#all the while watching a few insane journeys of some solo travellers

[crowleyaj]

for the first time ever I set a long term goal for myself to work towards (save enough money for a six month solo backpacking trip) and life really does feel a bit better thanks to it. knowing that there's something I'm looking forward to. that I'm giving this desk job two years. that it has a purpose. so far my life has been very "let's just see what happens idk I don't have plans" but this? this feels good. and for someone who was so depressed I barely got out of the house two years ago it feels like a huge step tbh

[notinthemaps]

Know before you go and what I’ve learned from traveling:

It’s not a race. I was always so bummed about the number of countries I’ve been to compared to other people my age until I understood that the number of places visited is not what traveling is about at all. It’s not important about how many places you’ve been but the depth you’ve explored them. I have been to some beautiful places all around the world that I am insanely grateful for and it’s incredibly toxic to compare my journey to others.

Traveling is an absolute privilege. Before you spew “everyone can travel, it can be done so cheap!” recognize where you come from. 

Before you book that trip to Haiti or Cambodia to “go build a school” or volunteer at an orphanage, research the hidden harm that is involved with your short term stay. Your good intentions can actually be causing harm within these communities. 

This also accounts for volunteering at animal and wildlife sanctuaries as well. You could unknowingly be volunteering at a place that secretly participated in “canned hunting”. So many sanctuaries have been accused of this in the past and I’m sure they’re still out there. Now, not all places are bad, just make sure your money and time are going towards something that will really help ethical animals and wildlife sanctuaries. This is where it’s important to do your research.

Clean. Get rid of shit. Simplify to the necessities. Pack light. The weight of your luggage is equally proportionate to your misery while traveling. I’ve learned this the hard way. 

You have the power to choose love. Always choose to love.

Stop the exploitation of animals as you travel. Meaning the Luwak cafes in Indonesia where you drink the coffee after the Luwak has digested the coffee beans. Stop swimming with dolphins, participating in lion walks, taking photos next to chained up tigers, riding elephants, camels, and donkeys/mules. These animals are most likely not taken care of very well. There have been times where I have been guilty of giving in to attending these places because they sound great (who doesn’t want a photo with a lion next to you?) but in hindsight, these attractions are most likely incredibly unethical and there’s a lot of physical/emotional harm that is involved with the training the animals.

Reduce your use of plastic abroad. 

Going alone is okay. If we all waited for someone to travel with us, we’d be waiting for a very, very long time. So, please go even if you have no one to go with. There are millions of people all over the world that are just waiting to meet you. Some of them you’ll meet in a hostel room and you’ll end up spending the night walking through the street markets, some of them you’ll meet at a bar and discover new corners of a city you didn’t know existed, some of them you’ll meet sitting on a bench at a bus stop and you’ll end up sharing the best coffee you’ve probably ever had, some of them you’ll meet watching the sunset on the beach and you’ll end up sharing stories and laughing with them until the morning and some of them will end up being your best friends. And sometimes you’re going to be alone and going on tours, to the movies, or to restaurants sounds scary to do by yourself at first but soon enough you’ll learn that it is completely okay to be alone. Solo does not mean lonely.

Don’t say you don’t like anything until you try it more than once.

Save your change.

One of the most reassuring things in this world is that you are never stuck anywhere. You are never unable to leave.

Don’t avoid taking care of your mental health when abroad. Traveling is exhausting and not always rainbows and butterflies. Your mind and body are still important. 

Write about your favorite moments, your least favorite moments, ideas, people you’ve met, strangers you’ve walked past on the street, favorite quotes, words to remember, what the sky looked like at 7pm, new songs you’ve discovered and what they mean to you, places you want to go or places you’ve been, write about your passions, how you feel in this exact moment, draw out the mountains, scribble all over the pages. And when that one gets full, buy a new one. Reread it in 2 years, 20 years, when you need a good laugh, when you’re upset and can’t get out of bed, read it to your children. You need to remember these moments in your life. They are so important.

Spend less time on social media. It’s no secret that social media is addictive and it’s really good at taking away precious moments. It’s important to not be glued to your phone or laptop while abroad. Social media will always be there for you when you get home.

Traveling is overly romanticized. It is very hard work. It does not solve all the problems that you have at home. And traveling is not what it looks like on Instagram. Please don’t feel bad because your experience doesn’t feel the way that it looks like it should on Instagram. 

When you’re eating, really taste your food. Talk to the locals. Immerse yourself fully into this new culture. When you’re out hiking, let go of your phone. This is how you’re going to get the best experience possible. Live in the moment. 

Take photos. It is physically impossible to remember all these moments in your life. Someday down the road, maybe when you’re feeling a little depressed or bored, you can grab your camera and scroll through these photos that’ll remind you of some of the best times of your life. Ask permission before you take a photo of someone. Ask permission to post it on social media (if these are your intentions) and let them know 1,000s of people will have access or will be seeing these photos. Remember: kids can never consent. Just don’t take photos in orphanages or schools. It’s really important to be respectful. People are not props.

Usually, no one wants to hear more than a few sentences about your trip when you come home other than your mom. And the references you make months after your trip, “when I was in...” will sometimes result in an eye roll. Shake it off. I know it can be hurtful but it’s best to just keep it to a minimum for your own sanity. 

It’s okay to look like a tourist. Visit the big touristy places and take your picture pushing against the Leaning Tower of Pisa. You’re not better than every other traveler just because you skipped the popular areas. 

Learn the basics of the language before you go. “where’s the bathroom? how are you? what's your name? My name is..” Always remember it’s your fault for not learning the language of the country you're in, it’s never anyone else's fault for not knowing English. Keep the language barrier frustration to a minimum. Hand gestures, a smile, and patience can go a long way!

You’ll probably get sick at some point. Be prepared for it with a little first aid kit! It’s always a good idea to have insurance. 

It’s important to not judge the way in which other people travel. I’ve met people who have planned their travel to the point where they do not participate in any tourist activities and live off one meal a day and then I’ve met people who pay for every excursion in every city they go to. And I find my initial thoughts to be “...but why?” and I eventually snap out of it and realize it’s not my place to judge how people travel. Everyone experiences places in their own unique, meaningful way. And I mean who really cares if someone is traveling the world full time on mom and dad's money? It doesn’t affect you. 

Cheesy souvenirs are never worth it. Collect sea glass, your train tickets, plane tickets, maps, stickers, and coins. Chances are those Colosseum magnets you bought in Rome were really made in China. Support the locals if you’re going to buy souvenirs.

Slow down.

Google the tipping etiquette within the country you’re visiting before you go. Some places it’s rude, some places it’s the only income someone has. Don’t be the person who “didn’t know” when the information is a 5-second google away. 

Jetlag freaking sucks but it happens to all of us.

Be prepared to be uncomfortable and be open-minded. You’ll probably wash your clothes in a bucket or sink, sleep in dirty beds or on airport floors, be forced to eat with your hands even though you’ve never done it or go without toilet paper for weeks at a time! It’s all apart of the journey. 

The world is not as bad and scary as the news makes it out to be.

Nothing will ever go as you expect it to. Plans go out the door. I learned this the hard way. In fact, I am sure every traveler has learned this the hard way. You’ll miss flights, you’ll get flat tires on road trips, you’ll end up spending a lot more money than you expected, you’ll miss buses, you’ll have to run to trains to get to them on time, I promise you’ll have a dead battery when all you want to do is call mom to make you feel better, the hostel you wanted will be full, your dumb airline will lose all your luggage, things will get canceled and you’ll spend many unexpected nights crying but despite all the struggles that traveling brings upon us, it is always worth it. The tears, sore shoulders and blistered feet are always worth it. There’s no point in getting mad that your plan fell through.

We are all going to make mistakes as travelers. We have to become better researchers and better listeners. Ignoring the requests of locals or the cultural differences is absolute ignorance and another example of flaunting your privilege. Just because you are a tourist and contributing to the economy of other countries does not mean it’s okay to be disrespectful and act as you please. However, we’re going to make mistakes and it’s important to not beat yourself up over it. What’s important is how we respond. Don’t be scared to ask questions. 

[vantovan-blog1]

A beginning

Well, here we go, better late than never? This is a blog to get some of the experiences Tash and I have had and will have this year as we travel Australia and the world to find family, friends and fun, ending up in Vancouver where we plan to stay for a while before we head back to Melbourne, our home city, when it feels right. 

Our instagram account (@van.to.van for those playing along at home) has captured a lot of the best moments, but it's time to get some words down too. It's been just over three months since we set off from Melbourne. 

Leaving was harder than we anticipated. We found it tough to say farewell to our house, having only been in it for a year, to friendships that were really solidifying, and to family and familiar faces and places. It was an emotionally, mentally and physically tiring couple of months leading up to departure - there is a lot to organise when you upturn a settled existence - but we got there in the end and drove away from Melbourne excited, nervous and a little uncertain about what was ahead of us.

Australian road trip

Life in the van was amazing. It's a cliche, but it's remarkable how simple life becomes (temporarily at least) once you've pared down your possessions to the essentials. Fewer things in front of your face means less to think and worry about, and we quickly fell in love with the lifestyle, where the principal concerns are what you will eat for the day and where you will park the van for the night.

Our road trip took us almost all the way up the east coast to Port Douglas, a small tourist town north of Cairns, then cross country to meet the Stuart highway, down through Alice Springs to Adelaide, then back home via a few wineries in the Mclaren Vale, Barossa and Clare Valley regions.

It's difficult to pinpoint highlights as there really were so many; this trip gave us both a newfound appreciation for the beauty and variety of Australia, and as is often the case when you travel, the journey itself was as good and sometimes better than a lot of the destinations. I will, however, pick out a few.

We rushed through it more than we should have, and really want to go back again, but the section of coast between Sydney and Brisbane was spectacular. Some of the best beaches we have come across anywhere in the world are in that region. We stayed with friends in both Sydney and Brisbane who generously hosted us and put up with our larger than normal car.

There were some pretty amazing beaches above Brisbane as well, a highlight for us being the Agnes Water/1770 region, where we stayed in a bush camp right above a surf beach. Magic. Another highlight was Magnetic Island, just off the Townsville coast, where we spent a few days with some family friends Ric and Candy in their oasis of a home. A beautiful house at the end of a cul de sac right below a cliff, complete with decor from PNG and a dip pool, all accented with colourful lead light lamps and wall art made by Candy. They were very lovely hosts as well, which made it a very special few days. 

Above Townsville we ran into bad weather and didn’t get to see the best that the Cairns and Whitsundays regions had to offer, but still got a good day on Whitehaven beach (Whitsunday Islands) and out on the Great Barrier Reef. It was nice to see it while it is still there; who knows how much longer it will be alive. I tried diving for the first time and had a ball. 

We got rained out in Port Douglas and spent a solid two days in the van in a caravan park as landslips had closed the roads in and out of the place. That was testing, and we got very bored at times. Thanks to our good friend Pat Fountain who we stayed with in Brisbane, we had a fan to keep the insane humidity at bay. At times, it was intolerably hot and muggy. Combined with the inability to move from the car, we went a bit crazy in Port Douglas.

Once the rain cleared we schlepped across Queensland and half of the Northern Territory to the Stuart Highway, taking the long route as flooding had closed the main highway. Long stretches of road were at times very fun and at times intensely boring. We listened to a lot of true crime podcasts and audiobooks. There was also a fair share of silly dancing to loud music, something I hope we will never stop doing. The heat up north is something else in March and we were very grateful for the quality air conditioning in our van, Sheila. 

We stayed with a friend in Alice Springs who took us on a tour of the West Macdonnell ranges just outside town, exploring water holes and canyons. We also spent a good chunk of our time in Alice Springs watching Ru Paul’s Drag Race; an American reality show about drag queens I hadn’t watched previously but now love. A lasting memory of Alice Springs this time will be the flies, they were awful. Not awful enough to ruin the experience, but enough to leave an impression!

After Alice, we took a few days to get down to Adelaide (via Uluru), covering big distances across the NT and SA deserts, which are vast. They are beautiful in their own way and we came to love the landscape. In Adelaide we stayed with friends of a friend and had a couple of lovely days and nights out in a city we fell in love with. It has to be the most underrated city in the country and we want to go back for the fringe festival sometime. We used the opportunity to taste some excellent wines in the regions around Adelaide and had a couple of nights on the coast south of the city. A fantastic section of Australia. 

We stopped for a night in Ararat with a friend to break up the drive home, having a quick look at the new build he is project managing and were back in Melbourne just before the end of April. 

Another massive highlight of these two months was the three weddings we attended, two of which we flew back from Townsville then Alice Springs for. They were all wonderful and we felt very lucky to have such great friends around us and to be invited to such beautiful events. The first was for Simon and Bec (Simon is Tash’s old boss at Isobar). Theirs was at Emu Bottom Estate just outside Sunbury in Melbourne. The next was Tom and Hannah, good friends and neighbours of ours, who got married at Wye River where Hannah’s mum owns a house. The last was Andrew and David (I work with Andrew) who got married at Mt Ophir Estate near Rutherglen in the Indigo Valley, Victoria. 

South East Asia

This leg kicked off with a bit of minimoon crashing, as we joined forces with Tom and Hannah of above wedding fame for a beach/poolside holiday in Bali, split between Canggu and Uluwatu. This mostly consisted of chilling at the private villa we had in Canggu (outrageous I know), eating great food, drinking too much and reading lots. It was particularly nice to explore Uluwatu a bit, where Tash lived for a few months in 2014. Spending time in the beach clubs (the Lawn Club and Ulu Cliffhouse) also deserves a mention; it’s amazing what you get for your money in Bali. Only lowlight of this trip was Hannah coming off a scooter and badly hurting her leg, though this turned into a highlight when they got to the airport as she got ushered through check in and security in a wheelchair. Win. 

Next stop was Vietnam for a couple of weeks. We flew into Ho Chi Minh City to hang out with old friends and colleagues of mine from when I lived there back in 2006 and to explore old haunts. It was great to see the school I taught at again and spend lots of time with my good friend Mr Huy. We had dinner at his family’s house one night which was fantastic. Tash was unwell for much of our time in Ho Chi Minh which was disappointing, but otherwise it was a good time. It was also fun to get back into speaking Vietnamese, which I can speak conversationally, and which came in handy when getting around outside the tourist districts. 

We then spent a few days in Hoi An, where we surprised one of our neighbours from Flemington, Mara, for her 40th birthday. This was great fun, particularly the day we all dressed in matching fruit salad print threads and went out for lunch. Mara and her husband Petro have three adorable boys aged 7, 9 and 11 who were great to have around, and the whole thing was made possible by the two socialites of our street, Mark and Adrian, who are a bunch of fun to be with. Being with our neighbours made us miss home a bit and solidified both Tash and my love of our neighbourhood. 

Next was Hanoi for a night then up into the mountain town of Ha Giang on a sleeper bus to do a five day motorbike tour of the hills near the Chinese border, something I did with a uni friend back in 2011. The scenery in the mountains is spectacular, and seeing it from a motorbike is definitely the best way to do it. We ate fantastic local food, feasting every night in homestays. The only downside of this part of the trip was doing it with a guide, which seemed unnecessary. When I did it seven years ago, we didn’t see any tourists on bikes and didn’t even consider the possibility of doing it solo, but this time there were a lot, most doing it without assistance, which made us feel a bit silly for spending money on the guide when we could have done it ourselves. It was nice not to have to deal with the bike breaking down though, which it did, three times. 

We had one more night in Hanoi after the tour then spent five days in Bangkok with my uncle, who owns an apartment near Sukhumvit where he spends a few months of the year escaping winter and learning Thai. It was lovely to spend some time wiith him, poking around the local streets and riding the Klong (river canal) boats. A highlight was a night out at Blue Elephant restaurant, a Michelin guide restaurant, for a fancy many course meal with matched Thai wines.

Serbia volume I and Bosnia

We arrived in Serbia on 2 June where we will be spending about a month, collectively, in Novi Sad, the city where Tash’s dad’s family live. We are staying with her aunt and uncle in their house with a huge vegetable garden that spits out flavourful tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce and all kinds of fruits and berries. These are fantastic complements to what is otherwise a very carb and meat heavy (and endlessly delicious) diet. Tash’s aunt is the best cook in Serbia in my humble opinion.

We have spent a lot of time hanging out with family, drinking coffees, rakija (brandy) and beers in the back yard, and doing a bit of gardening when the time is right. We have done a few trips into the city to explore and shop, and been for long training walks (for the West Highland Way walk we are doing in Scotland in August) and bike rides. We have also had a couple of days at the Strand, a beach on the Danube river where there are lounges, bars and loud music playing all day. Fantastic people watching and a great way to spend a sunny day.

We recently had five days with Tash’s mum’s side of the family in Banja Luka, the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in one of the Serbian controlled regions. I have been brushing up on my history a little, learning about how complex the politics and consequent wars were in its region of the world in the 1990s. There is just nothing good that seems to come from war. It is striking how recent it was and to notice some of the cultural, physical and emotional scars that still remain.

This week, there is an international wine festival on in Novi Sad, which we will imbibe in, then we have a family friend’s apartment booked in the city centre for the weekend. Next week we are taking Tash’s aunt white water rafting, then the week after that we are off to Greece for a couple of weeks. Tough life...

[thelatenighthours]

Alex on the road - pt. I

He laid down on the big king size bed and finally got some peace. After weeks in hostel bunk beds this place felt like heaven. He looked at his watch and realized that the night was still young even though the day had felt terribly long. Alex had started travelling early in the morning, but the storm had delayed all flights from south east Asia which made him miss his connection flight. So here he was, in a proper four star hotel room with a view over the many lights that lit up Brisbane during the evening.

The overnight stay included the big room and also dinner and breakfast, which was more than he could ask for after living on beans and noodles for what seemed like a countless amount of days. It was one hour left until dinner time, which meant that he would have plenty of time to take a longed for shower and get clean.

He took his time and enjoyed every minute of the shower, everything from washing his blonde hair properly to getting every part of his toned body clean as ever. As he got out he saw his reflection in the mirror and realized that he'd never looked better despite looking a bit tired. His body was tanned and his broad shoulders fitted in with his shape more now that he was looking stronger and lean. He was more than ready to begin a new adventure in Australia and suddenly got the confidence for it too.

After getting dressed he went down to the restaurant to get dinner. He was assigned to a table where he recognized some of the people that had also missed the same transfer. There were a few other backpackers, but mostly older people who were out on a holiday or business trip. He was seated at the end of the table across a girl named Kate. She was on a flight from Christchurch and was about to start her east coast journey as well but from Melbourne. They talked a bit about their travels so far and laughed together about the things you'd never do unless you are a solo traveler. He learned that she was from UK and had left as soon as she got her degree, making her a few years older than him.

 The others at the table withdrew themselves back to their rooms as soon as they had finished eating, which didn't leave anyone close by Alex and Kate at the table. "Do you wanna get some wine?", she said and looked up to him while gathering her long light brown hair to fall down on one side. "Sure, we might as well make a night out of it while we're here", Alex said and gave her a quirky smile.

They shared a bottle and talked about everything, but as the tiny wine buzz started to come along, so did the lack of sleep make itself remembered. "This was nice! But we are out of wine and it is getting late so I should head back and actually enjoy the massive bed", Kate said after they had been quiet for a while. Alex agreed and got up after her. As he followed her towards the escalators he realized that he hadn't noticed that she was looking really good until now. She was tall enough to be the perfect length for him and her body wrapped in a tight jersey dress showed off her fit curves. "Do you work out a lot?" he asked and instantly realized that she'd know that he was checking her out. Kate laughed and looked back at him as they were walking, "Yeah well back home I do, not as much on the road. You too I assume?" she said nodding towards his upper body. "Not much, think I have gotten stronger just by carrying that backpack around all the time", he said and laughed. She was just about to say something, but the doors opened and a crowd of people got off. "Which floor are you on?", she asked. "I'm at 31 so I guess that's floor 3", he said. "Oh cool, so am I! But in 36.", she replied. The journey up to the third floor was mostly quiet. It felt like the chemistry from the dinner had disappeared as soon they had left the table. Alex tried to come up with something to say. But he did not know where to begin, and he most certainly didn't want the night to end already.

"Well I'm this way." she said and pointed to the right as they got off the elevator. "I'm over there.", Alex replied and nodded to the other direction. Her big eyes were sparkling as she was starting right up at him. It was quiet for a while, as if they both wanted to say something but no words were formed. The only thing that lasted for that moment was their gaze at each other while standing two feet apart. Alex was just about to go in for it. He wanted to put his around her firm waist, pull her close and go in for the kiss. But before he gained up courage to do it, she let out a tiny sigh and said: "Good night then. It was really nice meeting you", and turned around to leave.

Alex got to his room and started thinking it over and blaming him self for not making a move. She must have felt their connection during dinner, she had been at least as flirty as him all evening. They had talked about travelling and about hooking up on the road, which meant that she probably was single. But he could not grasp why it got so cold and awkward as soon as they decided to leave. He ran the night over again in his head while he got ready for bed. He was done brushing his teeth when he looked into the mirror and saw himself. "Fuck it!", he said and grabbed his keycard.

"What are you doing?!" she said as soon as she opened the door laughing. He was standing in the hallway wearing nothing but his tight black trunks while her look seemed to like everything it saw. "Well we couldn’t leave it like that, could we?! It would be a terrible way to ruin a perfect evening." he said, "and also, can I come in?". "I was getting ready for bed..." she said as she looked out in the hallway. She had already changed into a cami and sleeping shorts. "You have to be quiet though!" she said as she pulled him in and closed the door quickly behind him. She pushed him against the wall behind the door, put her arms around his neck and stood on her toes as she surprised him with a kiss. "Aren't you trouble then... And a bit too young for me..." she said inbetween the kisses. She started moving her lips down his neck while her hand found itself outside his trunks. "Wow, this didn't take long to get started..." she said as she got her hand inside and wrapped her hand around his dick while the other one pushed his underwear off. Kate had not struck him as a leader type, yet here he was, surprised and hard while she was kissing her way down his abs and stroking his cock slowly while doing so. As she got down on her knees, her tongue made its way from the root to the tip slowly which felt too good for Alex to be entirely quiet as he had promised. She teased him for a while by slowly jerking him off and using her tongue to play with the sensitive area on the tip. He looked down on her and wanted her to take it all in as the teasing was slowly starting to drive him insane. After a while he could not hold back anymore and placed his hand on the back of her head and pushed it towards him. She looked up at him with the naughtiest look he had ever been given and wrapped her full lips around his dick. The eye contact remained as she was pushing her lips slowly over the tip of his cock while her tongue massaged underneath it. She didn't move on from the tip but just went back and forth over it as she noticed that it made him a want it even more. When she was moving her lips down the tip again as he started pushing her head again so that she would go deeper. He grabbed her hair a bit as she continued almost all the way to the bottom and started moving faster and deeper back and forth. It all felt too god to be true, the way her hand firmly moved in its grip extending her lips, her tongue playing around, her lips sliding over his hard dick over and over again, faster and faster. "Ahh, you need to stop or else I'm gonna cum", he said as he felt like he would not be able to hold back any longer. She looked up at him again and slowly took in his full length in her mouth without anything else touching. Her hand grasped the shaft again and she started pacing up. She had made it wet enough to glide easily over his massive hard on over and over again. As she went faster and faster, he couldn't hold it anymore. The view of Kate on her knees working his dick with her lips as her perfectly shaped ass could be seen peeking out of her way too short shorts, it all summed up to something he could no longer hold against. He grabbed behind her head again as her lips made it as far in as they could and held her there while he came hard down her throat. "Sorry", he said and looked down on her. She swallowed and looked up at him, "Why are you sorry? It was just what I was aiming for.” she replied with a grin.

[theseventhhex]

Maria Usbeck Interview

Maria Usbeck

Photo by Holland Brown

Albums by Maria Usbeck unfold like the pages of a travel diary. Inspired and informed by her childhood in South America, her young adult life in New York City, and her many world travels in between, it’s music made by a visiting outsider, tapping into a shared core of human expression. Maria returns with her sophomore album, ‘Envejeciendo’, a collection of songs three years in the making, written and recorded across New York City, New Zealand, Japan, and Florida. Titled for the Spanish word for “aging,” ‘Envejeciendo’ is a concept album exploring the universal obsession with youth and our preoccupation with growing older. The tracks are anchored in Usbeck’s personal experiences with adulthood. Navigating unpopular subject matter with humour and tenderness, ‘Envejeciendo’ manages to be much more than a vehicle for sentimentality, and comes with the added benefit of a slew of beach-worthy, rose-tinted toe-tappers… We talk to Maria about using more of our brain, religion and visiting Galapagos…

TSH: How would you summarise your songwriting stance as you readied ‘Envejeciendo’?

Maria: The concept for the record which is the aging process is sort of what guided each song as I was writing them. Like I did for ‘Amparo’ my first solo album, I compiled ideas and sounds that I thought worked within the concept. Slowly mixing it all and defining each track to tackle its subject. It’s almost as if once I’ve got the overall idea for the record, I start living life slowly collecting whenever I find something that fits.

TSH: Having delved into youth and death on this release, do you feel you aligned yourself with these topics for certain reasons?

Maria: Yes, the idea came to me when a friend that I had not seen in a while mentioned that I had a lot of greys - meaning grey hairs that had grown on my head. At first I took it as an offense, it made me feel strange. Then later after reflecting about it more and more I came to the conclusion that it’s all in my head literally. The idea that changing and growing is frowned upon or not as interesting or attractive as youth is something we’ve been told by society - these strange norms of beauty that have been inflicted onto us. That’s just the physical aspect; I started noticing that my way of thinking was changing in regards to activities in my life such as partying. Going out doesn’t seem as appealing to me and certain things are becoming more of a priority over the “fun things”. This record is a reaction of how I feel about the topic and trying to get myself to embrace changing.

TSH: Having looked into the aging process, what did you take away from this subject overall?

Maria: It’s a process that I could dig into for eternity. I wish, obviously I won’t live that long. What I took away is that I really don’t have any answers on many things such as why certain people live longer than others, is it climate? Is it lifestyle? There really are a lot of factors and there is no real true way to prolong life. But we shall see what stem cell research comes up with. I also think that writing this record has helped me embrace the changes that age brings and hopefully people feel this way when they listen to the songs. Best to relax about it. Loving my greys now.

TSH: For this record was the idea of using your surroundings and travels to collage the songs a factor that came into play?

Maria: Yes, but not as much as it was on my previous record. On this one I did spend a lot of time digging the internet for answers. Technology rather than the real world came into play.

TSH: You had the gifted Jorge Elbrecht on board to mix this record, what was the experience like in working with him?

Maria: I’ve known Jorge for ages and he is endlessly talented. I’ve been wanting to work with him for a very long time. Very happy he was able to jump in and mix this record. He is very sensible and has the ears of a moth. Moths have the best hearing supposedly of any creature on earth. Moths and Jorge. I would recommend anyone to work with him if given the chance.

TSH: Talk us through the incentives that you drew on for the track ‘Adios A Mi Memoria’…

Maria: Well, I’m not sure if its technology dumbing us down or if it really is just aging but I find myself forgetting things. And the main inspiration for this song has been watching my grandfather deal with his hints of Alzheimer’s. Sometimes he is super sharp; sometimes he has no idea where he is. It’s really shocking to encounter this, but it also made me think that for him it’s a relief perhaps from some realities. Maybe when we get the brain chip implant that connects us all to the internet we won’t need to memorise or forget anything at all. Joking! I really hope we don’t go there, sounds terrifying and sort of the opposite of evolution in a way. I think we should be pushing to utilise more of our brain rather than just outsourcing it to devices.

TSH: What led you to selecting ‘Nostalgia’ as the album closer?

Maria: That’s what it all comes down to really. I can be nostalgic about physical things as well as emotional. I can miss certain smells and sounds from home as well as miss how my skin looked like 10 years ago. It all falls into this feeling. So it made sense for me to close the record with this song. Sound wise it also captivates some of my favourite sounds; it’s the dessert of the record.

TSH: Can you tell us more about the significance of the inclusion of the recorded interview with your late grandmother on this album?

Maria: My grandma was such a magical person. So full of life and very in touch with her emotions, and she lived in dreams. She read a lot and transported herself into stories. She would often talk out loud about her life and once I decided to record her. That’s where the sample came from. It just happened to be that she talked about this idea of a long lost loved one and I coincidentally was writing about this after meeting a man in New Zealand who brought up the topic. I had to then include her. Also, her voice was always one of the strongest and most emotional I’ve ever heard. So from the perspective of the sound itself it was a no brainer.

TSH: How vital can it be when forming new music to step outside of your comfort zone to allow for new perspectives?

Maria: I think it’s vital; I really did do that for my last record as much as I could. For this one I wasn’t able to as much. It’s interesting that you just get completely different results by experimenting more and more. That’s why I also try to work with others; always working with someone to co-produce helps me get that outsider perspective. I can get pretty wrapped up in concept and sounds very quickly.

TSH: Being immersed in music, which aspects do you feel most deeply connected to via being a musician?

Maria: The writing process and once I’m onstage - I love it. I feel at home. Right before it, I’m insanely nervous and weird but when I get up there it’s comfy. But yes, writing is my favourite part of it all: being able to express ideas via sounds.

TSH: Does religion and experiences of religion seep into your state of mind and thinking?

Maria: It did in the past. I grew up catholic so for my last record I had to express that. Let it all out and confess to the world, haha. I just had a lot of anger and resentment towards religion. I’ve calmed down quite a bit since then and now I choose to just practice my own beliefs which are purely scientific. But I do think that it’s important to embrace and to understand that we are small in this large universe and whether it’s just this one or multiple parallel ones, one has to keep centred and remain calm. It’s easy to overwhelm yourself thinking of the origin of things and the fate we may have. So if religion helps you to remain centred from any outer type of spiritual guidance, that’s excellent. Just no fanatics for me, thanks.

TSH: What were your highlights in visiting Galapagos for the second time recently since childhood?

Maria: Talk about a spiritual journey! It was incredible! The whole thing was a highlight. To be able to experience being there is beyond anything I’ve done anywhere else. It’s a magical place. I recently learned to swim so I was able to go snorkelling and that was definitely one of my favourite moments out there. Looking at the fish and sea turtles was great and I even saw a penguin swimming around and a manta ray. I felt like I couldn’t breathe for the first few minutes because it was so special - my body was in a slight shock. The ocean is a magnificent place and we must work hard to protect it. I’m cutting down my usage of plastics as much as possible and I hope this catches on for everyone.

TSH: What’s downtime like for Maria Usbeck?

Maria: Chillaxing in the woods on my hammock, spending time with my dogs and reading. And the most important part is the wondering. My friends and partner think that I space out a lot… I’m somewhere else sometimes in my head. This is my downtime - my mental exploratory time. It’s very important to wonder. I feel nowadays with phones and so much visual stimulation we don’t have the time to do so. Make the time if you can.

TSH: Finally, what sort of ambitions do you have in mind for your musical endeavours as you look ahead?

Maria: Just to continue to be able to work on more music. Hopefully it’s something that I will enjoy more and more as I grow older rather than the opposite. We shall see! I’m not interested in material success, I just want to able to find the time to express myself musically. If not, I guess there is always therapy and I’ll go there to express my feelings instead.

Maria Usbeck - “Nostalgia”

Envejeciendo

[travelwithshama-blog]

  Yes, You read it right. Well, it happens to everyone( right, tell me it’s not just me *sweating heavily*) that after coming back from a vacation solo or with friends when you get into the comfort of your home under a warm comfy blanket where your phone connects automatically to your Wi-Fi (or your neighbors LOL). and you can have your favourite coffee right out of a coffee maker but when you were just about to show-off in front of your 400+ ( I have these many followers) followers on Instagram and 1000+ followers on Facebook you open your gallery and feel like a mountain crumbled upon you as you cannot find a single good snapshot of your journey worth posting on the Social Media out of all your 3000 photos ( there, there it’s okay to cry* sad Music playing)

and you see your other friends posting Bomb ass photo of the same location then it’s then you ask yourself WHY? WHY? Now all your chance of impressing your Instagram crush is just down the drain.

Worry not, I Shama( It’s my name) after years of having a bad experience of taking bad photos of myself, came up with few tricks of my own ( surprising it is, for my mom).

So sit tight as your days of taking bad travel photos are over (Literally) you will rise above those days of failure and go from this to this.

As I am assuming that you have a good quality phone (5 phones under 10,000) I am not going that way.

1. The back photo

Yes, It is a classic travel photo, makes you look more serious, sophisticated and mature. You can stand on a bridge, in front of a lake, in the middle of a street, at the top of a hill etc. it has an endless possibility and the most amazing part, it is like Cheese pizza it never goes out of style. Just ask your friend or if u are traveling solo, rely on the timer of your camera. And with a little twik from an editing app like Pics art or Snap seed, voila you are good to go, and I promise you the end result is amazing.

    2. The looking away photo

Now, this probably you knew already, but in order to do something different, let’s try doing this while you walk in the middle of a road( watch where you are going) or just stand in the subway while not looking at the camera, super easy right,you can experiment with many things and have fun.

TIP – Try making it look like it was candid, gives it more authentic look.

3. The Shoe Photo

Yes, I know this is so cheesy right, but it looks amazing no matter if you are bare feet or even with a pair of super cool Puma shoes( i own one of them* my father paid for it*). And you can be as experimental them like, taking the picture from a cliff, Standing and taking pictures of your shoes or in a background of the forest while only one foot of your’s is showing. and after retouching the photos with an editing app you are good to go.

  TIP – Always make sure that your shoes or foot are clean before taking a picture.

4. The black and white Photo

Nobody understands the fact that Black and white filter can turn anything in to into elegant and beautiful like this. So, even if you take a normal photo, blurry or out of focus, use the black and white filter and shazaam, it becomes a beautiful portrait in no time.

Look the difference a B/W filter made, totally a instagrammable pic right

5. Sun, Clouds & Clear sky

  You do not have to worry about this, i mean it is so simple and beautiful that even a 4 year old cannot go wrong with it, Now involve a common sense here okay, the best time to take a photo of sun is during sunrise and sunset and during this time the light is not harsh and display of various colors can also be seen plus it is not harmful for your eyes similarly after rain or in a summer afternoon, you see clear sky

  6. Streets and Empty roads

Another easy place to take travel or regular social media platform photos, Empty roads simply beautiful, elegant and charismatic with no brains or time to waste. you just simply click it and they are ready to be uploaded. And same goes for streets, it can be either a busy street or just street signs. You can play all you want sky is your limit.

  7. Coffee, Food Photos

Now, This is very common when people go to vacation they usually click the pictures of their food but let me tell something more, have you ever heard of Flat lay. No, then you are probably missing out, Flat lay ( 7 Fantastic Tip for Fabulous Flat Lay Photography) technique  is an insanely easy way to showcase awesome items you own, tell a story, and wow your Instagram followers. Flat Lay is simple to do, can be shot almost anywhere, and can be as simple as emptying a knapsack or arranging the items on your desk .Now try using this type angle in your food photography, and i am sure you will be popular in the internet world in no time.

  8. Doors and Windows

Now, You will say what and also why. But to tell you the truth is the most easy and the most rewarding travel photos you will ever take, a cute cafe wall or a simple house door or a fort window make the most eye catching photos, Don’t trust me look at these.

SONY DSC

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

So, now you trust me right?

Great, Show some love by telling me more about what could make a great travel photo., and I am sure you also have your own secrets of taking good travel picture, share it with us in the comments below and also tell how is my list.

xoxoxo

Travel with Shama

My Previous Post

(I don’t own most of the pics, Please don’t block me and pics are from Google)

  [contact-form]

  Tell me that it's nt happened to you, that smt you just can't find a good photo of ur travels   Yes, You read it right. Well, it happens to everyone( right, tell me it's not just me *sweating heavily*) that after coming back from a vacation solo or with friends when you get into the comfort of your home under a warm comfy blanket where your phone connects automatically to your Wi-Fi (or your neighbors LOL).

[jodiwalker]

The Bachelorette finale: Romance is Dead, But Reality TV Lives On

Two roads diverged in an ABC wood

And sorry she could not travel both

And be a polygamist with TWO engagement rings, long she stood

And stared down a life of (alleged) mediocrity

To where it stood in the Miami sun, under the looming presence of Olga;

…

I shall be telling this with a sigh

For at least the next week until Bachelor in Paradise premieres;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and Rachel—

Rachel took the one most traveled by,

And that…has made all the (terrible) difference

My apologies to Robert Frost and 6th grade English teachers everywhere, but it simply had to be done. Rachel's explanation to Bryan as to why she would be choosing to accept his marriage proposal (as constant torrential winds whipped her edges and lashes into a fury, while simultaneously numbing her recently shredded heart), is that she has always gone for the complicated, challenging man, and turned away from the easy choice in the past. And that has not worked out for her. So here, on the altar of ABC, and with literally only one option in front of her, Rachel is choosing the easy route this time: the man who wants to propose to her without exception, the man who does not challenge or complicate her life. Rachel is choosing the road most traveled by.

And that has really fucked up her Bachelorette legacy.

Watching Rachel's 3-hour finale may have been stone-cold torture, but that was only because it contained one of the realest moments ever seen on this contrived reality show purportedly about romance. Given the choice between a man who would potentially give her that once-in-a-lifetime kinda love but wasn't ready to propose that once-in-a -lifetime kinda commitment, and a man who was prepared to propose to her from the moment he met her when she still had 29 other boyfriends and he only knew her name, Rachel — the self-assured, luminescent, beloved, successful attorney from a wealthy Dallas family — chose the bro that was a sure thing to get her an engagement ring.

I’m not saying it’s the wrong choice. I’m saying, Rachel lived out the plot of The Notebook and she chose James Marsden over Noah. Because The Notebook is a movie and this is real life. And reality clearly states: for monogamy to live, romance must die. [Ed Note: But if you're married and reading this, your relationship is probably the exception! Definitely!]

In that moment, Bryan was Rachel's second choice, and no amount of Instagram posts sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts Cold Brew are going to convince anyone of anything else. There are lots of people who fall passionately in love with someone and think they're going to marry them, but it doesn't work, so their now slightly hardened heart falls reasonably in love with someone else, and that's the person they can make marriage work with. The caveat here is that most people don't travel those two journeys at the same time until they reach a fork in the road with one path labeled, "Once a Girlfriend, Always a Girlfriend Ave," and the other, "Fiancé to Bryan, Former Contestant on UPN Gameshow The Player Street."

We’ll get to what Rachel’s ultimate choice means for the status of her #blessed life, but let's put it off a little longer by focusing on some other, slightly more hopeful points of this season's all-to-real conclusion:

The Glow Up of Eric

What a difference a beard makes! I think every single person who watched The Bachelorette this season had a complicated relationship with Eric's physical appearance. At times he was boyishly handsome; at times he resembled a young, broader Steve Buscemi; at times he was hella fly; at times — those times usually spent in tiny, ornamental scarves — he was utterly goofy. But most times he resembled that episode of The Office where Jim tries to convince Dwight he's a vampire by flipping up the collar on an oversized coat. Because Eric wasn't always shown to be the zen-like sweetheart hottie that he is now, but he was always, always, wearing a winter coat with a big ass collar.

But post-Hometown Eric was a different Eric. Yes, he still wore a lot of (thick?) crew neck t-shirts with sport jackets, and then, inexplicably, with a pea coat over that, but beginning with that first nicely-fitted Canadian tuxedo in Baltimore, post-Hometown Eric just generally looked more like a grown ass man. And when he returned to the Chris Harrison's Loveseat of Terrors during his After the Final Rose segment, it became clear…

Rachel broke Eric's heart and made him a man. For real, he looked like he could have been in the singing group Boyz II Men, and he definitely looked like he could make love to you, like you'd want him to. Further, he looked like a man who can grow an excellent beard and weave a narrative about love and opening your heart and growing that makes you punch out one thousand heart eye emojis to your best friend while furiously googling "eric bigger bachelorette trainer baltimore phone number or email address."

Everyone—seriously, everyone, even Neil Lane who got like a two seconds of airtime—came out looking like a loser in this Bachelorette finale, except for Eric. Glow on, baby, ya did good!

Evaluating a Few of the Other Rejects from Men Tell All So We Can Continue to Put Off the Painful Inevitable

Kenny, I love you. I cried when Chris "Plus-We-Got-Bloopers-Comin'-Up" Harrison told your daughter that you were going to Disneyland. But what in the fresh Men's Wearhouse hell is this?

Kenny. The tie! Kenny?!

Kenny's outfit choice was unfortunate, but hey, the man has has been a dad for 11 years — the last time fashion was his top priority, I guess he would have been wearing decorative dog tags and a Von Dutch hat. So I can cut Kenny some slack. You knew who I will cut zero slack?

Dress for the gross, racist, sociopathic persona you want…because it looks exactly like the gross, racist, sociopathic persona you already have. I don't know why Lee insists on wearing this teal shirt so much. Maybe he thinks it brings out the height in his Something About Mary jizz hair? Maybe he thinks it distracts from the fact that he sent out insanely racist and misogynistic tweets and has yet to apologize for them, and now his apology is just saying that he wants to "learn"? Here's an educational tip, Lee: don't wear a three piece suit where the third piece is from a different, somehow even uglier suit, where the overall combination comes together to make you look like a mortician’s apprentice at a family-run funeral home in Reno where something seems just a liiiiittle off about everybody.

But I'm really not the expert to advise on these matters. No, for that let's turn to Anthony, a master in both three-piece-suits with unorthodox shirt-color choices and racial rhetoric.

"I think you're just saying ‘I've been a bad person,’ but you're not acknowledging the kind of invisible racism in your mind. You may not be doing it intentionally, but it's still motivating your actions. The racism that is ingrained in your actions to the point of invisibility is still pushing you to behave in a certain way towards Kenny, towards Eric, towards me that you don't even recognize. So, are your actions motivated by racist thoughts that are implicitly embedded in your mentality?"

For the record, Lee's response goes a little something like this:

And finally, dear Dean, whose clock on being this franchise's It Girl began running out the moment it started ticking — time is a cruel friend, Dean. You'll learn that when you're old enough to spot your first laugh line.

I still love Dean, but this really ridiculous blazer has me nervous that he might grow too thirsty for his own britches post-Paradise. But at least those britches aren't also navy camouflage.

That, and the fact that he wasn't a dick to Rachel, at least, gives me hope.

Define…Engagement

Okay, there's no more putting off the inevitable. The episode preceding the finale ended on a cliffhanger because suddenly it became clear that Rachel and her hot co-boyfriend Peter were at an impasse. As of the Fantasy Suites — which is to say both his second-to-last solo date with Rachel and his fourth-ever solo date with Rachel — Peter was not sure if he would be ready to propose to her after just six weeks of being aware she existed. See, he believes, “Engagement is marriage. I want to do it as many times as I get married, which is once." And Rachel believes that getting engaged in the next two simply days means, "cultivating a relationship and seeing if it can work outside of that."

This is the one place that Rachel is just crazy-wrong. She is defining a committed dating relationship, but she is assigning that definition to something else entirely. The hardest part of watching this finale is that Rachel was so good at being the Bachelorette. She was smart and thoughtful and in control. What I wanted out of Rachel as a Bachelorette was for her to be different, for her to grow beyond the vehicle she chose to ride in on her “journey to love”...

But Rachel Wasn’t Different

Rachel told Eric's Aunt Verna [ed. note: long live the queen] that, yes, she was the first black Bachelorette, but she came to the show looking for one thing — love — and in that way, she should be exactly the same as the 12 Bachelorettes that came before her.

And that might have been the hardest pill to swallow while watching Peter and Rachel have a lash-destroying, sweater-ripping breakdown as they realized that they loved one another, but they simply couldn't make their wants and their needs match up. In the end, Rachel wasn't any different than the 12 Bachelorettes that came before her. She might have seemed better than the show, and she surely was too good for a lot of the dudes the show provided her with…but she and The Bachelorette shared one goal that overrides all of that: this journey for love ends in an engagement with a Neil-fucking-Lane diamond, and you can either get on board with that or get the hell off of the love train, ya'heard?

So Rachel chose Bryan. Which hopefully felt like a fairytale ending for them, but to everyone else, it kind of felt like the end of love and romance and passion and maybe the franchise. Watching The Bachelorette is supposed to be an escape, but hearing Peter tell Rachel that not choosing to meet him in the middle would be choosing a mediocre life, and then watching her do it was all too real. (He later apologized at After the Final Rose. Rachel insisted she was living her best life. The audience wept.)

As I ruminated upon the disillusionment of romantic love as I know it though, my subconscious reminded me that oftentimes during Rachel's journey for love© I found myself thinking of Des and Des' Bangs journey for love© in season 9. Those comparison's never made a ton of sense at face value because when it came to being the Bachelorette, Des managed the job with all the aplomb of a crumpled napkin whereas Rachel was a confident and assured polygamist leader.

But both women ended up in the same place. You may recall Des weeping on a dock for somewhere between four hours and four calendar years because Brooks the Secret Mormon realized he just wasn't as into her as she was into him. She was running toward the altar and he was all, "This has been super fun Des, but I'm going to have to scoot on back to Salt Lake City now." And that was really tough on Des, the human equivalent of a Lip Smackers. Then all of a sudden, as if the scales of Bad Boy Mormon Brooks had fallen from her eyes, Des realized that she was free to be fully in love with Boring Regular Boy Chris who came from a family of — I kid you fucking not — chiropractors.

And do you know what? Those two mediocre kids have lived happily ever after. Both Des and Rachel seemed to want one thing really, really badly, but in the end, maybe they actually needed another thing. And that thing was free chiropractic adjustments for life and not a handsome, well-adjusted former model (in both cases, I swear!)

Of course, I have a hard time believing that this Bryan and Rachel can go the distance until they get a handle on his mom's whole Lysa Arryn vibe, and his whole robot-made-of-plastic vibe. But sometimes…sometimes, mediocrity is built to last — I truly believe that Toyota Camrys will be all that survive the looming world apocalypse.

Part II: The Next Bachelor

The most disappointing part of what was truly an emotionally grueling finale experience was not even getting the climactic relief of finding out who the next Bachelor is. Now, I understand the predicament ABC is in—there's no perfect candidate from Rachel's crop, probably because they took up valuable space of what could have been non-Bryans who were willing to propose after four weeks with numbnuts like Lee and Lucas. So let's assess our options:

Peter and/or Dean

The most obvious options for the next Bachelor are Dean and Peter. The former was a favorite all season because he quickly revealed himself to be a hot Precious Moments doll with a heart of gold, and the former was always hot, but in the last analysis revealed himself to be someone who is aware that this process is bogus and while it might create a romantic adventure full of blimps and Greco-Roman wrestling simulations, it does not set couples up for long-term success.

Unfortunately, both Peter and Dean's greatest strengths are their greatest weaknesses, as well. Peter's use of logic in not wanting to propose to Rachel if he wasn't prepared to marry her, made him a more attractive candidate to as the Bachelor, but it also made him a worse one. As Rachel pointed out in their After the Final Rose segment, Peter might not be cut out for the speed of this this process. As I would like to point out, Peter definitely wasn't cut out for this process, and Rachel's comment was definitely fueled by still being in love with him and being defensive about choosing Bryan by default. Gasp, oh yes I did.

As for Dean, the main problem seems to be that he's going on Bachelor in Paradise, which is like starting with wine, moving to tequila shots, and then trying to go back to wine again—it's not going to be pretty. The best thing about Dean being the Bachelor is that he would mess up so much. He is very young and very sweet, and needs to do quite a bit of, let's say, self-work before he holds the hearts of 30 women in his clumsy Ken Doll hands. And being the woke young thing that he is, Dean said as much to The Hollywood Reporter: "I’d say I don’t think I’m ready yet, at this point in my life. Of course, I would never immediately dismiss any offer, but I think I’d really have to sit down and really think about it."

So, my I present for you consideration that Dean and Peter be the Bachelor together??? Not like when they made the dudes vote between Kaitlyn and Britt, and then Kaitlyn won, but not by a lot, so like half of the guys were still there to date someone else. That was really stupid. [Ed. Note: this probably would be too.] But as everyone knows, the most beautiful love affair to come out of Rachel's season was that of handsome male bonding between Dean and Peter. And they complement each other so well! Dean could help Peter loosen up a little; Peter could help Dean get in touch with his emotions; Dean could help Peter experiment with florals; Peter could help Dean not experiment quite so much with florals. And they could have totally separate groups of potential women sister-girlfriends, and no one would ever have to get in a fight, they could just support each other and everyone could be happy.

Eric

Eric would be an excellent Bachelor, his only problem is that the editors didn't reveal his fun personality, and he didn’t reveal the full extent of his hotness until way too late in the season. I just don't know if he has the popularity. Also, I know ABC is scared to cast a black Bachelor again because they haven't yet realized that pretty much the only adjustment that needs to be made is not purposefully casting racist potential suitors to stir up racially-fueled drama. Which seems like a pretty easy fix!

A Semi-Famous Person's Brother

The Bachelor already has a storied history in this arena. There was Aaron Murray's brother Josh Murray; the much more famous Aaron Rodger's (estranged) brother Jordan Rodgers; and most importantly for our purposes here, Jerry O'Connell's brother Charlie O'Connell was cast as the actual Bachelor simply because he was Jerry O'Connell's brother. Like, Zac Efron has a brother who's in his mid-20s and already has a Buzzfeed article devoted to how cute he is. Doesn't Scarlett Johansson have a twin or something? I don't know, I'm not a casting agent, just find a reason to get someone random and hot on here so we don't have to keep swimming around in the same tepid pool of candidates!

A Nostalgically Semi-Famous Person

Listen, I'm just trying to think outside the box here. Like…what's Trey from Laguna Beach up to these days? He was cute with a budding career in trucker hat activism. Maybe a non-Ashley-Parker-Angel member of O-Town? Where’d that guy from Brink! disappear to? I'm pretty sure Ephram from The WB's Everwood is still out there somewhere? I think we're onto something here…

Bachelor: The Next Generation

I'm just crunching some numbers here, and if current contestant Kenny has a daughter that's 11, then a contestant from the original season of The Bachelor 15 years ago could reasonably have a child that's 25 or 26 now. It's not a real suggestion that said hypothetical offspring should be the next Bachelor…but it's worth noting that one day, in the not so distant future, someone will come onto this show as a contestant…whose parent was a contestant before them. It happened on American Idol, and it will happen here. Swear to me, dear reader, that we’ll make it out before that happens...

K, see you next week for Bachelor in Paradise, pending how awfully they handle the Corrinne/DeMario situation! It will probably be pretty awful!!!

[tirsaroundtheworld]

Myanmar

Wow, how time has flown! I can barely believe that my month of solo traveling has already come to an end! So much happened though on this episode, I'll try my best to be to the point. 😂 I arrived in Yangon, where I took a few days to get my itinerary sorted, to visit the mighty Swedagon Pagoda as the only tourist before sunrise and to explore in the city and its surroundings by the local circle train. Those few days were full of new experiences; from sleeping in a tiny capsule to joining the complete villagelife in the train to the insane heat to thanaka faces and betel nut spit everywhere. And that was just a warming up, so many highlights followed! # I had more trouble connecting with other travelers than before, which is why I decided to take the slow train all the way to the well traveled Mandalay in the North and to make my way down from there. This train, for which I reserved a surprisingly comfy 'Upper Class' seat to be assured of a spot that wasn't on a crammed wooden bench, took 15 hours and passed a lot of Myanmar on the way. From my window I enjoyed looking at the amazing landscapes, the local life in and around villages and the hectic routines at stations where people go out of their way to sell snacks, drinks and betel nut through the windows or inside the train. Meanwhile the mice were feasting on the spilled foods on the floor and some millions of insects came in when it turned dark outside, what a day! # Mandalay itself is not very interesting, but all the more are the nature and the old villages in the surroundings. I visited the normally crystal clear and bright blue Dee Dote waterfall that had unfortunately turned muddy and brownish due to the heavy rain and thus was slightly dissapointing. More exciting was my daytrip to explore the small ancient capitals of Mingun, Sagaing and Ava on the back of a local's motorbike. We took tiny backroads through rural areas and crossed villages to reach the beautiful old ruins of all white temples, huge statues, unfinished stupas, monasteries and pagodas. It felt as if we went back in time as life in these places seems to have been standing still; people live in simple bamboo houses with banana leaf roofs, washing and bathing is done in rivers and communal baths and horses with carriages are the main means of transportation. We ended the day at the famous U Bein bridge to watch the sunset, which to me was a tourist overloaded and dissapointing ending of a wonderful day. # Together with people from my hostel I took a taxi to Pyin Oo Lwin, some 2 hours north east of Mandalay. In this small British colonial retreat, we visited the Kandawgyi Royal botanical gardens and were blown away by its beautiful and well organized design, its peace and quiet and its size in both volume and amount of species of plants. Amazing! # From Pyin Oo Lwin, we took the morning train further north east to Hsipaw. To get there we had to cross the renown Goteik Viaduct; an ancient, 100 meters high, steel construction that has more than once been called the most dangerous train journey in the world. I wouldn't discribe the crossing as dangerous, but it was very high and living-on-the-edge-y! # Apart from an amazing little restaurant with the best fruitshakes in all the country, Hsipaw isn't much. The town is however known for its amazing trekkings, which I went to experience for myself. I joined a nice group of 4 others on a two day adventure, and it indeed was fantastic! On the first day we walked about 18 km going up lush green mountains through farmlands and forests. On the way we stopped for tea in tiny tribal villages and at breathtaking viewpoints. We arrived in Pan Kam Village just in time for a homemade lunch by the mother of our guide Eric. We learnt about the Shan tribe, witnessed the community interacting around the public bathing area, jammed with the local youngstera, visited the monastery where Eric had been a monk for many years, watched how the harvestes tea leaves were processed, met different families and played with their cute kids, had a very tasty meal and bonded over too much homebrew ricewine. Luckily we had ended the day early, sleeping on flat mattrasses all lined up on the floor of the loft, as the next day started at 5.30 with dad coming in to pray. At 6.00 we all woke up to a local breakfast, after which we said goodbye and continued our path. The second day was maybe even more beautiful, walking through the farmed mountains and off the beaten tracks, and the fact that we were mainly going downhill definitey added to this amazing sensation. Just before lunch we arrived at our final destination, from where a tuktuk took us back to Hsipaw. Wow, it was amazing! 🙌 # From Hsipaw I made my way west to a little and yet undiscovered town called Monywa, with a little help of the local busdriver who insisted on changing his way to drop me off at my hostel's door. After the bustling past days in Mandalay and Hsipaw, I really enjoyed to be all by myself again and to explore the charming place at my own pace. I strolled around the spacious and peaceful town, enjoyed a beautiful sunset from a tiny fairytale-like island in the middle of a lovely lake and ate an extremely delicious meal at the most favoured local restaurant in town. Even though I was all alone, the small curry that I ordered came with an endless amount of side dishes that would all be refilled as soon as I had proudly finished - which is a typical Myanmar kind of service. 😅 An hour's ride in the back of a pickup truck away from the town I visited the majestic Shweba Taung; a huge complex of temples made in caves, also sometimes referred to as the Petra of Myanmar. Apart from the very noteworthy sights, I really enjoyed the free tour some local kids provided me with! # Buses in Myanmar are quite a thing, moving slowly over the not very great roads, continuously stopping to load packages or for a foodbreak and shaking and turning endlessly to cross the mountainous land - and I have not been very lucky.. Desperately trying to avoid the very local, crammed, falling apart, non-airco buses for the too long distances, I still ended up in exactly those for all but 2 of my trips. And on top of these discomforts, Burmese women seem to have the weakeast stomachs in the world and are puking their guts out even on the shortest and smoothest rides. 🤢 I don't even want to think about the terrible busride out of Monywa..! # After the peace and quiet in Monywa I entered the amazing world of Bagan. In this place of jungle, plains and extreme heat (passing 43 degrees Celsius at the peak of the day) some 3000 temples are to be found and explored freely by E-bike. I spent my time cruising around this most sacred, important and incredible place, taking backroutes to find the most beautiful temples, wandering through the super huge impressive buildings and looking for the best viewpoints for the 3 sunsets and 2 sunrises I had, while not seeing another living soul for most of the time! The perks of lowseason, though I was secretly missing the high season's famous hot air balloons to complete the picture. After 2,5 days I moved on, exhausted but completely amazed. 😍 # Another horrible busride away from Bagan was Kalaw: a cute little place full of nothing but a great point to start trekking towards Lake Inle from. And so I went on another overnight trekking experience, this time walking further distances but less climbing and heat. Incredibly luckily avoiding the typical heavy showers of rain, we crossed about 23 kilometers of beautiful countryland and tiny villages of crafts like weaving and bamboo carpentry until we reached our destination for the night. This time we stayed with people of the the Pa-O tribe, after Shan the largest ethnic group in Myanmar, and our Pa-O guide Nan Ei told us a lot about their characteristics, wear, traditions and cuisine. She also cooked us an amazing local dinner in the tiny, one-pot 'kitchen' of the host family. After a this time more quiet and less ricewine involving night, she even woke us up with true pancakes for breakfast! When we were done eating she explained us about Thanaka, the white-ish cream that is made by mixing a bit of water with bark of the Thanaka tree and applied to the face for beauty as well as to prevent sunburn, sweating and acne, and applied it to all of our faces. When all ready, we continued our way to reach Lake Inle. On this second day we covered another twenty something kilometers of lush green, farm covered hills and forest before we reached a tiny village at the edge of Lake Inle, from where a local boat took us onto the lake and around its main sights until we got trapped by major rain. Still having to cross the lake, we got completely soaked but laughed about it and enjoyed the hot shower back at our guesthouses even more. I decided to spend one extra day in the village of Nyaung Shwe to explore the lake a bit more, by boat passing the beautiful floating villages and gardens, iconic bridges and fishermen and by bike cycling around the lake visiting local craft shops where silver and lotus silk was made and taste some horrible wine at one of Myanmar's two wineries. Apart from that one shower upon arrival, I managed to dodge the occasional heavy showers until I boarded the night bus all the way to the south - so very satisfied after exploring this wonderful area. # After probably the most horrible bus ride, taking 17 hours instead of 10 and involving a crazy transfer where a local guy was arranged to entertain me at 5 in the morning and wouldn't accept no for an answer, I arrived in Mawlamyine. My sole reason to go there was to take a boat along the scenic Thanlwin river up to Hpa-an, so I just stayed for one night. In the afternoon I explored the small and not at all touristy town, where an amazing temple complex on a hill overlooking the city, the mountainous area and the river views blew me away. # My boat plan almost fell in the water (😂) because of the low season's quiet, but luckily a super cool French girl of my age stayed in the same hostel and wanted to take the same trip so the captain agreed to take us for a slightly higher price. Still we paid next to nothing and absolutely enjoyed the boat all to ourselves while cruising through the indeed amazing surroudings for about 4 hours, including a stop at the amazingly beautiful Kawhnat monastery about half way. Worth the struggle to get there!! # Joining forces with my new French friend to double the fun and save costs, I spent a great few days in Hpa-an! We joined a betel nut high tuktuk driver and a group of other tourists on a day trip visiting the many beautiful caves and temples around Hpa-an, with as highlight the sunset at the so called bat cave while millions and millions of bats flew out to feed - incredible how many bats came out of that tiny split rock! The next morning we woke up early to climb the notorious mount Zwekabin, with a monastery on the top at almost 3000 meters. The way there was insane, almost completely existing of stairs and taking about 2 hours, but the rain cleared and reveiled the most breathtaking view once we had reached the top, WOW! Still euphoric from this amazing sight and our achievement, the way down felt not nearly as bad. Even though I still feel my muscles, this was one hell of a highlight to end my trip in Myanmar with. A last minute local bus took me back to Yangon, where I enjoyed a good night of sleep, a proper shower and a struggle as I had almost run out of Kyats. 😂 In the end I managed to make my way to the airport using the most local ways for exactly the remainder of my budget, an adventurous way to end an adventurous month. How I have enjoyed Myanmar, the country of the many smiles, the amazing scenery and the most authentic experiences. And all by myself, yess! 💪 Now I am ready to move on to the 14th country of this trip, together my lovely little sister for her month and a half backpacking crash course! 👯 Philippines, brace yourselves, we are on our way! 🇵🇭

[johnnypovolny]

Iquitos

-Day 1

Abby came down to Lima to join me for the jungle!! We flew into into Iquitos and got picked up by our tour company. Our guide is Kevin, a somewhat quiet guy who told us a ton about his experience doing ayahuasca and other hallucinogens. We went in a car to a smaller town (looking at the map, maybe Nauta?) where we got a tuk tuk to this riverside market to meet our boat. Iquitos and the smaller town both remind me a lot of asia: tuk tuks everywhere, lots of bright colors and a vibe of sweaty chaos (in particular the riverside market reminded me of India- lots of little wood tiendas selling fruit and a guy announcing specials for a restaurant over a loudspeaker for literally hours). Turns out we had the boat and the weekend’s tour to ourselves, just us, Kevin, the boat driver Miguel (and later Jhon Marcos, the local guide we picked up).

The beginning of the boat ride was down a brown muddy river past the suburbs of the town- the tin roofed colorful huts and the brown water made me feel a lot like i was in a pirate town in the caribbean or something. For lunch we ate juane, which is a bijao leaf wrapped around a yellowish chicken and rice stew and steamed. Pretty cool jungly way to cook a meal. 

I was resting with my head in Abby’s lap when suddenly we got a huge shock- the boat ran aground on a sandbar! We slowly worked back and forth in reverse to get unstuck and then promptly ran into it again in another spot which made me laugh, but eventually we got it right. 

WE GOT OUR FIRST VIEW OF RIVER DOLPHINS! These were the grey variety (the smaller of the two freshwater types). But so beautiful to see that animal and so weird in the context of a river- they were all around the boat and we followed one particular group of them along the edge of the river (Miguel got us super close) and watched them in the golden evening light. There was one individual in particular that seemed to almost be showing off- jumping high out of the water as they swam away from us. We came to a bend in the river and left the dolphins just as we changed to the black water that Pacaya Samiria is famous for!

Got to the TINY town of Buenos Aires where we’re staying the night in a lodge (which is wood and mosquito screens so its basically open to the air). The town is basically a cluster of houses next to the river around a soccer field- the people there climb trees to harvest aguaye fruit and sell it to be taken upriver, act as jungle guides, make crafts, etc. They also told us that a lot of times its normal that girls there have babies as early as 12 which was a crazy “we’re not in Kansas moment”. This is where we picked up Jhon Marcos (I like his vibe, friendly and with the air total confidence that comes with being extremely competent in whatever situation) I went canoeing in a hollowed out canoe and watch the sunset light on the trees. I found a little side river and went a few meters into it- not too much because I didn’t want to accidentally get lost but it was so cool to imagine it just snaking away into the jungle and the middle of nowhere. A sudden warm jungle rainstorm started as I was sitting there in the mouth of the river. It was a super tranquil, solo, wild moment- I really like the no-frills no-rules approach of this tour where they just let me take a canoe out to wherever I felt like. 

We got up to our room around sunset and had a pink toed tarantula IN THE ROOM. It’s a huge jet-black spider close about the size of my palm (and the old man who runs the hotel told me that there are much bigger ones). Did some david attenborough impression videos watched it walk around our room and eventually under the edge of the wall and away. 

We went on a night jungle walk through the muddy trails- not a ton of wildlife, but we saw one big brown tarantula and a scorpion spider and had fun walking under huge-leafed plants feeling like Alice in wonderland. Kevin also showed me a way to keep mosquitos away that the local hunters us- poke a hole in a termite nest, let them crawl up on your arms (because they’re too small to bite) and then wipe your arms, crushing the termites which leaves a sticky residue on your arms that actually smells amazing to me (kind of sweet and herbal like pine) but apparently mosquitos hate.

Day 2

Kevin, Jhon and I did an early canoe ride through the flooded forest. Saw 4 sloths, including one up close at the edge of a little jungle-bound lake. The fur and face looks fake like a star wars ewok - rubbery pink lips, dark eyes, patches of greenish grey and brown fur which exactly matches the two colors of the tree it was staying in. Saw a rare jungle bird called juatsin (“shangsho” by locals). It has a big crest on its head and two stomachs where it ferments and then digests food, learns to swim when young and eats fish then grows up and changes to leaves. Also saw “mama vieja” which is a hawk with a white head that makes a scratchy cry. Wended our way through the little gaps between trees growing out of/reflected in the black water- cool to watch Jhon expertly turn and move the canoe effortlessly through small spaces. He told me about local medicines (gave some leaf-infused alcohol and water mixture to Abby that actually really helped her stomach an impressive amount- cool to see it really work!) and local alcohols made from roots (called 7 raíces), maracuya, and other fruits.

Went 2 hours further down the river to set up our tents! 

In the afternoon we went to look for monkeys in the jungle around this lake that’s inaccessible because its grown over by plant life (normally managed by turtles and manatees but their populations are too low right now). We didn’t see any monkeys but in the trees while we searched we saw the head of a large snake sitting in a hole in a tree (Jhon said it’s probably about 6ft long). Tried some jungle berries that we cut right off a tree with the machete- you strip them off the spiney branches with your fingers or teeth and then crack them, suck the juice, and spit them out- sweet and tasty. But the really cool thing was on the way there:  PINK DOLPHINS! They’re much bigger than the grey ones (more like 6-7 feet instead of 3-4) and vary between greyish pink and really bright pink depending on gender and age. I managed to catch one as it jumped all the way out of the water! Such a neat bucket list animal to spot in the wild, I was excited. 

In the nighttime we went out looking for caiman (a crocodile-like animal). Jhon was calling to them with a deep throaty grunt and sometimes a squeaking noise that the young ones do. He taught me how to do it and sometimes they would answer us from miles away which was cool. They used the flashlight to search for reflecting eyes from the boat and then we took the canoe to go catch them! I sort of envisioned them being bigger (the larger ones apparently live deeper in the jungle so its easier to see them if its dry season and you can hike- they get up to like 15 feet). The ones we saw were only a few feet long, BUT we got to hold them! Jhon literally paddled the canoe silently up next to them and would wait poised and then suddenly pounce and grab one out of the water with his bare hands! Crazy to watch that. 

Camped in the jungle under a tree with lots of fruit falling on our tent in the night. 

Day 3

Monkeys were in the trees around us in the morning- some of them were far away so it was tough to see them, but there were a few small black ones in a tree right near the boat. We also saw spider monkeys and black capuchins in the trees later in the day from the boat as we were traveling. 

Went to go get “hubo” for Abby, which is a tree medicine that’s good for stomach issues. This was a hike, but parts of it were in the flooded jungle trails where the water was chest deep and apparently there are extremely dangerous electric eels! Kind of a wild adventure to be walking through the murky water of a dark flooded jungle stepping over submerged roots and wending our way through the dappled shadows and sunlight and among the trees. At the end of the walk/wade/swim was the mother of all trees- normally this stands but it fell recently because a storm eroded its roots. This thing was INSANELY massive. One section we were standing on was a sort of spur (because the trunk isn’t round) was like 10 feet long- a top section where we were standing, and then a sweeping curve of trunk downward (because the tree was fallen) to another spur like 8 feet long. It’s hard to describe in writing but it was just massive. We stood on this big tree and scraped bark from the hubo tree with the machete, then I used my hands to squeeze the blood-red moisture out of the bark and into a cup so Abby could drink it. She said it didn’t work as well as the leaf infusion but it was still cool to learn about and the water hiking journey there and back was certainly a new experience.    

We went piranha fishing (Abby caught more than anyone, more quickly, so see her if you need fishing tips) and on our way there for a second we saw two giant river otters! One of them popped his head out of the water and stared right at us from like 20 feet away, showing us his big doglike teeth. This is kind of a rare animal to spot so it was fun to see (I have really good wildlife juju for some reason, knock on wood).

Day 4

Jhon taught me how to use the two rope system the locals use for climbing aguaje trees- super physically difficult and technical. I couldn’t go all the way up the tree like I’d envisioned because it was kinda dangerous and difficult, which was disappointing but still cool to learn. Our boat ride back was some of the best weather we’ve had- just spectacular sun and a warm breeze. We basked 

We got back to Iquitos and the guides dropped us at the airport. We realized it was too long to wait till our flight, so we took a super smoggy tuk tuk ride to the city center. Sat in the plaza de armas with our backs against a statue and ate cake we bought from a lady on the corner. Then we walked around a bit and saw a restaurant on a balcony- sat up there watching the sun set and the traffic whizz around the plaza as the fluorescent street lights came on and had drinks. I got a cocktail made from rum, “7 raices” (the root liquor), and coconut cream- it turned out to be frozen, pink, extremely girly, and the best thing I think I’ve ever had in my life, I had two. I’m going to dream about that drink forever. Relaxing on a terrace was such a chill, nice way to finish off the weekend together. 

Overall the weekend was a little more challenging than we expected based on both our health issues, but still really fun memories!

[tripstations]

Jordan’s Travel Highlights: Wadi Rum & Petra

Deep in the deserts of southern Jordan, lie two incredible sights: the mysterious ancient city of Petra, and the boundless Wadi Rum. You could spend one day and one night in each place and see the highlights, or, you could spend days exploring each and every crevice. I’m Tristan, an NYU student, avid backpacker and travel geek who spent a week doing just that recently…

Petra, known as the “Red Rock” or “Rose City” was the capital of the ancient Nabatean people. The Nabateans were a cave-dwelling tribe that controlled part of the Silk Road trade routes a long long time ago and much of their history is still debated.

To get into Petra, walk through Al-Siq, a long canyon corridor carved by the river long ago. Notice the stratification of the rock, the canyon’s layers are beautifully marbled. Through the clearing, the Treasury, Petra’s most iconic structure, begins to appear. (If you haven’t seen the third Indiana Jones movie “The Last Crusade”, you should watch it before going! Just don’t get any ideas; it is not possible to enter the Sanctuary.)

  is a massive park, with dozens of sites and trails scattered off of the main old city boulevard. All of the trails are walkable, and most things are within a 45-minute radius. However, some of the really far sites within the park (Tomb of Aaron, etc.) can take up to 6 hours to get to on foot.

If you only have 1 day in Petra (there are 1, 2, or 3-day passes), I highly suggest taking a donkey/mule or camel to expedite the journey, and looking at the map beforehand to make sure you’ll have time to see what you want.

Not sure which path to take? The best thing to see (after the Treasury, which you can’t miss) is the Monastery, which even larger. To get there, walk or take a donkey up the narrow winding path. The many ancient tombs and amphitheater are generally along the way to the Monastery, so if you arrive early in the day with a plan, it’s possible to see all the major sites at a relaxed pace. For a breathtaking view, head up to the top of the mountain which overlooks the Treasury. Most people don’t come up here, but it’s a perfect photo-op.

  Bargain hard, the guides may tell you it’s 20JD to ride the donkey up the hill to see the Sanctuary– it’s not, you can do it for 5, it’s only a ten or twenty-minute ride. Longer treks are about 10-20JD, for real, and may take an hour or longer. To ride the horses back to the entrance after a long day hiking, it’s 2JD — the horse ride is actually included in the ticket, but it’s customary to tip the horsemen. You don’t need to tip a lot, so discuss the tip before riding, and don’t let them con you into tipping outrageous amounts. At the end of each trail, there are incredible viewpoints and bedouin-tent-style cafes. Further up from the Monastery, there is a view over Petra’s mountain into Israel. I sat up here with some friends and hung out with the Bedouins for a while.

  I hope you like your coffee black and your tea extra sweet!

“Petra at Night” is an additional activity offered at the park; around 8 or 9, three days a week, there is a traditional Bedouin music show and the Treasury is lit up. I went to Petra by night last year, and it was incredible. Al-Siq is full of luminaria leading up to the magnificent Treasury, where we were served tea and listened to oud and flute music. This year, it was terrible– they recently added colored lights, making the Treasury neon green, then purple, then blue, it’s really unfortunate. I wouldn’t recommend it anymore. Still a nice experience but pretty cheesy. If you have lots of time, check out ‘Little Petra’, more ruins that are a little farther away from the rest of the park. Little Petra is free to enter and close to the Bedouin village. The Bedouin here are nothing like the slightly-obnoxious businessmen of Petra, and will you show you nothing but hospitality. (Political correctness isn’t really a thing for the shopkeepers here, so don’t be offended if people loudly call to you by your nationality, or at least, what they think your nationality is.)

  Wadi Rum

Further into Jordan is the famous Wadi Rum, a really great camping spot. Not your typical camping though– Bedouin-style camping. Scattered throughout the desert are Bedouin tents of varying luxury. Last year, I stayed in a traditional cloth tent and slept on the ground. This year, we stayed in a much nicer place, the “tents” even had showers in them; so don’t feel thrown off by the idea of ‘camping’, it’s not really camping unless you want it to be! The most expensive places are essentially 4-star hotels; private king-sized beds inside futuristic dome-shaped buildings, some even have large skylights on the ceiling so you can stargaze from your bed! Lower to mid-level Bedouin tents, about $10/night.

Wadi Rum is known for its rock bridges and red-orange sand. Jeep or camel tours take tourists on excursions every day, to explore the expansive desert. Other than the beautiful landscape, there are also Nabatean ruins and carvings, General T.E. Lawrence’s old lean-to, and other small sites.

  The archeological sites are interesting but nothing compared to Petra. My advice is just to enjoy the jeep ride, hike up the biggest rock you can find, and soak it all in. It doesn’t get much better than this; the wind in your hair and the hot desert sun beating down while you cruise around the sandy trails. (If you haven’t seen the movie, Lawrence of Arabia, add that one to your list too.)

After a day trekking around, your Bedouin hosts will prepare some kind of feast; there are a few interesting Bedouin cooking techniques, some of which involve cooking food underground. It’s always a big production! Bedouin hospitality is unparalleled.

After dinner, drink some more sweet Bedouin tea and relax under the stars. I highly recommend planning your trip around the moon cycle– the best day obviously is the New Moon– my first trip to Wadi Rum, I saw more stars than I’d ever seen in my life. Absolutely insane. Last weekend, unfortunately, the moon was about 80% full so we could hardly see any stars. Still don’t know how to do this ‘astral photography’ thing but you get the idea– lots of stars! It’s fun to hang out with your friends in Petra and Wadi Rum, but also totally doable as a solo traveler. Either way, make sure to take some time to talk to the Bedouin and ask them about their lives; the Bedouin way of life is fascinating and the culture is rich.

  A Bedouin man showing me his rababa, a traditional bowed instrument

  Jordan: Know before you go

  When is the best time to visit Jordan?

Also, I highly recommend going late February-April or October-November when it’s not too hot but not too cold either! It’s freezing in January, and boiling in the Summer.

  How safe is it to travel in Jordan?

Don’t worry– Jordan is completely safe, probably safer than America.

  Learn the language: Basic Arabic (Jordanian Levantine dialect)

Hello (Peace): Salam Good Morning: Sabbah el-khreer Good Evening: Messeh el-khreer How are you?: Kayf ha-lek? What’s your name?: Shu Ismek ? My name is: Ismi.. I’m lost: Ana die-e-aw Where is the…?: Wayn el… Toilet: hammam Bus station: mahata el autobeese I want: Bidi What is this?: Shu hathe? How much?: Adesh hathe? Yes (formal): nam Yeah: aye-wa No: leh Sorry: asif Please/Excuse me: lao samaht Thank you: shukran

  Want more on Jordan? 

Check out our Jordan travel guide

Check out our Jordan adventure tours

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[megansaber]

Day 16 of 70

July 1, 2018

I talked to my cousin, Christine, today for about an hour while driving to my hotel from the Grand Canyon. She asked me how I’m feeling now that I’m “halfway through my road trip.” I realized that I’m only 16 days into a 70 day road trip. It’s insane, really. Everyday I wake up feeling so lucky that I’m able to do this. I get to live with absolutely no agenda, on my own terms, and I get to see so many parts of the United States I’ve been wanting to see for years with my two best buds by my side! 

People keep asking, “how do you afford it?” Well here’s the answer, I don’t. I didn’t have much money saved up at all and I planned on using a credit card for most of my travels and paying it off when I come back home and back to work. But here’s the thing, something I really never thought would happen: I’ve had people buy me meals, give me free places to stay, and I’ve had relatives give me money because they support this trip to the end. Even Maya’s dog food company gave me free food coupons so she can eat her pretentious, grain free food on the road (shout out to Zignature dog food)! What I thought would be a huge credit card bill at the end of this has been paying itself off on its own. This isn’t to brag, but to inspire people that when you get out of your comfort zone and take a huge leap of faith like traveling the United States alone with no income the entire time, that people WANT to help. They WANT to watch you succeed and they want to be a part of it any way they can! So trust me when I say that if you’re broke and thinking you can’t do something like this, you absolutely can and should. Karma doesn’t always have to be a bitch; sometimes it pays for your summer travels, too. 

My friend Leslie, who just traveled the US solo earlier this year, told me that some parts of the states are so beautiful that I’d cry feeling so grateful that I get to witness what so many people could only dream of, and she is absolutely right - the mountains in Colorado, the entire drive from Colorado to Utah, Moab/The Arches, and as of today, the Grand Canyon. Seeing land untouched by humans is something we don’t get to see often, and goddamn is it beautiful. Along my journey I’ve met some badass folks to exchange stories with, seen/stayed in some really interesting parts of the states I’ve passed through, and also got my car stuck inches deep in sand at Lake Powell, probably the most stressed I’ve been in the past 16 days. I guess things could be worse, right?

Being on the road for 2.5 months isn’t the easiest. You’re living out of your car, you’ve got shit packed in so many different bags that you end up carrying 10,000 loads of things into every place you stay, and you’re constantly on the move, never staying anywhere for longer than two days at a time. It’s fun, but also extremely exhausting. Everything you know about yourself? Yeah, you can throw it out the window. The stores in the middle of nowhere don’t carry my long list of diet foods - hello gluten and dairy, I see we’ve met again (barf). The gyms are few and far between; I have memberships at both the Y and Planet Fitness and sometimes they’re just nowhere to be found, unfortunately. Hello, hotel room floor workouts on a towel instead of a yoga mat ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  You don’t eat full meals ever anymore, only snacks most days until you find a restaurant worth sending money on. Everything I got so used to doing by routine back home in Nashville I’ve had to tweak and work around. These little things are teaching me that it’s okay to just let go sometimes, to not be so damn rigid ALL the time, and to know that I can hop back into routine when my surroundings allow me to. I’ve also learned to never pass up an opportunity to do laundry, even if it’s just a small load; you realize how fast you run out of socks and underwear when you only pack so many!

Given I had two days to prepare for a solo road trip, I wasn’t able to really fully prepare what I did or didn’t need but I promise you, you learn fast. Every part of this journey is a lesson for the next few days, weeks, months, and future trips. Nashville friends, I’m missing the heck outta y’all and future friends I’m about to see, I AM SO EXCITED. 

Side note - Eminem, where you at? I’d still like to marry you. 

[koelc]

“People, can’t live with them, can’t live without them”

Sorry for modifying the world-famous quote, but that’s kind of what I feel for people around me. You see, you take occasional bouts of depression (since the last 8 years) and then add some anxiety, insomnia and dreadfulness to it, what you get is an adult perfectly incapable of doing anything productive, or even thinking straight. And as people already know about the “Winter blues” and what these can do to people all around the world, let’s not go into much details about that. Let’s just say, a overly talkative girl stops talking completely even with her family with whom she lives, she stops all contact with every friend and family and whoever else she knows, she cannot work, nor can play, her mind is numb and dazed throughout the day (without the influence of any external influences), and I guess you kind of get an idea.

Hence, for an round-the-clock anxious and timid adult like me, who has lost all her confidence to even ask for change from the shopkeeper, traveling solo  after a gap of two years meant frantic planning, continuous worries about the ways I can mess up things, anxiety attacks before the trip, thinking of and trying to cancel the trip at the dead of the night, and other unmentionable shameful pre-trip symptoms. But, when the desperation to get out of your despondent state bites you, (no, not a travel bug or something like that) you do not just stop planning a trip, even after waiting for 4 months. You see, you already know what it feels like to travel to a place alone…a place you have never visited before, and stay there where no one knows you, and you know how much this experience can cure you of your dementors.

And that’s the intro of How I Went to Shantiniketan

Yeah, for the first time in my life.

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery,” said Benjamin in We Bought a Zoo. Well, it took much more than that.

  Scene 1: Getting frustrated and anxious inside a bus on the way to the station, as quite unpredictably, there is a huge traffic jam at 9.30 in the morning somehow, on ALL the roads through which I traveled.

Scene 2: Running on the platform, aka Geet in Jab We Met, towards a train which had left (exactly on schedule, somehow ) on 10.10am, while you reached at 10.12am.

Sadly, my life is not like Jab We Met’s and there was no one in the train who found me beautiful enough to become a Raj. 😥

Also, do not always complain about a late-running trains all the time, they will start right on time when you actually need them to be late.

Scene 3: Getting aboard the next unreserved train to Bolpur, and having the most peaceful long journey of your life, as, throughout the 3 hrs, there were just 5-7 people in the entire compartment, which gives you space enough to treat your coach as a lounge-cum-drawing room.

A spot where the train was stalled for around 20mins.

Scene 4: Bolpur station, then a ride to your hotel,(which was disappointing again, but more about that in the next article), having a sumptuous Bengali lunch at 4 in the evening,  and then cancelling all your plans of going out, you promptly go off to sleep.

Scene 5: The whole evening, till night, is the start of the anti-depressant I needed. Well, Santana, doodling, sketching attempts, writing, drinking good ol’ Old Monk and smoking up (not necessarily in that order) should have helped anyway.

Add to that dancing in front of a life-size mirror and you get yourself a happy girl, with no more needs in life. 😀 😀

Scene 6: Getting out of your room the first thing in the morning (needs to be mentioned that I stayed in a single room with a portico in front of my room and just one other room in that wing), I meet A. A is a painter from Holland who rolls his own cigarettes (yeah that’s what I noticed the first thing about him), is staying in Calcutta since November, studying and painting, and has come to visit the art department of Visva Bharati. We started talking about our respective perspectives about the City of Joy, how so many artists  in the world have to work in unproductive jobs in order to earn their bread, and other miscellaneous topics throughout the morning.

I wondered to myself about my confidence while talking to a complete stranger from another country, while I run away from the ones I have known all my life in my own city. Mind does work in weird ways.

Anyway, A left that afternoon for Calcutta and I do not have any kind of correspondence with him.

Scene 7: Walking for almost 20-30mins on a warm and sunny winter morning to the Visva-Bharati Museum, and staring in awe at everything. A new place…with no one to disturb me…even if they do, I’m not obliged in any way to make communication with them. Such relief solitude can bring…such peace and saneness, and as a result self-confidence.

Scene 8: Spending almost 3 hours in Visva Bharati Museum, trying to take it all in.

You see, growing up in a Bengali household ruled by Tagore meant reading, listening, singing, dancing, performing, play-acting, day-dreaming, studying and uniting with him, almost every day of my life. But somehow, all the plans of visiting Shantiniketan had failed in my life, except this one. And the whole museum, with the letters of correspondence, anecdotes, sketches, models, memorabilia (the Nobel’s replacement didn’t fail to sadden me), pictures and paintings  represented the world I had mentally grew up in.

Specially the letters! I guess I read all of them, wanted to take photos of each of those so that I could take them back with me, read them all at my leisure, and then woe again at my own failure to receive a single hand-written letter. In short, a long fulfilled dream. ❤

Scene 9: While walking back from the museum, noticed a Sarod Player. He was sitting there in one of the campus grounds, playing his instrument and not giving a damn about anything else. It took some guts to go and sit there near him, but I did, and as expected, he did not care and went on playing.

After about 10-12mins, he finished his raag and we started talking. He is from Bangladesh, currently studying music in Visva-Bharati. Though he seemed shier than me initially, once he started describing his home town there was no stopping him. The weather, the celebrations, the people, the greenery, the simplicity, everything was given details of, and if it had not been for a call from his friend he might have talked a lot more, and I would have loved listening.

Maybe your interest in other people piques, once there are no obligations involved. You get that from very few people you know, and from everyone you don’t yet know. Most of the times, it’s hugely disappointing, but I have rarely met people on my solo trips who has disappointed me with their tales. You travel, you meet people, you listen to their stories, at times, share your own, and in the process, somehow you gain confidence about your own story, the one which is waiting for you to start writing. 

Scene 9: No plans in the evening, so let’s go and get booze. While getting booze, you talk to a friend who suggests Kopai.

So next stop is that, obviously. Kopai was something else, entirely. Nothing there actually, just a river, a littered river-bank, a factory chimney churning out thick black smoke, and meadows. But, for someone who has visited Murti previously, just to sit there alone at the river bank for two days, that’s hardly a disappointment.

Also, saw a couple meditating on the banks, and got instantly revved up about the place. Watched my dear sunset (dear, because I love watching it every day), sitting quietly on that river bank for about half an hour, and then walked back once the light had dimmed.

Scene 10: Well the booze was still left to be bought. On the way back from Kopai, noticed an FL Off shop. (But that is an experience best told later)

Scene 11: Well, not much to say about the evening, as it went almost the same way as the previous one…the only difference being my absence of anxiety to sing, sketch, smoke and drink on the open-air portico, alone. (The waiter delivering my dinner, later was very amused and understanding).

Scene 12: So, this is, obviously the hardest part. The return.

Well, nothing much to describe here in this scene actually, except the lack of financial resources to stay in that place for a week more, really hit hard.

But As Tagore said “মনেরে আজ কহ যে, ভালো মন্দ যাহাই আসুক. সত্যে রে লও সহজে।” I vowed to take heed, and try again to accept the reality a bit more…I will start with the small things, like re-starting the blog, for instance. 😉

Special thanks to Pratik Roy Choudhuri for his perseverance and pushing me constantly to go on the trip, in spite of a whimsical, anxious, depressive and moody me trying to push him off every time. Thank you. 🙂

  Saneness and Solitude "People, can't live with them, can't live without them" Sorry for modifying the world-famous quote, but that's kind of what I feel for people around me.

[fadingfartconnoisseur]

Solo Female Travel in Thailand — Is it Safe?

I’ve traveled solo in Thailand several times in the past seven years. I consider it one of the best destinations in the world for women traveling on their own, including first-time solo female travelers.

There are a number of guides out there, but they tend to be lacking in specific tips for women to stay safe while traveling. (Oh, and I SEE YOU, Rough Guides, with that post labeled “solo female guide to Thailand” in the search results that omits the word “female” once you click on the page and has exactly zero female-specific tips.)

Altogether, I’ve spent several months in Thailand, most of them solo. I’ve traveled on a shoestring budget and in luxury; I’ve traveled to big cities, small towns, quirky islands, and national parks all over the country. By this point, I have a strong perspective about what travel in Thailand is like for women, and I want to share it with all of you.

First Time in Asia? Go to Thailand!

Asia can seem overwhelming if you’ve never been before. Even my friends who are very experienced travelers were nervous for their first trips to Asia. And all of them who started with Thailand said something along the lines of, “I don’t know what I was worried about!”

Not only is Thailand a fantastic destination for first-time solo female travelers, I also think it’s the ideal location for a first-time trip to Asia. Here’s why:

First off, Thailand is a very easy place to travel. There is a well-worn tourist trail and great infrastructure. If you suddenly wake up in Pai and decide you want to go to Koh Phi Phi tomorrow, go to your guesthouse desk and they will purchase the combination of bus, train, and ferry tickets that will take you directly to the island. Isn’t that insane? And there are travel agencies on every block that will do it for a bit less. (Side note: don’t go from Pai to Koh Phi Phi overland in one go. That’s a LONG journey. Flying from Chiang Mai to Krabi makes it infinitely easier and shorter.)

There isn’t much of a language barrier. If you stick to the tourist trail (and the tourist trail is vast and expansive in Thailand), people speak at least a little English. Learning a few phrases like “sawatdee-ka/kap” (hello for women/men) and “kop kun ka/kap” (thank you for women/men) will be appreciated, however.

Great food. Even if you have no idea what Thai food is beyond pad thai, you’ll soon discover a plethora of delicious dishes. Just know that spicy is one thing, but “Thai spicy” is spicier than anything you’ve had in your life!

It has something for everyone. Thailand is equally fantastic for young backpackers who want to party, older couples who love history, and families with young kids. It’s a safe and welcoming destination for LGBT travelers. It’s a top culinary destination. You can backpack for very cheap or bask in some of the best luxury resorts in Asia. Whether you’re a city person, a mountain person, or a beach person, you’ll find a place that’s perfect for you in Thailand.

Is Thailand Safe?

Generally speaking, Thailand is a very safe country to visit as a traveler. Violent crime against foreigners is extremely rare, and most theft can be prevented with common sense. Petty criminals tend to seek out inebriated travelers, which makes it all the more important to stay sober enough to know what you’re doing.

That doesn’t mean that nothing bad happens, ever. There’s no 100% perfectly safe location on the planet. Even if you follow every precaution, you can still get robbed. You occasionally hear about a traveler dying in Thailand, and while these incidents are tragic, they are uncommon, just as tragedies are uncommon in your home country.

While you occasionally hear of terrorism and bombings, these tend to be in off-the-beaten-path destinations in far southern Thailand. There was one bombing at Erawan Shine in Bangkok, a busy and well-traversed area, in 2015. Again, these incidents are rare, but they happen — in Bangkok, in New York, in Paris.

What It’s Like to Travel in Thailand as a Woman

Traveling alone as a woman in Thailand is a safe and secure experience, and I feel very comfortable there. Here’s why:

For one, catcalling and street harassment are virtually nonexistent. It’s almost disconcerting how pleasant it is. If anyone yells at you as you walk down the street, it will likely be a foreign visitor, not a Thai. The closest I’ve been to being hit on by a Thai was a salesman at MAC who shyly told me, “I like your eye.”

People are out all night. You’ll see people manning street carts even late at night. This is good because it means you’ll never be alone on the street. That in itself is huge for safety.

Thai people are incredibly kind and welcoming. Just like anywhere else in the world, 98% of people are nice and the other 2% are assholes, but I think Thai people are a lot kinder, a lot more open, and a lot gentler than the general population of the world.

Here are a few things to know as a woman:

Tampons and pads are readily available, but… It’s hard to find tampons with applicators. You can get them at Boots or Tesco Lotus; otherwise, get your products at 7-Eleven. That said, I recommend you use a DivaCup instead for convenience, packing, and environmental reasons (read why here).

Condoms are also readily available. You can get them at 7-Eleven, including Western brands like Durex and Trojan. And in the event that you get a UTI, just head to a pharmacy and they’ll give you a prescription. Cipro is usually prescribed; check with your doctor to see if taking it is right for you.

Women are not permitted to touch monks. Don’t sit next to them or walk next to them, either.

Safety Tips for Thailand

Keep your drinks close to you. Don’t take drinks from strangers and don’t leave them out when you’re drinking them. Watch them like a hawk.

Don’t drink too much. Be in a state where you’re aware of your surroundings. Especially be cautious of the ubiquitous bucket cocktails.

Lock up your valuables in a portable safe in your hotel room. I do this with my Pacsafe Travelsafe and I consider it the most important thing I pack.

Cover up a bit. Always cover your shoulders and knees when you visit a temple. Beyond that, Thai women tend to cover up more than Westerners, and it’s good to blend in by dressing a bit more conservatively and not wearing short-shorts or super revealing tops or dresses. Do not wear your swimwear anywhere but the beach.

Take VIP buses and avoid backpacker buses. Travel agencies will try to send you on backpacker buses, but these sometimes have drivers who are forced to work long hours and take amphetamines to stay awake. VIP buses are what the locals take.

Do not take drugs, even if you’re a party drug enthusiast. First, drugs in Thailand can be cut with poisonous substances. Second, if you’re caught, the police have the power to do a urinalysis and use the results in a court of law. Third, if you’re caught with drugs, some corrupt police will take your passport and demand hundreds or thousands of dollars in order to get it back. Fourth, the penalties for drugs are extremely severe in Thailand.

Don’t be afraid of street food. Street food is life in Thailand. Go where the crowds are; it means the food is great and there’s high turnover. You may want to start with vegetarian food and slowly ease yourself into meat.

Hide your money in multiple places. Only take a small amount of cash and a debit card with you when going out. Keep the rest locked up in your room. Make sure you bring multiple debit cards, too, in case one gets lost or stolen.

Don’t insult the royal family. Thai people love their king, who recently passed away, and speaking badly about the royal family can get you arrested. Always rise when the national anthem plays — even in places like movie theaters.

Protect yourself from the sun and heat. Bring sunscreen and a hat. If you plan on snorkeling or diving, use reef safe sunscreen (Stream2Sea is a good reef safe brand). Hydrate constantly. Water is ideal, but coconuts are great for the electrolytes! Stick to bottled water or use a Steripen on Thai tap water.

Taxi and tuk-tuk scams abound in Bangkok. Most common ones are of drivers telling you an attraction is closed, then taking you on a super-cheap tour instead…to shops his friends own. (I once got hit with this at Wat Po: “You can’t go in, there is special ceremony right now!”)

Additionally, always ask to use the meter when riding in a taxi. If the driver says it’s not working or he doesn’t have one, it’s a scam and he’ll try to negotiate for more than what the ride should cost.

Finally, invest in a guidebook. Even as an expert traveler in the year 2017, I love guidebooks. They’re filled with detailed information about everything from travel times between cities to medical clinics serving foreigners. I’m a Lonely Planet fan and I recommend Lonely Planet’s Guide to Thailand or Southeast Asia on a Shoestring if you’re visiting multiple countries in the region.

For more general safety tips, be sure to check out

Top 10 Travel Safety Tips for Women

The Best Experiences in Thailand

Get massages every single day. An hourlong massage in Bangkok usually runs around 250 baht, or a little over $7. Expect to pay a bit more on the beach. At prices like that, you can afford to get them daily! If you’ve never had a foot massage, this is the time to get one.

Celebrate Loy Krathong. During this November holiday, locals make krathongs, or floating lanterns, and release them into the river. It’s beautiful, especially if you can make it to Chiang Mai for the lantern release.

Find your perfect island or beach. There are plenty of them, but my absolute favorite is Koh Lanta.

Visit Elephant Nature Park and care for rescued elephants. DO NOT RIDE AN ELEPHANT IN THAILAND, EVER. This is abuse 100% of the time. Instead, visit this park that cares for rescued elephants. You can feed them, wash them, and even hug them — and unlike elephant rides, it’s not abusive at all.

Learn to ride a motorbike. Motorbiking is an adventurous way to explore the countryside! I recommend learning in Pai, where the streets are empty and the countryside is stunning.

Shop like crazy. One of my favorite markets in the world is Chatuchak Market in Bangkok, only open on the weekends. This massive place has everything from furniture to local hipster clothing to live animals for sale! You can also get clothing tailored for a very cheap price.

Learn to dive. Koh Tao is one of the top destinations to get scuba-certified. This will be a skill you can take around the world.

Join the water fight at Songkran. Every April, Thailand erupts into a three-day water fight to celebrate the New Year. The best celebrations are in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Where to Go in Thailand

Bangkok is a thrilling city with more to do than you could ever fit into one vacation. The food is outstanding, the rooftop bars are insane, the people are wonderful. It’s one of my favorite cities on the planet. A lot of people may say bad things about Bangkok, but I’ve found that these people tend not to be city people in general. My suggestion? Roll with it and enjoy it.

In the north, Chiang Mai is relaxing city full of temples with great night markets and an amazing street food scene. Pai is a gorgeous mountain village that makes the ideal place for learning to ride a motorbike.

If you like ancient cities, be sure to do a day trip to Ayutthaya from Bangkok, or to head further north and visit Sukhothai en route to Chiang Mai. Sukhothai in particular has surprisingly few tourists.

Thailand is famous for its islands and beaches. I will always recommend Koh Lanta first. Railay in the Krabi region gets a lot of praise but I think it’s past its prime, sadly. If you’re looking for beach luxury, the best options are in Phuket and Koh Samui. If you want to dive or just chill, Koh Tao is your place. Koh Phangan is home to the infamous Full Moon Party. I’m also a big fan of chilled out Koh Chang in That province, which is close to the Cambodian border. (Find out how to protect your belongings on the beach here.)

One nice off-the-beaten-path spot is Khao Sok National Park in the south. You can cruise giant lakes filled with limestone karsts, canoe down rivers, and stay in over-water cabins.

In terms of accommodation, I can recommend two places wholeheartedly: Wild Orchid Villa in Bangkok is my spot — it’s a sweet and comfy budget guesthouse by Soi Rambuttri. Soontreya Resort in Koh Lanta is a mid-range guesthouse with super-comfy beds and a pool, a short walk from Relax Bay, the best beach on the island. Otherwise, I tend to stay in simple guesthouses.

These are just a few suggestions — Thailand is full of great places to visit!

Travel Insurance

One last note — it’s absolutely vital to have travel insurance before traveling to Thailand. If you get sick or injured on your trip, or even have to be flown home, travel insurance will protect you from financial ruin. I use and recommend World Nomads for trips to Thailand.

I once had a medical issue crop up while in Bangkok and I had to see a doctor. I went to Bumrungrad Hospital (which is excellent, FYI — far better than any American hospital I’ve ever visited), got an examination and an ultrasound, got documentation, and my expenses were reimbursed by World Nomads.

If you’re a woman, you will feel safe in Thailand.

People often ask me where the safest place for a woman to travel is. If I were considering safety alone, I would probably put Iceland and Japan at the top of the list. But right after that would be Southeast Asia, and Thailand specifically.

If you’re nervous about your trip to Thailand, don’t be. Plan carefully, do your research, and then go and have the time of your life!

Have you been to Thailand as a solo traveler? What would you add to this post?

The post Solo Female Travel in Thailand — Is it Safe? appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

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[lavieenjones]

July 31st, 2017

The most difficult moments in life are rare opportunities to transform. –the internet and maybe Kabbalists

The night of my one year anniversary was spent in a fire station kissing boys, dancing my heart out, and clinking bottles full of bub like I was 50Cent- and perhaps in reverse order. Vive la France.. like I’m 20 years old. With the one year mark looming ahead of me, I’d been a complete crazy person feeling like I needed to make a decision to stay or leave, to put a blessed end to this limbo and semi-commitment I’ve made to being here. So this night of reckless abandon was exactly what was called for.. or exactly what a crazy person would do. Tomato, tomato.

My last real update was in March, and I regret not capturing more of it here, because as I reflect on this past year - to quote Eugenia​ - it is with complete wonder, amazement, unconstrained gratitude, and longing to share with everyone. And since it’s been five months, and a lot has or hasn’t happened depending on your POV, I’ll either tell you way too much about not a lot or not enough about everything. So, fair warning, #TLDR. But before I get into all of that I just want to thank everyone in my life who has been supportive and with me this whole time in thoughts, facetimes, and visits, and everyone here that have opened up their lives to me with such beautiful immediacy and acceptance. All of you overwhelm me.

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” As an unabashed pusher of the book, The Alchemist, I have loaned, given, quoted, and cherished the story for a very long time and I think it’s, in part, what’s driven me and kept me grounded when I made the snap decisions that led me to: go to college in CO, quit my job in FL without a plan, move to Chicago with two weeks’ notice, and ultimately move to a country wherein I knew no one and didn’t speak the language. I remember so completely the fear and pure, crazed anxiety as I sat atop a pile of luggage waiting for an uber to take me to O’Hare last year. If the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, getting to my feet that day to help the driver load the trunk was one of the shakiest steps I’ve ever taken (I was afraid, yes, and had inhuman amounts of adrenaline coursing through me, but I also had just carried four very heavy suitcases down three flights of stairs so every muscle I didn’t know I had was spasm-ing). I’m still not sure what I’m doing here to be honest. I’m beyond the point of trying France on for size and am now trying to decide if I want to sink in a little and let my roots grow, or go home to Chicago/SF/Denver/USA (clearly another decision to be made.. lately Madrid and Amsterdam have sounded interesting too.. 😳). And if the decision is to go home then when? And if it’s soon, shouldn’t I stop wasting time with French lessons and dating apps? There are only so many times I can say: Je suis désolée, je ne parle pas bien le français. J'ai besoin que vous parliez en anglais s'il vous plaît 😘☺️. Anyway you see the rabbit hole I end up going down. This week I am convinced I'll regret returning now so we'll see if that sticks for a while. At any rate, for now, I’ll forget about these life altering decisions, trust in the alchemy of my life, and instead tell you about the fireman’s ball, spring travel adventures and visits, my birthday abroad, and Parisian observations.

In short, since March, I went to Prague for #saintpraguiesday with Jack, visited (and was overly emotional at) Normandy with Hillary and Mike (and apparently earned a hefty speeding ticket yet to be seen on the way home), drank wine out of a baby bottle, visited the Champagne region and WWII-decimated Reims, circled Stonehenge and cut through Bath on my way home (cringing at the thought of fat, rich men bobbing like rotten apples in the tepid waters, but then enjoying a little shopping in the square and one of the best meat pies I’ve ever had), took a last minute train to Holland to revel in the tulip fields (sorry about the Snap story, I was freaking out), had a birthday and an insanely sweet surprise party (dancing til dawn included), lounged/guzzled rose seaside in Corsica and le Cote d’Azur, ping ponged from Paris to SF back to Paris to Minneapolis to Tampa and back to Paris again in the span of two weeks to kiss some babies and celebrate Kara and Anna’s graduations, proved all American stereotypes right by driving the French countryside in a convertible blaring Kanye and Led Zeppelin, ascended Mont Saint Michele and Eze Village, drank with a league of twenty golfing Brits inside the fortress walls of St. Malo, partied on the other side of the tracks in London, saw a concert at the Philharmonie, watched the Fête Nationale (Bastille Day to you) Eiffel Tower fireworks to close out my 365 days in France, and went to Lollapalooza Paris with some sweet Chicago and CO friends and a pack of glitter-crazed (beatifically so) South Africans to kick off the next 365.

Hillary​ and Mike​ visited in April, lots to say about their visit, but first I think their being here was a blissful reminder of what it was like to have good friends around. The lack of such in tangible proximity was starting to weigh on me. And I think I just sometimes need the connection with people who might care that I booked a vacation to Murder Island or that I received yet another “this is not me” email response from a co-worker- which translates to “not my job” in the American workplace. I thought cultural annoyance was a thing, but Google says non. At the very least, the weeks preceding their visit had been a test in cultural tolerance. Mostly I think I was just dealing with a real bout of homesickness and it had begun to bleed into everything. For example, I went to a burger and fries place to have a taste of home and someone bumped my arm and fries went flying. I went up to the counter to, I don’t know really, presumably order new ones, but instead when I got to the order counter my eyes welled up and I asked for a broom to clean up my mess. Everyone was really uncomfortable. I’m a hair-trigger crier, but that was extreme. Coincidentally, shortly following this public outburst was my birthday. My dear friend Lize​ threw a surprise party to celebrate and I ended up dancing in my eleventh month in Paris with the sweetest people ever. I’d fled Paris the weekend before because I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday alone. And while my island escape was complete paradise, that Friday night surpassed it tenfold. It was a wake up for me that I am building a life here and I’m really happy about it. I’m trying to carry this joy with me; though invariably I forget this sentiment while slogging through the work weeks, but for the moment, I recall the elation perfectly and cherish it.

What helps in moments of wavering conviction that being here is really a dream come true are realizations like my birthday party night, island escapes, and that Paris has been unbelievably beautiful lately. When Hill and Mike were here the weather was crisp and sunny and lovely. There was a moment when we walked from the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore, across the bridge behind Notre Dame, through the back gardens and all the while cherry blossoms were blowing past us on a light breeze. I mean if I wasn’t on cloud nine just having them in town, I was after that movie-quality stroll across the Seine. The whole week they were here, in fact, I was undone/overcome/overwhelmed by bursts of pure happiness. Our itinerary was pretty perfect: Parisian highlights, road trip to Normandy, Honfleur, Versailles, Champagne, and the 3 F’s of France: fondue, fromage, et .. fermented grapes?

Normandy was the biggest surprise. I was awash with gratitude and appreciation like I've never felt before. It’s likely very late in life to have had this experience, but I was filled with awe-inspired respect for the bravery of the nearly 10,000 soldiers buried in that coastal cemetery. Next up was Honfleur. This crazy old fishing town captured all three of us instantly. It was everything that was sweetly prosaic, weathered, and charming. We also had a really nice dinner along the port that I will remember for a long time. The food was actually not that great, but the conversation and laughter leaves me smiling even now.

The rest of the time they were here we spent hitting up Parisian must-see attractions, and some perhaps better left unseen things as well. Namely, Le Refuge de Fondue, wherein you are served wine in baby bottles. The novelty is quite lethal as you don’t really know how much you’re sucking down and we each had 3-4 baby bottles which is what? 6-8 glasses of wine? The next morning we were heading out to the Champagne region at dawn with our heads hung a little lower than we might’ve wished. I had a hard time finishing any of our tasters. Reims and the rest of the region were beautiful and I think worth going back to when I’m not wishing to lay down, just for a little while, the whole time. Let’s get our weekend booked Daniel y Gra-ham.

All in all though, a really great visit. And going to Normandy and Honfleur whet my appetite to explore more of this country I now call home. We now know I went to Corsica to avoid being solo on my birthday, but it was also a way to have a whole new French experience. From the way they speak to the food and vistas. One doesn’t immediately think of amazing seafood, crystal clear cut-glass water, and Mediterranean cave exploration when they think of France. Or at least I didn’t. This was also the longest trip I’ve taken by myself to date- 5 days. It was actually really nice to just be for a few days and soak up the sun and sea sounds. I spent most of the time on, by, or in the water, or driving around in my manual rental car. I forgot how much fun it is! And add in the adrenaline rush of navigating cliff-side, narrow roads.. I was in heaven. Then on day three, in a state of pure euphoria from laying, reading, and snoozing, I flash-fried my entire backside. The day after that I went on a pretty intense boating trip that basically was the same thing as riding a horse bareback based on the choppy waves we cut through. For a day when I could barely wear clothes due to the heat pumping off my back and the skin being too sensitive for any contact, this sea excursion nearly killed me.

In other travel news, Jack​ and I continued our EU/best friends mayhem tour this Spring and went to Prague. First impression: feels old AF, especially when you go to a strings concert in a church probably built before 1400. The timelines of these places start to chip away at the illusion I know anything about world history, and also continually remind me how young America is. (Side note for perspective, I was at a French flea market recently and asked the age of a teacup, the sellers response? “Very modern, 1930s.” Only not in America is that concerned modern.) Anyway, we basically walked the entire city on repeat, upping our stein ozs with each stop, checking out historical graffiti, and fulfilling everyone’s personal Czech checklist: absinthe, igloo bars, river boat tours, and the best Thai food two nights in a row. Last thing I’ll mention about this trip, which has little to do with Prague and everything to do with the experience is that here is where I listened to the bulk of Born to Run and I will forever associate this special place with the time I became best friends with Bruce Springsteen.

I also went to London a couple months ago to 1) fulfill my and Jack’s ultimate London must-do activity: go to the giant ball pit bar in Dalston before he finished his program, 2) celebrate sweet Lauren​'s birthday and see Becca​ this side of the Atlantic, and 3) explore a little more of England.

First, the ball pit was awesome if a little disgusting. I mainly tried to block out that I’m in my 20+10s and diving deep into a pit probably covered with countless germs.. namely 💩.. idk what that kept trying to push its way into my thoughts while submerged in the glowing plastic balls, but even now I am making Grinch lips thinking about it. Germs aside, it was a blast. Around midnight we went to see London Bridge and watch the city sparkle on the water. Was a nice send off for Jack.

The next day I set out for some tourist-ing and went to Stonehenge and Bath. Both were pretty cool. Stonehenge is both incredible and annoying. Legit tourist trap, but because it’s in the middle of absolutely nowhere you kind of feel like you’re experiencing it with these people and it makes it feel a little un-special. That is to say, it still feels special even though you’re surrounded by people all trying to take pictures of the same thing at the same time. I took some snaps myself but then just sat and looked at the stones for a little while. I don’t know about aliens, etc. but it does seem like an incredible feat for the average human.

After this, I went to Bath and while I love all things ancient it was a little hard to imagine away all the tourists and really see the Roman baths in their day and time. And as mentioned above, had a really nice steak pie in the town square, so that was good.

I’m going to have to leave Mont Saint Michele, meeting the darling Chloe​ in Nice, and my other French countryside ramblings for another post. Because this has gotten entirely too long, and I want to tell you about the Bal des Pompiers and some quick- and acutely accurate- reflection on my time in France to date.

Bal des Pompiers – or the Fireman’s Ball- is a night when all the firehouses in Paris open their doors, accept donations and lewd looks, put on strip teases, and sell garbage champagne for 35€ a bottle. Mix it all up and it was one of the most hilarious, reckless, balls out nights I’ve had in Paris. Such a weird tradition and one I am so, so happy to have been brought into. I have no photos from the night because, well I doubt I could focus enough to take any, but also I was too busy dancing and smooching strangers. #onelove?

Now the year one wrap up. You’ve been with me along the way for the more immediate observations: the cheese is great, work is isolating and awkward, the women don’t dye their hair, and the men are rocking man buns and GQ suits. But here are some broader puzzlements that continue to haunt me:

1. The postal mail system is alive and well in France. Need to create a subway/metro account? Fill out a form, mail it in, wait 8-10 weeks for a reply (make that 8-10 months as I still don’t have my pass). Recently buy tickets online to a concert? These will be mailed out to you in 3-4 weeks, please be home for delivery within that timeframe. Urgent immigration documents to be signed? Check your mail in 2 weeks, if nothing is there request said forms again. Lather, rinse, repeat. What year is this? 2. Check books. E’rybody using them. 3. Vous form is a thing. Get over it you pompous jackasses. Not only do I need to learn formal and informal, I have to learn noun gender as well. I’m out. 4. “La bise” is real and takes forever. Never mind that you might not even know the people which for me, let’s be honest, is always. Also, if you get la bise after a date, dude’s gay. 5. I fall in love with every man that sells me cheese. They seem to genuinely care that I enjoy the cheese and get excited about making recommendations about other cheeses I might enjoy. It’s a complete trip and I fall head over heels at least twice a month. There is a particular father/son duo for which I am fully prepared to destroy their family dynamic over because choosing would be impossible. 6. No one gets pedicures because it's too expensive, and as a result do not cut their nails as often as they should. So many women out there with talons- bleh. 7. One day I saw a girl, maybe 12, walking probably home with a baguette that her mom probably sent her out to get before dinner. No other reason a pre-teen would be carrying around fresh baked bread. The idea that there are French families living this imaginary version of reality is still mind boggling. “It is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” I still can’t believe I’m living that dream along with the countless people walking home with fresh baked bread each night. 8. Some people have showers larger than a small refrigerator, some people have refrigerators larger than ten shoe boxes taped together.. those people just aren’t me. 9. French women slap on lipstick and call it makeup. They legit could have not brushed their hair for a week and still this is the only measure they take each morning. Makes things easier anyway. 10. And a direct quote from a lifelong Parisian, "I’d rather my purse go in the river than my cigarettes”—this exactly expresses the devotion to cigs out here. They are an extension of self. .. and keep them away from the river.

Ok, je m'en vais. Thanks again for being a part of this life experiment.

[ricardosousalemos]

Shobaleader One: Elektrac

Squarepusher’s Tom Jenkinson is not a man prone to inertia. Since his breakout in the mid-’90s with the frenetic avant drum’n’bass of Feed Me Weird Things and Hard Normal Daddy, his career has assumed a sort of pinball trajectory, bouncing from prettified electroacoustic music to solo bass noodling to a period spent composing for a robotic band (see 2014 EP Music for Robots), all the while clinging to a few guiding precepts, like instrumental virtuosity. In this respect, the live-band project Shobaleader One is simultaneously a clean break and business as usual, being both the start of a new phase and the point at which a few older ideas fully germinate.

The Shobaleader One concept came to life in 2010, with an album titled Squarepusher Presents Shobaleader One: d’Demonstrator. Incorporating elements of R&B, heavy metal, and Jenkinson’s own treated vocals, it purported to be the work of a live band, but was probably just the work of Jenkinson himself. But d’Demonstrator did attract some fellow travelers, and early in 2016, Shobaleader One emerged as a genuine touring entity—Jenkinson on bass, plus three musicians going by the names Strobe Nazard, Company Laser, and Arg Nution, taking on keyboards, drums, and guitar, respectively. At their gigs, this “space-pop” quartet set about reworking a number of Squarepusher standards through the medium of hyperspeed jazz-funk, their identities concealed by masks that look like malfunctioning Tenori-on.

While not explicitly presented as a live album, Elektrac seems to be taken in part from concert recordings, though were it not for the light applause that punctuates each track you might not notice. The recordings are crystal-clear, and there is no doubting the chops of the band themselves, who handle their task with virtuoso ease. Some tracks here feel well suited to a Shobaleader overhaul. A sprint through “Coopers World” from 1997’s Hard Normal Daddy imagines it as the score to some hardboiled ’70s cop-drama, all sticky wah-wah guitar and limber-fingered keyboard runs. “E8 Boogie” is pretty much a showcase for Jenkinson’s genuinely startling warp-speed bass plucking. Elsewhere, there’s some entertainment in watching the outfit stretch to cover distant corners of Squarepusher’s artistic mien. Company Laser nearly blows a circuit trying to replicate the drill’n’bass flurries of “Journey to Reedham,” while the ensemble show impressive restraint on a blissfully centered take on “Iambic 5 Poetry,” the pretty, vibes-laden standout from 1999’s Budakhan Mindphone.

These enjoyable moments are balanced by stretches where you realize you’re not so much enjoying Elektrac as being subjected to it. “Don’t Go Plastic” and “Squarepusher Theme” solo interminably, while a mid-album turn towards the heavy turns out low points like “Megazine”—Daft Punk gone metal gone wrong—and a rather cold and lifeless technical riffer called “Delta-V.” Jenkinson has explained he wants Shobaleader One to sound like “an insane band.” But nothing here verges on the elemental extremity or deranged humor displayed by earlier groups fusing jazz and metal—Lightning Bolt, for instance, or John Zorn’s Naked City. Instead, these tracks balance loudness with a rather fussy and joyless quality; fun to play, probably, not so much to listen to.

In a 2016 interview with Q magazine, Jenkinson described Shobaleader One as a reaction to the current state of electronic music production. “Software companies, partly in order to further their business aims, have made it so easy to make electronic music that the format in general is beginning to assume a troubling air of painting-by-numbers pointlessness,” he said. Look closer at Shobaleader’s gleaming metal carapace—can you see the jazz snob poking through? The idea that an album of finicky jazz-funk covers is the answer to anything in 2017 is a little rich. But more broadly, I’d say Jenkinson’s assessment is flawed. The increasing availability of production software has enabled the rise of music-makers otherwise marginalized for geographic or economic reasons—think localized sounds like grime, or gqom, or, if you want to go back further, those early jungle productions that gave Squarepusher its initial impetus. As ever, it’s not so much about the tools, but what you do with them. And while it’s laudable that Jenkinson is always moving, never resting, Elektrac feels a bit of a sideshow: a flexing of technique with little to display but its own shiny spectacle.

[cyclinglegs]

Jeez, where has the year gone. Almost halfway through February and I’m just getting around to my first posting for the year.  Nothing wrong, just struggling with Lifes lethargy. Had a great holiday, just bumming around, a bit of this a bit of that. Riding the hills, drinking and eating in the Barossa, the Vale, the Hills and at home. Entertaining, being entertained, sleeping, just what holidays should be about.

Oh, and following a little bike race in Adelaide that is the same age as my daughter. Hard to believe that a young Stuart O’Grady won the TdU back in 1999.

As usual, the Adelaide weather played a little have with the tour, something over 42 degC on the opening stage to the Barossa played havoc with the cyclotourists who were hoping to take a casual ride to the Barossa, it was hell out there. Its been bloody hot today as well, topping 42 deg in Adelaide, with the high 30’s forecast for a few more days.

So I keep on wondering why anyone in their right mind would ever come to  Adelaide to cycle.

The weather can be insufferable in the summer.

  The beach rides are bleak and boring

2015, Tour Down Under, tappa 04 Glenelg – Mount Barker, Sellicks Hill

The are hardly any hills, and those are flat and too far away from the the city

The roads in the hills are so busy you wouldn’t bother risking your life on them

  The city lacks culture

Adelaide is good for wine, but the local brews are crap

Adelaide is boring, nothing ever happens

It really is a wretched place to come with your bike

So why come to Adelaide and ride? Really, why, you’ve got to be off your rockers.

________________________________

Indian Pacific

By now you probably would have heard about that insane bike ride across Australia. The Indian Pacific Wheel Race. This is a solo, single-stage, unsupported, 5,500km road cycling race ocean-to-ocean across Australia.

The race starts on 18 March 2017 at 6:00am in Fremantle, Western Australia and finishes at the Sydney Opera House whenever the rider gets there. The clock does not stop. There is no prize money. Total distance is around 5,300km, with something like  33,500m VAM. Sweet mother of Lord they cant be serious. I cramped up a few weekends back riding consecutive centuries. I cant start to imagine what this will be like.

Riders will travel on the Eyre Highway, a 1675km long road that takes two days in a car, across the flat and takes approximately two days to cross cross the Nullarbor Plain which includes a 150 km section of completely straight road. Riders will need to watch out for Kangaroos, emu’s, wombats and even camels, of which there are an estimated 100,000 lining the Eyre Highway calling the Nullarbor Plain home.

On the up side, the route passes through the rolling hills of the Clare and Barossa Valleys before hitting the Adelaide Hills. Riders will then travel across SA down to the Great Ocean Road before heading up to the Australian Alps and the Blue Mountains before hitting Sydney

Entries will be open until the total number of registrations again reaches 100, or until 12 March 2017. See here for the roster of riders. https://www.indianpacificwheelrace.com/2017roster

Have a close look, to the best of my knowledge, there are at least 2 South Australians riding, Sam Jeffries and James Raison.

Sam is using this ride as an opportunity to raise funds for the WCH. From Sams Go the Mo fundraising page

Sam and I (Becky) are hoping to heaps of money to buy bikes for the Adelaide Women’s & Children’s Hospital Rehabilitation Department. “Oh yes . . . why?”

Well let me explain . . .

Our funny, happy and beautiful 8 year old daughter, Hannah, had a terrible accident in 2016,  it’s only thanks to the skill, dedication and kindness of the WCH neurologists, doctors, nurses, OT’s, Physio’s, Speech Therapists, Psychologists, Health Assistants and all other staff that we have her back, at home, smiling and healthy again.

Hannah was in PICU for 3 weeks in April 2016. The PICU doctors and nurses were incredible and she received round the clock care. When she woke from the coma she was unable to walk or talk, the injury had damaged her very badly and she needed to learn to walk, swallow, speak, and control her movements again. However, despite everything that she needed to re-learn she remained (mostly) cheerful and positive.

Hannah spent months in the Rehabilitation Unit at the WCH, the kindness and support of the staff there is something that we can never repay. They have given us our lovely daughter back and we can never thank the WCH enough.

Hannah’s dad, Sam, is an awesome cyclist and in March 2017 is racing from Freemantle to Sydney, non-stop and unsupported. He is taking part in the Indian Pacific Wheel Race, a crazy ‘Cannon-ball Run’ style race which careers across Australia durning March and April. If he avoids rogue Aussie wildlife and survives living off meat pies for a month he should reach the Pacific Ocean after 5,500kms of pretty much non-stop riding.

We would love it if you could support his ride and help us donate funds to the WCH Rehabilitation team to buy bikes for children like Hannah.  After being in PICU Hannah was on a ward for a long time. When she was able to get on a bike as part of her rehab and go outside she felt like she was really getting better. After being stuck on a ward for so long to get outside in the fresh air and ride a bike was brilliant for her.

What we want is to help other children, like Hannah, have as much fun as she did whilst they’re working so hard to recover from illness or injury.

The WCH would like to buy 2 bikes, one for younger children and one for older kids. They would also like a scooter and some safety accessories, helmets and training wheels.

If we can smash our (very optimistic) target the WCH would also like to buy a FES (Function Electrical Stimulation) bike.

This incredible bit of kit gets kids with paralysis moving again. As you can imagine it’s pretty expensive but if we all chucked in $20 then it will only take 1,500 of us to buy one (as you can see they are VERY expensive).

Sam would like to thank Adelaide’s Cycle Closet for their fantastic sponsorship for this ride, thanks to them Sam has a terrific POC helmet, glasses and Gore Apparel kit. Which look cool AF.

Please, jump onto the “Go the Mo” fundraising page here GtM and open your wallet.

Good luck Sam and James. We’ll be following you closely and cheering the two of you on from the sidelines.

Further details here https://www.indianpacificwheelrace.com/

Or you could take the train which runs twice weekly from Perth to Sydney and takes 3 nights to cover the 4352km journey. For riders trying to do the old sneaky and jumop aboard, the signposted train stations are  in Cook, Adelaide and Broken Hill, so not much chance there to skip ahead.

________________________________

Rider of the Week – George Fuller

I have know George for a little over a year now, but left for a work stint in New York before we could get out for a ride together.

I managed to catch up with George recently, this is his story.

  I am 38 years of age and grew up in country Australia in a small town called Gundagai. I have always been into cycling in one form or another, mostly mountain biking but in recent years I have done more road riding. An accomplishment that I am proud of is the Three Peaks Challenge in Falls creek a couple of years back, just getting under the cut-off of 13hrs. I also did a small Europe tour with a friend a few years back where we put road tires on our mountain bikes and road around a few countries, an experience that every cyclist that like to travel should embark on. I have always wanted to follow the Tour de France and maybe with a bit of planning, it is something that will happen one day…

  What first got you started in cycling?

I have always been interested in sport and grew up with bicycles and motorbikes, so it always felt natural to have a bike.

How many bikes do you own and what is your main go to bike?

I have two bikes, one road and one mountain bike. Both are Merida.

What bike do you covet?

I like trials bikes and dual suspension mountain bike with long travel suspension. I don’t have any specific bike that I need to have.

How do you store your bikes?

Leaning up against a wall in the living room.

Do you do all your own maintenance or do you use a LBS? If so, which one?

I tend to do all my minor maintenance and anything major I would take it to a shop.

You’ve been in New York for a while now, have you formed an opinion of the differences between New York and Sydney riders?

I couldn’t say that there are any defining features that I have discovered about New York riders in comparison to Sydney riders. I have noticed that New York drivers are a bit more mental than Sydney drivers, which may cross over into the cycling community

What do you love about cycling?

The simplicity and freedom that you feel when riding. I really enjoy riding on open country roads as you get to see the world at a better pace than whizzing by at 100km per hour in a car. I also like the challenge of hill riding, really pushing myself to get to the top. Riding on the flat tends to bore me a little.

What annoys most about cycling?

Saddle soreness. I consider myself a recreational rider and it can be quite some time between rides.

Have you had any crashes?

Nothing major. I had a small crash which was my own fault turning into a road way that had tram rail grooves. My wheels got jammed in the rail groove and down I went.

Other than yourself, who is your favourite cyclist?

Anyone Australian that is riding in the Tour de France

If you could have dinner with 3 people from the cycling world, who would they be and why?

I guess, Lance Armstrong would be the first that comes to mind. I would probably ask him about doping in sport. As for the 2nd and the 3rd persons, anyone that would like to be part of that conversation.

What are your craziest/fondest cycling memories?

My craziest would be riding in France and not understanding the road rules. My friend and I were escorted from a major freeway in France, being loaded into the back of a van and taken to the nearest regional road. This ruined our planned trip by adding more time than we had allowed for in the trip from the port of Le Havre into Paris.

What is your favourite post ride coffee spot, and what would you normally buy as a treat?

Any place that looks like they make good coffee. I tend eat anything as I justify that I am burning lots of calories.

If you could, where you you like to go on a cycling holiday?

I would probably go back to Europe, not sure where though.

What is your favourite local training route?

I ride around Prospect Park in Brooklyn which is only a few minutes from my house.

What is the biggest cycling lie you have told a partner?

Haven’t told one yet.

What would you like for your next birthday?

A new set of cycling shoes, the one’s which you mold to your feet.

Is there anything else you feel like talking about?

Having moved to New York, I am now starting to look for riding challenges, whether that be a mountain ride or a road endurance event. Something challenging!

  Thanks George, have a great one and speak soon.

Thanks for your patience at the start of Giros 100th celebration, have a safe year and speak to you again in a few weeks.

  till next time

tight spokes

iPib

    Oh, FYI, Cycling in Adelaide is not Shite – it is the bees knees.

Cycling in Adelaide is Shite Jeez, where has the year gone. Almost halfway through February and I'm just getting around to my first posting for the year.