tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26269172641129116262024-03-13T08:58:34.912-07:00Adventures With NoelNoel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-7795143446037281162017-05-12T05:18:00.001-07:002017-05-12T05:18:33.456-07:00Cruising the Caribbean - April 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; margin: 0px;">April
2017 – Cruising the Caribbean</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Saturday,
April 8 – Introduction to San Juan</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Everything was set. Erica and I were both flying direct from our home
airports—me from Dulles and her from JFK—and the plan was to meet at the
airport. Her flight was a little late, but I saw that it had landed while I
waited at baggage claim. 15 minutes pass. Then 30. Okay, well we definitely
texted this morning saying we were both past security and ready to begin this
adventure. Please, God, tell me this girl found her way to the hotel. Of course
since I couldn’t get a wifi signal at the airport, I couldn’t check email to
see what had happened to her. So I grab a cab and spend the 15-minute ride
hoping we can reconnect at the hotel. And like a pro, homegirl’s just sitting
on a couch waiting for me so we can check in. Brilliant!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Because we spent enough time trying to find one another (and traveling
down to Puerto Rico that morning), our room was ready at the historic Caribe
Hilton just outside of Old Town San Juan. We had left cooler weather up north,
so both of us wanted to change into shorts/lighter clothes before we wandered
downtown. I looked up the name of the restaurant I remember passing the last
time I was in San Juan that had a big plaque claiming to be the inventor of the
Piña Colada. What I actually did was Google “inventor piña colada san juan,”
and two names showed up. The first was the restaurant I was looking for called
Barrachina and the second was the one and same hotel in which we were staying.
Well okay then, let’s start out here by the pool, grab some lunch, and
order…say…a pitcher of Piña Coladas from the outside bar! Because we weren’t
acclimated to the 90-degree weather of the Caribbean, we needed something
tropical to cool us off. Plus, we were now on vacation!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJNM2l5-TBzGD9NA67NSgeIiZ7TDsXCuSRoM05pT1h7V1r4W1EzA11cXYuSxQYFn2UXmgXMgOJPhJCCpWe6DwNwoIJVrqrR2itT4MR7IL1SY3u4MLj-YvG4ZGzt_kpKibNk1gG1j36FE/s1600/Tripleta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJNM2l5-TBzGD9NA67NSgeIiZ7TDsXCuSRoM05pT1h7V1r4W1EzA11cXYuSxQYFn2UXmgXMgOJPhJCCpWe6DwNwoIJVrqrR2itT4MR7IL1SY3u4MLj-YvG4ZGzt_kpKibNk1gG1j36FE/s1600/Tripleta.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">To
accompany our pitcher of Piña Coladas, we also ordered some food to share. One
thing we came across was a local favorite, a sandwich called a tripleta, or
“triple” for the three types of meats: usually cube steak, ham, and pork
(lechon). Our tripleta was fancified with pastrami instead of cube steak
(because we </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">were</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> at a Hilton
property—we’re not savages)! We also ordered some sort of plantain
chip/deep-fried/pork cracklin’ deliciousness, so I feel we got off to a good
start with the food situation. Neither of us had eaten much that day, so we
most definitely shoved more food than necessary into our faces. The way I look
at it, we needed to adjust to “vacation mode” by eating at least twice as much
at every meal. After we completed our pitcher, we decided it was time to head
downtown</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWLMWlnYbmSZiArgPTsgBgDVXyudQFFG1kL6_Cng1bAaJEMNP6VDgNFQgV5FylvopP_5NrwT0LmTB4XI97QjI7L6mCOlb_1-HFvsK1kth9nnSYDHpkeFTBUdLF5hM0oCJ-Jeby6aPPXHQ/s1600/pina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWLMWlnYbmSZiArgPTsgBgDVXyudQFFG1kL6_Cng1bAaJEMNP6VDgNFQgV5FylvopP_5NrwT0LmTB4XI97QjI7L6mCOlb_1-HFvsK1kth9nnSYDHpkeFTBUdLF5hM0oCJ-Jeby6aPPXHQ/s320/pina.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I appreciate that when I travel with a
woman most people generally assume we’re together. What threw me for a loop was
when the cab driver asked us if we liked to party, like go out and have a good
time late at night. The thought I had in my head was, “bitch, it’s an </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">imperative</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> that I have my pants off by
10:00pm!” That being said, it sounds like there are plenty of bars and dancing
options for those who care to venture out for that type of frivolity. Erica and
I hopped out of the cab right at the edge of Old Town, exactly where I was let
loose in Old Town the first time, and picked a direction to wander off. Long
story short, we did eventually find the other establishment, the restaurant called
Barrachina, that claims to have created the Piña Colada and immediately ordered
a couple. I was disheartened because I saw rows of frozen drink “slushy”
machines filled with pre-made mixes. While that didn’t make the best first
impression, I was more than happy with the end result (read: the bartender
poured a crapload of rum into a glass and just dumped the pre-made mix on top).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCCcTdKFaVVV-4JxochMMORI1hPyeWaV0ORiIcdGZSXGdRda0teJ_UPKxE-uyMhtWZZeivoahO5sp_hIoI68dX2AcZxXSkGLclksaSerZgrFfYaE_m1xo18zILwYr41itjHm5S7vhw2jI/s1600/policia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCCcTdKFaVVV-4JxochMMORI1hPyeWaV0ORiIcdGZSXGdRda0teJ_UPKxE-uyMhtWZZeivoahO5sp_hIoI68dX2AcZxXSkGLclksaSerZgrFfYaE_m1xo18zILwYr41itjHm5S7vhw2jI/s320/policia.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Erica had heard several people mention
the old fort, El Muro, and wanted to see it while we were down in Old Town. The
hotel had told us it would be closing soon, but at least we got to the other
side of the street from where you hike across the field to gain entrance into
the historic site. Erica and I found a bench, because we’re old and it was hot.
We sat there panting (really just sweating…a lot) and needed a quick break.
Officer McHottie Pants was directing traffic right in front of us, so we just
sat there going back and forth on how we could lure said officer of the law
into our requisite lairs, so sayeth the spider to the fly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Because we had eaten so much at our late lunch, there was no need for
dinner by the time we got back to the hotel. We knew we needed one last rum
drink to close out the evening, so we found the hotel’s central bar and ordered
a couple of rum and cokes. Because we had hoofed it through Old Town San Juan
that day, we decided tomorrow we should sit by the hotel’s pool and lagoon for
the morning and eventually meander to the cruise ship. Sitting by a pool for a
couple of hours sounded like a great way to acclimate to vacation mode.</span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Sunday,
April 9 – Cruise Day</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Waking up early, we paid of an overpriced breakfast buffet at the
hotel, since we gathered we wouldn’t really be paying for a lot of food over
the course of the next week. Because then we asked the front desk if we could
have a late checkout, we then sauntered over to the pool and lagoon area to
find some chairs getting direct sunlight. I could’ve definitely spent more than
a couple of days at the Caribe Hilton, though things were extravagantly
expensive. I was glad we were only staying in this hotel for only one night,
but I’m glad we started our vacation out this way. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ApI7er7ST0zQymiz0H_6bfK7RnsIAro-6hvEbfoOGB0sDnrsuK_0aLhlPcHBgrZhxNacf771NObFTw3vO6UNcfdCdovx_UkoBsslMAGt-oH_Qodim9fc8qYS64XLDa_BlGKer5Dee-w/s1600/jewel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ApI7er7ST0zQymiz0H_6bfK7RnsIAro-6hvEbfoOGB0sDnrsuK_0aLhlPcHBgrZhxNacf771NObFTw3vO6UNcfdCdovx_UkoBsslMAGt-oH_Qodim9fc8qYS64XLDa_BlGKer5Dee-w/s320/jewel.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">We eventually cleaned up, after sipping
iced vanilla lattes by the lagoon, and checked out of the hotel. Everything is
within 15 minutes of one another on this part of the island, so it was a super
quick to arrive to the cruise boat terminal. There was a Disney ship and our
ship, the Jewel of the Seas, docked. They were both ridiculously large
machines, but I knew they were only one-third the size of the latest
super-cruise ships. We were only going to have something like a measly eight
bars to choose from while onboard. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The registration process was fairly straightforward, since the cruise
company had sent us rather detailed instructions on what to expect beforehand.
Once onboard, we decided to explore the ship (with our personal ID cards for
the ship, which we had picked up during check-in and includes our unlimited
beverage package). We scoped out the multitude of bars onboard and quickly checked
out the pool deck. Already crowded, it was clear this area would be the heart
of recreation onboard. They often had YouTube-style video clips playing on a
projection screen over the pool during the day, maybe a reggae band playing in
the late afternoon (or when pulling out of port), and then a kid-friendly movie
at night. I remember thinking I’d enjoy watching Storks or Fantastic Beasts and
Where to Find Them. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt31FMOWbRX4XCpmQOwIVCkvR-42EXYy1ETvU2YNLny8M7bpBBcsQbLYEtxDX7bfz3OIjwmR8bSqTLkcUSZVXZCFWizTanTPIe3mIGeiYcZYVprrlXY4w4djcW3vFvKPe_5BncXZRqRpI/s1600/cocktail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt31FMOWbRX4XCpmQOwIVCkvR-42EXYy1ETvU2YNLny8M7bpBBcsQbLYEtxDX7bfz3OIjwmR8bSqTLkcUSZVXZCFWizTanTPIe3mIGeiYcZYVprrlXY4w4djcW3vFvKPe_5BncXZRqRpI/s1600/cocktail.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">All was going smoothly until the
required muster drill sounded (where you have to go stand at your designated
spot in case lifeboats have to be lowered). There was an announcement over the
loudspeaker 30 minutes beforehand telling everyone to get ready. During that
time, the bars would be closed. Reasonable, I thought, though I still had 30
minutes to worry about this. At that very time I wanted another Patron
pineapple margarita, and the bartender said they’d be open again after the
drill and closed down in our faces. Oh HELL no—this boy needed cocktails in
both hands for this exercise! Alas it wasn’t to be, and Noel and Erica had to
go to the muster drill without cocktails. </span><span style="font-family: "segoe ui emoji" , sans-serif; margin: 0px;">☹</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Although dangerously sober by the end of the lifeboat drill, it was
conveniently timed to conclude just as dinner was to be served. As we sat down
at our table and was greeted by a handsome Indian waiter, I was disappointed
that no one else showed up at our table that evening. We’d be placed with other
families on future nights, so it left Erica and me to shovel as many dinner
roles as possible before multiple courses started rolling by. The food in the
main dining room was excellent every night, though the wine selection was sadly
lacking. I asked our waiter for a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon to have with
dinner, and his reply back to me was, “is Kendall Jackson okay?” <sigh></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Monday,
April 10 – Finding the Jews of St. Thomas</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The boat normally left port around five o’clock most days, and by the
time we were up and dressed each morning we were docked at the next day’s port
of call. The first day was St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Because
it was formerly a Danish overseas territory, the street names are in Danish and
they drive on the left-hand side of the road (the only American territory that
does this). After getting turned around because I thought we’d be docking on
the east side of the capital, Erica and I started walking in the general
direction of downtown. It surprised me that signs were in miles and gas was
measured in gallons (because Puerto Rico had signs in both miles and
kilometers, but gas was definitely measured in liters). These bi-cultural
islands had me all confused! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Our ultimate goal was to reach the oldest continuously running
synagogue under the American flag, which is how the greeter at the temple
ultimately framed it. There are older synagogues, but this one dates back to
revolutionary times. Well, not exactly. The current building dates back to the
1830s, though there are relics in the building that date back centuries before then.
It took us quite a while to actually locate the building, though it afforded us
an opportunity to wander in downtown Charlotte Amalie. St. Thomas has a fair
bit of high-end shopping, though the island itself is still developing and
wasn’t particularly well looked after. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5ShJolFMUgAQ3HgKvCTizQtr7WGaeEQdhmljy9t0SQ_xYCHE1ufotPtXt7nbxauw02chd75YxT6i2jbNUrrXiy23mFdMBmoV5xCnlX-pSq5XdpiHIYtSiHtcc6h_Kr6ArMrsySgUnZw/s1600/synagogue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5ShJolFMUgAQ3HgKvCTizQtr7WGaeEQdhmljy9t0SQ_xYCHE1ufotPtXt7nbxauw02chd75YxT6i2jbNUrrXiy23mFdMBmoV5xCnlX-pSq5XdpiHIYtSiHtcc6h_Kr6ArMrsySgUnZw/s320/synagogue.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Once we finally found the building, the
most noticeable thing about the interior was that sand covered the floor. A
woman named Judith quickly greeted us, and we began talking about the history
of the building. She explained that this wasn’t the only synagogue that had
sand floors, others included synagogues in: Amsterdam, Barbados, Cura</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">ç</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">ao,
and Jamaica. Judith told us the sand symbolized three things central to the
Sephardic Jewish tradition: it was to remind the congregation of the River
Jordan (this was river sand, which wouldn’t harm the building’s foundations),
it harkened back to when Spanish Jews had to practice their faith in hiding
during the Inquisition when countless Jews and Muslims were forced to convert
to Catholicism or leave the country (hence the emigration to what were then colonies
more accepting to outsiders), and each grain of sand represented every blessing
to the people, which also harkened back to the Sephardic Jewish tradition in
their prayers. It was truly a great way to start this Caribbean adventure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The other spot I wanted to check out while on St. Thomas was Creeque
Alley, or better known as Creque’s Alley to the locals. Creeque Alley is the
name of one of the 60s group Mamas and the Papas more famous songs, which
starts out with “Joan and Mitchie were gettin’ king of itchy to leave the folk
music behind…” Apparently they named this song after this area of town, which
was originally a collection of alleys that connected the waterfront to the
warehouses where goods from all ships (pirates included) were stored. I had
just learned this while listening to an oldies station on my Sirius radio less
than a week before the trip. So before we got off the boat, I Google mapped
from the synagogue to where Google told me Creque’s Alley was. I found the main
street, where all the high-end shopping was, and headed away from the dock. I
turned uphill at what I thought was about the right spot, and a friendly
shopkeeper hollered out to us, “what are you looking for?” I told her the name,
but she didn’t recognize it. I told her I thought it was up that way, but she
urged us not to continue that way since it got rather sketchy quickly after
that. Another local woman saw that we were generally confused leaving the
marina where the cruise boat was docked at the beginning of the day and happily
pointed out the main road around the corner from where we were. While the
people were certainly approachable and friendly enough, I was disappointed at
how their capital hadn’t been kept up as much as I would’ve liked. This was
also where the boats came into, so I’m sure other parts of the island are
different. I heard from other cruisers who took a ferry over to St. Johns that
it was lovely.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggZIZiACQV0SxmlnOzWlM_1tqeUHaa8W6LMpnDIrPppTCT9PW_kZReGL6EBDoHAg3Ubi0nt5un4LkgkqGLRsv4JeBn8Y-_aEPW_bMUOokqtt2jbRYaS9lw3eOS5SDxGW_dhUQszPRraXQ/s1600/mamas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggZIZiACQV0SxmlnOzWlM_1tqeUHaa8W6LMpnDIrPppTCT9PW_kZReGL6EBDoHAg3Ubi0nt5un4LkgkqGLRsv4JeBn8Y-_aEPW_bMUOokqtt2jbRYaS9lw3eOS5SDxGW_dhUQszPRraXQ/s1600/mamas.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Erica
and I hadn’t eaten since our gigantic breakfast, so we needed to see if the
lunch buffet on the boat changed from yesterday’s assortment. The food choices
did not disappoint, and to our delight there was a mini [adult] beverage
station setup with wine, bear, and usually a basic rum-based cocktail. After
filling ourselves until almost exploding, we wandered over to the pool area to
check out what those afternoon activities were like with most guests onboard. I
was surprised there weren’t any pool games, like volleyball or even trivia
around the pool. Instead a projection TV showed loops of YouTube-like video
clips. I guess I’m no longer part of the “in crowd,” as the Mamas and the Papas
would put it. Speaking of which, as we were leaving port, a small tanker ship
was blasting music. It took me a second to recognize it over (over the roar of
our splendid poolside reggae band), but it was definitely the Mamas and the
Papas blaring out their well-known hit, Monday Monday. While we weren’t able to
revisit Creeque Alley, on a Monday late afternoon we got to enjoy the Mamas and
the Papas again from our Caribbean boat neighbor. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Tuesday,
April 11 – Visiting Hamilton’s Birthplace</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs7RNq-mC1GMK6W352VCTfVuHON1eiJ51FM4sp6WisHiU5gd9tzT1XDIAVdDWOTHlWvZVsMGv47oVtWK2KrlP1tZd5-Y_8Rr6OWipyG7q6HuoPiNXhnLFGZbhlteUbKNAVvXn8ATyKmsQ/s1600/hamilton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs7RNq-mC1GMK6W352VCTfVuHON1eiJ51FM4sp6WisHiU5gd9tzT1XDIAVdDWOTHlWvZVsMGv47oVtWK2KrlP1tZd5-Y_8Rr6OWipyG7q6HuoPiNXhnLFGZbhlteUbKNAVvXn8ATyKmsQ/s320/hamilton.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I
just assumed that the Alexander Hamilton craze had swooped into everyone’s
lives, but our dinner partners the previous night proved me wrong. Three
generations of a Birmingham, England family joined us for dinner and asked
about our day and what the next day’s plans were. Erica and I were rather
excited to take the local ferry over to Nevis, the sister island to St. Kitt’s,
and see the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, the founding father that inspired
the musical craze. This British family had no idea who we were talking about,
so they wished us their best. I hadn’t researched this activity well, though I
had found the ferry schedule to confirm we had the time in port to take the
boat over. I’ll tell you, though, I was sure to bring my passport with me on
this adventure, just in case we missed the boat and had to figure out the next
step in our journey. With that said, Erica and I asked the information desk in
port at St. Kitt’s how to find the ferry terminal. A short walk away, we found
the ticket counter and fortuitously didn’t have to wait long for the next boat
to depart. The ferry ride takes about 40 minutes and you pass the whole length
of the island, which was larger than I expected since I was told this is the
smallest independent nation in the Western Hemisphere. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiehxqt7buraj27wjpD2V80f0g0h3VJcnQHB9eHifR3qwBsj9MA8COQGLjkhxSSJmRxwJRqKoSkg6zxSMbPCTIxspyhGj1AB0T1yBwLSuFKd7N8OVdg9oYzBuD10mO349LD_Te7raJmc0/s1600/hamilton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiehxqt7buraj27wjpD2V80f0g0h3VJcnQHB9eHifR3qwBsj9MA8COQGLjkhxSSJmRxwJRqKoSkg6zxSMbPCTIxspyhGj1AB0T1yBwLSuFKd7N8OVdg9oYzBuD10mO349LD_Te7raJmc0/s320/hamilton.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">After getting to port without incident at
Nevis, I was surprised when we were accosted by taxi drivers outside the pier
asking us if we needed a ride. “A ride to where,” I thought. Turning right
outside the harbor area, we quickly hit the edge of town. Turning around and
walking to the other side of town, we stumbled across the Museum of Nevis
History (and birthplace of Alexander Hamilton). The Jews were spoken of
positively here, mainly because they came up from Brazil at one point and
modernized the sugarcane processing technology and made the whole industry on
the island more efficient and profitable. The best thing about this museum:
they had the Hamilton soundtrack playing on a loop. Because I only knew the
Hamilton Mix Tape, I was surprised to see how different the actual soundtrack
is. Another wild surprise while on this property: Erica and I saw a plaque
outside on the gate’s exterior to the courtyard that acknowledged that the same
English colonists there were on their way to settle Jamestown, back in 1607,
stopped over on Nevis during their trip to the New World. Wow, what a cool
little place!</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Wednesday,
April 12 – Sailed Off to Antigua (it was the third stop on our boat)</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnYG1p_Lpx36TDvdgmuqej1fq2Njo4kcmtSHJft9GdHKfUHFp7T0DhqcSMYF74bDCGzgOAN2kz5Bq4bJX12_CxghsRXid3DeSAPDJJw_-OkAIRaxyRTMkNiwJNm826IVJ4HC2TOr1bgoQ/s1600/antigua.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnYG1p_Lpx36TDvdgmuqej1fq2Njo4kcmtSHJft9GdHKfUHFp7T0DhqcSMYF74bDCGzgOAN2kz5Bq4bJX12_CxghsRXid3DeSAPDJJw_-OkAIRaxyRTMkNiwJNm826IVJ4HC2TOr1bgoQ/s320/antigua.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Before
we talk about Antigua, I think it prudent to discuss the fact that I don’t know
my Caribbean geography very well. I knew where a few islands were, but these
southern Caribbean islands were rather mysterious to me, both in history and
location. With that said, during the night we noticed we were passing just
offshore of what I’d soon learn was Guadeloupe, one of the few remaining French
overseas territories (the others being, to my knowledge, Martinique and half of
St. Martin/Maarten). Antigua has other islands not far from it. It has its own
sister island, Barbuda, which I’m told is more of an environmental sanctuary
island. Be that as it may, I knew Erica was jones-ing for a beach…get it…Jones
Beach? Sorry, it’s a Long Island reference, where Erica’s from. We were at
least able to sit near one for a hot (and I do mean HOT) minute, but that was
all we were allotted. </span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.radiosepe.com.br/images_uploads/noticia/2270/large/policia.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Doing our usual stuff-everything-in-your-face routine for breakfast,
Erica and I wandered off the boat potentially looking for a guide. We quickly
found Ashland LeBlanc, who’d become our tour guide for the day. He wasn’t
young, but he still carried a young person’s exuberance in his personality. He
spoke of worldly things, of traveling to China, but he was an orator first and
foremost. Ashland told us that the name “Antigua” comes from Christopher
Columbus’s second voyage, where he viewed the island said it looked old, or
antique. I love it. He also told us that it was cheaper for Antigua to import
its own food, though it had the fertility and ability to make it a
self-sustaining island, if it needed to be one. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I could tell Ashland was proud of his
island, and it was easy to see why. Unlike St. Thomas (we <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtZagmGXWy5JtKiwLLZ_VIMAtCVimFy7FJuj5ZkRVmpp9XG9BC3IEPXzSobRxKd736bc19U8qW4bVSIvaJNdvcfAWZ4YgJH2zrxN7eWSkTtE3T366gjvagWEU1P-pVXgsnY3g6AtkBLc/s1600/falmouth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtZagmGXWy5JtKiwLLZ_VIMAtCVimFy7FJuj5ZkRVmpp9XG9BC3IEPXzSobRxKd736bc19U8qW4bVSIvaJNdvcfAWZ4YgJH2zrxN7eWSkTtE3T366gjvagWEU1P-pVXgsnY3g6AtkBLc/s400/falmouth.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
didn’t get to see any
part of St. Kitt’s besides the tourist port village), the Antiguans take pride
in their buildings. We passed by beautiful dockside villages (reminiscent of
something you’d find in upscale California boating communities), but even the
more modest houses were well looked after and painted beautiful pastel colors
that just worked with the magnificent coastal view wherever you turned. We got
into Ashland’s passenger van with two older Canadian ladies, we’ll call them
Ethyl and Alice. As we left the main port city, St. Johns, located on the
northern side of the island, we took hilly roads across the island to Falmouth
Harbor on the south side. One could spend a couple hours walking through the
lovely harbor, but Ethyl and Alice were content in seeing things from the
inside of a passenger van. I know then Erica and I were concerned about how the
rest of the day would go. While we didn’t get to poke around the harbor too
much, we did stop at Turner’s Beach on our ride back to the port town. There
Erica and I both took our sandals off to put our feet in the pristine and
mind-numbingly gorgeous water. Ethyl and Alice stayed in the shade and ate some
fries, which made them happy. As we left the beach, Mariah Carey’s Always Be My
Baby came on the radio. Yep, I could happily play in Antigua for a while. It
was just the right size in that it didn’t take too long to cross from one side
to the other, but it was large enough that were dozens of coves to explore.<br />
<br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi284LEIwcTRiqZm6T955Fi6KvTcG1kA5t2JgE1oMEq5FXrR76ylRD21bmhQzkM5XxKIocKk7C2HAeKB-5-zlqPHEHqoZPQW2m5Nd7BJUUCNzYJ42fDaVB841-kc6WrcwP4UotaT095YJo/s1600/montserrat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi284LEIwcTRiqZm6T955Fi6KvTcG1kA5t2JgE1oMEq5FXrR76ylRD21bmhQzkM5XxKIocKk7C2HAeKB-5-zlqPHEHqoZPQW2m5Nd7BJUUCNzYJ42fDaVB841-kc6WrcwP4UotaT095YJo/s320/montserrat.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">It’s
also worth mentioning that Antigua is within visual distance of Montserrat, a
neighboring British overseas territory that had a dormant volcano suddenly
shoot up flames in the mid-1990s. More than half of the island continues to be
deemed an exclusion zone, so all island residents were ultimately granted UK
citizenship, should they choose to leave. Something like 1,200 residents
decided to stay behind and rebuild. That’s a story I need to hear more about.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Thursday,
April 13 – St. Lucia and Antillean Creole</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRqkXp1UdxiE2eztYgTUb8IQDEH0_pe2dJ07whUB2BLMQcMb_lL1GPrCsDG_1kJOvLzecMyvha4De_4TWtC6SnvW-GlEHbL8sXfXjQEBC81ZKFctZs47QAMDc_hfsgCT3xv1f2wx8namw/s1600/lucia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRqkXp1UdxiE2eztYgTUb8IQDEH0_pe2dJ07whUB2BLMQcMb_lL1GPrCsDG_1kJOvLzecMyvha4De_4TWtC6SnvW-GlEHbL8sXfXjQEBC81ZKFctZs47QAMDc_hfsgCT3xv1f2wx8namw/s400/lucia.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">After getting a taste of a Caribbean beach the previous day, I knew
that Erica really needed to get some beach time in soon. We had great luck with
our spur-of-the-moment tour the previous day, so I was happy to find a tour
that included some sort of island tour and beach time. We ultimately got sucked
into a group deal to go to Marigot Bay, which was just up the coast from where
we had docked. A small passenger boat took us out of the main harbor, past a
Sandals resort, and dropped us off on the shores of a smaller bay. The other
passengers on this boat with us were a Hispanic couple that didn’t speak much
English and a family with two teenage boys from Raleigh, North Carolina. While
we didn’t hang out with them much, I was happy to know we other families with
us, just in case we all needed to get back to the ship later on. The driver of
the smaller boat dropped us off at the dock, agreed on a time to come pick us
up, and quickly left us. Well, okay then!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We quickly found a patch of beach and were
just as quickly greeted by a small group of guys ever-so-conveniently renting
out lounge chairs for the day. They were actually quite friendly and wandered
around most of the time hawking cheap beer and coconut rum. This was actually
the pushiest time we had on any island, though other families told us they had it
much worse on other islands. As we napped and crept into the water when we were
too hot, my favorite thing to do was to listen to the locals speak to each
other. I knew that St. Lucia was part of the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">francophonie</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">, or collective of French-speaking countries. Their
French-based creole was just as unintelligible to me as the English-based
creole we had heard the day before in Antigua. In fact, I could tell that it
was a creole because I’d recognize various words if you listened hard, but they
both sounded like the same language to me since they had the same rhythm and intonation.
I only caught wind of what was being said when something like, “I don’t give a
f*ck!” was added into the conversation. There were definitely times when an
English creole was being used, so I found it interesting that both were used
somewhat interchangeably. I read that this Antillean creole was mutually
comprehensible with Haitian creole. Tr</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">è</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">s int</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">é</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">ressant!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Another couple I met on the beach that day told me they had taken a
small bus there from our same cruise ship. They said the roads were not only in
bad condition, but they were ridiculously winding and generally unsafe given
the speed the driver was going. I never felt unsafe on the roads in Antigua,
which had some hills to conquer, but St. Lucia was certainly a much more
mountainous country. Taking the water taxi over and back from the cruise ship
didn’t allow us to see any of the interior of the island, so I’d be happy to go
back and actually explore. Plus, Martinique is only a ferry ride away.</span></div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2626917264112911626" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.radiosepe.com.br/images_uploads/noticia/2270/large/policia.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">One last thing I thought I’d share about our day on St. Lucia: I was
awakened from a nap by the sound of “The Wobble” blasting out from a catamaran
passing by with a group of people onboard. It looked like a booze cruise, so I
couldn’t be too mad at all the people having a good time on a big, beautiful
boat. The song reminded me that, while we all come from different places, we’re
all very similar when we look at our wants and needs. The more I travel the
more I realize how much more similar we all are to one another than different.
It was a great way to be reminded. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Friday, April 14 – Good Friday</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdb5JgUjmFTOhZuHvS0xnOE8fkIAJ6qsRNWKiFYi6afrr11jy2IkAzpYbZJPEcBNsz6MUPL6pp3g9faZWmBP1eq5V2l82Xjyr0Kke5bSdaDWqVmfQa3un64idCPwRSeh-sq0mcVNq7SY/s1600/freewinds.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdb5JgUjmFTOhZuHvS0xnOE8fkIAJ6qsRNWKiFYi6afrr11jy2IkAzpYbZJPEcBNsz6MUPL6pp3g9faZWmBP1eq5V2l82Xjyr0Kke5bSdaDWqVmfQa3un64idCPwRSeh-sq0mcVNq7SY/s320/freewinds.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Now I’ve traveled
enough to know that religious holiday weekends, like Easter, aren’t generally
the best time to land in a new country. With that said, Barbados was a
disappointment because nothing was open in town. This very much should’ve been
our beach day, but we had already gotten royally burned the previous day. But
I’m getting ahead of myself. By the time we got up each day, we were either already
docked or coming into port for the next location. Barbados was rather unique
because across the harbor was another ship, a smaller cruise ship called </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Freewinds</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">. I didn’t recognize the cruise
company’s logo, so I Googled it. Holy crap, this is a shipped owned by the
Church of Scientology! Like, seriously! It was bought by the church in 1985 and
is based out of Cura</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">ç</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">ao doing Caribbean voyages for the church to this day! </span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">On
another surprising note, we stopped in Barbados on Good Friday. Now I’ve been
on trips in<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Europe during holy weeks, but I was surprised to see how culturally
observant the Bajans were to religious holidays. Erica and I had been to
Barbados before, but we wanted to replay one wonderful afternoon that involved
walking around a shopping center and (more importantly) eating fried fish. We
found that shopping area easily enough, but then we were hopelessly lost trying
to find the main area of downtown in order to go see another historic
synagogue. This one being the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere (built
in the mid-17</span><sup><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> century). Similar to other Jewish populations in the
Caribbean, this synagogue was founded by Jews being persecuted by the Dutch
during the Inquisition. Reference to Brazilian Jews coming up with newer
manufacturing methods for sugarcane are also referenced on the synagogue’s
website. Unfortunately, though we tried in advance to schedule a tour of the
facility, we weren’t able to make that happen. Our cab driver did mention that
a recent benefactor has provided $5 million in funding to vastly restore and
update the whole complex. While small in stature, the building and surrounding
areas looked clean and inviting. We at least were able to find the place
(thanks to a local driver), take some pictures, and admire the fact that such a
building exists in the southern Caribbean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The rest of our time on Barbados was traveling around in a small
passenger van up the west coast (where most of the developed areas are located,
since it’s not the Atlantic-facing—and much windier—side of the island). Our
driver wanted to show us the Rodeo Drive of Barbados where several
internationally recognized celebrities keep mansions. Anyone from renowned
sports celebrities (footballers that I hadn’t heard of) to Ricky Martin to, of
course, Rihanna have homes on the island. Interestingly, Rihanna wanted to be at
#1 Sandy Lane, which is [still] owned by a Russian Mafioso (or so says our taxi
driver), so Rihanna simply built a penthouse on top of the existing building
and lives there when she’s on the island. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Saturday,
April 15 – Day at Sea</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">When we booked this cruise, I wished that the day at sea came at the
beginning of the trip, just so we’d have that day to explore the boat and check
out the activities onboard. With the day at sea at the tail end of the trip, it
allowed us a day to truly decompress and try our mightiest not to think that
the vacation was almost over and would have to go back to reality in the
morning. I couldn’t remember what “hungry” felt like, and I didn’t remember how
to buy food or drinks. Readjusting to real life again was going to be hard, but
that just meant we had to come up with another adventure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Speaking
of drinks, the wine bar had signed us up for a wine tasting on this day at sea.
That was an utter disaster because the presenter, the wine manager onboard the
ship, hadn’t put together any kind of presentation and just spoke without much
thought on whatever came to mind about the wine. I knew it was going to be bad
when his first question was, “who can tell me the three grapes that comprise
champagne?” Knowing this answer, I raised my hand and responded proudly,
“Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier.” To my horror, my “reward” for
answering this question right was a full glass of moscato. That taught me to
shut my mouth for the rest of the presentation. I tried pawning off this glass
on someone, but no one at the table was willing to accept. While the wines were
fine examples of their individual wine regions, there wasn’t really anything
worth remembering from the whole experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Our plan was to check out a late afternoon bingo game (because why
not), but the entry price was more than we wanted to spend. So instead Erica
and I took a nap on some lounge chairs outside on the lifeboat deck, which was
quiet and calming. Just as a Caribbean vacation should be. I wish the boat
rocked more, but I do understand why they’d build these giant ships with
stabilizers that jut out from the hull while the ship is moving. While our last
day was relatively uneventful, that’s exactly how I wanted it to be. I miss the
islands already, but there will always be other opportunities to get back.</span></div>
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Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-70384413239649477592016-01-23T16:40:00.002-08:002016-01-23T16:40:57.741-08:00Sojourning Through Central Europe – December 2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sojourning Through Central Europe – December 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Friday, 25 December 2015 – Arriving to Prague</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Every Christmas season I get nostalgic for the Christmas markets of
Europe. My absolute favorite thing there is to get a cup of Glühwein (hot
mulled wine) and a bratwurst while wandering around the market. While we had to
go later in the season than was optimal, the Christmas markets didn’t
disappoint. I also was reintroduced to some cities that I had visited last as a
young adult, so I learned to appreciate them anew as someone with a “couple”
more years under his belt on this trip. Overall, I’d say it was a big success:
no one got sick, we experienced no crime, and we only lost each other for brief
moments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Months prior, we had made our travel plans. Since the tickets to Europe
were significantly cheaper leaving out of New York rather than Washington, DC (both
cities have direct routes to Vienna on Austrian Air), I bused up to the city
and met my good friend, Erica, and Erica’s mom Alane right on time inside the
terminal near our departure gate. The flight over wasn’t bad at all, and I was
sure to take as much opportunity as I could for the complementary red wine
offered. Speaking about those who like their booze, we met some new “friends”
in Vienna’s central train station (Haubtbahnhof) that had been evidently up all
night celebrating Christmas, because they were making all sorts of noises and
screaming at one another. My German came back to me rather well when one girl
was using every curse word I knew (and many that I didn’t) to call out at one
of her party. Luckily security came and asked them to disperse, so we could
wait for our train to Prague in relative peace, even if we were all sitting
around like zombies getting off a red-eye flight to Europe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The plan was this: take a direct flight into Vienna, immediately take a
train to Prague to really start our adventure there, plane it to Munich
(because the train would take too long), train it back to Vienna for New
Year’s, and fly out the day after. It actually worked our rather well. Having
already bought all the tickets, I knew where and when we needed to be for our
travel plans. I figured we’d be wandering around like zombies that first day,
so the plan was to get immediately to Prague because I figured nothing would be
open Christmas day. As we’re checking into our hotel in Prague, the young guy
checking us in told us that the Czechs celebrate on the 24</span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, so
yesterday had really been the holiday. That was good for us, because more
things were open (including their Christmas market).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After looking at a map, we generally pointed ourselves toward the two main
squares of Prague, Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square. We found the latter
first, which is where a lot of major department stores are located. Even more
convenient was the fact that not only was their Glühwein, but it cost something
like $2 per glass. I’m going to like this place! We wandered around there a
bit, checking out the stalls, but I knew the main action was in Old Town
Square. More or less following the flow of people, we made our way to Old Town
Square, which was lit beautifully and had a musician on the main stage blasting
Christmas carols out to everyone. Not only are Christmas markets great
themselves, but when you place them in a setting like Old Town Square, you’re
in for a real treat! For some reason I wasn’t super excited to come back to
Prague, but almost immediately I fell back in love with the city. I could
easily move there and spend the rest of my days getting lost in its
labyrinthine streets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">While Czech is obviously the most popular language there, we never once
had an issue with anyone not speaking at least a little English. The first time
I went to Prague—back in the mid-90s—German was definitely was more useful, but
now English was everyone’s preferred backup language. Regardless, we found an
outdoor café right on one corner of Old Town Square and ate an awesome meal; I
had schnitzel, of course. One of many to come. I mention that it’s an outdoor
café because remember, it’s the end of December at this point; it’s supposed to
pretty damn cold out! Not so much, at least not at the beginning of our trip.
This café had space heaters, so we were perfectly comfortable eating schnitzel
outside and watching the people meander around us. What a great way to start
this journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We obviously slept like babies that first night, since we’d been up for
over 24 hours at this point. Our hotel is worth mentioning, because it was a
big surprise to us all. Walking in it didn’t look overly fancy, but nice enough
that I wouldn’t have to question whether they had actually changed the sheets
since the last guest. Our room had a loft with a large bed and second full
bathroom upstairs, so that really helped us three adjust to living in relative
small quarters, since the girls had their own space upstairs. I got the pullout
couch downstairs, and if I could have somehow stolen this couch from the hotel
I gladly would have. Instead of you taking the pillows off the couch and
pulling the folded mattress out, you pulled forward on the back cushions of the
couch, which made the back fold forward onto the couch’s seat. You then
continued to pull forward allowing all of those cushions do a summersault onto
the floor and magically a bed appears. Not only does this method get rid of
that center bar constantly jabbing you in a normal pullout couch, but it’s one
easy movement to either stow or unfurl the bed. Pretty neat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Saturday, 26 December 2015 – Prague Castle</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I mentioned, the hotel we stayed at—a Sheraton property—was pretty
decent. Breakfast the next morning formally showed me the caliber of service we
were dealing with. Although the breakfast area was smaller than the rush
demanded at times, the staff always kept their cool and even smiled at you! It
was amusing to hear Erica and Alane’s comments about personal space (people
just running into you) and the fact that no one provided American caliber
customer service. But that’s not the focus here, back to breakfast. There was a
juice and coffee bar, which included a super fancy make-your-own-espresso drink
machine that I need in my life. Further back there was a collection of crusty
breads, yogurt, sliced cheeses and meats, and an omelet bar. Yeah, I could be
happy here. The routine ended up that we’d load up on a big breakfast, usually
find a light snack out somewhere, and then find a local restaurant along our
journey for dinner. It generally worked out rather well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Given that I didn’t have a specific game plan in mind for Prague, I
asked Erica and Alane what they wanted to do for our sole full day to ourselves
in Prague. Erica suggested that we go to the Prague Castle, so that’s where we
went. My favorite way to explore a new city is to wander around and generally
point to a destination. If your destination is a castle on the top of a hill,
it’s rather easy to orient yourself in that direction, even if none of the
streets run in a straight line. As we got closer to the Charles Bridge, which
we’d have to cross in order to get to the castle, it got as crowded as Times
Square. By the end of the day, I was feeling a tad murderous, but for now I was
soaking it all in. Really what I was doing was reacquainting myself with an old
friend. I had been to Prague multiple times before this trip, and every time I
had come I truly fell in love with the city. That was no different this time.
In fact, I think I was the saddest leaving Prague than any of the other cities
we visited. In other words, Prague’s the kind of city I could see myself moving
to and never returning. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once we hiked up to the castle, it was a big cluster just to find out
where we buy tour tickets. We had about an hour before the tour, so I naturally
gravitated to the handful of Christmas market stalls right outside the main
gate and ordered a Glühwein. Erica suggested we three share a couple of
bratwursts, which was a brilliant idea (as brats and wein go well together),
but what she returned with surprised me. German bratwursts are a mild pork
sausage, something akin to the morning breakfast sausages you’ve probably had
at home on the weekends. The sausages that Erica brought back, however, were
much more like a Polish kielbasa. It was an interesting regional variation
worthy of note. I suppose it’s just a form of Slavic comradery with one’s
neighbor. After eating our kielbasa, it was time to go meet our tour guide and
get this tour started!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Prague Castle (or “Prasky hrad” in Czech) is the current home of
the country’s president, at least that’s true for the newer side of the
complex. The castle wraps itself around a huge cathedral in the middle, the
cathedral of St. Vitus, which holds the seat for the Archbishop of Prague (even
if something like 80% of the country considers itself atheist). We met our tour
guide, Vaslav, and started in the cathedral, which has a great history. I won’t
bore you with details here, but it’s interesting to note that the cathedral
itself wasn’t completed until the 20</span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> century. One of the more
modern additions is a stained glass window painted by an early 20</span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
century artist named Alfons Mucha. After a lap around the church and going down
into the crypt, we made our way into the castle itself. Two things stand out during
our tour here: 1) a woman asked what the big ceramic boxes were, and I knew
right away that they were heaters for the large rooms because my mom had shared
this piece of trivia with me the weekend before in the Philadelphia Museum of
Art. 2) In a smaller room just off of the royal chapel, we saw the window where
two Catholic regents were thrown out by means of </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">defenestration</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> that started the Thirty Years War. The view from the
window of the city below is quite nice, though I imagine less so if you’re
being pushed out from said window.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">That night, after we had walked what felt like for eons, we wanted to
grab dinner close to the hotel. Yelp worked just fine for us, and we found a
local restaurant just around the corner. The menus were in Czech, German,
Russian, and English. Nonetheless, I was able to use one of my handful of Czech
words: “pivo” (beer). Instead of a fried pork chop like the previous night, I
had a grilled pork chop smothered in a creamy green pepper sauce. God I love
Central European food! More interestingly, though, was what the family next to
us ordered. It was a couple, one of their mothers, and their younger child.
Everyone except the kid had beers in front of them, and the family ordered what
looked like the entire bone-in shoulder of a pig. They collectively and happily
ate off of this giant hunk of animal. That was something to see. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sunday, 27 December 2015 – Terezin/Theresienstadt</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the suggestions my mom had made before going on this trip was to
go see Theresienstadt, or Terezin as it’s known in Czech. Named after Maria
Theresa (because it was originally built during her reign), it originally was a
rather expansive fortress that cut off the one valley that the Prussians could
have used to infiltrate into Austro-Hungarian lands. This was at a time when
the Protestant Czechs had been rebelling against the very Catholic
Austro-Hungarian rulers in Vienna, and I believe our tour guide also mentioned
that Bavaria had temporarily succeeded from the empire at about this same time
too. So Maria Theresa was keen on holding onto any and all land claims at that
point and needed to “protect” them from outside invaders. But that’s not why
Erica, Alane, and I wanted to tour Terezin. During World War II, Terezin was
turned into a sort of concentration camp for Czech Jews.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To be clear, when I say concentration camp, I don’t necessarily mean extermination
camp. And that’s the first surprise I had once we got to the compound. Our tour
guide for the day, Pavel (another great Slavic name), dropped us off at a sort
of art museum that greeted us with children’s drawings from those who were
living in the camp. While there were scenes of ugliness, the pictures generally
showed a society working. The Nazis weren’t explicitly killing the Jews here—at
least not at the beginning—but were rounding them up to remove them from Czech
society. Pavel started our tour by painting the picture, since it was a question
of identity. What I’m asking is: what does it mean to be a Jew in
Czechoslovakia during the time leading up to WWII? The society itself wasn’t
very areligious, just like the Jews. According to Pavel, the Jews were more
integrated into society than most other countries in Europe at that time, so it
was even harder to remove them and send them away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Terezin, there was a functioning Jewish government led by upper
class Jews, professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and professors. There were
research health clinics and significant arts projects going on all the time.
That’s not to say the Jews were free to move about and do as they please.
Terezin was a kind of social experiment to see how the Jews would react to
certain stimuli. The International Committee of the Red Cross, for instance,
came by at one point for an inspection. As you’d imagine, everything was
planned out to the smallest detail to make it look like the Nazis were, in fact,
treating the Jews within these confines respectfully. One way or another, the
ICRC bought it. Walking around the town now it’s eerily quiet, only because the
few local residents are living in government housing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other side of Terezin, the side that scholars have historically
called a political prisoner camp, is much more dreadful. That’s where the
incinerators are, for instance. We walked around a small prison with a couple
dozen bunk rooms where political prisoners were held. While traditionally it
was thought that this population never comingled with the Jewish population,
according to Pavel a handful of Jews would be sent over for “entertainment”
purposes for the Nazi officers running both installations. An example of this
would be to hold a Jew at one end of a long-ish courtyard. Along the side of
the courtyard Nazis would be setup with their rifles. The Jew would be told
that if he could run the length of the courtyard and survive, he’d be allowed
to go back to his family in the village. Few survived the gauntlet, but if they
did they were beaten to death, either by Nazis or the prisoners of the camp
while the Nazis looked on. Other examples of this could be shared, but suffice
it to say we left our tour of Terezin on a more somber note than we had coming
into the experience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Since it was our last night in Prague, Alane wanted to get some night
pictures of the Christmas market in Old Town Square. We wandered along until we
found an Italian restaurant right in the middle of the tourist section of the
city, but we welcomed it after eating fried pork chops steadily for multiple
days now. Things were surprisingly cheap in Prague. Glühwein, for example, was
less than half of what it was going to be in the other cities we visited. Our
collective bill for dinner was something like $30 for the three of us, except
we had a problem. The restaurant didn’t accept credit cards, and we didn’t have
enough koruna to pay the bill. Not a problem for our server, however! We paid
what we could in koruna and then threw in the rest in euro and were set! Not
only did the server do the math in his head, but his English was rather good.
In fact, I was surprised at how much English was spoken throughout our time in
Prague. There was only one time when we stopped for a bathroom break did the bathroom
attendant, who was of an older generation, prefer German to English to
communicate with foreigners. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Monday, 28 December 2015 – Hofbräuhaus</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was sad to leave Prague. I wasn’t very excited to go back there at
the beginning of this trip for some reason, but after walking across the
Charles Bridge I was hooked again. You could leave me there for the rest of my
days without a bit of remorse on my part. The streets wind in all sorts of
directions, and I like that Czech uses the Roman alphabet so I can randomly
pick up words from signs. With that said, though, we had an adventure to
continue! Flying from Prague to Munich, we heard all sorts of languages on the
train and in the airport. We had a hotel car, an E class Mercedes, take us to
the airport—“the only cab I’m ever going to ride in from now on” Erica told me.
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once we arrived to our hotel, about a block away from Munich’s main
train station, we wandered our way to Marienplatz, the main square of Munich.
This has been the main square of Munich since the 12</span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> century, and
just like then a lot of commerce happens there. As luck would have it, the
Hofbräuhaus, one of Munich’s best known beer halls, was just on the other side
of the plaza. We found a communal table in the back, ordered some beer and some
snacks, and enjoyed taking it all in. One of the things that Munich is known
for is Weißwurst, or white bratwursts. They come to you in a clear broth in a
white and blue ceramic bowl. We had to have some of those, and we had to order
a giant pretzel from the pretzel lady. While the beer and food were good, I
couldn’t help feeling like this was a tourist trap. I thought to myself that
we’d need to ask the hotel’s concierge for a more “authentic” dining experience
for tomorrow. We had a couple days here, so I wasn’t too worried.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After getting back to the hotel, we decided to grab a drink at the
hotel’s bar. Checking in I already knew that the caliber of service at this
hotel was going to be phenomenal, so when Erica ordered a Pinot Grigio, I asked
our server whether Germany grew any Pinot Grigio. Without skipping a beat, she
said yes, but explained that it had a different name in German—Grauburgunder. I
later learned that “grigio” means grey, which is the hue the grape takes on as
it ripens, and that it’s a mutant variety of Pinot Noir, which is where the
Burgundy reference comes into play. Having worked at a winery in Northern
Virginia for 2½ years, I thought I knew my stuff. But really there are whole
other wine worlds out there that I have barely the faintest knowledge about. Is
that the universe telling me that I should be drinking wine professionally? But
how? Or maybe it was just the booze talking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday, 29 December 2015 – City Tour of Munich</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Since neither Erica nor Alane had been to Munich before, I suggested
that we play tourist for the day and buy one of those day passes where you can
hop on and off a sightseeing bus that goes around the city. We found the
closest bus stop easy enough and loaded onto our double-decker. After passing
by the museum district on the western side of the city (with enough museums to
rival the Smithsonian collection in Washington, DC), we decided to hop off at
the Residenzmuseum (residence of the Duke/King of Bavaria during Hapsburg
rule). It’s a palace smack dab in the middle of the city, so we could hit
anything else we liked afterward. The best thing I got out of this experience
is the resilience of the German people. Whole wings of this palace had been
bombed during WWII, but nevertheless the Germans recreated the interiors. This
is what, I believe, art historians would call restoration rather than
preservation. It allowed the observer to note how these rooms were decorated
and adorned at that time, rather than trying to preserve what was left of the
building after the bombings. There was one noted exception, however, in one of
chapels/concert halls. They hadn’t stucco-ed the walls, leaving the brick
exposed, and you could easily note where the original brick ended and restored
brick began. It was a neat effect that showed the multiple iterations this
building had gone through.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After the Residenzmuseum we were close to the English Gardens, the
largest outdoor park in the city. It was a nice enough day for a stroll, but
moving with any kind of speed proved to be too much for us, so we cut that
outing short. Erica suggested that we find a café to sit and rest for a while,
but the closest café to our bus stop was completely overrun inside and out, so
we hopped on our bus again and returned to the main train station where we
started. Erica and Alane were taking the street car (S-Bahn) out to Dachau the
next morning, so we bought them train tickets and showed them where the track
was so that they’d be able to find it the next morning. Easy enough, but we
were all beat. It was mid/late afternoon by this point, so we walked the block
or two back to the hotel. We left Alane in the hotel room for a while, and
Erica and I [naturally] headed to the hotel’s bar for a drink or two before
dinner.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There, after making a toast with our newly acquired drinks, Erica and a
made a friend that called himself Steffan. Steffan was doing business in town,
but he was from the town of Bitburg (home of Bitburger beer). His English was
about as good as my German, so we muddled through using both in a vain attempt
to chat. It apparently worked well enough that he offered to do a shot with us.
He asked the bartender to pour three shots of something he called Borgman.
After taking the shot, I’d describe it as something akin to a high-end
Jägermeister. It was good, so I asked my new friend where I could find it.
Apparently it’s a highly exclusive item that’s allegedly only available at very
exclusive hotels. It’s a shame we’re not still in Prague because we had all
sorts of liquor stores not far from our hotel that I’d be happy to scour to see
if I could find something similar. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Alane found us, so we headed out to dinner. The hotel’s concierge had
reserved a spot for us at local German restaurant where all the patrons sit at
communal tables. We even got a bite of the freshly fried doughy dessert from
the table next to us! Alane and I ordered—are you ready for this—some sort of
pork chop that came with sauerkraut and a potato dumpling, while Erica got a
roast beef-type dish that was equally amazing. I don’t know if it was the liter
of beer I had or the shot of schnapps we sipped afterward, but I highly enjoyed
my meal that evening. Our walk took us back to the hotel took us through
Marienplatz again, which held several street musicians and all sorts of people
just milling about. A lot of the shops were surprisingly still open, so we lost
Erica in a multiple story bookstore at one point. No one necessarily bought
anything, but we had the time to mill about and enjoy ourselves before calling
it a day. Yeah, I was really enjoying Munich too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wednesday, 30 December 2015 – BMW World</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The next morning we got up and had our delicious continental breakfast
once again, but then Erica and Alane departed for their day trip. I was in no
rush, but I eventually headed out to what I thought was the correct subway
stop. Unfortunately, the line that I thought I could take directly to BMW World
didn’t seem to go through the main train station. I looked up another line that
appeared to connect to a third line that would work, but by the time I got to
the connecting station, it was evident that connecting line only ran on certain
days. Great. Amazingly enough, though, my Verizon cell phone allowed me to use
GPS on it, even though it wasn’t connected to any data network. I had
downloaded a city map of Munich on my phone back at the hotel, so I could
easily look up a destination on the saved Google map and figure out how to get
there. I had about 2km to get to my destination, which didn’t faze me one bit
because I had my headphones and a map that would get me there. It worked like a
charm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Two kilometers later, I made it to BMW World. That requires a little
bit of explaining. Bavaria’s Motor Works (BMW) is headquartered in Munich, and
not only is there a factory at the headquarters, but also a museum and that
newest addition to the collection: BMW World. If you buy a BMW stateside and
arrange to have it picked up at the factory, you’d come to this very
architecturally interesting showroom. Unfortunately there’s not much for the
everyday person to see, so I headed over to the museum to check that out. While
the museum was rather interesting with the information it shared, I feel the
way it was presented had a lot to be desired. For one, the path that the
visitor takes can potentially send you in circles, if you decide to vary from
the standard path they’ve lined up for you. Another thing, and this is
inexcusable in my book, is that all displays were presented in German and
English. That sounds great, except the English captions were printed in white
lettering on a light grey background with powerful lights shown directly on it.
In other words, it was exceedingly difficult to read any of the signage in
English. Not the smartest move from a German car company that prides itself on
thinking of every minute detail.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After the museum experience, I hopped on the original subway line I
thought I’d be taking and headed back downtown, this time heading for one of
the three original gates to the city walls. I remember seeing on our bus tour
the other day a victuals market (Viktuellsmarkt) nearby that sounded interesting.
As our tour guide had stated, the English word “victuals” means everyday
grocery items, which is what this market appeared to be. Apparently the
original wording described raw ingredients for beer production, which I suppose
was an everyday foodstuff in Europe many years ago. Interestingly, once I got
to the market, there was a large May pole that included the word “Reinheitsgebot,”
which is the original German beer purity law stating that only barley, hops,
and water. This law dates back to 1516, right around the time the North
American continent was being discovered and explored. Since I already had my
music blaring, I just wandered around to see what types of goods were being
sold. Beyond farmer’s market-type goods, there was the requisite Glühwein
stall, but I settled for the beer stall that was selling ½-liters of Löwenbräu
for something like €3.50. Add a Weißwurst to the mix and my lunch cost me
something like €5, adult beverage included! It was difficult to gather whether
or not the foodstuffs at the market were a good deal because weights were
measured in kilos, so everything appeared to be priced twice as much as I’d
expect. Regardless, it was a neat experience to actually experience the market
where beer was decreed into being and whatnot. On the way back to the hotel for
meet Erica and Alane after their trek out yonder, I stopped off in the German
equivalent to Macy’s, called Kaufhof. I remembered these stores from when my
family and I lived in Germany some twenty years before this, so it was neat to
see they were still around. Clothes and shoes seemed expensive, but housewares
were rather reasonable. I bought some souvenirs and a 2016 calendar just
because I could.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Since we had such a good time at German restaurant the night before, we
asked our concierge to setup another reservation for a local favorite, and he
did not disappoint! This time we went to a veritable German beer hall called
the Augustiner Keller (cellar of the Augustine monks). Let’s just start with
the fact that the logo of this beer hall states that it had been founded in
1328. The staff were surprisingly bubbly, even though things were always hectic
in there. We nevertheless found a table and quickly had beers in hand.
Schnitzel was on taps for us (clearly), and the service was quick and friendly.
The only hiccup we had was when the table had been cleared and we asked for the
check. Our server was clearly busy with other tables, but finally she came
over, dropped off a tray of empty Biersteins, and pulled our tab out of her
bra. Once we had settled up, Erica told me that it had been worth the wait just
to experience that moment. Priceless. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thursday, 31 December 2015 – The Hills Are Alive With…ABBA</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of my favorite things in Europe is their rail system. The first day
we got here we took a train to Prague, but we all slept as best we could on the
train, so I don’t really count that experience as anything more than getting
from Point A to B. Leaving Munich, sadly, we walked the block or two to the
train station, easily found our train, and got situated for the 4-ish hours it
takes to get to Vienna. While I should have probably guessed, this train line
goes through Salzburg and ultimately ends in Budapest. Salzburg was discussed
when we first started planning this trip, but something had to get cut to make
the whole thing manageable. I told Erica we’d just have to come back so we
could skip through the fields belting out “The hills are aliiiiiiiiiiiive!”
Traveling through the countryside made me feel at home, since as a child we
took so many road trips. I loved seeing the small villages (always with a
church steeple) whiz by with their terracotta roofs a stucco/plaster buildings.
That hadn’t changed since before I was born, but one thing that did pop out as
relatively new were the number of solar panels on most buildings. I wish these
panels were as prevalent in the United States, especially in the southwest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We easily grabbed a taxi from the Vienna main train station, where we
had started this whole adventure a week before. Unbeknownst to us, our hotel
was located a few blocks away from the Wiener Riesenrod, the wildly popular
Ferris wheel I had seen as a child after taking my first overnight train to
Vienna from Würzburg. The subway stop is called the Prater Stern, which used to
be a rather Jewish neighborhood before WWII. (The Ferris wheel, incidentally,
was designed and build for Franz Joseph I’s golden jubilee in 1897.) While our
hotel wasn’t anything to write home about, it did give us easy access to
downtown via two different subway lines that went through that station. We
didn’t stay long in the neighborhood because, for one, not many things were
open on account of it being New Year’s Eve, and also because we knew we only
had a limited time in Vienna so we got downtown as quickly as possible. And
boy, were we happy to check out the New Year’s festivities!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You could hear the music pumping from the subway station as walked out
onto Ratzkellerplatz. This is the site of the biggest Christmas market (which
was still going on) in Vienna, so we quickly found some Glühwein and
Kartoffelnpuffen (potato pancakes) to tide us over until dinner. Aside from the
castle-like façade of the city hall and the air filled with magic because of
the holiday and the fact the Christmas markets were still open, the best thing
about this whole scenario is the fact that an ABBA cover band has been playing
on the main stage this whole time! Yes of “Dancing Queen” and “Mamma Mia” fame.
Of COURSE we’re going to celebrate New Year’s in Europe with an ABBA cover
band! The whole stage was sponsored by a local radio station, so I enjoyed
hearing the announcements and commercials. Again, you could’ve left me in any
of these cities. Have I mentioned that yet? After ABBA finished, we walked
around the market. We stuck around to hear the start of a Stevie Wonder cover
band, but the lead singer obviously couldn’t cut it in the States and is trying
his luck in Europe. So we decided to wander nearby to see about some dinner. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">several</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> nights of fried
pork chops, I think we all could take a break to something else we all like:
pasta. The quality of pasta in Europe, at least in the cities we hit, was
phenomenal. This restaurant, in particular, had a great staff that was
remarkably friendly with excellent English. In fact, we asked one of our
servers about the pig-shaped ceramic mug in which we had received our Glühwein,
and he matter-of-factly responded (as any good Austrian would), “Why, it’s the
pig that’s rooting around in the Earth to find you good luck for the coming
year!” and left it at that. Alrighty, well there you go. Now one of the four
mugs I had collected from various Christmas markets is now shaped like a pig.
That’s actually pretty cool, if you nerd it up for booze like I do!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The rest of the night was rather uneventful, except for all the people
setting off fireworks outside our hotel window all night long. Let me take a
step back: we were getting pretty damn cold out there listening to mediocre
Stevie, so we took the subway back to the hotel. I figured we’d get either an
MTV or a CNN that would have some sort of New Year’s program, but not so much.
We found a TV channel that was airing an Aerosmith concert…and that was about
it. Aerosmith it is. While Steve Tyler looks awful and scary, he can still belt
out some music for the fans! After Aerosmith we saw some Katy Perry concert,
and let me just say homegirl cannot perform live. She sounded awful! So after
an hour of Katy, we had had enough. Luckily was almost midnight, so what did we
do? We found some local, German language countdown show (Lederhosen included)
and counted down with the live studio audience. It was a strange situation, but
we celebrated with some bubbles I had bought at Kaufhof a couple days ago just
for this moment. Here’s to 2016!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Friday, 1 January 2016 – Last Day in Country</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With only one full day left on the European continent, we wanted to
make the most of it. Except we hadn’t factored in one small detail: a lot of
things were closed because it was New Year’s Day. Ironic how we thought we’d
have that problem at the beginning with no such issue, while it wasn’t planned
for at the end, and that’s when we wanted to really maximize our time in
Vienna. Oh well, rolling with the punches is one of the first lessons you’ve
got to learn while traveling. So we did some online research (thanks to all of
these hotels having wifi) and realized that two major points of interest were
open that day, the Schönbrunn Palace and Mozart’s house. Away we went!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had tried to gather some information about tour times and the costs
of admission on the Schönbrunn’s website, but that wasn’t very helpful. We
arrived in the late morning thinking that there’s most likely be a tour at the
noon or early afternoon hour. Nope! Not until 3:30 that day, so we did our own
self-guided tour with handheld audio devices. While the information for each
room was good, the tour was setup in a way that seemed haphazard. First you’d
walk into the private study of Franz Joseph, then there’d be an
impossibly-too-ornate-to-describe room that Maria Theresa had created as homage
to her parents, then there’d be a room where some feeble heir died. They were
all named Franz-Karl or Max-Anton, so who could keep up? I think my
exacerbation with the tour came up because there was nothing at the beginning
to put all of this into perspective. I’m sure it’s me as the lazy, fat tourist
expecting this, but with such a magnificent home and a building so crucial to
centuries of history, it would’ve helped me understand what we were looking at.
I guess I’ll just have to go buy a book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After successfully navigating out to Schönbrunn, we were equally
successful directing ourselves to Mozart’s house. It was situated in the oldest
part of town, right near the city’s main cathedral. This area would’ve been a
joy to wander around for a day or two, if any of the shops or cafés were open.
Oh well, we found our street and museum without much of an issue. Mozart lived
in this house for only a few years, right at the height of his success, mostly
due to the fact that he liked to bop around Europe moving every few years. I
can appreciate that, since I like to bop around every few years too! In this
house, Mozart created scores most notably for </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Marriage of Figaro</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> and </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The
Magic Flute</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, though I believe it was the former that received a much
greater reception when it debuted in Prague than in Vienna. This was a good
reminder to illustrate that Prague and Vienna have been so closely linked for
centuries. The apartment itself wasn’t too flashy. It was located in a building
with multiple similar apartments on each floor, which have now been turned into
a museum explaining the life and times of Mozart. What I liked about seeing the
actual space was what it would’ve looked like in Mozart’s time, particularly
the views out to the city surrounding the building. I liked that those views
hadn’t changed much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With not much else on our docket, Erica wanted to go back to the
Christmas market we had seen the night before for one last time around (read:
we needed more Glühwein). Actually, in all seriousness, I think Alane wanted
one of our pig mugs, so her daughter was nice enough to oblige and have another
drink just so mom could get her mug. The toils of being the daughter! Right
near the subway stop stood a cute little café. What sealed the deal for me is
that they were advertising Schnitzel on the chalkboard outside, so I suggested
we check it out for our last dinner in Vienna. While Alane ordered goulash
(something that was featured just about everywhere), Erica and I had to have
our Wiener Schnitzel, and boy howdy was it good! What struck me about this
experience was the general pleasantness of our server. She was a happy,
quick-on-her-feet kind of lady, and I would’ve happily chatted with her about
what she’s seen working right next to City Hall for God knows how long. A great
meal to finish off the adventure. Vienna, you represented yourself well on this
trip.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Saturday, 2 January 2016 – An Epic Trip Back (and Epilogue)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Although I got an email from the travel agency that had booked our
plane tickets that the plane had been delayed, we taxied to the airport and
found that everything was on time. The flight was back was surprisingly easy,
though they’ve implanted this new electronic customs questionnaire procedure at
JFK that made things unnecessarily chaotic. I’m not exactly the quickest on my
feet, both literally and figuratively, after sitting in a tin can for ten
hours. After gathering our bags and getting through customs, it was time for
the Nadels and Noel to part ways. I was concerned about making my bus
connection down to Virginia, so I scurried onto the New York subway to get into
the city. Of course I boarded a local train (not an express), but I [barely]
made it onto my bus before it left. Another 4 ½ hours of sitting in a tin can!
Yay! That part of the journey was rather unpleasant, mostly due to the fact
that the woman sitting next to me crammed me up next to the freezing window the
entire journey back. But we made it home as planned, and I passed out
immediately on my bed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ultimately I’d say this was a rather successful adventure. My friends
got to experience that part of Europe for the first time, and I rediscovered my
love of German culture. While it may be a while before I go back again to that
part of the world, I know I’ll be back because it’s so wonderful. Erica really
wants to hit Neuschwanstein, and I suggested that we tack on a trip to Prosecco
while we’re playing in the Alps. I imagine a trip like that could be planned
rather easily. But really, and I’ve said this all along, I could’ve spent
weeks/months/years in any of these cities. Not only are they all great walking cities,
but they all have such wonderful day or weekend trips from the city center that
you could do to explore the greater areas surrounding them. What I also
appreciated on this trip was the shared history that all of these cities had
with one another. The Hapsburg Empire ruled for centuries and really brought
together quite disparate groups of people under one crown. That Maria Theresa
knew what she was doing. Now that this trip is over, it means I need to start
planning the next one. </span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-69109652114904059102016-01-23T16:39:00.000-08:002016-01-23T16:39:21.097-08:00Navigating Napa - May 2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Navigating Napa - May 2015<br />
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5/23/15 – Trekking Up Knob Hill</div>
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Some time ago my friends Lauren, Jesse, and I decided to
maximize the opportunity and spend some time in the San Francisco Bay Area on
account of Jesse having a conference in the city for work. Jesse, a newly
minted Physician’s Assistant (PA), had a work conference in downtown San
Francisco for a number of days. While he, his wife Lauren, and myself had all
been to San Francisco before, Lauren’s mom Diane had not. We all thought it’d
be a great opportunity to take this motley crew the West Coast for a week or so.
Man did we have a good time!</div>
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I arrived without incident to the San Francisco
International Airport a couple hours after my friends. Once I threw my luggage
in our hotel room just off of Union Square, Jesse and I decided to take a walk
and let the girls take a nap. We ended up hiking up Knob Hill, smack dab in the
middle of the city. This gave Jesse and me opportunity to reorient ourselves in
a city we both have grown to love. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped as
at a neighborhood crêperie for a snack. While enjoying the afternoon sun and
sipping on a beer, I heard a distinctive, “Noel?” Oh hell, who knows me in this
city? It turned out to be my weekend job’s (I work at a winery in Northern
Virginia on the weekends) general manager/winemaker’s step-son, who evidently
moved out to San Francisco six months ago to study at a local film school. What
a crazy reaffirmation that it’s a small world! </div>
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While walking downhill to the hotel, Jesse offered up
another positive reaffirmation to me: “this is exactly what I wanted to do this
afternoon,” he says. What a great way to start a vacation. That night, the four
of us ventured out into the Mission, which is San Francisco’s hipster/trendy
neighborhood. My crew and I were in search of a restaurant called Gracias Madre
(the madre, in this instance, isn’t the woman that birthed you, but rather
Mother Earth). This is a vegan, Mexican restaurant. While I thought the food
visually was appealing, my black beans were a little flat (on account of no fat
back). With that said, it astonished me to see the variance in restaurant
patrons: you have the local hipster neighborhood kid (more likely to be gay
than not), men in formal business attire, as well as families with children that
happily eat vegan food. I don’t know a better way to sum up San Francisco than
that!</div>
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5/24/15 – Chinatown </div>
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The next morning, the girls and I decided to go on a walking
tour of nearby downtown. We wanted to take Lauren’s mom, Diane, through
Chinatown. While Diane’s familiar with the sizeable Chinatown in Philadelphia,
the Chinatown in San Francisco is its own experience. I remember once, after
eating at a great little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, my server kindly informed
me that they only accepted cash. I figured I could find my way to an ATM pretty
easily, but after realizing that no one on the street spoke English, I found a
U.S. Post Office building (thinking that federal employees <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">must</i> speak English, right?) Apparently not. After wandering around
for multiple blocks, I did find a cash machine and made it back to the
restaurant. That story illustrates the cultural homogeneity of the
neighborhood.</div>
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So Lauren and I take Diane through Chinatown. We all found
some amusing souvenirs at various shops, but the fun began when we decided to
stop and grab a snack. We stood in line for a local bakery, but then we
discover they don’t have one of the specific things we’re looking for, so I’m
sent into the restaurant next door to find some steamed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bao</i> (vegetable or meat-filled buns). I found my favorite, a
shredded port-filled balloon of dough, and happily bought it for less than $1.
I got outside to share in my trove of goodies, and so I reached inside the bag
for my pork bao. Evidently, the shop keeper asking me if I wanted the bun
“cold” should’ve translated to “uncooked.” I was holding a ball of raw dough,
probably some not-quite-cooked pork, all on top of a banana leaf ready to
share. Yeah, that didn’t turn out quite as expected.</div>
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We did have some delightful sesame-coated bread balls, so
not all was lost. We met Jesse at the Ferry Building, a short walk through the
center of town from Chinatown. The Ferry Building, interestingly enough, is
where you can pick up multiple ferry lines that take you throughout the greater
San Francisco Bay. Our destination is the coastal town of Sausalito, in Marin
County, on the north end of the bay. Before going there, however, a note about
the Ferry Building itself is in order. My first encounter with the Ferry
Building was in the summer when there are farmers’ markets that wrap around the
entire building. Picture an old-school train station complete with art nouveau
architectural elements throughout. The building faces out into the bay with the
Port of Oakland facing back at you. To the north along the water are various
warehouses, and you can eventually get to Pier 39/Fisherman’s Wharf after a
bit. Equally distant to the south of the building is the righteously impressive
Bay Bridge. This whole area in downtown San Francisco is known as the
Embarcadero.</div>
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From the Ferry Building, we took a 20-minute or so boat ride
over to North Bay and disembarked in the town of Sausalito. My first impression
was that it’s rather crowded, since a lot of people are trying to fit into not
a lot of sidewalk space. We found a higher-end restaurant that served generally
American food, though with well-timed and informative service by the restaurant
staff. I was craving a burger and a beer, though in retrospect I probably
should have chosen something more like Diane’s Coq au Vin, which she shared
later that it was her favorite meal of our trip. The couple square blocks of
Sausalito are unremarkable in that there’s not much going on, and beyond the
touristy shops and handful of cafés and restaurants, the only remarkable thing
about the area is the fact that hundreds of beautiful homes dot the hills that
soar upward from the coast. </div>
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The ferry ride back to San Francisco was relaxing, though
cold. The waves roll you back and forth, and if you stand outside you can smell
the rather frigid Pacific Ocean on just the other side of the Golden Gate
Bridge. The boat stops at Fisherman’s Wharf for passengers to get out, but we
stayed on the boat to return to the Ferry Building, since our hotel was
[relatively speaking] within walking distance of that stop. That night we hit
up a hole-in-the-wall noodle house where everyone could get a plate of noodles
of their choice. It was rather cheap, quick, and a perfect way to end an
eventful day in San Francisco. I knew we had another day planned for tomorrow,
which excited me because I’d get to see some good friends out in East Bay.</div>
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5/25/15 – East Bay Mexican Food </div>
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While in the city, I had a couple of friends who lived in
the area that I wanted to see. One couple, Brian and Meghan, live in Walnut
Creek. Brian went to Berkeley for undergrad, so I figured we could generally
meet around there and wander around campus. It was decided that I’d meet them
in Walnut Creek for lunch, and then later we’d head over to campus to walk
around. I was hoping that some of my travel buddies would want to join along,
but this was the day they decided to take Diane to Fisherman’s Wharf and Golden
Gate Park. Since I had no need to be there, it made the most sense that we
could all just meet up for dinner later in the day. As luck would have it, a
friend from grad school, Maggie Peters, was willing to drive up the two hours
from Monterey and meet us in Berkeley for our wander around campus. </div>
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Before that trek, however, a note should be thrown out there
about Mexican food. I’m a big fan, and as I’ve shared this with Brian and
Meghan on past visits, Washington, DC doesn’t generally have good Mexican food.
Brian remembered this and decided to take me to one of their favorite local
Mexican places not far from Walnut Creek. I’m especially a fan of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Californian</i> Mexican food (think Tex-Mex,
except Cali-Mex) after having visited my aunt and uncle years ago in the San
Diego area. We went to their neighborhood Mexican place for dinner one night,
AND IT WAS THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD I HAD EVER EATEN…including what I’ve had in
Mexico! Anyway, lunch was good, but the trek around Berkeley was fantastic.</div>
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Brian, Meghan, and I met up with my friend Maggie in
downtown Berkeley right near campus. After wandering a couple blocks into the
main drag where all the college stores are (used CD stores—yes they still
exist—college gear store, etc.), we went through campus to essentially make our
way to the other BART station in Berkeley, since that’s where a lot of the
nicer bars and restaurants are. On our way through campus, two things of note
come to mind: 1) walking through a eucalyptus grove with Maggie at my side
(having this girl next to me while inhaling the heavenly aroma of these old
trees was amazing), and 2) getting an opportunity to check out the view from
the top of the Campanili. Modeled after a similar structure in Venice,
Berkeley’s Campanili was a gift to the university by a female benefactor at the
beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. In fact, it was 1915, because they
were celebrating their 100<sup>th</sup> year while we were on campus. I liken
the experience of seeing out of the top of the Campanili to that of going up to
the top of the Washington Monument—it really allows you to get a bearing of
your environment and see what’s around. One thing I need to do on my next trip
to the Bay Area to go wander around commercial downtown Berkeley, it looked
like a decent place to check out.</div>
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Since the 25<sup>th</sup> happened to be Memorial Day, the
final adventure for the day was the most fitting. My travel buddies and I
decided to meet up in the Castro, which is the gayborhood of San Francisco. I
had a fantastic time walking around getting to the Castro from East Bay, which
included learning of a restaurant called the Meat Factory. After mentioning
this to Diane, Jesse, and Lauren, we decided to have dinner there. On our way
down the main drag (pun intended), I started hearing Aretha Franklin playing:
“we’re goin’ ridin’ on FREEEEWAY of love in my pink Cadillac…!” While I fully
support the playing of Aretha at any time, I was wondering where the music was
coming from. Not long after did we see a guy dressed in a proper Army uniform
dancing on a corner with his boom box blaring the Queen of Soul. I’d call him a
street performer, but really he was just dancing at an intersection, and
happily danced with anyone who would come over to celebrate Memorial Day with
him. After wandering through the Castro a bit, this made me fall in love with
San Francisco all over again. That was, in fact, also the moment when Diane discovered
her love for San Francisco, The way she put it, Union Square is like downtown
Philadelphia: there’s an abundance of homeless people and the city isn’t
particularly clean. Walking from Golden Gate Park (via the Haight) to the
Castro, Diane discovered the real personality of San Francisco.</div>
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5/26/15 – The Golden Gate Bridge</div>
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Few things are more iconic than the Golden Gate Bridge.
Beyond something like the Statue of Liberty, nothing signifies a city more than
this magnificent structure. After playing in the city for a few days, it was
time to start our journey up to wine country (hallelujah!) Needless to say,
Diane and I were excited to get up there and check out some amazing wine, but
before that there were plans to stop off in an equally amazing place called
Muir Woods (named after John Muir, the naturalist and explorer who essentially
created the National Parks system). I had been here before, but this time it
was like coming back to an old friend that was just as loveable and radiant as
ever. I was concerned, given the current long-term drought that’s hitting
California, that Muir Woods wouldn’t be as spectacular. But really it was just
as amazing, and I discovered new trails I hadn’t been on before during this
trip. </div>
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I have to come clean: the real reason we came to Muir Woods
wasn’t to show anyone the spectacle that it is, though that was a nice
side-effect. The real reason we showed up here is because Tyler Florence, a
well-known celebrity chef on the Food Network, had shared that his favorite
grilled cheese of all time was at their small restaurant. We all bought the
Tyler Florence combo, which included a sandwich, cup of tomato basil soup, and
a drink. They make the sandwiches to order, and I must say that my sandwich was
pretty damn good! What made it special for me was the fact that they had hunks
of a Brie-like cheese added in for the gooiness factor, and then the
[sourdough] bread had roosted pumpkin seeds in it, which gave the whole thing
an added crunchy texture that wasn’t expected. Ultimately, I’d say our trip to
Muir Woods was successful, though I’d love to hear Diane’s thoughts of the
place—was it as spectacular as it was for me my first time there?</div>
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Getting to Santa Rosa, the county seat for Sonoma County, we
decided to explore “downtown” Santa Rosa (as it is), for a bite to eat. We
landed on a Chinese restaurant, which didn’t have a soul in its dining room
when we entered. This is a tell-tale sign, though this experience taught me
that nothing is for certain; a restaurant with an empty dining room can still
produce some stellar entrées. Diane and I both had stellar meat-based Chinese
dishes, whereas Jesse had a plate of greens (and sautéed garlic) and Lauren had
a fried tofu dish that was divine. Jesse and Lauren left us to visit the used
bookstore across the street, so Diane and I ordered another carafe of wine to
start our adventure in Sonoma. That night we played Cards Against Humanity
(Diane’s first time) and drank more. Traveling is fun, especially when you can
let loose with your traveling companions. I think we all needed a breather to
enjoy the next day’s adventure.</div>
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5/27/15 – Crossing Into Napa</div>
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Our first real wine exploration day is here! After stopping
by Target and acquiring far too much wine already, it was time to show these
folks the beauty that is Napa. The first place I wanted to hit was the Mumm
tasting room, which I had taken my parents to years before. Mumm is just down
the road from St. Helena, which is centrally located in the valley both north-to-south
and east-to-west. To get there we had to travel on a two-lane road over the
hills that separate Napa and Sonoma Counties, which dropped us on the northern
end of the county near Calistoga. Pretty immediately you’re then driving
through rolling hills of vineyards with the sun shining brightly down. Yeah,
it’s a good way to start. </div>
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To actually get to the Mumm tasting room, you have to go
through their retail space, which just puts you in the right mood (having to
wade through cases of sparkling wine to then drink the stuff, I’m okay with
that). The tasting room itself is outside, and a server comes over to explain
the procedure. Like any fine dining restaurant, there’s a great utilization of
timing to have the guests get situated in their space and take in the awesome
view of the valley before anything begins. Our server had been there for over
ten years, and in fact she was a grape grower herself (syrah and chardonnay).
In fact, that was the most popular question I got, “oh, what do you grow?” when
I mentioned that I too worked in the industry. But back to the bubbles. We all
selected a premier flight, because that’s how you do it, and sat back for the
wine to begin flowing. While the wine was superb, after four half-flutes of
incredibly delicious sparkling, I was feeling a little peckish, and luckily I
knew the perfect place to hit after our first stop.</div>
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Before going out to wine country this time, I did a little
online sleuthing. Rather than searching for “best wineries in Napa” knowing
that there are too many to count, I localized a few searches to towns that I
knew we’d be traveling through. And as luck would have it, one of the wineries
on my list from these searches was also recommended to me by Meghan (of Brian
and Meghan that I met up with in Berkeley a couple days before). V. Sattui
Winery is actually one that their friends had gotten married at, and there was
a huge selection of hot deli items once we arrived. With the knowledge that
food was close-by, Diane and I decided to do a tasting at V. Sattui to see if
there was a bottle or two we wanted to buy to have with lunch. We had a great
server who kept pouring things off the menu (it didn’t hurt that I let her know
I also worked at a winery and was passively interested in their club). I ended
up joining the club, which worked out when we wanted to buy more wine at the
end of our stay in their tasting room—it was the one winery on the trip that
wouldn’t comp me something as being part of the industry. “We only comp
California wine industry,” the cashier replied when I asked. But being a newly
minted member gave us a discount on the half-case that we were shipping back.</div>
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After lunch (and after a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>couple more glasses of wine), we started our journey back toward Sonoma
because we eventually had dinner plans with our friends whose dad’s house we
were staying while on this leg of the journey. Before dinner, however, we still
had some time to hit another winery or so. Lauren had once worked in the
restaurant industry, and she recognized a higher-end winery from those days, so
we stopped. Like V. Sattui, Markham Winery can trace its story back to the
1880s with a Frenchman originally from Bordeaux coming over and planting the
first vines on the property. Not only were their wines superb (you know it’s good
when you don’t want to finish the last sip in your glass because you’re
enjoying the bouquet from the wine too much!), but one of the regions in Napa
where they source their grapes is a place called Oak Knoll. I asked to see a
map to confirm that I heard our server correctly, and sure enough Oak Knoll
exists! I laughed and told him my name is Noel Oakes, so obviously that’s where
I need to live out the rest of my days! Needless to say, I joined another club.</div>
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After unsuccessfully trying to find a wine shop that I had
visited on my last trip out to Napa (the wine garage is sadly permanently
closed), we headed back to Santa Rosa for dinner with our friends. Since they
don’t get out much on account of them having two small children, we let them
choose a place. Sushi was the final decision, which worked totally fine for our
group. After dinner we went next door to an ice cream shop that’s run by
magicians and hosts magic shows from time to time. The space itself looked like
a gutted theater, so I imagine there’s ample space in the back for
performances. As we were enjoying our ice cream, one of the employees came
around and performed a couple magic tricks for our group. While we spent most
of the day doing adult things like day drinking, having a magician come around
and entertain us for a moment reminded me that: a) California is a weird and
wonderful place, and b) there’s joy wherever you go—you just have to seek it
out and live in the moment.</div>
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5/28/15 – Le Méthode Champagnoise</div>
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Because it worked for us so well the previous day, we
decided to start the day off with some bubbles again! This time we were playing
in Sonoma all day, so we headed over to Korbel. Yes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> Korbel, the one you find at 7-11 for cheap. I heard their tour
was rather informative, since they highlight for you the story of the winery’s
founding and the traditional methods they use for making sparkling wine. Their
address is on River Road, which is a road that tracks the Russian River, one of
the preeminent regions within Sonoma County. The ride there was gorgeous,
mostly with winding roads through forests. While I knew there was a lot of wine
around us, you couldn’t see a lot of it from the road. Once we got to the
Korbel Winery, however, vast tracks of vines were evident. The tour guide did a
really good job of telling the fascinating history of the Korbel brothers
coming over from what was then Czechoslovakia and following the gold rush craze
to California. The demonstration of their old equipment and bottling practices
was rather awesome. I decided that if I were Oprah, my theater room would have
walls lined with sparkling wine that you could pull at any time to simply open.</div>
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Here’s something I learned on this trip concerning the terms
“sparkling wine” and “champagne.” According to our tour guide, the trade
agreement we signed with France that prohibited our use of the term champagne
for any sparkling wine that was made in the United States was signed during
prohibition. If there were any wineries open during prohibition that were
making sparkling wine, they would be grandfathered into this agreement and
could continue using the term champagne. As luck would have it, Korbel was one
of just a handful of wineries that were legally able to stay open during
prohibition, making wine for sacramental and medicinal reasons. So Korbel, to
this day, calls their wine California Champagne. </div>
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We lunched in the charming town of Healdsburg, which is
right near Dry Creek Valley, another well-known region within Sonoma County. We
had some great Californian fare at a place simply called The Shed, though it
was heaven for us foodies. With lunch a had a glass of wine from a local
winery, and it impressed me so much I suggested we go visit it, since it too
was in Dry Creek Valley. Having to get to this winery, we drove all through Dry
Creek Valley. I saw some 100+ year old Zinfandel vines that were gnarly, old
bush-like things with leaves and branches growing in every possible direction
from these trunks that looked like arthritic trees. These bushes-o-Zinfandel
weren’t trellised at all, yet they were strong enough to support their ancient
grapes (that turns into some inky goodness)! It gets hot in these areas, and
there’s a whole lot of sunlight beating down on those grapes. </div>
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Preston Family Vineyards was our destination, and it was
great to see what this established winery was doing with biodynamics. We headed
into Dry Creek Valley and continued on one of the major thoroughfares until the
very end, and that’s where our winery was. We pulled up to this large-ish, old
farm building and wandered around. The first thing I noticed is that it’s
significantly warmer up here than it was in Healdsburg. We saw signs for produce,
and invariably there were animals milling about. What a great and unexpected
destination! The woman pouring our wines inside told us that they’re certified
biodynamic, which is a whole level above being certified organic. Not only is
there no use of unnatural chemicals to care for their crops, there’s a whole
self-sufficient ethic that goes along with the movement. What I mean is there’s
ideally no outside influences (beyond weather) to a biodynamic farm—the cows
produce natural fertilizer, which can be used in the fields, and the plants and
vines are grown in a responsible way allowing for years and years of
cultivation. Some of these vineyards have been doing it for years.</div>
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After wining for most of the day, we had to get going in
order to make our dinner reservation down in the very other end of the county. The
Girl and the Fig is a well-known restaurant in the town of Sonoma, and Lauren
had requested that we check it out since she and Jesse had had such a good
experience there the last time. I had heard about it through the food writing
I’ve read, so I was more than fine with the decision. The restaurant is on the
edge of a cute little town square in an old hotel. What used to be the lobby is
now the bar/waiting area, but we had a reservation so we were whisked away to
our table immediately. The service was slow, but the food was divine! We
started out sharing a plate of mussels only because the table next to us had
gotten them and they looked so good. We all then went our separate ways into
our own food interests. I did some sort of fig and arugula salad for my next
course and then for my entrée I had a home-made pasta dish with micro greens
and sweet peas. Fantastic! We all knew this would be our last big hurrah
together, so we made it count.</div>
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5/29/15 – Solo Travel</div>
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I had to get up early the next morning to get on a commuter-type
bus shuttle to head down toward the city and find my flight back at SFO. The
ride down from Sonoma into Marin and then across the Golden Gate Bridge was
rather pleasant in that everyone generally kept to themselves and zoned out. I
started gathering my thoughts about the next chapter of this adventure, but
really, I was sad to be leaving California again. I had rediscovered my love
for the place, and I have always felt comfortable there. My next big move may
be to go back out west, because I really do enjoy it so much. I mean, hell,
there’s an Oak Knoll out there. If that’s not a sign from God that I should be
living in the middle of California wine country, I don’t know what is!</div>
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Not knowing what to expect for a Delta flight, I downloaded
a movie to watch on my Kindle. That turned out to be unnecessary since every
seat had its own infotainment center. While I poked around on it a bit, I was
more than content to watch my movie, listen to music, or read a book during the
relatively short flight to Detroit. While Delta had the normal infotainment
system that I’d expect on a transcontinental flight like this, I was surprised
at how United had addressed the issue on the way out here. Instead of spending
the money to put LCD screens in for each seat, they moved the compartment where
you normally would keep the magazines on the back of the seat in front of you
up to the head rest. This allowed for a good couple more inches of legroom in coach,
which is always appreciated. While the infotainment system wasn’t available,
United apparently has created an app you can download that allows you to stream
video through the plane’s wifi system. A pretty impressive solution, I thought!
Unfortunately, I have an old Kindle that wouldn’t allow me to download the app.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Traveling alone doesn’t bother me. In fact, after the rat
race that had been the last week I welcomed some decompression time. I knew I’d
have to be charming and on my best behavior once I got to my next destination,
so heading back east without anyone else to have to account for was perfectly
acceptable. I had a layover in Detroit for a couple of hours, so once I got to
the airport I wandered around a bit. Luckily my heavy bag (the one packed with
a half-case of wine) was checked, so it wasn’t too much of an issue to get
around the airport with my multiple carry-ons. The main concourse at the
Detroit airport is one massive hallway that stretches out about five city
blocks. There are news kiosks, stores, and restaurants clustered throughout the
concourse, so you never have to walk far to find just about anything. I knew I
should grab a bite to eat during this layover, so I was generally on the search
for food. I came across a Longhorn Steakhouse—a far cry from my dinner the
night before—and saddled up to the bar. Having the ability to read my book, sip
on a beer, and generally not worry about the trip was heavenly.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Although it’d ultimately take longer for me to travel from
my point-of-origin to my destination, stopping over in Detroit’s airport
allowed me to do two things: 1) it broke up a longer flights into two
completely manageable legs, which ultimately made the whole travel experience
more enjoyable, and 2) it allowed me to check out another airport. I’m sure
I’ve flown through Detroit before, but it had been years since the last time I
had been there. The main concourse was fairly mundane, in terms of shops and
food selection, but I definitely enjoyed the opportunity for people watching and
generally wandering about that my couple hours there afforded me. On top of all
this, a ticket with a layover is usually cheaper than a non-stop flight. I may
have to rethink the way I travel.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
5/30/15 – Wedding Day</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I arrived to the Pittsburgh airport without incident. My
friend Richelle, whose sister was getting married this weekend, came and picked
me up right on time. The morning of the actual wedding, her mother had already
left the house by the time I woke up, so Richelle, her dad, and I went out to their
local town (about an hour north of Pittsburgh) for breakfast at the local
diner. I liked how Richelle’s dad, Rich, knew the server from high school and
greeted a group of older ladies who I’m sure had been coming to this place for
years. This was definition small town Americana at its finest. After breakfast
it was back to the house to get ready for the big event. While I wasn’t in the
wedding (I hadn’t even met the couple getting married), I was in this nebulous
place of being a so-called date for a member of the wedding party. It was an
odd role to play, but that’s why I’m invited to such things!</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Richelle left early to help her sister, Lauren, get ready
for her big day. A little while later, her Dad and I drove to the chapel for
the big event. Amusingly enough her Dad was [understandably] nervous as hell,
so we talked about what we saw driving by: the difference between what corn and
bean sprouts look like when they’re first coming out of the ground (this is
rural Pennsylvania after all), growing up on a farm, all of that fun stuff. We
made it to the wedding chapel in time for me to meet the groom and groomsmen
(henceforth referred to as “Hans and the boys”). They were discussing the
proper method waterproofing fancy cowboy boots, since that was the dress code
for Hans and the boys. I didn’t have much to contribute to this conversation,
though it was an amusing learning experience about what rural life in
Northwestern Pennsylvania considers “fancy.” </div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The wedding was pleasant enough—short and sweet—and as the
guests were leaving the chapel we stopped by the new bride and groom to offer
our congratulations. This was the first time I met Lauren, so shaking her hand
(or giving her a hug) I’m sure I said something along the lines of,
“Congratulations! By the way, I’m Noel.” Awkward. But it was just fine. The
wedding party (and dates of said wedding party) all piled onto a rented
passenger bus, which was already stocked with large amounts of really cheap
beer. Oh dear, I thought, since I generally don’t drink crap beer. When in
Rome…so we all were triple-fisting Bud Lights for a good long while, playing
drinking games on the bus, and stopping at Hans’s father’s house for pictures
of the bride and groom in a horse pasture while the two held hunting rifles. An
odd choice indeed, but it made sense to them. The boys (of Hans and the boys)
and I generally sat around drinking beer and belching in each other’s faces. A
good time was had by all.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The reception for this wedding—for which we were rather
late—was held in a small country club and fed us well. The most intriguing
thing about the guests is that we had a couple Amish families in attendance,
since Hans employs a couple Amish guys on his construction projects. I was
afraid I was going to get belligerently drunk and start screaming random modern
German words at them, but they generally kept to themselves. Interestingly, one
of the younger guys would walk up to the bar, order a beer, take a sip out of
the bottle, and nonchalantly slip the open bottle into an inside vest pocket.
He kept this up all night. So when it was time to leave he was bloated with
open beers, and you could hear him very clearly clinking as he waddled out to
his presumed horse and carriage. My understanding is homeboy was going to drive
back home while enjoying the multitudes of free beers before he got back. As
long as he can keep himself from falling off the buggy, I say more power to
him.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Epilogue</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Richelle and I left on the earlier side the next morning,
mostly because she had been home for more than a couple of days and wanted to
get the hell out of there. I was more than happy with that, though I was ready
to not be traveling anymore. Along the way we stopped at a highway rest stop
called Breezewood, where the Pennsylvania turnpike intersects Interstate 70 (in
west-central PA). Richelle was all excited to stop, which I didn’t get because
to me it looked like a collection of truck stops put together. Then I
remembered my love for South of the Border on the NC/SC line, so I had to give
her some leeway in what random things she loved along the way home from DC, or
vice versa. The whole trip itself worked out well. I loved seeing Diane
discover the greatness of San Francisco, and I LOVED playing in wine country
for a few days. I’m pretty sure one of these days Noel Oakes will be living in
Oak Knoll, CA. </div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-50488700858564570682013-02-10T15:37:00.000-08:002013-02-10T15:37:01.871-08:00Bouncing Around Bangladesh (and Singapore)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prologue: Freaking Out – 1/14/2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So I’m going to Bangladesh. Why the crap would anyone do this, you may ask? One
of my bestest buddies is stationed there with the State Department, and it’s my
God given right to blow a huge wad of cash on a ticket to the armpit of South
Asia! Yesterday I spent most of the day packing bags and running to various
stores to buy the last minute things, so I had some time to realize that I’m
about to start on an adventure…that’ll take TWENTY-FOUR HOURS of travel on
planes to begin. Oh dear. Now that it’s actually happening, I’m doing a little
bit of freaking out. Not because the journey’s long, but really it boils down
to the fact that I’m having to get out of my comfort zone, and not just for an
afternoon or even a weekend, but really for two weeks. I’ve gotten past the
fact that most people won’t speak my language or understand my customs, but at
the end of the day I like being able to go home, unwind with some mindless
TV/internet, and reenergize for the next day. Is that going to happen? Stay
tuned to find out.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Starting Out – 1/15/2013<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I called a local cab company to come pick me up with plenty of time just in
case they didn't show. At the very minute I had asked the cab to be there, my
cell phone rings saying that my cab's outside waiting for me. After getting
settled in the car, the driver asks me where I'm going. When I say Bangladesh,
he gets a little quiet, so I just assume he doesn't know where it is. He then
says that he was born in Dhaka and couldn't believe that I was to his home
country! I took this as a good sign for the trip to come. Getting through the
check-in process was incredibly easy, so note-to-self: leave late at night
because the airport is so much quieter.<br />
<br />
Once I had gotten to my terminal, I still had a few hours before my flight. I
had hoped to give myself some time to grab some food and drink before I settled
in for the 10-hour flight to Istanbul. I found a bar/restaurant and settled in
for a while. My other patrons were taking late-night flights out too, but they
were all government contractors going to Afghanistan. Another person at the bar
who was also going to the "sand box," but wasn't a contractor in the
strictest sense of the word. Instead, she was a two-time American gold medalist
in rowing and was going there with a group of athletes to do some sort of USO
show for the troops!<br />
<br />
Like most international flights these days, our rather new A-340 gave you your
own video screen, a game controller-type interaction device, and loads of music
and movies to watch/listen to for hours. The new thing I hadn't seen in this
kind of entertainment center was the touch screen you could use to interact
with all of the menus. While thoroughly entertained by that technology, the
best part of the flight was the food (who says that about airplane food??) I
was flying Turkish Airways, and because I had flown domestically in the U.S.
for far too many years, my opinion of airplane food was quite low. But on
Turkish Airways I was pleasantly shocked because you were served Turkish food!
Yum! <br />
<br />
I had a few hours to kill in Istanbul’s airport, so I wandered around a bit to
see what was around. I thought I was going to be in some foreign land, but for
the most part the local Turkish population wore European clothes. There were
ads featuring Brad Pitt selling Chanel No. 5, Jack Daniels prominently displayed
in the duty free stores, and even Michael Bublé's Christmas CD available for
purchase! Had I really traveled to the crossroads of Europe and Asia?<br />
<br />
It did become more evident, however, that I was about to travel somewhere
decidedly not in Europe by who was gathering near our departure gate. You'd
expect to see a fair share of short, brown people, but I thought I'd be one of
the few white faces on this flight. To my surprise, there was a group of 15 or
so white folks coming from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. I ultimately had to
ask them what their plans were, and I found out they were a group of medical
professionals headed to some village to teach a local hospital how to repair
cleft palates—just like Project Smile. The other noticeably distinct group
(apart from all the Bangladeshis) was the Muslim contingent. Let me be clear, I
don't mean Arab. This linen- and abaya-clad group was headed to the "Biswa
Ijtema," or the second largest annual Muslim gathering after the Hajj. So
my Muslim, Minnesotan, Bangladeshi friends, and I all ultimately got on our second
leg of this journey to really let the experience begin.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Day 1: Arriving to Bangladesh –
1/17/2013</b><br />
<br />
The first sentence in my guidebook about Bangladesh says that going here
"is not just a journey, but an experience." I took this to mean that
you wouldn't be going on vacation so much so as a ride of a lifetime. Landing
at the airport seemed harmless enough (multiple friends stateside had warned me
that the crowds could be overwhelming). There was a sizable line at passport
control, but nothing I couldn't handle...or so I thought. It took at least 90
minutes, maybe even two hours, to get through for no apparent reason. At least
I saw my friend, Mikkela, waiting for me past the checkpoint while I was in
line, so I knew I wasn't going to have to figure out a way to get to the
embassy after I was through. Once I got to Mikkela, it shocked me how
relatively organized things were. My flight had come in so long ago there was a
baggage porter moving my bags into a pile off the carousel. We collected them
and made it out of the airport with ease.<br />
<br />
Driving on the main road connecting the airport to downtown Dhaka was my first
taste of local culture. Like inside the airport, I was surprised to see cars
moving and road construction. Don't get me wrong, this was no ordered movement,
but the cars generally stayed on the inside of something like a four-lane road
weaving anywhere to get ahead, the CNGs (tuk tuks, so called because they run
on Compressed Natural Gas) generally stayed on the outside of the cars and
trucks, and human-powered rickshaws generally stayed on the outside edge to try
their best to not get plowed over. On the edges of the road, small animals like
goats and wild dogs freely roamed, and whatever free sidewalk space was
consumed by shops and booths generally selling goods. While the level of
commerce wasn't particularly impressive, it was amazing to see that an economy
was bustling and that somehow all of these people were doing it together.<br />
<br />
We arrived at Mikkela's building in no time at all, which was a good thing
because I was bone tired. The plan was Mikkela was going to leave me to pass
out for a few hours while she finished up some things at work. Just as I laying
down in her guestroom, the afternoon azan, or call to prayer, sounded. I was in
no mood to have someone wailing into a loudspeaker how great God/Allah is, but
by the third or fourth day it was beautiful to hear all lf the mosques calling
the faithful to prayer. You could hear multiple mosques from Mikkela's
guestroom each having their own style. It reminded me of being on a rooftop and
being able to see multiple communities' fireworks shows on the 4<sup>th</sup> of
July.<br />
<br />
That night there was a going-away house party for one of Mikkela's colleagues.
Still more than a little unsure of what time zone I was in, I went to my first
diplomatic party and really had a good time. Everyone was engaging,
intelligent, and sympathetic to fact I had gotten on a plane from a 24-hour
journey just a short time prior. The flow of conversation and the level of aptitude
toward international affairs that you'd expect from a group of diplomats really
got my intellectual juices flowing. Meeting Mikkela's boss, who was convinced
that this trip was a catalyst for the beginning of my own journey into the
Foreign Service, really had me thinking about my future plans. Another thing
that struck me about this group of people was how easily I fit in. I feel that
in most groups of people anywhere I don’t really fit in, in the sense that I
don’t have a “home.” This group knew both my North Carolina “home,” as well as
my DC “home.” I met GW alumni, as well as people who had gone through Ft. Bragg
during their tours. Because Germany is my first frame of reference to foreign
cultures, it holds a soft spot in my heart. The hosts of this party had spent
time in Garmisch during their military days. I really felt at home with these
people, even though I had no idea where I was.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Day 2: Shopping in Dhaka – 1/18/2013</b><br />
<br />
On my first full day in country, Mikkela had already lined up a full day of
events. Starting at a brand new restaurant that was still in the process of
opening called Istanbul (more Turkish food!) we ran into some of her colleagues
and feasted on a huge spread of tasty salads, sides, and soups. This was my
first venture into eating on the economy, so I repeatedly asked Mikkela about
food safety (don't need to get a stomach bug your first day, eh?) I quickly
learned that the restaurants Mikkela would be taking me to were very much
geared toward the expat community and didn't want to get anyone sick. As long
as we were careful about drinking nothing but bottled or distilled water, we'd
be fine.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After our Turkish
brunch, it was off to go shopping. Not really sure of what I may need, we
stopped at the apartment of one of Mikkela's colleagues who had exquisite
(read: expensive) tastes, and she showed us the things she had collected so far
from being posted here. Some of the items included an intricately carved teak
box, about three feet wide, that would traditionally hold a family's valuables,
and these fantastic wooden stamps, about three inches square, used to stamp
colored dyes onto a cloth into an intricate pattern.<br />
<br />
Textiles are one of the things that Bangladesh is known for. The country is
situated on a river delta, so sediment is constantly flowing downstream
depositing nutrients in the soil. Their agricultural sector is vibrant and so
is their ability to grow cotton for fabric and other fibrous reeds. One such
reed is called jute and it's well known in the textile industry. Once it's
woven into any sort of product—from rugs to bags to shawls—it initially has the
feel of burlap or canvas, but it softens substantially with use. Jute area rugs
are quite popular and I picked one up with fantastic colors and patterns. I’m not
really sure what I'll do with it once I'm home, but hey, that’s part of the
adventure of seeing new things and buying souvenirs when traveling in far-off
lands. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
And speaking of fabrics, guess where a huge portion of your clothes are now
made. If you said Bangladesh, you're right! On our shopping adventure, Mikkela
took me to a shop called "Artisan." My ever-so-logical brain thought
it'd be a shop of artisanal crafts, but oh no! The interior of the store looked
more like a TJ Maxx than anything else. It was all western clothes that had
been deemed not fit for sale. In the guy's section, jeans, slacks, and
button-down dress shirts seemed to be the most popular things. Button-down
dress shirts are very often worn in a western or with the traditional lungi, a
kind of tubular skirt tied at the waist allowing for ventilation, comfort, and
all-around utility. Also available within this store were sweaters and hoodies
that wouldn't look out of place at a Gap or American Eagle, but were here
because it's the dead of winter and the Bangladeshis are legitimately cold
(even though it's usually something like 80 degrees during the day).<br />
<br />
For dinner that night, Mikkela took me to a local favorite called Barbeque
Tonight, which is a Pakistani kabob chain. We were in a part of town right near
one of the big universities, so away from the very high end restaurants we had
been going to. No, this was local, which normally meant eating with your
[right] hand, which poses a problem for this left-handed boy. You can use your
left in the meal, to tear apart bread for example, but bringing food to your
mouth should be done only with your right hand. Since this place served us
basically flat bread, skewers of meat, and lassis, it didn't really cause any
issue.<br />
<br />
That evening's entertainment was a shared birthday celebration between a local
Bangladeshi boy, an embassy staffer, and me. Beyond all having birthdays near
one another, we were all also gay. A week or so before my leaving on this trip,
I got a Facebook event invite to a "pink" party. I didn't know what I
was getting myself into. Everyone was supposed to wear pink, so Mikkela brought
her beautiful, pink sari she had bought for a wedding, for me to have tied and
tucked into. The sari wasn't for her, but rather for me. The host of the party,
a local guy that worked a couple doors down from Mikkela, was going to wrap me
in this thing, but only from the waist down in something called a dhuti. All
night long, little drunk Bangladeshi boys kept coming up to me and saying they
loved my dhuti. But I digress. Walking into this house party, it seemed like
the smoke machine had been turned on full blast for hours. You couldn’t see
what was happening immediately, but you sure could hear the dance music. Once
we had gotten a round of cocktails for everyone, I noticed that all of the
furniture had been moved out of the dining room to make dance floor. Upon said dance
floor were 20-30 young Bangladeshi boys dancing and grinding on one another.
Honestly, it was a beautiful thing to see that these boys actually had an
outlet to be with one another and have a community. It was hard enough for me
to come during college a (G)ay (W)hite University, but I can't even imagine how
hard it's got to be for these boys. Some traditional drag queens were there,
and at some point they danced for us. Incidentally, like the western notion of
drag, two of them introduced themselves as drag mother and daughter. Another
amusing event during this party was seeing two boys cuddling on a bed in
another room. They weren't making out, just cuddling. Then you notice this must
be some child's room because the sheets on the bed were very obviously Disney
princess themed! The little queens were lying on top of little queens! It was
truly a birthday celebration I won't ever forget.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Day 3: International Day – 1/19/2013</b><br />
<br />
While traveling abroad, you have to be flexible in your plans because you never
know what events will be happening locally. Case in point: in Dhaka right now
is an international trade fair with goods coming from all over the world for
sale. This was going to be my first real foray into a large group of
Bangladeshis, so I was both excited and nervous. We got up relatively early to
get there before the hordes arrived, and I was impressed with what I saw. Think
of something like a fairground with permanent structures and massive tents
selling anything from Turkish lamps to Iranian jewelry, and yes, to jute rugs
and handbags. The people watching at a place like this was phenomenal, though I
was rather shy when it came to taking pictures of people. Mikkela's thought here
are that if the locals blatantly stare and take pictures of you, why can't that
be true from the opposite perspective? At any rate, I took some great pictures,
bought some colorful jute bags that I'll keep in my car for groceries, and
found a great deal on a bedspread that I'll use as a wall hanging. It's just
great to see commerce flourishing much more than I expected and with nations
that the American government designates as the "bad guys."<br />
<br />
For lunch we went to a rather lovely Chinese restaurant. The foreign community
is quite amusing in Bangladesh because they comprise the upper crust of
economic power, but it's not just the Americans. Our Chinese meal started with
a lovely cup of lightly brothed tofu soup. Since tofu isn't generally available
in the commercial centers of Dhaka, there's an underground market for tofu for
those who just have to have it. The vegetables we had served--mustard greens
and some sort celery-style green--were rather yummy. While I recognize that
this restaurant is on the very high end of the city's food scene, I'm just
impressed that it's here at all.<br />
<br />
One of the first things I had heard about diplomatic life in Dhaka was that
there was an American club, or the ARA (American Recreation Association).
Mikkela got me in to see the facilities and I really enjoyed it. The club is
right within the diplomatic enclave, has a pool and tennis courts, and an
outside cabana/cantine. The thing to get there is a freshly squeezed lime soda
that they serve with a small pourer of simple syrup to sweeten it to your liking
(apparently Bangladeshis like things very sweet).<br />
<br />
January 19th is my birthday, and no Mikkela adventure would be complete without
some Korean food. This very high-end Korean restaurant is still in the process
of opening because they're training their staff to be sure they can handle the
hopeful onslaught that will be coming. When Mikkela and I normally go out for
Korean food, I typically defer to her to order because: a) she's more familiar
with all the options available, and b) it's rather amusing to watch the Korean
server's inability to comprehend why Mikkela doesn't just speak Korean to order
our food. That being said, when Mik orders it means we're going to get about
three times the amount of food we can eat. And on top of that, because the proprietress
of the restaurant is so good to Mikkela, she brought up multiple supplemental
dishes for us, including a plate of glass noodles that's meant to symbolize
long life for the birthday boy.<br />
<br />
Rounding out the evening, we went over to a colleague's house to meet a new
tailor. Because labor is so cheap here, a lot of people have custom clothes
made. The tailor hadn't arrived yet, but a group of people were in a back room
singing karaoke. While Mikkela & co. discussed clothing options, I was belting
out a few songs (including Me and Bobby McGee for Janis Joplin, who shared my
birthday). Interesting thing here: the tailor didn't arrive in some fancy new
outfit he had made, but rather a white cotton outfit a pious Muslim would wear.
This is an interesting country.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Day 4: River Boat Cruise – 1/20/2013</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of Mikkela's local
contacts arranged a river boat cruise for us, which makes sense because the
water is so central to the Bangladeshis and has been for millennia (it's a lot
cheaper to move things by water than by building roads and then maintaining
them). Water is a pretty crucial element to us all, and even more so to
Bangladesh. Seasonal floods require that locals build their houses on stilts in
order to survive the major floods every year. It's important to note that
probably the two most well known rivers that flow through India, the Ganges and
Brahmaputra, also flow through Bangladesh and empty out into the Bay Bengal. I
read in my guidebook that together, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra (known
locally as the Padma and Jamuna respectively), spit out as much water through
Bangladesh--a nation the size of Wisconsin--as all of the river systems in
Europe. That's a lot of water! Mikkela and I walked to the American Embassy to
meet up with a group of people who would be going on this river cruise with us.
There were supposed to be a few American families that were going to join, but
they all left us for one reason or another. The group that ended up getting on
the bus with us to travel to the river was: three Bangladeshi boys, three
Americans, and about fifteen Bhutanese children. I had met the
"mother" of the group at our pink party two nights ago. My first
interaction with an honest-to-God Bhutanese woman was when she was offering me
Bhutanese whiskey. How does my life work like this?? At any rate, we all get on
the bus and true to form in Dhaka, we're stuck in traffic for a solid hour not
moving. The Bangladeshi boys holler out the window of the bus to grab some snacks
from a roadside food stall and I generally amuse myself by taking pictures of
city life. <br />
<br />
One of the few things I knew about the Ganges is that it starts out pristine in
the Himalayan Mountains and then proceeds to get dirtier and dirtier as it
rolls along its way. Again, this river system empties out into the Bay of
Bengal, so we're seeing the water at its "finest." With that in mind,
I made my best efforts not to fall off the gangplank getting onto our boat.
Once we were all settled and off on the ride, I quickly became surprised at the
amount of traffic on the river. I grew up on the Rhine River, one if not the
major rivers going through Western Europe. There, all of the boats are large
barges that are big enough to hold a sizable amount of goods, but also small
enough to fit into the series of locks that control the height of the river.
Here, just like the roads, it's pretty chaotic. There are barges with bays in
them carrying what looks like sand, but are just barely keeping their hull
above the water line. There are ferry boats of all kinds ranging from
gondola-sized craft carrying a handful of people to bigger car-carrying ferries
to shuttle people back and forth. There were even tanker-shaped ships used for
larger excursions out to the ocean headed for Chittigong, Bangladesh's major
international harbor some hours southeast of Dhaka. A member of the crew
commented that at Chittigong, it was a place known as a ship graveyard because
there they stripped the ships down to their individual parts and sold the
material as scrap. Here, however, they actually built the ships. This was just
another example of seeing the whole life cycle of a particular product. The
most pervasive boat we saw on the river was a smaller type of barge that
carried bricks upriver to be used in construction in Dhaka. Bangladesh doesn’t
really have any mountains, and by extent doesn't have many resources to make
cement for construction purposes. They do have a tremendous supply of clay for
brick making. They mold the bricks, let them dry in the sun for a particular
amount of time, and send them upstream to be used in the constant stream of
buildings being built in the greater capital area. It was fascinating to see
the number of these small barges we constantly saw inching their way along.<br />
<br />
It was also fascinating just to see the teeming vibrancy of river life. Like
any country's capital, you have to get out of the city to see what the real
people look like and how they live. I had been very impressed with how modern
and seemingly functional Dhaka appeared on the surface, but getting out of the
city really did show me the image that I was expecting to see. I don't imagine
that a lot of people think about Bangladesh, but before this trip what I knew
was that it was a developing country with A LOT of people and relied on the
river to fish, bathe, and generally stay alive. This was the Bangladesh that
can be seen here, anything from people shuttling from place to place, to people
bathing outright at the water's edge, to groups of kids scurrying along the
shore just to see something out of the ordinary (a group of tourists) floating
by. On one of our stops along the way, we had what seemed like made an
impromptu stop so that people could jump in the water and swim around. I've
already mentioned the state of the water here, so I had no interest in getting
in. Because the Bangladeshi boys didn't know any different and the Bhutanese
boys were just so damn happy, they all jumped in. God help us all. In the
meantime, the Bhutanese "mother" wanted to go trample along the
riverbank because there were numerous fields growing produce right around us.
She must be something of the gardener because she was pointing out tomato,
pepper, pumpkin, and mustard plants even in their infancy. I didn't think of this,
but because all of the sediment that flows down the various river systems into
Bangladesh, the country is amazingly fertile. This is really the only way so
many people can be fed in such a small place. Walking around the plots reminded
me of gardening with my Dad as a child because I saw cucumber and tomato plants
when they were small. Just another reminder of how very similar we all are.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Day 5: Inside a U.S. Embassy – 1/21/2013</b><br />
<br />
Mikkela was taking off a big chunk of time while I was here, so one morning we
decided to go into the embassy for a quick second so that she could check on a
few things and pop right back out. That was the plan, but because everyone
loves her so much, a 20-minute jaunt took multiple hours. I didn't mind because
she plopped me in the cantine right around lunch time and all the people I had
met so far seemed to filter through. After she had finished up, she showed me
around. Let me back up: in order to get into the embassy, Mikkela's driver had
to turn off the car and have the security staff inspect that we weren't
carrying any bombs, even though Mikkela had her embassy badge and the car had
diplomatic plates. Hey, better safe than sorry, right? Once you get into the
building, we had to talk to a Marine guard who pointed us to a sign-in desk.
After getting a visitor's badge, we were allowed through what looked like a
bank vault door and we were in. Mikkela showed me each of the different
sections of the embassy: consular (where locals come to apply for a visa),
political/economic (where FSOs monitor the daily happenings in-country), and
management (Mikkela's section, where she has her hands in anything ranging from
housing to motorpool to any kind of special project). The consular section was
of particular interest to me because that's the part everyone thinks of when
you think about an embassy abroad. It was such a small section! Inside the
consular section, there's also a department that handles American services
abroad (if you've lost your passport, things like that). One of Mikkela's
friends who works there told me that a lot of the issues she had heard about
were Bangladeshi-American dual-nationals coming over to Bangladesh under the
auspices of seeing family but then being forced to marry someone locally. That
didn't sound too fun.<br />
<br />
Visiting one of Mikkela's friend's apartments on my first day in country, I saw
that she had these framed, wooden blocks that looked rather intriguing. The
blocks, I was told, were stamps used to place a certain patterns onto a garment
for decoration. The Bangladeshis love all sorts of colors and patterns, and
consequently there were all sorts of block patterns available. I decided I
wanted to buy some of these blocks and have them framed because the labor cost
here is so cheap. We went to one of the shopping centers, something more akin
to a strip mall in the U.S., and easily found a wide variety of blocks. Once my
blocks had been selected, Mikkela knew of a high-end framer that would make the
job look fantastic. I didn't really know what I was doing, but when we got to
this guy's shop, he showed us frames and matting, and we eventually settled on
a color and block combination that I liked. He said it would take a week or so
for the job to be completed, but I knew it was going to be a fabulous piece
once it was all said and done. My first piece of art that I'd have for the rest
of my life and be able to show to people and talk about my adventures in
Bangladesh, really.<br />
<br />
That evening's events were somewhat low-key, but quite enjoyable. Mikkela had
her housekeeper make some Bangladeshi food for me to try, which included some
chicken biriyani, curried vegetables, and dal. Mikkela's not a big fan, but I
could have that food multiple times a week. Again, because the land is so
fertile, vegetables and rice are ever-present. Add some lentils and what else
do you need? We invited one of Mikkela's local friends over for food and also to
show me how to tie a lungi. Lungis are the traditional dress in this part of
the world, and by this part of the world I mean the greater northern Indian
Ocean, and is a kind of skirt the men wear that's tied around the waist. It can
be as long as ankle-length or it can be tied up to make a sort of
shorts/diaper-type situation, depending on the region and what you need to be
doing in it. Not having to wear pants is a pretty exciting prospect to me, so I
was all about learning how to wear one of these suckers. It's pretty easy: you
bunch the fabric together in the front, tie a knot, and essentially tuck the
ends of the knot into the waistband so that they don't come undone. We'll see
if I can remember how to put my lungi back on once I'm stateside. Another
memorable event that evening was watching the president's inaugural address
from across the world. CNN International had it playing live, and I couldn't help
but be reminded that I wasn't in DC the last time President Obama had an
inauguration. Last time I was in California, and there was a little piece of me
that was sad that I couldn't be "home" to experience Obama's second
inauguration because I had missed the first. That all being said, it was still
neat to be able to see and hear his speech from as far away from Washington as
a person could possibly get and still be on the same planet.<br />
<br />
One last thought I wanted to share about today's events, and that's the Dhaka
cough. After our riverboat cruise the other day, I had acquired a pretty nasty
cough. Mikkela dubbed it the Dhaka cough because apparently a lot of people get
in while they're in country. There are multiple resources that say that Dhaka
is a rather polluted place, but this really brought it home for me. I felt
fine, so I didn't think it was some sort of cold or even bronchitis, but it was
unpleasant. According to Mikkela, some people come into country and have this
cough until the day they leave. That's no good! After a few days it generally
got better, but even on my last day in country I was still hacking from time to
time. Even though I felt fine otherwise, I have a new appreciation for those
who suffer from seasonal allergies. Not fun!<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Day 6: Old Dhaka – 1/22/2013</b><br />
<br />
After having been on so many adventures already in and around Dhaka, I wanted
to spend a day playing tourist and seeing some of the sights and sounds of
historical Dhaka. Not knowing much about this nation, I first read my guidebook
to see what it could tell me about the country. Without going into too much
detail, at around 1000 AD, Bangladesh was an outpost in Mogul empire, which was
headquartered in Accra, India. Various regimes and spheres of influence
controlled the area that is today Bangladesh, but it's important to note that
the Bangla language is essentially the same language that's spoken in West Bengal,
India (where Calcutta/Kolkata is). After India's war for independence, the
majority Muslim portions of the Indian sub-continent were partitioned away from
India and given the names East and West Pakistan. Since all foreign funding and
the capital were in West Pakistan, East Pakistan (Bangladesh) fought for its
independence in the early 1970s. The father of the nation, Bangladesh's
equivalent to America's George Washington, is a man named Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, or more familiarly Bangabandhu. In the early days of independence, he
was gunned down, along with several members of his family, in his home. That
home is now a shrine to his life. Because the home has been maintained in how
the place looked from the early 70s, it honestly reminded me a fair bit of
Graceland. The living quarters were a similar size (huge for that time) and had
the same level of technology (read: a singular TV in the living room). We
weren't able to get much out of the museum itself because nothing was in
English, but you could very much feel the somber atmosphere and the need of
these people to remember the struggles they went through to gain independence.
Interestingly enough, his daughter is the current Prime Minister of the
country.<br />
<br />
One of the sights I was keen to see while in Old Dhaka was the Liberation War
Museum. It was definitely worth the price of admission, about $1, to see some
of the artifacts--including skulls--from the liberation war. The museum, for
its level of organization, was pretty impressive. Nothing too fancy, but it
definitely told the story and showed a lot of the different pieces of how
Bangladesh, or "Land of the Bangla [speakers]" came into being.
Because we only can relate to things from what we know, I particularly enjoyed
the portion of the museum that talked about international reaction/support for
Bangladesh's war for independence. Neither the UK nor the United States were
explicit supporters of the movement, but the U.S.'s Counsel General in the
country at the time sent word back to Washington saying that we should support
the Bangladeshis. Because of his support, he's considered one of the few
outside heros to the country. After the Liberation War Museum, we headed over
to Lalbagh Fort, one of the few green spaces in downtown Dhaka. We were given a
private tour of the bathhouses by one guard, who definitely wanted a modest tip
at the end, and walked around seeing all the locals generally milling about.
Mikkela found this place particularly interesting because this is one of the
few places that young couples could come and visit for a while and be alone.
Granted, everything's still in full view of everyone else, but you could find a
little alcove somewhere and chat with your honey. It was all quite sweet
because in the States a place like this would be run over with punk kids or
young couples trying to hump each other. Since this such a modest/conservative
country, all these couples wanted to do was have a few moments alone together
to actually chat. <br />
<br />
That night, Mikkela and I ventured to the airport to catch a plane to
Singapore. Because she had purchased our tickets together, I was essentially a
diplomatic spouse and got into the airport with no problems at all. In between
checking your bags into the first ticket counter and getting to the gate where
they do your requisite security screening, there's an emigration/passport
check. Once we were past that point, we were "inside" and didn't have
any issues. I was actually pleasantly surprised because of my debacle trying to
get into the country, so I guess having a diplomatic passport (and knowing
where to go) helps get through the process easier. For whatever reason, Asian
airports prefer to have you go through security at your gate rather than a
central checkpoint after you've checked in. This doesn't help the boarding
process, especially when you've got a significant portion of those flying
having never been on an airplane before. We took a low-cost carrier, Tiger
Airways, and set back for the not quite four-hour flight to Singapore. Since
you have people who've never been on a plane before, the flight attendants had
to regularly spray out the bathrooms because people didn't know they were
expected to flush the toilet. That was one thing I was very much looking
forward to, among other things, in Singapore: clean and modern toilets. Not
that it bothers me all that much if I need to go pee on the side of the road
(or wherever), but the smell of sewage is exactly the most pleasant thing.<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Day 7: First Impressions of Singapore –
1/23/2013</b><br />
<br />
It’s not quite a four-hour flight from Dhaka to Singapore, and the only times
that planes leave out of Dhaka’s airport, it seems, is some absurd time at
night. Because we left at something like 11:00pm (local time), we got into
Singapore at 5:00am (two hours ahead). After having spent something like a week
in Bangladesh, I had become desensitized to a lot of the toils of traveling in
the developing world: traffic jams at all hours of the day potentially
preventing you from moving down any indiscriminate road, potholes the size of a
CNG, and mosquitoes everywhere! I say this because Mikkela and I were literally
the first two people off the plane, we had our immigration card filled out
properly, and were promptly let through immigration without the batting of an
eyelash. I was dumbstruck at having an airport far too clean for my standards,
and even having a touch screen in the bathroom asking each patron to rate the
level of cleanliness (it’s actually illegal in Singapore to not flush a public
toilet). Far too much order, I say! The large sign at the beginning of the
baggage claim area even very clearly told us from which baggage carousel our
bags would be coming out! What??<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Beyond the order and
general cleanliness, I must admit that I was a little let down. Let me explain:
I have a pretty active imagination. I’m always disappointed with the movie
version of a book I’ve read, because the visualizations that pop into my head
while reading the book invariably can’t be made into reality most of the time.
Same goes for what I had pictured in my head for Singapore. With all that said,
it was nice to be able to pop into a cab, tell the cab driver where we were going,
and generally get a sense that he knew what we were saying. Granted the roads
were empty at 5:00am, but it was a treat just to have a car ride that was
freely moving and with signs on the side of the road that told you which exit
to take to go to anywhere! We finally made it to our friend Sarah’s apartment
and promptly crashed, but not before making a general plan to meet her for
lunch at her place of employment, Google, that afternoon. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Google is a pretty unique
place to work, regardless of location around the world. During grad school in
California, I’d hear constant stories of innovation, not only on the technology
front but on the employee happiness front too. Sarah told us exactly what to
say to the cab driver that we were to take to get to the CBD, or Central
Business District, where Google’s offices are located. We checked in with the
receptionist in the lobby and she handed us a paper card that was to serve as
our pass to get through security and into the elevators. What was remarkable
was you stuck this card into a slot where the elevator call button would
ordinarily be, and a screen would tell you which shaft to stand next to for the
next available elevator. Getting into the elevator, there aren’t any buttons to
push to reach the floor you’re trying to get to; Instead, the elevator already
knows to drop you off at floor…say…30. Sarah escorted us into the cafeteria
area, and she explained that there was always some sort of western dish, an
eastern (Asian) dish, and some sort of vegetarian dish. In addition to the hot
food line, there was a sizeable salad bar, as well as a juice and coffee
station. I was told later that the former American Ambassador’s wife insisted
on the fresh orange juice pressing machine—hey, I’m not going to argue there! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After lunch, Mikkela and I
took a little while to orient ourselves. Having never been to this city/state
before, I had very little idea of where we were in relation to other things.
The aptly named Singapore River passes through the island of Singapore, which naturally
would create numerous quays for all the boats that travel along the river and
coast. We started at Raffles Quay and made our away around the block to our
first food Hawker Center, Lau Pa Sat. Not knowing it, but my Lonely Planet
guidebook and placed this at #2 on its list of Hawker Centers to experience
while in Singapore. Hawker Centers are food courts, often covered but exposed
to elements, that sell traditional food at rock bottom prices. We just wandered
around in amazement at the assortment of foods available: Korean barbeque,
noodle dishes, fresh fruit juice stands, dumplings, and more stalls of
unidentifiable (though, I’m sure, amazingly delicious) food you could count!
Because Singapore is so close to the equator, it’s pretty much constantly hot
and humid, which means there’s a labyrinth of underground tunnels connecting
major commercial centers and subway stations. We somehow made our way into one
of these tunnel systems, and popped out over at the next quay, Boat Quay. After
orienting ourselves, Mikkela and I wandered over to Chinatown, because why not
start your tourist experience in the wonder that is any city’s Chinatown. Even
though I was literally on the other side of the world from my home at that
moment, it really did feel like being back in San Francisco’s Chinatown with
all of the people and, more specifically, the smells that I picked up from all
of the different stalls. We stumbled upon another Hawker Center in Chinatown,
but eventually we made our way to the subway/metro system to meet Sarah on the
edge of Little India.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The metro system in
Singapore is so ridiculously easy to use and efficient. You enter into any
station, and the way you acquire a ticket to get into the system is by
interfacing with an ATM-type machine with a touch screen. You literally tap
station you want to go to, the system determines the fare, and you get a card
spat back at you in a matter of seconds. You then swipe the card on a pad next
to the turnstile and you look for the clearly marked sign for the platform.
Once on the platform, it’s evident to even a first timer which side you should
stand on, and a sign tells you when the next train is arriving. I should add
that I never had to wait more than four minutes for a train. Another thing I
liked about this system is that there were interior doors to the platform, and
by that I mean you had a set of doors on the platform that prohibited you from
somehow getting onto the tracks and mucking up the system for everyone else.
Not only did this keep the system running smoothly, but you knew exactly where
the train was going to stop so you could line up on either side of the door to
wait for passengers to disembark. There’s no comparison when looking at this
system and DC’s metro system. It just makes me want to shake my head and sigh
thinking about how good a public subway system could be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The understatement of the
year is that Singapore is a melting pot of cultures and nationalities. Mikkela
and I were meeting Sarah near Little India, but in a neighborhood called “Arab
Street.” As you may have guessed, this was the Arab quarter filled with bars,
lounges and restaurants for the tourist and Arab populations. We found a jazz
bar with outside seating at the end of an alley and decided to order a beer
tower, since that’s what multiple tables had. Five liters of Tiger beer, their
local brew, might sound like a lot, but it’s never a question of quantity, but
rather a question of time. And we had all night. That being said, I was
thankful when one of Mikkela’s friends joined us from the American embassy to
generally socialize and help us drink our beer. We ended up finishing the
evening at a Turkish restaurant we found on Arab Street. So to recap: we
started the day at an American based company, walked through Chinatown, took
the metro to Little India to a jazz bar, and had dinner in a Turkish
restaurant. How more international can you get?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Day 8: Wandering Around Singapore – 1/24/2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The next day Mikkela had
some medical appointments to attend to, so that left me to figure out what I
wanted to do on my own. I judge a city on how walkable it is, and Singapore is
one fine city in which to aimlessly wander! I wanted to get on the metro again
and head to my various destinations, but since Sarah isn’t a regular metro
rider, I had to find the station on my own. Before I got too far, I found a
European style café and had some breakfast—no better way to start your day than
with some coffee and BLT-style sandwich, I say! I started generally wandering
in the direction I thought the metro station would be, but there weren’t any
clear markings along the way. I had to stop and ask multiple times where the
metro station was, which got me thinking that Singapore is an ideal primer city
for the uninitiated to start traveling. What I mean is just about everyone
speaks some level of English, signs are clearly marked, and it’s an interesting
place to generally wander around, and public transport is cheap and incredibly
easy to use. If you want to start traveling and haven’t done much in the past,
this is really your ideal place to start.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After eventually finding
the metro station I made my way to Orchard Road, which is the premiere shopping
district in Singapore. Besides eating, Singapore is a haven for those who want
to shop. While I generally recognize a mall by a vast parking lot and large
signs that say Macys, these malls are more like giant department stores of
every street corner. One of the malls my guidebook told me to check out is
called Ion Orchard, which conveniently enough, is exactly where the metro spits
you out if you exit at the Orchard Road station. Ion Orchard is enormous, and a
shopper could spend days just in this one mall alone. I quickly found the
information desk because I was looking to buy an unlocked mobile phone that I could
use anywhere. I was given directions to a Singtel store in the mall, and before
I knew it my baby-faced store assistant had be hooked up with a new phone and
SIM card ready for action! I did wander down Orchard Road for a bit, which is
akin to Rodeo Drive if you’ve ever seen Pretty Woman. All the brands are here,
including a roadside Garrett’s (Chicago popcorn) stand, in case you were
hungry. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Later that afternoon I
headed up to the Botanic Gardens, which I’m told are very much worth the visit.
Unfortunately, the minute I got off the metro at the Botanic Gardens stop it
started raining. I made into about halfway through the gardens and had to take
shelter underneath a gazebo. What I found there was quite spectacular: the
gazebo was right next to a honest-to-God turtle pond! All around and within the
pond turtles were swimming, sunning, and generally thriving in their
environment. A mother and her two children (of Asian descent but speaking
perfect British English) were feeding the turtles the equivalent of pellets
you’d throw into a fish pond. My feet were sore and I was sun baked, so it was
a refreshing moment just to sit back and relax. If I had another day in
Singapore, I would’ve happily wandered through that garden, which includes an
orchid farm that I’m sure my camera and I would’ve loved to capture in a
picture format. Oh well, something for next time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Since I had a phone at this
point, I texted Mikkela and Sarah and made plans to go to Little India that
night to actually experience the Indian side of the district. It took us a few
attempts to find an adequate restaurant that all three of us were willing to
try, and the funny thing was because most of the “Indian” restaurants were
actually Bangladeshi. There’s a sizable Bangladeshi laborer population in
Singapore, the equivalent of America’s migrant Latino population. Because of
this, there needs to be a place for them to congregate and socialize, and
apparently it’s in Little India. Our main reason for going to their area again
was because of the Mustafa Center. Like I said, Singapore is THE place to shop.
One of the 24-hour shopping malls in the Mustafa Center, which I’d equate to a
level up from your average Wal-Mart, but a rather similar idea of goods sold
(read: everything). Mikkela was in the search for an LCD TV that she could
bring back with her to Bangladesh. Beyond describing the Mustafa Center as a
higher caliber Wal-Mart, it’s worth noting that the salesman that sold Mikkela
her TV personally took the product out of its box and tested to make sure it
was functional and ready for use (i.e. did the initial setup) for us while in
the store. Outside the Mustafa Center, it’s also worth noting that this was the
only place I saw a single piece of garbage on the streets of Singapore. And by
garbage, I mean a stray cigarette butt. Even the South Asians wanting to spit
into the street found a trashcan. I liked Little India because it was the only
part of town that I felt wasn’t completely sanitized. That and you could find
amazing food for dirt cheap and a 24-hour shopping center to provide your every
desire.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Day 9: Getting Lost in Singapore – 1/25/2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The next morning I had told
Mikkela about the European style café I had found, so she followed me along for
a cup o’ Joe and a croissant. She wasn’t feeling very well, and as luck would
have it, there was a clinic the same building that housed our café. I later
learned that Mikkela walked into the clinic with no appointment scheduled, saw
a doctor almost immediately, was prescribed some pain medication and a cough
suppressant, and was out all of about $40. Not only does Singapore have cheap
food and spectacular public transportation, but their healthcare is incredibly
easy to use and inexpensive. Again, these are lessons that the United States
could learn, but that’d just make too much sense.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I left Mikkela all happy
with myself knowing she was going to see a doctor and I knew how to get to the
closest metro station. My guidebook had told me that the Singapore Zoo was not
to be missed, so while the guidebook told to get off at metro station x and
take bus y to the zoo, I looked at the map detail of the zoo and thought that
if I got off the metro just two stops further down the line I’d be within
walking distance of the zoo and wouldn’t have to wait for the bus. Yeah, I
should’ve looked at the scale of the map realized that it was still a pretty
insanely far distance away, but everything’s clearer in hindsight. May I remind
the reader that Singapore is only 85 miles north of the equator? In other
words, it’s hot and humid ALL THE TIME. I get off the metro and start walking
in the direction I should be going. After about half an hour, I’m alongside
some major road watching pretty steady traffic drive by, and I notice I’ve been
the only person on foot since I started this journey. Not a good sign. After
another fifteen minutes or so, I find a shady spot and start reevaluating my
plan. I do have a smart phone at this point, so I pull up Google Maps to see
where I am in relation to where I want to go, and I’m not even halfway there! I
can either start walking back, admitting defeat, or I can continue on and be
suffering from a case of heat stroke by the time I get to the zoo. I choose the
former and end up heading back toward the metro station. I passed by a 7-11 in
an apartment complex right next to the station, so I buy some chips and a big
gulp full of Fanta to replenish fluids.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This experience is fraught
with lessons to be learned, dear reader. In a country so densely populated,
there shouldn’t be very many times that you find yourself alone. While there
were cars and trucks whizzing by me the entire time—and I’m in Singapore, so
there’s basically no chance of anything happening to me—there’s probably a
reason why no one walks down this particular road. Another lesson learned is to
come properly prepared for an adventure. I just had some flip-flops, no
sunscreen, and very little water for this journey. Not a smart move. And
lastly, guidebooks, while ubiquitous and generally not adventuresome, do
include useful tips from time to time. You know, like how to properly get to a
rather prominent tourist attraction within a tiny city-state. It really isn’t that
hard. <sigh><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After admitting defeat and
replenishing my liquids, I decided I still had time to check out another
attraction on the other side of the island: Gardens by the Bay. This is a brand
new botanical garden that’s just opening up as part of a giant complex next to
Marinas by the Bay, Singapore’s response to the Las Vegas über hotel and
casino. Gardens by the Bay is, strictly speaking, a man-made path along some
very sculpted and manicured dunes that leads you to the center of that
park/garden. Within this center lie a dozen or man-made trees the size of giant
redwoods. Each tree is a metallic cylinder about 100 feet high that blooms out
into a magnificent canopy comprised of metal branches. The tops of these
metallic trees are flat, so it leads me to believe that the garden plans to
introduce live plants into the top to make a real canopy as the project
continues to grow. This whole area, I should add, is open to the public and
ogling tourist alike. It’s right near the Singapore Flyer, the world’s largest
“observation wheel” (just like the London Eye). It’s a wonderful place to loaf
about, catch one’s breath, and generally enjoy the ocean breeze nearby.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At this point I start
texting with Mikkela and Sarah to ask them where to meet for dinner. We settle
on a seafood place right in the center of town, right along the Singapore
River. I use my cell phone to tell me the best way to get there and I’m off.
Once I get out of the closest metro stop, I don’t know which direction to turn.
I whip out my phone once again (God I love technology!) and it easily guides me
to my destination. One of the two foods you absolutely must try while you’re in
Singapore is chili crab, which is a wok-fried crap that’s been cut into
quarters and doused in God knows how many spices. The crab itself is huge,
something akin to the Dungeness crabs found on the West Coast of the United
States. Now, I love my some crabs. I was raised on Chesapeake Bay blue crabs
and was taught early on how to crack and pick at these shelly bastards. Their
taste is divine, but nearly as divine as the goop they excrete and mix with
that becomes the paste or sauce that comes with your crab when it’s served.
This paste on top of a bed of fried rice is quite possibly the most heavenly
thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. After a day of sweating buckets and walking
miles, it was the ultimate (and unexpected) reward to such a laborious day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before I end this thought,
I want to share with you what happens next. Because we’re not far from Sarah’s
apartment we walk back, which takes something like ten minutes. Once we’ve
settled in, I make our group a round of gin and tonics. All of this may not
sound too strange, but the reason why we’re drinking at home is because it’s
insanely expensive to drink at restaurants here. Booze is plentiful, but it
costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 for a 375ml bottle of Bacardi rum!
At the 7-11 I was at earlier in the day, a 12-pack of locally brewed beer was
also somewhere around $40. While you’re welcome to “sin” (read: enjoy life),
you’d better be prepared to pay for it. It amazes me that Hawker Stands can
present a huge plate of food to you for less than $5, but if you’d like a
cocktail or beer to go along with it, God help you!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Day 10: DTF? – 1/26/2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Although I’m sad to say it
was our last day in Singapore, Mikkela and I nonetheless had an errand to run
for one of Mikkela’s colleagues. We were responsible for bringing back kilos of
two specific fruits that are only available in tropical climates. One is called
a lungen, which is similar to a lychee nut, but closely resembles a nutmeg. You
squeeze open the lungen to find a fleshy inside, about the size of a cherry,
with a pit in the middle. Like a cherry, you eat the outside flesh and discard
the seed, only the flesh is milky white and the taste is sweet and juicy like
an Asian pear. We also were responsible for bringing back mangostines, which
look like and are about the size of a large plum. Their purple, outer skin is
quite thick and the fruit inside is segmented into wedges, like an Clementine.
Again, the fruit is sweet and juicy, but much more silky and soft. Both of
these things I’d never had before, but part of the journey is trying new things
and learning that you love tropical fruit (something I already knew on account
that I bought a bag of Asian pears and a perfectly ripe pineapple to bring back
with me). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To find these things, Sarah
reached out to her colleague who had lived there for a couple of years and suggested
a part of time town that has a fruit market open most days. We hopped in a cab,
found the first fruit stand that met all of our requirements, and were off to
meet said colleague at a local café. One thing I must say about Singapore is
that coffee is never far away. After having fretted about where I was going to
get my next cup of coffee in China some years back, it was SO NICE to know that
coffee was available everywhere. I even learned how to order my own personal
style of coffee, “Kopi-C kosong,” or coffee with evaporated milk but no sugar.
Tropical fruits, cheap public transportation, and coffee all rolled into one
city. What more could a boy want in this world??<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After our fruit market/café
outing, it was time to DTF. Let me explain. DTF, or Din Tai Fung, is Singapore’s
answer to dim sum. You go to a restaurant, order your food in advance by
scribbling on something like a sushi menu, and when your number’s called you
get seated and promptly showered with baskets of steamed dumplings. After the
chili crab, this is one of those MUST EAT dishes in Singapore. I’m not clear on
how or why we ended up choosing the place we did, but I’m really glad we did.
We took a cab from the fruit market back to the Marina Sands resort (where the
Gardens by the Bay botanical garden is). The actual Marina Sands is a
hotel/casino/shopping mall on the scale I’ve only seen in Las Vegas before. The
hotel/condo complex is a series of three towers that rise up some fifty stories
to another block of building that rests on top. This block, parallel to the
ground, holds what I’m sure are ridiculous restaurants, nightclubs, and spas
for the you luxuriate in and swim out to your infinity pool on top of the city.
That’s the “residential” side of complex, if you will. The commercial side
holds a casino and shopping mall that would take hours to explore, but like the
rest of Singapore, it’s ridiculously easy to navigate. We ask the information
desk how to get to the restaurant we’re looking for, and they give us the stall
number. So like the Hawker Food Stands, each place of business has its own
address, which makes it all too easy to find. It’s usually something simple
like “floor # - stall #,” so we were looking for something like 1-33, which
would be on the first floor, stall 33. Interestingly enough, Singapore uses the
European floor numbering system, so the “first” floor is the first floor above
the ground floor, unlike China while uses the American system where the “first”
floor is the ground floor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So we find our restaurant,
and like any other American girl in the mall, we lose Sarah immediately to the
draw of Banana Republic. Mikkela and I eye the menu and put our order in for a
lovely selection of dumplings, stir-fried veggies, and fruit juices. You wait
outside like you would a service counter until your order’s called and then you’re
seated. Our food started showing up promptly, which is good because Mikkela and
I had a flight to catch sooner rather than later. We proceed to stuff an amazing
assortment of dumplings into our faces and have to whisk off again to the
airport. Before I leave the idea of din tai fung, I must share with you that
the locals call this restaurant experience “DTF-ing,” as in “we DTF-ed last
night.” In my primordial brain I know the acronym DTF as “Down To F*ck,” so
hearing that people DTF-ed last night pretty much makes me giggle every time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mikkela and I cab it back
to the airport, and because this damn country is so orderly, we’re at the
counter to check-in our bags before we know it. Mikkela had bought an LCD TV,
which is nicely packed inside her suitcase, so we tell the check-in attendant
we need a “fragile” tag on this bag. She simply tells us to put it off the side
with some other random suitcase and it’ll be taken care of. Anywhere else in
the world I’d object, but you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i>
that Singapore will properly label/handle this bag. We get through security
fine enough, though in Asia they don’t go through metal detectors until you get
to your gate, so really security was passport control. Once we’re inside, we
have Changi Airport at our disposal. I had heard about the free foot massage
chairs and the hotel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inside</i> the
airport that wouldn’t require you to go back through immigration, but I hadn’t
heard about the sunflower garden or the movie theater room that was available,
for free, to all passengers 24-hours a day. I wanted to take a picture of a
sunflower in the foreground and a jet airplane in the background, but true to
Asian stereotypes, there was a group of tourists busy taking pictures of
inanity. The food court was also open 24-hours, so if you needed a fresh
coconut or some laksa (a Malay noodle soup popular in Singapore) at any given
point, it’s definitely available to you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last Days in Bangladesh – 1/27-29/2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After flying back to Dhaka
with Mikkela, I had a whole slew of emotions and thoughts going through my
head. I was relieved to be back because at Mikkela’s I had my own bed, and if I
wanted to sleep in or just take a little quiet time at any point during the
day, I could shut the door. I was also relieved to be coming back to something
familiar. While Dhaka was by no means my home, everyday in Singapore was
exploring some new part of town, and after a while you just need to be able to
go back to your own familiar place and be content there. I think this is what I
was talking about at the beginning of this write-up saying that I like to go
home at the end of the day and recharge. There was also a sadness in the air
because I hadn’t been keeping specific days straight, but I knew that once we
came back from Singapore my days with Mikkela were numbered. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The weekends in Bangladesh
are considered Friday and Saturday, since Friday is the equivalent of the Sabbath
in Islam. For whatever reason, it’s local custom for the commercial centers in
various neighborhoods to take a day off during the week. In the part of town
that Mikkela lives in, that day is Sunday. I say all this because Mikkela and I
had a pretty relaxed day our first day back in Bangladesh. While we flitted
about a bit (we went to the grocery store and bought eggs, for instance), it
was generally quiet. Mikkela had arranged with her housekeeper to make some
food for Sunday night, and we had a couple of her closer friends come over for
a sort of low-key going away party for me. It struck me at this party how
wonderful this group of people is. They come from all walks of life—from local
Bangladeshis to crazy black girls from West Philadelphia to former military
badass chicas—and yet they all can happily get together and enjoy each others’
company. I’ve come to appreciate those moments when you realize that a group of
people is genuinely happy to be together, and that was one of those moments.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In what we all thought at
the time was my last day in country, Mikkela took me out for Korean food one
last time before we parted ways. She had already taken me to this restaurant
before for my birthday, but this was going to be a smaller affair, though with
the same actors. What makes this Korean restaurant special are a few things: 1)
the proprietress has taught her staff imperial Korean dishes, which means
detailed presentation and exquisite flavor, 2) if she’s there she comes out and
greets Mikkela like some long lost daughter, and 3) she takes care of her
staff. By that I mean she feeds them, trains them, gives the uniforms they’re
expected to wear, and she gives them the afternoon between 3:00 and 6:00 off to
go about their business and run errands. We saw that maître d’ out and about
one day, and it works out wonderfully for everyone. Because the whole place
runs so well—which says a lot because nothing runs as planned in Dhaka—both the
restaurant staff and the diners have a marvelous time. Not to mention the fact
that the food is superb!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The plan here was for
Mikkela’s driver to take us from the Korean restaurant to the airport for me to
check. After having a little actually finding the check-in counter, the
employee behind the counter smilingly tells me that, oh no, my flight’s ready
to take off so I won’t be able to get on. I look at my watch and I’m nearly two
hours early, so in so many words I ask this poor man to repeat himself. He makes
a couple quick taps at his computer and he tries to reassure me that everything’s
take care of and that I’m booked on tomorrow’s flight that will be leaving at
the same time. That’s all well and good, I thought, but I didn’t have anything
in writing that told me that I had a reservation on tomorrow’s flight out. He
waves the thought away and says that he’ll write his name down in case there
are issues tomorrow. Right buddy, you’re going to be off in the market sipping
on a coconut when I try to find you to ask about my reservation. That doesn’t
help my situation! He tries to convince me that everything will be fine, but I’m
pretty much in panic mode at this point because I was all ready to start my
24-hour journey back to DC, and it’s NOT HAPPENING. We drive back to Mikkela’s
apartment resigned to the fact that we’ll have to try this again tomorrow.
First thing I do is write a strongly worded email to the company from whom I
bought the airline ticket, and within an hour or so I’m getting a call from the
local representative from Turkish Airlines assuring me that he sees my
reservation in the system for tomorrow. This makes me feel a little better that
two separate people have told I’ll actually be able to leave tomorrow, but it
doesn’t solve the problem that I have nothing in writing stating this. So we
try again the next day. We find the Turkish Airlines ticket counter, get in
line with the other passengers (I see the old man who was in front of me the
night before undoubtedly having the same confused conversation I had the night
before). When it’s my turn at the ticket counter, I hand the man my passport
and after no time at all he hands me two boarding passes, one for my first
flight to Istanbul and one for the flight from Istanbul to DC. All he
essentially says to me is “enjoy your flight,” and that was that. How the hell
can it be that easy when they just randomly changed the departure time for me
flight the previous night?!?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The best part of this story
is after sleeping in because I had an extra day in Dhaka, I get an email
response from Orbitz. It starts out with the usual “we’re sorry about your
inconvenience” drivel, but then it goes on to say that the person writing this
message back has just gotten off the phone with a Turkish Airlines
representative stateside and they’ve confirmed my flight out—AT THE ORIGINALLY
POSTED TIME—from Dhaka the following evening. So if I hadn’t done what my local
airport employees had told me to do and listened to the company I bought the
ticket from, I would’ve been stuck in Dhaka for yet another day! There
obviously had been some sort of misstep in communication between Orbitz,
Turkish Airlines – America, and Turkish Airlines – Dhaka. We’ll never know all
the details to this travel mystery.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Journey Back Home</span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now that I was actually on
a plane and starting my journey home, I was happy go get back into a normal
routine in a place that I knew how to get around, but it’s pretty heartbreaking
leaving someone like Mikkela behind. Before this trip she had been on two of my
biggest adventures: traveling for two weeks in China, and a year or so later
taking a cross-country road trip from one coast to another. Now that she’s
working in the State Department overseas, I envision countless adventures
ahead. But right now I’m sad that I’m leaving my friend for another year until
her assignment in Bangladesh is up and she’s in DC for training for a while.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I learned this on my trip
to China, but when you travel for days, you actually lose or gain a day when
crossing over so many time zones. Case in point: I left on a Tuesday night and
arrived in Bangladesh on a Thursday morning. What happened to Wednesday?? On my
way back from Bangladesh, I’m leaving on a Tuesday night and getting back on a
Wednesday night. You’d think that’s only 24-hours lost, right? Oh no, you’re
forgetting about the time zones that you’re crossing through. All told, I
figured it’s taking me about 38 hours of travel, from the time I arrive at the
airport to the time I leave the final destination’s airport. It’s exhausting
just to think about, and this is coming from a boy that doesn’t really sleep on
planes!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This time I have a 12-hour
layover in Istanbul. Knowing this, I reach out to one of my Turkish grad school
buddies currently living in the city. Seda and I were close, not only because
we started and finished the same program at the same time while in Monterey,
but during our time there we participated in multiple “projects” together.
These projects ranged from belly dancing in drag for the school’s talent show
to her directing a group of us in a group of dramatic monologue readings for a
violence against women project to working as consultants for the City of Carmel
to revitalize their commercial downtown. I was happy to try to meet up with
her, but I was nervous because she simply told me to meet at the water-taxi
station in a particular marina. During my 24-hour delay in Dhaka, I Google
mapped the area and noticed that there was a Sheraton Hotel right in that
marina area. After going through the proper transfer procedures in Istanbul, I
took a nap in the airport for a couple of hours because it was at that point
something like 3:00am local time. I found my way to the visa office, which cost
me only $20, and hopped in a cab to Ataköy Marina. It really worked out well
because I got to the dock something like ten minutes before their water-taxi
arrived (right on time), and we had a long breakfast at a local café. Not only
is Turkish food amazingly flavorful, this is the land of coffee. While it may
be expensive to live a western lifestyle in Istanbul, I must say that it’s a
place that could hold your attention for a long while should you ever want to
move or visit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After I saw Seda and her
husband off, I taxied back to the airport and made it through security with no
problem. I was rather proud of myself at this point because I had successfully
gotten halfway home, seen my good friend from grad school, and gotten back to
the airport with time to spare before my last leg of the journey started.
Although the flight was long (12 hours from Istanbul to DC), everything worked
out. I should point out that, like getting into Bangladesh at the beginning of
this adventure, the immigration line at the airport was so long that by the
time I was through my baggage was again off the carousel and just waiting for
me to pick it up. At that point I just gathered up my things, found a cab for
the 10-minute ride home from the airport, and simply crashed. Because I lost my
cushion day from between I got back from my trip and when I had to be back at
work, it took until that weekend for me to feel more or less like a human
being, due to the lack of sleep and the inability to fully understand which
time zone I was in at that particular moment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Final Thoughts (about a week later)</span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This trip was another
demonstration of the lesson I had learned on my trip to China: that we’re all
such similar creatures. Sure we may do things differently, eat different food,
and have completely different views on a lot of subjects, but when it boils down
to it we’re all just trying to get by and do the best we can with what we know.
You can look at developing countries as poor and unsophisticated, but really
they’re just doing things a little differently because their culture and
history has brought them to a slightly different place, as compared to ours.
Americans certainly haven’t figured out the solution for a modern utopia, so I
don’t we should be so quick to judge others on how they do things. In fact, I think
we should really sit back and soak in the lessons that we may be able to learn
from others when in a new place. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What my continued travels
have taught me is humility and a sense of greater awareness. At the beginning
of this journey everyone was telling me to lower my expectations of Bangladesh
because the streets are filled with sink holes and open sewers, and it’s not an
incredibly pretty place. Because I had such low expectations starting out, I
was incredibly impressed with the place. Dhaka is a giant, vibrant metropolis
that’s obviously in the middle of a rebirth into a world city. I’m not say that
commerce and tourists are flocking to come, but everyday there is a more
prominent international presence. There are still serious problems, for sure—ever
the Peace Corps has had to pull out of the country—but construction is a
constant and you’d be amazed what you can find and buy here. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The people of Bangladesh
have also really surprised me. I had heard that the people are generally
friendly, but what I saw was a huge population just trying to get by. Everyone
was working, which speaks volumes about their work ethic. Mikkela says that
everyone has to keep a certain level of calm because it’s a hot, crowded place,
and if someone were to spark the populace, riots would be uncontrollable. While
only having spent a very limited amount of time there, I think there’s a deeper
layer that needs to be expressed. I was expecting a conservative country that
wouldn’t allow anyone to prosper outside of traditional sociocultural norms. But
I met gay men, independently minded women living on their own, and a society
that generally allowed women the same luxuries as a man. They even have a
female Head of State, something that the United States can’t yet boast! <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As someone who can
confidently call himself a world traveler at this point, I cannot express the
importance of flexibility in your travel plans enough. Coming from a family
that likes to plan every detail town to the minute of a vacation, I quite enjoy
giving yourself some flexibility when traveling to experience those unexpected
gems that you may just stumble upon. With that in mind, I encourage any
traveler to actively wander outside of the neighborhood or part of city that’s
typically considered the tourist section. People live here, so life happens in
some manner. By that I mean locals may do it differently that you, but it all
still somehow works out at the end of the day. Start your adventure with that
thought in mind and you’d be amazed at what you come across. On the same token,
be vigilant, aware, and smart about your travels. Try to wear local clothes as
much as possible, and do some research before you leave about local customs and
things to generally do while you’re in country. There’s generally some sort of
tourist office or even a concierge at your hotel, but take some time to get off
the beaten path. That’s where the world really lives.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
</div>
Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-14639075951502926602011-06-15T10:46:00.001-07:002011-06-15T10:46:40.673-07:00Before Stonewall<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This past weekend I walked in my first gay pride parade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have been to pride parades in multiple cities and have seen the regional differences between them, but this was the first one in which I participated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was kind of a bittersweet moment for me, though not in the traditional sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I walked with an LGBT alumni group from my alma mater, and immediately coming up to that group where we were staging I felt unwelcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It reminded me of my days during undergrad when I thought it was just the fact that I was with a ‘different’ group than I normally hung out with, but no, most of the gay boys there were palpably unfriendly toward outsiders (those of us who weren’t already in their club).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sweet part of the parade was the sheer number of people who came out to watch all of the floats come by and truly rejoice on our holiday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every year I forget how many of us there are out there and how joyful it is to come together and be proud of one’s identity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because June is historically ‘gay appreciation’ month (due to the Stonewall Riots of the late 1960s happening at the end of June), PBS and others have been presenting some great information on gay history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First there was a documentary I saw with a fellow queer about the Stonewall Riots themselves and now I’m checking out a similar documentary on Netflix about gay culture before Stonewall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Essentially what I’ve learned is how far we’ve come as a minority group since…well…being generally accepted in society.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I moved out to California for grad school in the mid-2000s I was disappointed in the lack of overt gay culture anywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure I was studying in a quiet, touristy destination, but I needed to be with the gays at some point, damn it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came to learn that there’s noticeably less overt gay culture outside of San Francisco not because Californians hate the gays, but because the gays are so much more accepted into mainstream culture that there’s no real reason to ostracize oneself from the fold—you were genuinely accepted as you were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a concept.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Watching these documentaries talking about how if you wore the same color handkerchief as your tie, that just meant you were gay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it was some sort of Earth shattering that women…<gasp>…would wear trousers to work during World War II because their skirts could get caught in the machinery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of these ‘innovations,’ women were freer to not only wear pants but also make their own money and not necessarily leave their parents’ house because they were pregnant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It blew me away that men were expected to wear ties in civilized society; I think of think as a throwback to the turn of the century, but I suppose that only a generation away from then you’d still have the regular masses still keeping to that social norm.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Even watching a special about “Wigstock” that was shot in the mid-90s demonstrates how far the gay community has come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of being campy and overly flamboyant, there are those of us these days who simply blend in consider our sexual orientation and just one of the many facets that make us who we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are, of course, still amazingly fabulous drag queens too.</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-88896736489701156552011-05-30T17:26:00.001-07:002011-05-30T17:26:13.694-07:00Growth<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In times of struggle in my life I’ve often sought out the written word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not necessarily in reading, but rather in writing it myself which is normally uncharacteristic of who I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I mean by that is when my life chugging along, I don’t stop to think about how things are progressing and what little changes should be made along the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like to keep myself busy probably because then I don’t have to think about those ideas on an everyday basis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the past two years I’ve really learned a lot about how the world works, how I fit into it, and what I need to consider myself fulfilled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Throughout my time in grad school I had a nagging feeling while living in paradise about what if it doesn’t work out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well looking for the third job in two years pretty much counts as things not working out, but you know what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m still alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And better for the experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We always have those moments where we wish we could go back to a younger version of oneself and say that things will work out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of aching for that ability to do just that, I’m just grateful I’ve learned what I have so far and can start seeing how lessons from the past and present and fit into whatever possible future lies ahead.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I heard recently a saying that says something like a new seedling grows from the shell of the old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I vividly remember as a child bringing cooking beans into school, putting them into a cup with a damp paper town, and in a couple days roots have started growing into a whole new plant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want to look at this time as a passage from childhood to adulthood (forget the fact that I’m almost thirty), but I do see it as the starting of a new phase in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A great aunt that recently died explained to me ten years ago when she turned eighty that any extra years she had from that point she considered bonus years, so she could eat whatever she wanted, do whatever she wanted, and enjoy life however she could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some level I look at her as a role model, even if I was never really close to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was always a giving person, even until the day she passed she was helping people at church and would entertain guests too often for her own good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I’m destined to be like her once I turn eighty and refuse to slow down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a nice thought to have.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">During previous times that were rough, I was constantly reminding myself of the amazing group of people I have around me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a little different this time, more introspective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say I’m not exorbitantly grateful for those around me, but I’m really doing it myself this time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well that, and since I’ve been here before I know what to expect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that looking for work is an obscene rollercoaster ride of emotions: some days you feel like as prepared and capable for a particular position and that you’re the obvious choice, and then there days when you wonder if you’ll ever find a job that pays well and that you can see yourself getting up for the rest of your career to go to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know I’m capable of waking up and going to a job, and I feel that search won’t take a ridiculous time to unfold given my background and abilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just thankful that I can see that endpoint, even when there’s no explicit endpoint in site.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-70932738433240983352011-05-17T19:34:00.001-07:002011-05-17T19:34:30.366-07:00Day 14: Moving<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Moving from one place to another, and one house to another, is a big task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Write about one of your most memorable house moves.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This kind of prompt really gets me thinking about the amazing life I have lived thus far, and by that I mean I’ve made some amazing moves in my lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From crossing the Atlantic Ocean multiple times to driving cross-country from one coast to the other, it’s been a wild ride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the biggest eye opener move for me was moving to Germany after spending five years in North Carolina when I was in middle school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say that mostly because I had become rather entrenched in the school and friends I knew, though I was excited for the adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just didn’t know what to expect.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My Dad had left something like a month before we did so he could figure out living quarters and start getting acclimated to a new life on a new continent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had been doing this whole career, so Mom and the kids waited until school was out during the summer after 6<sup>th</sup> grade for me and 9<sup>th</sup> grade for my sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was just coming into my own as a person, meaning I was truly becoming aware of social interactions, the fact that my face was covered with acne, and I’d have to make new friends looking and feeling about as awkward as anyone ever looks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Long plane rides had never been a big deal for me since I’ve been doing them since before I can remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once we arrived at Frankfurt’s airport, Dad met us with an Army van and his NCOIC (that’s Noncommissioned Officer in Charge to you non-military speaking folk).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting off a transatlantic flight means arriving at the beginning of the day right when your body is screaming at you to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember it was raining when drove the hour or so back to our new home town, and I remember that I was excited because we were going to live on Hamburger Street!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Close, but it really was Hamburg Stra<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ß</span>e.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Beyond the funny looking “b” in the German word for street, the kids in my neighborhood were American.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I met a couple kids pretty soon after settling into the new house and found the local community swimming pool, which is a lot bigger thing in Germany that the States for some reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most exciting thing I discovered that summer, however, were blackberries!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just off a walking path that led downtown from our neighborhood were these trails that were covered in blackberry brambles, and man did I pig out!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s interesting what you remember and what you don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure this adventure was more than fifteen years ago, but there are things I remember crystal clearly and others that I can’t put my finger around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One example is the friends that I had my first year after moving to Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember a couple of the kids because they lived on my street or were in a lot of my classes, but I’m sure there were others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember having a hard time settling in mostly because my band skills were, relatively speaking, pretty awful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Granted the school band (I played trumpet) wasn’t anything to write home about, but it took me that first year to really get to be good enough to feel I could continue playing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regardless, I’m sure not an easy move but it’s definitely one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had yet.</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-42703179905373314172011-05-17T19:33:00.001-07:002011-05-17T19:33:57.517-07:00Day 13: Work Adventures<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Write about a weird day in your workplace.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wow, what a prompt!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, I could write about the day when I called in sick to work to <cough cough> drink champagne on Pebble Beach or where I needed to take a mental health day and sit my apartment building’s lovely pool during the summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no, I think we’ll talk about the day where the New Yorker met the Indian (as in South Asian, not Native American).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My first job out of college was working for Oracle Corporation, the computer software people who bought out Sun Microsystems and PeopleSoft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was in their federal contracts administration department, which meant I was a glorified paper pusher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure I stamped my name on official documents, but mostly it was sitting around waiting for someone to get a specific approval or piece of paper with some specific language on it so I could then send off my stack of papers to someone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That someone else was our revenue accounting department which was located in southern India at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I quickly learned that the best method of communication for us was through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) because their English wasn’t exactly amazing and if I needed to get a quick answer from one of their team, this was just the best way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It worked for me, but apparently not for everyone on my team.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Meet Sharon, the resident den mother for our team of ten or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had teenage daughters, so she was already used to screaming/loving on her brood at the same time, so it really didn’t change much when she came to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also had had an accounting background in a former life, so she was already used to looking at numbers/figures/details and the like so she was generally a good person to go to when you had a question outside your realm of knowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sharon was from Long Island, which I figured out pretty quickly because she liked to yell at people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not yell in the sense that she was screaming, but yell in the sense that she wanted to make sure her point-of-view was heard and that you knew she was going to do it her way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, our Indian friends in Revenue Accounting didn’t really get it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One day Sharon is yelling at “Christina” on the phone (as in “hello, my name is “Bob,” how can I help you with your technical problem?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christina, in my opinion, was a lovely and capable girl—she just didn’t need some New Yorker screaming at her to get her job done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I was an International Affairs major as an undergrad, this generally meant that I had worked with people from different cultures before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Essentially, I became the liaison between Christina and Sharon because they had both gotten so worked up that they couldn’t calmly talk to each other on the phone.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sharon worked with different people than I did, so I didn’t know exactly what the issue was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I ultimately called Christina on my phone, asked her what she needed from Sharon (and vice versa), and got the problem resolved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I spoke both parties’ languages, so to speak, we were able to rather easily resolve the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What made is so weird is that it was perfectly natural to talk to both of them, yet they couldn’t talk to each other.</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-61694094472493421092011-05-11T21:26:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:34:29.512-07:00Day 12: Economics<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Write about a brief but scary encounter with one of your old professors.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anthony Yezer was the first economics professor I ever had, and he still scares the bejeezus out of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s one of those stereotypical professors in that he’s so aptly lost in academia and has no real ability to express the simplest of economic ideas to a novice like I was my first semester freshman year of college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d start lecturing to a group of something like 200 students and prattle on for a solid 90-minute period about God knows what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first few weeks I tried to follow along, the next few weeks I simply glazed over when he started talking, and finally I just stopped going to the class because I learned that I could at least read the book (or sleep with it under my pillow) and at least glean <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i> from that exercise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was truly one of those excruciating classes that people talk about, though I hadn’t yet experienced the true horror until Introduction to Microeconomics with Professor Yezer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because he was so lost in his own world of academia, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a true interaction with him besides turning in a problem set for exam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God, the problem sets!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A friend and I would meet the weekend before they were due and try to knock them out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first time we met I was helplessly lost and I was hoping she’d give me some sort of idea of where to look.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you believe she was just as lost as I was??<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something like fifty word problems that we had to solve and neither of us had any idea what we were doing!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It took me back to my senior year of high school where I somehow thought it’d be a good idea to take AP Physics from another equally awful teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we had labs, I’d start scribbling things down and at the end the physics teacher wanted us to do something called a t-test, which apparently would somehow measure a percentage of how far off your lab results were from the real answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I started getting numbers like 1300% I knew I was a lost cause.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Okay, back to Yezer…<shudder>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My friend and I would scribble some cock-and-bull answers to the questions Yezer would give us on the problem set and then laugh about how ridiculously awful our answers were, yet they were solved to the best of our ability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would literally giggle under my breath when I turned in my homework for that class because some pour grad student would be grading some truly atrocious work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, that wasn’t the worst work I ever turned in during my undergraduate years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m not sure the babbling I’ve been doing for this entry really satisfies the ‘assignment,’ yet that’s the beauty of creative writing—you just start writing and whatever comes out is really what you were meant to say from the beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s rather rewarding in that sense, you can interpret the prompt any way you’d like and then share some random memory or thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will leave the reader with this last thought: Professor Yezer is to me as the Dementors are to Harry Potter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They suck the living soul out of you and literally feed on that energy.</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-592872685537353212011-05-10T22:12:00.001-07:002011-05-10T22:12:31.273-07:00Day 11: Stories<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Below are three sets of words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Use all the words in each to write mini stories in 300 words or less.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Set 1: paper clips, principal, lunchbox, swing, girl with a pink ribbon</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Set 2: biology, class card, foreign student, leaf, blood sample</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Set 3: typewriter, filing cabinet, puncher, clerk, carbon paper, janitor”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Story 1</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Harry was sent to the principal’s office one day because he was being a nuisance during lunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The slip the teacher had used to write him up said that he had been throwing paper clips at the other tables for no apparent reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to eye witnesses, Harry was keeping a box of paper clips in his lunchbox that he had bought at an office supply store the other day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">While waiting to speak with the assistant principal in charge of discipline, Harry noticed a girl with a pink ribbon in her hair also waiting inside the principal’s office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What on Earth could this sweet young thing be doing here?” thought Harry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The girl was invited into the office and the door closed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently that sweet little thing had set fire to a tire swing during recess.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Story 2</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bing Su is getting ready to fly to America and, for the first time in his life, be a foreign student in an American classroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While looking at a leaf under a microscope in his Biology class in preparation for curriculum in the States, Bing receives a class card from the principal’s office of his current school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not really knowing what to with it, he makes an appointment to see the principal for an explanation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It turns out all he needs to complete his study abroad application is to give the local clinic a blood sample and he’ll be ready to start his adventure!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Story 3</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the back office of crime fighting detective extraordinaire Private Dick, the typewriter was a-clanging creating a summary of the last caper solved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The clerk was using the hole puncher and slamming drawers from the filing cabinet to make sure all of the paperwork had been filed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s one thing to file a police report, but what happens if the criminal from an unsolved case breaks into your office and steals your carbon paper copies?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s when you get a safe for the storage of your personal and professional belongings.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What the office of Private Dick didn’t know was that it was the janitor all along that had been leaking the crime scene information to the press.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This behind-the-scenes information had allowed the bad guy to get away, but what the public didn’t know was that the bad guy was also that janitor’s brother!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, heavens to Betsy!</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-7884666868384931432011-05-09T11:15:00.000-07:002011-05-09T11:15:33.840-07:00Day 10: Ninja Star<span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“For this prompt, you’ll come up with a poem about an object that describes you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, choose an object.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next, list down the reasons you think the object you chose represents you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From your list of reasons, which one is the most powerful?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which one conveys the strongest image of you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once you’ve chosen your main image, list down things that support this main image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Build your poem from there.”</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXMuqY1V5zdY3v48DRZ4xwBqqjR1GqPrOyw0r_9Qwpc5XRCcjYSeXrP67AT1w33NwS2iIgbpQXDL25ai1B5ITSZGPX5I5E8AiMnfgEGjnBCFDDpksIFCtfw0kZ2zUIs9ORMuNLXyWjuc/s1600/32-origami-ninja-star.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXMuqY1V5zdY3v48DRZ4xwBqqjR1GqPrOyw0r_9Qwpc5XRCcjYSeXrP67AT1w33NwS2iIgbpQXDL25ai1B5ITSZGPX5I5E8AiMnfgEGjnBCFDDpksIFCtfw0kZ2zUIs9ORMuNLXyWjuc/s320/32-origami-ninja-star.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of all the things you can come up with that represent you, for some reason an origami ‘ninja star’ was the first to pop into my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to make these things for friends and myself all the time in Middle School, and it’s got this great, powerful yet simple design to with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately, I think it’s the fact that it requires to separate pieces put together to make into one complete package that really attracts me to it, kind of like a yin yang balance that we all subconsciously strive for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the object I’ve chosen to represent me is an origami ninja star and the quality I feel the strongest about is its duality.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Noel</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Interacts with others </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nonchalantly in order for them to let their guard down,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just as one does when meeting an</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Animal or baby for the first time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Those encounters turn out</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All right, though there are always</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Risks and rewards when meeting new people.</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-24748175109584221322011-05-08T17:07:00.001-07:002011-05-08T17:07:51.401-07:00Day 9: Mother's Day<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Describe what you feel right now using your sense of smell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you feel frustrated, write about what your frustration smells like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Use vivid words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t skimp on adjectives.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wow, what a great creative writing assignment for Mother’s Day!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I mean is today has been something of an emotional rollercoaster for me in that it started with having to get up earlier than I wanted to because I was staying at my grandmother’s house and she’s a morning person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Actually, truth be told, it was my cousin turning on the shower which was next to the room was sleeping in that woke me up.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I started the day feeling grumpy, groggy, and generally ill-content, though I’m supposed to describe those feelings in smell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s see, the coffee was brewing when I woke up, so there’s that earthy, bitter, and spicy smell that everyone knows of that’s coffee brewing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God, I love that smell.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After breakfast we needed to go to a hardware store because my dad wanted to get a cable splicer for my grandmother’s second TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knowing my family, I wasn’t allowed out of the house until I had a bath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So then there’s the smells of the bathroom: hand soap that’s floral yet synthetic at the same time, the minty freshness of toothpaste, and then the mixture of softness and freshness that can only be found in a freshly laundered bath towel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because my grandmother’s such a clean person, when you turn on the piping hot water in the bathroom, the stem permeates the room with the smell of vapor and cleaning products that tell you it’s really okay to sit down and soak in the tub if you need to.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Leaving my grandmother’s house this afternoon my cousin and I stopped at Bojangles to get some fresh-made biscuits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know that smell of fried anything?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yeah, that’s pretty much the only smell you need to imagine to get the idea of what a Bojangles smells like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there’s the ride back home, which doesn’t smell like much of anything because the highway is pretty devoid of any kind of personality whatsoever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coming home is always nice because you feel like you belong, though my room is pretty messy at the moment so there’s definitely a little bit of funk in the air when entering my bedroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Granted it’s my funk, so I’m perfectly at home in it because I did make the bed I sleep in.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m recounting all of these things not only to make the ‘assignment’ a little easier to access, but also because it helps to demonstrate what I’m feeling at the moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had a crazy 24-hour journey to visit my extended family, but more importantly it was an opportunity to honor moms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t really get to spend a lot of time with my mom on this trip, but we had a great experience helping prepare dinner last night together (something she’s been doing longer than I’ve known her), but at least now I’m able to pick up some of the smaller nuances in the kitchen when I’m with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last time I was home I was reminded that she hums in the kitchen when making food—something I’ve always heard but never really connected with my mom’s spirit—and last night I was able to see her in full glory commanding a kitchen and organizing a house full of hungry people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although providing for one’s family is one of those great, intangible measures that moms give us, being able to bask in that glory and be part of it is really one of the best experiences in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Happy Mother’s Day to all moms!</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-28403719205186087982011-05-07T05:37:00.000-07:002011-05-07T05:37:00.345-07:00Day 8: What Happened<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Make a list of 40 things that happened to you this month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can be funny, embarrassing, happy, or infuriating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then pick from your list and write about it.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s really the simple pleasures in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bought myself a Kindle to read on my commutes to and from work during the workweek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because anything that’s no longer copyrighted is essentially free to download on that thing, I had been reading some classics, such as Moby Dick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But reading Capt. Ahab’s story was a little too dense for me to start reading at the beginning of my day, so I switched over to something a little lighter and definitely in the realm of pleasure reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book that I picked up at some random trip to the bookstore (maybe when Borders was shutting down its stores?) and decided to read now is called “Living in a Foreign Language” </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Living-Foreign-Language-Memoir-Italy/dp/B002EQ9LJY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304770112&sr=8-1"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.amazon.com/Living-Foreign-Language-Memoir-Italy/dp/B002EQ9LJY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304770112&sr=8-1</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> which tells the story of an American couple moving to Central Italy to start a new chapter in their lives once their youngest kid has gone off to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone want to move to Umbria with me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m serious.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The fact that I read a travel book isn’t exactly noteworthy, since it’s kind of my go-to genre when I need some armchair adventures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it was just one of those perfect reads at the perfect time when I truly needed it that made it special.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also incorporated my family quite well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I mean is my mom’s half Sicilian, and she and my dad spent a good five years in Italy not knowing if they were going to come back stateside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They ultimately did, but there’s always been this part of them that speaks of their time there longingly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure they wonder “what if” they had stayed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this book mostly talks about the aspects of Italy the couple find magical: the people, the history, the topography, and saving the best for last the food.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">God, the food!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the kind of place where you have to ‘settle’ for white truffles in the summer, even though everyone knows the black winter truffles are the best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the author details going to numerous trips to different butcher shops that made me drooling like Pavlov’s dog by the time he finished—prosciutto so finely sliced it’s translucent, pizzas and gelato made better than you’ve ever had just waiting there on the streets of Rome, and copious amounts of wine beyond anyone’s imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, let’s not kid ourselves, I can imagine a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s just say the story my parents told me of the neighbors coming over with three bottles of wine for the two of them and then asking the next day which one they liked the best is dead on in this culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wine, carbs, and pork products, what’s not to love??</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The way the author writes really reminds me of how my dad recounts trips he takes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One example: they go up to Quebec during Spring Break a couple years back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom loves Quebec City because of the cobblestoned streets and European flavor of everything, while Dad’s memory focuses on the food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We had this amazing salmon dinner one night, and then these éclairs another day…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s quite amusing to hear because I’m not quite sure they were on the same trip after hearing their two sides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, I’ve babbled enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Go read a book and get lost in your own adventure.</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-53024321736633017582011-05-06T08:03:00.000-07:002011-05-06T08:03:59.383-07:00Day 7: Electricity<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Electricity is a recent discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think of 12 things to do when there’s no power.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just because I was raised on Beavis and Butthead (against the expressed wishes of my parents, I might add), the first thing that pops into my mind is fornication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t need any light to do a little fornicatin’—be it with yourself or with anyone else—and it’s a good way to stay warm if the heat’s also out.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For some reason, I always equate building a fire with a power outage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s just that primeval security blanket thing, but I always want to build a fire.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And if there’s a fire, what better thing to do that requires no energy at all but tell ghost stories?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seriously, this is when you can get your creative juices flowing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A favorite ghost story of mine comes from </span><a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/02/scariest-story.html"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/02/scariest-story.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like, this is poop your pants scary.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another way to get your creative juices flowing is to make a meal…out of only things that are in the pantry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be as creative as roasting marshmallows over a candle to making a meal of pop-tarts and trail mix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a pinch, your pantry’s got some real treasures.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I remember having a power outage a work one time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all just sat there staring blankly at our darkened computer screens still trying to click our mice when I got up to wander around to talk to people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So that’s another thing you can do with no power: babble with co-workers.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And speaking of wandering around, regardless of the time of day, if there’s no power you can go for a walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walks are nice because you can let your mind wander, but it’s also fun in the dead of the night and there aren’t any streetlights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It makes the scene quite eerie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Playing board games don’t generally require power, unless you have some fancy new version of Trivial Pursuit I’m not aware of.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reading a book also doesn’t require any power, though the whole lighting situation may be tricky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really should just keep some candles around just in case.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">9)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In this day of mobile telephonic devices, your cell phone doesn’t require external power immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Call the power company to see what the crap is going on.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Organize something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This may not sound too exciting, but you know that project you’ve had about redoing your closet for the longest time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well without the Real Housewives of wherever-the-hell blaring from you TV, you could potentially tackle that project.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m sure you’ve got something in your house that’s not electrically operated that you can use to occupy your mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, I’ve got a Lego pirate ship (yes, I’m that awesome).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could EASILY see myself making the fair maiden walk the plank, or have the pirate crew set off on some wild adventure for hours if I felt the need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reconnect with your inner child and play.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And finally, if your area doesn’t have any power, that may just be a localized thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get in someone’s car and drive to another area of town—that area may not even realize that others are without power!</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-5286068816087195912011-05-05T12:18:00.000-07:002011-05-05T12:18:28.569-07:00Day 6: More Poetry<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">"List down all the clichés you can think of, then choose one you’re most familiar with, or the one that strikes your fancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make that the first line of your poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can take the cliché literally or figuratively.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Editor’s note: as one can probably imagine from my last entry, poetry isn’t exactly my forte.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Half of this whole experiment is to stretch those creative muscles a little more than they’re used to, so I suppose my whole poetic side needs a workout from time to time too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s see how this one works out.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">by: Noel Oakes</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nothing ventured, nothing gained</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Something that’s been engrained into my head by now.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But what do we mean by venturing—</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Out your door in the morning?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trying something new?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Competing in the rat race?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s really just a question of finding what makes You.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What makes up all the qualities that are You?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is it Your hair color, shoe size, or the fact that You don’t like asparagus?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or is it something more, something more akin to Your thoughts and personality?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All of this is true and so much more.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sit down, take a deep breath, close your eyes, see listen for You to start talking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s a quiet, little voice, nothing more than a whisper,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it’s also the most powerful compass You have in Your toolkit.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No one can say if it’s right or wrong.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But if you’re listening to You and the message resonates to Your core,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Accept Your love and continue listening.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What can You do with the information that’s gained from simply listening?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In one word: everything.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is your portal to the rest of the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And what happens when You direct that energy to benefit others?</span></div><span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Only You can find out if You decide to venture…</span>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-36407786580734167862011-05-04T20:22:00.000-07:002011-05-04T20:24:51.730-07:00Day 5: Poetry<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Choose a poem you like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take the last line and use that as the first line of your own poem.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The poem I chose is Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the full text of the poem and an audio clip of its reading, go to: </span><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last line of the poem is, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rage, rage against the dying of the night</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For tomorrow you may not continue as part of Earth’s blight.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mother Earth is scarred by we humans’ deadly touch,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And only by our hand has the Earth been marred so much.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The end is near, or so they say.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">However it ends, humankind has answers for which to pay.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But fear not my sister and brother,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As we all do come from one eternal mother.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let us sing loud and have every voice heard!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Allow all to say their peace regardless of how absurd.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If we recognize that no [wo]man is better than the next,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then maybe at the end we will all be allowed to rest.</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-81516403319914830502011-05-03T07:46:00.000-07:002011-05-03T07:46:31.934-07:00Day 4: Cinderella<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Fairy tales have happy endings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of us know what happened in that mushy fairy tale, Cinderella.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yeah, it’s romantic, the prince actually finding Cinderella.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They lived happily ever after.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But happy endings can sometimes be, well…boring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No zing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So predictable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if the shoe fit one of the sisters?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What happens then?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Play with your imagination here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be funny if you like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or serious if you feel like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or be an Alfred Hitchcock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever you are into, write your ending to the Cinderella story—but this time, make it so that the shoe fit one of the icky sisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What does Prince Charming do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does Cinderella cope with it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what about the Fairy Godmother?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Start your story here.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let’s recap: Prince Charming is trying to find the girl of his dreams and comes across a glass slipper that an enchanting woman left behind after leaving the royal ball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s now out searching the countryside looking for that woman and comes across the house where Cinderella, her to stepsisters, and the wicked stepmother all live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miraculously, the glass slipper fits perfectly on one of the stepsister’s feet, so he proposes to her immediately and they ride off into the sunset together leaving Cinderella, the other stepsister, and the wicked stepmother together again for eternity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’re going to say that this story is set in France because one of the first written accounts of this story was penned by a Frenchman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Actually, the Wikipedia page for Cinderella has some great history on where the story came from, so check it out </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prince Charming decides to take his new bride to Normandy to show off the magnificent cliffs and the charming little towns in order to show her that he is as strong, strapping, and masculine as the Normans who invaded Great Britain from these same beaches so many years ago. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The honeymoon was all fine and dandy and both are happily in love with one another—until they get back to Prince Charming’s castle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The raving bitch rears her head and a maelstrom of forces comes down on the poor prince.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To get away from his psychotic harpy of a wife, the prince walks the castle grounds and meets up with one of his favorite servants, Groundskeeper Henri.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Henri’s been outside working all day and has just come back to his cabin to take his shirt off and relax for a moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as the shirt is coming off is when Prince Charming knocks on the door and realizes how beautiful Henri really is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unbeknownst to the prince, Henri has always had a soft spot in his heart for the prince too.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The two wine and dine together for many a night, keeping a respectable distance from one another as to keep things proper, when one day the prince has an idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He goes over to Henri’s cabin in the afternoon to start making dinner for the two of them, and when Henri comes back from the day’s labors, the prince proceeds to shove glass after glass of wine at the poor boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being a Frenchman Henri obliges the prince until the prince comes over, grab’s Henri’s crotch, gives it a little pat, smiles, and walks away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the signal Henri had been waiting for after all these years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two make passionate man-love all evening long and run away together the next day to Bordeaux to drink wine and fornicate together for the rest of their lives.</span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-78493460573996777222011-05-02T08:07:00.000-07:002011-05-02T08:07:18.189-07:00Day 3<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“The dictionary atop your shelf has more than 200,000 words defined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why don’t you blow off some of the dust on its cover and randomly pick out 10 words?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t look at the meanings; just concentrate on the words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Write down your chosen words on a (blank) sheet of paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, you’re going to have fun creating meanings for those words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do the words make you think of?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> think they should mean?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Editor’s note: The only dictionary I have after multiple moves across country is a French/German dictionary I picked up while studying abroad in Belgium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enjoy the selection!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;">É</span></u><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">cumoire</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one of those straw holders you see in diners that look not all dissimilar to the comb thermos things you see at barber shops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: a skimming ladle, a skimmer.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">Frontalier</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">: comes from the same word as “front,” as in All Quiet on the Western…which means the first wave of attack during a wartime movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: someone who lives near a border.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">Kippelig</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">: literally translated I think this means “kibble-like,” so something that resembles dog food—something grainy, dry, and hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: wobbly.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">Mehlschwitze</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">: I love that my German is so rusty because I used to know what these two separate words were, so I’m going to guess that “Mehl” is “mail,” as in the post, and “Schwitze” is something akin to a spinster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s call this a single, old mail carrier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: a roux, as in a sauce of butter and flour, then with milk added.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">Morig</span></u><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;">é</span></u><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">ner</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">: let’s see, this is something like a metamorphosis, specifically when a caterpillar changes from a pupa into a butterfly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: to reprimand.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u>Rapi</u><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>cer</u>: the action of rearranging furniture in a room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: to patch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">Rattrapage</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">: all the soot and ash that’s collected under a fireplace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: an economic (market) adjustment.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">Strapazierf</span></u><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;">ä</span></u><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">hig</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">: I know that “f</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;">ä</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">hig” means “able,” so this word describes when one is able to get away with wearing a strapless bra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: heavy duty.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">9)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">Unterkiefer</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">: so literally this word means “under keeper,” so it’s got to be the opposite of an undertaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An underkeeper is someone who wipes your backside if you’re not able to do it yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: the lower jaw, mandible.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10)</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">Verrenkung</span></u><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-no-proof: yes;">: is the quality in someone who’s naturally adept at climbing trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actual meaning: a dislocation, as in to dislocate one’s shoulder.</span></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;">A special thanks to <a href="http://www.wordreference.com/">http://www.wordreference.com/</a> and <a href="http://dict.leo.org/">http://dict.leo.org/</a> for their lovely (and free) online dictionaries. </span>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-61995861446327515062011-05-01T08:14:00.000-07:002011-05-01T08:14:05.493-07:00Day 2<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“A picture is worth more than a blank page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take out those dusty photo albums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pick out photo #14.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Count however way you like, but make sure you stop at photo #14.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at the photo for 2-3 minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then for 10 minutes, write all the feelings that photograph made you feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t censor yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just write.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me just start this entry saying that looking at this photo made me giggle the minute I looked at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to go through a couple of different albums to find a picture I could (or wanted to) talk about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately I came across a photo that just tells a story in my mind, which is ultimately what a picture is supposed to do, so it’s at the end of this entry for your viewing pleasure.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For a birthday a few years back, another friend had told me about a winter wine festival taking place in Sonoma County the very weekend of my birthday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because my birthday is in January, it’s typically colder than…well…anything I’d care to imagine, so we’ll just leave it at it’s usually REALLY cold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That being said, this was my first winter in California where seasons don’t seem to work the same way as the rest of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wine country can get to the lower 90’s during the daytime and the evenings are cool and wonderful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, it’s pretty much heaven for someone like me because it stays like that all year round and you’re “forced” to explore the vine-covered countryside to look for your next tasting room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I…er…hate when that happens?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In order to get back to the exercise at hand, I felt I needed to share a little back story about how this photo transpired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The photo itself is of my two girlfriends—empty wine glass in hand—while posing for the camera after multiple tasting rooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember thinking (after multiple samples myself) how beautiful wine country really is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t get me wrong, another favorite place of mine from my childhood also revolves around vineyards, though not because of the wine itself, so I knew the power and beauty these kinds of places held on me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But having wine IN wine country really completed the whole transcendental experience for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was home, so I wanted to share this moment by capturing my two girls in this photo.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another thing that comes to mind when looking at this photo is the love I have for these two women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emily, the one of the left, has had multiple personal issues in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After taking control of those, she’s one of those who somehow decided not only to conquer them but then to set out for a course in life that couldn’t possibly lead to riches, but rather give her the satisfaction that she’s helping special needs children try to come to grip with their own personal demons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s an inspiration to me for finding something that works for her and sticking with it, which shown me that you’re the only one who can live your own life and no one is going to tell you how to do it otherwise.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My other friend, Seda, is also an amazing role model/friend of mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She left her native Turkey for college and then grad school in the States, found a guy who has proved that he’ll travel the world to be with her, and has ultimately moved back to Turkey so she can be closer to her elderly grandparents while she still has the opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here I am worrying about these little, meaningless things in my life when I have friends around me that take like by the horns and ride off into the sunset looking for the next adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to join them.</span></div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiupjkiJxB3fGN3yiahxUwfEu-Abwk4hyTB2iT3hWcp-FPL0HBfCTjSoOsDIhmj4Py44iQTroDRF8pTSdUceXtCWvoL9U1EHx4i-MczWpFJsVdVNTMYoms5SGm6LquYRxdRhMphMKjwu4s/s1600/Emily+and+Seda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiupjkiJxB3fGN3yiahxUwfEu-Abwk4hyTB2iT3hWcp-FPL0HBfCTjSoOsDIhmj4Py44iQTroDRF8pTSdUceXtCWvoL9U1EHx4i-MczWpFJsVdVNTMYoms5SGm6LquYRxdRhMphMKjwu4s/s400/Emily+and+Seda.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emily and Seda in Sonoma County</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-71470602350068671582011-05-01T08:11:00.000-07:002011-05-01T08:11:37.250-07:00Day 1<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Close your eyes briefly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think about one object that’s in the room and focus on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without opening your eyes, recall as much detail as you can about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After three minutes or so, open your eyes and write about that object without looking at it.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have a painting in my room that a friend of mine did simply for the practice that I was enamored with since the first time I saw it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the picture of a Thai drag queen whose photo my friend saw in a National Geographic magazine some years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She cut the picture out of the magazine, taped it onto the canvas on which she was going to be painting, and then replicated this photo of the drag queen while she was performing on stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish I still had the original photo attached to the canvas because my friend really got the essence of what the original photographer was trying to capture, in terms of the energy and excitement exuding from this amazing drag queen persona.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The picture was a full body shot of the drag queen in her bright sunshine yellow and peach outfit on stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My friend decided to do a close-up of the drag queen’s upper body to focus on the face and the way her hands were folded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The drag queen—we’ll call her Ti (“tee”) for truth—has this equally radiant smile on her face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A smile I can only equate to a performer on stage in her element.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any performer who has gotten on stage will do, as they all have that same I’m-back-home-again smile that just let’s you know you’re going to have a good time in their presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose it’s the same kind of a smile a child has either on Christmas morning when they receive that one thing they were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> hoping for, or when a parent who’s been away comes back home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either way, Ti’s got that smile.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ti’s clothes are a light and flowing linen or silk—because when the different seasons change from hot, hotter, or hottest you need something that won’t cling to you while you’re working it on stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The clothes kind of drape over her and would flow down to the ground and sway in the breeze to give her skinny little body some semblance of some curves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her hair is pulled back into a bun or ponytail so you can see all of the laboriously applied makeup she’s so diligently used to highlight her cheekbones and to set back the clock a few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The eye shadow is something reminiscent of the 70’s and for some reason ABBA come into mind as a frame a reference for this not-quite Thai hooker look she’s got going on.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The one hand we can see is turned up in mid pose that’s either been choreographed for the number she’s performing, or simply is that way because Ti knows the stage and how her body moves to maximize the effect of whatever she’s trying to show the audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her hand’s turned up in a way you could put a tray of drinks on it and they’d stay level, though Ti is far too glamorous to ever be a cocktail waitress…again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, she’s here to entertain and her mostly local audience (her show’s done in Thai) adore her and she’s found her niche in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s always been an entertainer and on stage is the only place she feels like she’s home and at peace in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2626917264112911626.post-19382248861139315422011-05-01T08:09:00.000-07:002011-05-01T08:09:03.547-07:00IntroductionMy life seems to be in a state of constant flux right now, and I've found that during other times of upheaval journaling has helped me sort out the thoughts running through my head. Although I don't consider this project a journal per se, I did want to share this particular experience with the world because it shows--I hope--that we can all reinvent ourselves at any given point. I'm also curious to see what lessons I can learn from this whole project.<br />
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I found online the other day a website that gives out prompts for creative writing assignments. Before I go any further, I want to make an explicit shout out to <a href="http://creativewritingprompts.com/">http://creativewritingprompts.com/</a> for planting the seed of this assignment in my head. Because I have some new-found extra time on my hands, I'm hoping to write as many of these different prompts I can and see what stores pop up. And because I haven't done any kind of creative writing in the past (except for those assignments in Middle and High School), I decided to simply start at prompt #1 and go down the list. <br />
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This exercise isn't meant for final production, nor do I intend to do anything more with it than simply allowing those who wish to take a glimpse at the hopeful progress that I'm making throughout the length of the project. This is just another outlet to express oneself and I hope the outcome is enlightening and pleasurable for both the reader and the author. So sit back, relax, and enjoy your featured presentation!Noel Oakeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13892693464103280799noreply@blogger.com0