Why come back?

A variety of people have asked me since I have been home, “why did you come back?” Implying that I was abroad doing nothing but enjoying the good life. Or that some how coming back here is a giant let down. I think the question implies more of those who asked it than myself. An exotic local is only exotic because you’ve either never been there or you’re not there right now, in both scenarios it allows ample fodder for the imagination. How is it strange to want to be Home, in all it’s ‘lack’ of splendor?

What I mean by Home, is to be close to friends and family in a country, despite it's problems, is mine. I don’t have enough of a personal beef with the US to stay away for the rest of my natural born life, there is so much left to do and explore here. The US isn’t perfect, but I’m up at least for trying to make it better, not just leaving it behind. I see no personal reason to stay away either emotionally or morally.

Economically, it takes a lot for someone to pack up their belongings and leave the place of their birth. Most of the people do it to find better opportunities for themselves and for their children, which is commendable. Or in a modern context someone in their home country is threatening them and their family, so of course they want to get out! I have ancestors that came to the US simply for economic opportunity, some more recent than others. I don’t see it being an advantage to emigrate anywhere, at least with my current education level. The unemployment rate is decently high here, but it’s nothing compared with Spain which has been hovering between 15 to 20 percent for quite some time (and it is twice as bad at my age). There is definitely other countries out there that would provide more opportunities then Spain would, but I saw no reason to keep wandering if the place of my birth was full of opportunity.

I also feel like I lack the emotional fortitude it takes to live away from your country for your entire life. The people I know who have chosen to live abroad most often have chosen it for the sake of a singular person: a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife. Those kind of attachments didn't happen for me and maybe if they had, I had I would still be there. It takes a lot to stay away even the happy couples I’ve met, it was still rough not to see family for years or to have to worry about calculating the time change for it to be ok to Skype someone. It’s trying and that is the sacrifice people make when they decide to be the ‘new’ people in a new place. I personally wouldn't wish that heartache on anyone, but opportunity is worth following.

As much as I’m writing a treatise, what I’m trying to say is that always at the back of my mind I have always seen myself coming back to the US. It’s a land where I understand things more or less, where my great grandfathers are buried. My grandfathers fought in WWII for this country, one of whom, who was greatly wounded never to be the same again. He bled for this country maybe someday I’ll have to do the same. I love the US, where the people are a quilt of colors, where we don’t always agree but somehow we always seem to get along. This place isn't perfect, but I have yet to encounter a place that is. 

Death of a Dictator

It was announced two days ago that Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack. It was alo reported that he suffered that heart attack from over work. He was only 69 years old, which is relatively young by western standards, but seems to me to be a pretty long life considering that many of his 'communist brothers,' aka subjects, die of starvation far ahead of that number. (Those that do make it to a later life are often shorter than their Southern Koreans). I’ve read a few articles about the man that everyone North Korean refers to as “the great leader,” he was listed as one of odder world leaders though in my opinion he doesn’t hold a candle to Gaddafi. What I guess I don’t understand is how his country who would be far better off without him and his cronies, can continue to worship him as some sort of God? He is only a man even if he was born under a double rainbow… How can you worship a man who is clearly a mortal, especially when you’re starving as so many N. Koreans are?

I think it goes back to common occurrence in my home country, and something that is replicated the world over, the "cult of celebrity" who are either in power or on TV. No one forces us to turn ‘Tebow’ into “Tebow the saint” but we do it anyway without any external political forces bearing down on us. I think if you turn celebrity into something that is countrywide, meaning the majority likes that person and then makes that devotion contingent on protecting you and your own I could see how people would just follow along. I’ve never experienced anything like a totalitarian society in my life. The closest thing I’ve ever come to it is reading ‘1984’ back when I was high school and then watching ‘V for Vendetta.’ Standing up to oppression is not an easy task, even monumental if you do it all by yourself. I would imagine it can cost you everything: friends, livelihood, and often your family. It’s easy to find reasons not to dissent. As I said before, standing up is a hard proposition especially when people are carried away in the night for it. Though I suppose if we’re really honest with ourselves we could all be dead tomorrow, so when then are we all so timid?

The sheer force of will and fortitude that is required is why people lionize for their dissent. Though the people who are most often respected are those outside their countries where we can see it at a convenient distance away from ourselves. Physical distance allows space for ignoring the sacrifice of others and makes it far easier to not do our own soul searching in effort to apply that transformative force in our own lives. Or maybe those people who can stand against the weight of public scrutiny are made from tougher stuff than the rest of us? 

Where was I?

I haven't put a new post on this blog in over a year. It's not because I haven't gone anywhere and not done anything, I've done quite a great deal. I've seen and met some really great people and I've been to multiple new countries, it's just this medium got off my radar and well, I don't really feel comfortable writing in this place. I've never gotten the impression that too many people read it, and especially if it isn't updated often I totally get not wanting to stay tuned in; I wasn't even tuned in and I create the content here... yikes!

I've been home in Massachusetts, now for over 3 months which does seem reasonable but seems like an entirety if I actually think about it. I'm from northern suburban Boston and that is currently where I reside. I've missed the people over the years and it's nice to be back in a place where I grew up, but I didn't and don't miss the atmosphere of this upper middle class suburb. I guess it must be my lack of interest in keeping up with the Jones? Which I've never understood, or maybe it's just my lone wolf streak. Back when I had a full time job and hadn't moved to Spain yet, I never wanted the big @ TV nor a large mansion style house, that so many of my coworkers seemed to be rushing toward. The only thing I'd understand is having the large house because I had like a million kids, which interests me far more than a big TV and driving a Ferrari. Money is a means to things but not a point to itself, I've learned a little of that by experience.

In the interest of full disclosure I currently have like, no money and most definitely no job. I've been taking classes half time and I haven't really wanted to find something that would muck up having time to spend the time studying I need to do everyday. As a result I spend far too much of my time doing nothing except absentmindedly cruising the Internet not doing anything truly salient except responding to my spur of the moment curiosity. It makes one knowledgeable about a lot of things, but it doesn't really add productivity to ones life...

It's good to be back in the US of A, I miss España, but as Dylan says 'the times they are a'changin''

Shortest Run Ever...

I went for a run Thursday after work like normal and about 7 minutes in, I stepped on what best can be described as a loose metal power cover on the side of the road. It flipped up and hit me in the shin causing me to fall forward onto gravel. In retrospect the cover was marked with some white and blue warning tape but I like my usual running self was thinking of other things and not paying any attention. As I fell I starting yelling "F@ck" which attracted the attention of one of the "Johns" that frequent the park, or at least someone who very suspiciously behaving like one. He kept asking me if I was 'OK' in Spanish and then asked me if I understood Spanish. I assured him I was fine and started heading home, thinking I had only bruised my shin and my pride.

After walking about three quarters of the way home limping when it occurred to me that I should start icing my shin and what better way to start but by using the cold air that was surrounding me. Upon thinking this I lifted up my selectively tight running pants and notice something I had not expected, blood. "Awesome blood I'm going to have to clean it out when I get back to the apartment." I also noticed it was bleeding so I figured it was better to put the leg of my pants back.

When I got to the apartment I took a pretty long look at my leg and and started to clean it out with some paper towels and tissues. The scary thing was that it didn't stop bleeding which I didn't think was a good thing. I hesitated a little knocking on the door of my landlord because I knew his girlfriend Luz, was around and she knows this neighborhood better than I do. When I showed her my problem she got totally freaked out by the blood, but she then offered to take me over to the local neighborhood clinic after I wrapped it up a little. On the way over the public clinic we had a conversation about the English words she knows which isn't that many.

We arrived at the local "centro de salud" where they told me that they couldn't take my private insurance card Mapfre. They thought I wanted a regular check up despite me using the word "sangre" meaning blood numerous times and Luz, who was helping me saying exactly the same thing. Thankfully I sat down in the large waiting room where they could see me to check it and adjust the bandana I was using for a bandage. I hadn't planned on being strategic but one of the administration women saw the blood. They then showed me into of the clinic area in what only ended up being a cleaning, when I needed stitches. After cleaning it out they told me I needed to go someplace else aka an actual hospital to get stitches. They were worried that I had gotten something lodged in the wound they could not see so they suggested I go to the closest private hospital I could find. I knew one from when a friend of mine was hospitalized and so looked into heading there.

I first went home to get a better jacket since I was wearing my running gear, and my metro pass. I then started walking toward the metro, looking for a cab. I got a very bald and friendly cabbie who was nice enough to give me some pointers about how describe my problem to the doctors while on the ride to the hospital. He drove me right into where the Urgent patients with ambulances are dropped and I got right into line after giving my details to the insurance lady. I waited for about 40 minutes where the bandages I had gotten at the clinic kept every ship shape.

After the wait, I got ushered into a "consulting room" by a nice doctor who turned out to be Venezuelan who spoke great English. She asked me what happened, looked at my continually bleeding wound and told what we were going to do. She told me, while doing so, that she was going to clean it out and then I was going to get an X-ray just to make sure there wasn't any metal lodged in my leg. After we'd figured that out, she was going to stitch up the hole I had in my leg. But before we also really started doing anything I spotted a red haired Spaniard who Maria, my doctor, was consulting with. It turns out that she was an intern, but as far as I could tell did a pretty good job. She had the help of one the nurses who kept the whole thing rather clean and orderly. They gave me some localized anesthetic which I first thought unnecessary but I changed my mind later; even with the anesthesia the stitches hurt. She also told I would need to take an antibiotic for the period of 8 days. They gave me a tetanus booster and I was up and out of there after a conversation about Venezuela.

I grabbed the closest metro by way of getting the pharmaceuticals she had prescribed me. I limped home after getting off the metro, really wishing I had one of those power chairs all the way to my apartment due to my now limping gate. Dinner was a pizza shared with Luz who had helped me and I've been sitting around hopping my leg gets better as fast as possible.

"Maria" the doctor told me that I wasn't supposed to walk much for 48 hours and I'm not to run for 15 days because I bruised both the muscles and the main leg bone my tibia. She told me that I could start running again when I wanted, but made it clear that if she were me, she would wait the 15 days. Provided it starts to heal we'll see how long I last going without running

Since Thursday I've been sleeping a lot and generally trying to walk as little as possible. I haven't been entirely perfect about not walking too much because honestly, I need to eat. Walking combined with using the Metro de Madrid is how I live around here, so it's hard to not walk anywhere during the day. After get back from the hospital on Thursday night I didn't really go anywhere for about 36 hrs which I think was a help. I've also been trying to ice it and keep my leg raised just as the doctor ordered. With the exception of bad movies a fairly simple book I have been pretty bored around here. I think I'm going to try to go to church tomorrow but on time rather than early like I have in the past seeing how I'm not technically supposed to be walking...

Finishing School and Summer Camp

Where do I begin? It's been loads of months since the last time that I wrote absolutely anything for my blog. I wish I could chalk it up to not having been writing anything, but that is not the case at all. In fact I spent the last couple of months writing a lot, mostly about my travels and out of boredom when I would get caught waiting on something, not unlike now (I'm currently waiting on my ride to the airport). I was for most of this past academic year at a school by the name of Principe Don Felipe which is named after the present Crown Prince of Spain. It's a nice school and I genuinely enjoyed my time there. I wasn't sure whether I would be returning to Spain, so I didn't sign back up for the program again and let the March deadline to do so go past me. Around April, I started to have the desire to remain in Spain for another school year. Both due to the fact it was far too late to return to Don Felipe and a host of personal reasons I was glad to be not returning to that particular school. I hope, and don't think, I burned any bridges leaving. The school was nice enough to provide me with a group of parting gifts that ended up being very useful this past summer. A t-shirt that says "La Roja" for the Spanish national team and a guide to the Camino de Santiago.

After about week off I started an English speaking summer camp that ended up being in Talvara de la Reina in Castilla La mancha. About 7 counselors and 2 support staff were responsible for group of about 80 kids. At times it was a really good time, I genuinely enjoyed trying to teach kids who were 13-15yrs of age for the 2 weeks I was with them. The problems mostly stemmed from the exceedingly poor management of camp by the umbrella corporation Pueblo Ingles which is affiliated with the larger company of Vaughan Systems. We started out short staffed because they couldn't get people enough people to work the first two weeks of July which is what we were doing. San Fermin, the fiesta in Pamplona that is so famous for the running of the bulls happens in the early part of July. The World Cup was playing too and I was apprehensive about working during it on the off chance that Spain would come out the victors.



Despite one the rules of the camp being that we were not going to watch a lot of TV, we made an exception to spend time watching the games. The first couple of games with Spain playing this or that other team, a lot the kids didn't really care. They was a large portion of them not anywhere near the room that had the large TV. But when the final Championship game came around everyone was in the room cheering when they could but mostly holding their breath. Spain was playing Netherlands and it wasn't the best game of football/soccer I've ever seen. The Dutch played very dirty and the amount of yellow cards that were handed out in the first half allow was inexcusable. After 90 minutes, the passing of stopage time, and then two 15 minute extra periods, Iniesta a player for Barca scored the only goal for Spain of the match. The kids that we had been teaching, went nuts and I mean nuts, you could barely see the 70 inch television with all the jumping and celebrating that was going on in front of it. The Dutch tried in vain to make up for the deficit, but it just didn't happen in the little time they had left. Iniesta's goal would stand as the only one of the match. I've had a number of what I would classify as surreal moments in my life, the election of Barack Obama as president being one of them, but Spain winning the World Cup the celebrating was crazy. I really, really wish that I had not been working that night. We counselors were still in charge of the kids and couldn't celebrate in an adult type fashion. The party for the kids lasted until 3 am and quite a few of them complained a great deal about having to go to bed that early. I couldn't really blame them, it was huge moment for their country, at least within the lense of sport. Spain had never won the World Cup before, it remains to be seen that they will win again, but that's four years from now, so who honestly knows?

With the late nights, activity planning, getting up earlier than the kids, and the constant responsibilty I was a little tired. I spent the next week in July mostly just sitting around the apartment of a friend, not doing anything and watching too much TV. It's amazing how much I missed the personal space and the tranquility of being able to be by myself. I spent a little bit of time trying to get ready for the Camino de Santiago that I had wanted to start right after I finished the camp. I after about 5 days back in Madrid I was ready to go. I got down to the bus station the day before I thought the bus would be leaving for Tarbes. Tarbes is a small French town a little over the border of Spain and France. Lourdes is a famous pilgrimage destination that is near to Tarbes. Lourdes is where I was going to attempt to start the walking portion of my journey to Santiago de Compostela.

I think that's where I'm going to leave it for now, this entry has all ready made up for the lack of them over the last few months. The few people I've known that have actually told me that they read the accounts of my life here, will have to wait to hear the rest of my journeys this summer.

Austen's Emma

I just finished reading Emma by Jane Austen. It was a good read and in truth was not as nearly boring as the only other book I’ve read by Austen, Pride and Prejudice. I would in truth re-title Emma with the subtitle, “the humbling of Miss Woodhouse.” Because in truth the main character starts off as someone you don’t really like and then morphs into a far less conceited and well-adjusted person by the end. What I think makes it superior to Pride in Prejudice (P/P)? Austen uses the omnipresent narrator a lot more effective way in this book. For example in P/P we are cheering for the main characters, since most it's the most stereotypical Austen novel; to get a man. Where as the character of Emma is usually messing something up or really doesn’t seem to be aware of what’s really going on. In fact at points I found myself wishing she was saying and doing the exact opposite of what she does. Not having the author always on the side of chief protagonists really made it a much more enjoyable read because it makes it a much more complex story.

I always take issue with the chief topic of Jane Austen novels; MUST GET A MAN! Maybe some might take issue with me editorializing about Austen’s subject matter, being a man who has voluntarily 'subjected himself' to an Austen novel. But honestly I found the main aim of the books rather tiresome and Emma took me longer to read then most books of the same length simply because it felt like I was reading antiquated cattiness. It forced me to put it down out of boredom more then once, but the quality of the writing always made me come back to it.

Having not read any Austen since high school, I was also struck by how little physical description there is. The scenes of the conversations that are main staple of the book are very rarely given little more than one or two sentence descriptions. Most books want you to know the scene that the characters are currently finding themselves, but Austen’s emphasis is entirely on the conversation and social context. There isn’t even a real lengthy description of what the main characters even look like. I might of missed it but I don’t think it even states what color Emma’s hair is; physical description wasn’t that important the author. I don’t really remember ever reading a book so lopsided toward conversation before, in terms of the narrative it sort of jumpy and almost like a play.

I guess I just don’t understand Austen’s lasting appeal. In the historical forward to the book, my edition stated that Austen’s novels have been in almost continuously published since her death. In truth I guess I just don’t understand why people, seem to enjoy them so much. The writing is great, but the subject matter as I said previously subtracts from the writing. Though I suppose for that very reason I have trouble with them is the reason a lot of people really like them. I don’t see myself scrounging the bookshelves for another round of Austen, but all in all I enjoyed Emma.

Today is Veterans Day in the US, Armistice Day in the UK and absolutely nothing in Spain. According to one of the Spanish teachers at my colegio, Spain wasn’t involved in either of the two world wars, something I find highly suspect, but would explain why they don’t celebrate today. It’s also kind of an awkward holiday since it’s not often on a weekend, I remembering sitting around doing nothing and sleeping in on what seemed like always a random day of the week. I do remember the few times my father dragged me to a veteran’s event, but it seems more like the exception rather the tradition. So now that I’m in a country that doesn’t even acknowledge it, I guess I miss it. It’s been amazing to me what I miss about the states, sometime it comes as a complete surprise.

Something I wrote a few months ago...

It’s odd to me this is a truly public medium of communication, so theoretically anyone who had a mind to look up a Sam would find this one. Though I’ve heard neither news reports nor any other great to-do made about my annuals, analysis, or musings here. In truth it seems like I have a subscription of one, not exactly enough to sell ads at this point. I do hope this isn’t seen as a complaint, I think you have to be far more extrovert then myself to truly be comfortable expressing yourself into the ether. I guess that’s all an excuse of why I have not tended this space better and written here more often. Maybe it would help if I knew some of friends keep them as well so we could blog together, but as yet I’ve not known many. Nor is writing here something I think I could do in a group. Whatever the reason, I’m just not much of a blogger, not to suggest this is the last entry but to explain the infrequency of my past entries and the possible intermittent postings in the future.

Well what is there not to report since, my last post? I’ve crossed a good portion of Western Europe, flew across the North Sea, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice, in general not bad.

Sweden was amazingly beautiful. I had to take a bus to the airport I was flying out of so that allowed me to see the countryside outside Stockholm. There was trees everywhere, which coming from Spain was a great shock and when you were out in the countryside there was stereotypical postcard type scenes every where with the red barns and grain fields. Stockholm itself was very beautiful with the old town in the middle of the bay and the new sections to the north and south of it. I had the opportunity to see a few of the museums, most specifically the Vassa Museum which has a ship from the thirty’s years war(circa 1630). It didn’t even make it out of Stockholm’s harbor before being sunk by a big wind. Because it went down in the Baltic sea it was well preserved. Sweden used to be ruled by Denmark until it broke away under the leadership of the first king of Sweden named Gustave. I went to see Sweden because I’d heard it was socialist’s paradise (thank you Econ-professor at Kenyon) what I found was no one living on the street and a city that was amazing clean and pleasant. I was fortunate enough to stay with a woman I knew from Kenyon who is married to a Swedish fellow who were nice enough to let me stay in their house for the duration of my time. Half of the reason I enjoyed Sweden so much was because they were great hosts.

From Sweden I took a flight to Dublin Ireland. It was the first time I’d been in an English speaking country in 7 months, it was weird. I could get over the fact people would pass me on the street and they would be speaking English. It was reverse culture shock and took some getting used to. I only spent one night in Dublin and from there I went to Galway for two nights. It’s a university town on the western side of Ireland. It was a cool town with a lot of bars that play traditional Irish music and plenty of tourists swarming all over the place. I’d never seen so many Americans abroad until I got to Ireland. Unfortunately we’re really easy to spot most of the time.

From Galway I headed back to Dublin where I met up with a boyfriend of a good friend of mine. He’s a native Irishman, so he was able to show me around to a few places. We spent the Thursday night I was there hanging with a few people from his work and talking a lot. He’s a real cool guy even though he and I don’t exactly agree on the whole spiritual nature of life. I stumbled home at about 4 am and had to get up around 9am to eat breakfast and make it to the airport. Man getting to the airport was rough, I felt like crap combined with the lack of sleep, it was not pleasant. I slept a good portion of the way back to the states, all in all it was a pretty uneventful flight.

It was a quiet homecoming, though my Mom true to form was there to collect me from the airport. It was great to see her and find out how she’s been. There is one thing to hear about how life is going over the phone, there is a whole other to have it come into your present reality. My Mom was doing well and it is always great to pontificate with her about whatever’s on my mind. A lot of travels and consequences were still ringing in my ears, so I was a buzz with those.

I spent about an entire week not wanting to do anything. In theory I was looking for a job, but in truth I wasn’t trying very hard. I ultimately was able to get a hold of a friend of the family who owns a painting business and needed help to finish his end of season work. He was in need enough to hire a novice like myself for a month. I worked for about two and half weeks for the four weeks I was home. It was fairly long days by comparison with what I was used to but it was nice to be of use to someone else other then just myself for once. I’ve never been part of a crew that was so focused on a task, I felt like the slacker for wanting to take the occasional break, where I’m usually the one with his nose to the grindstone.

Thomas Crown In Bruges

I feel like writing something now that I’ve been on the road for about a week and half. Though I’m not sure what to report on… Starting at the beginning is always a good place to begin, right?

I got out of Madrid late Thursday night of last week by way of a night bus to the Madrid Airport. Or maybe I should say I thought I was taking a bus the airport. I ended up taking a bus not to the airport but a small little village like place near the airport. It created some confusion on my part because I wasn’t entirely sure where I was other then that I thought we had passed the airport. So I started walking back, which was kind of the a trick because the fastest way there was by expressway. Honestly even at that hour with so few cars, I wasn’t going to walk on the highway just in case there was someone who decided to be stupid or I failed to see them, so I had to shun-pike it and go by a few other side streets. I got lost more then once and walk the wrong direction for quite a while but ended up at the right terminal eventually. The real crux was it was the last day I’d be in Spain for a while and it was the first time since I’d been there, I couldn’t walk somewhere directly; I love last days, blah.

My first RyanAir flight as far as I’m aware was completely uneventful because I spent the entire time passed out. All I really recall is lift off and then landing which worked out nicely seeing how RyanAir charges you for pretty much anything else. We landed at the RyanAir airport outside of Brussels and had to take an hour long bus right into town, which cost about the same as the plane ticket. (Yeah “cheap flights”!!) It was amazing to see Belgium with all the green. I hadn’t realized how used to Spain’s small trees and Spartan foliage I’d become accustomed until I ended up in Bruxelles. Brussels in general was pretty unimpressive. It’s got a lot of cool buildings and parks. It is also the capital of the EU which was something interesting to see, at least in theory. The EU capital building looked like a very boring office building, I have pictures simply because I spent a bunch of time walking to it, but know I’m going to have to explain to people why I took pictures of a completely boring building.

Though the main highlight of Brussels, was I did get to see the museum of Magritte who was a 20th century French speaking Belgian surrealist (in similar vein as Dali) but not quite the same (no melted clocks). He’s most famous for the painting of a man wearing a bowler hat who’s face is obscured by a green apple. It was famously alluded to in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, I no idea if its in the original. I unfortunately discovered that most of his famous paintings are in US, but it was still cool to see some of his back catalog.

I then went on to a little city in the northwest of Belgium called Bruges. It was a little more chilled out and totally worth the trip. I ran into a lot of Spanish people, which was cool since most of my Spanish knowledge mostly revolves around introductory questions. The place is called Brujas in Spanish, something I learned by talking to them. In truth the main reason I ended up in the small medieval town was a movie released in the last year with Colin Farrell called simply In Bruges. It in truth actually mocks the city and calls it boring and uninteresting. What’s so interesting about it is that the reason it developed into a tourist town in the first place was because of an article around 1905, that criticized it as a poverty stricken, canal strewn waste land. Oddly enough that was enough to get tourist interest in the place and people have been coming ever since. It really is a quaint place and refreshing far away from the rat race. But in truth I was there for 3 nights and that was way too long; Bruges boredom descended in earnest.

I then ended up in Amsterdam, but I’ll save that for another entry…

Ruminations in Spain in the AM

I have had my actual first formal request to post something to this blog a few weeks ago, so I thought I’d throw something up at least for a bit.

I’ve been working as a teacher’s assistant in a small public elementary school in the north of Madrid since January of this year, 2009. Its called Lorenzo Luzuriaga, it took me about as long I’ve worked there to learn how to pronounce the name. I have had to learn how to deal with first graders on a regular basis because the last time I did that, I was one. I’ve really enjoyed my time amongst the kids despite how they can try my patience. I’m left to wonder if I want to keep doing something similar for the rest of my life. Teaching is something that could be really worthwhile and let’s be honest having bunch of weeks off every summer is not entirely unappealing. I can’t say that the subject matter or the age group is something I want to teach again, should I become a teacher but I have enjoyed my time in the land of munchkins.

The thing that is a hang up is that I’ve been thinking about staying in Spain for another year and possibly in Madrid. The problem with that plan is that I missed the deadline to reapply for next year and my school coordinator does not want me back. Not because I’ve done a bad job or failed to show up, but because I’m American. There is also a trumped up charge that I showed up late a few times, which is true but never more then 10 minutes and not more then 3 times in my 4-5 months of working there. As you can see I’m a horrible employee. I just talk to other people I know in my program and some don’t show up for days on end or even do what their schools ask of them. It just sucks because I live in the neighborhood around my school and I really like it. Plus the teachers and the school administration are great compared with some of the horror stories I’ve heard from more seasoned teachers then myself.

Other then work, I’m still trying to find my place in Madrid. It is by far the largest most diverse city I have ever lived in. Boston is great besides it being home, but Madrid is far more international. I’d venture to guess it’s probably the most diverse place in the Spanish-speaking world. Most Spanish speaking countries are represented somewhere in Madrid. I’ve met and hung out with Venezuelans, a few Columbians, and folks from Mexico. There is also people here, including a few of my students, from Ecuador, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic. People from Non-Spanish speaking countries are Asians (predominately Chinese) and Africans. All of the “foreigners” are having trouble finding their place among Spaniards, but the two later groups have the worst of it. It’s a cool town and just last weekend I went out to eat at a Senegalese place which had by far the hottest peppers I’ve ever attempted to put in my mouth.

Since the job I have is finishing toward the end of June, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my summer. If I want to stay in Spain and sweat it out here (it’s already up to 30C here) or head home or try to live in another part of Europe. One of my coworkers is setting out to possibly head to Germany for the summer and consider how hot its going to be here come July, it doesn’t sound that bad. I also keep wondering about what I would do when I got home, sure there would be my friends and family, but what else would I do other then find a typical summer job. I’d first like to see if I can find something here before I jump the pond, that way I can work on my Spanish over the summer and enjoy Europe. We’ll see how that goes before the money runs out…

Boredom and Transitioning

The way I figure I’m about 22 days late on the schedule I established with my last posting, so I’m not that late…really. Plus, the only people I’ve heard about reading these ramblings are people I keep in touch with on a regular basis anyway. I hope you enjoy this fine piece of English prose…
My last entry was written in a somewhat disheartened tone. I’d been here little less then a month, found an apartment and felt more alone then I have ever had prior to any other point in my entire life. I’m just not sure why that was a surprise to me as I moved to entirely different continent and country then any of my friends and acquaintances inhabit. I now know why more people don’t do it; it’s really hard and rough for a while.

I have since gotten involved with a local ex-pat church and met a few people here and became a regular attendee at a Spanish speaking church that has a large amount of people my age bracket. Prior to being involved in that, I’ve also been going to a Spanish class two nights a week. I have a good teacher that I like, who keeps being frustrated with us, her students, because none of us seem to study past doing the HW, if we even do that.

Both of those are sea changes from the way I spending my time for the first month. I never went anywhere and didn’t spend time with anyone except one of my coworkers on occasion. I’ve also spent a good a few evenings at this English speaking bar downtown just to not come back to these four white walls for a while. I’ve been surprised even with all the excursions I’ve been taking I haven’t been going over budget and seem to be keeping my head above water financially. It’s amazing to me Spain is both a fairly expensive place at points, but then is also really cheap if you know the places to look (this would also be helped if I didn’t live directly in Madrid).

Spain is a cool place and I can tell my language skills are ever so slowly getting better. I just wish it’s instantaneous as it is the movies. People seem to learn a language as if overnight, which unfortunately hasn’t happened to me yet. I’m also not been availing myself of all the opportunities, I have access to practice my Spanish, but if had what would I write about next month? I would also benefit a lot from living with some actually Spanish people because it seems like a whole weekend can go by and I can entirely avoid speaking any Spanish.

I also think I’m beginning to get glimmer of an understanding of what it’s like to be new immigrant in a country I’ve just arrived in. I’m not saying I plan on staying here or that I really know what it’s like to immigrate some place. I have just gotten better sense of that aspect of the American experience then I have before. The main culture and language is not my own. It isn’t my home country and I suppose with time it would feel like it was but I just miss my home a great deal. All of which is like immigrating to a new country. I would say that’s where the parallels end, but hopefully when I get back to the US, it will help me understand more about the new people who keep coming to its shores.

Working with 1st graders

I suppose one entry a month is enough right? My true blog fans I’m sure are dying for another posting of my adventures, I’m sure...
I’ve now been in Spain for little less then a month and I’m beginning to get a small idea of what is going on around me. For example when someone says in Spanish, referring to me, “I would never have come to a country without studying the language first.” I actually got the general idea of what they said where as before, they could have called me a moron to my face and I would probably have said “si.”
I don’t want to suggest I didn’t study the language, but first they talk at regular conversation pace here (oddly enough?) which when I first arrived was way above my head. I have enjoyed drowning in Spanish it’s been a trip. I figure if I’d spent another 6 months studied to come here I probably would never have got on the plane. Sure it made finding an apartment difficult, you never know who you’re going to run into and how you’re going to be challenged, but that’s half of the experience.
I started school at the beginning of January and so far it’s been trying at points though in general it’s a whole lot of fun. I’m helping teach 1st grade, which means I spend my workdays teaching and supervising 6 yr olds. I use the term “workday” rather loosely because I only really work full time two days a week. The other two days are half days unless my lead English instructor is out. I can’t really complain about the job, my kids, or the teacher I’m assisting.
For this first month I’ve gotten a long with all of them. The kids need the occasional reigning in to keep them from entirely bouncing off the walls, but in general they learn pretty quick and are a great group. I do have gym a couple times a week, which unfortunately since I’m there, means they have to do it in English. Memories of boring square dancing units and other things in gym class come to mind when I’m with them doing some of these activities. They push through it though and seem to really enjoy doing the activities. The gym teacher I help does a pretty good job of keeping them engaged. I just wish the funniest games, like for example kickball, involved using English directly. The students have Spanish speaking gym too, so I hope they get to just organizationally goof off there, which is what I remember the best gym classes being when I was that age.
Other then gym I help prep lessons and help sing some of the songs we teach the first graders. They sing a lot of songs and do they love them. The teacher I’m helping has even worked up a lot of motions for the songs we sing and the kids love it. If we don’t sing this one song at the beginning of each English lesson they’ll let you know. My only complaint is that after doing a couple lessons in the course of a day my head is ringing with them and I find myself humming them under my breath. For example here are two like: “I want shoes” or “Hello Mr Yellow” both which I guarantee will be top 40 hits.
Besides going to work 4 times a week, I’ve been trying to work on my Spanish and generally attempting to acclimate to Madrid. It’s taking some time, since the language continues to be slow in getting into my brain and the culture though very similar to the states can be pretty trying. The thing that I’ve run into way more then once is the propensity to have absolutely everything closed on Sundays. Don’t get me wrong day of Sabbath is great…but most people don’t go to church at all. The kicker for me is that you’re liable to starve if you don’t plan to do your shopping before hand. I’d like to say my learning curve has been fast on that one…lets just say I’m not going to entirely disclose it.
That’s my life in Madrid in a nutshell as of now, hopefully in another month or earlier I will have happenings to report.

To Spain, From Spain

After months of looking around for a visa and applying late to the Spanish assistant teacher’s program I’m finally back in Spain. It’s both fulfilling and anticlimactic as I am back in a whole new part of Spain and city, I have to start from scratch to make a new life for myself. Though, that being said, I’m back in a land where everyone speaks a language I really do like and hopefully having been here before traveling two months ago will help make this second transition a little smoother.
I will admit that, it hadn’t prior to this trip anyway known how completely massive Madrid truly is. There is the old quarter which I am fully familiar with now as I have spent a month around here already, but I have only done a few walking trips outside that. Madrid truly stretches for miles (or maybe kilometers is more accurate) in every direction with multi-storey buildings being the normative. So onto how I came to this realization…

Prior to leaving Spain, I had been given a letter by a nice, if not overly busy, Spanish bureaucrat that assigned me a school where I would be an assistant teacher. About midway through December, I got an email from a different Spanish bureaucrat, telling me I’d been reassigned because I hadn’t shown up. It was a catch-22. I wanted to show up, but I was prevented by the very system that had made it impossible to show up in a timely fashion. The original school was in a small Spanish city called Aranjuez, that doesn’t have many foreigners and would have been fun to explore and was close enough to Madrid for me to visit it when I wanted. Abstractly, I suppose the new school isn’t without is advantages because its in Madrid proper and I can walk and take the Metro there. Granted I have only begun to explore the nooks and crannies of Madrid, but I just feel out of my element since the plan has changed so much. Hopefully I can make this work and I am encouraged by the fact that there are not too many people looking for apartments right now and I might be able to find a deal if I look hard enough.

The other difficulty I’m having is that Spain celebrates Epiphany, or as they call is Dia de Reyes, in a big way. They don’t give gifts until today, which means all the bureaucrats I want to talk to are celebrating with their families. I had hope by coming at the beginning of this week I could get a few things squared away early, like securing a letter of my placement to my new school (escuela nueva) or finding an apartment. With the holiday it throws a wrench into the works and slows everything down. I’ve brought plenty of money to survive in a hostel for a while, but right now I’m going nuts with all this uncertainty. So I did the one thing in my power to do today; I found the school I have been most recently assigned. It’s in a section of Madrid that looks entirely devoid of tourists, which is nice on some level. I took the opportunity once I was out there to try to walk back and was only stopped by it starting to sleet. That is how I came to the conclusion that Spaniards don’t really do low lying buildings. Even with their propensity to do high rises, Madrid is truly a massive city and not as walkable as my native Boston.

Entirely Different: A Review of Brisingr

I often have a lot of opinions about things, especially after I've finished a book or something of that nature. If I continue to write reviews of book and the like, I might choose to develop a different blog for that, but as is stands I have only written this one review. Looking deeper at it I do realize that it is more a review of 3 books rather then the merely the one I finished most recently. Sorry to put such a long winded disclaimer prior to this entry, I just want to make it clear to anyone who might read this later (most likely merely the author himself) that I have shifted focus away from a travel narrative.

I generally enjoyed reading Brisingr, but I was left feeling this was a stop-gap book with really nothing important added to the story. We learned a great deal about Paolini: he has improved his skill at drawing characters; he is well aware that he has a captive audience so he can fail to edit his book and make it dry as toast at points. We also learned that he “interject” obscure words into a sentence to make the story sound more intelligent rather then worrying about the flow the sentence itself. The development of Eragon as a character seems to be secondary to all these new ideas Paolini has pushed into the series. The flow of the story was good and one thing lead to another, but why did we have development of other characters like Roran then magically mysteriously disappear in the last quarter of the book?

I honestly preferred Eldest. It was a great leap forward in the right direction from Eragon. Where as Eragon pretty obliviously had no outline and the author was apprehensive throughout that he would not make it to the end, the Eldest was everything Eragon wasn’t. That is why Brisingr is so disappointing, it’s needless long, well over 700 pages, though I generally enjoyed the experience the beginning was laughable with awkward sentence structure and with words in places that barely made sense. Why use an obscure word just because you can? Also descriptions are only good when they relate to something a reader already knows something about… what size exactly is a “winter rutabaga”?

This is the third book in this series I had expected better things by this point, not the author to become so self-possessed with his own descriptions. The last would do better to lean more toward the Eldest rather then this overly wordy in-need of a diet fantasy installment.

Run up to Thanksgiving in a nutshell...

So it’s been well over a month since my last post… not entirely sure how that happened. I had plenty of time while I was in Spain; I guess I was just doing other things. Having now been back in the US for now almost a month, I still don’t really have any idea when I’m going to get to go back. 
To those who haven’t heard this story yet the reason I came back to the US was I got a job with the Spanish government teaching children in a Spanish school 4 days a week. In order to take that job, I had to come back and get a different visa then just the regular tourist one that I had prior. It has been a huge amount of work to both get into the program I’m a part of, but also to apply for the student visa that I need to go back to Espana. It looks like, even though I thought I would be back to Spain in less then a month, I won’t be going back until at least after Christmas. (I got back on Halloween). I’m just not sure if I’ll have a job if I go back that late. We’ll see I’m trying to make sure that the education ministry is well informed of how I am doing so they don’t give away my post.
Other then chasing parts of my application I’ve mostly just been sitting around the house either not doing anything, which is most of the time, watching TV, or simply reading something. So far I have finished a couple of books, the most notable and enjoyable is “Germs, Guns, and Steel” by Jared Diamond. It’s a real good read and I like his whole theory of development of human society, even if I don’t think it’s anyway the last word on societal evolution. I’d recommend it to anyone, even if they don’t believe in Human evolution (since he does make reference to at points, but it’s not overly important to the point he’s making). Though I suppose if you hold that the human race is only 5000 years old, then there might be some trouble with his ideas….so on second thought maybe that wouldn’t work.
The other real noteworthy book is the “Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman. It’s an interesting read, because you’re never really sure where he’s going to take it next. Though my main complaint with it is all the main characters are really cold. The main character is a girl who grows up at a college surrounded by students and faculty it’s really similar to my childhood. When we finally find out who her parents are, they are both pretty horrible people. Who kill people and care little for anyone except themselves. I had planned to read the entire “Dark Materials” series, but after I got the end of the first book…I decided not to continue with it.
Besides reading the news too much and hanging at my parent’s house all the time, my time has been pretty open. I have a few other books I’m working on and I really enjoy having the open ended time to myself. It’s been interesting not going anywhere for a while and I have really enjoyed the slow pace of life I have experienced in the last few months. In the US we’re so obsessed with work and getting things done all the time, that we don’t take the time to smell the roses. It’s nice to take the time to cook something or just hang out with people and talk about nothing in particular. Time, at least in the US, is used so sparingly on those kind things it’s nice to enjoy the slow pace of everything. Any its Thanksgiving so I’m going to hang out with the assembled family.

Headed out on the road again

I wanted to give a big thank you for anyone who's bothered to read this blog in the last few months. The whole idea was spawned out of my parents wanting to know I was alive and keeping. Also to make sure that there was some account of my journey that was not scrawled in a notebook and entirely unreadable. Thank you for reading this and putting up with my rather bland narratives and accounts of my first trip across the United States.

As I mentioned in my last post I was living at home at my parent's house in good old Massachusetts. There was many great things about being back, not having to drive 8 hours a day, seeing friends and familiar faces regularly, and drinking a brew at the old haunts. But I was living at my parent's house which gets old about as fast as you might think. I am not trying to suggest I don't like or get a long with my folks, that is not the case at all. There is just not anything to do around Andover other then go to the movies, which you can only do so many times. I suppose there is a bar, but it barely counts as one.

I thankfully did not have to spend the entire time at home and actually hitched a ride with my mom into Boston for most of the month of August. I was taking a course at the Boston Language Institute to get a certificate to teach English as a Foreign Language, shorthand (TEFL). It was a pretty rigorous course, though I have to say it didn't make me really freak out until the last week of the month when like everything seemed to be due.

I met some really cool people, who were both students or somehow affiliated with the institute. Being around there did make me like I didn't know anything as most people who were either teachers or students knew at least 2 languages and most often 3. Sounds like I need to get my butt in gear about that.

The last week has been really chill, in fact too relaxed, I barely got anything done. It is amazing how much TV needs watching when you having nothing pressing on you. All in all it was a slow week with my evenings filled with saying goodbye to friends I know around the Boston Area. I'm going to miss them and I hope I get the opportunity to see them again. Though they too might want to fly the nest and head on the road at some point themselves. Maybe I'll see them all in glory...

As of today I headed out again. This time I headed back to Spain where I was for 2 weeks this last May, man it was fun. I currently don't have a return ticket, but I'm thinking I'll be back before my 3 month tourist visa runs out in December. We'll see how it ends up going. Spain again, should be really sweet. I'm going to start in Madrid and then figure out a plan from there. I wanted to check out Lisbon in Portugal last time I was there, so I will have to do that. Also I want to go at some point and check out Basque country it is supposed to be amazing. Provided I don't run into the terrorist separatists.

Since I will be on the road I will have some access to internet and I will also try to keep in touch with people. If you want me to send an email or a post card, contact me I'm a constant email checker.

It's so weird to be back here

Traveling from Columbus the afternoon of the Sunday I responsible for all those kids I took the shortest drive I have taken on my trip. I headed to Gambier, my old collegiate stomping grounds, and met up and crashed with a friend. It was cool to see her again and we spent a good deal of time both walking around and catching up on what the other was doing. She seems to be doing pretty well and is enjoying working for the admissions department as she has since our graduation.

Gambier has and hasn’t changed much with the exception of some trees missing and a few new buildings here and there. Though as I expressed in a letter to a collegiate friend I wrote while there, it was a vacant place. I don’t mean just that the students were missing because they were, more that my time has passed from the place and I am an oddity, a remnant from some bygone time. My friends and experiences are what made the place and them being gone helps me move on as they have.

Having spent the night in Gambier at one of my friends numerous houses I headed out about mid-morning but I was slow to get started and didn’t do as much driving as I would have liked. I got past Pittsburgh quite a ways and ended up staying in a motel since there did not seem to be much in the way of state parks along I-80 in Pennsylvania. I was surprised about how much I liked the scenery, there are numerous rolling hills in Western Pennsylvania which was a refreshing changed from the flatness I had been experiencing across the Midwest. Granted the hills were nothing in size to anything in the Rockies, but the very green watered fed scene was a stark difference when compared to the parched West and Northwest I visited.

The next morning realizing I only had about 8 hours of driving to do, I figured I had some time to see a few things. Having now seen Groundhog Day, the movie, about a million times at this point, I thought I should check out Punxsutawney PA where the movie is set. It was cool to see the town and its weird devotion to the Groundhog, something most farmers truly dislike and classify as vermin. “Phil” the mascot and groundhog who either does or does not see his shadow has fiberglass statues all over the town. You could pretty easily tell that Groundhog Day, Feb 2 is the biggest day of the year in the sleepy little town. I surprised about how the whole place doesn’t look anything like the movie and it left me wondering where they actually filmed the movie.

Having now put off the drive off until noon I started to head back to MA. It was an entirely uneventful journey except for me finishing my book on tape, David McCullough’s John Adams and having to find another. I ended up starting Twilight by Stephanie Meyer about a girl who falls in love with a vampire. Unfortunately I didn’t finish its 13 hour run before I got home, so I have been trying to decide to finish it or drop it. The last installment of this book series is supposedly coming out this week, but it is definitely teenage girl fiction if there ever was any. This is due to the constant description of the love interest’s superiority, lips, and “muscular body.” I’m not one to finish something I haven’t started but this one is trying my patience and I might just have to wait until the movie comes out to find out the ending.

So now I’m back in Massachusetts for now going on two days and it’s a refreshing change to be back in familiar surroundings and scenery. I spent yesterday cleaning out my car and doing nothing in particular which was a refreshing change from driving too much. Looking at the odometer I put just a little under 10,000 miles on my car in all the time I was gone and the machine didn’t let me down. It’s official I love Volvos.

Two ends of the Age Spectrum

I got into Glen Ellyn, IL where my Grandparents live at about 1:30 in the afternoon. I didn’t have to drive far so I had left later in the morning but didn’t really make much difference on the final arrival time. It was really nice to take an easy day of travel after having spent the two days prior driving.

I had planned to stay with my Aunt, so I headed over there. Despite contacting her before arrival and her assurance she would be around during the day she wasn’t. I hope I don’t make this sound like it was a big deal. It being a Friday and the middle of day I was not surprised she had found something to do with herself. When you have your days free to do what you will with them and people in your life know that, activities have a tendency to come calling you; I should know I also do not have a job.

Having gotten to my aunt’s house and not found anything there to keep me occupied I decided to try to go see a movie I’ve been longing to see. Hellboy II, had been out for a while and I wanted to see it in a theatre because it looked pretty cool. Despite having a demonic title it is not about anything very deep other then the usual bad guys versus good guys. So I found a movie time online courteous of a rogue wireless network and headed over.

I would like to predicate my next statement with saying I have been trying to adapt myself to military time, or the 24-hour clock, for the last couple of months. Well I serious miscalculated the time of the movie so I was over an hour early. A showing of Batman: The Dark Knight was showing far closer to my arrival time, so I decided to see that.

It was a gritty movie and overall an artfully crafted movie. I just didn’t enjoy the whole experience because the movie was too jarring. The picture was about “the Joker’s” psychotic nature, was more unsettling then enjoyable to me. I don’t understand why we are obsessed with the crazed killer in this country. CSI and Law and Order are both formulaic around a central theme of crazy people. Why as a society do we rightfully vilify these people and then make movies about them that glorify their tragedies? Why are some horrible acts usually more thoroughly covered then amazing acts of kindness? What does the media slogan still apply “it saying it bleeds it leads” always win?

When I got out of the theatre I had got a call from my Aunt and she was around to hang out. I headed over to her place and move a bunch of my stuff into her place for the night, all the while catching up with her. It had been a few years since we had seen each other and had things to catch up on. I really like my aunt and just talking about whatever. She’s super nice and often too generously laughs at my jokes. My aunt seems to be doing well and been enjoying the time off she has had since quitting work in March. Not liking what she was doing for a living as well as an interest to take some time off had spurred her to quit. It was cool to have the validation, that as long as you have the ability to pay the bills it's ok not to have your entire life figured out by 30.

My Grandma called while we were talking and so we headed over to restaurant rendezvous. It was a place I had been to before with my aunt, grandfather, and grandmother, but I enjoyed it and we talked for almost 2 hours about things. My Grandmother is ever the conversationalist and it was good to hear about what she and Grandpa have in their lives at this point. We ended up heading back to my grandparent’s house to see a news program she had extolled the merits of over dinner. It was a cool segment that is not broadcast in the Boston area, despite being one of the news programs on PBS.

After headed back to my Aunt's I pretty much went straight to bed, since I planned to leave early the next morning. Throughout this trip I have learned that “early” is a very relative term and due to having a schedule I pretty much set on a daily basis, I have a tendency to be a little lax about starting my day in a timely fashion. I didn’t end up leaving my aunt’s house until about 9:30 which is mid morning, but it as nice to have a full night’s sleep.

After leaving my Aunt’s house it did not take me long to lose an hour by crossing yet another time zone. Since getting the book on tape it has made the driving far less momentous and I find myself really not focusing on the length of but rather just the story and the immediate driving. It is a welcome mental distraction after merely having the radio and my IPOD for weeks. I don’t think it has hampered my alertness at all, to those who might be worried about such things.

It was a middle length day driving to Columbus to see my college friend Rich and I got there about 5pm. I got into a debate with the kid within 10 minutes from walking in the door; same old Rich. It was good to see him and see what he has been up to since he moved back from Cleveland to live with his folks. He has started his own business of rehabbing old houses to turn into decent rental properties. The houses he’s buying seem to either be under foreclosure or easily gotten cheaply at very reasonable in price. He showed me his first house and what he has done so far and plans to do for it in the future. I can’t say it would be a business I would want to get into, but I got to give the guy credit as having an entrepreneurial spirit. I got to see his parents ministry which was cool, they have had a huge influx of people into the program and it was cool to hang and talk to the kids who are involved in the program. Since I was there for both the Saturday night and Sunday services I got to see the kids that were around there the most, I forgot how rambunctious kids around 10 can be.

Purple Mtns. to Waves and waves and waves of grain

After being at the Oregon State Park I continued on to Salt Lake City, which took most of the day. It was a mostly uneventful journey with the exception of the amazing scenery zooming by my car. I will say that having traveled both though the Northwest and West, it is an increasing dry place. I have heard the reports on the news saying there is not much rain here, but it’s another thing to see it first hand. I hope that trend changes because as much as Americans are building here, it doesn’t bode well for the long term sustainability of the region.

When I got Salt Lake City, I got lost despite having good directions from my host. After being on the wrong side of town from his house, I finally got the way the streets worked and got to his place. All the streets are number and don’t really have official names, so for example you can live at 1100S and 900 E. It made finding his place a lot easier once I figured out where I was on this massive grid.

I met Joel, the guy I was staying with and learned a little about being a young attorney. He was also a really interesting guy just in his own right with a lot of interest in environmental law and it sounds like he’d recently gotten into disability claims which I made the mistake of getting confused with liability and suing for malpractice.

I crashed on his floor that night and headed out toward Colorado by way of Temple Square. It was a pretty building and the Mormons do a lot to make it look pretty. Apparently we weren’t allowed in the Temple itself, but I did get to take a picture of where they regularly had services and stuff. They had a lot of visitor centers and a museum about The Church of Latter Day Saints. I was most unsettled by the fact there was a lot of people about my age or younger just standing around there to welcome you. I figured they were all on their two years service. They bothered me with how they all looked the same with their nametags and their super neat appearance. After that initial observation I realized that if I was doing something full time, like greeting, I would probably look the same, so I decide to cut them a little slack.

From there I spent the rest of the day in the car with the weather turning hotter and hotter as I headed toward Colorado. I managed to pass the day pretty well between calling people and listening to the radio. It was still a long trip and I need to find something else to either listen or do to break up the time. I arrived in Denver and met my hosts Dave, Dan, and PJ who were really cool and gave me my own bed to sleep on. They also had a really cool dog by the name of Dante that made me wish I had one. They were a nice group of guys and I like just chilling with them for the time I was there.

When I headed into Denver the next morning, and I had intended to see a good chunk of the city and the art museum, but I unfortunately I didn’t get to the museum. I spent so much time chilling and walking around the city I got to the museum about a half hour before it closed. The city itself is pretty neat with a lot of shops and restaurants. The thing that visually makes it for me though is they’re big about getting people to create public works of art. That means there are these massive sculptures throughout the city not just the same statue throughout painted differently. There is also all these mountains all around so the scenery is cool and the people are nicer then on the East Coast.

The next day, after biding adieu to my hosts I headed over to Boulder just to check it out for a few hours. I only really had time to see the resort section and see a few things. I can see myself in the future headed back there for at least one trip. The mountains were there just being begged to be climbed in all their glory. I did take the time to see Celestial Seasonings, a tea company that has really cool pictures on their boxes. It was neat to see their factory and see how the tea gets inserted into bags and then sent to the consumer.

My only real complaint with Colorado was the lack of water both it in large pools on the ground and the lack of it coming from the sky. I’m not saying that its something they can fix, I’m sure if they thought they could get more rain they would be doing it. It was just emphasized to me by the fact it was so dry the whole time I was there. It was plenty hot, but it was so dry with no humidity that I really didn’t ever feel like I was sweating, I got dehydrated way to easily.

I managed to get into Nebraska late that night and decided to spring for a hotel because after checking the State Park list I thought there wasn’t any near the highway. As it turned out there are numerous state parks along interstate 80 in Nebraska (I’m writing it down so I’ll remember in the future). Even if it broke the bank it was a good time and refreshing change of pace; I really enjoyed having my own space and bed. I didn’t get out that early this morning because I was just enjoying lounging and now having put a lot of miles on my car I’m finally sick of driving.

I did manage to stop though Omaha today and truthfully its older sections are really depressing. There isn’t really anything in the downtown section other then a few banks and some businesses that have chosen to stick with the place. The two I noticed were ConAgra and Union Pacific, which are big names, but can’t really keep an entire city employed. Omaha has seen better days and I hope it can be looking up some day.

While in Omaha, I stopped on the outskirts and checked out a Cracker Barrel for some books on tape. It was weird being back in one, since I hadn’t been back since I stopped working at one two years ago. It might have been the one I worked in Mass. it looks exactly the same with all the merchandise in the same spot. I was able to rent a book on tape for $3.50 a week, but I had to put in a deposit for how much the whole thing sells for that I’ll get back once I return it to another Cracker Barrel down the road. I got a copy of David McCullough’s new book John Adams, it’s been really interesting and a breath of fresh air to have something to listen to while driving, I should have done it sooner. I hope I get more then one book done by the time I get home.

I also made good time going across Iowa and only really made one stop in Grinnell IA. It is home to a college of the same name that was mentioned to me when I interviewed at Kenyon. It is a small liberal arts college about the same size and locality, they both are in very rural settings, so it makes sense I might have applied there. Now having seen the place, it would have been cool to throw an application at it, not to suggest I would have changed where I went now that the hand has been played. I was just surprised it impressed me.

I’m breaking the bank yet again tonight and staying at a hotel in Davenport IA and hopefully will be headed to Chicago again to see my Aunt and Grandparents. Nite!!

Fire and Death on the Road to Walla Walla, WA

Going immediately following the last entry. I managed to get down to the Burke Museum after spending most of that morning just lounging around. It was a cool museum and their Northwest Coast stuff was cool for what they had of it, the Field Museum in Chicago has a better and more extensive collection. They had some really cool things, but I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures of the stuff inside, which left me really bummed. I had made the trip there to see it and it appears the museum caters more to a younger age bracket then myself, like people under 10. Even with the exhibits being fairly simplistic they had some really neat artifacts and fossils. There was a primitive whale skeleton and they had various dinosaurs bones set up in life posses, like a stegosaurus. The stegosaurus left me the most intrigued because I have for a long time taken it has a granted that it had spines along its back and a spiked tail, the way its usually depicted. I am not an expert, but the spines anthropologists have always put along the back are in no way connected to the skeleton and could have gone another place, it seemed like to my untrained eye. Though I suppose they are putting the flat dagger shaped bones along the spine, due to dig evidence and not just conjecture. Hopefully evidence is why they look the way it does, otherwise I don’t get why the points down the spine. I found the museum enjoyable and it was cool to wander around the University of Washington’s campus afterward.

After finishing around there I was trying to head over to the City Hall area of Seattle and then maybe the Fremont Troll, but I then had the misfortune to experience what would be occupying me for the rest of my afternoon. I got a flat tire, something I had thought I had fixed prior to leaving my friend Laurel house that afternoon. The second time I had to fix it I was trying to take a short cut and ended up in an upper middle class neighborhood where I stopped under a shady tree to fix my leak.

I was minding my own business and trying to patch my leak, with yet another patch when three little people and a shepharding mom came out to play outside. It didn’t take long for me find out one of the two boys was called “Sam,” which left me feeling pleasantly surprised due to the coincidence. His mom was trying to fix his bicycle as well and it left me wishing my mom was here to bail me out of this one. (Though this mom didn’t know the first thing about bicycles, but “Sam” was still at the stage where parents are all knowing almost supernatural beings.) So I patched it for the 2nd time and headed down and over a block so I could turn around.

Well lucky me the leak wasn’t fixed, so I flipped my bike over and went at it again. At this point I was reusing patches and I was trying to get it too work, when another Mom rolls up and said “I have a pump and a patch kit if you’re still here when I get back.”

I said thanks self-assured that I was going to make it with what I had. No such luck, the patches refused to hold anything and I pumped up the tube a couple of times to see what the problem was. By this time the 2nd mom for now my 3rd patch had come back, I was still there getting more frustrated. She was very helpful and gave me a whole kit to fix the hole, that at the time I didn’t think I would need having just finished the leak. I thanked her told her were I was from and the other usual stuff people talk about when first meeting and hit the road. After getting about maybe a half a mile my fire was flat yet again. So I took the tire off again the 3rd time and used the kit she gave. I patched it and though I had got a good hold on it except the patch failed to hold around the edges, so I ripped it off and tried again. It didn’t work the 4th time either, but figured if I added another patch I couldn’t go wrong, right? I added a 5th and had just as much luck as the fourth. So had 2 patches on my tire and still have a hole and since the air was holding for a little while I decided to pump it up high and try to limp my way home. I got all of maybe a quarter mile before I needed to pump it again and at this point I just gave up and called a cab since it was past 7 by this time and been about 3pm by the time I started this escapade. My tire is still flat, I might have wrecked my back rim, and I currently don’t like my bike.

The next day I drove downtown and walked all over. Being a member of REI I checked out the original store, which was cool, though not as cool as the LL Bean store in Freeport ME. I also just wandered about just seeing things and that looked interesting. For example I bought this really sweet hat at the best Army/Navy store ever. I had intended to see the Fremont Troll sculpture that was under the Aurora Ave bridge, but I managed to forget on my way back toward Laurel’s house. Oh well something to see next time when I go back.

The following day I headed up to Vancouver BC, for the day. It took longer then I had expected partly because I started later in the day and the customs line took forever getting into Canada. The guard wanted to know about my finances as I didn’t have a job and thought I was just coming to Canada to freeload. I gave him some information, but he was kind of insulting but I finally got into Canada. Vancouver, as a city is pretty cool the buildings reflect both a Europe and American influence that is definitely Canada. I checked out downtown and a museum on the University of British Columbia’s campus and then hit the road again. It is a place I would like to visit again, but didn’t feel I had given myself enough time to adequately explore. I also know half of Vancouver’s mystique is the nature around it and I wasn’t really sure where to start since my guidebook only covered the States.

The drive back was uneventful except for an incident I had at the border. I guess I got in the right most car lane called the “Nexus lane.” The only thing I can figure is its for frequent border crossers because they people an extra ID to cross there. I got ushered into Customs Office, hoping I didn’t have to pay a fee as they sent me in with a form that said “Nexus Violater” on it. At this point I was informed that there had been adequate signage, despite seeing any, that told me I was not supposed to be in that lane. It is certainly possible that I had zoned out, but I didn’t see any signs telling me it was a $5000 fine for going in the right most lane. I started to mention this to the guard, but then realized it was better to hold my tongue and let him say his piece. He got the fine waived and sent me on my way after having talked to his supervisor. I got back to Seattle and chilled out at the house for the rest of the evening.

I got up decently early, but I didn’t get moving until later, so I had headed out at about noon and made some headway toward Oregon. It was a boring drive up until I made the turn off toward Walla Walla, WA. There was a tree and grass fire on the way with the largest individual plume of smoke I have ever seen. It was outside the small hamlet of Wallula and I actually saw a fire truck out fighting the flames, which was neat to see while passing, since stopping to gawk at the flames did not seem like the most intelligent thing to do at the time.

I continued on and got caught in a traffic jam that I figured was for an accident, since the road was pretty small I figured it was for that reason. It slowed down and I got a chance to see why things had slowed down as much as they had. It appears to have been an accident between a truck with a trailer and motorcycle and it would appear the accident was fatale for one rider of the motorcycle.
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-25/1216588463105730.xml&storylist=orlocal

Walla Walla, WA was a pretty cool town between both Whitman College that is in town and the wine is grown there it is a pretty happening place when compared with other places of a similar size. I had the privilege of running into the annual Sweet Onion Festival and I got to see a few of the sights as well as eat a good onion sausage. Since I was running late I ended up crashing at a fairly decent Oregon state park that I really liked both for its cheapness and its general comfort.