moats and boats and waterfalls!

I've been listening to this song for weeks now and I am finally Home. I was excited for wintry weather after a semester in the desert and Virginia really came through for me. Two nights snowed in with three of my besties plus three snow days for my little brothers - cozy and delightful.

Photo is of Katie on the front step Saturday morning, taken by my very talented mother.

My friends also have the wanderin' blues

Here are photographs from the 11 teaching assistants' collective travels since arriving in Doha in August . . . this winter break, countries that we are hitting up include China, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Turkey, UAE and America so expect more to be added soon.

eid al fitr pt 2: syrianously an adventure

day 2: sunday, september 20
We spent most of the second day recovering from the late night (I will forever associate the scent of Turkish coffees - espresso sized with cardamom and thick gooey grounds all mixed in - with this trip) and journeying to Syria. Americans weren't guaranteed visas at the border, but we had read on a few travel sites and heard from a few brave souls that it was possible, and so we left Beirut (after a feeble attempt at feeding ourselves in Gemayzeh on Sunday morning . . . no luck. We were so pathetic looking that a Lebanese cop offered us a ride to the bus station as we attempted to hail a cab in the rain). The view of the Mediterranean going inland from Beirut was spectacular.

Crossed out of Lebanon, refused to be screwed over by a cab driver, walked around in no-man's land, crossed into Syria, etc, etc. The epic Border Crossing is a tale best told in person, I think, but suffice it to say we enjoyed the duty free shop/cafe at the Syrian border so much that we stayed an extra few hours (six total), ended up in Damascus at maybe 12 or 1 in the morning, and I left my passport in the taxicab. Botch. This was complicated by the fact that you are not allowed to stay in Syrian hotels without a passport, or a police report of a stolen passport, the latter of which is terribly difficult to obtain late at night over a holiday weekend with no knowledge of Arabic. We were guided by Russ, an American studying in Egypt whom we met at the border - what a gem. Crashed finally after getting a hand-written note from our eighth police station and making angry faces at the heartless hotel receptionist as we handed it over and he finally let us into the room.

Here is the beautiful Syrian/Lebanese border.

day 3: monday, september 21

Of course the American embassy was closed for Eid, so we were told by the Marine on duty (after he expressed his shock that we were tourists in Syria of all places) to come back later in the week. So then we walked around Damascus, drank a lot of tea, and I took some photographs.



A street in the Old City, on the way to the Christian district, that I found particularly charming.

eid al fitr pt 1: three countries in one day

I have been meaning to write about my trip over first Eid in September for about two months now. Here is the beginning of it: more for myself to remember than to share anything profound (which, I suppose, applies to everything else here as well but especially so in this. I typically get bored when reading other people's minute-by-minute accounts of their travels, but I feel like I owe it to this trip to get it all down for myself so please forgive me for the following act of hypocrisy). Here's a recap that I will write stream-of-consciously with probably too many details and not a lot of organization, but I will attempt to make up for the lack of readability by posting pictures of Beirut, Damascus, and Baalbak (oh, Baalbak!) when I get back from Egypt next week.

day 1: saturday, september 19

Flew from Doha to Kuwait where we had a six hour layover. We decided to collect a bonus stamp in the passport and leave the airport to see Kuwait City. The conversion rate for Kuwaiti dinar was dismal - changing a $20 bill got me just barely 5 KD (the visa was 3 KD) and we scraped together our dinar to get a cab to the city. Conclusion: An unattractive version of Doha. Ramadan was still in full swing, and the cab driver took us to "the souq" which ended up just being a mall. Walked on a pier for about five minutes before succombing to the heat and heading back to the airport. Two GCC nations down, four to go (three realistically, since I have no husband or male relative to accompany me to Saudi . . . ugh).

Arrived in Beirut a little after six and it was raining!!! Zack scooped up a friend on the flight in (Lebanese South African guy working for Red Bull in Doha) who offered us a ride to town with his parents, who were picking him up. They were total dears and we had to practice intense negotiating in refusing their offer of a flowery umbrella when we got out of the car in Gemayzah. We had dinner at Margherita, a lovely pizza place where Peter had eaten three times during his last visit to Beirut. I have a jumbly and rosy warm memory of the ambiance - rain and slow-moving headlights outside the window filled with jars of peppers and tomatoes, good smells and good lighting, beautiful people and families eating dinner around us, beautiful chefs in white smocks throwing dough, a bottle of Lebanese wine (wine!! after living in Doha for a month during Ramadan, it was shocking and joyous to have wine with dinner) with a most delicious pizza with pepper infused dipping oil . . . c'etait completement parfait.

Spent the next few hours acquiring money (American dollars at the ATM - excellent work, Lebanon, saving me from the horror of international currency conversion fees) and lodging, which turned out to be a little tricky. Both hostels mentioned in Lonely Planet were full for the night, and we found a third around the corner where the owner, Firass, said he would have loved to have us stay except for the "catastrophe!" which had occured - namely, the rain forced would-be customers of the rooftop beds indoors. Firass spoke more French than English and consequently pronounced it "cat-a-strof!" with great drama. He had Peter play him some tunes on the guitar and decided that he would do his very best to provide beds for us. After a lot of talking and whispered negotiations so that the other guests wouldn't hear what a good deal we were getting and walking up to the roof to examine the wetness of matresses (it had stopped raining at this point) we cut a deal - the three of us would risk the rain and sleep on the roof for eight Lebanese pounds each. We dropped off our bags and headed to the bars and clubs - fun times ensued. The only nightclub we made it to was the legendary B 018 where bros abounded and the bouncers grew impatient with our inability to convert currency for the cover fee. We had taken a cab from Gemayzah to the club and, as in almost 100% of our dealings with Lebanese cab drivers, had been shamelessly ripped off (but, to our credit, only half as shamelessly ripped off as we would have been without putting up a fight). I promised Peter and Zack that I would use my schoolgirl French to negotiate the cab fare home and get us back to the hostel for "definitely less than eight pounds". The cabs lurking outside the club when we emerged had other ideas, however, and so we decided by exhausted consensus to walk back. Which did, indeed, put us back fewer than eight pounds but also ruined my shoes and Peter's spirit. On the kilometer or so walk back we had to stop and rest, sitting on the curb of a sidewalk and sleepily discussing the bombed-out looking buildings around us. After finally arriving back at the hostel, we found the door locked and folks asleep in the stairwell. I rang the doorbell and a half-awake Firass answered, gesturing the three of us to a slightly smaller than full size mattress next to the hostel desk. "There has been another catastrophe!" he whispered. Apparently the rain had started again, and, we discovered in the morning, other lost souls had claimed the soggy beds up on the roof before we wandered back. And so the three of us squeezed onto the mattress (Firass and the other workers at the hostel were on the floor around us) and fell asleep just as the pre-dawn call to prayer began.


Pier in the hot Ramadan heat in Kuwait. I packed too much. Photo credit: Jack

This is how I feel about Kuwait (outside the "souq"). It was hotter than can be described, or maybe even remembered. I have gotten very good at wearing way too much clothes in way too much heat after spending August in Qatar. Photo credit: Jack

Hunting for a hostel on a rainy evening in Beirut.

oh my: dubai!

The plan was a quick weekend in Dubai - leave Qatar Friday morning, fly back Saturday night. I packed just my camera bag (in which I kept my wallet and passports - I have two, soon to be three passports these days) and a backgammon board (in which I cunningly stowed a bikini and a pair of boxers to sleep in). All went acceptably well for a group of eight - it took some time to figure out lodging and desired activities, but we sampled a good smattering in the short time we were there.

My Traveling Companions, AKA the Seven Dwarves
(It is impossible to get a good picture of seven people)

Lost in the Dubai Metro System (shiny but regrettably unfinished)

Highlights include Barasti at Le Meridian (surprising and laid back beach bar with sheesha and young folks from all over the world and beanbags on the beach), Jumeirah (basically Reston Town Center with more food, more Europeans, and beaches), and the wholesale district near the port.

Mosque and cargo.

Lovely dhows from Iran full of refrigerators, couches, and men who hung their laundry all over the colorful boats.

A Dubai must-see is the indoor ski slope at the Mall of the Emirates. We only ended up going here because the other metro stops were not open yet, but this snowflake planter of palm fronds outside the window to the ski slope was worth it.


Then we went to watch the sunset on the beach, but it turns out that Nagheel Harbor is not really a harbor and that the metro never gets close enough to the beach to walk - you have to take a cab anyways. But I did get to see the sunset over transmission lines which was very industrial and awesome in its own right.

The only reason I would start this post with "The plan was", of course, is that things did not go according to plan. I ended up with an extra day in Fabulous Dubai after glimpsing a hot air balloon launch pad at Ibn Battula Mall three hours prior to our departing flight (and right after taking the sunset photo above). Naturally, I could not think of a more perfect way to bid adieu to this sprawling full busy diverse Gulf metropolis than by seeing it from the sky. The more perfect way, I realized later, would have been to see it from the sky one hour earlier. I started to get nervous around 6:09 after we bought tickets for the balloon and went looking for food to eat during the ride (oh, how charming, a picnic in a hot air balloon!). At 6:30, armed with a baguette, figs, and brie, we finally stepped on board. Nevermind that our flight was departing at 8:20 PM from an airport at least one hour away. We would be taking the world's fastest metro! Everything would be fine!

Taken from the balloon - southern end of Dubai, the real skyline is way north of this point but it was pretty.

After disembarking, the attendant had us take a shortcut of stepping stones (which saved us maybe 20 seconds) towards the metro stop, but I think they secretly knew we weren't going to make it. We'd overestimated the speed of the metro in our calculations (forty five minutes to Terminal 3, not twenty). An hour and a half of rush rush rushing to the airport and trying unsucessfully to trick our way to the gate ensued. No dice. Inquiries about buses or boats to Doha were met with chuckles and we had to suck it up and buy a one-way ticket on flydubai for the next day. I spent my bonus day in Dubai playing a lot of backgammon, eating fresh dates, and getting to the airport early . . . enough.

Hopefully Egypt will not have any fiascoes (along with the Lost Passport in Syria, I'm 0 for 2 in botch-free journies so far), but I am certainly learning - about how to make the most of arguably unsavory situations, how to do it better the next time around, and also a good bit about myself in having to deal fully with the consequences of my mistakes. And the fiascoes have been both fun and funny. The adventure is in the uncertainty you embrace - either with intention or by clueless default.

durations, locations

18 hours in dubai: mid november, pending the receipt of my third passport of the past five months.

[An aside: If you ever run out of things to do while travelling, here is a fun game you can play: Leave your passport in a taxicab, then attempt to recover and replace it. You are guaranteed interesting interactions with policemen (bonus points if they only speak Arabic), American embassies (bonus points if you sneak your friends in to wait with you posing as bodyguards, only to have them fall asleep in the waiting room and get kicked out by the irate security guards), and thrilling border crossings with passports listed as stolen on Interpol (bonus points for serenading the Syrian border guards with classical guitar while you all lounge in their smoky office, double bonus points if you get the Qatari immigration officers to serve you tea and proudly turn their computer monitors around to show you what your passport copy looks like on the Interpol network).]

6 days in egypt: late november

11 days in america: mid december

12 days in india: late december

doha: in the meantime

I've been trying approach living in Doha like I approach travelling, and here is a technique I am perfecting: hop on a bus - any bus - and ride it until it seems like a nice place to get off. Get off. My most recent attempt resulted in a nice evening walking and eating my way through Souq Waqif and Little India. We filled ourselves with fluorescently colored and achingly sweet Pakistani goodies, samosas out of a greasy paper bag, masala chai while playing backgammon (on my new board!) at a corner juice stall, and finally paneer tikka masala with blazingly hot peppers hidden in the sauce, tempered by perfectly fizzy sweet fresh orange and avocado juice at a restaurant near the very bright street where they sell all of the light fixtures.

thousands of words

Doha skyline and the Museum of Islamic Art - designed by I.M. Pei (Other buildings created by Mr. Pei that have intersected with my life: HJM in Ithaca, National Gallery in DC, and, surprisingly enough, the NCAR building in Boulder). The photographs I took of the interior do not do it justice - here is a picture of us being awe-inspired upon first walking in (I am defogging my glasses, which is often necessary going in and out of air conditioning here) - photo credit Aleks my co-TA.
The walkway up to the museum.

We only visited 3 galleries the first visit, to make the museum last for the whole year: Introduction Gallery (astrolabe from first century A.D. was memorable), Calligraphy, and The Figure in Art - here is Tony and a falcon.
Ceiling of a part of Souq Waqif, the outdoorish market/restaurant area that is delightful in the evenings. The first time I walked through I half expected Abu and Aladdin to be running past me through the narrow alleys full of candy shops and spice stores.
Crescent moon outside Villagio Mall - right after the beginning of Ramadan.
My house. And the moon, I believe. I go swimming in the lovely outdoor pool between the towers. Oh! Also we recently figured out how to access the roof (go to the top floor and find the stairs) and Doha is spectacular at sunset and shortly thereafter.
Peter (the math & ethics TA) and I walked down to the Arabian Gulf to go wading after school one day. Came across a few Nepalese and Korean laborers clamming and talked with them a bit (all we learned really is that they are Nepalese and Korean and interested in clams). I snuck a photo of them, and procured many lovely seashells from the piles of sandy dust that look like they will become concrete soon.
This one's blurry, but maybe that conveys the hazy heat better. From the "beach" outside the apartment, which is apparently under construction to become a park.

The building being created next door to my apartment - I think this is the project that the clamming laborers were working on. One of the treadmills at the gym looks out on this project, and I realized on this walk that the workers can see into the building where all of us silly ex-pats run around on a machine while they spend 14 hours a day constructing a skyscraper. The noise of the construction is quite profound - something you miss when driving by in a car or observing from the gym.

New camera is on its way to Doha!!!!!

better than a pocketful of change

The cashiers at Carrefour (the Fred Meyer of Doha - and, I suspect, much of Europe) have this odd aversion to making change with coins. Every other time I have shopped there, the bill just rounds down to the next lowest riyal and I get straight bills back. Today, my cashier didn't seem to have coins or the ability to round down and tossed in a faux Kit-Kat candy bar from the UAE instead. This was pretty okay with me!

items purchased in last week

1) Rain jacket (in the color "tamale"): finally. This transaction was performed while considering visiting Thailand in monsoon season. I'm not going, but in the event that I was, my upper body would stay as dry as an over-air-conditioned Doha apartment.

2) Best meal in Doha yet at Turkey Central - mixed grill, hummus, muttabal, cucumber salad and FOUR pies all for just 25 QAR per stuffed stuffed person

3) Worst meal in Doha yet - I broke my "know at least one ingredient of the meal you are ordering when you are trying new things" rule to at an Iraqi restaurant in Souq Waqif because fatett kawaree looked so tasty on the picture menu and it ended up being gelatinous hoof or leg bits on rice and bread. I should have learned my lesson at the meal that birthed this rule: the one time at Sticky Rice in Ithaca when I had that odd fish stew while everybody else enjoyed their boring but delicious curry and pad thai. I was working within the restraints of the rule, technically, as I did anticipate the rice and bread, but I did not anticipate the fact that both would kind of taste like the kawaree on top. Curious as to what animal I was eating (or rather not eating), I asked the waiter repeatedly, "Is this a COW leg? Sheep leg? Camel leg?" Each time I said "COW?", he would respond, "Yes, COW-aree," pointing at his thigh. "Kawaree." So that's how I learned Arabic for leg or foot maybe.

Google tells me it is boiled calf knuckles. Nice. Maybe the waiter was saying cow after all.

3) Tickets to Beirut for Eid Break. Woo hoo! Sorry you had to find out through the blog, Mom. I will take care of myself, and it's a better bet than Pakistan which I also wanted to (still want to) visit. PLUS I'm going with my friend who has already been there. Easy peasy.

Bonus list: Cities I checked for airfare from Doha (and lonelyplanet.com for overviews) in the past 24 hours:
1) Beirut
2) Amman (hopefully will get there on this trip too)
3) Addis Ababa (could have stayed at Mr. Martin's Cozy Place)
4) Karachi
5) Bangkok (discussion went as follows: monsoons! but it's thailand! monsoons! maybe monsoons are fun! oh it is far and expensive and touristy nevermind)
6) Jakarta (rain check for May)
7) Tunis
8) Luxor
9) Nairobi (I am determined to make it to Africa before going home, and will hopefully see one of 7-9 on later breaks)
10) Astana (so expensive!!! will have to visit the Kazakhs next time I go to visit Mongols probably)
11) Suva (no flights)
12) Damascus (though tricky as an American)
13) Male (this is the capital of Maldives, in case you did not know which I did not until I thought about going there)

Choosing a country has been thrilling and totally consuming - pressure to snatch up the last few tickets before all the people flying home for Eid from Doha beat you to it! also adds to the effect.

apple post script

Also, not to self-reference too much here, cost of buying gala apples is clearly the standard by which I judge prices in all foreign countries. Can't wait until I get to New Zealand.

More deets

Every other TA seems to have a blog and post awesome pictures so here I am getting internet peer pressured into updating this. Here I go:

My fridge is full of vegetables from all over the world (Dutch leeks, Australian beef, Egyptian olives, Jordanian nectarines)! And my school is full of students from all over the world (Syria, Yemen, Pakistan - okay not quite as far flung as the food). Shopping for the former made me realize that I really must kick this habit of living in countries that are not arable and import all food if I am going to eat local. The selection here is magnitudes better than that in Mongolia, however, and occasionally I can find produce that is cheaper than in America even! (3 lovely gala apples from New Zealand for 4 QR = $1 and change!)

Also, notably, today I spent more than five minutes outdoors during the day for the Very First Time. The event was a steamy walk/swim through the humidity to the grocery store in the City Center mall about a quarter or half mile away. Every time I step outside I find myself sighing emphatically, just once. Perhaps this is a reflex to force deep breathing in order to get a few molecules of oxygen in amongst the gulps of air that is 95% water vapor. Walking this meager distance made me feel even more sorry for the countless day laborers that built and continue to build the skyscrapers (which I imagine to be mostly empty; how many people live here anyways?) surrounding everything and the silent men mopping the underground parking garage at Education City each evening. The parking spots absolutely glisten.

Haven't taken many photos yet - it's at night that the city really comes into itself, I think, and I never seem to have my camera then. The setting sun is pretty incredible here, also - since the humidity is so thick you can look straight at the sun without hurting and it's just a perfect yellow circle in the shimmering hot sky, dropping slowly between scaffolding and lit-up crazy buildings.
I think it's the only natural beauty I have spotted here yet.

That was a segue to an apology for getting you excited about photos in the first sentence. Eventually.

aloha, doha!

Just woke up from one of the most necessary naps I have ever taken. I am seven or eight hours ahead of Virginia-time here in Qatar and consequently woke up at 3:16 AM (about four hours after going to bed) starving and unable to fall back asleep. I rolled around in my big white bed - photos of plush pad + city later, been too sleepy to take any (Sorry danny!) - for two hours, and then had the silly idea of going to the gym!
My apartment is like a long-term really nice hotel with a big shiny lobby and porters and a coffee shop and "saloon" downstairs and, I found out this morning, a tidy little gym with sauna+steamroom+jacuzzi AND a reasonably sized outdoor pool. Went for a run on the treadmill with other folks who were up at 5:30 AM, watching the company coach buses load up with residents from the area and drive off. After coming back upstairs, I realized that I had more time to kill before pickup at 8 and went back downstairs for a swim. Regular swimwear is permitted in the immediate vicinity of the pool, for those curious. The pool is at least twenty five yards long and heated for reasons I cannot fathom, and has the most surreal view of skyscrapers all around you as you float about.
So that was delightful.
We were picked up and taken to work at WCMC-Q and oriented (orientated?). Met a bunch of very nice people - all eleven of us TAs had hung out the night before, but I met pretty much everybody else that I will be working with over the course of the day. Except, of course, the students, who will be arriving this weekend and starting class next week. The school is pretty large and quite new and I am excited to begin work. I am sure I will be even more excited after adjusting to the time zone.

Things I miss from home already: recycling, public transportation, you!

Things I Liked This Summer

In the event that you were going on a road trip, I would recommend the following to you (in order of remembering and in no discernible categories):

(I will be filling this in slowly in the next few months)
(And adding photographs)
(Thanks for your patience)

1) Mother's: New Orleans
So basically everybody else (Madeline Albright, Bill Clinton, and the Bushes several times post-Katrina) has already been here and wrote a thank you photo that is displayed on the wall here. The ordering system is kind of bizarre (order and pay at counter, sit down, have food brought to you - in retrospect this makes sense but it was confusing at the time) but the roast beef and ham po boy (Ferdi special) after several hours of walking and learning about insects was remarkable.

2) Cafe Jax: Eureka, MT
V and I decided that the Best Meal of our trip was here - granted, it was a special after-hours event to acclimate the Czech guests of our hostess to America (roasted red pepper stuffed with goat cheese + prosecco, salmon with smoked gouda risotto + pinot noir, panna cotta for dessert with fresh fruit and balsamic vinegar reduction + riesling - I got to have dessert with the young chef who discussed the food she had prepared, and this is why I remember it all) so perhaps not typical of the restaurant, but I was seated with the owner and her aunt, and learned a bit of the history of the cafe and the area and it was just the most lovely evening ever. Cute counter with lots of legit-looking milkshake glasses.

3) Dos Coyotes: Folsom, CA
Best burrito I have ever had, I think - even tops the Super Calabacitas at Viva in Ithaca - shrimp and paella burrito at this small chain place in the Sacramento area.

4) Big Spoon: Folsom, CA
Build your own soft serve with as many toppings as you can imagine. Malted milk balls? Frosted animal crackers? Pop rocks? All in one pay-by-the-ounce cup of delight? Dreams do come true in Folsom CA (our hostess Kathleen did a lovely job showing us the culinary wonders of the region in the single evening we were there)

5) Los Bagels: Arcata, CA
Humboldt County's answer to CTB. Our local guide pushed the creamy yellow Larrupin dressing on "whatever you get here! really!" and it was quite nice on a tomonion scrambagel for brunch.

6) Pearl Street: Boulder, CO
Mostly just bomb. (Vocab I picked up in Arcata). Lovers of Ithaca Commons, State Street in Madison, or just Fun in General will appreciate the zombie street musicians, joyful pedestrians, pleasantly noisy bars and general vibe.

7) Bryce Canyon National Park: UT
This was my favorite national park of the seven we visited on the trip. I could not get over the hoodoos even on the cloudy afternoon we spent there. They are just so complex and beautiful and unimaginable. Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon "the one great sight which every American should see" - I haven't seen that one, but will addend that proclamation with "after they have gone to see Bryce Canyon, since you are almost there anyways." Sunset Point at sunset followed by Inspiration Point at dusk followed by Sunrise Point and the Queen's Garden/Navajo Loop trail in the morning (I told you I couldn't get over the hoodoos) is a sequence I would recommend.

8) Rockefeller Forest: Humboldt County, CA
A friend's dad recommended this patch of trees as "the best stand of mature redwoods there is" - it is, we read later, the largest contiguous stand of old-growth redwood forest in the world. Nice work, Mr. Rockefeller, Jr. The scent of the shorter young redwoods warming up in the shafts of sunlight filtering through the impossibly large trees is one I hope to remember for a long long time.

9) Blue Mounds State Park: MN
Our first official day on the road, we ambitiously aimed to make it to this park before the gate closed at 10 PM. Pulling in at 9:45 was a real achievement - it was the fourth of July, and we heard nearby fireworks going off as we set up our tent. The real magic, however, was the next morning when we woke up at dawn to go for a run around the fenced-off bison preservation area that made up most of the park. The sunrise over the tiny valley full of mist with pine trees poking out the top, the prairie grasses tinged pink orange as sunlight hit them once again, the dew soaking through our sneakers as we squinted at dark lumps in the distance, imagining them to be bison - the euphoria of the first morning of our adventure: all rosy perfection.

10) Napoleon House: New Orleans
After getting our residence permits and liquor licenses in Qatar, we headed to the distribution center or "beer souq" on Thursday afternoon and the first bottle I looked for was Pimm's No. 1. After months in the humidity of Doha I had wanted to relive the smallest part of one sweltering New Orleans afternoon by fixing a Pimm's cup with a slice of cucumber. Napolean House was my favorite of the eight or nine restaurants we visited in New Orleans in 72 hours. We sat out in the courtyard and ate so many kinds of sausages and a muffuletta and I had an Italian soda and snuck sips of Vanessa's Pimm's Cup and our sundresses slowly became unstuck to our damp skin as we cooled off.

11) Kendall-Jackson: Santa Rosa, CA
Another lovely afternoon spent sitting outside and eating delicious small bites - we headed north of San Francisco after visiting the Academy of Sciences in the morning and went on a brief garden tour with a lot of old people. This was not the most thrilling, especially since we were all feeling a little snobby after passing Wines and our touring compartriots' questions about grape characteristics and France were rather dull. I have to note that I was extra impatient because I was not old enough to enjoy the complimentary glass of Riesling as I walked around the garden with everybody else. Afterwards, however, we signed up for a food and wine pairing and were seated outside in the empty garden as practically every employee of the establishment served us tiny bits of chicken terrine and watermelon pickles and truffles along with a rainbow of bright California wine. A real treat was the Viognier that the chef brought out midway that he described as "tasting like roses" which it did in the very nicest way.

12) Michael's Frozen Custard: Madison, WI
The last thing I did in Madison was stop by Michael's and get a chocolate ice cream cone to eat while driving haphazardly down Verona Road to visit Briana's farm. Hugely delicious and exactly the same as it has been since I was small and walking back to Bri's after paddleboating or getting a sundae after soccer practice.

13) Empire Dairy King: Empire, CO
While we are on the subject of ice cream: Recommended by a friend who was a genuine Resident of Colorado, we stopped by this tiny burger and shake place on our way into Boulder from Utah. After a long day of driving, hiking, and anxiously anticipating the mountains, we were hungry and the Dairy King was there for us. One of the two employees working was a teenage boy who slowly but surely served at least a dozen malts, a handful of shakes and five towering soft serve cones to the masses that had gathered there before us that evening. Watching the kid diligently blend malts while avoiding eye contact from the expectant customers took me right back to my summer scooping ice cream at Maggie Moo's. He crafted a lovely hot fudge sundae for me that was well worth the wait.

14) Felix's: New Orleans
After a sticky day roaming around Audubon Park, riding the streetcar up and down St. Charles (I think this was my favorite public transportation of the trip - or at least ties with the ferry in coastal Louisiana that time we almost ran out of gas. It made me feel small and thrilled), and walking walking walking

15) Peaches N' Such: Monetta, SC
16) Strasburg, VA
This is the town where the trip ended one Monday morning - I bought Peapod a tank of gas and she headed back to Ithaca, and Jamie and I drove to my house and we went swimming. We met in this corner of Virginia to see a drive-in movie in Stephens City (Ice Age 3 and Earth double-feature) and go camping (FREE CAMPSITE) in Jefferson National Forest just across the border in West Virginia. This film-watching and outdoor-sleeping required a lot of driving back and forth along a tiny stretch of Highway 81 (which, notably, goes to upstate New York and is what Scythian takes when they come play music for us at Castaways) which featured a sign for the Hi Neighbor Country Restaurant in Strasburg. Naturally we decided this was the place for our Last Meal the next morning, although we drove by plenty of lovely cafes and diners on the main drag as we looked for Hi Neighbor. Tried scrapple for the first time . . . somewhat disappointed. But Strasburg I would certainly visit again.

17) Covington, LA
Live oak trees, pretty downtown, lovely old houses . . . we were only here a few hours visiting but I liked the feel of this town just across the lake from New Orleans.

18) Siesta Key, FL
A bustling beach with balmy blue waters.

19) Toast!: Charleston, SC
We had a travel book for Charleston but couldn't find any of the recommended restaurants as we hungrily walked the brick streets of the city . . . lured in by the sidewalk sign for the breakfast special, Toast! (Google has verified my recollection of the exclamation point in the name) popped up just before we were about to give up and eat pralines for breakfast in the car. Eggs Meeting Street (poached eggs, crabcakes, fried green tomatoes) was a highlight, as was the lone European traveler intently reading his Lonely Planet: America (hefty book) at the bar.

20) Mission: San Francisco
21) Anthony's Cookies: San Francisco
22) Pixar: Emeryville, CA
23) Alabama State Capitol: Montgomery, AL

list 1 of many

Bodies of water I have jumped in - or at least waded in - this summer:

1) Reservoir - Ithaca, NY
2) That fountain in the middle of everything at the University of Michigan
3) Pond at Echo Farm - Check, VA
4) Gulf of Mexico - Siesta Beach, FL
5) Sunfish Lake - Lac du Flambeau, WI (photo credit: Mom)
6) Pacific Ocean - Devil's Punchbowl, OR + Trinidad, CA + Pacific Beach, CA


7) Boulder Creek - Boulder, CO
8) Reservoir - Eureka, MT

Considered deeply but notably did not:
1) Bluebird Lake - Trego, MT
2) Sylvan Lake - Eagle, CO
3) Crater Lake, OR

Next up: Persian Gulf

can't get over california

2 nights in Arcata and one in Folsom: delicious burritos and so much ocean and those crazy redwoods. My goodness. San Francisco, Santa Barbara, LA and San Diego by the end of the week. More later + photos . . . all is going super super well.

Made it to the coast

My friend Vanessa and I jumped in the Pacific yesterday at Devil's Punchbowl on the Oregon Coast. It took us a while to find the Punchbowl Proper (it was right next to where we parked the car) but running on the beach and body surfing on the cold cold upwelling waters afterwards was an excellent diversion in the meantime.

It is looking like I will have internet (and cell phone) access less on this trip than when I was in Mongolia since we are camping in relatively remote places most of the time. While I am here I'll sketch out where we've been:

Minocqua, WI - fishing, learning banjo, sitting around in a fresh piney cabin and making 3 pies. Visited the Wisconsin Concrete Park in Phillips, WI on our way down to Madison which was quite fantastic.
"Lincoln-Todd Monument: Second Monument Of Its Kind in the USA"

Lancaster, WI - Briana's farm!!! playing with friendly chickens and sleeping so snugly on the back of a pick up truck in the fields

The Friendliest Chickens On Earth!

Blue Mounds State Park, MN - amazing sunrise run, listening to fireworks on the 4th
Near Bozeman, MT - after long long long day of Badlands National Park and Devil's Tower National Monument and driving through hailstorms . . . first night in bear(ish) country, but no bears

Badlands!!!

Trego, MT - two lovely days of incredible folk music, glacial lakes that focused sound like ellipses in cathedrals, sleeping on soft futons in the home of a woman named Alien who was just the most, and hanging out with delightful Czech vistors

This is Bluebird Lake in the Ten Lakes region - we almost drove into Canada on our way here! Lots of bear tracks on the hike in.

Somewhere in the Columbia River Gorge, OR - woke up to fly fishers then had coffee at Pearl Bakery in Portland where my friend works and then drove to the coast!!!
Eugene OR - headed to the Oregon country fair which I am about to explode with excitement over. Spent last night at the Oregon Electric Company with a room full of veterinarians learning about worms and fleas.

Got to get ready for a day of sunshine, music and free love in Veneta.
PEACE!

On the road again

Going places that I've never been
Seeing things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again.

Adventure Plan for 2009:
1) Farming in southern Virginia and then exploring the South a bit.
2) Driving around the country for five weeks with my roommate(s) and possibly you. Check out the map and edit if you would like visitors in July and August.
3) Moving to Doha, Qatar for 9 months to work at Weill Cornell Medical College - Qatar as an organic chemistry teaching assistant. Possibly befriending more nomads or semi-nomads!

I will be keeping you posted as best as I can.
Love to all my friends as you start your respective adventures around the country + world.