tired

Obviously, I haven't kept to my goal of regular posting. At least now, I have a semi-excuse. In order to make some cash K and I picked up a short-term job in Springfield, Mo. Ice storms a few weeks ago were bad enough to earn a disaster designation from FEMA, which means FEMA is picking up the tab to clean out all the tree limbs. Of course, because it's FEMA, it's not an easy process. Which is where we come in -we're earning cash watching the crews doing the actual work, doing our part to add another layer of bureaucracy to the process. Not a bad gig, since we're not really doing any actual work other than filling out paperwork, and not bad pay. Bad hours, though. About 12 of them each day, six or seven days a week. Last week, I put in 74 hours. Even without doing hard work during the day, I don't have much time to do anything else. Certainly not enough time left over for sleeping, as far as I'm concerned.

bands around the world

Oct. 4, 2006

A poster caught our eye in the Beijing subway: Rock and Beer Feast 2006. Almost all the poster was in Chinese characters, rendering the information useless to us, but we managed to figure out there was a week-long, all-day music (and beer) festival somewhere in town while we were there. (and calling it a feast, instead of the more conventional fest, just made it more appealing).


In the English-language mags we found a bit more information, although still tantalizingly little: yes, it was a week-long series of concerts starting at about 2 p.m. each day. More importantly, the venue (listed as "International Sculpture Garden") was accessible by subway, the only way we could navigate Beijing. And the entry fee was less than $10.
Wednesday, we lounged around the apartment all morning. Since most of the day was shot already, we figured we'd head out to the feast to make it sound like we hadn't squandered all our time. In our mind, we figured we'd lie on the grass, listen to a couple of bands (since we had no idea what to expect, we went in figuring the quality would be poor. No chance of disappointment) and then maybe leave and figure out something else.


We showed up about three o'clock. The venue was easy enough to find, since it was literally just outside the subway stop. The "sculpture garden" ended up being an airport-sized piece of fenced-in concrete; not the perfect place to hang out in the 80-degree sunshine. A group of maybe 100 kids sat in front of the stage at one end of the cement, watching a punk band fronted by a high-school aged girl. A few more sat by the two beverage tents in the middle of the area, about 300-400 yards from the stage. The far edge was ringed with tents selling food and merchandise. The crowd seemed to be primarily 16-22 year olds, with enough exceptions to make it interesting. All in all, pretty typical. Except we were the only white faces there (a few more, looking like international college students, showed up later in the evening). And the beer sellers, who were using some sort of purchase-tickets-then-exchange-tickets-for-beer system, didn't speak English. And I didn't understand a word the bands were saying (actually, I suppose that is pretty typical).

A few bands into the day (each band got about a half-hour set) we were treated to our first taste of the bizarre: a goth-metal band, lead singer dressed in what I'm guessing was a traditional western Chinese costume (to my eye, it looked a bit like Native American garb) and everyone else in full white face paint. A few power rock chords, then out comes the traditional Chinese violin. Nice touch.

The bands weren't bad, generally. We figured out how to buy beer (3 yuan, or about 35 cents, for a big bottle of beer; 5 yuan for a smaller bottle of water). A girl at the refreshment tent took the opportunity to practice her English, helped us navigate our way through the selection and translated the names of some bands. She also keep asking us if we liked the music, near incredulous as well as excited at our answer of yes.

Just after dark came our favorite act of the night. It didn't hurt when they broke into a pop-punk cover of "You Are My Sunshine," one of three English-language songs the whole day. (I honestly can't remember what the first one was, but the other one was "Cat Scratch Fever" sang by a hard-rocking Chinese who, I'm convinced, didn't know English or have any idea what he was saying).

Many, many beers and about eight hours later, we even managed to negotiate the subway properly and make it home.


Nov. 8

Since even before we left New Zealand, it seemed like we were continuously visiting cities where a band one of us wanted to see had just been or was just about to arrive; either way, not while we were actually there. In London, we checked the gig guides and the sites of several bands we knew were touring. Again, all of them were going to miss us by at least a few weeks.

Kirsten checked on one more band, and found it, too, would miss us, playing in London while we would be in Newcastle. Then we looked at their schedule, decided to see where Gateshead was, and found out it actually was in Newcastle, at the same time we were going to be in Newcastle. So, finally, a happy coincidence and a show we wanted to see.

The show was in the Sage Gateshead, a brand-new venue on the south side of the Tyne River. From the outside, the steel-and-glass structure looks a bit like a giant, shiny slug. From the inside, it offers a brilliant view of downtown Newcastle as well as three concert halls.

The show itself, the only one on our trip we bought tickets for ahead of time, was a bit of a disappointment. I've heard Yo La Tengo's album tracks before, and I generally like them. Live, I felt they should have taken the distortion pedals away from the lead singer. There was more noise than music, and from a band whose lyrics are probably the strength, when you can't hear the lyrics it's a problem.


Nov. 11

It looked like we'd have our usual problem as we headed to Ireland. There was a band our friend Ryan had introduced us to. We discovered they'd be playing in Dublin the first weekend we'd be in Ireland. However, plans changed and it turned out we were in County Cavan the night of the show, rather than Dublin.

Our Irish friends told us they'd be taking us to Galway the next night, to see the reuniting show of one their brother's bands - they were opening for a touring band at a Galway pub. (Unfortunately for me, the name of their band has left my mind. Sorry, Alan.) We arrived in Galway a little late, and the band we came to see was off the stage. We decided to head in anyway, since two of us were on the guest list and the remaining cover wasn't that bad split between all of us.

We walked in the pub and saw chaos on stage. There were nearly 30 people up there, most of whom had no instruments (save kazoos) but were singing, blowing bubbles, throwing confetti and dancing like mad. I figured they'd grabbed a bunch of fans out of the audience. The crowd was into it, the music was catchy. It also sounded a little familiar.

Now, Ryan had only given us I'm From Barcelona's music. We had no idea what the band make-up was. So after a couple songs, when a very familiar song starts playing, Kirsten leaned over to me: "They're covering I'm From Barcelona!" Then we started to wonder. I leaned over to one of the Irish boys: "Who is this band?" "Barcelona something!"

We'd stumbled across the show of the band we'd meant to see, without any idea we were going to. It also ended up being one of the best shows we'd ever seen.

backpack living

I may be back in the States, but my lifestyle has hardly changed from
the globe-trottin' days. We're still looking for jobs, still don't
have any clear place to settle, still staying with friends and family.
So we're also still effectively living out of backpacks (although
more than one, since we have a car to carry our stuff around with
us). Time still seems to fly by and it seems like I'm too busy to get
anything done, even though I'm not really doing anything. Such are
the problems of constant traveling. And even though now we're staying
in some spots much longer than we ever did since leaving New Zealand
(three nights in one spot was a looong stop) we're still living the
nomadic lifestyle.
The main difference is when we were cruising around the world, we
generally had some idea of where our next stop would be, even if we
didn't know what we'd do when we got there. Right now, we're not even
sure of the next destination.

Hold it up
Originally uploaded by slack13.

Central Montana has been cold lately - a few days of 1° highs and around -15° lows. Looking through the travel pictures reminds me what it's like to be warm - like in Bangkok. It was about 80° most days, had to be about 90° the day we arrived, and humid. Also, while we were in Southeast Asia, it rained nearly every day. Luckily, it almost always rained early in the evening, when we were somewhere eating dinner. Maybe a couple of times were we caught in the rain - only one I remember was in Cambodia, while we were touring one of the Angkor temples.

This photos was taken at a Bangkok temple, or wat. It was the wat on the grounds of the Grand Palace.

elastic time

Despite my best intentions, a broadband connection and plenty of free time, I (obviously) haven't updated this page in some time. Ideally, that will change. I'm aiming for at least two updates a week, and hopefully more, as I try to put some of my traveling experiences into written form.


Time plays tricks. The tricks are different when you're constantly traveling, trying to see the highlights in a location then moving onto another, overloading the brain with stimuli.
Tricks especially when a day is split by time on a plane, train or auto into two parts in separate locations. Each city or stop has a place in your brain, rather than each day. Things that happened yesterday morning Germany seem like a long time ago the next day when you're in Scotland.
But as experiences quickly recede into the "past" section of your brain, they also get lumped together. Everything that came before this place happened more or less together, is the impression.
At one point in the midst of the world tour, I stopped, thought, and told someone it seemed like we'd been at our current stop both for a very short time and a long time. Whoever I directed the comment to, someone who was in a stable location in space and time, didn't understand. To them, I was swooping into their life for a few short days before leaving again just like that. To me, the stop had a different quality, as one of many brief stops but also a unique, one-of-a-kind experience (just like all the others).

Now, the whole trip is lumped together in the back of my brain. We're back in the States, unlikely to leave anytime soon, with no exotic destination to look forward to (with no destination of any kind, yet). But I can separate any stop out from the jumble when I think about a specific place, specific people.

The surprising thing to me, now that I'm back, is how easy the return was. I loved the travel. I even loved the moving around every few days, although it was occasionally wearing. I thought I'd have a tough time when it ended.
But more than anything, it seems like my year and a half away from the States was just a pause in my personal flow of time here. Of course, since everyone else's flow of time has continued, I'm resuming my States time a little behind.

a funny thing happened on the way to berlin...

In 2004, I traveled to Germany as the third stop on a European tour and found the language impenetrable and the country extremely foreign.
In 2006, I traveled to Geramany after spending six weeks in Asia and was amazed at how much meaning I could parse from the written language and how un-exotic the culture seemed.

back home

In a parking lot outside a big box retailer in a minor Midwestern city I looked around. I could see a few other big chain stores in the midst of strip mall storefronts. The smaller buildings of national chain restaurants stuck up like islands in the larger sea of parking.
I realized, looking at a retail store a few hundred yards from the store I just walked out of, I couldn't walk between the two if I wanted to. At least, not without braving the multiple lanes of traffic in both directions on the arteries cutting through this parking plain. This seems to be a quintessentially American scenario, if perhaps not uniquely American.
A more uniquely American experience came a couple days previously, when a trip to a Super Wal-Mart (the only grocer in town) was preceded by a stop at the gun shop.

last day

Blue Lagoon
Originally uploaded by slack13.

I found myself neck-deep in the local power plant's waste just before leaving Iceland for good.
And I paid to do that.
The penultimate stop on our World Tour was Iceland's Blue Lagoon. The lagoon is the outflow from the local Geothermal Power Plant. Since the waste products that make it to the lagoon are mineral-rich water and heat, someone had the bright idea to turn the spot into a resort and spa.
Apparently it's one of the most-visited spots in Iceland. Since it's between Iceland's international airport and Reykjavic all the bus companies include an optional stop here on the way to or from the airport. We decided to go ahead and take the option on our way out of the country.
So on the morning of Nov. 30 we woke up, hopped in the waiting bus, and headed to the Blue Lagoon.
We arrived around 10:30 a.m. The sun hadn't yet started to color the sky.
It wasn't a perfect day to take the waters. The air temperature when we arrived was something like 34 degrees Farenheit. A hard, icy wind was blowing. Resort attendants walked along the edge of the water in full artic parkas, gloves, boots and earmuffs.
The water itself was warm. The digital readout said it ranged from 95 degrees to 109 degrees by one of the steam vents. However, the bulk of the water wasn't quite warm enough to take away the chill from the air. Especially since you are required to shower before entering the water, so the wind had a better chance of freezing your ears solid. The sauna and steamroom provided momentary welcome respites from the cold, until their heat proved too much for comfort.
The weather gave the place an other-worldly feel. Steam rising off the milky-blue water obscured the other bathers and hid the resort buildings. It combined with the indistinct lighting and volcanic rocks piled along the boundaries of the lagoon for the overall surreal quality.
We spent about three hours at the Blue Lagoon before catching the bus to the airport and waiting for our flight (which ended up being delayed more than an hour by the first snow we'd seen).
As a resort, it was a disappointment. As spot to show off the unique character of Iceland's landscape and weather, it succeeded even despite the handicap of being an artifical landscape.

last day (II)

We sat on the tarmac for about an hour, our time in Iceland slightly extended for de-icing. The flakes were heavy, wet chunks pelting the ground in sheets, propelled by the wind.
On arrival in Baltimore, we were leery of customs. The form asked for all items purchased overseas - we needed extra space just to write the countries visited. Even if I'd wanted to answer completely, I didn't remember exactly what we'd picked up during the year.
No need to worry. Customs didn't even look at the list. They didn't even want to look in the bags, even when we admitted to having food in the bags. We didn't even get an entry stamp in the passport - just a stamp on our customs form and a wave on through.
When we did arrive, my sister was waiting. She had a different idea - she was worried we'd been extensively questioned and searched. The airport had never changed the status of our flight to "delayed." Instead, the board read "on time" for our arrival. We were amazed we cleared passport control, got our bags and cleared customs in a total of maybe 20 minutes. To her, the process apparently took two hours.

a few notes on the first day back

* Baltimore at night was noticeably brighter from the plane, even more so than London. This isn't to say Baltimore has more lights than London, just that it seemed the average output of each light was brighter. There was more bright white light, as opposed to the usual orange glow. I don't think this is a Baltimore problem. I think this is just the way American cities are. I don't know if it's a case of more lights, or brighter lights, or lights that aren't shielded. But it seemed brighter.

* There's too much space between everything on the streets. The roads are amazingly wide; in some places the sidewalk is amazingly as wide as the road; houses are set further away from the street; there are more parking lots. Even in between buildings, the spaces are just bigger.

* It was odd to get my first handful of American change. It seemed old-fashioned, for some reason.

* The night we got in, we landed at 7 p.m. Baltimore time, or 1 a.m. Europe time. We stayed up until nearly midnight (6 a.m. on my body clock). I didn't feel bad last night, but I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning. I'm sure I'm going to have the same problem tomorrow. This always seems to happen when I flew across a bunch of time zones west. When we flew from Beijing to London we were in the air for 10 hours, always in the sunlight (took off about 10 a.m., landed in the afternoon). We were up for more than 24 hours. I couldn't get a long night's sleep for a week afterward. I didn't feel bad most of the time. It was just at about 5 p.m. I'd totally crash, then when I did go to sleep I just couldn't stay that way long enough. I haven't had the crash in the evening this time around. We'll see how long it takes before I can go back to sleeping in. (That was one nice thing about Iceland: when there's no sun, it's easy to sleep).

* I'm going to want to put USA at the end of addresses for a long time yet.

back again

In the States. Flew into Baltimore last night, a little jet-lagged today, but not too bad (a six-hour flight just doesn't seem that long anymore). Haven't really had much time to reflect on the end of the trip - in a lot of ways, it won't seem like we're done traveling until we have a place to stop and settle (which means until we have jobs, somewhere).

Lots more later, I'm sure - I'll be posting all the stories from the last few months which didn't make it to the blog yet as I see fit. So keep checking...

land of (melting) ice

Last stop. We landed in Reykjavik, Iceland, Monday on an extended stopover between London and Baltimore.

My first thought on landing was the similarity between this and my home in Montana. I realized it's not particularly similar in the details, but in a few bold strokes it is: the lack of trees, the yellowed grasses sticking up through patchy snow, and mountains in the distance.
Mostly it's the lack of trees. Like home, you can see as far as the weather conditions and terrain will let you. It's a perspective most places we've been haven't had, and I'd forgotten how much of a difference it made.
Tomorrow, we get out of Reykjavik on a day's bus tour. Geysers, waterfalls, volcanoes are on the agenda. This will complete a geothermal trilogy for me; I've now visited the earth's main hotspots of Yellowstone, Rotorua, New Zealand, and now Iceland.

The weather isn't as bad as expected. It was right around freezing when we landed (and a cold wind made walking around unpleasant). Today it was up around 40, and even tonight it's warm enough most of the snow and ice is melting. Got my jeans drenched waiting to cross the street when a car hit a puddle, a few minutes after I'd fallen on the lumpy, wet ice covering the sidewalk.

What is just as expected is the daylight situation. When we landed at 4:30 in the afternoon, the sun had already set. That wasn't too unusual for winter locations. This morning, however, I managed to wake up before dawn. And I wasn't awake until 10 a.m. Really, it's perfect for me. Especially since I'm not at work through the four hours or so of daylight.

I didn't realize (until Kirsten read the in-flight magazine on the way here) Iceland has 300,000 people in the whole place, and about three-quarters of them live in Reykjavik. From what I've seen of the place, it looks like a larger version of any mountain town; lot's of cozy-looking buildings and lights on trees and in the street. Feels like I should be skiing while staying here.
The prices aren't as cozy. We're staying at the Salvation Army (not quite as dodgy as it sounds; it runs a basic guesthouse). For single beds with no blankets in shared rooms, we're paying right around $40, each, per night. At least there's a kitchen so we don't have to buy all our food out. I read today Big Macs cost the equivalent of US$7.50. I did, however, have a $4 hotdog which was excellent, as well as being the cheapest option in town.

out of london

London
Originally uploaded by Churcho.

Ryan has one of the coolest locations in London. To walk to the tube (subway) he walks along Tower Bridge, then past the Tower of London, two of my favorite things to look at in the city.

We had quite an ordeal before we saw them again this weekend. After spending Thursday night and most of Friday in Belfast, we were set to fly out to London. Unfortunately, EasyJet pushed our flight back from 9:35 to 11:35 p.m. By the time we actually lifted off, it was close to midnight. Even taking a shortcut to speed up the flight put us in at 1 a.m. Our bags came off at 1:20. The last train into the city from Gatwick Airport was at 1:35 a.m. We made it with a few minutes to spare. A half-hour trip, then found a night bus toward Ryan's. It didn't actually make it round until 3 a.m., then we had to cap the night with a short cab ride before arriving at our destination at 4 a.m. Ryan was very nice about it all, and Saturday we gorged ourselves on a Thanksgiving dinner put on by the LSE American students living in his hall.

Tower Bridge
Originally uploaded by dannywartnaby.

the end of the emerald

In a few hours I will be leaving Ireland. We left the Republic yesterday on a bus to Belfast. Tonight to London, then just one more stop before our final U.S. return: Monday we head to Iceland where we'll be in the dark most of the time.

Ireland has certainly lived up to its reputation for friendliness. We had a couple of contacts here when we arrived. From there our Irish network ballooned; everywhere we met people we were offered places to crash or at least had people to go and get a pint with. The Guinness really does taste better over here, music is easy to find, there are stone ruins everywhere you look. I'll have to get back here someday.

ireland is meant to be experienced indoors...

A long weekend in Galway probably led directly to the cold that hit me today. It doesn't help that Ireland, as expected, has been rainy every day and intermittently cold.
Our Irish friends took us to Galway to meet their friends, who happened to be reuniting a band for a Saturday gig. We got to the venue after their friends had finished, but in time to see the headline act, a band I'd been introduced to just weeks before. We had no idea that's who was playing, but it was an awesome show.
Then a post-show house party running until well into the next day (which I imagine weakened my immune system, allowing the current bug more or less to have its way with me). Loads of fun, and the weekend proved one of my hopes: as soon as you meet one of the Irish, you're their friend (at least if you're introduced by a mutual friend). The friends we came to Galway with left the city Sunday, but we crashed there for an extra day with the new Irish friends (and probably headed back this weekend).
Monday we hired a car (or rented, if you're in America). We've been cruising south along the West coast, taking out-of-the-way routes along windswept peninsulas. Castles, stone forts, grand views (when the clouds clear) - all of them all over the place. Monday night we ended up stopping in Ennis and discovered it was the final day of an Irish Music Fest, so we drank Guiness and listened to a traditional session.

Tonight, we're in Cork. Just arrived after dark, so will hopefully have a chance to rest and recuperate. Not sure where to next - we have the car until Monday.

and Ireland strikes back

After our experience getting through British immigration, we had another fun exchange in Ireland.

As far as I can tell, US visitors are generally given three-month tourist visas. Kirsten preceded me in line, and the official grilled her. Stamps from a year-long study abroad trip in 1997 somehow led him to believe she was a threat to stay and work in Ireland. How long are you staying? About two weeks. So she gets exactly two weeks (after he mistakenly writes two days to begin with). I go through: Are you with her? Yeah. Two weeks.
It wouldn't be a big deal, except we actually wanted 15 days. So we have to make travel plans to avoid becoming illegal overstayers in Ireland.

I'm so far behind on posting things my stories are going to be well out of date by the time they get up here - it'll probably be when I get back to the States and just want a place to put the stories.

We are now in Ireland - spent a day in Dublin and are heading west to meet our friends in Cavan (more New Zealand flatmates). This will conclude our New Zealand reunion - in the last few weeks we've seen Stephen and Reike in Germany, we just left Lang and Steph in Newcastle, and now we're off to see Paul and Kieran.

The tour has been good - it's been great to see everyone, although we haven't always had enough time to see them. We ran into a serious time crunch at the end of Germany. In Freiburg we spent a couple days with some family friends of my uncle, who showed us wonderful hospitality, took us on a day trip into France and walks in the Black Forest. We also found time to see Reike, our former flatmate, although since she was working and we only had a few days, our time was short.

We left Scotland this weekend for Newcastle and stayed with another set of flatmates, Steph and Lang. They managed to get a couple days off work and took us on tours of the countryside (and then on drinking tours of all Northern England's beers). Also had a day to wander around the city, including the old castle.

Not sure what we'll be doing the next few weeks. Two weeks in Ireland, then a weekend in London, a few days in Iceland and back to the States...

Scotland, again

This isn't exactly the peak tourist season here in Northern Britain. It's chilly and often wet, so it's understandable most tourists are giving the land of Haggis a miss in November. Three times now we've booked into a multi-bed shared dorm and been the only people in the room (a happy side effect of traveling at this time of year).
Despite the weather, driving around the Scottish countryside in November is an enjoyable experience. You still get a glimpse of a castle every few minutes, the leaves are still on the trees but have taken the time to change color, the hills are covered in plants dead for the winter, but showing a nicely blended mix of yellow grasses and red heather.
And if you're in Scotland, the skies are supposed to be grey, right?

The haggis is also quite nice. I've sampled the speciality deep-fried, as well as wrapped in bacon and stuffed in a chicken. Gotta say, I'm a fan. It's a dense mix of things that end up tasting like moist meat, even though it's not exactly meat.

On a map, it looks like we've made a comprehensive tour of the heart of Scotland. On the ground, we haven't been anywhere very long. We flew into Glasgow, then bused north to Aberdeen the next day to meet up with another New Zealand friend. A day there, then south to Edinburgh for a couple days. We hired a car Wednesday (after spending Halloween with the Edinburgh crowds) and headed east. The first travel day (or afternoon, really) was mostly spent wandering around Stirling Castle. On the second, we made it to Loch Ness. Today we drove further east, all the way to the Isle of Skye (with a side trip to the dentist for Kirsten, who managed to break a tooth in the midst of our fun). We headed back toward Edinburgh (got to return the car tomorrow) with the intention of stopping part way. Oddly, we hit a part of the country with apparently no afforable accommodation, so we just kept going all the way to Edinburgh.

Another day and a half here, then on to Newcastle (more New Zealand roommates to see). Middle of next week, Ireland (ditto). Then we start to look toward the States...

bonny scotland

When planning this world tour, we were worried about running into poor weather on most of our stops. So far, we've been amazingly lucky. We avoided the rain in Thailand, picked up some fine, clear days in China, had perfect weather in Germany for a hike around the Black Forrest, and even fared well in London.

Today in Scotland we had our first sub-zero (Celcius) night since leaving New Zealand. The sun is shining, the land is beautiful, but the air is cold. I think we have to accept winter is here, and we're not going to be traveling out of it. (It's too bad - New Zealand is nice this time of year).

So far we've toured around Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh. We rented a car yesterday and are now wandering up the Scottish east coast. Our lunch stop today on the banks of a Loch has free Internet, something I haven't often seen on the travels.

those wacky british...

Exchange with the immigration desk after arriving in Glasgow, Scotland from Germany:

Official: How long will you be staying?
Me: About 10 days.
Official: And what is your next destination?
Me: Ireland.
Official: Yeah. How long will you be staying in the UK, including the Republic of Ireland?


And I thought they'd settled the independence question years ago...