I’m like “Waaah!”

So it's safe to say the blog is really not a priority these days. Lots of good things are going on, but I seem to have hit another one of those introspective stages... taking time to reflect on the past and consider the future. I've also found myself enjoying the now more than I think I ever have. It's a pretty cool feeling, especially when you realize that's what you're doing.

A few weeks ago I asked my littlest nephew how he was doing and his answer, with eyes wide and hands up in the air, was "I'm like 'Waaah!'" What a great answer, using a word that doesn't really exist to describe a feeling that is beyond description. But I know exactly what he means. I've had some pretty "waaah" moments myself recently.

So, this is one of several coy that I saw in a pond on my recent trip to New York. I'm not sure if this is how it breathes or what, but I like to think it is saying "Waaah!"

Hello, Joe

It's official... Trader Joe's is coming to Portland! The rumor mill has been churning for a while now and lots of people have petitioned for it... and alas, here it is. :) I drive by the storefront every night on my way home from work. I remember the day I saw the "Trader Joe's Now Hiring" banner outside... I nearly drove off the road in excitement. I realize this makes me a serious food nerd, but I got hooked on Joe's way back in my California days. It's a simple concept: a limited selection of really good food at really good prices. I think the best thing about it for me is the limited selection part. On the very, very rare occasion that I go into some megastore (Super Whatever, Such-and-such World), I usually end up wandering the aisles aimlessly, overwhelmed by the enormous selection, and more often than not leave empty-handed, having completely forgotten what I went there for in the first place. Kind of a soul-sucking experience, complete with harsh fluorescent lighting. TJ's has fluorescent lighting, too, but it's just not the same. So, welcome to Maine, Trader Joe's. We're glad you came. :)

Really, life? Really?

I just learned yesterday that a former student of mine passed away. This follows the recent news that the daughter of a childhood friend also passed away this week… 21 and 5 years old. How is this OK? Answer: It’s not. I’m trying not to think about that “bad luck comes in 3s” expression. I guess from every experience, every beautiful or harsh reality, the important thing is to glean some sort of lesson from it. As my friend whose daughter died said to me, it’s a reminder that you should live your life the way you want to. Sounds cliché, I guess, but it’s true. You never know what’s gonna happen in life, good or bad, so why not take chances? Dream a little dream. And try to make that dream a reality. Maybe we do actually get more than one life, but that’s not really an excuse to take the path of least resistance in any one of them. If you subscribe to the philosophy of reincarnation at all, to that idea of birth and rebirth, it’s about learning, perfecting in a way… but I don’t think that “perfection” actually exists. Maybe we need to find perfection in imperfection. Works for me. Who isn’t flawed? What situation isn’t flawed? I think maybe the key is how you accept or work with that imperfection.

Since my recent departure from Facebook, I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship and connection. With every passing year I feel like I understand more and more how important it is to surround yourself with people who lift you up, and try to limit or eliminate the time you spend with people who bring you down. It’s funny how you can spend oodles of time with someone and still feel completely disconnected from them, as if life has just thrown you together against your will, whereas you can spend very little time with others and yet feel a genuine connection. What is that? Is it a past life thing? I will never know. I only know that's it's pretty cool when it happens.

I have no new photos, sadly. An upcoming trip to the Big Apple should take of this, but for now, an older photo. The thought of this experience always makes me smile. It was my first day out in New Delhi and was an introduction to the way things were going to be for me in India, and to some extent other parts of Asia as well. When this huge group of Indian tourists noticed me taking pictures they all started waving wildly and smiling and laughing... and then I ended up in their family photos. It was so confusing, but so amusing at the same time. Random connections with strangers, gotta love it.

Portland or busk

Now that I'm no longer a teacher I don't have the usual holidays off, but I happened to have yesterday, Columbus Day, a.k.a. Indigenous Peoples Day. This is one counter-holiday that I think might actually take hold as most people aren't really down with the whole wiping out an entire culture thing. One of my yogi friends came up from New Hampshire and we kicked around Portland for the day. The weather was amazing, as it has been for several days now. We had Indian food for lunch and talked about all things India as she is going there in December for another yoga teacher training. I'm so excited for her. I'm sure it will be a mind blowing experience.

Here and there you'll come across somebody playing guitar and singing on the streets of Portland. This guy was really good. He had a beautiful voice and was singing his original tunes. He also looked like he was doing pretty well with tips, so that's awesome. I talked to him for about 30 seconds and you could immediately tell he was a really good soul. I love nice people.

One of the stops on our walking tour was Standard Bakery, a must-eat on any given day. I would put bakeries on my top ten list of the best things in life. These guys have the best baguettes this side of the Seine and pretty much everything they do is delicious.

Weddings, love, and really bad song lyrics

So this weekend I went back to my roots, at least as far as my love for my fancy camera is concerned. I helped my friend Nicole shoot part of a wedding, the same friend I worked with almost two years ago when I started this blog. The wedding took place in this tiny chapel... located in a cemetery. Strange place for a wedding, I thought. But the chapel was cute and the ceremony was over in record time, which is good because I'm not a big fans of weddings.

I wasn't involved in the reception part of the ceremony, but I bet we can all put together the play list of songs, because there seems to be a limited rotation of wedding tunes. My friend who's currently working in catering can attest to this. Speaking of songs, I've been listening a little more closely to some of the music on the radio these days, especially the snippets I hear when I go into stores. And I've noticed that there are a lot of really bad lyrics out there. Tonight in Staples it was the Backstreet Boys, "I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you did, as long as you love me." Hmm... those seem like pretty low standards. And the other day in the car the catchy tune by Crosby, Stills and Nash, "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with." This strikes me as really bad advice. But of course the underlying theme of nearly every song is love - finding it, losing it, reveling in it, reckoning with it.

A-MAZING

On Tuesday I went to see Ani Difranco in what felt like somebody’s living room. Okay, it was a little bigger than that, but still astonishingly small for such a huge presence. It was just Ani and her guitar, and that’s really all you need. She is a one-woman powerhouse of musical and lyrical prowess. I’ve been getting more into her more recent stuff and she played a bunch of new songs. She writes songs the way most people breathe - effortlessly - although she did say she’s been putting more effort into writing her more political tunes. She’s still very much a feminist and an activist, but somehow not quite as aggressive as she was in her early days. I was thinking how strange it must be to have on record, literally, the things you went through when you were a teenager and in your 20s. How much we change. It’s amazing some people can stay together through all of it. That was another interesting point she made, in a joking way of course, but I think she made a good point, that monogamy should be illegal until about age 35 or so. Because you probably don’t really know anything until then… and maybe not even then in some cases! Anyway, I adore Ani, as do many, many other women. I think for so many of her fans she voices so eloquently the things we cannot or do not say.

So in addition to this amazing gift of a show, I also got to spend time with my dog and a great friend at my sister’s in-laws’ camp. It was this freakishly beautiful day the day after the show so we went for a nice hike in the morning, which Paris thoroughly enjoyed (see picture below), and then took our time getting back home. Lucky days.

Slip slidin' away

Yet another kiddo birthday party has come and gone. Unbelievable. How is it that time seems to go by slowly at times and faster at other times? It's all in the perception, I guess. Like everything!

This guy is a mini version of me. Here he is playing party photographer.

I'm a sea without a shore

Last night was the last concert of the L.L. Bean outdoor concert series. Joshua Radin played and it was awesome!! As I said to my friend, I cannot believe that I've spent seven out of the last eight summers in Maine and never gone to one of these free shows. Great music for free... what was I thinking?? His lyrics and melodies are simple, clean, and beautiful. He has such a sweet voice. The weather yesterday was perfect as well, hot during the day and cool at night. Fall is definitely on the way.

Fake Plastic Trees

I've been listening to a lot of Radiohead lately. I have a lot of their music, but have only delved into a little bit of it, but that is changing. One thing I'm not delving more into these days is Facebook. Not at all, in fact. I should have quit it a long time ago, and in fact almost did once, but couldn't quite pull the trigger at the time. When you do finally make the move, they pull out all the cheesy stops and show you pictures of your Facebook "friends" with the message "So-and-so is going to miss you!" Oh really? Well, maybe we can communicate in another way, like e-mail, phone, or - imagine! - in person. And if we can't, honestly, are we really even friends? I'm sorry, but I don't have over 200 friends, even though my Facebook page says I do. Before I logged off I made sure I had the contact info of the people I really wanted to stay in touch with. A lot of them were people I met on my travels. Why? Because it's that whole kindred spirit thing, people who, like me, have wanderlust in their DNA.

So what to do now that I don't have Facebook to waste my time on? Well, two things: play more guitar and work on my Hindi. I really don't know if or when I will get back to India, but I think the language is really cool. And if I do make it back, it would probably help out a lot. I kind of feel like India defeated me the first time. The tough parts overwhelmed the beauty. But there's still so much to see and learn.

Random cloud photo from the other day.

More cowbell!

Twice in the past week, at the same light on my way home, I've seen two cars with something saying "more cowbell" on the back. The first was a bumper sticker, and yesterday somebody had it on their license plate! What a riot... and is it a sign? Do I need more cowbell in the soundtrack to my life?? ;)

Yesterday I caught a free show at LL Bean's outdoor concert series, Ingrid Michaelson. I don't own any of her songs, but everything I've heard's been pretty good. And her show was pretty good, too. She did a great cover of Radiohead's "Creep" and had a few other nods to other artists here and there. One of the coolest things about the show was that there was a sign language interpreter on stage as well, which got the audience signing, as opposed to singing, along to some songs. Really neat.

Reminiscing

It's been almost a year since I left for India and Southeast Asia. Sometimes it seems like forever ago. I've been thinking about the ashram a lot lately and wondering how everybody's doing there. It's a strange thing - you spend a short while somewhere and then leave, but everybody else is still there. That is home for them. It would be neat to go back and visit sometime. If I hadn't canceled my ticket I would be in India right now. I still feel like I will get back there at some point; there's still so much to explore and learn. For now, though, I'm content to be doing what I'm doing as I figure out the next step. There are still so many places I want to see, and I'm not down with the idea of doing it when I retire. The future is too uncertain. I've had little motivation to blog lately, which is not to say I haven't been learning and reflecting, just in a different way than I did on my trip. But most of this is just for me. Suffice it to say that I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do in the world, I'm just not quite sure yet how to do it. At the same time, I'm less worried about figuring that part out than I was before. Everything in its own time.

One of the coolest things I got to do while at the ashram was eat sugar cane straight off the stalk while we were visiting the village of one of the boys. Yum.

Montreal, baby

I just returned from a 4-day weekend in Montreal... the city now ranks up there as one of my favorite places in the world. The culture, the food, the joie de vivre all around - irrésistible! I went to visit a friend, my old roommate from San Francisco who I hadn't seen in about 7 years. But time is irrelevant as we picked up right where we left off. It was a non-stop weekend of fun, friends, and fantastic music. On Sunday we went to the Osheaga festival and saw, among others, Devo, Weezer, and Snoop Dogg, who was ridiculously entertaining in his own ridiculousness. We sat up on the hill and it was awesome to see tens of thousands of people waving their hands and singing along. I would have had some amazing pictures, but they copped my camera at the entry because my zoom lens was not allowed in... at least not without a photo pass. Grrr.... so there's another reason to break down and buy a point-and-shoot as a backup.

I'm still on a travel high, one which started on Friday as I hit the road and I'm sure will continue for several days at least. I think I'm addicted to exploring and learning; few things get me as pumped as traveling, really. And even though I've been to Montreal several times, it's somehow different every time. As soon as you get there you're surrounded by dozens of languages and cultures - English, French, Greek, Portuguese. It's like a mini-U.N. Thanks to one of Cord's friends, even the visit up to Mont Royal was new. Apparently there are these raccoons that hang out there during the day and you can go right up to them and feed them by hand. What an experience to look a wild animal in the eye as he takes a piece of bread from your hand with his cute little paws. Communing with nature - nothin' like it.

The other thing that just blows me away is how different the vibe in Canada is from the U.S. We share a border, a language, some cultural norms, and yet Canadians are so much more chill than Americans. An example: I witnessed an accident that took place between a car and a man on a bike. After it occurred, the man got out of the car and as I was expecting a big shouting match or some scene to ensue, both the driver and the biker began apologizing to one another. ??? Maybe I'm wrong, but in the U.S. I would expect both parties to be a bit more aggressive, blaming each other, and at least one threatening to sue by the end of it all. Oh, the many things we could learn from our neighbor to the north.

So there you have it. Montreal rocks. Here are some pics...

On the way home I hit some rain, but it was all worth it when I saw this rainbow.

Old friends

I spent the weekend up in Orono with my oldest and dearest friend, her husband, and their new baby boy, who I have to say is quite possibly the cutest baby ever born. Sooooo sweet. Add to his beauty the fact that he is the mellowest baby around; he can just chill in your arms for hours. Paris came with me to hang out with their two dogs, Stella and Cassidy. These pups have been friends for years as well. It was nice to get away. I've been working so much lately, which I've been enjoying, but it's always nice to take a break every once in a while as well.

 Look at those baby blues!














BIG yawn.


















Paris, looking pretty satisfied.

Bad blogger, bad blogger

Nearly a month has passed since I bothered to post anything. School has ended and my other job has taken over in full force. But more than anything, I've been hunkering down and reflecting on my motivations for doing what I'm doing. Needless to say, it's been an exhausting exercise, but one that I've learned a lot from. Growth is painful I've decided.

I finally picked up my camera today after a long hiatus. Every day when I go to work I think, "There's some interesting stuff to photograph down here," on the Portland waterfront. And so finally, here it is. The working waterfront is a fascinating thing, but I think I like it best at the end of the day, when everything sits dormant, waiting for the next day to roll around.

What time is it??

A rainbow appears after the storm on Sunday.

Today has been the weirdest day in terms of time. We lost power yesterday and I reset my clock with what I thought was the right time, according to my computer, but which turned out to be about 45 minutes slow. So my morning was all off. Then this afternoon my cell phone was saying it was about 25 minutes ahead of the actual time. What is going on??

And speaking of time, at this moment I ought to be doing some planning, but have less than zero motivation for doing so. It's that whole end-of-the-year thing. I think teachers check out even more than students, especially the burnt out ones. Three and a half days... I can do it!

Rain, rain, go away

It feels like a rainy day today... maybe because it is. The skies just got super dark and it poured down rain. Bleh. Poor Paris is a wee bit bored. Right now she is being entertained by my mom, who is tossing her pieces of popcorn.

It's definitely a day for reading a good book or watching a movie in bed. The weathermen are particularly animated today because there's a chance of tornadoes, very odd for this part of the country. Hopefully it will be baseball weather again soon.

Five years

Today was my oldest nephew's birthday party. He's five. There's nothing like measuring time by the age of a child. To think back to where you were five years ago, what has changed, what has not. Today was super fun - spending time with family, great food, and a game of baseball with my nephews. It's amazing to watch them grow and learn. I'm so grateful for them. :)

Acha!

It's Friday! Who doesn't love Fridays? Maybe the same folks who don't love chocolate. Life is pretty groovy at the moment. I've booked my ticket back to India, leaving in July. It promises to be incredibly hot there at that time, perhaps hotter than I've ever experienced. My website is well underway, although it still needs some polishing to be sure. I've started talking to some local shops about carrying my stuff and so it feels like I'm finally getting some things done. More than anything, I'm having a great time and learning a lot. I have two new students from Africa and while I thought it would be a lot harder than just having two, in some ways it's easier. There are more opportunities to pair them together and they can all learn from one another.

Speaking of learning languages, I've completely fallen off the cliff on the Hindi front. I bought a book while I was in Thailand and studied some while I was traveling. When I get back there I'm hoping to sign up for some lessons. I should probably learn some Tibetan while I'm at it, since those are the folks I'm hoping to work with. So much to learn, so little time.

I kind of feel like I'm floating today. I know part of the reason is because it's Friday and I have a pretty fun weekend planned, but I think the overall reason is because I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing. I have a million part-time jobs (OK, only 4), my mind is stimulated, and the pen is in my hand so to speak. Of course, I'm fully prepared to get to India and end up veering in a completely different direction from what I'm envisioning, and that would be OK too. The point is, life is full of possibilities, and while that blank slate can be pretty scary sometimes, it's also pretty exciting.

So life is pretty "acha," which is one of the coolest and most versatile Hindi words ever. Depending on how you say it, it can mean, "good," "OK," "I see," or "really!" I'm sure there are other uses, these are just the contexts in which I have heard it said. And this is one of the funniest signs I saw on my trip there, using the word.

I don't know about you, but this massage doesn't look very "acha" to me! Maybe if you're in Cirque du Soleil.

The aftermath

On Thursday the now-empty Jordan's meat factory caught on fire as they were in the process of demolishing it. There was a huge dark grey cloud of smoke pouring from the building. On that day I didn't have my camera with me, but I went back to Portland on Friday and took some pictures. It's weird to see a building reduced to twisted metal. The adjacent buildings were fortunate in that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction that day, saving them from destruction as well.

Mmmm...

Even though it's gorgeous out today, I was determined to do some long-overdue baking. Currently the house smells like pumpkin chocolate chip scones. YUM. After that I'll be baking off some chocolate decadence cookies. Any takers??

The windows are open, the breeze is warm, and the birds are chirping... feels like summer!

Art in food

Dinner tonight was a fabulous veggie stir-fry and for a change I included purple cabbage, mainly for color. When I sliced into the cabbage I was struck by the beautiful pattern inside, so of course I had to take a picture. There's art everywhere.

Getting artsy

I've been working hard over the past several days to build a website. First I started with Dreamweaver, an awesome program to be sure, but I'm in waaaaay over my head there. So now I'm working with the templates that are on offer through my hosting service. They're pretty cool, but may be limiting. It's too early to tell. It's always about balance, isn't it? This theme keeps coming up constantly.

Yesterday I spent some time taking photos of a few of the products I hope to sell, with an eye toward using them on my website. They're not all necessarily a clear picture of what the item is, but more artsy, to convey a texture. It was fun. My roommate was kind enough to model a few things as well. Progress!

"There's no reason this can't work!"

Now that's the kind of encouragement I'm talkin' about! This week I met with some business counselors to discuss a business idea I have, one which would allow me to travel and hopefully do some good in the process.

I got an hour and a half of free counseling through SCORE, a fantastic organization with branches all over the country, which offers free advice to those with potentially good ideas, but a lot of questions. My counselors were two lovely and very knowledgeable retired professionals who helped me to focus my thoughts and goals. I now have some concrete steps laid out and a more solid plan in place. Woohoo!

Vacation week is pretty much flying by and soon the stress of planning will return. Ugh. But I think the school year will be over before I know it and then it will be off on the next adventure. I love working multiple part-time jobs. It's way more interesting than having just one, in my opinion.


Again, using "old" photos, this one from Cambodia, on that day that I wandered for quite some time and ended up hitching a ride back into town. Somehow I think things always work out, at least I'd like to hope so.

Vacation!!

I feel a little silly celebrating the fact that it's school vacation considering I just returned from a ridiculously extended one. And honestly, it's not a total vaca for me as I'll be working more hours at my other job. But it's great nonetheless because I don't have to do any planning. Hallelujah!

I haven't picked up my camera since Easter, also ridiculous, but probably a confirmation that I shouldn't be investing in the most expensive option out there as I upgrade. Restraint, restraint. :) A couple weeks ago I decided to try my hand again at applying to one of the stock photography sites online. How cool to make a couple bucks from my images. Well, I think my stuff has improved tremendously since my first attempt, but still they said no. Kind of disappointing, but yet another confirmation that this is just a hobby for me, not my bread and butter.

I'm hoping to spend some time this week doing a little research, both for a company I'm doing some writing for, and for myself. How best to fund a life of travel and adventure? Hmm...

Happy Easter!

It's hard to believe it had been a year since I last saw my extended family, but it's true. So today's Easter gathering was especially sweet. We had an epic egg hunt for the kids, each one getting at least 20 eggs apiece, the weather was phenomenal, and we all had a great time, cooking and eating and catching up.

Overall it's been a fabulous weekend, in part due to the gorgeous weather. Yesterday I headed to Portsmouth for a yoga class at my old stomping grounds and afterward visited my favorite shoe store of all time, Footnotes. I bought myself a new pair of Birkenstock sandals to replace the ones I chucked back in Vietnam. And even though it's a brand new pair, putting them on felt like reconnecting with an old friend. Ahhhh... Birkenstocks, how I love thee.

Later that afternoon I did in fact reconnect with an old friend and we walked around Portland for a while. Gotta love the weekends!


Yeah, that's right. Check this egg out.

Stepping in

I took a fabulous yoga class last night. If anyone lives in the Portland, Maine area I would highly recommend taking David's class on Thursday nights at the Yoga Exchange. He's an amazing teacher, both in the way he structures his classes and the language he uses. Last night's theme was fluidity and he talked about stepping into challenges, rather than resisting them. Even though life may not turn out the way you expected or hoped, you need to adapt to the way it is. We all know this, of course, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded.

The thought of the physical act of taking a step reminded me of the elephants I met in Thailand. How we were cautioned to keep an eye out for each other in case an elephant was behind someone, because despite their enormous size, you couldn't hear them when they walked. This is one of the reasons I love these gentle giants. That and the fact that they are highly intelligent. I hope I get to spend some more time with these beauties someday.

Bird in a cage

Oh nooo!!! It's been over a week since I last blogged. Real life is taking over my blog life. ;) I've hardly taken any pictures since I got home. I feel like I've been running around from job to job, makin' some green, and thinking about other ways to make it. I spent part of the weekend printing, cutting, and mounting about 50 photos onto handmade cards, in hopes of selling them. They look pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Weather update: rain, rain, and more rain. BUT it's supposed to be gorgeous this weekend. Woohoo!

Fruit!

Yesterday I went to the Maine Squeeze Juice Café for a smoothie fix - mango, coconut, blackberry, and cider. Mmm... how I love my fruit. I made one at home today as well. I got to talking with someone at a party last night and he was about to embark on a trip to Thailand to study Theravada Buddhism, and anytime I talk about Thailand I always talk about the food, especially the fruit. Nothing like it in the world.


Star fruit.

Another fave

I've gone through and flagged all of my favorite images from my trip. This is one of them. It's from the puja in Varanasi, way back at the beginning of the whole adventure. I'm hoping to print some of my images on blank greeting cards and sell them in shops locally, and maybe online. Hmmm... one of many ideas floating around in my head.



The weather here has been gorgeous the past couple days. Yay! And I've actually been running here and there. I'm a big fan of the walk-run-walk-run method. That way you get a good workout but you don't feel like you're dying by the end. I guess I've just never run enough to experience that "runner's high" that people talk about. And to be honest, I'm not particularly motivated to get to that point. As long as I'm in decent shape and doing something good for my heart, that's enough for me. I had contemplated running a 5K with my friend, but I think I've decided against that. I'm just not really that competitive, even with myself. That's true for me with yoga as well. When I started 7 years ago I was determined to eventually be able to do all of the "hard" poses, but I've gotten over that. That's not what it's about at all. It would be nearly impossible to describe what it is about, because I think it's different for everyone. Suffice it to say that balance plays a big part, and I don't mean the kind where you can stand on one foot and contort the rest of your body into something resembling an eagle. More like the kind that applies to life in general.

Memory lane

I just imported all of my photos, over 3,000 of them, into my Mac. It was an interesting experience to watch them flip through a couple seconds at a time, like reliving my trip in a matter of minutes, and remembering how I was feeling at the time.

They look so much different, and in some cases better, on my Mac than they did on my HP Mini. I guess it's because of the bigger screen and the better resolution. Some photos that looked in focus on the HP are clearly not on the Mac. I've been flagging the ones I like best, some of which I hope to sell in the form of greeting cards, and the one below jumped out at me for some reason. I think the contrast could be better, but I like the composition. Unfortunately I only shot in JPEG and not RAW, but honestly I didn't want to take up all that space with RAW files. Maybe next time. I've also been scoping out Craigslist looking for better Nikon DSLR models because I've totally outgrown the D40. I also dream of a luscious telephoto lens. We shall see. I am only working part-time, after all!! Maybe these things will fall off a delivery truck that I happen to be driving behind. ;)


Food prep at the Sikh temple in Delhi.

Woohoo!

I am HOME!! And I should be sleeping, considering I only got maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours or so. But at the moment I'm pretty wired. Ah, jet lag! All my flights took off and landed without a hitch. There was no overbooking and in fact there were plenty of free spaces in both business and first class. First class is particularly sweet on international flights because you can actually turn the seat into a BED! I wish they held some random lottery for these extra spaces: "The following passengers are being upgraded to first class for this flight: seat 17A, 35C, etc. etc." How sweet would that be? But I guess you don't want to upset the very high-paying customers up there already or upset the folks who wouldn't get chosen.

I'm not sure if I'm all that coherent right now, so I guess I'll try to get some sleep. Just a quick note to say that I'm soooo happy to be home. The sight of Dunkin' Donuts at the airport brought a grin to my face. And I'm currently falling in love all over again with my MacBook. Was the screen always this ginormous?? Also, how exciting is it to be able to brush your teeth with the tap water... better yet, you can even drink it! :D

And we're off!

... sort of. My plane leaves around midnight tonight. I just checked out of my hotel and now have about 6 hours to kill until the taxi picks me up. Hmm... what to do? I think it will involve a lot of sitting around in cafés and eating. If this were a career option I think I'd be a millionaire at it. Speaking of being a millionaire, I wonder how it will feel when I see my bank account balance drop from seven figures to three. Dong is a silly currency, but you definitely feel rich playing with it.

So the plan is Hanoi to Seoul, Seoul to New York, New York to Boston. Part of me is hoping they'll need volunteers to give up their seats on an overbooked plane to NY for a fabulous flight voucher worth big bucks, but those kinds of things never seem to happen to me. We'll see. If you're still reading this blog after all this time, thank you first of all, but more importantly see you soon!!

In your face

That's how Vietnam is. If there were an award for overuse of the horn, it would definitely go to this country. It even beats out India I would say, and that is no small feat. I would love to see the authorities attempt to institute a no honking policy here... people would have no idea what to do with themselves. I've done a considerable amount of mumbling to myself here, things like, "Yeah buddy, I hear ya" and, "Dude, what is your @$! problem?" This of course accomplishes nothing, but makes me feel mildly better about getting beeped at constantly when I'm crossing the street.

The other way Vietnam is in your face is in the food markets. Produce I can handle, but the meat and seafood sections are just too much. If I were a hardcore carnivore it wouldn't be a problem, but as someone who flirts heavily with vegetarianism it is stomach-turning. Today a fish flopped out of its little bucket as I was walking by, a cry for help I believe. And then there were these three turtles, destined shortly for turtle soup I imagine, and one of them was craning its neck to reach the water that the fish were in below. So sad. I'm easily reminded of the first time I went veg, after spending a year in France and seeing the flagrant displays of dead animals in the markets there.

I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures of these animals on death row, so I focused on the spice section instead.



Ah, Vietnam's famous weasel coffee. There are other countries with variations on this theme, but it goes something like this: weasel eats coffee beans, stomach acids go to work on them, weasel passes coffee beans, harvesters pick them up and roast and grind them, then sell them to the coffee-loving public. Mmm...

Au revoir, les sandales

It's time to bid farewell to my trusty sandals, my vegan Birkenstocks. I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of these puppies, but they've seen far too many miles and way too many squat toilets to merit a place in my pack for the flight home. I've officially entered Lazy Tourist mode, just biding my time in Hanoi until my flight on Tuesday night. I actually dig this city, though; I'm starting to have my favorite "spots," like the vegetarian restaurant down the street from my hotel and the frozen yogurt shop around the corner. Overall I'm not really keen on Vietnam, but Hanoi is pretty cool. I definitely notice the pollution here more than Bangkok, though. My eyes are a bit irritated and I'm fighting a cold, although this is probably not related. In that sense I don't feel bad being lazy; I need my energy for my 30 hours of travel on Tuesday into Wednesday.

One thing I did accomplish today was getting a haircut, just a trim around the ears. And I did it in a little shop despite the fact that the hairdresser didn't really speak English. I was able to mime what I wanted, covering the top of my head protectively while saying khong (no), then pointing to the area around my ears and making the universal sign for "a little bit". It's amazing what you can accomplish with very little language. On that note, I have managed to understand a bit more Vietnamese in my time here, either from repetition or necessity. It's not as bad as it seemed at first, although the tones still pose a great challenge.

Trip Superlatives

As I near the end of my trip, it seems appropriate to compile a list of the best, and in some cases the worst, of all the places I've been to. Here goes:

Best food: Thailand
Best coffee: Vietnam
Best tea: hot - India, iced - Thailand
Best public transportation: Thailand
Worst public transportation: Vietnam
Hardest stares: India
Easiest smiles: Cambodia
Hardest stares that you can turn into smiles: Vietnam
Cleanest city: Luang Prabang, Laos
Dirtiest city: Varanasi, India
Best market: Chiang Mai, Thailand
Best islands: Thailand
Best temple: Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Cutest kids: All of them
Cheapest place to travel: India
Most expensive place to travel: Thailand
Places I didn’t go, but wished I had: Pai, Thailand, the south of India, and Nepal
Number of vaccinations I got before the trip: 6
Number of times I got sick from something I ate or drank: 3
Number of strange diseases I worried about getting: multiple
Number of strange diseases I actually got: none, that I know of
Benefit of worry: none
The one thing I didn’t pack but wished I had: pocket knife
Strangest currency: Vietnamese, which has two plastic cutouts. Also called the dong.
Easiest language to learn: Hindi
Hardest language to learn: Vietnamese
Language that most resembles choking when spoken: Khmer
Highlights of the trip: seeing the Dalai Lama in India and hanging out with elephants in Thailand

It's certainly been an adventure!

Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk

I'm not sure how many miles my feet have clocked today, but they are sore and I am exhausted. I read about this great sounding Lebanese restaurant in my guidebook so I decided to hoof it over to the neighborhood where it's located. I checked out the map and thought, OK, so it's a little far, but I can do it. Well, a little far turned out to be quite far in reality and then when I finally got there, the place wasn't even open! The other place listed in the area that sounded interesting as well didn't seem to exist. Thanks, Lonely Planet, thanks a lot. Fortunately there are a couple of gourmet markets in the same vicinity so, starving at this point, I bought supplies to make myself a nice little European picnic - bread, olives, and cheese. Mmm. I'm currently in the other gourmet market across the street enjoying a latte before I figure out how to get back to my hotel. I'm thinking taxi.

I visited the Temple of Literature today. It was packed, mostly with Asian tourists on holiday for the new year. I had a few India flashbacks as a couple of tourists wanted to take their picture with me, exotic white girl that I am. Lots of people were buying Chinese art, either sayings or their names written in Chinese characters, I'm not sure. I walked by the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which I've heard is cool, but I'm not sure I'll be going in. I've been to Lenin's in Moscow and really, once you've seen one embalmed communist leader haven't you seen them all?

This gourmet market is co-owned by a guy from Chicago, with whom I just chatted briefly. It's always interesting the people you meet while traveling, either ex-pats or fellow travelers themselves. There are lots of folks like me who quit their jobs to travel, others on vacation, others living and working abroad. Yesterday I met a couple of guys in the post office, one British, one American. I had a chance to talk to the American as he had to put a series of three stamps on each of his sixteen cards, so having time I decided to help out. This guy definitely ranks as one of the most interesting travel stories I've heard on this trip. He's 30 years old, lives in Chicago, and is an ER doctor. But not in Chicago... in North Dakota. He spends two weeks straight working in ND and then gets six weeks off back in Chicago, except he doesn't stay in Chicago. He travels. If anyone's got it figured out, it would have to be this guy, at least in terms of working the least amount of time for the most amount of money. Nice.


An artist puts the finishing touches on his piece.


They weren't kidding about the traffic in Hanoi. You could literally grow old waiting for a good time to cross, so you just take a deep breath, step out into the road and make your way across, slowly and carefully. If you're lucky, a Vietnamese person will also be crossing and you just walk next to them!

Brrr!

I just got to Hanoi this morning and it is chilly... and I love it! I would much rather put on extra clothes than walk around sweating all day. The overnight bus arrived around 5:30 a.m. when it was still pitch-black out and very few things were open. The bus ride itself was an adventure, as most travel in Vietnam has been. I'd taken sleeper buses before, but on this one I got stuck in the way back, which instead of individual bunks is a row of five, and I somehow ended up in the middle. I had two Poles to my left and two Brits to my right, all lovely people to be sure, but there are very few people in the world I enjoy sleeping next to, let alone limbs touching. My only solace was that this was the last bus ride of my long and winding journey. I've decided to stay in Hanoi until Tuesday, rather than overnight it to Sapa or bus it to Halong Bay. I'm sure they're both worth seeing, I've just totally run out of steam.

I'd heard from fellow travelers that two days in Hanoi was enough. They may be right, but so far I'm feelin' like this city was made for me, or at least made for my favorite pastime, which is wandering through narrow and charming backstreets. The Old Quarter seems like an endless maze of these. I think traffic in Hanoi can be pretty bad as well, but it's still rather sleepy here due to Tet. Perfect. All I plan to do over these next few days is wander, eat, maybe catch a movie or two, get a haircut (if I can find a hairdresser who speaks adequate English or French), and get a facial.


I'm still amazed by how much food business is conducted at ground-level. Southeast Asia has a ways to go in terms of food and just general sanitation.


Fish for sale.

Sweet relief

I arrived in Hue around noon today and learned that the weather here is notoriously bad compared to the rest of Vietnam. Bad is relative, however, as I am totally relishing the cooler temps. It was actually misty today and the sun was hidden behind the clouds as I walked around town. There's a big citadel here and various buildings around it to check out. There's also a supermarket that I'm looking forward to exploring... only I would include a supermarket on the list of must-sees. It was a pretty slow day here as a lot of businesses are still closed for Tet, but one of my favorite sights of the day was these two novice monks on a bicycle. Cute.

Chúc mừng năm mới!

In other words, Happy New Year! Or if you're anywhere other than Asia, Happy Valentine's Day. Tomorrow I head out of Hoi An for Hue, about 4 hours north, where I'll probably spend a couple days before heading to Hanoi. The weather in Hanoi looks to be cooler, in the 60s, and rainy, which is fine by me. Bring it on!


A woman buys goodies for Tet.

Taking it easy

The trick to not completely sweating to death here seems to be to wait until the late afternoon to do anything outdoors. My approach has been to emerge from the hotel only for breakfast and lunch and then wait until dinner to do any extensive amount of walking. I don't know how anybody lives in this kind of climate, and the funny thing is I think this weather is still pretty mild compared to other times of the year. The crazy thing is some of the locals dress in a way that would suggest it's actually cool here - long pants, long-sleeve shirts, sweaters even! Some women in particular attempt to cover up completely, having nothing to do with the weather but rather in an effort to keep their skin as shielded from the sun as possible. I saw a girl on a motorbike the other day with a helmet, face mask, gloves, full-length clothing, and sandals with socks. She was serious! Apparently lighter skin is highly prized here. In fact, it's nearly impossible to buy any kind of skin cream that doesn't have a whitening agent in it, which is pretty funny considering most of us Westerners come to places like this specifically for the sun.