and with it all but one of my pictures of Ethiopia.

I suddenly found I had a lot less respect or interest for a bunch of
people in white sheets with candles jostling around a half empty pool
of water in the dark. Especially after I caught not one, not two, but
five more people trying to pick my pockets again within the next 45
minutes. One of them actually succeeded, but, when they found all
they'd come up with was a spiral notebook, they tossed it on the
ground in disgust, where a friend of mine found it moments later.

So much for that superstition.

I did manage to get some photos from friends I've made in town. I'm
very grateful, but it's not quite the same... especially since I'd
just lost all the pictures of the friends I'd made in Addis Ababa,
Bahir Dar, Lake Tana, and Gonder itself. If I wanted to spend another
week there, I could probably find them on the black market somewhere.

I'm learning this now back in Addis Ababa.I went camera shopping
today, and found out that the government puts crazy import duties on
all electronics. I was offered a point and shoot camera that would
cost maybe US$300 at the very most for US$787. And it was the only
camera the store had. The stores here know digital cameras are too
expensive for people who live here, and that anyone else would by them
at home. So they don't even bother stocking them.

By the way, I had yet another pickpocket attempt while I was at it. A
guy walking a couple inches ahead of me stopped suddenly, and I
crashed right into his back. I stepped around him, patting his
shoulder with my left hand while apologizing. He grinned, grabbed my
left wrist and started kicking my left leg. Not hard, just enough to
get my attention while I felt another guy reach for my right pocket. I
hadn't expected it, so I smacked the offending hand away instead of
grabbing, which meant both of them were able to escape. But at least I
still had all my belongings.

I didn't get so lucky as to find a cheap digital, but I scored some
inside info that Kenya doesn't have the same problem with taxes on
electronics imports. So I've got some shopping to do in Nairobi. In
the meantime, I was given an old pocket film camera with "Focus Free"
in big letters on the front. I'm not sure that's a good thing. But it
works. So, instead of buying a $787 camera, I went and bought $4 worth
of film, roughly 72 exposures. That's right boys and girls, we're
going old-school.

I'm sorry I didn't get it before. Festival aside, I got an inside tour
of the farmers market of Gonder. Now when I say farmers market, I'm
not talking about the free-samples of fruit-flavored honey and garlic
spread in the city summer street under colorful awnings. I mean the
dust, tarp and stick maze where the farmers come to buy live goats,
chickens, oxen, and spread out their produce on burlap to hawk to
families there. MY trigger finger was itching to take pictures of
everything I saw, just to share it.

The 25-year old tenth grader (no joke) showing me around was confused
as to why I wasn't taking pictures, and didn't quite have the English
skills to understand my explanation. It wasn't the only point of
confusion-- he also couldn't wrap his head around the idea that I
didn't know the market price of an ox in my hometown.

Like a lot of beginners at the English language, he asked a lot of
weirdly formed, personal and sometimes profound questions, following
them up with his answers as examples. For example, what was most best
person in ethiopia or out of ethiopia (his was Barack Obama). Or what
was the most hated people and most liked people (for him, gangsters
and religious people, respectively), what did your paarents do (his
were farmers) and what was the economic situation of your family (his
was "very well off").

He invited me to his place for lunch. It was another two or three room
cement and mud structure with vry dirty dogs and cats wandering
around. I was served the same things every ethiopian serves me and is
sure I'm trying for the first time, injeera bread and a coffee
ceremony. Looking at the dust, the number of kids and people that had
to fit into all these rooms, I felt like I should do something to help
them out. Maybe offer them a litte money, at the very least to cover
the bottles of coke they sent the little kid out to get for us. But
then I remembered one of the answers he'd given me to his questions.
His family is "very well off." Giving them money, would probably
offend them. I did later take my main host out for a couple drinks,
but still, this put things in perspective.

To my Developed world eyes, the home would have been a poster for a
third world charity with the title "help us fight poverty." But they
were very well off. It made me think about all the other people I
wasn't seeing who were so much less fortunate. The little kids in the
middle of the countryside getting into fistfights over the plastic
bottles tossed out of buses, because of the money they get for
recycling them. The people sleeping wrapped up in tarps on the streets
of addis ababa, creating a more than passing resemblance to the
mummies in the Egyptian National Museum. The stories of the crowds
sleeping outside the lonely spots where the UN might do food drops for
the holidays the next morning. The ones who have no other way to
survive.

And all I have to worry about is that I won't bring home the pictures
I took of some of them.

Keeping things in perspective doesn't always make you feel good.

---
Photos pending the miraculous return of my stolen Canon SD1100. Don't
hold your breath.

Hello, you.

2010-01-15T06:01:00.000-08:00

There's a funny thing that happens in developing countries where you don't look like the rest of the population. You'll walk down the street, people will look at you as you pass, and right when you're about to pass them, or just after you've passed them, one of them will burst out "hello!" It's always a little too late to reply to without twisting around and trying to stop them, because at this point they've usually started scurrying away, giggling.

Small town Ethiopia isn't like that. At first I thought the little kids were yelling something at me in Amharic, or one of the other local languages. But then I realized what they were really saying: "You! You! You you you! Youyouyouyouyouyouyouyou!"

Every time our 11-seat minivan with 18 occupants stopped somewhere on it's ten-hour route, the kids of the town would be out, following, waving, trying to touch my arm through the window and yelling "You!" If I waved or said hi back, some of them would stop, shyly. Others would act like I'd just thrown them a fistful of candy.

In the cities, the "Yous" change back to "Hello," but there's nothing shy about it. They'll yell it from far away until they get an answer. If you say hello back, they get really excited and say it again and again. If you say "selam" or "ishi" (hello or hi in Amharic) they become really shy. Sometimes. Last night I had a pair of six or seven year old kids follow me down three or four unlit, suburban, dirt road blocks, just so they could keep saying hello every few minutes.

This place isn't timid. Ethiopia is a proud country. It was the second Christian nation after the Armenians, the only nation never to be colonized (except when it was for five years, but we don't discuss that) and it doesn't mind doing things differently from the rest of the world.

For example according to the local clock and calendar, it's about 2:30 am, and the sun is shining on this bright day in 2002. Christmas was about a week ago, and the feast of the Epiphany is in four days.

I thought it was funny when I learned that the State of Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time, but that the Navajo nation, inside its borders, does. I thought it was a bit odd to find that the capital of Argentina observes daylight savings time while most of the rest of the counrty does not. I thought it was weird of China to maintain one time zone for its entire nation, leaving large chunks a few hours off from the neighbors directly to the north and south.

But that was all before I learned that, in Ethiopia, time is roughly eight years and six hours behind everyone else in its time zone.

I've been to other places where there are alternative calendars to ours. The Jewish Calendar, the Chinese Calendar, and the Islamic Calendar are all in different years. But in the countries they're used in, they mostly seem to be there just to calculate when the holidays occur. In Ethiopia, the Julian calendar is used for just about everything, and our calendar is referred to dismissively as "European time."

Same with our time of day. Ethiopia being so close to the equator, daylight almost always lasts twelve hours. So dawn happens at 12:00am, noon at 6:00am, dusk at 12:00pm, and midnight at 6:00pm. It makes sense. At 3:00am you've had daylight for three hours. Four at 4:00am, etc. I still haven't gotten a straight answer as to what time the date officially changes, dusk, midnight, or dawn.

History too, doesn't follow our little rules. I bought and downloaded a pdf guide from Lonely Planet on Ethiopia. This is from page 30, the history section: "The following chapter contains the factual 'real' history that historians like to use, but it's important to remember that for the majority of Ethiopians this isn't the history they believe in. In Ethiopia, like in much of Africa, legends concerning magical deeds, ghostly creatures and possibly nonexistent folk heroes are not just legends, but are taken as solid fact and who cares if the historians say the dates and places don't add up."

These are not the only things that've made me stop and think for a second. I was hosted for my first day in the country. As we walked from the airport into town, I was given the usual modest shpiel of "I mean the place isn't too fancy, I hope you don't think it's too..." etc. And I just gave my usual reply to put them at ease: "Don't worry, all I want is somewhere my stuff is dry and secure and somewhere I can wash myself off."

Instead of being a reassured, my host looked worried. He didn't have running water that day. I would later learn that a shower is something he gets about once a week. It's a clean culture otherwise, all people wash their hands with soap both before and after every meal, but body odor here is a fact of life.

Parts of Addis Ababa, the capital city, look like the rural areas of Central America. The neighborhood is made up of little compounds of mud and plaster houses, encircled in tin fences. The toilet is a hole in the ground, covered by a curtain. There is electrcicty (most of the time). When unplugging a phone charger from my room, I accidentally pulled the outlet halfway out of the plaster wall. The next place I stayed, in the town of Bahir Dar, the way to turn off the light was to gently tug on one of the wires sticking out from behind the sheet of plywood that made comprised half of my wall. I was warned sternly not to touch any bare ends that came out.

My first night in town, my host took me out to a bar with traditional music and dancing. It was a great night, some amazing dancing from people just getting up from the crowd, and what looked like the great grandfather of battle rap taking place between a female singer and one of the male musicians, taking turns calling each other goats and saying the other is so cold they don't need to buy a refirgerator. On the way there, my host wanted my opinion on something. Why was it that in Ethiopia, they are poor but happy, while in other countries they are rich and unhappy. The truth was that I didn't think people were all that unhappy in rich countries, but I didn't say so. The question was more of a lesson. Ethiopia may be poor, but it's happy.

And it's working to better itself. I spend a couple days with a 21-year-old woman from Bahir Dar who did something very similar to what I did. From a young age, she saved everything she earned for a cause. But instead of traveling around the world, her cause was much more noble. Her money goes to helping women and children affected by HIV. She's already founded and registered a local charity to help the staggering number of HIV/AIDS victims in her area.

"I don't want outsie help." She told me. "Ethiopia has to help itself. We need to solve our own problems."

I've only spent a week in this proud place, but already it's proving to be a little bit dfferent from anyhere I've been.
---
Well, my camera was stolen before I could save my photos, but I at least put this together.

Last Missive from Cairo

2010-01-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a little homework on my trip to Ethiopia. I've looked at a few countries where communication was tricky, but if my guidebook is to believed, this could be one of the toughest I've faced. Telephone service is such that even with a full cell signal, calling is often impossible. Post service is reliable, if slow. Internet service in the capital, Addis Ababa, takes “five minutes for a two line text email.”

This means I can't guarantee any updates after this one for some time. If and when they do come, they will likely be without photos. My email access will be limited. Also those of you who know how to reach me by phone will have a harder time doing so.

Probably.

I've had warnings like this before and sometimes found them completely overblown. There's still a chance I'll be able to find broadband internet access and plenty of cell service. But it doesn't look likely.

In the unlikely even I am cut off completely, I'm leaving my plan up here: I am headed south. My ideal plan would be to spend time exploring southern Ethiopia on my way to the border crossing into Kenya at Moyale. However, this border crossing is a bit risky and sometimes gets shut down. I will not proceed across unless I am satisfied that I can do so safely (possibly with a convoy). If I cannot cross via Moyale, I will most likely get a flight into either Kampala, Uganda, or Nairobi, Kenya, whichever is more convenient/affordable.

Transport in this region of the world can be very slow. If nobody hears from me for a long time, please don't be too concerned, I am probably happy and healthy, just sitting on a slow bus in the Omo valley playing cards with an Ethiopian family and wondering when my stop coming. Infrastructure is poor, but the country is very safe. The national airline is one of the best in the continent, and I'm traveling in the most cool, dry season there is to travel.

In the mean time, I'm posting a few more photos from Cairo and the Pyramids. Enjoy!

---
Check out this entry's Photos.

Egypt Express

2010-01-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

Luxor. If your first thought was "Las Vegas," you need to get out more.

Yes, everybody, I've made it to Egypt. After a moving learning experience or two in Ramallah, I made an impulse trip to float in the Dead Sea, rushed my way across to Amman, Jordan, and dropped down to see the cliffs of Petra by night, surrounded by candles, the echoes of a flute and Bedouin singing. Then it was across to the Sinai, new years eve party on the beach, and then some diving in the Red Sea. Then a desert haul across the Suez canal and down the Nile river to the the town you see here.

Man, that was fast.

After celebrating officially having hit all seven continents, I teamed up with a Belarus-born Canadian to get from one town to the Valley of the Kings. For about $1.75 each, we rented two rusty rattletraps that almost passed for bicycles, pushed past the touts onto the ferry across the Nile, and rode past the donkey carts out towards the Sahara, to the tombs of the pharaohs.

Pretty cool stuff, but I'm sorry to tell you that the most obviously Egyptian things I've been seeing so far, the tombs of the pharaohs, did not allow photos. My friend got nailed for taking a picture inside the tomb of Thutmoses III-- the flash went off right in front of the irate attendant, who tried to take her camera away. If you do a little searching, I bet you'll find a couple, though.

I spent a lazy day or two on the hotel rooftop with Swiss, German, Finnish, and Quebecois (edit: thanks Count C.) travelers, eating koshary and banana pancakes, talking and laughing about a lot of nothing in particular, and then I left for an overnight train to Cairo. It was scheduled to leave at 11:00pm, so naturally it arrived in the station at 11:40 and left a little before midnight. Welcome to Egypt.

Speaking of a welcome to Egypt, I'd been warned about Cairo. Everyone who'd been there seemed to have some warning to give about the place. The traffic is awful, the touts are unbelievable, the pollution is absurd. It's dirty, smelly, ugly, and you just want to leave.

They exaggerate. A little. It was a remarkably clear day and there wasn't *that* much trash in the streets. The cars do slow down for you to cross, if you're standing directly in front of them and if they're in a generous mood. But they were right about some of those touts. Those of you who know me know that I'm normally a patient guy, usually quite friendly, rarely if ever angry. I came very close to clocking two separate touts this morning because they simply would not leave me alone. They followed me into and out of shops and around whole city blocks. The second one was very lucky he didn't try grabbing my arm a third time.

After refusing half a dozen persistent taxi rides and shoving past two more touts convinced I still needed a hotel/tours/perfume, I hopped a bus to the suburb of Giza. The bus was stuck in traffic for only twenty minutes before moving. There would've maybe been enough leg room for me if I had stopped growing at age six. There was one overpowered A/c vent in the bus and it was pointed right at the only seat left. I scrunched up sideways and shivered for about half an hour, when other people finally started getting off.

I gratefully slid to an open window seat on the left side, watching the sunset over the buildings. What a day. This is the first productive thing I've tried to do since getting a hotel room and it's already sunset. Oh well. I still need to figure out what I'm doing after my flight to Ethiopia this weekend. I have a couchsurfing host, but no guidebook. Maybe I can wing it when I get there. I wonder if--

Whoa.

I only caught a brief glimpse of them rising behind some of the apartment buildings, but that was enough. Whatever I'd been worrying about before had been jarred out of my head. I knew they'd be here, I knew I'd see them, but knowing doesn't always prevent awe.

You can't blame me. It was my first glimpse of the pyramids of Egypt.

Some things are over hyped. Others are hidden gems that should have more hype than they get. But there are some things in this world that are so famous that, no matter what they are really like, seeing them floors you. There are many places claiming to be “wonders of the world”. There are even seven new ones because they got a lot of votes on the internet (to date, I've seen six of them). But only one original wonder of the world stands today: the Pyramids of Giza.

I got out, shook off a few more touts hawking horse rides, and walked up as close as I could for the time of day. Maybe without the title, I wouldn't stand in so much awe. They're just triangles of bricks, really. Ridiculously huge triangles of bricks, even bigger than I'd imagined, but still. Triangles of bricks. However, one of the really rewarding things about travel is the feeling of finding something you've heard about and seen imitated all your life. The felling of standing there, breathing it in and thinking “this is it.” And whatever else I'd had to deal with that day, that feeling made it worth it.

---
Check out this entry's Photos.

Travel Tip: Bargaining for Beginners

2010-01-04T01:22:00.000-08:00

In many places in the world, prices for just about anything are negotiable. At first, when you realize that the prices you're being offered as a foreigner have been jacked up, and you have to constantly bargain them down, it will feel like a hassle. But if you practice a few techniques and get good at it, something weird will happen. You'll actually start to enjoy it.

Bargaining, when done properly, is a lot of fun. And you can get yourself bargains you couldn't dream of in fixed price institutions at home. It becomes a game, and if you do well, you get prizes at the end.

Now, bargaining is a huge concept that many full books have been written on. There are many many different techniques on bargaining that are all quite valid (and some that aren't). For this post, I'm just going to share a few principles specific to travelers, who are almost always in the buyer position, trying to buy stuff you buy on the road, like bus tickets, room rates, or just little gifts for friends back home.

First up, we'll talk about the advantages and disadvantages for the buyer and seller. The seller is always the one who needs the deal to go through. Without selling, the seller has no job. It's usually in the seller's interest to close a deal as quickly as possible, because that way s/he can sell more deals in the day, and get something closer to the original asking price. The key advantage the seller has over the buyer is that the seller knows the exact worth of what s/he's selling. No merchant on the ground will ever sell at a loss, so no matter how much they mope, don't feel bad about it, they are making money off your purchase. The main disadvantage is that the seller can't control when bargaining ends-- the buyer can walk out any time.

As the buyer, the seller's disadvantage becomes your advantage. Bargaining will never end until you end it, either by accepting an offer, or making an offer you're willing to pay that the seller accepts. You may get stuck on a price, but the decision to either buy or walk away is always yours. The disadvantage you have is that you usually don't know the actual worth of what you're shopping for. If you can change that, you will be in a much stronger bargaining position. Find out how much you *should* pay for something and gun for that target price. Keep in mind that guidebooks are mediocre resource for these things, especially the price of lodging and transport. Much better is asking local person who isn't trying to sell you anything (or who has already sold you something completely different and can't sell you what you're asking about).

Next principle is middle men and touts. this lesson is easy. Avoid these people like the plague. Actually, that's not strictly true, on rare occasions these people can be a good source of information, but in general, you want to avoid middle men at all costs for the simple reason that no middle men would be middle men unless they make money doing it. If you buy a Colombian bus ticket from the guys running around the entrance yelling "Where you go my friend?!" You're paying his salary, probably a friend's salary, the people behind the ticket counter, and the driver. If you go to the counter, you're just paying the counter and the driver. If you're good (depending on the country), you can sometimes get around them all and haggle directly with the driver. The fewer people you have to pay, the less you'll have to pay total.

Next is subtlety. If you ask a seller for a price out loud, in front of other customers, he'll probably turn you down. The reason being that while he might sell one item at that price, he won't want to sell to everyone at that price. This gives us the modern international symbol for bargaining: the calculator. From Bangkok to Bogotá, this little device showing up is how you know a price is open to bargaining. When you ask how much, the seller will think for a moment, punch something into a calculator and hand it to you. That's his first offer. From then on out, no numbers should be said out loud. Make any counteroffer by punching it in and handing it back. That way the offers stay private (though feel free to quietly tell your friends after so they know what they should aim for, price-wise).

If you're going for an item in a shop, don't walk right up to it and stare at it. Sellers watch for this, and know that you really want it and will probably pay more. Browse a few other things first. Ask about them, ask about the prices of several things. Feign disinterest and point out defects. Basically make the seller think (s)he really needs to convince you.

This is more personal style, but I always make the seller make the first and second offers. After the first offer, I usually either nod slowly or fake disbelief (depending on what makes more sense in the local culture), thank them, and start to leave. 99% of the time I will be stopped at this point by the seller, who will say something that usually involves the phrase "special price." I pause, look conflicted, and ask what their "real offer" is, refusing to make one of my own, casually starting to leave again if they balk. Once I have a second offer, and if I think I'm going to buy, then I'll make one of my own offer, a good deal less than my target price. The seller will then laugh, call me crazy, etc. I challenge them for another offer, and the haggling begins. It might seem harsh, but it's all part of the game, and they know that. If you get stuck on a price you don't like, don't be afraid to leave, even if you feel like you've struck up a friendship or started a precedent. Time is on your side, and the bargaining won't end until you decide you want it to.

Also, most sellers will be quick to tell you this themselves, but if you buy many items (or even just two) you can get a better price on each one. But keep in mind how much you're spending total, and whether it's what you wanted to spend in the beginning.

This is just a start. A few other things you can try are playing multiple sellers off against each other, recruiting a friend and playing the good cop/bad cop routine to your advantage, and haggling down a bigger item before changing your mind and asking about the smaller or less expensive one (for an even better price). All of these tricks and more can get you some great deals.

Two last things to leave you with. Don't get too caught up in getting a lower price. Keep how much the local currency is worth in mind and ask yourself if it's really worth holding out over. 5,000 Vietnamese dong more than you offered may sound like a lot, but it's actually about US$0.25. Chances are you can afford that more easily than the person you're buying from. And don't lose your cool. If you're getting angry, walk away from the bargaining and cool off. You'll offend people, and you won't get the deal you want. This is supposed to be fun, they're not all out to gouge you, and insulting people helps nothing. Keep the tone around the same as a friendly arm wrestling match, maybe they'll throw some taunts or jibes here and there, but it's all still a game you could shake hands and smile after. Good luck!

Travel Tip: Street Food Primer

2009-12-30T11:13:00.000-08:00

Here's an embarrassing story. In a Beijing bus station, I once remarked to some Welsh backpackers next to me that I'd been eating so much random stuff in China that I could eat just about any food from anywhere and not get sick. Less than ten minutes later, in front of them, I ate my first Mongolian street food and promptly got the worst 12-hour case of indigestion I'd ever experienced. Good thing one of the Welsh guys was a doctor.

My point is, no matter how tough and experienced you think you are, you've got to watch what you eat. This little episode aside, I think I can safely say I get sick way less often than your average traveler. This is because I tend to follow a few rules about food.

These are probably not the rules you think they are.

The Center for Disease Control has a saying about food while traveling: "if you can't peel it or cook it, forget it." This is a great guideline if you feel like living in a giant hamster ball. I can almost guarantee you that you will not get sick from food if you don't break this rule. I can also almost guarantee you that at some point, you will break it. If and when you do, you want to do it in an intelligent manner. That's where me and this entry come in.

Lesson number one: In the developing world, street food is often safer than restaurant food. Yes, you read that correctly. Street food. The food that has made me the most sick while traveling has almost all come from restaurants. The reason why, is that with street food, you see it get cooked right in front of you, and you see who is cooking it. In restaurants, you see neither. The methods the respective cooks use isn't much different. But with street food, if the cook is coughing up black goo into the same hands (s)he's smushing your falafel with, you know to go elsewhere. In a restaurant, you don't know whether that's happening or not. If the food is cooked right in front of you, fresh, by a healthy, clean-looking chef, you're in better shape than if it's sitting behind a glass case with insects buzzing around inside. And if it's in a restaurant, you just won't know-- many of these places aren't subjected to the same food code they are in the developed world, and even in the developed world, if you've ever worked in the food service industry, you know some of these rules can be... well, I think you get my point.

Lesson number two: usually, if the tap water isn't safe, neither is the ice. This is seems obvious when written, but it's one a lot of of people forget in practice. There are a few countries, mostly in Asia, where ice is actually factory made from safe water. But please take the extra step and check that that's the kind of ice floating in your drink. Ask.

Lesson number three: what's safe for the locals isn't necessarily safe for you, yet. Legend has it that when Japanese baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki first came to the United States and ate a hamburger, he was violently ill. We all have little local beneficial bacteria running around our digestive tracts that helps us handle the local food. This differs from place to place. So take it easy for the first few days in a new place to develop your own. Legend has it local yogurt helps with this (though beware, yogurt that hasn't been refrigerated properly or that has expired is a fast way to making you sick). After you've been eating tame food (like vegetarian dishes) in a place for a bit, then try moving on to the more interesting stuff.

Lesson number four (this one is important): if the place is crowded, the food is probably good, and it's almost definitely being cooked fresh. This is an excellent way to pick street food vendors and restaurants. We'll call it the sheep method. The reason is that deserted restaurants and vendors are much more likely to leave things like meat lying around in temperatures that let nasty things start growing in it. Then when you order it, it'll get quickly reheated and served. Popular vendors, on the other hand, are having to constantly cook fresh batches to meet demand. And if it's in that much demand from the locals, it's probably because the food is especially good.

That should be enough to get you started. Everyone's body is slightly different, and soon you will develop your own rules for what yours does and doesn't like. For example, I avoid seafood unless I'm near the coast, where the seafood is fresh instead of frozen. Partially to avoid getting sick, but mostly because I grew up in a port city with world-class salmon, crab, etc. and I've become a snob about that kind of thing. When in doubt, err on the side of caution. But remember that trying local food is one of the best parts of traveling, so don't miss out just because you're paranoid about a tummy ache. Bon Appetit!

The Hope of 2000 Years. In 2000 Words. (gulp)

2009-12-27T13:50:00.000-08:00

And for my next magical trick, I will now write a blog post encompassing a week in the focal point of three of the world's major religions and maybe the most far-reaching international conflict since the cold war. Hang on to your hats, kids, this is going to be a long, rough ride.

Why is this state different from other states? Well, for a start, if you mention the name in a room almost anywhere in the world, you've got about a fifty percent chance of coming back half an hour later and finding people yelling at each other. I've been a lot of places, but I don't know another place I've seen that elicits such strong reactions from people who've never been. China makes some people uneasy. Russia brings up a lot of old ghost stories. Colombia, Syria, and Lebanon may or may not have made my parents nervous when I was inside them. Germany has baggage, Vietnam has baggage, Nicaragua has baggage, but this place can challenge them all. Yes folks, I've come, I've seen, and now I've got to write about (yipe) the Holy Land, the Promised Land, the Hope of 2000 Years: Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

So. Where to start. How about some ground rules?

Rule number one: no political comments on this post, please. I'm serious about this. There are loads, heaps, tons of places online where you can debate the policies of the Israeli state, Hamas, Fatah, and everyone else in this big fiasco. I will not allow this blog to be one of them. If you comment on this post, and the main point you make is political, I will delete it. I have a bachelors in politics and international studies. I have a few opinions on all these subjects myself, all of which have evolved since visiting here. I'd love to discuss them with you, but not here. If you want to learn more from me, contact me directly. If you don't know how to do that, you'll find links to email me scattered around this blog-- if you feel passionate enough to ask me about my experience, you'll feel passionate enough to search for the link.

Rule number two: for the purposes of this post, I am going to take biblical/torah/koranic stories at face value. This doesn't mean I believe all three, it just means I don't feel like wasting time writing "alleged," "supposed," or "possibly the place where some people think that" a hundred times. Also, I realize some of these come into conflict, so if I mention for example, the place where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, there is no need to point out that according to Islam, he actually almost sacrificed Ishmael, not Isaac. I get it, but once again, this isn't the place to debate these points.

Rule number three: most of you can skip this one, this is for legal purposes. Online blogs, including this one, are not reliable sources of fact. Even if the source can be legally traced to the real author (doubtful at best) the subject writing may very well be fictional. Photos posted online can be photoshopped. Legal proof of a person's entry into any state, Israel included, requires an immigration of that state stamp inside that person's passport. Keep that in mind when deciding whether to give me a visa to your country.

Now that that is out of the way, we can get to the fun part.

Let's go to Jerusalem. I'm walking down a street of beautifully preserved old city, inside the stone walls and stone streets, with my backpack. It's Friday, sunset, and I'm dodging Haisidic jews scurrying to their shabbat shul services and homes, eyes to the uneven ground, tassles and locks swinging, wide-brimmed hats, and sometimes even huge fur hats never falling off their heads. Around the first corner, past my usual falafel stand (one falafel, six sheckels, a bargain here, more than three times the price of falafel in Syria), I hit the Muslim quarter. I didn't have to come here to hear the sunset call to prayer. A couple Korean tourists are squeezing past an Ethiopian tour group, making their way through the food stalls and past the electronics shop, all in the shadow of the houses that sometimes turn this street into a tunnel. I squeeze through, careful not to pivot and knock someone over with my bag. Souvenir merchants say hello. I say hello back without stopping and ignore the invitation to come inside for a "nice price." I smile and nod to a group of three soldiers, the one of the girls smiles and nods back. The guy and the other girl don't notice. Continuing, I hit a break in the stores to see a stone wall in the tunnel and a door with a sign. The walls are lined with people holding papers and singing in Spanish. Someone holds up a large wooden cross, and they make their way to follow him, past the Palestinian tourist shops, singing to Jerusalem not to cry. I bob and weave to get in front of them before they meet the other foot traffic, including a Palestinian teenager balancing a twin mattress on his head, trying to go the opposite direction.

I'm still running over some of the things I learned from the protesters in East Jerusalem who were released from jail that afternoon, and the Palestinian family that had been kicked out of their house and replaced. I was sort of sorry to leave the hostel since it had such interesting people, including a new yorker, out of the country for the first time, who had come to help with a program in Gaza. But the dorms were way too cramped, and the price was too high. I still didn't get the logic behind giving a Korean-born American behind us a lower price for the same thing and then just saying "Japanese price" when asked. I was headed to a couchsurfing host anyway, so I should still meet more people.

I got a little lost after leaving the old city from Jaffa gate. I thought the shopping row, filled with North face, Colombia Sportsware, Rolex, and other brand name stores would head closer to Zion Square, but it didn't. The channukah sale signs were still up in some of them. I stopped to ask someone how to get to the square, and he answered in perfect American English. Not learned American English, this was the real thing. I'm sure I would've seen this guy as a college football game back home. Walking down the street, I see and hear Americans everywhere. The old city amazed me for its diversity, but this place is where I've seen more Americans than anywhere since I've been home. I'm almost there.

It's not the only thing familiar about this country. Like Australia or the United States, this is a country of immigrants. They come for different reasons than they do back home, but it results in a much more diverse country than I expected.

Having tourists come from all over the world helps the diversity bit. Because when you have the last Jewish temple's wall (western/waling wall), the tomb of Christ (church of the holy sepulchre), and the place Mohammed ascended into heaven (dome of the rock) all five minutes' walk from each other, you are going to get a lot of attention. No matter which quarter you are in, you will pass row upon row of shops selling "Free Palestine" t-shirts, menorahs, and catholic crucifixes without any apparent contradiction.

That's just the old city of Jerusalem. In the last week, I've been staying with Photography students in the new city, hanging out with a Math student and electronic music composer in Tel Aviv, eating poyke a stew made on a bonfire in Be'er Sheva, capital of the Negev desert, and then two more places that I just can't confine to a list.

The first was Bethlehem, Christmas Eve. Mary and Joseph found no room at the inn when they came on Christmas without any reservations. Figuring I'd learned from their example, I got a hostel bed in Jerusalem and caught the one-hour bus across the checkpoint, figuring I'd just visit for the festivities and go back sometime before dawn.

I mentioned the checkpoint? Bethlehem is in the West Bank. I got on the bus in the Jewish state of Israel, listening to the sunset call to prayer from the mosque. I got off the bus and felt like I'd stepped into a parallel universe. I was in the same country, but I was back in the Arab world. More, I was in Palestine. I walked down the dark streets with the same three word phrase running through my head like a broken record: "This is it."

The streets were quiet, I didn't see any signs, but I did see a lot of taxis headed one way. I followed them, and soon saw lights in the sky. I followed the light in the heavens to the place where Jesus was born. What I found was a massive square, packed with people, (mostly Arab men), watching a concert in, of all languages, Spanish.

I weaved through the crowd to the meeting spot we had chosen for the couchsurfing event I organized. I took care to pick a spot that wouldn't be blocked by the stage. What I failed to plan for was the Palestinian Authority security truck and six soldiers with automatic weapons that blocked it instead. Apparently these are things you need to take into consideration in the West Bank. I still managed to find a couple of the people I'd organized. The first, when he saw me gave a grin and a sarcastic "nice going, group leader." I probably deserved that, especially since we then got separated less than half an hour later figuring we'd find each other again without any trouble. We never did.

The music and dancers were all part of an event for Christmas that brought artists from all over the world in. There was a surreal moment when it sounded like s band of Scottish bagpipers were playing La Cucarracha, in Palestine, for Christmas. I guess the fact that all the performers after that were Spanish speakers was just a coincidence. Fun party though. I almost got into the packed midnight church service after, thanks to a British Muslim and a group of Polish nuns, but it fell apart thanks to a low cellphone battery. So I watched chunks from the press van, seeing clips of Mahmoud Abbas in attendance, among others.

The next day, Christmas day, was the start of a completely different experience. I was in the West Bank again, just a few miles away from Bethlehem, but to the people who lived in each place, each felt closer to Paris or Beijing than they did to each other.

Adin, a Rabbi who'd immigrated from Cleveland almost two years ago, picked me up in the southern end of Jerusalem and gave me a ride along the Israeli security wall to his family's home in the 25-year-old Israeli town of Efrat. He explained that the wall was put there to protect motorists from sniper attacks. I'm trying to decide which got my attention more, that explanation, or his wife Bracha's greeting when I entered their home: "Hello there! Welcome to the West Bank, you are now officially a settler! How does it feel?"

I'd come to experience Shabbat with an orthodox family. From sundown to sundown, I wore a kippah and prayed with the family, mostly observing the strict rules for the day of rest, including no active use of electricity (fire), no touching money, and, the killer for me, no writing.

According to Jewish law, being Jewish can only be inherited from a Jewish mother. My father is Jewish, and I've been to a few pesach seders, lit candles on a menorah for channukah, and spun dreidels around as a kid. But according to orthodox judaism, I am not Jewish. And this was my first time expereincing any kind of Jewish religious ceremony outside of the home.

After sunset, when the writing ban was lifted, I sat down and wrote about what had just happened for more than three hours. This post is far too long as it is. Here's the rediculous summary: lots of prayer, lots of song, lots of food.

Oh man, the food.

“Yeah, you know thanksgiving” I was told, “Well we basically have that two times a week.”
They're not kidding. The food there was wonderful, and it came in massive portions. I didn't dine with these people. I feasted with them. Being Jewish on my father's side has hardwired cravings for Challah bread and Matzo ball soup into my system. It's how I am. But I quickly realized that helping myself to second helpings on either was only going to make my life harder when the other courses started appearing. Fresh tart with leeks and sun-dried tomatoes. Chicken slow-cooked with sweet potatoes and figs. Salad using paper-thin slices of apple with dill dressing.

While we ate lunch at a neighbor's house, our host, David, asked me what my favorite part of Israel has been so far. I'd just put in my first mouthful of cholent, a special slow-cooked stew that I thought was just potatoes, beef, and barley from a crockpot, but clearly had half a dozen secret magic ingredients I wasn't going to learn without an apprenticeship somewhere. I pointed down to the rest of my helping with a fork,

“This is making a pretty good argument right now.”

“I wasn't fishing for compliments,” he laughed.

“I know.” I said. They didn't have to. Once again, this was feast prepared and kept warm without active use of electricity or fire. Impressed yet?

There were multiple services across the day at the synagogue. We walked into a room of men, with women behind curtains sections in the back, reading in Hebrew, some rocking back and forth, sometimes taking a few steps forward and back or bowing, first and the knees, then the waist. There was no obvious leader, everybody (but me) knew exactly what they should be reading an how to do it. All of it was half-sung. It sounded like an a cappella orchestra warming up. I did my best to follow along with a siddur that had both Hebrew and English translations, but not being able to read Hebrew, I was never totally sure where we were. But just observing the serive was a thing in itself. Also the people doing it.

It wasn't until the third of these services that I noticed two of the guys were armed-- one with handgun in a hip holster, the other shoved down the back of his pants, gangster-style. One of the rules of the sabbath is that you live by the rules. You don't die by them. If you need to break them to save your life, you break them. Still a bit of a wakeup call.

At one point I asked the kids if they had any non-Jewish friends. They thought and said no. One of them remembered one who wasn't born Jewish. That was it. They'd immigrated from Cleveland a year and a half ago. It's a different world from the one I grew up in.

All in all, it was an enjoyable and eye-opening experience. Even if I didn't always feel like I agreed with everyone around me, I felt that was just more Jewish tradition. I still remember being told at my one seder in a Hillel "If you put ten Jews in a room, you'll get eleven opinions." The family and everyone I met in the community were wonderful hosts to me and taught me a great deal about the orthodox Jewish way of life, and I'm very grateful for that.

Next up, before returning to Jordan (and actually seeing some of it this time) I think it's time to see life on the other side of the wall. Ramallah is calling.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Seeds of Conflict

2009-12-19T00:26:00.000-08:00

I had my old room back in Damascus. Three beds, second floor in an ancient house that used to have about twice as many right angles as it used to. I was looking at a piece of paper in my hand. It was exit tax receipt for five hundred Syrian Pounds-- around $11. On the back was a girl's name where mine should have been. The Syrian authorities had mixed up a few of these when four American passports without visas had come across their desk at the border crossing from Lebanon that morning. I read the name again. A part time firefighter with the Forest Service and a part time freelance writer, she'd written "journalist' as her occupation in her entrance form. Her visa application was denied ("not" the Syrain authorities were quick to tell us "because of her occupation"). I wondered where she and her sister had gone. Lev, a friend I'd met in Syria and re-met in Beirut, and I had gone on after being granted visas about two hours later.

I put away the slip, chucked my bag on my bed and started getting things out. The door opened, and one of my two roommates walked in. He was a quiet, well-dressed guy, about my age, with glasses and a shy smile. I slowly got him to open up. His name was Mohammad, and he was from the UK, studying in Cambridge. Actually he was born in Afghanistan. Actually his family was Iranian, but his mother still lived in Kabul. I asked him if he was asked a lot of the same questions over and over when people found out he was from Afghanistan. He said no, not really. I guess people are too intimidated. He asked me about my interest in the Middle East. I told him that, after the Bush administration, there were a lot of misconceptions about the region floating around the US, and that I thought the best way to combat them was to visit, learn something, and encourage others to do the same. Frankly I'm surprised I got him to talk so much. I got the distinct impression most people never got him past Cambridge.

A few hours later, I was upstairs, chasing a wireless signal for my laptop, I heard an older woman with an American accent come in and ask someone something. She was told that beer was kind of hard to find in Damascus. She said she understood. I heard Lev come in and say something. Turned out they'd both traveled South America. They were still talking about it after I'd gotten my email and left to get something to eat.

The next morning, the breakfast area was quiet. The American woman, whose name I never did catch, was sitting at a center table. I went to say good morning to the lady cooking breakfast, came back, and sat opposite the American woman a seat or two down. We started talking with a simple nod and smile, as Americans tend to do. Turned out she'd been on the road five months longer than I, on a slower and more complete route of Latin America and Europe before coming to the Middle East. She said she loved it and she really hated to go home to the US, but that she'd have to soon.

She'd had kind of a rough time over the last few days though, and was glad to be back in a hostel. She'd come over the border from Lebanon a week or so ago, and hadn't gotten across until past dark. She was nearly seventy years old. I expressed the disbelief called for and how impressed I was that she was traveling solo. She smiled and said it meant didn't much like going on her own into town after dark. A nice Syrian man came up to help her some. What with one thing or another, they ended up figuring out they'd save money by getting an apartment together in town. Nothing romantic about it, they would be on separate floors with separate everything. The police didn't like the idea at all, since they weren't married, but the man had told them she was sick and needed someone looking after her. Possibly palms were greased. In any case, it was permitted.

But the two didn't mix.

"And he was so controlling!" She said. "I'd just be sitting there, and he push food in front of me and say 'Eat.' I told him 'thanks, but I'm not hungry,' and he'd get so pushy! 'Eat! Eat!' he'd say! I mean maybe he can boss some poor Muslim woman around like that, but not an American woman!"

I bit my lip, thinking of my friend Stef's advice about Lebanese culture: 'We show you how much we love you by how much we feed you. You show us how much you love us by how much you eat.' I held my tongue, figuring this woman just needed a sympathetic ear to vent to for a while, uninterrupted.

"The last straw," she continued, " was when I went out late one night. We each had keys, right? So I went to leave after he'd gone to bed. I found his key in the lock on the inside. I took it out and put right next to there on the stairs where he couldn't miss it, and then I left. I come back three hours later, and he's furious because I 'locked him in.' The key was right there, I said, but he just kept yelling and carrying on until finally I said that's it, I'm leaving."

I think this was around the time Mohammad came and quietly sat down to breakfast opposite me, a chair or two down from the woman.

"But that was just the last of a lot of small things. Like there was the time something was wrong with the TV, or so he said, so he cut off the plug with a pair of scissors! I was like, honey, you're going to electrocute yourself, but he went and stripped the wires and stuck the bare ends right into the socket.

"And then there was the praying! These Muslims, they do this five times a day. I'd he'd hear him upstairs yelling, banging on things, carrying on, and I had no idea what he was doing!"

This didn't match up with what I knew of Muslim prayer. It always looked very quiet and subdued to me. The loudest part I could think of was maybe washing up beforehand and rolling out a rug. Face Mecca, run through a few postures like bowing with your hands on you knees or kneeling and touching your forehead to the ground, and quietly say things like "Allah akbar" (God is great).

"Then there was this lady who was the neighbors-- no he was the neighbor's second wife. Second. The poor thing had to stand in a shop all day, and when she was done go right back into her part of the apartment. Sometimes we'd have her over for dinner and hoo boy did she smell! I mean she must not have bathed! I'd offer her our shower, I'd ask 'would you like to use our shower' and she'd always say no."

I thought about all the perfumes I'd been offered and all the important cleaning rituals I'd seen in the region. This wasn't making sense. Was she exaggerating for sympathy, or was she really meeting outliers? Both? I refrained from interrupting until she'd come back to "these Muslims" and the prayer thing.

"I don't know what he was doing up there, banging away, talking to his God, and maybe his God was talking back to him. I just hoped he wasn't telling him to kill the infidel downstairs!"

"I think that's unlikely." I said, laughing nervously, hoping that was just a joke in bad taste rather than a real fear. My commitment to let her vent uninterrupted broke a few minutes later when she leaned forward and said, conspiratorily,

"You know, these are the people that strap bombs to themselves."

"Whoa, okay," I said, "that's not part of Islam."

"Oh I know" she said "I've seen some of the crazies we've got at home! There's that preacher on TV, whats his name, who is calling for us to drop the Bomb on someone! He thinks we have to start the next world war to bring about the book of Revelations! I mean-"

"Why," Mohammad said slowly, "are you in a Muslim country if you hate its culture?"

"I'm sorry" she said quickly, "I shouldn't have said that."

"No, don't apologize to me. That was extremely rude and offensive, what you just said."

"You're right, I'm sorry I said it."

"I don't care! Why don't you go back to your vulgar American lifestyle."

"I... well, I don't know what to do. I've said I'm sorry, and you won't accept my apology, so I'm sorry." And she left.

Mohammad looked at me, his attitude changing visibly as he remembered that I too came from that 'vulgar American lifestyle.' He quietly apologized. I did as well as I got up, simply asking him to remember that there are 300 million of us, and not all of us are alike."

A couple hours later, Lev and I were outside, heading out to cross another border, this time into Jordan. I told him what happened. He said he'd heard her say a little about how she'd been having a hard time the last couple days, but hadn't gone into specifics. He also said she'd revealed that the reason she had to go back to the US was that she'd just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

I think I learned something that day about where these conflicts come from.

Insert Multiple Updates Here

2009-12-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

I remember a time when I had all the internet access I wanted, and I had to sit down and think pretty hard before I could think of something I thought worth putting up on this blog. I gotta tell you, times have changed.

I've wanted to update several times over the last couple weeks, but couldn't. So I've got a backlog of adventures. Since I last put up an update that wasn't a tip, I've been to at least five different towns, two different major Roman ruins, multiple castles, a gorgeous river valley between snowcapped mountains, one of the most impressive caves I've ever seen, some of the oldest and most atmospheric Arabian bazaars in existence, some thumping nightlife and great live music, and, to my shame, because we really didn't have any other affordable options that didn't involve getting soaking wet, a McDonalds. Being able to say I've tried a McArabia sandwich almost makes it worth it. Almost.

That's the stuff I can put up in pictures and leave out of the update without feeling like I've missed something. That does not include the hijinks I've ended up in around here I couldn't explain with one photo and a two-sentence caption. Like talking my way through military checkpoints and discreetly following a nine-man armed patrol just to try some raw beef ground literally into a paste. The fat private guard told me to. And the meal was really tasty.

I've turned down the Hezbollah t-shirts being sold in their founding city of Baalbek. Even at US$3, I doubt they'd make my life easier over the next few weeks, especially seeing as I've somehow ended up in charge of planning a massive gathering of strangers in Bethlehem for Christmas eve and morning. Rumor has it the IDF is also selling a few T-shirts themselves, but seeing as Bethlehem is in the West Bank... did I mention I might be spending that evening in an orthodox Jewish household to observe shabbat? As in sundown, December 25^th?

This is my life in the middle east.

My academic specialty is international politics. Even mentioning this region to a room of international poli-sci people has a similar effect to tossing something small and furry into a tank of sharks and piranhas. It's not pretty. So, while I have a lot to say on the subject, I'm going to try to avoid writing about the political aspect. You can't do that completely, but I'll at least limit it to the tangible things I saw and heard.

While I'd love to tell you the stories of my having to disarm a ten-year-old with a knife in Palmyra and sitting in the midst of the last professional storyteller of Syria while he shouted and whacked his table with a stick, I've already done one post on Syria. Since then I've been to Lebanon and back, and I haven't said a word about it yet. So we're going to talk (very very briefly) about that country instead.

I'm used to seeing cops around. I've even gotten used to seeing them alongside soldiers in camo and berets, strapped with automatic weapons, guarding buildings with razor wire. I'm not used to seeing them manning strategically fortified positions with sandbags and cement roadblocks, and I'm definitely not used to seeing them in the street with tanks. Welcome to Beirut, 2009.

I've been to countries hit by war before. El Salvador. Vietnam. Bosnia. As always, I'm impressed by the damage, but I'm much more impressed by seeing life keep going, and finding people as happy as some people in places that haven't seen war in centuries. But El Salvador's civil war was during the cold war. Vietnam's war with the US was during the cold war. The last war of the former Yugoslavia was in the 1990s.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006. Not before I was born, not before I was tying my own shoes. This war was happening the same time I and those my age were half way through college.

When you think jeeps, soldiers, and tanks in the streets, you think of a city that has been shut down. Let me tell you, Beirut is a lot of things, but, aside from the blocks surrounding the parliament building, shut down is not one of them. Traffic of luxury SUVs and sedans jam up the streets between thumping bars and clubs, long beaches, sparkling high rise apartments, and a new, spotless modern downtown shopping district.

The military presence is off-putting at first, but that's before you look at it closely. Once you get past the M-16 strapped around his neck, you're likely to notice the soldier is rocking back on forth on his heels with his hands in his pockets. The tanks have covers slid over the turrets. The men in berets and camo are at ease, chatting and sometimes showing each other videos on their cell phones. If one waves you over, it's probably just to get you under cover and out of the unseasonable rain they've been having the last week.

There are other little things left over. Power outages, scheduled and unscheduled. A national postage system that doesn't quite exist. Internet connections slower than a hypnotized tortoise. If you ask why, someone will quietly answer "the war," and, if you're respectful, nothing more will be said.

I only saw so much of the little country. It has a lot to see. I manage to time it just when it decided to pour rain for a week, frustrating anyone who wanted to show me the usual sights outdoors, but I still managed at least one sunny day climbing into a gorge surrounded by the sounds of birds and waterfalls, looking up at the hibernating Cedars ski area in on the other side of the ridge. A couple days later, I came back to my Beirut hotel around 3:30 am from dancing at a bar called cloud 9. I woke up the next morning at 8:30am and could hear the nearest club still blasting dance music.

And I wonder why I'm so sleepy right now.

It's been fun, the places have been great, and I'm full of funny, profound, and just plain bizarre stories, but we'll have to save them for another outlet. I'm going to call it a night soon. My connection might be good enough to get to Middle East album in place with the others. If not, I apologize, I hopefully will have better luck tomorrow in my next country: Jordan.

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Check out this entry's Photos.

Travel Tip: How to Sleep on Buses, Trains, and Planes

2009-12-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

Sleeping on moving vehicles packed with people is a skill. It can be learned. Some people are naturals at it, but most have to practice a few times before they get good. There are techniques which help you get better at it more quickly.

If you're an independent traveler on a budget, this is a skill you'll want. Spending a night on a train or a bus saves you the money you'd spend on a hotel or hostel. It also means you can hop on a bus for 12+ hours, if you really just want to get from point a to b, and that's the simplest and cheapest way to get it done.

Like a lot of things in life, there's no one "right" way to do this, but I do know a few tricks that work for me. I'm going to be writing this the most common (and next-to-hardest) situation in mind: something that has you sleeping in a single reclining seat with people next to you. I'll say "bus" throughout this next example, but this applies equally to many trains, most airplanes, and some boats.

Getting to sleep easily for me is all about routine. If I can do all the little things that signal to my body that it's bedtime, it's a lot easier to sleep in something uncomfortable and un-bedlike than if I've just been running around in circles drinking red bulls. I don't drink caffeine (or taurine) right before bed, so I don't do that if I'm about to sleep on a bus. I usually brush and floss my teeth before I go to bed, so I try hard to make sure I do that before going to sleep on a bus. Learn to do this with just a water bottle and a place you can spit without making anyone mad, and you'll go far. If you have a bathroom with a working sink on the bus, take advantage of it. To do so, you'll need your toothbrush, etc. in your carry on bag, so decide when and where this will happen before you check any bags.

This next trick might seem a little extreme, but it works for me. I never recline my seat unless I want to sleep, or unless the seat is just leaning forward too far (Japanese Shinkansen, anyone?). This means, after a few times, my body associates a reclined seat with sleep, and drifts off more easily when I lean back. Also this means to really wake myself up in the morning, I just return the sight to its upright position.

I tend to sleep more easily in the dark. Light (especially sunlight) wakes me up very quickly. So, before I sleep I blindfold myself. This keeps me asleep whenever we go through a bright town or the lights come on. There are cute little eyemasks for this purpose everywhere, but I just tie my bandana around my eyes. As a warning, with either method, friends will sometimes find this kind of cute and hilarious, and will show you the pictures they took of you while you slept the next morning. You'll get used to it.

Next is simple comfort. Most of this is mental, these seats aren't going to be very obliging. If you obsess about the one thing that's poking you or doesn't feel right, shift a bit and concentrate on the parts that are comfortable. An inflatable neck pillow can help, though I don't have one. What I usually do is just make sure I'm not too hot or cold, and then use something as a cover, usually my jacket. I'm used to having a cover on a bed when I sleep, and this mimics that enough to put me to rest.

Know what kind of noise level lets you go to sleep, and get it. I sleep best with no noise, or maybe some white noise like rain, so I use earplugs. I personally prefer swimmer's rubber earplugs to the cheap foam kind, but try a couple different ones to see what works best for you. If you're like some of my friends who usually go to sleep with a TV on, get some noise-blocking earbud headphones. They don't have to be fancy, the $6 pair with the fitted rubber buds work almost as well as the fancy electronic noise canceling types, and are usually a lot less conspicuous. A pair of those and your mp3 player (or anything else that does music) should do the trick nicely. Make sure your music device is tucked away somewhere that's not obvious to any would-be thieves.

While we're on the subject, make sure your belongings are safe. On buses, you can usually check them into the compartment below. Trains are trickier. If you're on a bunk, there's sometimes a space underneath you can put your bag that can't be accesed without lifting up your bunk. if you're on a top bunk, just sleep holding your bag or with it possibly tied to you somehow. It's actually a lot easier and more comfortable than it sounds. On airplanes, rest easy. With that many flight attendants hovering around and the paranoid air about any kind of security, you can just about dangle half an electronics store and jewelry shop across your lap and wake up with all of it there in eight

Finally a few specific notes for airplanes. Do yourself a favor and do not watch the movie unless you'll have enough to time between its ending and half an hour before landing to sleep. If you're on an airplane ride long enough to sleep on, chances are good you're making a big time zone change. As soon as you board, change your watch to the time zone you will arrive in, and try to mentally shift to that time. The meal schedule won't always oblige, but just think of whatever meal it is as being oddly early or late (or just think, "hey! breakfast for lunch!"). And sleep no matter what. Think of it either as a daytime nap or you nighttime sleep, whichever makes more sense depending on the current time in your destination. These, combined with holding out until bedtime to really sleep in your destination will help prevent jet lag.

The bad news? None of these tricks will work the first time you try them. It took me two straight nights on buses for them to really solidify. the first night I barely slept, and then the next night I was so exhausted that I slept like a log. I don't really recommend such a crash course (though I will say three consecutive nights on transport will make you an expert at falling asleep just about anywhere). My point is, that it will be a few times before you'll be able to drift off normally on these things. Like I said in the beginning, it's a skill, and it will take practice. Best of luck, and sweet dreams.

American in the Middle East

2009-12-05T03:04:00.000-08:00

Traveling as an American alone in the Middle East is fraught with risk. I have learned this the hard way. Without warning, you might be kidnapped, fed, whisked through the town sights, taken into a stranger's home, fed (again), and tossed in a very comfortable bed, have your captors drop everything to show you whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, and then finally shower you with a ridiculous number of gifts when you finally convince them you need to leave.

I should have taken it as a warning sign when I was given a free coke, tea, AND coffee when I was just sitting around waiting at the border for my visa application to be processed. But it was still a surprise when, after my bus-to-minibus-to-minibus transport to Aleppo, I had walked less than half a block when two Arab guys my age saw me ask directions from a shopkeeper and asked if I wanted a hotel. I was friendly, but a little evasive, figuring they were touts trying to get me to stay at *their* hotel. But they just wanted to help me find a place. Then they asked if I was hungry. We went into a fast food place, I tried to pay, and was strenuously opposed. Then it was time for evening prayer, so they asked if I wanted to see the grand mosque. A few hours later, I was sitting in one of their uncle's houses, polishing off a home-cooked meal with homemade ice cream and homemade chocolates with hazelnuts and being told by everyone in the room that I should “feel at home” for however long I liked.

At one point about midway through the evening, we passed by a historic lane filled with traditional candy shops. Tareq, my eventual host, mentioned that candy was a traditional gift in Arab society. I immediately took the hint, and said I wanted to buy them some. But the plan completely backfired when Tareq and his buddy physically barred me from paying while they got out their own wallets. “Come on,” Tareq said, as he handed me the bag of sweets, “it would make us very very sad if you paid.”

And the trend continued for three meals out, at least ten rides in taxis, tea in a traditional hammam, two CDs of Arab music, a set of Muslim prayer beads, a Syrian flag keychain, and a build-your-own jewelry box with an Arabic inscription congratulating someone on completing the Hajj (pilgrimage).

Lonely Planet guidebooks usually have a color section in the front with their highlights of whatever country or region you are visiting. In the China guide, this had things like the Heavenly Temple in Beijing, The Great Wall etc. In Australia, it had the Great Barrier Reef, Ayer's Rock, etc. In my guide to the Middle East, one of the highlights is listed on the last color page: Syrian People. I've learned why pretty fast.

Overall it's been a pretty intense cultural experience, I've spent the last couple months in similar places where I was seeking out the differences between the place I was and my home. Now I'm back to territory so different that I'm seeking out the similarities between here and home instead. Just crossing the border, even from another majority Muslim country like Turkey, I really had to take a second to just absorb the scene, the carpet sellers, a couple camels, the uud and drum music playing through loudspeakers, the long, flowing clothes the men wore, the veils of the women, and mosque a ways across the rocky desert. There's something rewarding about a place seeming just how you imagined it.

Inside the house in Aleppo were a couple implicit guidelines. There were a couple times when I went to exit a room and was told to wait a few minutes. Even at one point when I went into my room to grab something, Tareq came after me, and said I wait to wait a second to exit again into the hallway. It didn't take long to put this together with the fact that I'd been introduced to the uncle, a brother, and two male cousins, and that they were the only ones I'd seen in the house. The men and women do not mix, even in the home.

The kids too were separate. When I sat down to eat with the men of the house, the kids would stick their head in and out occasionally, and the oldest would sit there to obey orders from the patriarch, like filling empty glasses with tea or bringing sugar when needed. Before leaving for school, the littlest ones would line up to kiss their father's hand and tap it to their forehead, the traditional way to ask for the elder's blessing.

Tareq asked me at one point why people in the west are afraid of Muslims. I answered the best I could, explaining that most people in the west don't really know Islam or Muslims, they only know news reports about war and terrorist attacks in the middle east. I don't know if I'm right, and I'm sure there's more to it when it comes to perceived and real differences in culture. But a lot of the stuff that seems strange to me as a modern American is stuff I've either seen elsewhere or that I knew happened where I'm from in our past. In Mexico the kids don't usually leave the parents house until they get married. Not all that long ago, Christian women were expected to cover their heads, especially in Church. Yes, the veil is a bit different from a bonnet, but does it justify the attitudes we hold?

I'd encourage anyone who actually wants to learn about this to come check it out. Just be careful, you might get abducted by Arabian hospitality.

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Houses of Earth and Wind

2009-11-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last couple of days living in a cave. I recommend it highly.

People here in Cappadocia have been living in caves for thousands of years now. The caves are man-made, and they've been carved into the super-soft rock, known as tuf. The rocks come up in peaks, and if you look closely, a lot of them have little holes in them for windows. Some of them are little one-room caves, but not all. Many Christians in Roman times holed up (sorry) inside these caves and even made churches out of them. There are elaborate altars with 1000-year old frescos of Jesus, Mary, the Prophets, and other biblical characters. Unfortunately, a lot of them have been defaced. I mean that literally, their faces are gone. It's a combination of Christians (among others) taking a piece for good luck and Muslims and also early Christians removing the face intentionally-- the eyes first because early Christians felt that Jesus was watching them, and then the rest because images of all kinds, but especially of holy people, are forbidden by Islamic tradition.

After catching a bus from my cave hotel in Ürgüp and hiking through the Rose Valley filled with abandoned cave houses and churches, I came to the abandoned village of Çavuşin. It's not just a set of caves, its a vertical labyrinth. The picture you see here is a view from near the top, looking at the rest of town.

It's been a long time since I've had so much fun exploring a place. I was traversing ledges, finding tunnels and hidden stairways, following the wind through the cracks to find little nooks with fantastic views over the valley. I couldn't decide whether I felt more like I was in an Indiana Jones movie or just an adult-sized McD PlayPlace made out of stone.

But that place was a little vertical tube compared to the underground cities. There are hundreds of known underground cities, and one of the biggest open to the public is in Kaymakli. If you've ever wondered what the inside of an anthill looks like to an ant, I think this might come pretty close. It's an eight story (five excavated) network of underground tunnels, pits, and caverns. This is the kind of thing you think must exist only in fairy tales. Let me tell you, the real world is full of them. Not as full as you might like, and not usually in the places you think they would be, but they're there.

My only complaint? The days are too short to enjoy the place. Though of course that doesn't stop enjoying things like Turkish food, or even more so, the company of the Turkish people themselves.

I feel like the vast majority of places I go, people are friendly to travelers, but in Turkey, especially here in Cappadocia, the people take it a step further. I've lost track of the number of times people have come over, just to ask me where I'm from, and try to talk with a mix of my phrasebook-Turkish and their high-school-English. They're almost always smiling, happy to see me, and often aren't satisfied until they've given me some hot tea in one of their trademark tulip-shaped glasses. When I leave, they want to know when I'm coming back.

I think my Turkish vocab runs about to "Hello", "Do you speak English", "I don't speak Turkish", "Please," "Thanks," "What's that," "Toilet" and "Where's the bus stop." It doesn't matter if those are the only words we have in common, I still get a seat, a tea, a lot of smiles, and any kind of help I can figure out how to ask for. I remember the word for yes, but I keep forgetting the word for no. I wonder if that has anything to do with why people seem to like me so much here...

Before coming to Turkey, I figured out that I had a dozen or so friends who just happened to be connected to Turkey or really like Turkey, and I was a little surprised at the coincidence. Now I know it isn't a coincidence at all.

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PS. Happy Thanksgiving from Turkey! I'd say "no pun intended," but I was taught that lying is a bad bad thing.