Dec 13
I came up with an idea of a way to give back to the world after my travels this year, but after I built the website I thought it might have been too late in the season to get the word out.
Then all of a sudden it started to work. Over $300 in purchases have already been made through my new website SHOPandCHANGE.org.
If you could be so kind as to do your Amazon.com holiday shopping through SHOPandCHANGE.org and send a quick email to some people who trust you telling them to do the same, there might still be time to raise a bunch of money for charity.
Remember to include a link to http://shopandchange.org and tell them they can donate without without having to spend anything extra!
Thank you so much and enjoy the holidays!
Dec 11
Moving fast has its long list of drawbacks. I always enjoy a place most when I can slow to the pace of life there, meet locals and get a feel for the culture. However, I am finding it can also be exhilarating to move quickly.
On Sunday morning, I woke up in Venice and ate breakfast sitting on the stone walkway along the Grand Canal. Then Mike and drove Northwest. The sky was blue and made for a clear cut, jagged horizon at the peaks of snow covered Alps. By afternoon, we were crossing the Italian Alps, watching the snow get closer and by sundown, crossing into Switzerland, the weather had gone from mild in Venice, to the dead of winter. The road was covered in patches snow and mountains we rode through already preparing for avalanches. Id never seen so much snow in my life. Entire mountains, over 10,000 feet high, were completely blanketed so that not a single rock or tree was visible. All the white made size and distance difficult to estimate.
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Dec 11
Walking in Venice brought back memories Id almost forgotten. Standing in places so far from home where I had stood five years ago, often froze me in thought of passing time. On a bridge over the Grand Canal, I gazed at the empty façade of a hotel, where once before I had watched red, white and green flags wave, lost in daydreams of Italian history. Approaching a café I had flashbacks of sitting at an outdoor table, discussing plans of travel with a hostel friend. Coming down a set of stairs, I found myself in a spot where I had once sat up all night with an older Russian girl who was drunk on wine, listening to her tell endless tales of home. In these moments of reminisce, I found it shuttering that Venice had been here so long before me, welcomed me once, awaited my return and will be here still, long after Im gone.
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Oct 27
I have mentioned a few times how traveling throughout the world often feels like time-travel. Some places in India and Thailand had little to no signs of the modern world where they work and farm using the same tools and living in the same shelters as they have for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.
Even in Europe, I sometimes feel as if Ive traveled back in time. Most often its a trip to the early 1980s, when I was almost too young to remember what it was like sitting in a smoky restaurant or in a cloudy waiting room.
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Oct 10
As part of my efforts to seek exposure for writing and photography, I spent the last week tuning this website up. It should load faster and have less distracting stale information now. There are more posts on the homepage now too.
All the fun stuff on the map is still there and I added some one sentence stories for each location. Go click “Where Else Have I Been” and explore around a bit. Make sure to note the controls that show up beneath the map.
My mom will surely be letting me know about all the typos, but if you find anything else amuck..please let me know!
Jul 06
On the crowded walkway escalators in international airports, there are always some people who do not obey the rule stand on the right, pass on the left. I must say, its usually Americans. Were the only ones who dont commonly walk on escalators. Why would we walk when we can stand still?
Anyway, there are always pilots and crew in a rush for a flight who come careening onto the escalator muttering out the rules with attitude. Recently I was walking briskly behind a wad of about fifteen people, when we all came to a stumbling halt because two women were engrossed in conversation and oblivious to the rules and the crowd of people coming towards them.
Of course a pilot came up behind me. He tapped my shoulder and started talking some business to me as if I didn’t know the rules. Did he actually think me and the fifteen other people were just parked there enjoying the free indoor breeze?
He probably honks in traffic.
Jun 13
For those of you who have been following my travels closely, I suppose its fair to keep you abreast of my relevant moods and ideas. As you may have noticed from recent posts (or lack thereof), Im getting a bit of travel fatigue. Considering Ive been moving around for about five months now, maybe it is to be expected. Sure, there were times Ive spent a couple of weeks on the same bed (Bangkok, McLeod Ganj and Paris), but I think being in one place for awhile without having had plans to stay there, still feels transient.
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