...globetrotting

Italia, Day 1 (Venice)

2011-07-23T17:08:00.014-04:00

Dear world,

I am pretty lazy about writing blog entries. So I present to you, straight from my journal in list form, my first (and part of my second) day in Venice last April. I am aware that it is now July. sorry about that.

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ON GETTING HERE FROM THE AIRPORT
Boarding the Alilaguna boats to get from the airport to the city-- just barely didn't make it onto the Orange line boat (which would have taken me directly to my hotel) and instead of waiting another hour decided to take a different line that dropped me off in the touristy but scenic San Marco Square.
Live orchestra?? What?!
Venice is breathtaking. Like Frederica (my seatmate on the plane) said, the whole city is a museum, a throwback. It's like it just... stopped. Somewhere in the fifteenth century.
LOST on the way to the Hotel Belle Epoque
rain. gross.

THOUGHTS ON MY DINNER

This meatball is spectacular. Wow. What did they DO to it?
Heavily seasoned pasta in red sauce with shrimp. Big shrimp. With heads. And claws. Kind of a musky taste, entirely reminiscent of everything that is the sea... the kind of salty heaviness of it, but also a bit enigmatic. Shrimp of Mystery.
Bread: dry and not good. Disappointing.
Tablemates: Randy and Maureen Reddington from Jersey City (holy Jersey accent, Batman). Visiting daughter studying abroad in Rome. Very nice and talkative dinner companions, from basketball to contract law.

THE SIGHTS

Walked around all day, but thoroughly explored San Polo and San Croce via getting lost a lot. It seemed like mostly locals in these areas.
You can get un-lost by following tourists! They are all going to the Rialto bridge. Or San Marco square.
Rialto produce markets! mmmmmm. also gelato.
Museum Scuola Grande di San Rocca-- breathtaking baroque art. Just another beautiful building in venice, except the walls are almost entirely covered with dramatic Biblical paintings by Tintoretto and his studio. A spiritual experience, for sure.

First view of Venice from the Alilaguna ferry boat

And then there was a live orchestra in San Marco Square. For some reason.

A canal, as viewed from the Vaporetto (water bus)

First view of the Rialto bridge!

The ubiquitous gondolieri

My room at the Hotel Belle Epoque-- just big enough to fit this bed, with a tiny bathroom attached

Dinner!

Continental breakfast at the Hotel Belle Epoque

Lobby of the Hotel Belle Epoque

Picture I snapped at the Scuola Grande before getting yelled at by a docent

The tasty-looking Rialto produce market

Look at that! I guess they have a summer home.

Amster-amster-dam-dam-dam

2011-04-04T18:23:00.002-04:00

It is always a little unnerving to strike out into totally unknown territory… but there is nothing quite like the feeling of satisfaction and contentment that only comes after you have successfully navigated a labyrinthine tangle of strange streets and found yourself happily peoplewatching, cappuccino and journal in hand. So I found myself this afternoon in the curious city of Amsterdam, which seemed to be blissfully unaware of my meddlesome presence. I had only a few hours to spend-- an unexpectedly quick run through customs had left me with a rather long layover and only a twenty-minute train ride between me and a city (and country) I'd never before visited.

So, I boarded the train to the Amsterdam Centraal station, with no plans but a vague idea that I might walk around for a bit and get lunch. I had no map, nor any idea of the city's layout, so I simply walked wherever I thought would be interesting. As it happens, steps away from the railroad station is the center of the red light district, which I of course chose to meander into. In my defense, part of the reason Amsterdam is so bizarre is that this setting (at least by the light of day) coexists quite peacefully with all the trappings of any quaint, historic European city-- quiet cobblestone streets, the occasional canal, friendly cyclists whizzing by, a plethora of cafes and charming restaurants, and dozens of lurid sex shops. Obviously.

The strangest thing to me, in keeping with this odd juxtaposition of scandalous and sedate, was the great diversity of the tourists wandering the streets. Even on the roads that were completely devoted to sex and drugs (including one shop that had about ten different varieties of marijuana seeds-- grow your own!), there were men and women of all ages. It was a far cry from the sad-looking middle aged men and disreputable UK college boys that I'd expected to be Amsterdam's exclusive clientele.

However, in the middle of the day I wasn't too concerned with my surroundings, approaching the whole idea of Amsterdam with the eyes of a curious traveller rather than a somewhat squeamish twenty-two-year-old with a tendency to avoid public displays of sexuality. I made my way through the narrow streets with no particular goal. On one pathway, I nearly tripped over a golden cobblestone that was raised from the others; on a second inspection, it was a small bronze statue of a single hand fondling a pair of breasts. No torso, just a disembodied chest rising out of the ground outside a mom-and-pop-looking pizza place. In any case, I suddenly found myself in Dam Square, which I guess is a hub for Amsterdamians. There was an obelisk and a piazza, a few churches and an official-looking government building, flying what I think is the unofficial amsterdam flag (see below). The myriad accordion players and organ grinders made me think I was in Paris for a moment.

It was here that I found three things: a good cup of coffee, a generous allotment of words to write, and the long-lost feeling of slow, exuberant joy that seeps into me whenever I am exploring a new place. Welcome back, my friend.

(Here are some pictures-- I don't have a camera cable with me, so I stole them from the internet)

Dam Square

Flag of Amsterdam

(I got this image from the Amsterdam Church of Christ website. I kid you not.)

Amsterdam Centraal Train Station

Spain in pictures

2011-04-04T07:09:00.007-04:00

Hey everyone-- I am currently sitting in the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, in the middle of a long layover on my way to a scientific conference in Venice. I'll hopefully be blogging about my experiences there but in the meantime here are some pictures from my July/August 2010 trip to Los Canos de Meca, Spain... sorry there's no story to go with it!

Sunset by the beach near the Kooy home

R-L: Juan, Raphi, Elke, Gianlucca

Norma and Angel walking to the beach

Half-liter (?!) mojitos

Norma and I relaxing out of the hot sun in Seville

Beautiful Norma

Two children outside a fountain in Seville

Cathedral in Cadiz

Norma pointing out where we live!

Beautiful Elke

Sunset at El Palmar

Morocco In Pictures

2010-07-18T18:40:00.011-04:00

Here's a small sample of the hundreds of pictures I took in Morocco. They're in chronological order and should form a fairly continuous photojournal of the trip.

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Sunrise from a plane is way cool

Beach at Essaouira

Ryan!

the room in Nalika's house where we stayed

probably my favorite thing I ate in Morocco: tajine kefta. G beef, eggs, and vegetables in a simmering hot clay pot. mmmmm.

The Djemma el-Fna, main square of Marrakech

Koutoubia mosque at dusk

The medina of Marrakech...

...where they sell pretty much anything...

...and I mean ANYTHING.

Spices for sale in the souqs

Just a fraction of the chaos of the Djemma-el-Fna at night

at the base of Toubkal: Imlil

The beginning of the climb

Crossing through the floodplain before Aroumd

Taking a few minutes off and jumping into this awesome waterfall

a great break for sore toes

interesting cooling method

The Refuge. Not of the Newsies variety, sadly.

whatchoo lookin at foo

Sunrise between the peaks

Light and shadow on the mountainside

Yeah, we climbed that. It's pretty much vertical.

Finally at the summit

Looking out over the Atlas

4,167m isn't enough for Ryan... he has to grab that extra five

Smug at the summit

Higher! Higher!

One does not simply walk into Mordor.

I think that might be the Sahara, way off in the distance

A casualty of the descent. Note the makeshift tourniquet/bandage, carefully constructed from tissues and a hair tie.

Delicious delicious breakfast. Every day.

Avocado milkshake... who DOES that

Our room in our Fez guesthouse

Hassan's carpet shop

Walls of Fez. That guy there is actually Aladdin.

The evil salad. Little did we know.

From left: Róisín, Elionora, Ryan, Caoilfhionn

The blue walls of Chefchaouen

Last view of Morocco... hello Spain!

Morocco Part V: Chefchaouen and Tangier

2010-07-14T09:41:00.004-04:00

On our last morning in Fez, we set off for the bus station, determined this time to take a CTM bus to our next destination (these are air conditioned, more spacious, and more likely to be on time). However, our efforts were once again stymied; the bus was full. Though we were forced to accede to one of the many touts competing for our business, we had still upgraded from our last bus journey: this one had air conditioning and a bit more leg and head room. For the first time on a Moroccan bus or train journey, we were able to muster up the energy to do more than talk, sleep, or sit miserably-- we even played cards as we watched the scenery piddle by at a snail's pace.

Four hours later we arrived in Chefchaouen, a small town in the Rif mountains. Its higher altitude meant a cooler climate and some key differences in architecture: most notably, almost all of the buildings were made of the same smooth plaster and washed in the same dusty sky blue. The lighter color of the buildings, when added to the relatively small number of people wandering the streets, completely eliminated the slight claustrophobia I'd occasionally felt in other medinas. However, the tourist industry pervaded the town. Though Chefchaouen is reputed to be an artisan center, one couldn't help but feel like most of the shops were selling mass-produced junk (indeed, several times while browsing I came across items that looked like Moroccan treasures but were stamped with ''India'' or ''China''). Chefchaouen is also famous for the easy availability of kif, or marijuana-- I kept count, and we were offered hash or some variant nine times in less than 24 hours. I can't blame the dealers for assuming we were there to buy drugs, considering the average travelers we met; almost all of them had come to the little town for that reason. The non-Moroccan composition of the town, given its reputation, is like something you'd see out of California in the 70s: think dreadlocks, long skirts, and vacant eyes.

Though we weren't there to smoke, we managed to meet some interesting travelers anyway. We rode into town crammed into a taxi with three girls on holiday from Granada, Spain: Elionora from Italy, Róisín from England (pronounced ro-SHEEN), and Caoilfhionn from Ireland (pronounced KWEE-lin. yeah, I know. I have no idea what all those letters are doing in there either). The five of us searched out a cheap hotel, which was relatively easy as things are MUCH cheaper in Chefchaouen-- we secured places at the fairly neat and clean Hotel Andaluz for 50Dh per night per person (about $6 each). Side note: Chefchaouen was also distinct from our previous travels in that we were far enough to the north for Spanish to become useful. This provoked from me a sigh of relief as Ryan, Elionora, Róisín, and Caoilfhionn (yeah, I just wanted to type that name again) were more than able to converse with everyone, leaving me with English or blessed silence.

Next task: food. Lonely Planet helped us out once again, pointing the way to a place that had a great set menu for 40Dh each, including salad, a tajine or couscous, and the most delicious watermelon I'd ever eaten. At the time, the salad aroused no suspicion at all. Ha.

Ryan and I, determined to secure a place at last on the next day's CTM bus to Tangier, trudged down to the bus station to buy tickets. Though it was less than a mile from the medina, the steep streets made it a bit of a hike... and to make matters worse, it was threatening to storm. Climbing the seemingly vertical hills on the way back, we were caught in a veritable tornado of dust and small rocks, blowing up from the streets around us into our clothes, hair, eyes, and mouths. Squinting so narrowly we could barely see, we tried to make our way to the main town. At one point there was so much dust in my eyes that I could no longer keep them open, trusting blindly that Ryan's hand was guiding me in the right direction until the welcoming blue walls of the medina closed out the swirling dirt and debris.

At this point, the girls (being typical Chefchaouen backpackers) had gone off to smoke, while we searched out a good vantage point for the World Cup semifinal between the Netherlands and Uruguay. Soccer has become more and more interesting to me over the course of the World Cup-- I'd love to learn to play, or even just watch a few more games. Afterward, we went for a bit of a walk through the medina, wandering through shops crammed with the aforementioned junk and occasionally coming across an unidentifiable but unquestionably authentic antique. At this point, Ryan began to feel a bit sick, so we returned to the hotel for the night.

He would spend most of the night feeling nauseous and throwing up; Caoilfhionn would wake with a frighteningly painful headache, which would soon be shared by the other two girls. We had all eaten the same thing the preceding day, and the likely culprit was the salad of tomatoes and cucumbers (which we had eaten against all common sense and traveller's advice). That morning, Ryan made a good-faith effort to walk around the medina, but spent most of the time sitting with his back against a wall, sapped of energy by the heat and by sickness. We managed to make it down to the bus station on time to leave Chefchaouen, and finally boarded the CTM bus (which was indeed nicer, more spacious, and air conditioned). This was key as I don't think Ryan would have fared too well on the typical crowded and overheated bus; he remained ill for the entire 3+ hour trip. I somewhat apprehensively waited to suffer the same fate, since I'd eaten exactly the same thing. However, either I have a stomach of steel, or it wasn't the food: I never felt anything.

At this point, very little remains to tell of the epic Morocco story. We got to Tangier in the early evening, checked into a large, fairly industrial budget hotel, and stayed there until late that night as Ryan slept and sweated his way through a high fever and I listened to the city roar in response to various plays of the Spain-Germany semifinal. After a few mishaps being led astray by some Moroccan guy, we found a pizza place (both of us were sick to death of tajine) and collapsed in bed-- me from exhaustion and worry, and Ryan from continuing illness. The next morning, we halfheartedly toured the medina for about twenty minutes before packing up our things. I packed a grumpy and still-slightly-delirious Ryan into a taxi bound for the airport, where he would fly to Madrid and then Miami and then San Francisco to begin his life as a Real Person with a Real Job. I, on the other hand, killed time in overpriced shops and internet cafes for a few hours before hopping on the ferry to Tarifa to begin the next adventure: three weeks as a live-in English coach for a Spanish/German family I'd found on the internet.

Though the end of the Grand Moroccan Tour was slightly anticlimactic, the experience as a whole was unlike any I'd ever had. I wished for an adventure, and got far more than I had bargained for (pun intended). I wanted to be outside my comfort zone, and that's where I went. Travelling from the beaches of Essaouira to the mazelike medinas of Marrakech and Fez to the breathtaking grandeur of Toubkal; meeting and interacting with people as varied as the feisty and adorable 8-year-old Fatim-Selah, the protective and eager Mustafa, and the fiery and independent Róisín; and above all experiencing, fighting through, and thoroughly enjoying these travels with one of my very best friends. I'm profoundly grateful for him and for the incredible memories I'll carry with me from this particular voyage.

HOWEVER... my summer's not over yet! Stay tuned for tales from sunny southern Spain, where I've been for the past week and will remain for two more.

Morocco Part IV: Fez

2010-07-12T21:00:00.001-04:00

The next stop on our Grand Tour of Morocco was the Imperial City of Fez, reputed to be the most intact piece of medieval Arabia in the world. Someone also mentioned that it was the largest carless urban environment in the world (which, after seeing it, I can readily believe). Having learned our lesson about buses, we decided to take a train from Marrakech to Fez; this seemed to be a good idea, as we purchased two hassle-free tickets from an orderly queue inside a clean, spacious, modern-looking train station. Our tickets were second class, so we set off for the appropriately marked cars . . . but there seemed to be two different types of second class. The first, which was fairly full already even with twenty minutes till the train's departure, had compartment seating; the second looked like bench-style train seating, similar to amtrak, with tons of legroom. The latter was almost empty, and had a bit more space, so we took a couple of seats there rather than fight for a compartment.

Turns out the difference was air conditioning (that is, its presence or its absence). We sweated the whole way to Fez, which actually ended up taking us THROUGH Casablanca again. The train was half an hour late getting into the station, so the entire journey took us through almost 8 hours of hellish heat.

After starting a fight at the Fez train station, with taxi drivers angrily vying with each other for our fare, we crept away unnoticed to a nearby gas station, where we caught a relatively hassle-free cab to the medina. I unloaded my bag from the cab's rooftop rack while gaping at the towering, undulating, crenellated white walls before walking into a scene straight out of Aladdin. Gone were the touristy trinkets of Marrakech, replaced by artisans working their magic before your eyes: a cobbler stitching leather shoes, a stonecarver chipping away at a Quranic tablet, a weaver at a loom in a back room just barely visible from a narrow wooden doorway in a mosaic-tiled wall. Produce, spices, and nuts were displayed everywhere, signs advertising them at a pittance. Tiny awnings draped with dozens of beautiful carpets concealed surprisingly spacious shops crammed full of incredible handiwork from the Middle and High Atlas, with persuasive sellers ready to lure you in with a glass of hot mint tea and the ubiquitous promise of a good price. Children ran by with loaves of unbaked bread dough balanced on trays on their heads, presumably to the communal oven that no neighborhood is without (each of over a hundred districts has its own of the five essentials: an oven, a mosque, a koranic school, a public fountain, and a hammam (bathhouse)). The city seemed like it hadn't changed in hundreds of years.

However, some changes became obvious very quickly-- namely, the adjustment to the very profitable tourist trade. Within seconds of our entrance into the medina, we were fending off the usual crowd of young boys and men who wanted to show us their father or brother or cousin's hotel. However, this was the first city we'd visited without any idea at all of where to stay, save for a few names culled from the ever-dependable Lonely Planet. Two young boys peppered us with questions about where we were going and what we were trying to find, undeterred by our attempts to brush them off. They ''took us'' to the hotel we were trying to find, which we could have found perfectly well on our own, but it looked so grim that we turned right back around to find our unwanted escorts still waiting. They insisted they knew of a cheaper and better guesthouse not far away, and herded us onwards, turning us off the main street into a narrow derb. A right turn, a left turn, a right turn, and we found ourselves outside a simple door with an engraved plaque with the name Abari Youssef. The boys ran inside, and we suspiciously followed up a steep mosaic-tiled staircase into a beautiful house. The proprietor bustled down to greet us and showed us a few of the sumptuous rooms, quoting prices that were comparable to or lower than the gloomy hostel we'd just left.

So everyone was happy: we had a great place to stay, the proprietor had guests, and the enterprising boys presumably got their commission. We dropped our bags and set off in search of dinner and perhaps American company-- though we'd forgotten until an English man pointed it out to us, it was in fact the Fourth of July. We found a place that seemed like an expat restaurant, and indeed it was packed full of Europeans (mostly Brits). We isolated the few Americans by eavesdropping on accents, and went over to introduce ourselves and wish a happy Independence Day. No fireworks, flags, or other patriotic trappings, but at least we met some countrymen (which happened very seldom over the course of the trip).

The following day, we struck out with a vague idea of following the listed walking tour, but quickly lost ourselves in a maze worse than any we'd previously encountered. It wasn't an unpleasant sort of lost, though-- Fez has enough to keep anyone's eyes occupied. The sensory overload was more than adequate entertainment for a morning stroll, and distractions (like an avacado milkshake or glass of peach juice) were delicious. It was at one of these stops that we overheard someone speaking English (!) and introduced ourselves to Geoff, from Oklahoma, and Zoë and Lachlan, from-- you guessed it-- Melbourne. I was happy to spend the next few hours wandering around with them, reminiscing about my all-time favorite city. We finally parted ways some time later--them to nap, and us to find lunch/supper.

One of my goals for this trip was to come back bearing a beautiful Arabian carpet as a wedding gift for my sister and new brother-in-law. Fez is famous for its carpets, but also for its carpet sellers: the long, involved process of buying a carpet was so imposing in its reputation that I almost chickened out. However, I set my jaw and went to talk with Hassan, the carpet seller we had passed several times on our way to and from the guesthouse. He seemed very nice and eager to share a piece of his culture with us, although it was clear that a shrewd businessman lurked beneath the hospitable facade. Ryan came along for the ride, and both of us were seated with great formality inside the carpet shop and given glasses of steaming mint tea as Hassan began to explain the intricacies of carpet craftsmanship. He showed us qilim, flat woven rugs with bright geometric patterns; carpets embroidered and knotted and tightly woven in a kind of triple technique; and the iconic lush carpets with rich natural colors and intricate designs, looking ready to take off at a moment's notice. This last category, though it clearly would be the most expensive, was my favorite. After describing the sort of shape and color that I wanted, the parade began: an endless sucession of incredibly beautiful works of art. We narrowed it down to a single carpet, which I had loved from the moment he showed it to me-- and the games began.

Rambling on about my fine taste, artistry, and authenticity, Hassan made a show of looking up the carpet's price via a numbered tag in one corner. He announced that it was 2600Dh (about three hundred dollars). Laughing a bit and trying to sound incredulous, I told him that I was poor and maybe could not afford this carpet, mentioning that I could perhaps afford 800Dh. He of course laughed in return, as is customary, before knocking down to 2400. I complimented the fine craftsmanship and, with the air of someone making a supreme sacrifice, upped my offer to 950. He smiled and said that since I he liked me and thought I was honest, he could come down to 2200. This process continued for some time; at around 1300 we had a small shouting match in which he ranted about quality and value and I insisted that since it was a wedding gift for my sister he could surely make a better price. He exasperatedly turned to Ryan and stated that surely my name was actually Fatima and I had been doing this since birth. As a last price, I offered 1550; he grasped my hand and we solemnly agreed on 1600Dh (about $180). In a flash, he and an assistant (yet another teenage boy... where do they all COME from) were wrapping up the carpet, and we were escorted to his brother's shop to pay by credit card. Though I'm proud that I bargained the price down so much, I have a nagging feeling that I could have gotten the carpet for much less (general rule is 40-50% of the asking price). Nevertheless, I am very excited to have such a unique and memorable wedding gift for my sister and new brother.

Exhausted and exhilerated, we searched out a Lonely Planet Pick for dinner-- a charming place called Thami's, a tiny streetside cafe with an energetic and charismatic owner. We ate by candlelight under a tree beside a large square, where the people-watching was excellent. Even Ryan, sick of couscous, agreed that the food and atmosphere were among the best we'd had on our trip. I was sad to bid Fez goodbye the following day, but excited to once again leave the sweltering cities for the mountain village of Chefchaouen-- the last installment of this particular voyage.

Morocco Part III: The Summit

2010-07-11T06:08:00.000-04:00

When planning my trip to Morocco, I thought it might be nice to get out of the cities for a while; though the medinas and souqs of the country are reputed to be among its most interesting attributes, I had a hunch that after a while they would all begin to look the same. I also knew that my appetite for adventure and Ryan's somewhat reckless nature wouldn't allow us to remain on the tourist track for too long. At the encouragement of a friend who had already spent some time in Morocco, we decided to go on a hiking trip outside of Marrakech: to the summit of Jbel Toubkal, North Africa's highest peak. The best information I could find on the internet said that it was a relatively straightforward hike, clearly marked and well-travelled. At this time of year, it was very popular and could be done in two days if the weather was good (given the absence of snow at higher altitudes). I did find a few websites that cautioned beginning hikers against attempting the trek in two days, warning of extreme temperature, altitude sickness, and steep, slippery slopes. However, these were so outnumbered by the good-natured, encouraging accounts that I dismissed them out of hand.

In retrospect, this may have been a poor decision.

We began the day bright and early with breakfast at the Hotel Belleville, where I was again thankful for finally having received my bag; it contained my hiking boots, mountain-appropriate clothing, and some other handy things without which a trek into the Atlas would have been inadvisable at best. We packed only our backpacks, trying to travel as lightly as possible. By 10am we had taken a petit taxi to the edge of Marrakech, where minibuses and grands taxis regularly departed for Imlil (the traditional starting point for the climb up Toubkal). 10:30 saw us sharing a car with a witty, bantering driver and what looked like a police officer, who traveled part of the way with us to Imlil. As we drove further from the city, the landscape started to change: flat plains and dusty roads to winding narrow mountain lanes; a virtual absence of vegetation to a generous (if not terribly plentiful) serving of scrub trees and bushes; the heat and dryness of the city to the more temperate setting of rocky streams. Here it was much cooler, as we had already ascended about 1000m above sea level. Imlil was a fairly peaceful town, although clearly it had profited greatly from its popularity with the backpacking crowd-- rather than hawkers offering trinkets or hotels, we encountered purveyors of maps, mules, wide-brimmed berber hats, and of course many young men offering their guidance up the mountain. Declining all of this aid, we purchased a good deal of bread, cheese, water, and fruit and struck out on the first part of the hike.

Day 1 was supposed to be a generally easy 4-6 hour hike, a picturesque journey through another village (called Aroumd) and some nice valleys. Our guidebook mentioned that the main difficulty lay first in the fact that there was no shade after the first hour, and second in the fact that it was constantly uphill. I felt this second part immediately, panting a bit with the combination of scorching sun and Ryan's steady pace (which seemed, no matter what its speed, always to be just slightly too fast for me). The trail was rocky and steep, and it was difficult for me to talk and hike at the same time. However, we didn't have too much trouble with the first part of the track, save the occasional mule traffic jam as heavily laden pack animals picked their way around boulders and backpackers.

The trail got a bit harder after Aroumd, climbing along the edge of the valley wall. We stopped every so often to refuel from our mountaineer's stock of bread and cheese, but it was still a long hard slog towards an imposing and seemingly insurmountable peak. Highlights of day 1's hike included:

-Fresh squeezed orange juice at one or two waypoints on the way up (outrageously priced, of course)
-A small settlement at Sidi Chamrouch, a saint's mausoleum that is the target of many Muslim pilgrimages
-Sitting by and swimming in a nice pool with a small waterfall
-Views of the broad valleys of the High Atlas

The '4 to 6 hour hike' took us six hours on the dot. We arrived at the Refuge du Toubkal, a dorm-style mountain refuge, at about 6 or 6:30pm. At 70Dh per person per night, it was a pretty good bargain, and it also offered hot food and a pretty well-stocked supply shop. We ate dinner with a wide variety of people: a bunch of Moroccans, a young guy from France, and three couples from Europe (Spain, Czech Republic, and Austria). After a long day of hiking essentially alone, it was good to laugh and talk with others, even if nobody's English was perfect. We ended up sleeping in a room with a bunch of British people, so having English there was pretty refreshing. At this altitude (about 3000m) it was very cold at night, and we were thankful for the heavy blankets we found.

The next day we rose at 5:30am, hoping to strike out for the summit (another 1000m and 3 hours away) by 6am. This way, we would avoid the cloud cover that descends on the valley at midmorning. We were one of the first pairs of hikers out the door, scrambling up the boulders with unmatched gusto. This did not last for long, as our bodies were still somewhat annoyed with us for the abuse they'd taken the previous day. We found a fairly scenic overlook on which to breakfast and watch the sun rise between the mountain peaks. From here, the going got tough (I suppose the tough also got going, but not being one of them I had to content myself with quietly and determinedly plodding along). The slopes were very steep and the trails were more often than not composed entirely of loose rock, or scree. This made climbing very difficult and dangerous, since if you didn't choose your path carefully you would slide and maybe fall, and there would be nothing to break your fall for a hundred meters.

This may be a good time to mention that I've never climbed a mountain before.

We struggled on up the slopes (and by we, I mean I; though Ryan insists the climb was hard for him, I never saw any sign of it), stopping frequently for water and shelter from the bitingly cold wind. It was no longer possible to hike without a warm fleece, though the workout was intense. At times we seemed to be walking up a cliff face, almost vertically extending above us, with only a few holds for hands and feet and the rest covered with treacherous scree. A seemingly close-by ridge above us, which other hikers had sworn was only 200m from the peak, remained tantalizingly distant. I could no longer really talk or have positive thoughts-- everything was replaced by a mindless determination to make it to the top.

And make it we did. I can proudly say that I, beginniner status not withstanding, have climbed the tallest peak in North Africa. At 4,167m, they say that you can see both the Atlantic and the Sahara from the top. The view was indeed incredible: a 360 degree panorama of all of Morocco, most notably the magnificent Atlas mountains. The wind was fierce, threatening to blow us off of the summit. However, our triumph made us giddy and we stayed, taking pictures and drinking in the view, for about half an hour. Hiding in the shelter of some large rocks, we bolted down some bread, cheese, fruit, and chocolate before beginning the descent.

As impossible as the ascent had been, this part was even harder. The steep scree slopes were intimidating to climb, but deadly dangerous to descend, as gravity was always waiting for you to make a wrong move. Close calls peppered our barely controlled slide down the cliff faces; I scraped up a leg and damaged a couple of toes, and Ryan sliced off the top of his thumb on a sharp rock. The latter, we bound with a makeshift bandage/tourniquet of tissues and a hair tie, hoping to find some proper antiseptic when we reached the refuge. This took us 2.5 hours--almost the length of time it had taken us to climb to the summit in the first place. However, the Austrian couple we had met the preceding night happened to be equipped with a full first aid kit, as the woman (Christa) was a nurse. We bound up Ryan's thumb until it resembled a mummy's, though it was still bleeding.

After replenishing our supplies and taking a brief rest at the refuge, we struck out for Imlil. Although the journey took less breath than the uphill climb, the payment came in the form of blisters on my poor abused and swollen feet. My hiking boots didn't quite fit properly, and the scree slopes had already taken a heavy toll. I stuffed my feet back into my boots and winced with every step, sighing with relief when we reached the pool we'd swum in the previous day (I think I saw steam rise from my feet as I lowered them into the water). This hike took us slightly longer than we'd anticipated, and we didn't make it back until after 6pm. However, the same Austrian couple was waiting at the bottom of the slope, figuring the four of us could share a taxi back to Marrakech. Their timing was perfect-- as we climbed into the taxi, now half the cost as before, the skies opened up in a respectable downpour.

The journey back to the city was uneventful, and as we strode into the Hotel Belleville one last time we were greeted by the friendly staff; our bags were already waiting for us in our room. We heaved our exhausted and abused bodies into the shower, managed to rustle up just enough energy to stumble to the nearest restaurant for dinner, and then collapsed into bed. High Atlas: consider yourself conquered.

Morocco Part II: Marrakech

2010-07-09T06:00:00.002-04:00

Days 3 and 4 of my trip to Morocco. This is not as interesting as the first bit since all we did was sleep and yell at people to retrieve lost luggage. Feel free to skip to the pictures at the end... I didn't take them, I found them on the internet.
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Since we'd missed the air-conditioned, government-run bus from Essaouira to Marrakech, we crammed ourselves into the very last seats on a crowded, dirty, overheated bus to the country's biggest tourist destination. Like the bus to Essaouira, it made frequent stops to pick up and drop off, with children jumping on to sell chocolate or pastries and old women shambling up and down the aisles to beg for coins. The majority of the roads were dirt and gravel, so coarse that the bus was constantly shaking violently. It was impossible to sleep or write or even think, with the potent combination of the sweltering heat and the bumpy ride.

The bus station in Marrakech was outside the main city, it seemed... we walked for a long time trying to find an internet cafe to check the status of my bag, which had apparently arrived at the Marrakech airport that day. Upon happily finding out that it was to be delivered to my hotel laer, I immediately remembered an important detail... the address I had given for delivery in Marakech didn't know I was coming. I didn't even know if they had rooms available. At this point we were hurrying to get to the hotel before my bag, to avoid confusion... we walked all the way from the ville-nouvelle to the Djemma-el-Fna, the central square of the medina (a distance of about a mile). There we were confronted with the outrageous spectacle that is the essence and heart of Marrakech: snake charmers, monkeys on chains, backflipping acrobats, ragged beggars, strutting businessmen, grinning musicians, gaping tourists, hawkers, fakirs, magicians, characters all.

With Moroccans of all ages aggressively asking what we wanted-- from hotels to hash cakes-- we made our way to the Hotel Belleville. A hole-in-the-wall riad listed in the "budget" section of my Lonely Planet, I had given the address for my baggage claim because it was one of the only addresses I had on hand in Madrid. It wasn't clearly marked-- just a sign on the wall next to a wooden door in an alley I could nearly block off entirely if I spread my arms. We entered and, in broken French and English, tried to explain the bag situation. Eventually, we figured out that no, the bag hadn't been delivered; yes, there were rooms available for that night; and they would be more than happy to keep an eye out for it. Too tired to walk anymore, we trooped upstairs to a very small double; the bed took up most of the room. However, it had its own toilet and hot shower, which was incredibly welcome news to me as I'd been without truly clean clothes for three and a half days at this point. I jumped gratefully into the shower and (hopefully for the last time) borrowed some clothes from Ryan, since mine were filthy and sweaty almost beyond recognition. We ventured out to dinner at a place overlooking the Djmma-el-Fna, reputed to have good vegetarian couscous (as per Ryan's request, as it was his birthday). As a word of warning to future travelers... Morocco is not a great place to be a vegetarian. You pretty much eat couscous.

By 11:30pm, the bag still hadn't arrived--5 hours after it had supposedly landed in Marrakech, and 60 after it was supposed to have landed in Madrid. Annoyed and frustrated, I sent a nasty email and returned to the hotel for hopefully just one more night without clean clothes. So grateful were we for a real bed and a real bathroom that we slept in shamefully late... the hotel staff knocked tentatively at around eleven, informing us gently that they'd love to serve us breakfast but that we'd have to leave the room. We climbed sleepily to the top of the stairs to find a rooftop terrace shimmering in the hot midday sun. We sat at a table in the shade and were promptly served cafe au lait, fresh squeezed orange juice, and different sorts of bread and pastry with butter and a thin sweet spread. By the time we finished, it was after noon... and my bag had not arrived. The time had come for drastic action. We hailed a cab for the airport, marched inside and demanded to know where to find the lost luggage counter. After some confusing French exchanges, we managed to find a small office with two sleepy-looking officials, who unlocked another room. Just inside the door, sitting there innocently, as it had probably been sitting for days, was my green duffel. Feelings of annoyance and exasperation were overwhelmed by utter relief. Witthin five minutes, we were walking out of the airport with the bag.

After joyfully changing into my own clean clothes (rather than Ryan's athletic shorts and T-shirts), we took an afternoon siesta to avoid the worst of the day's heat, then ambled out again into the Djemma for a late lunch/early dinner. On our way, Ryan spotted an American-looking guy clad in a shirt and tie and laden with a duffel bag, strode up to him and said "You look familiar. Do you go to Princeton?" Completely taken aback, he stuttered "yeah . . . do you?" Turns out he was class of 2011, was in Tower with Ryan, and was a Woody Woo major studying in Rabat to improve his Arabic. Small world, hey?

Since it was nearly the end of our second day in Marrakech, and we'd done almost no sightseeing, a vague sense of guilt propelled us to try to find the medersa, or old theological university. However, doing so necessitated a dive into the souqs-- a labyrinth even more confusing than Essaouira's medina, with three times the hawkers. We didn't make it to the medersa until after it had long closed, and without Ryan's handy compass I don't think we would have made it back to the Djemma.

We took a light supper at the Marrakech branch of the Earth Cafe, where we got a call from Mustafa, who had made his way to Marrakech! A few minutes later, he strode into the cafe where we caught up a bit and took advice from him and another American traveler we met about the peak we were attempting to climb the next day (more on this later). Since we had to begin very early the following morning, we made our apologies and headed to bed, resting for the long day of hiking ahead.

The iconic Djemma el-Fna. Photo credit: http://icspac.net/marrakech/images/marrakech.jpg

The Djemma at night, when it fills with dozens of food stalls and shops. Photo credit: http://www.vte.qc.ca/fr/destinations/photos/132_marrakech.jpg

Snake charmer in the Djemma. Photo credit: http://turisticut.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/marrakech.jpg

Souqs. Photo credit: http://lpdviajes.byethost8.com/ofertas/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/marrakech-zoco.jpg

Morocco Part I: Casa/Essaouira

2010-07-08T08:16:00.004-04:00

Note: all entries from my recent trip to Morocco will be published after the fact, as copied from the journal entries I wrote offline. The following is a record of the first few days of travel.
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I'm normally not one to tend towards paranoia, but I swear the universe was conspiring against me. The journey started off well enough; although I was still exhausted from my sister's wedding, it was pleasant to drive to the airport with friends-- wedding guests who happened to be leaving from New York that day. Even waiting alone for my flight for five hours wasn't too bad; the solitude was refreshing after the immense team effort necessary to plan a wedding. The trouble began subtly, with a slight delay out of JFK. I didn't think much of it; I was enjoying talking to my seatmate, a twelve-year-old choirboy from Dublin who had just finished a tour of the northeastern U.S.

It wasn't until our arrival in Dublin that I realized our initial delay might jeopardize my already-tight connection. With seven minutes to go, I sprinted through passport control, baggage claim, again through security, across the tarmac, and jumped on a plane to Madrid with seconds to spare. However, my sigh of relief was premature. After an agonizing half an hour at the baggage carousel, my suspicions were confirmed: my bag had not been as agile as I, and was still in Dublin. Together with several other disgruntled passengers, I trudged to the lost luggage counter. Filing a claim was a nightmare-- I had no address or telephone number at which I could be contacted, and I spoke no Spanish (and thus could barely communicate with the incredibly rude and unsympathetic woman behind the desk). In the end, I decided to continue on as planned to Casablanca and hope against hope that I would be able to communicate well enough by email and pay phone to retrieve my bag.

The problems didn't end there, however. My flight from Madrid to Casablanca was delayed by an hour and a half. No one spoke English. I was hot and sweaty and tired and hadn't slept in two days. I was terrified that the problems and delays would make it more difficult to meet up with my friend/travel buddy Ryan, who was flying into Casablanca from Cairo the same day.

As soon as the plane touched down in Casa, I sprinted to passport control... I had twenty minutes to make the hourly train into the city. Again, there were just enough delays to make me miss the train by about 6 minutes. What could I do? I waited for the 5pm train and took the 35-minute ride into the city. Resigning myself to the seemingly inevitable, I strolled onto the platform and into the station, expecting no one.

My relief was almost palpable when I saw Ryan, one of my favorite people in the world, waiting patiently, exactly where he said he would be. It's truly amazing how much a familiar face can lift a dejected spirit. After explaining the situation to him, we agreed that we should go on as planned to Essaouira that night. At this point, it was about 6pm. Essaouira is 6 hours from Casa, so it would be pushing it to arrive at midnight, especially as we weren't sure our hostel would hold our beds for us. However, we went ahead and boarded a somewhat sketchy-looking bus that was supposed to depart at 6pm.

It didn't depart at 6pm. It left at about 7, and made frequent stops to pick up and drop off passengers. It was closer to 2am when we arrived in Essaouira, and getting off of the bus was one of the scariest things I've ever done. The bus station was filled with 20-something men whose eyes followed me everywhere, without a single other female face in sight. We had no idea where we were with respect to our hostel. The surrounding streets, however, were almost completely deserted save some stray cats and menacing-looking youths. We nervously walked to the taxi rank to ask for directions; our hostel was only 400m away, according to the guidebook. After receiving conflicting directions from multiple drivers in garbled French, I turned to Ryan to find him deep in conversation with an older man who apparently spoke Spanish. He warned us that the streets were dangerous at night, and offered to lead us to our destination. He assured us that he was only interested in our safety-- he didn't want money. Warily, we followed him through the dark streets and imposing archways into the medina (old city): a labyrinthine collection of streets and alleyways that taxis couldn't enter.

We had barely gone thirty yards when our erstwhile guide abrubtly turned around and walked quickly back the way we had come, speaking low and in Spanish. Ryan quietly explained that it was better not to go this way because one of the men up there had a knife.

This turning back and circling around continued for about an hour as our guide carefully picked out the safest ways through the dark alleys and narrow streets, frequently looking at the map in our guidebook. We found out that Mustafa-- that was his name-- wasn't actually from Essaouira, but actually was a taxi driver from Casablanca, on vacation. He explained that he was staying with a local family who lived in the medina; it was much cheaper and nicer than staying in a hotel, he said.

Finally, we ducked into the tiny derb (alley) that contained our hostel. By this time, it was 2:30am and every door in the city was shut and locked. We rang the bell and banged on the door for what seemed like five solid minutes... to no avail. A man poked his head out of a third-story window and sleepily informed us that they were full for the night. At this point, we had no idea what to do: we were tired and hungry and scared and lost with a stranger in a strange city. Our mysterious guide, however, beckoned us to follow him again through the medina; he said that the family with whom he was staying might have room for us. We twisted and turned through the maze until we arrived at a door marked simply "48". Mustafa quietly entered and we found ourselves in a small open-air courtyad, with more twisting passages and narrow staircases leading to about a dozen doorways. We waited nervously a few meters back from the door on which Mustafa knocked. A tired-looking middle-aged woman opened the door as Mustafa explained our situation in rapid Arabic. As he spoke, two little girls peeked out from around their mother's skirt and gaped at the two travel-worn Americans before them. She let us in almost immediately into a small but beautiful apartment-- a living room with a few couches and a small television, a compact kitchen, a bathroom barely big enough to stand in (with a non-western squat toilet and no shower), two bedrooms and a sort of sitting room, with intricate mosaic walls and cushioned benches. It was to this room that the woman showed us, followed closely by the two small girls bearing pillows and blankets. The girls seemed especially struck by me, in all my unwashed Western glory; they took my hands and showed me the entire apartment (perhaps 650 square feet) before pushing me into a chair in the living room along with Ryan, where they brought us a plate of something that looked like fish. I had no idea what to do with this; I tentatively picked one up and bit its head off, prompting an alarmed squeal from the two little ones, who worried aloud that I would choke. They showed me how to peel the fish in half so that I could remove its spine. They were delighted with even my little bit of French, and chattered away despite the lateness of the hour. I finally convinced them to let us go to sleep, marveling at how lucky we were.

We rose reluctantly the next day, unsure of the Moroccan protocol in this situation. Nalika and the girls (Fatim-Selah and Selma) were nowhere to be found, nor was Mustafa. Could we leave our things there and go out into the city? Did we need to pay right then? Where would we go? What would we eat? Right on cue, Mustafa entered the room and asked if we wanted breakfast. We followed him outside, through the maze of doors that was number 48-- and finally out into streets that had been completely transformed. Instead of the deserted, threatening, claustrophobic alleys of the preceding night, we found: aisles of brightly colored clothing, awnings with shopkeepers shouting to one another and hawking their wares to passersby, heavily laden horses and donkeys carrying goods from place to place. We ducked into a small side street and entered a tiny open-air shop that contained a stove, a table, and some benches in an area no larger than 100 square feet. Two stout women unceremoniously presented us with a pot of mint tea and plates of bread, doused in honey and oil. It tasted strange and foreign but delicious nonetheless. Mustafa poured the tea in typical Moroccan style-- the greater the height of the pour without splashing, the more respect you command from those around you.

Breakfast for the three of us was a mere 20 dirham, about $2.25; Mustafa informed us that it was much too expensive because we were foreign. He led us through the labyrinth to the area near the beach, where seagulls and tourists flocked in droves. In a combination of French and Spanish, he described the sights we passed: the kasbah, a walled fortress reminiscent of medieval times; the ramparts, or skala, where you could walk for 10Dh; the fish souq, where you could take your pick from the catch of the day and have it grilled for you before your eyes; the fishing boats in the harbor; the plethora of windsurfers and sailboats by the beach. It was unlike anything I'd seen before. We sat on a stone wall above the beach as Mustafa ducked out to buy something... he returned with a bag of sardines, bragging about how little they cost compared to what we might pay in the U.S. He threw a few to the endless parade of gulls and stray cats before ushering us back to 48, asking us where we thought we were and making us lead the way to ensure that we would be able to return alone. On the way, I browsed shops for some additional clothing, since my luggage had yet to be found (at this point, we'd purchased a moroccan SIM card and attempted to call the baggage claim office in Madrid several times ... no luck). Mustafa dropped us off at 48, and after dropping off a few things we ventured into the city alone. I purchased a few essentials and we wandered through the medina in search of a good place to eat lunch. An intricate archway led us into an open courtyard of restaurants and shops, relatively bare of people. Confronted with signs touting organic and vegan fare, we assumed we'd found a backpacker's haven and settled down to eat at the Earth Cafe, an all-vegetarian restaurant clearly aimed at expats and tourists. The friendly English-speaking proprietor, Ben, encouraged us to return often and review his place on Tripadvisor.com. he also gave us directions to another branch of the cafe in Marrakech, our next destination. The meal was delicious and filling and vegetarian (which Ryan appreciated), and the square was quiet and peaceful; we lingered until almost sunset. I spotted a shop selling some clothes I liked and bargained a shopkeeper from 180Dh for a pair of pants down to 125Dh-- not a great job haggling on my part, but still only about $13 for a nice comfy pair of pants. We wandered over to the beach until the sun set, then back to the streets to search out a place to have a light supper. We eventually settled on a small place called Cafe des Arts, which looked relatively cheap and nice. The food-- a vegetarian couscous and tajine-- was more than passable, and as we ate the waiters would take turns playing traditional Gnaoua music on strange-looking instruments in the corner of the tiny room. As the evening progressed, the place took on the air of an American coffeehouse-- the room filled with young Moroccans who sipped mint tea and clapped and sang along with the 5-6 waiters, who had formed a jam band of guitars, keyboards, percussion, and strange Gnaoua instruments.

After dinner and entertainment, we contentedly began to walk back to 48. The shops were closing, which made it difficult to navigate, but with some effort and a map we returned at about 10pm. When we walked in, the small TV was playing a French-dubbed version of the American movie "Dreamgirls" to a rapt Mustafa, Fatim-Selah, and Selma. The girls leapt up and offered us plates full of fresh watermelon, fish, bread, and mint tea. Another woman was there, who as far as I could understand was a neighbor from one of the many other doors in 48. This woman, Latika, was much more talkative than Nalika; she also knew a bit of English. However, the bulk of the conversation was carried out in French. Ryan, tired and uncomprehending, went to bed, leaving me at the mercy of Latika and Mustafa's endless questions. They asked me about my life and family in the U.S., whether or not university was expensive there, even whether or not Ryan and I were engaged/married (during the day, we'd gotten some cheap rings to wear to deter harassment, on the advice of several stateside friends who'd previously traveled in Morocco). The dialogue flew by at times too fast for me to understand it, as French was translated to Arabic to English and back again.

I then hesitatingly proffered that I was attempting to learn Arabic, which spurred an excited burst of chatter. I had printed out some lessons from a teach-yourself website, and showed them. Latika became very excited and began to read sentences in Arabic, had me repeat them, and then translated them to English. Fatim-Selah grabbed my hand and sat me in a chair, writing out characters and instructing me on how to pronounce them. Selma sat patiently, copying out sentences in both Arabic and English-- when making English letters, her pen moved from right to left even as her hand moved from left to right. Fatim-Selah made me repeat the numbers 1-10 until I could say them perfectly. The lesson lasted until late that night, and ended with an exchange of addresses and promises to write-- me, someday, in Arabic. I bid goodnight to the man who had virtually saved our lives, the woman who'd taken us in, her enthusiastic neighbor, and the two little girls who'd stolen my heart.

The next morning we packed our things and breakfasted again with Mustafa. We wanted to catch a bus to Marrakech but were unsure of the correct station; as before, Mustafa guided us through the medina and out to the station. On the way, he stopped in a small shop and purchased a CD of what he said was the best musician from Essaouira's recent Gnaoua festiva, an event famed throughout Morocco. He gave us the CD as a parting gift, and showed us to the station. After a few snafus with a different bus station and a bus that was full already, we packed into a bus to Marrakech, saying farewell to our friend and guardian. All in all, our trip to Essaouira was a suitable beginning to our Moroccan adventures.

Ecuador: Day 6

2010-04-01T20:40:00.004-04:00

The last few moments of our trip are finally upon us. I’m in Atlanta about to board a plane for Philadelphia and then a van to Princeton, left alone with my thoughts and reflections on a whirlwind week.

Yesterday was a travel day—we packed up and left the Hosteria at 8:30am yesterday and drove for six hours before we reached Quito. The views were, again, absolutely breathtaking—Ecuador is a stunningly beautiful country, and it has demonstrated it over and over for the past week. We got to stop in a town called Baños, where we took pictures at an amazing overlook bridge (complete with sketchy-looking bungee jump operations) and chewed on sugarcane and some kind of Ecuadorian toffee. When we reached Quito, we headed to its actual namesake: the Equator (the 00°00’00” line lends its name not only to Ecuador, which means “Equator” in Spanish, but to the city of Quito, which means “Middle-of-the-Earth” in Quechua). We went first to a museum that doubles as both a cultural center and a collection of hands-on science experiments about the properties of the Ecuator. Our next stop was a large monument called Mitad del Mundo—which actually, when calculated with modern GPS, isn’t directly on the Equator. It was a huge tourist trap, but the shopping was quite good—I wish we’d had more time there.

Dinner was with both the Barton and the Skillen families at a cheap, greasy, delicious restaurant called La Tortilla, specializing in empanadas, tamales, and of course tortillas. Before we left for the airport, we got to see the headquarters of HCJB. This organization started as an international Christian radio station in the early 20^th century, and has spread to sponsor a number of missionary activities. In a vacant conference room, we listened to Kevin Skillen speak about his job at the State department. It sounds like an amazing job—he travels to a new country every few years, knows several languages, and manages to be a good husband and father to his three small children. However, it wasn’t too long before we were packing back onto the bus and off to the airport for our red-eye back to the States.

It’s very difficult for me to summarize or consolidate what I learned over this week. I worked hard physically and spiritually, despite major obstacles in both those areas. We frequently discussed the topic of God’s calling for one’s life: how to discern it, how to be open to it, how it might be unexpected. To be honest, I think I came out of it more muddled than ever. However, I still remember what Tandy said to us earlier this week (roughly paraphrased):

“You can agonize endlessly over all the seemingly major decisions of your life: where to go to school, where to get a job, where to live. But the reality is—God doesn’t care. God equips you perfectly for the job he’s set for you to do, and He’ll guide you to it no matter what you decide along the way.”

I still don’t know where God is calling me to spend the rest of my life. Maybe it will be a long time before I do. But in the meantime, I’ll try not to let my own vision of my life distract me from His.

This pretty much describes our team.

Katie, Josiah, and Isaac

View from the bridge in Baños

Katie on the overlook

WHICH HEMISPHERE AM I IN??

This monument is actually about ten stories tall

Our team on the equator!

Empanada de Viente (lit. "of wind")

HCJB headquarters

After a long and exhausting trip!

Ecuador: Day 5

2010-03-28T16:09:00.003-04:00

Today was our last day in Shell, but instead of visiting Casa de Fe or working at the construction site, we drove to a small town called Mera, about fifteen minutes away. In Mera, we worked at a church called Iglesia Bautista Cordero de Dios—it’s the home church of the Bartons and a few other missionary families, in addition to many Ecuadorians. Our main task was to repaint the dilapidated church building, although we also dug some drainage ditches around the foundation (I got to spend some time doing this with a dear old man introduced only as “Abuelo,” meaning grandfather…my Spanish has gotten better and better over the course of the week, so I was able to talk to him a bit). It also required a lot of preparation—cleaning the walls, stripping off old tape and glue from where they used to hang bible verses, and spot painting over discolorations that might have required a second coat. By the time we actually started painting, it was late morning. However, we went at it with a will—and the will of fourteen Princetonians is nothing to be scoffed at. By lunch, a large portion of the church had been painted.

Some of the ladies from the church cooked lunch for us—a delicious combination of vegetables, rice, and chicken. Someone commented on how good the chicken was, and one of the ladies commented that it had been alive a few hours ago. Fresh meat, indeed: when we went to dump our trash, we saw a large bucket of chicken parts and blood. I’m glad my research on meat production in Ecuador was proven to be pretty much accurate! No sprawling factory farms here—just chickens in the backyard and cows on the farm.

After lunch, I left with Allie to teach music for the 4^th-6^th graders at the Nate Saint School. We didn’t find out that they wanted us to do this until our Tuesday evening meeting, and everyone just sort of assumed that I would do it. Which was fine, since I love music and I love to teach. But this sort of thing is much more up my older sister’s alley than mine—I can barely remember what I did in elementary school music class, much less come up with a 45 minute class that would actually be productive and educational for these kids. Moreover, how on earth could I teach them for 45 minutes without them getting bored and fidgety?

Most of my lesson was composed on the fly; we did some singing first, with songs that had fairly involved accompanying physical motions so that everyone was up and active. Then we played some rhythm games; I’m not entirely sure what I accomplished, but they were definitely clapping some complicated patterns in unison by the end of twenty minutes or so (except for two sulky boys who clearly did not want to be there). However, everything I had planned out lasted only about twenty-five minutes. On the fly, I improvised a lesson about rounds and canons—what they were, how they were important in music, even a brief mention of Pachelbel’s canon. We ended up learning two rounds and singing them together (thank you, Tom Chapin) until the end of the class.

After the lesson, Kim picked us up and ferried us back to Mera in the midst of a thunderous downpour. By this time (thankfully) they had finished the outside of the church, but the power had gone out so it was difficult to see where they had or hadn’t painted on the interior walls. But after a few more hours of hard labor, we proudly pulled back the dropcloths to reveal a church that looked brand new. The pastor and his wife, David and Carmen, were very thankful for our work.

Dinner, since it was our last in Shell, was at a beautiful restaurant called El Jardin—accessible only by a swinging bridge across a swollen, rushing river. Here we actually had multiple choices for our entrée, rather than simply being presented with food. At the encouragement of the Bartons, who come to this place for special occasions, I received and devoured one of the most delicious steak dinners I have had in my entire life. If I wasn’t convinced in Argentina, I am now—South America knows steak. Dinner was also a chance for us to debrief a little and share some of the highs and lows of the week, and to hang out with the Bartons one more time.

After dinner we went to a souvenir shop called Casa de la Balsa, which supposedly specialized in handicrafts made of balsa wood. To me, balsa means model airplanes, so naturally I was very excited. However, it turned out to be more of a tourist trap than anything else. Which was fine; I bought a few things, but I’m saving my big shopping spree for tomorrow’s excursion to Quito. Satisfied with our purchases, we headed back to the Hosteria for one final devotional and sharing time before our last night together (we’re taking a red-eye back to the States). Tomorrow we finally get a chance to be tourists—Quito, here we come!

sassy.

go team go!

mmmm. chicken.

We WILL paint this church.

Abuelo and the ditch we dug together

Standing in front of our handiwork!

little Isaac Barton playing outside the church

View from the church in Mera

an impromptu soccer game with the Barton boys

STEAK.

Ecuador: Days 3 and 4

2010-03-25T00:30:00.006-04:00

I couldn’t bring myself to write last night, as I was pretty miserable and in a lot of pain. Turns out that two hundred bug bites below your waist, although it’s kind of funny, actually messes you up pretty badly; my legs were swollen to about one and a half times their normal size and I’ve barely been able to walk for the past few days. I’m still in pretty bad shape but I’ve got to write all this down or I’ll forget everything.

Construction day 2 was easier than the first one—it was a bit cooler, and the work was not as back-breaking. In the morning, we rode to Casa De Fe in the official orphanage vehicle (a truck with a tarp over the top) to pick up several small wooden chairs and desks that needed to be painted and lacquered in bright primary colors. While Freddie, Washington, Herman, and Luis led the boys in glorious power-tool projects, the girls painted and chatted in the bodega (what they call the tool shed, which has a substantial patio area). After lunch, I went with a few other students to help teach P.E. at Casa de Fe (or rather at the big arena a few blocks away). Dwight was the one actually leading, but he says it’s very helpful to have “big kids” there so that the kids can have an example of listening and following instructions. So we played tag and kickball with the bigger kids, and simple cooperation games like Red Light Green Light and a variant of Sharks and Minnows with the kindergarteners. It was easy to really get involved and enthusiastic about the games, almost like being a kid again, and it was even more rewarding when you could see the kids becoming more engaged and active because of your participation.

After the last class of P.E., we returned to Casa de Fe to tutor some of the older kids in spelling, reading, and their times tables. However, before too long it was time to head back to the Hosteria for a quick shower before our tour of MAF—the Mission Aviation Fellowship. This was one of the parts of the trip I was most excited about . . . how cool would it be to be a missionary pilot! MAF (also known as Alas de Secorro, meaning Wings of Help) flies to remote airstrips in the middle of the jungle to pick up medical emergency cases. They serve the Quechua, the Shuar, the Ashuar, and the Waodani tribes. MAF also flies missionary teams to the jungle at discounted rates, which is how they fund their medical airlifts. We got a tour of the airplane hangar and training room, plus a rundown of how the organization worked. Unfortunately, it takes 7-10 years to become a pilot for MAF—and, due to interference from the Ecuadorian government, they are no longer allowed to hire pilots from outside the country. We also got a tour of the Nate Saint house—where one of the famed five martyred missionaries had lived and hosted numerous ministries.

Tonight’s dinner was at Casa de Barton—the home of Kim and Paul Barton, the doctors who have organized and planned our whole week. We had a traditional Ecuadorian dish called “vocaterra,” which is apparently Spanish for “dump truck.” It’s a mix of plantain chips, sweet tomato/onion/cilantro salsa, beans, tuna, and toasted corn, in whatever proportions you want. To that, Kim added some take-out empanadas and delicious fruit salad. Other dinner guests included the Umbles, another missionary family that lives next door to the Bartons. Both the Umbles and Bartons shared their testimonies with us, including an account of Paul’s recent trip to Haiti for emergency medical relief there.

After an extended stay at the Barton Home, we retired to the Hosteria for the night. I had been volunteered to teach Art at Nate Saint and Casa De Fe, much to my dismay—my grumbled protests that I would accidentally glue the kids together were laughed off. However unqualified I felt, it turns out that you don’t have to be that artistic to teach kids how to make masks out of paper plates. In fact, my engineering skills soon became useful, and the other two team members that were helping soon regarded me as a wizard with pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks. We taught at Nate Saint, then got lost walking to Casa de Fe. After wandering around Shell for about forty minutes, we finally found some landmarks and collapsed, delirious, at the orphanage with only a few minutes to spare.

It was here that I had what I think was my most rewarding experience of the week thus far. While we were teaching the 1^st-3^rd grade children Art at Casa de Fe, the teacher from the neighboring class (4^th-6^th grade) came over looking distressed. She informed us that one of her kids was having trouble with math, was crying, and would not be consoled, so would one of us like to come over and try to help? Always eager for the chance to abandon Art for Math, I volunteered. The child in question turned out to be a girl named Talia, whose story we had heard a few days ago from Patti Sue. At about twelve, Talia is one of the oldest girls at Casa de Fe; she’s there with her sisters Abigail and Alondra. All three of them were sexually abused at home before being placed in the care of the orphanage; they were returned home after testifying against their attacker at trial. However, the abuse continued. Talia took her two younger sisters and ran away to Casa de Fe and Patti Sue, pleading with her to take care of them. Her story almost broke my heart, and meeting the three of them in person was a privilege. According to Patti Sue, Talia is among the most difficult children at the orphanage, simply because she can’t accept the idea that people might love her.

So when Talia was in tears over her 6 and 7 times tables, I ached for her. We worked together to learn, and after ten minutes or so, she was multiplying like a pro—and, more importantly, was smiling and laughing and happy. Those ten minutes were worth the long flight, the bug bites, the sore shoulders, and more.

The afternoon was spent lacquering the chairs and desks that we had painted the preceding day—all in the shelter of the bodega, since it was pouring all afternoon. Despite the rain, a few of us took some time to climb the nearby water tower for one last view of the jungle surrounding Shell. High above the canopy, soaking wet and covered with mud, I felt like the king of the world as I surveyed the misted mountains, dense jungle, and the seemingly tiny piece of civilization that is Shell.

After a shower at the Hosteria, the Bartons announced that they wanted to give us a taste of the “real” jungle. So we headed just outside town to the Ecoparque, which is a sort of nature sanctuary. We saw plenty of wildlife, but it wasn’t confined at all—the Ecoparque was literally a path through the jungle. Our guide pointed out leafcutter aunts, several species of monkey, land tortoises, a small rodent similar to an agouti, a rainbow boa constrictor, small alligators called caimans, and coolest of all—a young ocelot (a member of the big cat family that is reminiscent of a jaguar). We ate dinner at the Ecoparque and heard the testimonies of several other doctors at the Hospital Vozandes. Along with all the other missionary stories we’ve heard this week, they were extremely powerful testaments to the omnipresence of God and our attempts to follow His call and His plan for our lives. While walking back to the cars, the majesty, brilliance, and utter clarity of the heavens took my breath away—truly I serve an awesome God!

Entrance to the CdF construction site... a.k.a. JURASSIC PARK

a man selling goats' milk in the streets

Teaching P.E. to the kindergarteners at CdF

at MAF headquarters

delicious Vocaterra ("dump truck") at the Bartons

Art class at Nate Saint

Alex brought a toad, evoking cries of "sapo! sapo!"

Teaching art at Casa de Fe

Javier and his bat ears

the construction crew!

WE WILL TAKE ON THE MOUNTAIN

View from the water tower at the construction site

soaking wet and about to fall off?

ALEX HWANG IS A NINJA

About to enter the Ecoparque

monkeys in the ecoparque

Our tour guide. Fearless.

Liz the tribal warrioress

Diego the ocelot (center, in the tree)

Ecuador: Day 2

2010-03-21T22:15:00.005-04:00

Things I learned today:

- Hacking through the jungle with a machete may look cool in movies, but in real life it’s hard work and tires you out really quickly. Also way more difficult than you might think.

- Never wear shorts into said jungle. Current bug bite count: 218. 146 on my left leg and 72 on my right.

- Doing God’s work is often unglamorous and/or seemingly unhelpful. Like moving one big pile of dirt to another big pile of dirt, or squirting water at a wall for three solid hours.

- How to conjugate three Spanish verbs.

- One can get by without knowing Spanish, simply by using the following phrases: “buenos dias,” “gracias,” “lo siento,” and “esta bien.”

- THEY HAVE MILO AT THE GROCERY STORE. Hello, Australia.

- Little kids are adorable.

Today we led chapel at the Nate Saint School for about twenty missionary kids. I led worship, which was pretty nerve-wracking since I had no idea what I’d be playing until about five minutes before chapel; we also had a lesson drawn from the story of Zaccheus (a skit, in which the title character was played by the short-statured but big-hearted Alex Hwang). After chapel, we traipsed out to the worksite for our first day of construction on Casa De Fe’s new building.

Right now, the orphanage is located in central Shell in a dilapidated old building that is far too small to house 30-40 children. A few years ago Patti Sue, the founder of Casa De Fe, managed to procure about 7 acres of land just outside of town (about a twenty-minute walk from where they are situated right now). Construction is underway of a multi-use building that’s about three times the size of the current setup; it should be finished in about four months. The children will move into this building temporarily as they complete construction on the rest of the property, which will contain fifteen small houses, the multi-use building, and a school building. The eventual vision is for the children to live with house parents, with ten to fourteen kids per “family.” Right now, Dwight and four local construction guys (Freddie, Washington, Luis, and Herman—all strong Christians who really believe in the mission of Casa de Fe) are pretty much raising this huge building from the ground up. We spent the day sifting concrete, shoveling dirt, moving boulders, spraying down bare concrete walls, and yes, clearing dense jungle with machetes. Some of us went to both Casa de Fe and the Nate Saint School in the afternoon to teach P.E., as well.

At almost precisely five o’clock, after a hard day’s labor, those of us at the construction site boarded a truck for home—seconds ahead of a torrential downpour. Kim says it’s not unheard of to get a full foot of rainfall in just a few hours; this area of Ecuador receives about 24 feet annually. After getting thoroughly soaked in the back of the almost-but-not-quite-covered truck, we settled back in to the Hosteria Shell, where we could shower and relax before dinner. Tonight we feasted on pinchos (a sort of shish kebab), French fries, corn on the cob, and fresh watermelon, spending a good deal of time playing with the Barton’s four sons (Isaac, Josiah, Nathan, and Samuel) and the two older orphans that live with Patti Sue (Jessica and Jennifer).

Each night we hear testimony from a different missionary, and tonight’s was absolutely mindblowing. Patti Sue, as I’ve mentioned, is the founder of Casa De Fe and a thoroughly remarkable woman. She spent twenty years as a mechanic in the Army, and when she retired she felt God’s call to missions. In the late 90s, she moved to Quito and began to repair donated wheelchairs; she felt it was a good combination of her mechanical skill and her heart for the disabled. However, as some doors closed and others opened (including her decision to foster two disabled Ecuadorian children), she felt God strongly calling her to Shell. Although it was difficult for her to believe at first, God wanted her to begin something that had absolutely nothing to do with her previous background as a mechanic. However, soon the idea and vision for Casa De Fe became clear.

The number of children at Casa De Fe has grown exponentially since then; right now they have 56 children and just took another today. The kids come from a variety of backgrounds but are often abused or disabled or both. Many of the older girls have been sexually abused, and almost none of the children have a normal or healthy conception of what family really means. At Casa de Fe, however, they are loved extravagantly and constantly. I can’t count the number of times a CdF staff person has encouraged us to come by and play with the kids whenever we want, or nonchalantly mentioned an experience with a child that just tugs at your heart like nothing else.

The oldest kids in the orphanage are now around 12, and Patti Sue’s hope is to eventually see them off to college or to jobs within the area (perhaps some of them will even continue to work for Casa de Fe). This means that they will soon be needing teachers for a high-school level. Something to think about?

our version of the story of Zaccheus. Nate is a tree, in case you were wondering.

Our commute from Nate Saint to CdF

The streets of Shell

construction site for CdF's multi-use building

john lin has a grudge?

sifting dirt for concrete mixing

the aftermath. this is what my legs look like now.

Ecuador: Day 1

2010-03-20T10:58:00.005-04:00

For a country that is supposed to be in the middle of the jungle, Ecuador sure has a lot of mountains. Soaring pinnacles and deep rocky ravines make up most of the landscape around Quito—one of the tallest cities in the world, at 10,000 feet. Nestled in a valley high in the Andes, Ecuador’s capital is home to over 2 million people. When viewed from above, it’s hard to believe; at its widest point, Quito is barely two miles across. However, the city spills over to span an impressive length, stretching as far as the eye can see in both directions.

We arrived in Quito at approximately 11:00pm local time last night (Ecuador is in the same time as the East Coast, but doesn’t follow Daylight Savings so we are currently one hour behind), and were met at the airport by Kevin Skillen ’96. Kevin works in the State Department as a cultural affairs minister, promoting American culture in Ecuador by hosting music groups, speakers, and other events. As soon as we got through customs, we were joined by Kim Barton ’93, who works at the Hospital Vozandes del Oriente with her husband Paul (as a pediatrician and an anesthesiologist, respectively). Kim and Kevin shepherded us to a guesthouse run by another missionary organization, where we thankfully collapsed into bed, still delirious from a long day of traveling.

The sunshine that woke me up this morning was unbelievably welcome after endless weeks of New Jersey winter. The kitchen was full of activity, as several other missionaries were staying in the guesthouse with us; some were stationed in Quito, some in Shell (our destination). Delicious fresh melons and pineapple were sliced and waiting, along with fruit juices I had never heard of (Mora? Guanabana?), a sweet nutty cake, and much-needed coffee. At 8:45 sharp we headed to the English-speaking church a few blocks away, where we worshipped with a mixed group of Ecuadorians, Americans, and Canadians—expats, missionaries, and who knows what. It was a lovely service, and we even met another Princetonian, this time from the class of ’98. I still haven’t decided whether I believe his life story, but it’s too good not to repeat: this guy was born in Ecuador but moved to the states when he was 6, grew up immersed in gang life and became the boss of the Latin Kings (he showed us his tattoos). He wised up, went to Princeton (which is where I assume he became a Christian), majored in Econ, graduated, and set up his own business as a professional bodyguard, which he did for 15 years. After a stint as Steven Seagal’s bodyguard (does he NEED a bodyguard?) he moved back to Ecuador. Needless to say . . . quite a character.

After church we walked back to the guesthouse, packed up everything we needed (and a variety of odds and ends that the missionaries wanted to send to Shell), and boarded a bus that would take us 120 miles southeast of and 7,000 feet below Quito. Despite the seeming closeness, the mountainous terrain forced the roads into terrifying hairpin turns and tight tunnels, making the journey take about 5 hours. The scenery was absolutely incredible, however; Kim, who was riding with us, was constantly pointing out waterfalls, active volcanoes, old lava flows, rivers, and more. The Andes remind me of a combination of both of the U.S.’s major mountain ranges: tall and craggy, like the Rockies, but thickly covered with trees, like the Appalachians. Most of the journey kept us at a very high altitude, but by the last hour or so were starting to see more jungle-like flora. When we entered Shell, it was very clear that yes, we were in the middle of the rainforest.

Shell is a not-insignificantly-sized town with an interesting history. It was founded about fifty years ago by the Shell gas company to explore oil possibilities in the region; however, the indigenous people killed so many Shell employees that they were forced to flee the area. They left behind them a fully functioning airstrip, which made it much easier for missionaries to access the territory. The missionaries didn’t fare much better—this is precisely the area of Ecuador where missionaries Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, and several others were killed by natives who didn’t understand their message (the basis for the movie “The End of the Spear). However, those same tribes later converted to Christianity, realized what they had done, and became determined to help spread the gospel in their homeland.

Today, Shell is a thriving hub of missionary activity. I had always thought of missionaries as being very solitary, serving God in complete isolation. However, there is a community of missionary families here, with enough children to populate an entire school (The Nate Saint School, commemorating those that died decades earlier). We will be doing some work at this school throughout the week: we’re leading chapel tomorrow and will also be teaching Art and P.E. However, our primary work spot will be Casa De Fe (“House of Faith”). This incredible institution serves as an orphanage and school for about forty children from Shell and the surrounding jungle, all of whom have different stories and backgrounds. Some are there due to abuse in their homes; some were abandoned; many are physically or mentally disabled; some have families that can’t care for them and made the hugely sacrificial decision to place them at Casa De Fe.

At Casa De Fe, the children are clean and well-cared for, with several Tias (literally “Aunts”) who cook for them, clean up after them, and love them. Three young American women serve as teachers, most just out of college with little training or education. A young couple from Texas, Tandy and Dwight Martin, run the administrative side of things, bringing in short-term missions teams and coordinating other necessary efforts. Dwight is also in charge of construction at their new site, a few miles from the current cramped setup in the heart of Shell. Some of us will be doing construction work at the site, while others will teach, tutor, and help with the children at Casa De Fe. The entire organization is the brainchild of a woman named Patti Sue; we met her briefly this afternoon, but I am looking forward to talking to her later this week. She lives next door to where we are staying, and keeps six babies who are not yet old enough to be at Casa De Fe on a regular basis.

Right now, we are staying at the Hosteria Shell, within walking distance from all three sites (Casa De Fe, the construction site, and the Nate Saint School). I was expecting a rough hostel or guesthouse; however, the luxury of our accommodations surpassed all our wildest imaginations. It’s like a big, airy hotel, with a huge kitchen and sitting room area and a tiled back porch. The backyard has a pool, a hot tub, a sauna, and a swingset for kids (the Bartons’ four sons, all seven or younger, will frequently be around the building and playing with us). Each of us has our own bed, and each room has its own bathroom attached. Everything is clean and well-kept, and they are feeding us very well (for those of you that care, I will probably be temporarily abandoning my vegetarianism; I did some research last week on meat production in Ecuador and have decided that it is almost certainly consistent with my ethical constraints on meat-eating).

Sorry for the very long post—there has been a lot to process over the past 36 hours! I don’t have internet access right now, so I will plan to post this whenever that happens (maybe tomorrow, maybe not till I am back in the States!).

(Quito and the scenery around it)

(mountainous drive on the way to Shell)

(Ecuadorians on a gondola across one of the numerous canyons)

(children at La Casa de Fe, and also two of the Barton boys, Sammy and Josiah)

Sydney in Pictures

2009-06-27T16:12:00.005-04:00

Here are a few pictures of my trip to Sydney a few weeks ago. I'm home now and I'll try to post a final entry within the next few days.

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Look what we found!!

Opera house :)

"Look! A sailboat! can't you see it?"

Bronte beach

Coolest pool ever! (in Bondi)

Walkway along Bondi beach

Nice overlook at Bondi

Walking from Bronte to Bondi

Whitsunday Islands-- Part II

2009-06-24T11:26:00.005-04:00

Update: I'm DONE with finals! currently packing to leave Australia, although I'm not going to go into how I feel about that right now. Picking up where I left off in my last entry about the fabulously tropical Whitsunday Islands . . .

We awoke at 6:30am on the second day of our cruise (at least, those of us sleeping in the saloon area did, since it was time to set the table for breakfast). Apparently this is the best time of day to see turtles because it's when they come up for their first breath of the day after spending the night sleeping on the bottom of the ocean. An audible puff of air can be heard carrying across the water as they exhale the stale air, take in a deep breath or two, and then dive once more. I saw at least three turtles within fifteen minutes or so . . . incredible.

After breakfast, we headed to the famous Whitehaven beach. The sand is sugar-white, 98% silica, and so fine that there's an urban legend that NASA stole a bit of it to use for the Hubble Telescope. Whatever happened in the past, it's now illegal to take sand from Whitehaven beach. However, we spent a fun morning there lying in the sun, playing soccer, and wading in the surf looking for stingrays. CJ spent the entire morning posing people and taking pictures like the ones below; apparently the sand is so uniform in color and texture that you can manipulate depth perception easily. We had the beach almost to ourselves, save one or two other boats of tourists; our boys (and Julie, who plays for Brandeis) challenged another boat to a game of soccer and won handily :) As we had lunch and motored to our next snorkel spot, I stretched out on the nets in the front of the boat and finished C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters (fantastic book!) and started on F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, which I haven't yet read and supposed that I should.

We soon arrived at Luncheon Bay, another snorkeling spot popular with overnight dive boats. I think I saw more marine life here than I saw in any other spot over the trip. Not only were there tons of interesting coral formations (it's a relatively shallow area, and completely protected), but I saw anemones with clownfish (Nemo!), a colorful nudibranch, tons of graceful angelfish, many seemingly-smiling parrotfish, opening and shutting giant clams, a long, thin, silver flutefish, and best of all: a school of cuttlefish. Cuttlefish, if you don't know, look kind of like mini squid; however, they're amazingly intelligent, can change color rapidly, and are fast. I caught a glimpse of a school of about twenty cuttlefish moving together, perfectly camouflaged againsed the dusky brown of the sea floor, moving rapidly across my field of vision. I immediately poked my head above water to inform my fellow snorkelers, quickly calling them over and eagerly submerging again . . . but they had disappeared, in the space of about three seconds. Luckily, I saw the same school again about ten minutes later, and this time called Julie over to see in time. These magnificent animals were definitely my favorite thing to see over the course of the trip.

Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent lazing about on the boat (and/or plunging into the onboard jacuzzi after snorkeling in the freezing late-afternoon water). We moved to a nearby spot for another dive before the sun set; although Cookie wanted to anchor in the popular Wrasse Bay, the moorings were all occupied and we went for nearby Manta Ray bay. Apparently they can't normally moor here because of the winds and pounding surf, but the sea was calm and so we set up shop a few dozen meters from a forbidding rocky outcrop. This was the most isolated of our dive spots, but one of my favorites; although the fish here were pretty much the same as the other places; the proximity to the open ocean led to the formation of some pretty amazing coral structures. I was one of the only snorkelers who took the initiative to put on the wetsuit one more time that day, stepping straight off the back of the boat. It was a bit spooky because the water was very deep here and at times you couldn't see the bottom or any coral directly beneath you. However, close to the rocky outcrop was very shallow, claustrophobically so-- I swam on the surface of the water with coral almost touching my belly, and I think my body reacted as if I were crawling through a very small space (since of course the upward direction is no longer an option), and I almost started to hyperventilate from nerves because I couldn't find a way out of the shallow area. It seems to me that claustrophobia is a very unpleasant feeling.

I returned to the boat to find a lovely surprise-- a giant Maori wrasse had tailed us from Wrasse Bay and was hanging around the back of the boat, hoping for tidbits (they have unfortunately been conditioned to expect food from boats). We cruised out of the bay just in time to see the sunset, which was as beautiful (if not more so) as the preceding evening. Another dinner on the barbecue, another cool underwater film, and another heated discussion (this time about U.S. policy and politics-- not my forte, but sometimes you just can't let stereotypes/misconceptions lie). I also got to have another good talk with Cookie, the skipper. He basically lives on the flybridge, the highest part of the boat; he steers the boat from there, and every night he sets up a swag (sleeping bag/tarp) and sleeps under the stars, and sits up and plays his guitar (which he very kindly let me borrow whenever I wanted, once he found out that I was decently good). He'd lived all his life near the ocean and nature, hunting and fishing and sailing. He told me that he believed that there was something about human nature that was intricately tied to the sea; that no one could be happy unless they lived near water, that it was part of us. I told him that I lived in a landlocked state and had done so for twenty years, and he looked at me with such great pity in his eyes that I thought I might crumble under its weight. It's an interesting thought to ponder; certainly we are intrigued by the sea, and we fear it. Perhaps it's simply an extension of the age-old fear of and fascination with the unknown, which manifests itself in darkness or death or the future. Strange the way common threads run through all these things.

Our last morning we once again got up early to see turtles, and this time swim with them. By 7am I had donned my wetsuit and mask and was in the water searching for turtles, but after half an hour or so with no luck (not even interesting fish!) I was becoming discouraged. We had only a few more minutes to snorkel, since we had to be back at the marina by 11am and it was a good 2.5 hours of hard motoring back to Airlie Beach. I was cold and disappointed and thought to myself "God, please? I just want to see a turtle. That's all I want, that would just make this trip." Moments later, I heard a shriek from Julie and immediately swam over to find-- you guessed it, a turtle! They're really hard to find, and are loved even by those like Cookie, CJ, and Alycia, who dive with them all the time. As we slowly followed a few meters above the turtle, a bit of the bottom of the ocean started to move . . . and we had found another turtle, about three times larger than the first. It rose slowly and majestically off of the sea floor and swam parallel to the shore. We followed, awestruck, and swam with the turtle for about five minutes. It began to rise, very slowly, towards the surface; I got the feeling that it was trying to come up for air and we were in its way. However, it soon had no choice but to surface right beside us--only a few meters away!!!!-- to take a breath. Words can't describe how incredible the experience was.

The turtle dove, and we returned to the boat to strip off our gear and start packing our things as the boat headed back to Airlie beach. The divers reported that they had seen a reef shark, which was pretty cool; we had been swimming only a few hundred meters away from a 9-foot shark! We arrived at the marina, and in a somewhat anticlimactic twist, said our goodbyes and went on our way. Julie and I still had a few hours before our flight, so we walked along the beach and visited a festival that was set up there, with various booths of craftspeople and a live band that reminded me quite a lot of the Phyrst Phamily. I called my family only to find out that my sister had gotten engaged (!!!!), which put a perfect final touch on an amazing holiday. We departed from Proserpine Airport and made our way back to gloomy Melbourne, ridden with rain and final exams-- but with some very sunny memories to keep us warm :)

P.S. I will (hopefully) post one more entry about my recent trip to Sydney before I leave Australia in less than 36 hours :(

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note: I took almost none of these pictures.

Julie playing soccer on Whitehaven Beach

A turtle surfacing to breathe

SHARK-TASTIC

Clam!

a nudibranch; the one I saw was prettier

Fan coral

Maori wrasse, so called for the patterns on its face

Angelfish

The ubiquitous parrot fish; you can hear its beak scrape the coral as it eats when you're underwater with it :)

Jacuzzi on board the Powerplay

Julie and I at Whitehaven

Matt and Liz

Neirin and company

a diver-- not sure who it is?

looking into the sunset

Tropical Paradise . . . the Whitsundays

2009-06-20T10:19:00.007-04:00

okay, okay, so it's been a month and a half since my last update. Classes/finals/college sort of took over my life. Here's a bit of an update from my recent trip to the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland...

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Travel Bucket List (abridged):

cSing in Notre Dame

cFloat down the Amazon

cBackpack across Southeast Asia

cHave a snowball fight in Antarctica

gSnorkel and scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef

Last week I spent a serene, sunsoaked four days in the Whitsunday Islands-- a tropical beach paradise in Queensland known for its sugar-white beaches, beautiful snorkeling, and hedonistic lifestyle. It was exactly what I needed: to get away from gray, gloomy Melbourne for a while and forget about all the studying I should have been doing. So my friend Julie and I packed our bags and set off for a 9am flight to Proserpine airport.

We arrived in Airlie Beach, gateway to the Whitsundays, just after 3:30pm on Wednesday. Walking down the main street, I couldn't help but marvel at the palm trees and warm weather (around 80F). When we arrived at our hostel (Magnum's Backpackers), we had to search a bit for reception . . . then we found it at the back of a tree-lined boardwalk full of bars, cafes, and backpackers. Getting to our room was like hiking through a jungle, as the 8-bed "rooms" turned out to be small freestanding cottages along a winding path through the rainforest; ourrs had a small fountain in front of it, and was full of occupants from England, Denmark, and Spain.

We dropped our heavy backpacks (and bags of textbooks) off at the hostel and set off for a walk along the beach, noting the long posted lists of "hazardous marine creatures" (note: there are many, many things that can kill you in Australia). However, we resigned ourselves to a few hours of study before dinner, as we both had exams coming up quickly.

As I got to know Julie (we'd met only a week previously, through a mutual friend), we discovered that we had quite a lot in common, including a passion for music, a strong academic drive, and similar tastes in just about everything-- including food. Both of us were perfectly content to take a loaf of bread, a hunk of Brie, some grapes, and a bottle of wine out to the beach for an idyllic picnic supper, complete with an angsty teenage guitarist serenading the birds a few meters away.

We returned to the boardwalk outside Magnum's just in time to catch one of the "State-of-Origin" rugby games, in which the various professional players play for their home states rather than independent teams. Since it was Queensland vs. New South Wales, the game was on every television and even projected onto a large screen that had been hung between two bars, over the now jam-packed boardwalk. Most people (including, unintentionally, myself) were decked out in Queensland maroon, but there were a few NSW supporters as well.

While watching the game, we met another pair of Americans: Brad, from the University of Arkansas, and John, from the University of Kansas (?). They had both recently completed tours in Iraq and were in Australia for a break between their second and third years of school. As we talked, I discovered that John and I had almost exactly the same taste in reading; with each favorite book we revealed, the other inevitably echoed "me too!" Brad and Julie, meanwhile (who claim that they "don't read"), rolled their eyes at our dorkiness. Our woodland cottage called, however, as we had to depart early the next morning for our cruise.

Checkin was scheduled for 9:30am, so we paid our remaining balance and signed a few liability forms at the downtown office before heading over to the marina. When we arrived, there were hundreds of boats moored; sailing the Whitsundays is very popular and a huge source of tourist revenue. Our boat, the Powerplay, was a streamlined catamaran that looked built for speed. We looked around the dock at the 17 other passengers with whom we would share the voyage, and the three-person crew ushered us onto our temporary home.

The boat was not enormous, but had more than enough room for its 22 passengers. The back of the boat had an open-air saloon and galley, where we ate, and a covered area where you could sit and talk and watch the water; the front was comprised of a deck and two nets, in which you could suspend yourself just above the rushing water. Below it all were the bathrooms and sleeping quarters; above us was a small flybridge from which our skipper, Cookie, steered the boat; you were always welcome to go upstairs to soak up the sun or even just to chat. The other members of the crew were CJ, the hostess/photographer/cook, and Alycia, the dive instructor.

Oddly, when all was said and done, there were no Australians on the boat. The two female members of the crew hailed from Canada; Cookie, who took no nonsense, cracked sarcastic jokes, and had a mouth (not unexpectedly) like a sailor, came from New Zealand. Of the passengers, one couple was from Denmark, of course Julie and I from the States, and a whopping 15 passengers from England. There were at least five separate parties, but the British invasion had definitely arrived! I got to know several of these people over the next few days, and it was a very interesting cast of characters. There was Dan, a long-haired, tatooed jokester from London; Rob, Alex, and Bobby, a trio of clowns from Manchester (side note: the Manchester accent is one of the most difficult I've ever had to understand, and it's still technically English!); Donna and Stevie, traveling around Australia together; Ed and Jemima, who moved from London to Sydney a few months ago, just because they felt like it; Neirin and his trio of girlfriends, who became known collectively as "Team Nemo" as they attempted to get their scuba certifications; Matt, a recent graduate in marine biology who hoped to work in conservation; and Liz, Matt's girlfriend with whom he was traveling for a year.

We spent a fantastic few days swimming, sunning, and watching fish and turtles and the like. The first afternoon, I decided I would try scuba diving for the first time . . . it was amazing. Seeing the fish and coral up that close was unbelievable and strange; it was, as cliche as it sounds, like being part of another world. We spent that afternoon diving and snorkeling in Blue Pearl Bay, the "aquarium" of the Whitsundays and purportedly the fishiest spot.

Afternoon tea and snacks were served back onboard the Powerplay, giving us a chance to relax and socialize with the other passengers as the boat cruised swiftly south towards our next destination. We watched the sun set over the water, the orange rays reflecting magnificently over the tropical sea and filling the swiftly darkening sky with brilliant reds and pinks.

As soon as we dropped anchor for the night, the crew started the barbecue that was attached to the back of the boat (?!??? . . . typical australia) and grilled chicken for dinner (that is, for everyone else; I got pasta). The always-blunt Cookie thanked me profusely, because whenever he has "vegemeterribles" on board, he gets a break from the monotonous set menu, which apparently repeats every two days. The food was definitely much better than I had expected for such a small and limited kitchen.

After dinner, the crew rolled down a screen and a projector and proceeded to show a slideshow of photos from the afternoon, including some great underwater shots. Apparently CJ and Alycia would be armed with cameras for the duration of the trip. The slideshow was followed by a showing of a documentary called Sharkwater-- a really fascinating film, and one I'd highly recommend. The first half gives some great information about sharks and does some mythbusting: sharks are nothing like the vicious monsters society paints them to be. In fact, vending machines kill more people every year than sharks do. Sharks will only very rarely attack people, and even then they quickly realize their mistake and swim away. The second half of the film contains some shocking footage and also quite a few dirty secrets about illegal shark fishing, mostly fueled by the high demand for shark fin soup in China. Because of the enormous profitability of the fin trade (shark fin soup costs upwards of $100 per bowl), many corrupt governments ignore illegal fishing.

The result has been devastating to the world's shark population, and is wreaking havoc on marine ecosystems. The wasteful and usually illegal process of shark finning consists of cutting the fins (up to $300/pound) off of a shark (almost worthless), often while it is still alive, and discarding the rest. The sharks, unable to swim, sink to the bottom and either suffocate or bleed to death, as they need to swim to breathe. Since the fin constitutes only 2-5% of the shark's body weight, this is incredibly wasteful and environmentally damaging on many levels. Shark poaching also may be a huge contributor to global warming: by removing the sharks, smaller fish may overpopulate and feed on the phytoplankton that convert much of the world's carbon dioxide supply to oxygen. The problem is, we don't really know what removing sharks will do to our own existence, but we're killing them by the millions, decimating most shark populations by 50% or more. In short: we've got a problem.

After the documentary, I had a pretty deep conversation with the crew about the issues presented in the film, and conversation in general, agreeing to talk to PULP (Princeton U. Language Project) about maybe finding some way to help with the filmmaker's current project, which is translating the documentary into Chinese to try to lessen the demand for shark fin soup. Conversations gradually died all around the boat, and we headed to bed. The younger set of passengers, including Julie and myself, slept in the saloon area (which somehow converted into a bedroom large enough for eight people). The rocking of the boat, despite my head full of interesting and disturbing thoughts, lulled me into a deep sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED

(in the middle of finals guys, can't spare that much time!)

Airlie beach . . . or Tuscan villa?

Sunset over the harbor

Our hostel??!

Julie on board the Powerplay

Snorkeling: Me, Bobby, Dan, Rob, Alex, and Julie

Getting ready to scuba dive! Liz, me, and Julie.

a diver with Priscilla, the giant wrasse of Blue Pearl Bay

(note: she was preceded by Elvis, who died . . . this one is assumed to be his offspring)

Giant clam

Sunset over the water

Trailer for Sharkwater-- check it out!

NZ Days 7, 8, and 9: Punakaiki/Christchurch/Akaroa

2009-05-08T04:11:00.004-04:00

CHRISTCHURCH AIRPORT
April 20, 5:23am

It sounds trite, but it's true-- all good things must come to an end. It's been a fantastic trip to an incredible country, but I think I'm ready to resume life as usual in Australia. Which is good, considering that I have class in about 5 hours.

Our last few days in NZ were full of surprises. After the highway-collapsing debacle, we ran into even more trouble when we arrived in Punakaiki. Our hostel was pretty small, and owned/run by one German dude named Lutz who was fairly uptight. He was already upset that we arrived late due to the weather and road conditions, so we humbly checked in at 10pm and he shut the door behind us and closed reception for the night. However, when we opened the door to our 6-bed room, we found that 4 of the beds were already taken. Except, there were three of us. Uh oh. We asked around, and each of the four residents swore that they were supposed to be there (although we couldn't be sure, as none spoke English very well). Steve eventually solved the dilemma by very graciously volunteering to sleep in the lounge on the couch. I may have mentioned that Steve is a top-notch, high-quality individual. Props to Steve.

Bed troubles aside, Punakaiki was a great stop on our trip. It's very isolated and remote-- there's no petrol station, supermarket, or really anything there. There was no light pollution whatsoever, and the rain had finally slacked off a bit, so the stars were completely unobscured. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars. Imagine a clear night, with plenty of bright white stars, and then fill in the spaces with slightly fainter stars. Then keep filling in the spaces with fainter and fainter stars until, when you squint, the sky looks almost like it's been whitewashed. That's how many stars there were.

We were awakened by Lutz at 7am, as he roared into our room like a tornado of hellish German fury. Apparently he had discovered Steve on the couch, who had then told him the situation, so Lutz was determined to find the freeloader. He woke everyone up and eventually found the culprit: a youngish Dutch guy with a particularly vacant expression. The guy had apparently just stayed an extra night without paying, although we had confronted him the preceding night about whether or not he was supposed to be there. Anyway, Lutz was furious and almost marched him upstairs to confront Steve and reimburse him. It was great fun; I wasn't even grumpy at being woken early.

Now that we were all well and truly awake, we decided to go for a walk on the beach, which was literally right on the doorstep of the hostel. The morning light coming in from over the mountains was really beautiful, and the constant mist made everything seem ethereal and sort of surreal. It was a pretty beach, but not really one I'd want to swim on. For breakfast, we bought some homemade muffins from Lutz . . . some sort of wholemeal chocolate bran concoction, which was delicious. Lutz apologized for the confusion and gave Steve most of his money back, and we checked out. It was a lovely hostel, really.

On our way out of town, we stopped to see the main attraction of Punakaiki: the famous "pancake rocks," layered limestone rock formations just offshore. Bridges ran out onto the 20- tall rock towers, and you could watch the surf rage through the channels it had cut into them. Apparently, limestone isn't naturally formed in layers like that, and scientists don't know exactly why the rocks at Punakaiki look like-- well, pancakes.

We struck out for Christchurch over the same narrow, winding roads we'd experienced throughout NZ. However, as we crossed over the northern part of the island, driving east, the landscape began to change once more. The mountain passes were interspersed with pastures-- full of sheep, of course-- and decently long straightaways, sprinkled with many more small towns and signs of civilization than we'd been seeing on the West Coast. Unfortunately, this led to our second nasty surprise. On a fairly deserted, 5km long stretch of straight highway, we're cruising along at a fairly normal pace, blasting some Red Hot Chili Peppers through Carol's stereo, when suddenly lights start flashing . . . we were, in fact, getting pulled over by a kiwi cop. Steve had been doing 123 in a 100km zone, roughly the numerical/mental equivalent of going 75 in a 65 zone. Everyone does it, especially on a long straight road where you can see for a long way in both directions. It's not reckless, it's not unsafe. But nevertheless, Steve got socked with a NZ$170 fine. As the cop said, "it's just too fast, eh bro?"

Thoroughly chastised, we continued driving to Christchurch. We made a brief stop at Hanmer Springs, a famous hot springs area north of Christchurch. However, we decided actually getting in the hot springs wasn't worth it and after looking around a bit, continued on our way. We reached Christchurch at about 6pm, checked into our hostel, and because it was our last night all together, went out for dinner to a nice sushi place. Heather then led us on a single-minded and determined hunt for an asian grocery store that carried a particular kind of japanese ice-cream dessert that she insisted was absolutely delicious . . . she was right. and, despite asking at least three Japanese people, we STILL do not know what it is called. It was ice cream wrapped in some kind of gummy coating . . . anyone?

We finished off the night by going out to an Irish pub recommended by the hostel staff, and had a blast with just the three of us walking around Christchurch at night. It was midnight by the time we got back to the hostel, just as the people our own age were starting to come out-- then came nasty surprise #3. Once again, there were only two beds left in our large 12-bed dorm-style room. No one answered the bell at the hostel desk; no one was there to help us. Once again, I got the best side of the deal as Steve and Heather agreed to share (have I mentioned that I really love these guys? you are the best). As we got ready for bed . . . you guessed it, nasty surprise #4. Heather rechecked her plane ticket and found out that her plane was in fact leaving at 6am, not 8:15am. Which meant we had to be at the airport in about 4 hours. Wonderful.

The next morning (only a few hours later) Steve and I drove Heather to the airport, since she had a review session Monday morning that she couldn't miss and thus needed to be back Sunday. Steve and I, however, had one more day in New Zealand . . . so of course we spend the first several hours sleeping. Once we had recovered from our 4am run to the airport, we walked around the city a little and saw some things, including my favorite place in Christchurch-- the Arts Centre. There was a bustling outdoor crafts market of interesting and unusual items; all were far above a student budget, of course, but beautiful to look at. There was also an interesting, interactive exhibit on Ernest Rutherford, who was apparently from New Zealand! go figure.

In the afternoon, we drove to Akaroa, a about an hour away. The beautiful harbor was nestled between huge volcanic mountains, all as green as we had come to expect from this amazing country. We arrived just in time to catch the late-afternoon sun glinting off of tranquil waters, with hundreds of sailboats silhouetted against the horizon. Even though we stayed in town just long enough for a cup of coffee on the waterfront, it was absolutely worth the two-hour round trip.

We got back to Christchurch with just enough daylight left to stop by the grocery store, trying to figure out how to tie our various remaining food supply into something that resembled dinner, ending up with some kind of stir-fry/curry/rice/noodle something-or-other. We spent one last night out on the terrace, in heated discussion with two gay guys from Brisbane about American politics, healthcare, and television. Being American while abroad is a very interesting experience. People generally tend either to attack your country, or make excuses for it (like they feel bad for you, or something). Neither of these types of people usually see America in a positive light. The choice it presents is interesting: either sweep it under the rug and agree with them, trying to minimize conversation about it, or stand up for your country's economic, political, and social model. I typically do a mix of both: I admit America's flaws, but I won't be railroaded into downsizing my opinions.

Since we had another early morning ahead, we said good night early, packed our things, and went to sleep (now that we had enough beds). 3:30am saw us on our way to the airport to return the rental car and check in for our 6:15 flight back to Melbourne, where we met up with several other American friends who'd been in NZ that week; they hadn't even bothered to book a hostel that night, but opted to sleep in the airport instead. By 8am we had touched down in Melbourne, and by 9am I was in my first lecture of the day.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip, and I'm very glad I went. I had a ton of fun, got some great photos, made some wonderful memories and some lifelong friends. I don't know what my next destination will be (Australia is a big place!) but you can be sure I'll write about it when I find the time!

Our backyard at the Beach Hostel

Pancake rocks at Punakaiki

Steve and his speeding ticket

Rutherford's Nobel in chemistry-- pretty sure it's a replica, but still!

Lyttleton harbor, on the way to Akaroa

Butterfly in Akaroa

Boats at Akaroa

more boats

saying goodbye to Carol :(

NZ Days 5 & 6: Milford Sound and Fox/Franz Josef Glaciers

2009-04-28T07:03:00.006-04:00

PUNAKAIKI BEACH HOSTEL
April 17, 10:36pm

I feel like it's been ages since I've written . . . it's actually only been two days, but we've packed so much into them that it seems like at least a week. We've put over 1200km on our rental car, driving up and down the west coast of the South Island and seeing an extraordinary variety of geography, including mountains, waterfalls, glaciers, and beaches, with plenty of steep, terrifying hairpin turns in between.

Most of our drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound was made during the day, which meant that we were constantly marvelling at the beautiful scenery in which we were immersed. There were rolling farmlands full of more sheep than I'd ever seen in my entire life; lush green mountains sometimes capped with snow; and so many lakes and rivers that I began to think that all the land in New Zealand was only in existence to provide borders for them. It's also the beginning of autumn here, so the leaves are starting to change and the countryside is flooded with color-- burgundies, bronzes and ochres just beginning to superimpose themselves on a landscape already made up of literally hundreds of shades of green.

As dusk settled in, the land began to change . . . the golden pastures disappeared and the mountains rose even higher, becoming more sheer and majestic with each passing mile. Small rivulets of water appeared on the cliff faces, cascading straight down-- some large enough to be termed genuine waterfalls. However, with the gathering darkness came an unwelcome guest: rain. A persistent drizzle gradually increased to a steady thrum against Carol's red roof, making the already difficult-to-navigate roads almost impossible to drive. Through the ever-thickening fog, we could barely make out huge waterfalls coming out of the towering mountains, obscured by mist and driving rain. Finally, we entered a rough tunnel hewn out of the mountainside. The tunnel went downhill, giving a distinctly Stygian impression, which added to the already-eerie feeling created by being the only car for miles along a winding two-lane road through the dark and misty valleys.

The tunnel lasted for some time, but when we came out on the other side we were struck completely dumb. A huge open green valley rolled out before us, almost prehistoric in the wildness of its natural beauty. However, the darkness made it almost impossible to see anything shortly thereafter. We followed the road--unknowingly passing countless huge waterfalls and rushing rivers--until it reached the harbor, but couldn't see anything except a Great Gatsby-style green light at the end of the pier, so we turned around and backtracked to the evening's accommodation: the Milford Sound Lodge, a backpackers and campsite near the wharf. It was very much a lodge, quite rustic, like a summer camp; think log cabins and low, squat dormitory buildings with a main kitchen/bathroom/lounge area. The staff were very knowledgeable and helpful, answering all our questions about where to hike and what we should do the next day if it was still raining, and whether or not we should pay for a cruise boat to take us out into the Sound.

The next morning, we woke to a torrential downpour-- so much for hiking at sunrise. In the end, we decided that it was worth it to pay NZ$45 for a 9:00am cruise around the Sound, which included a continental breakfast . . . and it was the best $45 I've ever spent. Words cannot describe the incredible beauty of Milford Sound, even in pouring rain and harsh winds. I really can't write about it-- I would be doing you a disservice. You'll just have to look at the pictures. But I can say with confidence that it is the most beautiful place I have ever encountered, in all my travels.

Ironically, the sun came out just as it was time to leave Milford Sound. However, since we had an eight-hour drive ahead, we couldn't really stay past eleven, Although we managed to snap a few good photos on the way out (in daylight this time!) we wanted to get underway to Fox Glacier, our next stop. We passed through Te Anau, a decent-sized town, on the way, where we ate meat (vegetable!) pies and bought a few things we'd need for the glacier hike. We were also fairly liberal with photo stops and detours, resulting in a pretty leisurely travelling pace. I had my first-ever experience driving on the left side of the road. Unfortunately, (unbeknownst to us), I had volunteered to take on the most terrifying stretch of road I've ever driven--hairpin turns up a steep cliff face with almost no guard rail, all overlooking Queenstown as we passed by it once more.

We reached our hostel-- the Ivory Towers Backpackers-- at about 9:30pm. Dinner was soup and grilled tomato and cheese sandwiches, delicious after our long day on the road. We basically had our own apartment, as there were no other guests in our building. We did, however, make friends with another traveller-- Gilad, from Israel, was taking some time to travel before starting university in October. He'd been travelling NZ for 4.5 months, and had seen almost every small town and attraction on both islands.

Plans for a sunrise hike to Lake Matheson were foiled once more by-- you guessed it-- rain. THe rain had followed us from Milford Sound and was now intent on both drenching both Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. We drove quickly to Franz Josef, calling frantically ahead to see if our scheduled glacier hike had been canceled. We'll have to wait and see, they said. And so we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, we were rescheduled for the 10:30am hike, rather than the 8:e0am, but they didn't know whether even that one would still go due to the absolutely dreadful weather.

And then came the fatal blow that finally sent my carefully-laid plans crashing to the ground . . . the highway just north of Franz Josef had collapsed due to recent heavy rains, and was closed. In the States, this wouldn't be a huge obstacle; but since this is New Zealand, there's usually only one way to get from one place to another. Our progress north was completely blocked, and there was no way to get to Punakaiki, our next stop. We had to figure out a way to get to Christchurch by Saturday night, and where to stay that night since it looked like we couldn't get to Punakaiki. All the while, the rain continued, oblivious to our petty problems.

In the midst of heated deliberations over what we should do, in came some good news: our glacier hike, unthinkably, was still on! We were subsequently fitted with waterproof pants, a rain jacket, boots, hats, gloves, and everything we would need (including crampons-- see below). It was still pouring, and I didn't relish the idea of doin a four-hour hike on a glacier in the rain, but we had come all this way and I wasn't about to let a bit of drizzle keep me from what little remained of my carefully crafted itinerary. We boarded a bus and set off for a hike on Franz Josef glacier, the steepest commercially guided glacier in the world.

And it was wet, and cold, and at times miserable-- but I'm glad we did it. We walked through a verifiable jungle for some time before emerging into the glacial valley. As Steve said, "it's like freakin' Jurassic Park!" I half-expected a few dinosaurs to lumber around the corner. The valley featured a wide stone riverbed with a flooded river racing through it, and was bordered by the same sorts of mountains we'd seen in Milford Sound-- very steep, covered in lush green trees, with a copious amount of waterfalls poking out periodically.

There's something humbling and yet astounding about a glacier. I think it has a lot to do with the idea of so much history in one place-- with speeded-up geological time. You can see the striae on the rocks from the advancing and retreating glacier, and you can look at boulders the size of a medium-sized car and listen in disbelief as your guide tells you they fell last week. Strange, but exhilerating.

The hike TO the glacier was actually the hardest part of the trek. At the base of the massive wall of ice, we fitted our boots with crampons: spiked metal frames that are strapped to your feet. As you walk, they dig into the ice, giving you better traction, and you can't really climb at all without them. Our guide went ahead of us with a pickax, renewing the pre-cut stairs and pathways that were quickly washing away beneath the constant assault of the elements. We climbed slowly but surely up the almost-sheer face of the glacier, slipping and sliding past caves, wells, deep fissures, and crevasses so deep that they go halfway down into the 100m thick glacier (100m is the equivalent of a 30-story building). The ice is blue, not white, since it's so dense that it's over 90% water instead of the usual 50%/50% water-air ice that forms over puddles and lakes.

The rain did not let up one little bit for our four-hour hike; in fact, the guide said that if the weather had been any worse at all they would not have taken groups out. As it was, we were taking detours to avoid landslides and extra care with certain glacier paths. But as wet and cold as it was, it was still a great experience that I'm glad I did it.

And to top it all off, when we returned to town we found that they had miraculously rebuilt one lane of the highway, and we would be able to get to Punakaiki that night as planned! We were overjoyerd-- but also famished and in desperate need of a hot shower. So after raiding a nearby cafe for sandwiches and sausage rolls, we actually drove the 25km SOUTH back to Fox and just walked into Ivory Towers to use their showers (hey, we did stay there the previous night). By the time we left for Punakaiki, it was easily 6pm and starting to get dark. 2.5 hours of hard driving got us to Hokitika, where we stopped for groceries and delicious Indian food, and by 10pm we'd made it to Punakaiki.

Our hostel here is right on the beach, which is amazing. The town is very small-- no supermarket or petrol station here at ll-- and there are more stars than I think I've ever seen. I'm looking forward to a walk on the beach tomorrow and a slightly less frenzied day as we reach the last leg of our trip :(

Waterfall in Milford Sound

The end of the Sound-- the Tasman sea

BABY SEALS

Me, Heather, and Steve

A common sight on the walls of Milford Sound

A chasm with a rushing river; roadside stop on the way out of M.S.

Another chance photo stop on the way out of M.S.

Late-afternoon sun shining off lake Wakitipu

Driving out of Queenstown, overlooking the valley

Sky at sunset

BEST SIGN EVER

on our way into the glacier

Franz Josef Glacier

Wet and cold but still having fun!

NZ Days 3 & 4: Queenstown

2009-04-24T01:13:00.004-04:00

MILFORD SOUND HIGHWAY
April 15, 5:26pm

After two days in Queenstown, I have to admit that it's a pretty cool place. The setting exudes natural beauty-- a mountain range called the Remarkables cradles Lake Wakitipu, and on its shores is this crazy, wild adventure town full of adrenaline junkies and partygoers. The whole place has a kind of fantastic, Seussian aura to it; where in the U.S. would you find an entire town completely dedicated to bungy jumping, parasailing, skydiving, jetboating, hanggliding, canyon swinging, fourwheeling, whitewater rafting, and anything else you can dream up?

Queenstown is not large; only a few streets form the entire downtown, which is entirely made up of souvenir shops, restaurants, and tour/adventure-activity booking agencies. Our hostel, the YHA Queenstown Central, was quite nice and more like a budget hotel than a hostel. Each 4-share room had a TV and ensuite bathroom, and there was a kitchen/lounge on the top floor with a great view of the lake. We met up with Heather at the hostel and set off for dinner at Fergburger, a famous burger place right next to our hostel. Heather then informed us that almost every single adventure activity in Queenstown was fully booked for Tuesday and Wednesday; since we hadn't made a prebooking, our options were very limited. We settled on an ATV tour that promised two hours of racing around on four-wheelers and spectacular 360-degree views of Queenstown and the Remarkables.

After a very filling dinner (best falafel burger I've ever had, hands down, and a bag of chips (=fries) the size of Steve's head), we returned to the YHA and met up with the last person in our 4-share room: Colm, from Ireland, who was traveling through New Zealand after quitting his job in Australia. On the way out of the hostel, we met a few more people-- John and Steve, Americans studying at Bond University. we chatted for a while . . . then I realized that John was wearing a THON sweatshirt (!!!!!). He did indeed go to Penn State, and knew a couple of my friends from home. We talked for a long time about football, frats, Canyon Pizza, and good old Happy Valley. It was so cool to have someone say "oh, so where do you live?" and actually be able to describe the landmarks and streets surrounding my neighborhood.

We ended up at a bar called Minus Five; it was a strange experience, but very cool (literally). The entire bar is made of ice, and is kept at -5 degrees celsius. You're provided with a hooded parka, gloves, and boots before you enter, and you're only allowed to be inside for 30 minutes. The walls are made of ice, the drinks are served in glasses made of ice, and ice sculptures filled the room. Weird, but cool.

The next day dawned early; the tour company picked us up from our hostel at 9:30 and we drove to a farm on the mountainside with four or five other people-- including, completely coincidentally, John and Steve from the previous night. small, small world. After a brief training session with the four-wheelers, two guides took us up over the mountain. For two hours, we ripped over rocky trails, through muddy creek beds, and up the steep slopes of the surrounding mountains, culminating in an amazing view of Queenstown. We emerged dusty but exhilerated by the ride, which ended up being the only actual adventure sport we did in Queenstown.

Lunch was PB&J in the hostel, some great conversation, and in general a relaxing time watching boats paddle lazily around the lake. We walked around downtown Queenstown (there's not much of it) looking for art galleries and souvenir shops and occasionally stopping for coffee until it was time to kook dinner, which was spaghetti (again; we explored the last bit of Queenstown and then (gasp) studied until we fell asleep.

We checked out of the hostel at 10am sharp, and after breakfast made our way to the gondola, which takes you up to a mountain peak above the town on a ski-lift type thing. At the top there are observation decks, a small cafe, a buffet restaurant, and what they call the luge. You sit in a small sled mounted on wheels, and you can steer and brake with a set of handlebars on the front. The luge cars race down a winding track, much like go-karts, and you cna buy as many rides as you want and just go over and over again.

We ate at the mountaintop cafe and rode the luge, and then it was unfortunately time to say goodbye to QUeenstown. We trotted down to Earl Street to pick up the car we had rented, a shiny red 2006 Toyota Corolla hatchback we affectionately dubbed "Carol." With parasailers hanging in the air above us and jetboats roaring through the lake beside us, we set off towards Milford Sound. The drive has been incredibly scenic so far; it's autumn here, so the leaves are changing and everything is absolutely gorgeous. Milford Sound is supposed to be some of the best scenery in New Zealand though, so I'll keep you posted!

Lake Tekapo, one of the most beautiful stops on the drive from Christchurch to Queenstown

Lake Tekapo again

Boats on Lake Tekapo

Heather says: my drink is GREEN. and made of ICE.

Heather and I are hardcore four-wheeling champs.

View of Queenstown from the top of the mountain

Lakeside wharf in Queenstown

Heather and Steve walking through Queenstown

Parasailers above Queenstown

View of Queenstown from the gondola platform

Bungee jumping off the mountainside

SO MANY SHEEP IN NEW ZEALAND

Where we ate. delicious.

Driving out of Queenstown-- lots of great views!

NZ Day 2: Christchurch/Kaikoura

2009-04-21T03:03:00.005-04:00

SOMEWHERE ON A BUS BETWEEN CHRISTCHURCH AND QUEENSTOWN
April 13, 1:19pm

On Easter Sunday, I was up before the sun-- but this year, it was because I had a 7am bus to catch. Grabbing a quick breakfast from my stash of apples, muesli bars, and hot cross buns, I made my way to Cathedral Square once more. I caught the daily service from Christchurch to Picton, planning to get off at Kaikoura.

The drive was my first taste of the beautiful country I'd been promised . . . and it did not disappoint. After I woke from a brief nap, my eyes were assaulted with green as the road climbed and twisted its way through the steep mountainous terrain. As we drew near to Kaikoura, I could just barely see a glimpse of the majestic South Pacific, the morning light glinting off its surface like a handful of diamonds. As we descended to the harbor, a quaint seaside village popped up; it was so small that a two-minute drive would have taken us right through it. The sunlight coming in off the coast filled the entire town as if it were tangible-- as I stepped off of the bus I half-expected to feel the weight of it on my skin. It was truly beautiful.

I had just enough time to take a few photos before heading up the hill to a small seaside chapel that advertised "St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Kaikoura -- Services 10:00am -- All welcome!" The steep walkway led up to a tiny church, whose stained-glass windows flooded the sanctuary with that same extraordinary light. Although the average age of the congregation was about sixty, it was really nice to be able to celebrate Easter with familiar hymns and scriptures. All fifteen or so attendees were fascinated by the presence of two denim-clad backpackers--a twenty-something, scruffy-looking German had also apparently stepped in off the street-- and, in their Easter best, invited us to have tea after the service. Unfortunately, I had to decline; my whale-watching boat was scheduled to depart at 11:45.

However, upon arriving at Whale Watch, I was told that the tour had been canceled, as the whales were "outside our operating range." Apparently, they send out sonar-equipped spotter planes to locate the whales before sending out boats full of eager tourists. And today, the whales had taken a holiday of their own and were outside the 30-mile radius the boats could handle. Although it was disappointing, I was glad they were honest and refunded my money. I signed up for a "Coastal Tour" that left an hour and a half later, was shorter, and much cheaper, in the hopes of seeing a bit more of the harbor and at least some wildlife. In the meantime, I made a picnic of PB&J, apples, and muesli bars on the stony beach, wandered through some art galleries on the modest main street, and stopped for ice cream.

Apparently, the geology of Kaikoura makes it ideal for marine life; the rock shelves and warm water created by the underlying fault somehow create favorable conditions for all sorts of creatures, including many varieties of whales and dolphins. Kaikoura is one of the most likely places in the world to see a sperm whale, and other commonly seen marine mammals include dusky dolphins, NZ fur seals, orca, and the rare Hector's dolphin, found only in New Zealand. The boat took about forty passengers and had two levels of observation decks.

Highlights of the trip were two huge wandering albatrosses-- the bird with the largest wingspan in the world, found only in the southern hemisphere-- and some other seabirds; a colony of seals, stretched out lazily over some huge rocks; and my favorite, an enormous pod of dusky dolphins. There must have been hundreds of them, leaping and twirling and just flying through the clear turquoise water, playing in the trails left by the boat or swimming alongside it. I must have had a huge, idiotic grin on my face for at least twenty minutes as the beautiful creatures frolicked around us.

The tour lasted about two hours in total, and by the time we got back to shore it was time to catch the bus back to Christchurch. Although I don't think I spoke more than ten words the entire day, it was very restful and satisfying to spend Easter in such a beautiful part of God's creation.

The bus back/evening in Christchurch was uneventful; cooked myself some spaghetti and couldn't bring myself to face my pile of schoolwork, so I curled up with a book until my friend Steve arrived at about midnight. He'll join me for the next leg of the trip-- onward to Queenstown!

Christchurch Cathedral

Kaikoura Harbor

More of Kaikoura

Albatross (picture is deceptive--that bird is huge)

DOLPHINS <3

jumping dolphin

NZ Day 1: Melbourne/Christchurch

2009-04-12T04:57:00.003-04:00

Note: I'll be handwriting blog entries from my easter break trip to New Zealand and posting them gradually, as I get computer/internet access. enjoy!

NEW EXCELSIOR BACKPACKERS HOSTEL, CHRISTCHURCH
April 11, 9:51pm

After weeks of worrying and planning and copious amounts of time on the internet booking/researching . . . I'm finally in New Zealand! The last few weeks have been fairly stressful, with tons of uni work (and plenty of events at college to distract me from it), and I'm excited to get away for a bit. I did unfortunately have to bring some schoolwork, but there are lots of long bus rides/drives ahead so at least I won't be bored.

This morning my alarm went of at 4:45 am . . . ugh. After a quick shower and some last-minute packing, I trotted out the front gate at Trinity to catch the very first tram down Royal Parade/Elizabeth Street, munching on some apples and cheese and a muesli bar (=granola bar for all you statesiders). Two trams and a shuttle bus got me to Tullamarine airport with plenty of time to catch my 8:40am Jetstar flight to Christchurch. I checked no bags, travelling light with only my backpack half-full of schoolwork and a duffel bag full of essential clothes. I slept for the entire 2.5 hour flight, waking up as the plane broke through the clouds to reveal breathtaking panoramas of towering snowy crags, with smooth green patchwork plains rolling out like a carpet at their feet.

I got through customs without a hitch, withdrew some local currency, and boarded the public bus to the city center. $7 got me the 12km from the airport to Cathedral Square, at the center of Christchurch. From there it was only a brief and pleasant stroll to the New Excelsior Backpackers, three blocks away. The staff was friendly and full of banter as they checked me in and sent me to my 12-person dorm-style room, where I dropped my bags and headed to the supermarket. $25 got me all the food I'd need for the next two and a half days, including some hot cross buns for Easter tomorrow :)

And so, finding myself alone in a strange city once again, I grabbed the trusty Lonely Planet and set off on my own two feet, having only the faintest idea where I might be going. Picking up some falafel on my way back to Cathedral Square turned out to be a great idea . . . it was delicious and by this time (5pm) I was starving (although I was almost mobbed by hungry seagulls whilst eating it). Took a turn down Worcester street and made a mental note of the location of my bus pickup for tomorrow morning, conveniently located just outside cathedral square. Further exploration took me across the picturesque Avon River and past Oxford Terrace, a lovely strip apparently noted for its restaurants. Every twenty meters or so, there would be another building that looked like a church, but was in fact a shop or a gallery of some sort. I guess they don't call it Christchurch for nothing.

Christchurch strikes me as a very quiet, sleepy little town. As I walked about in the early evening, everything was closing down and the streets were quickly becoming deserted. Every seemingly interesting place was shut tight, and I was beginning to give up hope that I'd do anything that evening other than schoolwork at the hostel. Finally, I saw a tiny corner of a stained-glass window through some casually thrown-open doors . . . I'd stumbled upon Christchurch's Arts Centre, which was not the single modern-looking building I had imagined but a series of academic-gothic buildings, towers, and courtyards: extraordinarily reminiscent of Princeton, leaving me slightly nostalgic for home. Although most of the shops and exhibits had closed, I was more than content simply to walk around the vaulted archways and cloisters. There was, however, one artisan still peddling her beautiful handmade jewelry in one small room, a barely noticeable open door leading off the north courtyard. After I complimented her work, she struck up a conversation which turned out to be fascinating. I talked to this 50-something woman, a complete stranger, at length about my travels, my studies, and my career plans; from there the conversation turned to her daughter (a chemical engineer), her business, other study-abroad students she'd met, and even things she'd learned from the geneology of herself she'd recently paid someone to do. She asked my name and my heritage, and after noting my dark eyes, dark hair, and skin tone, assured me that if I traced back far enough I was likely to find something Middle Eastern. Because, after all, "you never know about these things."

From there I stopped for coffee at a small theater specialising in newly written plays, and then went to see a movie at a small cinema in the Arts Centre. The film, a slightly-better-than-mediocre indie flick entitled "Before the Rains," was set in 1930s Kerala (a place in South India that's near and dear to my heart-- shout out to my infy friends!). It featured what seemed to be a washed-up, one-dimensional love story of a forbidden affair between a married British planter and his married Indian serving girl. However, it redeemed itself slightly as it quickly devolved into a psychological mindgame of violence, tradgedy, and cover-ups. Wouldn't see it again, but it was worth thirteen bucks.

I quickly covered the sevenish blocks back to the hostel, where I intended to make myself some dinner. However, as soon as I got to the kitchen, another guy at the hostel flagged me down and started a conversation. Mark, from south England, had been here for six months and was looking to move here permanently, trying to find a job in "scaffolding." We talked about the world and how big it was, and he told stories of his time in Australia and Southeast Asia. We both agreed that travelling on a shoestring budget-- hostelling, backpacking, and budgeting your way around-- was really what made the experience of travel so compelling.

Since it's now about 11:00pm, I should think about heading for bed-- I have a 7am bus to catch! However, it's definitely been an interesting day. Whale watching in Kaikoura tomorrow; I can't wait!

a day in the life

2009-03-25T12:25:00.003-04:00

This is an article I wrote for a magazine called "Trinity Today" (it's like PAW, but not weekly). I will post it in lieu of an actual entry. enjoy!
---------------

7:00am
The small travel alarm clock by my bed beeps quietly but insistently, and my eyes are grudgingly pried open by the warm Southern-hemisphere sunshine. I meet a friend in the corridor and we trudge out the door of Dorothy, past the Sharwood room, the dining hall, and the Junior Common Room to join a horde of other bleary-eyed girls standing on the bulpadok, ready (or not) for rowing training. After a 3.5K lap around Princes Park, I’m ready to collapse—but unfortunately, I’ve got a 9am lecture. With a shower and some breakfast, I feel a bit more human and (armed with a thermos full of coffee) ready to take on my full day of classes.

Control Systems 1 is followed quickly by Probability; a dash back to college for lunch and I’m on my way out again for two hours of Mechanics 4, a tutorial for Controls, and rounding it all off with a lecture on Biomaterials. But the day isn’t over; after returning to college, I’ve got to head over to the sports oval for a brief softball practice. Afterwards, I have just enough time to check my email, practice my guitar for a bit, and grab my academic gown before heading off to formal hall. Dinner begins with a lovely rendition of the college grace by the world-class chapel choir, and concludes with notices: tickets for this party and that will be on sale at the back of the hall, college Eucharist tonight in the chapel, the bar in the JCR will be open straight after tutorials, residents of Jeopardy please be prepared for a hot-water outage tomorrow afternoon. As students exit, the hall is filled with the scraping of chairs, the swish of black robes, and a buzz of chatter about topics ranging from the inane to the profound.

After dinner, I’ve got a tutorial for Probability with the three other Trinitarians in the class, specially set up for us by the inestimable Sally Dalton-Brown. Our enthusiastic tutor takes half again the allotted time with his complicated analogies and methods before letting us go. Although I really did intend to study, I find myself sitting on the bul for hours, talking and laughing with friends. Suddenly I realize that it’s almost midnight, and yet again I’ve managed to complete none of my work. Ah well, I’ll do it tomorrow. However, I return to Dorothy to find all the doors open and full of friendly faces, calling out hellos and “how’re you going”s, and I somehow end up talking to people there for another hour or so. It’s only by sheer force of will that I declare bedtime for myself and fall fast asleep, reenergizing for another day.

-----------

Although this may sound like a typical day in the life of a college student, it’s far from typical for me. As an American exchange student, life here at Trinity has been vastly different from anything I’ve ever encountered. Formal hall? Mandatory kitchen duties? Deans, rectors, and wardens? Floor tutors readily available to ask for advice? Nightly tutorials in addition to classes? And to top it all off . . . O-Week?!?! For a while, it was surprise after surprise as the floodgates opened to pour down all that was Trinity on top of my unsuspecting, thoroughly American self.

It didn’t take long, however, for Trinity to feel like a second home (albeit a slightly surreal one). It’s kind of like constantly being on the set of a movie: the quaint buildings and lovely roses bring to mind a bit of English countryside, and students walk about in Trinity colors looking as if they had stepped out of the pages of a brochure. The cast of characters is eclectic, entertaining, and admirable—there’s Campbell, the dean who lets us throw rave parties on his front lawn; Connie, the bizarre but loveable lunchlady who is a combination mother and tyrant; Paul, the kindly nightwatchman who lets you into your room when you’ve forgotten your key after a long night out on the town; Emma, the intimidating but extraordinarily knowledgeable tutor who lives in Dorothy with her cat, Leo; Frank, the seventy-year-old head of sports who yells himself hoarse during fitness sessions at 6:45am but never says more than two words to anyone at any other time of day; and so many more. I could fill books about them and the empire they’ve built here.

However, the most striking thing about Trinity is the overwhelming variety of opportunities it offers. Before I came to Australia, I promised myself that I would try new things that I didn’t have time for or never had the chance to do in the States. Although I have little to no experience, I’ve been able to get involved in college sports with ease (shocking all of my friends back home); I go to an extracurricular tutorial on Human Rights each week; I take guitar lessons from my friend David, a third-year music student; I sing with the Candystripes, an all-girls a cappella group; the list goes on and on. I also have gotten involved with several things outside Trinity: I meet weekly with a fellowship group at Uni called Christian Union, and I go to services and bible study at St. Jude’s Unichurch; I’m working in the Uni Mechanical Engineering laboratory on a really interesting project; and I still find time occasionally to go busking on Lygon Street, visit my American friends over at RMIT village, or plan a weekend trip to Sydney or Port Fairy.

These opportunities are not always quantifiable. I think that by far the most valuable thing I will take from Trinity is the friendships I have made here, and the things I’ve learned from simply talking to other students. I now know about the glorious invention that is the TimTam, the vagaries of private school rivalries in Melbourne, and that “Saturday week” means “a week from Saturday.” I’ve learned how to play cricket, how to give a decent haircut, and how to make a really good Milo. But most of all, I’ve learned more about myself and the way I interact with other people than I have in three years of an Ivy-league education. I’m having the time of my life, and I’m very glad I’m having it at Trinity.

Down the steep road to the beach in Anglesea at Christian Union "Base Camp," March 13-15

Tea and coffee in Anglesea

A St. Paddy's Day themed JCR

The "Riviera"-themed party last weekend, "Paraiso"

Rachel and I at Paraiso

race around the world . . . or just melbourne

2009-03-17T02:41:00.005-04:00

As promised, here are some pictures from the "Race Around the World" (modeled after the show "The Amazing Race"), held on the last morning of O-week. The TCAC split all the freshers that wanted to participate into teams of ten or so, and assigned two seniors to each group as leaders. More senior volunteers were stationed around the city, where we completed different tasks and were then given a clue to lead us to the next task's location, collecting objects and completing mini-tasks along the way. Although the event was primarily for freshers, I feel like the senior leaders had just as much fun as we did-- running around the city obtaining an eclectic collection of strange objects, taking photos of ourselves doing crazy things, and completing the tasks at each of seven stations. Highlights were:

TASKS
-In Chinatown: finding someone who spoke Mandarin and asking them how to say a list of ten words, many of which were slightly awkward to have to describe to a non-English-speaker...
-Outside the library-- crawling up a long set of steps on hands and knees, only to be asked at the very top how many steps there were (good thing someone counted the first time around, because most groups had to do it twice or even three times!)
-Outside Crown Casino-- do the Fresher dance while wearing each other's clothing. Bonus points for wearing each other's clothes.
-Outside the Town Hall-- Collecting signatures for a petition for higher salaries for bank CEOs.
-On Lygon Street-- eating a plate full of cold spaghetti, baked beans, and a ring of pineapple, as fast as you could with no hands
--In Federation Square--Drawing portraits of strangers and getting as much for them as possible; this ranged from money (tops was about $4) to bits of rubbish to articles of clothing to what I got . . . he actually pulled a phone out of his pocket, took out the sim card, and gave it to me (!).

ITEMS (worth varying amounts of points)
-A rose for each TCAC member (awww)
-A receipt from a bikini wax
-A bag of sand
-A fairy
-A triple pounder from Mackers (=McDonalds). They don't actually sell these because the fat content is too high, so we had to buy three "pounders" and stacked together a total of twelve quarter-pound patties.
-A chip from Crown Casino
-An ATM receipt stamped at exactly 10:54am

PHOTOS (worth varying amounts of points)
-A "moment of passion"--we staged a dramatic death scene
-Group shot on the roof of any building in the CBD (downtown)
-Human pyramid to stop a tram
-Group shot in Young & Jackson's (a classy downtown pub) drinking out of anything but cups, mugs, or glasses. We used ice-cream cones :)
-Flailing around on the ground in the lobby of Crown Casino
-Helping an old lady cross the street
-Riding an animal
-A group member in confession
-Group member wrapped in toilet paper on the steps of Flinders Street Station
-A male group member unhooking a bra one-handed
-Helping a car parallel-park
-Something "barely legal"

There was also a list of Trinity trivia to fill out, including the date of the dean's birthday and a stirring rendition of the College Song.

There were at least a hundred more things to do and get, but that's all I can remember. However, I was our group's official photographer, so I have almost all of the pictures from our trip. Here are a few; enjoy! I'll post more legitimate stuff when I find time to write, perhaps this weekend.

In the lobby of Crown Casino . . . classy

Helping an old lady cross the street . . . unfortunately, she figured out that the item on the list specified "old" and got offended

Wrapping Rob in toilet paper on Flinders St. steps

Something "barely legal"... note the anti-rollerblading sign in the background that says "no grinding." Ha.

Helping a stranger parallel park. They were actually just stopped at a red light, but the TCAC doesn't know that ;)

THE TRIPLE POUNDER

what happened to the triple pounder after we were done with it

Group photo at the tram stop

T-R-I-N-I-T-Y

2009-03-05T08:32:00.002-05:00

After a few days of recovery, I can finally write about my first week in my new home: Trinity College. As I said in my last post, "college" means something quite different from "university," although in the States we tend to use the terms interchangeably. A college is a tight-knit residential community where you live, take your meals, participate in clubs and sports, and make your closest friends. Each college has a number of administrators, tutors, and other staff, and often a library, a chapel, sports equipment, music practice rooms, and a number of other facilities. Here's a little more about Trinity specifically.

Trinity is the oldest college on the "College Crescent," where the twelve residential colleges sit just north of the University of Melbourne. Each college has its own buildings and grounds, fenced off from the crescent. Of these twelve, most are quite small-- the four worth mentioning are Trinity, Ormond, Newman, and Queens, and from what I gather, you really want to be in either Ormond or Trinity. Ormond is quite beautiful, with large Gothic buildings much like Princeton's, and it is the largest college on the crescent. Of course, all its students are jerks and we hate them. They suck.

In all seriousness, I can't imagine a better place for me than Trinity. At 280 students, it's just the right size to be close without being oppressive. It's very difficult to get in, and all the students are top-quality and a bit more diverse than the rest of Melbourne Uni (including not just Melburnians and people from regional Victoria, but plenty of people from interstate and international). Trinity's buildings, while not as ostentatious as Ormond's, are beautiful and quaint, kind of like a little bit of English countryside. There's a world-class choir here, and although I decided not to sing in it, I enjoy hearing them from time to time :) The college has tennis courts, squash courts, music practice rooms, and art studio, a nice library, several common spaces, a large (Anglican) chapel, lawns, trees, and a nice big quad called the bulpadok (buhl-pah-DOCK), which right now is unfortunately being torn up to put in water retention tanks and drought-resistant turf.

I live in a very small building called Dorothy, which houses only thirteen people and is situated on the very edge of campus (closer to Ormond, our neighbor, than to the rest of Trinity). It's a smallish cottage, and its inhabitants have a reputation for getting very close as they are all first-years and fairly isolated (basically the Forbes of Trinity). My hallmates are definitely my best friends at Trinity thus far; they're all great fun. Also, I am the only exchange student in sight (there are only seven of us in total, scattered across the college). There are twelve freshers (first-years) including myself, one senior (n.b.: "senior" here means upperclassman), and our floor tutor, Emma, who lives in a flat on the first floor with her cat, Leo. Emma, although a lovely woman, is not someone to cross, so you'd better make sure you know the emergency phone numbers and don't make a lot of noise at night.

But before I go into too much detail about daily life at Trinity (I can save that for another post), I'll tell you about . . . O-WEEK.

O-week, or orientation week, is basically a weeklong combination of actual orientation, bonding, hazing, partying, and general mayhem. On Sunday morning, the first-years flooded in with their parents to move in; at noon there was a chapel service, then a picnic on the lawn, and then a formal admissions ceremony in the dining hall. For the purposes of Trinity, I'm considered a first-year (although I'm older than most of the second- and third-years), so I stood awkwardly in my long black academic gown with about a hundred gawky eighteen-year-olds, and signed my name in the Registrar's book when I was called. After the ceremony, most of the parents left. . . then it began.

We started with a "floor meeting" . . . all of the Dorothy kids crowded into Emma's flat to go over essential information on emergency procedures and other mundane aspects of college life. This was also my first interaction with the people with whom I'd be living, so I was a tad apprehensive. From there we went to dinner, and were then broken up into small groups and assigned to a member of the TCAC (Trinity College Activities Committee? anyway, they were a committee of about seven who basically ran the show for O-week, with seven RAs and about thirty "buddies," volunteers from second/third/fourth year who helped out), where we did silly icebreakers and things and tried not to be awkward. It was interesting for me to be both a participant and observer, as I could remember most of the events of my own Frosh Week from Princeton two and a half years ago. We then moved to the JCR (Junior Common Room), a combination common room/bar that's actually close to Dorothy.

In the JCR, the TCAC gave us a history lesson on Trinity in play format, outlining a bit of history as well as alluding to some of the traditions we were joining. However, the "play" lasted only about ten minutes until we were herded through the doors and ran as fast as we could through the long hallway of Lower Clarkes, where scenes of Trinity life played out in the doorways that flashed by on either side-- an awkward tutor/student meeting, a wild dance party, the choir singing in the elevator as we dashed by. The freshers, buddies, and TCAC streamed into the Gourlay Basement, which was decorated with red, white, and green streamers and balloons and thumping to the heavy bass of some serious speakers. It was a great way to start what was essentially a fresher mixer, and we danced the night away and stumbled into bed late that night.

The next morning dawned early as seniors rushed through our corridors and dragged us out of bed at 8am for a grand breakfast on the bulpadok (the bul), complete with tables, chairs, and TCAC waiters in tuxes as the buddies danced on tables to the music blaring from Behan. After breakfast, we donned our bright blue fresher T-shirts and crowded onto trams headed for the city (about a hundred and thirty people on something the size of a normal bus . . . we even crowd-surfed one girl). We were forced to run around the city holding hands in single file, occasionally stopping to do things like beg for change, drop onto our backs and flail around, and do the hokey-pokey in Federation Square. Of course, the whole time we're screaming and cheering like idiots, making sure the entire city knows who we are and where we're from. Exhausted, we piled back onto a single tram to head back to college just in time for lunch. After lunch was an "Academic Orientation," then the whole troop again piled into a tram to the nearest thrift shop (Savers) to obtain costumes for the various theme parties of the week.

The theme of our O-week was "In the Beginning," which served a double purpose-- on one hand, it was a meaningful reflection on the beginning of a major chapter in our lives, but on the other, it was a great way to theme the week's parties; each night was a different creation story/myth. The first night's party was Garden of Eden/Temptation/Casino, complete with leafy jungle decor, poker/blackjack/roulette, and even live snakes to hold and play with. Costumes included skeezy casino dudes, apples, snakes, and pretty much anything involving leaves or playing cards.

The next morning we were rudely awakened at 8am once more, this time to learn the "Fresher Dance," a . . . creative . . . routine to "Push it." After breakfast we headed to Uni for some more orientation goodness (almost a complete waste of time, but a good four hours of my day). Then back to Trinity for a 2.5 hour "College Life" orientation, where Dean Campbell and others covered EVERYTHING on life at Trinity. After dinner was another party, this time themed as "Supernova." We were told to wear "fluoro" (neon colors), and the party was basically glowsticks, UV lights, and lots of fluorescent paint (rave!). The coolest part of this one was that it was held in the Dean's front yard!

The next day was more Uni orientation (DEFINITELY a complete waste of time), followed by a Greek-themed toga party on Behan balcony. After dinner we headed to the Melbourne Pool for a moonlit "Neptune's night" and spent a fantastic couple of hours batting volleyballs around and playing Marco Polo, until we all trooped back to college exhausted.

Thursday included an event called "Mr. Squiggle" (cover each other in as much paint as possible), then an intercollegiate lunch at one of the other colleges on the Crescent. After lunch was back to Uni for a Clubs and Societies expo-- everything from the Medieval Reenactment club to the Physics Students Society to the More Beer! club, with upperclassmen out in force to recruit new members. I'm now on the frisbee email list, a member of MUESC (the Melbourne Uni Engineering Students Club) and a member of MUSEX (MU student exchange), both of which have great parties/events and whose members get discounts at various places. Meanwhile, back at Trinity, all the other seniors who hadn't been part of O-week were arriving. We mingled on the bul before dinner, and then we had our first formal hall (there's a high table, you wear academic gowns-- more on this later), followed by the Ice-Age themed "First Frost Ball." The theme was "a touch of frost," but basically a dressed-up classy party in a big tent on the bul, including a snow machine if you can believe it. This was our first chance to meet the rest of Trinity's students.

Friday was Trinity's own Clubs and Societies Expo, where I signed up for a few community service activities and the Wine Cellar club, which holds wine tutorials every other friday and excursions to Yarra River Valley wineries. After lunch we returned to Uni for even MORE clubs and societies-- I chatted with several of the Christian groups and got myself on their email lists as well. Friday was the hottest day so far since I've been here, probably about 30C (hey, if I have to convert so do you!). The afternoon, however, was the seemingly innocuous "TCAC play and fresher photo" . . . I suppose we should have realized something was wrong when they herded us onto the tennis courts, closed the gates, and surrounded us, shaking the chain-link fence and yelling at us like we were gladiators about to be fed to lions. Although I won't divulge the details of the next few hours, suffice to say that I was officially inducted into Trinity and I came out on the other side very, very messy. After just enough time to clean up, we had informal dinner followed by a music revue in the chapel of both freshers and seniors, of which I was an appreciative audience. The party that night was fairly tame (Yin Yang themed-- wear black and white), which I think we needed after a long and busy week.

Saturday morning was the Race Around the World (i.e. Melbourne), which I have saved for my next entry. because it was amazing and ridiculous and I have lots of great pictures. That night, however, was the "Commencement Dinner," a formal affair which involved a multi-course dinner, various speeches and awards, and general merriment to mark the start of the semester. The event was followed by a crowded and crazy party in the JCR, a great finish to a fantastic O-week.

There you have it-- I believe the most exhausting (and fun) week of my entire life. Please forgive me for writing so much, but as you can tell . . . there was a lot to write about! I'll have to deal with various other important things (like actual classes and Uni/college life) in a later post.

PICTURES (note: a lot of my pics (including lots of me draped in live snakes) were on a disposable camera that the TCAC wisely gave us . . . I'll put those up when I finish the camera)

Supernova night/Fluoro party

after getting covered with paint

First Frost Ball

Dorothy crew looking classy for Yin Yang night (yes, Craig cut up two suits and sewed them together)

some crazy Dorothy guys before Commencement Dinner

Welcome to Australia!

2009-02-26T22:22:00.006-05:00

I apologize for the time lapse before this entry, but I have been incredibly busy for the past week! I can't believe I've only been here for two weeks and a few days; it feels like I've been here forever. I still haven't even started classes; right now I'm in the middle of O-week (orientation week), the week before Uni starts in earnest. I'm not even going to try to write about O-week right now-- suffice to say that it is absolutely packed full of orientation sessions, fun events, and parties, and we don't get much time off. My next event is in less than an hour, they keep us pretty busy here at Trinity (the college where I'm staying-- more about that later).

Months and months ago, I signed up to do a program called the Melbourne Welcome, an orientation/introduction program for exchange students. I arrived at Newman College, one of the dozen or so residential colleges that are next to the Uni, on Saturday morning (the 14th). I was immediately plunged into a four-day frenzy of meeting people, walking around various places in the city, and having tons of fun as fifteen or so Australian volunteer hosts showed about hundred exchange students their city, college, and university. (Side note: college and university are very different things here. Uni is mostly just where you go to class, and maybe you join a few clubs there, but college is where your life really is. Each college has a small number of students (the largest has about 280) and is where you live, eat, hang out, play sports, and make your closest friends. Each student has immense loyalty to his or her college, although only a small fraction of Uni students stay at college. So to say "I'm at college" doesn't mean you've graduated from high school and are taking university classes, but rather that you are a member of this small community of students, each of which has a dean, registrar, library, tutors and academic support, clubs and societies, and basically everything you could need. They're modeled after the English system, so it's really nothing like res colleges at Princeton. The closest equivalent I can come up with is maybe an eating club, but you all live together and do everything together in addition to eating together and playing sports for your club/college? More about this in my next post.)

Anyway, while at Melbourne Welcome, I was placed into a host group of ten exchange students and an Australian second-year student named Ben, from Geelong (a large regional city about an hour from Melbourne). Ben was not only a great resource, but turned out to be a fantastic person as well, and a good friend. The rest of the host group (and all the other exchangers, really) was about 70% american and 30% international (mostly European). We did most of the scheduled events in our host groups, but by the time the program was over I had met almost everyone and had made a good set of (mostly American) friends that were and are a lot of fun to talk to, laugh with, and just generally hang out with. Although I haven't seen them much lately due to college activities (most of them are not staying at a college), I am excited to keep hanging out with them and maybe travel with them later on. I'll just give a few highlights of what we did on the program:

DAY 1:

Eureka Tower Skydeck-- 360 degree view of Melbourne from the top of an 88-story building
Coffee at the QV, a large open-air shopping center, at a place called Max Brenner (?) which had amazing chocolatethings
Australia night-- Australian wine and cheese tasting in the Newman College Junior Common room (each college has a JCR, a common area with a bar where students hang out).

DAY 2:

Queen Victoria Market-- while the rest of the group went here, I went out for Yum Cha (what they call dim sum here) with some of the Mech Engineering faculty and their families. Delicious, fun, and a good opportunity to meet a lot of the people I will be working and studying with this semester.
Melbourne Zoo-- huge and full of a wide variety of animals. With only two hours, it was impossible to see everything, but I did manage to see Australian wildlife like kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras, wombats, and echidnas.
Australian trivia night--identifying pictures of famous Australians, answering questions about Australian culture and history, all over a delicious dinner (formal hall, held twice a week at Newman, where the food is better and served rather than buffet-style, in multiple courses. more about this when I write about Trinity, which is similar)

DAY 3:

SURFING at Ocean Grove, a beach about an hour and a half from Melbourne. We spent an entire day at the beach, learning how to surf and generally lazing around. I also learned how to play cricket, which I imagine is fun to play on the beach but not really a great spectator sport, especially because games last anywhere from four hours to five days (!). A really fun day, although I am not very good at surfing!

DAY 4:

Tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), the sports stadium for cricket, footy (Australian rules football), and a few other sports. It's very unlike Beaver Stadium, although it holds about the same number of people. The stadium has inside it a museum, several shops, and a bunch of formal, members-only areas for the Melbourne Cricket Club. The MCC has a 14-year waiting list; several of my australian friends were put on the list when they were about nine and have a few years to go. It's very prestigious and desirable to be in the MCC, apparently, and also Melbourne is SPORTS-CRAZY. I'm not kidding. everyone plays sports, everyone watches sports, everyone follows sports. It is unheard of not to like sports (or "sport," as they say here).
Free time in the city. We mostly spent it walking up and down Swanston street, the main street, and chilling back at Newman.
Formal farewell dinner-- a DELICIOUS three course meal, in formal attire, with speeches and things by the dean and the rector of Newman College.

We also had free time each evening, which we used to go dancing, bowling, or just sitting at a pub and hanging out. By the end of the program I had gotten to know a ton of Americans, a few internationals, and a good amount of Aussies as well.

The next day (Wednesday the 18th), I moved into Trinity College. I was one of the first here, since the first-year students hadn't moved in yet and the upperclassmen didn't move in until today. But I managed to get to know a few people through TISC, the Trinity International Students Committee, which sponsored a bunch of events like going out for dessert, a barbecue on the lawn, games in the Trinity JCR, and out to lunch in St. Kilda, the beach district. Most of the students that had already arrived were first-year international students, and a few international upperclassmen leading us around. There are only about five exchange students in all of the college, and we are pretty well scattered.

I really want to write more about Trinity, but I will have to save it as pretty soon it'll be time to go to dinner. I guess I will save O-week for a long post after it's over next sunday!!!

View of Melbourne from the top of the Skydeck

Stopping for coffee

Kangaroos at the Melbourne zoo!

First formal dinner at Newman

Megan (Canada) shows Ben (AUS) the awkward turtle, which apparently is not big here.

Megan and me in wetsuits, learning to surf

Megan, Brad, and Jess at Ocean Grove

Day 2 of a 4-day match at the MCG . . . there were about twenty people watching.

Before the final farewell dinner at Newman

At the Queen Vic night market. Clockwise from left: emu, crocodile, and kangaroo meat.

We decided to go to the old and decrepit Luna Park in St. Kilda. and ride the Ghost Train.

Dancing to celebrate Brad's 21st birthday

Melbourne: First Impressions

2009-02-13T07:11:00.001-05:00

THE CITY

is fantastic. Melbourne is a fairly lively city of about 3.7 million, on Port Phillip on the state of Victoria. However, the downtown area (the CBD, central business district) is pretty far back from Port Phillip and instead sits on the Yarra river a bit more inland. Both my hostel and the university of Melbourne are in North Melbourne, which is just outside of the main city. It's far enough to be quiet, but only a fifteen or twenty minute walk away from the CBD. If you're lazy, you can take one of the frequent trams that run through the city. I haven't figured out how to take those yet though, preferring to depend on my own feet. The entire city is pretty walkable, and I managed to cover most of it in my marathon day on Wednesday.

The weather is not bad, actually. I expected it to be the heat of summer, with all this news about heatwaves and bushfires. Apparently Melbourne reached a scorching 47 degrees celsius (116F) the Saturday before I came. However, since I've been here it's been pleasantly sunny, maybe about 70F max. It even gets fairly chilly at night. I'm sure the heat will come back though, so I'm bracing for it.

Interesting and/or notable things:
-Melbourne's reputation for multiculturalism is, if anything, understated. Ethnic restaurants proliferate in every direction, cultural centers abound, and just looking around gives you a window into the city's unabashed diversity.
-Shops here close at 6, so no dice if you're trying to get stuff after work I guess?
-The Queen Victoria Market is currently my favorite place in the city. There is a ton of cheap, good quality fresh produce and I just can't walk through without buying a piece of fruit or a sandwich, especially with the hawkers yelling their prices and trying to drown each other out.
-AUSTRALIAN ACCENTS are awesome and everywhere. I like it when they're mixed with some other accent, a necessary consequence of the diversity mentioned above.

THE PEOPLE

are uniformly friendly, down-to-earth, straightforward, and with a great sense of humor. Even after only two days here, I have a ton of quotes, but I'll just give you the highlights:

Airport pickup guy (Chris) to me, describing another exchange student:
"That girl's got more luggage than the Israelites when Moses led 'em out of Egypt."

Overheard in Queen Victoria Market-- customer to vendor:
"You've got to eat hot chilies every day, it keeps you from getting colon cancer."
(launches into graphic description of colon cancer)
(to me) "I'm sorry love, you're probably a bit young for that sort of detail."

Guy in club (Taylor) to me, whilst discussing America vs. Australia:
"You know the only thing I can't stand about America? The Imperial System. Use metric, for God's sake!"

Guy in club 2 (creepy rando) to me, dialogue:
Guy:"How are you?"
Me:"...fine."
(pause)
Guy:"Do you have a boyfriend?"
(beat)
me:"...yeah."
(guy nods and sidles off)

THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

is going to be a great place to spend a semester. I mentioned its beautiful setting in my last post, and that's in addition to the fantastic academic environment I am going to have. The professor I emailed before coming here, Andrew Ooi, met me this morning to discuss a project for me to work on. However, he also took me on a tour of the department; introduced me to all his colleagues, the department grad students, and office staff; showed me the student center, where I'll register for courses in a few weeks; promised to sign release forms if I wanted to take any classes I didn't meet the prerequisites for; and even invited me out for yum chao (what they call dim sum here) with the entire faculty the following Sunday. He mentioned Professor Smits, chair of the Princeton department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, to almost everyone we met, and you could tell that Smits was well-known and very respected here. It was almost as if everyone respected ME more just because of my association with him. From there, Professor Ooi passed me off to Jason (a lab tech? A professor? in any case, he's finished his PhD but looks pretty young), who took me on a tour of the two-and-a-half story fluids lab. If nothing else had convinced me I'd come to the right place, that would have. They have some of the best equipment I'd ever seen, much better than Princeton's, and I am so so so excited to have the chance to to work here. I learned a ton of new things just by listening to Jason describe the equipment and asking him questions about it. Suffice to say that I am thrilled at the prospect of doing research there for the upcoming semester.

Melbourne: First Day

2009-02-12T22:43:00.000-05:00

What a great city. I've been here for less than 48 hours and already I'm positive that this semester is going to be fantastic. From what I know of Melbourne thus far, it is definitely in my list of top 5 world cities (probably Mumbai, Hong Kong, Lyon, New York, and Melbourne), and might be in the top 3. I haven't decided yet.

After about 32 hours of transit time, including 24 in the air and several layovers, I finally touched down at about noon local time on Wednesday. After claiming my bag and going through customs, I met the very friendly and helpful ToGoTo staff, a service provided by the University of Melbourne. They loaded my two massive bags and my guitar into a van which I shared with one other student, a guy from China named Mo (he was staying at a homestay). The friendly and talkative driver dropped me off at the YHA Melbourne Metro hostel. I hit up a nearby grocery store to stock up on food for lunch and the next few days (the hostel has a huge, amply supplied kitchen and at least eight fridges). Although I really did mean to do something wednesday night to keep the jet lag at bay, I pretty much conked out for most of the afternoon, woke up to cook dinner, and went straight back to sleep, apologizing to my three roommates for the odd hours.

I forced myself to sleep until at least 8am on Thursday (not that I needed convincing) but struck out for the hostel lobby bright and early, determined to do some adventuring. Lunch and dinner alone in the crowded hostel common area the previous day had taught me that despite the ever-present friendliness of the people, they weren't exactly willing to make friends straightaway with a lone traveler. Although it's always a little scary for me to strike out alone, I would much rather stumble my way around by myself and be proactive about it than to wait helplessly to make friends who already knew the city. Armed with map, journal, and the always-handy Lonely Planet, I stepped out of the door and started to walk.

Exploring the city alone turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. I had no time constraints, no worries, no set schedule, and only the vaguest idea of where I wanted to go. For a Type-A person like me, that's unsettling at best and incapacitating at worst, but I quickly learned to see my lack of planning as a freedom rather than a handicap. I knew I wanted to see some things and used them as a sparse framework for my aimless wanderings; I ended up exploring Queen Victoria Market (one of the largest open-air markets in the Southern hemisphere, with clothes, shoes, souvenirs, and best of all a huge selection of fresh produce; bought a sandwich and some fruit and ate a leisurely lunch alone with my book in the beautiful Flagstaff Gardens; made my way down to the Yarra river, which was salty and crowded with seagulls; laughed at penguins and goggled at sharks at the Melbourne Aquarium (although it seems small, it's much larger than it appears and is well worth the admission price; had a cold frappucino while reading and people-watching in Federation Square, a huge open area on the banks of the Yarra dominated by geometric, modern, abstract buildings and crowded with tourists and Melburnians alike. On more than one occasion, I wandered in completely the opposite direction than the one I had intended (all things considered, not a terrible problem if you don't really have a destination) and ended up exploring the Docklands, Southern Cross railway station, and Chinatown.

After thoroughly exploring all of this, I walked up Swanston street (the main street of Melbourne) making side trips into bookstores and coffeeshops whenever I felt the urge to do so. My eventual goal was the University of Melbourne, where I'd be spending the next 5 months. When I finally arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find, after hours of tramping through the dry and dusty city, acres of lush greenery and collegiate-gothic buildings. It reminded me quite a lot of the Penn State campus (more than it reminded me of Princeton), and when the leaves change in a few months it will be breathtaking. Although the residential colleges are individually fenced in (much like Yale's), I managed to find my way into Trinity College, which is to be my home away from home. It's no Princeton, but I think I'll live. I'll find out more about the college on the 18th, which is when I get to move in.

Tired and hungry, I returned to the hostel and cooked myself dinner, then climbed the stairs to my room, promising myself an early night so that my feet could recover from the miles of walking I'd subjected them to that day. However, my room was full of people. Lindsey and Kim, two of my three roommates (from Scotland and England, respectively), were getting ready to go out, and with them were Ben, Ryan, and Christie (England, England, Canada). They were soon joined by Tracy (Scotland), Jen (England) and Kat (England)-- no small feat, considering that the room was about the size of my Spelman single and crowded with four bunk beds! From what I could gather, most had either just met or knew only one or two people within the group. All were traveling, most had been traveling for quite some time, and none were planning to stay in Melbourne for more than a few days. One of them had simply decided to pick up and leave home eight months earlier--quit her job, skipped out on her lease and two weeks later was in a hostel in Sydney looking for a job. Others had been traveling for years and planned to continue doing so. I couldn't decide whether it was inspiring or irresponsible; I could only assume that the money was coming from their parents (all were college-aged or a little older), which took away a little of the glamour.

I initially begged off of their offer for me to tag along, citing tiredness and a meeting with a professor the next morning, but peer pressure and a couple of friendly jabs changed my mind and an hour later I was packed into a cab with people I had just met, on my way to a club to meet even more people I didn't know. Lindsey's brother worked in Melbourne and had brought a ton of friends to the club (called Billboard-- it was actually pretty good, the music was loud and the lighting was pretty decent and the dance floor was hopping). Although I barely knew these people, the night was more fun than I've had in a long time, and we finally came home at about 3:30am, or at least a few of us did. I knew I had to be in good shape to meet with Professor Ooi on Friday, so I headed out before the rest of the crowd did (accompanied by Tracy and Kat). However, it was still a fantastic first real day in Melbourne, and I can't wait for more!

and I'm just a little stuck on you

2009-02-09T03:29:00.006-05:00

January 31, 2009

Unfortunately, once more I overslept and woke up a mere 10min before the group was supposed to leave. I managed to drag myself out of bed, into some clean clothes, and onto the Subte to the bus station at Retiro. The early morning was gray and dreary, and the district from which we took the bus was the least well-kept I'd seen-- piles of trash everywhere, homeless people, ripped up sidewalks, and people handing out newspapers and flyers of every conceivable political bent. These obstacles not withstanding, we boarded the bus for San Antonio de Areco at about 9:30am.

San Antonio de Areco is known as the unofficial capital of the Pampas, the rural flatlands surrounding Buenos Aires. It's a very small town, known for its silverwork and gaucho history. The gauchos of South America are the equivalent of the cowboys of North America-- riding around on horses, driving cattle, facing off with outlaws, and taming the wild west.

We went to a couple of museums in town, including the workshop of a famous silversmith, which was pretty cool. We also got to see a gaucho museum, which was pretty much a ranch with displays you could walk through. The entire town was very pleasant, with a firm feeling of "wide-open spaces." I wish I had brought my swimsuit, so that I could join the locals jumping of the bridge and swimming in the river to take a break from the heat.

Other than the two museums, almost everything was closed. Apparently the whole sleepy little town takes a lunch break from 12:30-3:30pm every day; this was, sadly, almost exactly the time slot that we were there, so all we could really do was amble aimlessly through the streets or along the river. Which really wasn't too bad, anyway.

The bust left at about 3:30 for the 112 km trip back to Buenos Aires, just as it began to rain. The fates were smiling on us though, because the rain stopped as soon as the bus pulled into the terminal at Retiro, held off during our walk to the Subte and home again, and restarted as soon as we reached the door of our hostel. After a few hours at the hostel to relax, shower, and pack, we piled into groups of four and took cabs (costing only about 5 pesos each, less than $2) to the restaurant where we were to have our final group dinner.

The last group dinner was quite an affair-- everyone dressed up in their fines (or, for some, their least wrinkled) apparel. The meal itself had three courses: an appetizer of breaded mozzarella and bruschetta, a main course of either spinach ravioli or beef tenderloin in a Malbec (type of Argentinian red wine) sauce, and for dessert, helado (ice cream) with strawberry sauce in a pastry shell. Everything was delicious and beautifully presented, and I must admit . . . I abandoned my vegetarianism for one night only and ate steak for the first time in two years (n.b. if you would like to engage me in conversation over why I felt that this was a morally justifiable choice, I would be happy to oblige. also, it was absolutely, fantastically delicious.)

Each table was kept well stocked with soda, water, and good red wine, so when Richard stood up between the main course and dessert, we were all prepared for his lengthy toast and presentation of gifts to Maya, Sara, Victor, and Carolina (tour manager, vice president, president, and assistant director, respectively, with the latter three also serving as much-utilised translators). Happy, content, and full of good food, we were more than willing to oblige the restaurant staff and proceeded to serenade them with one last performance of a few of the songs we'd gotten to know so well over the last month. One of the waiters then informed us that he'd taken a video of the whole thing, and that he would post it on the restaurant's facebook page as soon as he could.

After a sudden surge of hugging and picture taking, the whole group headed out to a bar in the trendy, touristy Plaza Serrano area and had one last night out, laughing and dancing and yelling together. It was the most unified I had ever seen the Glee club; indeed, probably the most unified I'd ever seen a group of close to fifty people. I think every single person knew every other one, and could sit down and talk to new friends just as easily as old ones. It was a pretty incredible feeling.

We couldn't keep everyone together for long, though-- some went to another club, some back to the hostel, and others just to wander wherever the wind blew. Those who were in reasonably good shape took care of those who . . . weren't . . . and eventually ended up back at the hostel for one last night with the heat and the mosquitoes.

The final day of the trip got off to a slow start as people packed their suitcases and moved them into the hostel's luggage room, then gradually drifted off to the separate adventures they had planned for the day. Mine was brunch at Cafe Tortoni, a famous cafe where legendary Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges had sat composing his great works. We also stopped by an antique bookstore before heading off to another Feria, this time in La Recoleta. The fair was much more upscale than its San Telmo equivalent, in price, quality, and size. It had a much more diverse selection of goods, and we spent hours browsing and drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice until it was time to go back to the hostel to leave.

As we packed our things into the bus to the airport, I looked around once more at the bustling city. Although it's not one of my all-time favorite places, I did enjoy my time there, mostly because of the people I spent it with. I think the most important lesson I will take from this trip is that friends can be found in the most unexpected places, and treasures can emerge from the most unexpected people. I'll miss these new friends this coming semester, but I can also take that lesson and apply it when I arrive in Australia in just a few days. I'm excited!

On the bridge in San Antonio de Areco

Tackle Ultimate Frisbee (minus frisbee?)

Gaucho Museum

DELICIOUS STEAK DINNER (and this doesn't even count as rare for them)

Me and my friend Brad on the final night

Cafe Tortoni, the frequent haunt of Borges

On the way to the Feria at Recoleta

Sad to leave Buenos Aires :(

Buenos Aires: Palermo, ICANA, La Boca, meat, cathedrals, and singalongs

2009-02-09T02:39:00.006-05:00

January 30, 2009

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all a bit of a blur for me (for reasons that will become clear). Tuesday morning saw us climbing aboard the Subte once more, this time heading for the Recoleta district-- home of the richest citizens, ritziest shops, and most famous dead people. One of Recoleta's most popular attractions is its cemetery, where many bygone military dictators, scientists, poets, and various members of old upstanding families lie entombed. You have to have either tons of money or very good connections (usually both) to take your final rest in La Cemeteria de Recoleta. I hesitate to say "buried," because there are no actual graves and no dirt or grass. It's simply row upon winding row of tall marble tombs, sculpted figures, and smooth, wide paving stones underfoot. The most celebrated crypt is that of Eva Peron, a.k.a. Evita, the wife of past Argentinian president and major historical figure Juan Peron. Evita is a history-maker in her own right, having championed the causes of women and the working class while her husband was in office. Her tomb alone among the dusty, cobwebbed monuments, was covered with fresh flowers and polished to a glistening sheen.

The early evening was largely taken by a rehearsal and concert at the Iglesia Dinamarquesa, or Danish Church. It was covered with posters of Kirkegaard, Hans Christian Anderson, maps of Denmark, Danish flags, Danish inscriptions, and even paper cutouts of Vikings. The masterpiece, in my opinion, was a breathtakingly detailed model of a four-masted Viking ship, about four or five feet long and perfectly proportioned. It was hanging from the ceiling of the sanctuary (I kid you not).

The church was very small, but it was full to bursting for that night's concert. They filled side rooms, packed the pews, and still there were people hanging out the doors. Our (very long) program was met by enthusiastic applause and shouts of "Bravo!" . . . they demanded an encore and proceeded to give flowers to all the soloists. It was a very gratifying performance, and the beaming faces of the audience made the stifling, airless heat almost bearable.

However, for me the concert marked the start of an unfortunate episode in which I battled very hard with my stomach and lost badly. It suddenly tied itself in knots and I could barely stand, let alone walk. I made it only a few minutes into dinner before trying to walk the three blocks back to the hostel; I made it only two before having to throw up in a trash can. I spent the evening in the hostel's bathroom while the rest of the group went out to Plaza Serrano, a square bordered by bars and clubs.

The next day (Wednesday) I felt a little better, so I went with the group to Palermo, a district famous for its beautiful parks. I bought a picnic lunch of fruit and yogurt (all my stomach could handle) and we ate by a lake in a lovely green park. After lunch, most of the group headed to MALBA, BA's famous modern art museum. Some of the art was quite odd, but interesting nonetheless.

The evening was taken by a rehearsal at ICANA, a "North American Cultural Center" not far from our hostel-- or, as one friend described, a "United States love-fest." The building was full of U.S. paraphernalia: portraits of presidents, books about America, and even easy "learn English" kits. We were slightly less pleased, however, when shown the room in which we were supposed to sing; it could barely hold the choir, let alone an audience. Nonetheless, we made do and were able to rehearse one last time for the concert the next day.

Dinner was very . . . Argentine. We went to a fairly nice restaurant, and most of the group had a traditional parilla or grill dinner. In other words: meat. Lots of meat. Lots of very different, very cultural meat, including intestines, kidneys, and blood sausage. We vegetarians smugly munched our delicious ravioli, and acceded graciously when the meat-eaters asked for our leftovers.

Unfortunately, my stomach of steel was apparently weakened by its earlier upheavals and the sight of all those delicious organs and entrails made me nauseous once more. I was extraordinarily glad to be out of the restaurant and into another helado shop. After a healthy dose of ice cream we all stumbled back to the hostel and collapsed; long days full of walking really do wonders for being able to sleep soundly.

Thursday dawned bright with the promise of a glorious breakfast that did not include croissants or watery juice! Unfortunately, Thursday went on its merry way without me as I slept on, oblivious. Tragically, I missed out on "good breakfast" day. Around noon, we performed at the Dedication Mass of the Catedral Metropolitan, BA's main cathedral. The cathedral was beautiful, but the loft we performed in was hot and stuffy (and slightly awkward, since after the short concert we did after the mass there was no way to exit gracefully and the audience didn't know we were done. oops). We did end up going down into the main part of the cathedral to perform one last song. We had also developed quite a following from the Iglesia Dinamarquesa, who skipped their lunch breaks to hear us sing at the cathedral and also planned to attend our concert at ICANA that night.

Our afternoon included a trip to La Boca, the working-class district of BA. It's named for its location at the mouth, or la boca, of the river. It was extremely gaudy and touristy, but simultaneously bright and inviting. We walked down los Caminitos, a row of brightly painted houses, trying to choose an inexpensive and fast place to eat lunch. This turned out to be an impossibility, as every restaurant was geared towards tourists, complete with a tangoing couple in front of an invariably garish facade. We settled for a place close to the canal, which turned out to be pricey and slow-- but also delicious, one of the better meals I've had here. The downside was that it left us little time to actually see La Boca. So all we really had time to do was wander up and down the expensive outdoor stalls. We missed out on the Museo de la Pasion Boquense, a soccer museum, and the famed La Bombanera (literally "the Chocolate Box), a soccer stadium. We boarded the bus just as it started to rain heavily.

The rain continued for a few hours (the first significant precipitation we had seen) but cleared before it was time to head to our concert at ICANA. Once more, the house was packed with smiling faces, and the performance was very well received. It was slightly nostalgic for me, as it was my last performance withe the Glee Club until next fall.

The concert was followed by a mediocre dinner a few blocks from the hostel: great company, but terrible food. However, Richard surprised us with an announcement that the hostel was holding a small gathering with beer, snacks, and a local folk group. Turns out that the "local folk group" was one guy who worked at the hostel and his guitar.

The hostel had filled up a bit over the course of the time we'd been there; there was a group of college kids from Israel, an older couple (perhaps 60s or 70s), and a few Argentinians and Brazilians in addition to the hostel's normal staff. I hadn't seen much of them, other than exchanging awkward glances on the way to the shower. But as I walked into the atrium, I was surprised to see that it was packed to the gills with people, all listening intently to some of the most beautiful classical guitar playing I have ever heard. I recognized the player as one of the guys who worked the midnight to eight shift; he couldn't have been much older than I was, but his playing was technically exquisite and breathtakingly musical. I couldn't tear my ears or eyes away.

After he had finished, he passed his guitar on to another hostel worker, who played traditional Argentine music for us and even sang along in a rough but pleasant voice. He also soon proved his mettle as an accomplished classical guitarist. The guitar was then passed to Victor, and then to me, and soon it was a full-on singalong/karaoke session. All we needed was a campfire for the scene to be complete.

We sang until the wee hours of the morning, despite our scheduled early departure the next day. I slept feeling overwhelmingly content and happy, ready to take on the Pampas the next day.

The tomb of Eva Peron, under her maiden name Duarte

DANISH VIKING SHIP

Park in Palermo where we ate lunch

mmmm . . . intestines

Me, playing and singing at the hostel

summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the streets

2009-02-09T02:13:00.007-05:00

January 26, 2009

I am utterly exhausted as I write this, and my feet are screaming at me for the abuse I’ve given them over the past twelve hours. We began early, with a two-and-a-half hour rehearsal in the hostel lobby at 10am. I cringed every time the other hostel guests had to make their way around us as we crowded the atrium, singing obnoxiously, but we had apparently worked it out with the hostel beforehand.

From there we tramped en masse to the nearest Subte station, the Subway/Metro of Buenos Aires. It’s not like the Metro in Paris, or the Subway in New York, or even like the MTR of Hong Kong; the train lines radiate outward from Microcentro like oddly bent spokes on a wheel, and there are few transfer stations. However, with Sara’s guidance we successfully navigated the system and emerged in the barrio (neighborhood) of Congreso. We ate lunch at La Americana, the so-called reina, or queen, of empanadas—at least, that’s what the sign outside boasted. Empanadas are basically glorified Hot Pockets: little pastries full of meat, cheese, and vegetables. Three or four can make a meal, and they are a favorite lunch food or snack here in BA.

The empanadas at La Americana did not disappoint; they were delicious. They also gave us energy for our next adventure: wandering down Avenue Corrientes, a street famous for its bookstores and music shops. Although I speak no Spanish, I managed to find a few books and posters I understood. We boarded the Subte once more to see Plaza San Martin, a large grassy area with some trees, benches, and memorials, dominated by a colossal statue in the center. We only had two hours here so Becky and I just wandered up and down the surrounding streets, shopping lazily, gaping at the ubiquitous street tango couples, and perusing high-end shops full of things we couldn’t afford. My new favorite phrase is “Es muy Linda, pero yo soy estudiente pobre.” It’s very pretty, but I am a poor student.

We actually had empanadas again for dinner, since we were a little short on time and Argentine dinner takes FOREVER. We had to make it to the Subte once more to travel to a show: a local percussion group called La Bomba de Tiempo (The Time Bomb). Finally, I thought—a place to sit down! Little did I know . . .

We emerged from the humid, subterranean depths of the Subte, walked a few blocks, and blinked. The line for the show contained hundreds of people and was at least four blocks long. We followed the seemingly neverending queue, trying to join, until we were called to the front; apparently, Richard had secured 48 tickets in advance. Unfortunately, this led us past a crowd of justifiably annoyed Argentines, who were lined up to kingdom come to get into this show. They were all about our age, which should have been my first clue that this wasn’t the sort of concert I had pictured.

We filed into a narrow opening between buildings and suddenly found ourselves in a huge space, open to the sky and bordered by burned-out warehouses. It was decorated with neon signs, huge posters of odd-looking people, and a metal sculpture of a huge, menacing-looking insect. The space was dominated by a series of bright orange stage in the center, with many platforms and a screen at the back, decorated with round ship’s life-preservers. In the back corner, there was a bar that seemed carved into one of the warehouse fronts, selling empanadas (of course) and beer in 1L cups. The bar’s popularity mounted as the night went on.

Overall, the space had a very eclectic, Rastafarian feel; as one friend put it, if there were one place in the world where you could get pot, this would be it. This prediction soon proved true, as the space quickly filled with young Argentines and whatever the South American equivalent of hippie is. As night fell, the music got louder, the dancing got wilder, and the crowd got crazier. By the end of the night, everyone was jumping, screaming, and crowdsurfing to the heart-thumping groove of La Bomba de Tiempo, which was made up of about fifteen percussionists on various instruments and a pretty good scat singer. However, the music was not what made the experience. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it; dancing with reckless abandon in a crowd of young people that at that moment had no nationality, yelling and clapping and laughing with sheer joy. It was a very full sort of living, if that makes any sense.

Afterwards, the crowd-controllers and very present security guards opened the entire back wall—which turned out to be a chain-link fence—and at least a thousand people poured out into the street, most still drunk or high (or both) and all still laughing giddily and dancing to their own beats. Some had signs with arrows reading “Afterparty this way!” but we ended up taking the very last Subte train back to Microcentro and collapsed at the hostel, too tired to do anything but shower, play a few rounds of cards, and call it a night.

Rehearsal at the hostel

La Reina de las Empanadas!

The Argentinian flag

La Bomba de Tiempo show

Buenos Aires: Tango in San Telmo

2009-02-09T01:17:00.003-05:00

January 25, 2009

Our second day was as packed as the first. Although I slept through the first and second alarms, streaming sunlight and a light breeze through the window woke me gently. The night was very hot, but bearable, and after trundling off to the shower I was greeted with a modest (though delicious) breakfast of a croissant, some toast, juice, and coffee. As I ate, was continually astonished by the sheer amount of sunlight in and around me. Perhaps it was simply a reaction after having spent so much time imprisoned in dreary, wintry New Jersey, but I actually felt better rested, happier, and healthier than I had in months. Talk about seasonal depression.

After a leisurely meal, we headed out to the Plaza de Mayo with Professor Litchman, an abnormal psycholgy professor from Princeton who happens to have a summer home in Buenos Aires and was here for intersession, just like us. He gave us a brief history of Argentina and described many of the historic government buildings surrounding the Plaza de Mayo, including the Casa Rosada (Pink House), which is the equivalent of our White House except the president doesn't actually live there.

After feeding some of Plaza de Mayo's many, many pigeons, we struck out for San Telmo for the Feria de Pedro San Telmo, which takes place every Sunday afternoon. One road, Calle Defensa, is entirely blocked, filled with street performers and vendors selling a variety of handcrafted and antique goods, including the silver and leather work we'd seen before but also fileta (I think that's what it's called? a folk-art type way of painting that involves lots of ornate lines and curlicues), crocheted ponchos and scarves, mate (pronounced MAH-tay, traditional Argentinian tea) and countless other items.

Armed with my Lonely Planet, I managed to find the one organic, vegtarian-friendly restaurant in all of Argentina, where we had a delicious pizza lunch. Becky, Maya and I then ventured out into the Feria, where we browsed and meandered and simply absorbed the atmosphere. Although our bargaining was largely ineffectual, I managed to get a few gifts for friends and family. More exciting were the countless street performers, including a seemingly infinite supply of guitarists, one of BA's most famous tango bands (complete with violins, double bass, three accordion players, and even a piano), a very talented tangoing couple, and even some kind of painter-cum-dancer-cum-performance artist, rhythmically splattering neon paint on black canvas in time to the Bob Marley blaring from his stereo.

We met again as a group for dinner at Manolo (still far too early to be anywhere close to genuine Argentine dinnertime), then to Plaza Dorrenga to watch some outdoor tango. From there we pretty much invaded the Torquato Tasso Senter Cultural for some tango of our own! Although only a few of us knew what we were doing, we each ventured onto the dance floor once or twice (to the clear dismay of the experienced, graceful Argentine couples) and played the stereotypcal bumbling Americans. However, we cleared out shamefully early (midnight) to let them tango in peace, and retired to the hostel for the night.

The lobby of the hostel

Feeding pigeons in the Plaza de Mayo

According to Prof. Litchman, one of BA's best tango orchestras!

Fresh-squeezed jugo de naranjas, one of my favorite things :)

What's new, Buenos Aires?

2009-02-09T01:13:00.001-05:00

(Note: the following entries on my recent trip to Argentina are excerpted from the journal I kept while staying there)

January 24, 2009

Arriving here in Buenos Aires was a full day affair-- we left Princeton at 3:30pm on Friday and got to Argentina at 2:40pm the next day (by way of Newark and Toronto, a total of about 15 hours of flight). After clearing the near-nonexistent customs, all 48 of us piled onto a bus and left for our hostel in the city. The 80-90 degree heat hit as soon as we walked out of the airport, and the sunlight streaming through the windows of the bus had an unavoidably soporific effect. One moment, the road before us unfurled through green fields and distant foothills; a quick doze, and the city's skyscrapers had replaced the pleasant meadows. Although it wasn't the towering, undeniably cosmopolitan skyline of New York, there was a certain charm to the buildings we approached, an old-world sort of feel.

My first impression of the capital of Argentina was that of a lively, bustling city with a very European flavor. If I had to describe it in terms of previous experiences, I'd say it was a cross between NYC and Bangalore-- crowded streets, a mixture of small shops and skyscrapers, but without the traffic, piles of trash, and wandering livestock I'd grown accustomed to last summer. Our hostel, the 06 Central Hostel in Microcentro (the neighborhood at the city's center), is a pleasant, airy place, with double doors and high-ceilinged rooms. Although unairconditioned, parts of the roof are open to the sky and fans keep the air reasonably cool. The shower and bathroom facilities are adequate, but not palatial-- and certainly welcome after our long flight. The rooms are dorm-style with 6 people to a room, but large enough not to be uncomfortably crowded. The hostel also has a kitchen, an open, cheery lobby, and a TV room with two computers with internet (there's wifi in the whole place, too).

After cleaning up a bit, we hit up an ATM and explored the neighborhood of Microcentro. The long, pedestrian avenue Florida was full of street vendors selling jewelry, leather, and other tourist trinkets. Musicians and street performers abound: singers, guitarists, dancers, jugglers, and even people whose sole purpose is to dress like a statue, stand completely still, and startle passersby. I wonder if there's a name for people like that. At about 7pm, the entire group headed out to a small restaurant that Richard and Carolina had found, where the food was mediocre but the atmosphere pleasant and friendly. Of course, only gringos eat so early, but that's exactly what we are so why pretend otherwise?

After dinner, we split into smaller groups: some went back to the hostel to relax, others meandered off to find a sports bar to watch the big soccer match set to begin at 10. A small group (myself included) decided to further explore Microcentro. We saw some small monuments, a little park, and the obelisk at the center of Avenue 9 de Julio, which the internet tells me is 140m wide and in fact the widest street in the world. Exhausted from all the walking, we stopped to grab drinks at a little cafe a few blocks from the hostel and then headed to bed to prepare for the next long day!

On the bus to the airport!

Tango lessons in the Toronto airport

Richard, the director of the Glee Club, waves a sign at us to get us to organize. We mostly fail to comply.

My first view of Buenos Aires

Jumping in front of the obelisk in Av 9 de Julio

Paris in Pictures

2009-02-01T13:08:00.005-05:00

Hey all! So it's been a while, but I have been pretty busy since I last wrote in this blog. I can't believe that an entire semester has already gone by! Anyway, just to give a slight update on my travels, I did end up going to Paris for fall break (October 2008), on tour with the Katzenjammers. We sang in a couple of parks and at a church, but otherwise it was mostly just a pleasure trip. I won't bore you with details, but here are a bunch of pictures:

Happy Meredith with her baguette

"Chris, make an Eiffel tower face!"
(at the Jardin des Tuileries, where we sang and attracted a huge crowd. unfortunately, we were closely watched by policemen and thus could not put out a hat for coins. sadface.)

Opera dorks in front of the Opera House

The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles

A poster advertising the concert we did at the Scots Kirk, a Scottish church in the city

And of course, La Tour Eiffel!

Hopefully I will post my pictures and journal entries from my recent trip to Buenos Aires over the next few days . . . stay tuned!

saying goodbye

2008-08-17T23:55:00.004-04:00

As is expected with my typical blogging lag (blag? hmmmm), I've been back in the U.S. for a week now, despite cancelled flights, lost luggage, and other misadventures. It's been weird adjusting; obviously I'm happy to see my family, my friends, and my home, but I feel like I've been living in India for a lot longer than two months. I still tend to walk on the left side of the aisle or sidewalk; my first impulse is to say "mail" instead of "email" and sign things with "warm regards" instead of "sincerely"; I've taken to adding cayenne pepper to various American foods because they're just too bland. I sometimes start to say thik hai instead of okay, and when I have online conversations they degenerate into the slang and abbreviations my Indian friends use. The transition from (almost) no white people to (almost) all white people has also been weird; I don't get stared at anymore, and I'm not any kind of minority. People understand me when I talk, and I don't have an American accent because everyone else does too.

However, I haven't had much time to think about it. I've been incredibly busy ever since my plane touched down at midnight Sunday night. There's so much to get ready for fall: the Katzenjammers are coming to my house for beachweek, so my mom is OCD about me cleaning stuff in ADDITION to finding gigs, finishing arrangements, planning rehearsals, and figuring out how the heck I'm going to entertain twelve college students for a week in exciting central PA; I'm hitting garage sales and Walmart for stuff for my apartment in Spelman this fall; I'm still unpacking and organizing everything, and packing again for school; tutoring my little sister and her friends to prepare for the SAT; practicing piano to get ready for a class I'm taking this fall; having lunch with this old friend and that before everyone heads off to college again; working out my finances for the fall with princeton financial aid and signing off on the Charter contract; finding course equivalents and getting approval and figuring out my studying abroad in the spring, because I have to apply for everything as soon as I return to school.

So you can see, there's a lot to do. Being in India was much easier in that respect. However, even standing on its own . . . this was an incredible summer, and one of the best of my life. I gained valuable work experience, traveled around a remarkable country, and made some lifelong friends. I'm extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity I had to do this; I am truly blessed.

I do miss India very much though; I'm surprised at how much I love the country, its culture, and its inhabitants. I'm determined to return someday, whether or not it's anytime soon. I'll close this chapter of my life with an entry in my journal, written on the runway as my plane took off from the Bangalore airport en route to Frankfurt. The prose is overly romanticized and trite, but the sentiment behind it is real. I will return to India someday . . . that's a promise.

Until next time--

Margaret
-----------------
8/10/2008

After two and a half months in this mysterious, surprising, amazing country, I sit on a runway bound for Germany and then the U.S., contemplating and remembering my time here.

I feel a deep sense of attachment to India, a sort of acknowledgment of the spell it's cast on my life for the past 10 weeks. Although I have no blood connection here, I find myself identifying with-- no, more than identifying with-- truly a part of the Indian culture and lifestyle. I want to know and do and be everything that is India. I am determined to return someday, whether it takes me months, years, or even decades.

Leaving campus for the last time was surprisingly even more difficult than saying goodbye to each individual. I guess the geographic entity represents more than just Infosys; it represents the whole of the experience I've had here, and most of all the people with whom I experienced it and my own immense personal growth that resulted from my interaction with them. I still can't believe it's over; the whirlwind of goodbyes gave no closure to what was the most incredible summer of my life thus far. I'm not ready to return to a world of bland food, pristine and gleaming cities with a minimum of traffic, easy and convenient travel, people who understand me when I talk, and streets that are free of litter and livestock. I feel as though I have just begun to grasp the feel and the tricks to life here. Ironically, today was the first day I was completely confident alone in the city, navigating and speaking and living. I wasn't terribly skilled, but I am learning and enjoying the process. It doesn't seem fair to end it all now.

I will sorely miss this place, this country that burrowed into my heart and rooted there when I was looking the other way. Or perhaps I was fully aware that I was developing an impossible love: love of a country that could not be more different than my own. Perhaps I was setting myself up for this from day one.

All I know is that India has infected me somehow, and whether or not I return anytime soon I will carry a little piece of India with my always. You might find me hovering around a SASA studybreak, criticizing the quality of the free Indian food; sitting at a Hindi language table, confused out of my mind but determined to continue my study; watching a Bollywood movie with (or maybe without) subtitles; listening to the newest A.R. Rahman soundtrack with due appreciation; and in general, giving in to the hold this country now has on me and doing my best to survive until I can return someday.
-------------

the gang at mocha, sometime in the middle of the summer

George with student mentors Priya, Preeti, and Anjali

Madhav and me :)

Madhav, Devanshu and Tejas after Tejas's successful presentation

Tejas and me, final goodbyes :(

the new york of india

2008-08-03T01:26:00.003-04:00

sorry for the long wait between posts, but things have been busy around here. Not only has my project started to heat up at work, but unfortunately the goodbyes have started. Since the length of people's projects vary, the interns who arrived at the beginning of June with me have been dropping off one by one, so we've been going to the city a lot for goodbye dinners etc. I'm not looking forward to my own goodbye in less than a week, although I'm excited to go home to see my family for at least a few week before school starts again.

Anyway . . . ever since reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (a book I finished at the beginning of my internship-- I highly recommend it, it's one of the best books I've ever read), I've wanted to visit Bombay, or Mumbai। It's a city with a culture all its own . . . with a population of 13 million (21 million if you count the suburbs), it's the second largest city in the world after Shanghai.

One of my friends from Bombay, when I asked him what I should do when I was there, told me that Bombay wasn't about places or events or touristy sightseeing-- that it was about the feel of the city. I didn't understand until I got there and discovered the reality of Mumbai: a truly international city, and completely different than anything I've experienced in India thus far. It's a city that draws you in, that makes you want to be a part of its thriving, vibrant community. It's attractive to both natives and foreigners alike-- this is the first time this summer where I felt like I could blend in and that I belonged. There were tourists and travelers everywhere, from every country and every possible walk of life, all exploring and wondering and drinking it n: the crazy melting pot that is Bombay.

Bombay is-- I have no more refined way to say it-- cool. It really is the New York of India in many ways, and it's more than just the fact that they are both major tourist destinations. In India, Bombay is viewed as the must-see city. "You've got to go to Bombay," people say. People from Bombay have a sort of automatic popularity/respect, just like people from New York. They talk differently: the Hindi in Bombay has a sort of swagger to it. Even the little I could understand was noticeable.

We stayed just north of the famed Colaba district, in probably the shadiest hostel I've ever seen: The Hotel New Bengal, champion of sketchy. This hotel employed approximately 30-40 youngish Indian men who hung out on the stairwells with apparently nothing to do. The hallways were narrow, dark, and winding, and each room had an air-conditioning unit that drained into a water bottle just outside the door (really). Breakfast, the same food each day, was served in a tiny restaurant down the street-- chai, puri, sambar, a banana, toast, and a hardboiled egg. Each time we exited the hotel, we were surrounded by cab drivers vying for our fare, each time with a different excuse as to why we should pay about 5x as much as was necessary. They ranged from "it's dark" to "there are no other cabs around" (Shane's reaction to that was to say "What do you mean?? There are cabs everywhere! Cab! Cab! Cab! Cab!" and to walk out and promptly get another taxi).

However, my personal favorite taxi-driver ridiculousness: "it's raining."

IT RAINED EVERY DAY. CONSTANTLY.

Let me explain. It is currently monsoon season across most of India, which means it's raining a lot. Bangalore has it nice; it rains about an hour each afternoon, which keeps the weather nice and cool and the rest of the day beautiful. Bombay, however, was a constant downpour. It got to the point where it was mildly drizzling (U.S. style "rain") and we would say ah! It's stopped raining! I don't think I have ever been more thoroughly wet in my life than over that weekend. This is why all of my pictures are very gray and dreary.

Now on to the actual events of the trip. To be brief, I'll just list them:

Friday Morning: Elephanta Island. We took an hour-long ferry to the island to see some cool rock-cut temples and caves. And monkeys. We met a cool guy named Gary on the boat, from California.

Friday Afternoon: Tour of Dharavi. Dharavi is the largest slum in India and second-largest in Asia, home to over 1 million people. I was initially hesitant about touring a slum; as a strong advocate of preserving human dignity, I feel very strongly that people are not attractions; people's poverty even less so. My friends convinced me to do it for the sake of "awareness," although I thought to myself that I was already aware that slums existed, that there was poverty in the world. I didn't need this tour.

I couldn't have been more wrong. The lesson I needed was not about the poverty of the slum, but rather its thriving industry and the warmth of its people. Yes, the slum was filthy and crowded, haphazardly winding lanes with bits of wire sticking out everywhere, and alleys barely big enough for an average-sized man to pass through. The people were quite poor. However, this was not abject, streetside poverty. The people in the slum worked hard for their meager living in the various slum industries: plastic recycling, pottery, tanning, baking, textiles, and much more. The children go to school, and the women keep the families and the tiny homes. And despite the bare-faced poverty, I was never asked for a cent, for the first time in India. The people's smiling faces and overall warmth was more than enough to make up for my cold, wet discomfort. Although I was soaked to the bone and ankle-deep in sewage as the skies opened above me, I don't think I have ever felt safer or more contented in all my time here. I am extraordinarily glad I listened to my friends. If you're ever in Bombay, contact Reality Tours and Travels, the agency that guided us around Dharavi. The tours are very sensitive: no photos allowed, and the guides know all the people in the slum and know they don't mind tourists. They also donate 80% of profits to an NGO that works in the slum, and they themselves teach English, photography, and computer classes to the children of Dharavi.

Friday night was at a club called Red Light, courtesy of Kersi's friend Rishabh. It's all about connections in India, especially Bombay, so Rishabh was able to get us into this club. It was a pretty nice place, but very crowded by the end of the night. You could barely move, let alone dance. Also, we had to leave by the back door, through the kitchen of some restaurant, in order to avoid the cops that were waiting outside the front door. Intriguing.

Saturday was shopping. All day. Shopping. Wow. We went to Colaba Causeway, which is crowded with both sidewalk stalls and legit shops on the side. I actually almost bought a trumpet, which I had bargained down to 1300 rupees (about $30), since it was playable and in good condition, but couldn't figure out how to get it back home. Instead, we bargained hard for trinkets and scarves and DVDs and who knows what. For about 6 hours. We also ate lunch at Leopold's, the famed Colaba dive where every tourist MUST go (it's prominently featured in Shantaram, so I'm glad I went).

After shopping we hung out to "see the sunset" from Chowpatty beach (i.e., the sky goes from light gray to dark gray), where we had bhutta and decided what to do for the rest of the night. We settled for dinner and another club called Play, recommended to us by Bombay-dwelling intern friends. However, things took a turn for the worse as one of my friends, George, had to be rushed to the hospital. He'd been feeling sick all day and had a sudden attack of lots of problems-- I'll spare you the details. Anyway, George actually stayed in the hospital for two nights, so that put a bit of a damper over the rest of us as we continued our trip.

We still saw a few more things though; we ate at Swati Snacks, which serves street food that's safe for foreigners (hahaha), then went to visit Haji Ali Mosque. The mosque is at the end of a causeway leading out into the bay, where both the faithful and the curious trudge to and fro for the chance to see inside.

On our way to the airport we stopped at Bandra, where we ate dinner (my birthday!) and visited friends and caught up on the news of the weekend's bombings of Bangalore and Ahmedabad. Don't worry, I'm safe, all my friends are safe too. There were several bombings in Bangalore on July 25 but none were terribly serious; the Ahmedabad blasts were much worse.

The flight home was uneventful, especially compared to the bustling metropolis we had just left. I really liked the city, and I plan to return someday. But for now, I'll settle for writing about it.

--------------

Because I'm so late with this entry, I only have four days left in Bangalore! Time has gone by so quickly. I'll try to write another post before I leave, summarizing my internship and my experience in the great, exciting country that is India.

The Taj and the Gateway to India, from the Elephanta Ferry

Mama and baby monkey on Elephanta

Temple on Elephanta

The Dhobi Ghat, world's largest open-air laundry. I had some of my clothes washed there :)

Streets of Bombay

Getting juice outside of Haji Ali mosque

Haji Ali and the long causeway leading to it

god's own country

2008-07-24T11:41:00.004-04:00

I am determined to have this blog up to date before I leave for Bombay in 5 hours.

Last weekend was the trip we'd been waiting for for weeks . . . the Infosys-sponsored trip to Cochin, Kerala. For those of you who don't know, the Indian state of Kerala is known for its incredible scenic beauty and tranquil atmosphere (and its seafood!) We left Infosys campus at about 6:30pm (which, on Indian Standard Time, translated to about 7:15. From there we took two full buses to the central city railway station, where all sixty of us boarded a train bound for Cochin.

Indian trains are famous for being crowded, dirty, and smelly (what people call "a real cultural experience"), but except for a healthy dose of cockroaches ours was okay. There were so many interns and InStep staff that we had reserved an entire train car just for ourselves. We traveled in 3-AC, meaning air-conditioned cars with 3 tiers of bunks that folded down into seats. Each compartment had eight bunks, but we fit about fifteen people at one point since no one seemed to want to sleep (although the train ride was thirteen hours long). We were relieved to arrive at Ernakulam Town station at 10:30 the next morning, where more AC buses waited to take us to our hotel.

Our hotel. Wow. The hotel was absolutely amazing. Infosys put us up in the Taj Malabar, a 5-star resort that was right on the harbor. It was kind of a big deal-- think waiters in turbans offering you glasses of papaya juice and jasmine flowers as soon as you walk into the lobby. My friend Nasheeta and I had a room on the top floor, with a great view of the harbor, and of course the furnishing etc was exquisite. We relaxed in our rooms for a few minutes and headed down for brunch (included as part of the conference package Infosys had gotten for us). Delicious food-- Indian food, Western food, and specialties of Kerala-- was served all weekend in a special private dining room.

After lunch we went on a sightseeing tour of the historic parts of Cochin, including an old church, some Chinese fishing nets, and my favorite: Jewtown. There's actually a district in Cochin that's legitimately called Jewtown, which is renowned for its commission-free shopping and a really old synagogue (we weren't allowed in the synagogue because it was Saturday). But still, you don't get to look around and see signs that say "Two Minutes to Jew Town!" in the U.S.

After the sightseeing tour we relaxed at the hotel (or rather, the bar in the hotel lobby) until the "Sunset Cruise," which we turned into a complete dance party on the boat. We sailed around the harbor until dark (it gets dark at about 7pm here in India, have I mentioned that?), waving to fishermen who then danced with us from their boats. A good time was had by all.

From the cruise there was a demonstration on the traditional dance/theater style of Kerala, which I had heard from other interns was quite dull (the other sixty interns went last weekend). So, my friends and I decided to go swimming instead! The pool at the Taj is beautiful and ends only about 10 feet from the water; it actually looks like it feeds directly into the ocean. Two of my Indian friends didn't even know how to swim, but we got them into the water, and by the end of the weekend they were racing each other for short stretches.

Dinner was served in the hotel once more, after which the interns split up. Some people went to go find a club in Cochin, and others decided to try to crash a private wedding party at the hotel. It was apparently going pretty well-- they were pretending to be Australian-- until they got to the bar, at which point they were firmly denied. I preferred to enjoy my five-star penthouse room, watching a movie with some friends, and then hung out in the 24-hour restaurant in the lobby until I was too tired to continue.

After an unwanted 5am wakeup call, courtesy of my friends Madhav and Madhav, we woke up bright and early (not THAT early though) for a journey into the backwaters of Kerala. The backwaters are the most famous part of Kerala-- basically the entire state is a huge delta and there are tons of waterways running in and out of everywhere. You're supposed to take a houseboat and just float along for a few days, relaxing and soaking everything in. However, we took five small canoes through very overgrown, small-channel backwaters. It was beautiful, in a wild sort of way-- the trees seemed almost as if they were choking the small creek, the banks overgrown with bramble bushes, and snakes slithering through the water alongside the boats. It was peaceful, to be sure, but very undeveloped and . . . real, I guess.

Midway through the boat tour we stopped for coconut water-- but this time we actually saw the man climb the tree, pull down the coconut, hack it open with a machete and hand us a straw. Delicious. We also got to see some spice trees growing, and try to climb the coconut trees ourselves (it's harder than it looks!). It was a cool experience.

After the backwaters tour, it was time to say goodbye to our dear Taj. We took another round of swimming and a giant lunch, and then headed to the train station for our 13-hour overnight journey home: just in time for work Monday morning. It was a fun, relaxing, and memorable weekend, and I really appreciate Infosys doing it for us.

Train on the way to Kerala

Cochin harbor, as viewed from our room

Jew town and some jews

Friends on board the sunset cruise

The backwaters of Kerala

Me attempting to climb the coconut tree

mmmm coconut!

Buses, Biryani, Bibles, Bargaining, and Babies-- a weekend in Hyderabad

2008-07-14T15:29:00.004-04:00

I’m apologizing in advance for the unforgivable length of this entry.

After a ten-hour, overnight journey (punctuated by one 3am crash that wasn't serious enough to stop for, although we found later that it had spidered the windshield pretty good) on a semi-sleeper bus--seats that recline up to 45 degrees, but no beds--we arrived at the bustling Mahatma Gandhi bus station, where we were immediately accosted by taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers. They wouldn’t let us go easily, especially when they figured out we were having trouble connecting with our taxi driver. We walked around the bus station several times, passing the same shops full of junk, unhygienic food stalls where we feared to stop despite our unhappily empty stomachs, and the crowd of now-predatory-looking taxi drivers.

We eventually located our driver after several calls to the taxi dispatch center, only to discover that he spoke almost no English—an ironic thing to happen on my first weekend trip without someone who spoke Hindi. Trial by fire, I guess—with his tiny bit of English, Faisal’s and my bits of Hindi (mostly Faisal), and the Hindi-English dictionary I’ve taken to carrying almost everywhere, we managed to get where we were going without any major disasters (although the driver did keep attempting to take us back to Infosys campus rather than the palaces, forts and monuments we had planned to see for the morning). Our first stop was the Charminar, Hyderabad’s most famous monument. It literally means Four (char) Minarets (minar), a random structure in a kind of town square that was topped with four towers. It was thoroughly overrated, but worth a look (especially since it’s the figure that goes on most of Hyderabad’s postcards).

After our driver had been driving for a good half hour, we realized that we probably weren’t heading for Chowmahalla palace, the location we had requested. “Infosys?” he said with a puzzled look on his face. No, we explained, Chowmahalla Palace (careful to articulate each syllable because he had somehow gotten “Infosys” out of it the first time). The palace was about 100 yards from the Charminar, and we could have walked rather than taken 45 minutes in a cab. Ah well, such is life.

Chowmahalla Palace was basically a museum and testament to the history of the Nizams, the old rulers of Hyderabad. It was quite interesting, as are many of the historical places I’ve visited, but I can’t help wishing for a better grasp on Indian history in general, as my knowledge is woefully inadequate. It makes it quite difficult to fit together the many different facts that have been crammed into my head over the past 5 weeks—the British, the Moguls, the native tribes, sultans, rajs, all kinds of people and places and invasions and cities.

Lunch was at the famed Paradise Hotel, recommended by all our friends native to Hyderabad plus a good many others. Hyderabad is famous for its biryani (a dish of steamed rice with vegetables or meat), so that’s what I had for lunch. Delicious, as always, but I have a message for the people of Andhra Pradesh: your food is too spicy. end of story.

Finally, we instructed our driver to take us back to Infosys Campus, where we planned to drop our stuff and freshen up before the evening’s activities. However, our streak of bad luck with cabs (which wasn’t going to die anytime soon) continued and the car broke down twice on the way there. Too hot and tired to do anything active, we waited passively until the driver called one of his buddies to come and pick us up. The whole thing made me really wish I actually spoke Hindi, and although I won’t come anything close to proficient by the time I leave, I’m determined to learn as much as I can.

After being initially denied rooms at the ECC, then finagling our way into an incredibly huge and luxurious room, we set off for my favorite site of the weekend—Golconda Fort. Escaping from a coalition of insistent tour guides, we scrambled up the fort face, eschewing paved sidewalks in favor of dirt paths and old, crumbling rock walls. The fort was huge and definitely the best monument out of the weekend. After we had scaled the fort in less than an hour and made fun of the Moguls who took eight months to do the same thing, we headed down (through a cave full of bats!!!!!!) to an amphitheater-arena-type thing (from which you could see most of the fort) for the “Sound and Lights Show.” It was pretty cool—a well-done (English!) narration of the history of Golconda and its rulers, with different parts of the fort lit up in different colors to emphasize parts of the story. Although it lasted an hour, it was worth it to hear some of the stories behind the vast structure.

Our bad luck with taxis continued as we had to repeatedly call the dispatch to get them to send someone to pick us up at Golconda. Note that all the taxis had been prearranged and booked several days in advance, and should have arrived as scheduled. We finally headed off for dinner with Vignan’s family—Vignan, an intern from Hyderabad, planned out our whole itinerary and invited us to his home in the city (although he wasn’t able to be there that weekend). Vignan’s mother cooked enough for about twenty people, and it was all the four of us could do to try everything on the table. She filled the table with delicious dishes like paneer tikka masala, sambar, coconut rice, vada and curd, mint chutney, papad, and best of all a huge plate of freshly sliced mango. We also got to meet and talk to Vignan’s uncle and grandparents, who shared stories of Hyderabad and India in general.

We retired to the ECC with no further cab mishaps, but of course the next morning’s cab showed up at 7am rather than 8:30. Breakfast was peanut butter sandwiches in the hotel, and from there we went to a church we’d found on the Internet (always the best source for these things . . .) called the Hyderabad Apostolic Christian Assembly. It was actually held in a YWCA (!) in downtown Hyderabad. We were greeted with quizzical looks and warm welcomes from the pastor and worship team, and the service began at precisely 10am (that’s when the power goes on). It was an incredible joy for me—the band, the singers, and familiar songs like How Great is Our God, Here I am to Worship, and even Days of Elijah were heartbreakingly familiar and a comforting reminder of home. Even side-by-side with songs in Tamil, Telegu, and Hindi, those familiar songs of praise were all I needed. The rest of the service was not unlike an African-American Southern Baptist church—endless singing, prayers, testimonies, enthusiastic prayers, and a fiery sermon took the service to about 2 and a half hours. It was quite an experience, and a good reminder that the Church is alive and growing here in India.

We spent the early afternoon at various parks around Hussein Sagar, the big lake in the middle of the city, taking a boat ride to see the giant monolithic Buddha in the center and waiting unsuccessfully for Indian children to vacate the playground swings. A final bout of cab distress led to the agency just letting us keep our cab for the rest of the day, since they were so tired of dealing with us. We took our hard-won cab to Salar Jung Museum, a huge museum full of everything from ancient swords to Italian marble sculptures. We had time only to explore a fraction of the museum before it closed, but I would really like to go back someday as the works it contained were really incredible. Also, on the way into of the museum a lady actually pushed her baby into my arms and asked if I would take a picture with her child. A little weird, but the baby was adorable :)

The remainder of the evening was spent on dinner at the wonderful (NOT!) Hotel Shadab (Lonely Planet, you have failed.) and wandering around pretending to be interested in buying things. In one particularly notable shop, I asked the price (I’m getting quite good at doing that in Hindi these days) of a dupatta that I mildly liked, and the shopkeeper responded with 150. As expected, I immediately shook my head no, so the proprietor countered with “Two hundred.” Double take. I think he sensed my confusion, so he attempted to appease me by offering 250. As the other three shopkeepers started cracking up around us, I gently said “uhh . . . I think you’re going the wrong way.” Perplexed, he said "tell me the right way, I don't know the right way." I shook my head and said "...I'm gonna go find my friends now," leaving the confused man to figure out his failure.

After several other photo requests and aggressive shopkeepers, we headed to the bus station to find our A/C semisleeper, complete with scratchy blankets and an outrageous south Indian movie (movies produced in the south tend to have crazier dancing, more intense fight scenes, impossible stunts, and apparently superhuman actors). After an exhausting day, I fell straight to sleep, and the bus arrived with no crashes or unusual events to Bangalore the next morning. Our bad luck with cabs was finally over-- we found our driver and he took us to Infosys, just in time for work this morning!

Stay tuned, I feel that a very interesting entry is coming later this week.

View from the top of the Charminar

Golconda Fort

The Way to Up.

THE BATCAVE

Shane and Buddha