#it’s a fever dream to me chile

[iridescentdove]

Okay, but like Imagine Akutagawa x Shinobu! Reader (demon slayer) where like it’s just some of the other characters reactions to him having a lover that they somehow did not know about, not even Dazai, they just question how 2 completely polar opposites get together and why Reader would even want to be with some like Akutagawa and Reader’s response is, "His anger brings me joy☺️" no but really because his introverted cold ass reminds Reader of someone Giyuu.

(The reader is mostly based on Shinobu's personality and height, Chuuya lowkey dancing now that someone is shorter than him.)

FLY HIGH, BUTTERFLY.

akutagawa ryunosuke x shinobu!reader

A/N: I love this request! I worked on it immediately. And you're so right, haha. Chuuya must be so happy rn.

Many things in the world happen for a reason, and despite how strange it is, we'd collectively agree that's just how utterly unexpected life is.

But nobody was prepared enough,

To hear AKUTAGAWA himself has a girlfriend. Okay, well maybe she and him just relate to a lot of things by heart.

But to make things even more shocking, you are both absolute polar opposites. Holy shit. Was this a fever dream or is the world actually ending right now? The one who refuses to believe it the most is DAZAI himself obviously.

He will not believe it. Nope, never. This is all a big nightmare. Plus! You were suuuper pretty ... ? Holy shit. He has no idea how it came to this, and how he never even knew.

Obviously, the Port Mafia found out about it first. CHUUYA had met you for the first time – and you will not believe,

But he was the happiest human being alive.

Omg. Like. Someone ...

*sniffs* ... was shorter .. than him ... 🥺🥺🥺

Of course, you and CHUUYA got along really well. And you even made fun of and insulted Dazai with him. Now, you two are known for being the 'Fuck Dazai' duo in the mafia.

whether it mean a figure of speech or literally hoho

AKUTAGAWA doesn't even know why he fell for you. Dude's heart is set on Dazai and the mafia, but suddenly you just flutter yourself (pun intended) into his life and now he can't seem to stop thinking about you.

Plus, you strong and pretty as hell. Girlboss right there. Although you two seem more of rivaled siblings than an actual couple sometimes – it do be kinda funny. EVERY TIME

EVERY TIME he even speaks you come up with the most hellbent and insulting comeback. People begin to question whether ya'll a couple or forced to be one 😭

This bitch Aku reminds you of a certain eyebrowless boy ...

"That weretiger is ridiculous!" - akutagawa

"Yes~ just like your face <3" - you

"If I jump onto that building–" - akutagawa

"Who do you aspire to be, spiderman?" - you

"What? You failed?" - akutagawa

"Yes! Just like your dad's condom." - you

DAZAI literally was just spying on both of yall's for fun, he did not expect that last one. IT WAS FOUL. But then again he's the one that brought popcorn tbh. A free ticket to the drama show for free. And by that, I mean stalking

When AKUTAGAWA is saying something dark or melancholic, you literally just call out the bs and name him spiteful. All of that with a smile on your face.

Once, someone asked you dazai why you'd evem want to be with someone like that emo guy. Much to the surprise of everyone, you just respond

"Cause his anger makes me feel joy 😊"

Um ok?? Like chile-

The mafia lowkey terrified of you. You'll spit out any form of comebacks or insults with such a sweet smile and aura, it was scary to even know what happened behind close doors.

ATSUSHI is questioning his life. Second to the suicidal detective, he refuses to believe someone like YOU is together with him.

Well, until you show your terrifyingly gruesome side.

"I can slash open your stomach rip out your organs. Or gauge out your eyeballs. Choke you with your intenstines or wrap them around your dead body like a necklace."

Whenever he and AKUTAGAWA are forced to fight together, this little white tiger will ask so many questions. He's just so curious about how you and that emo ass got together.

... Uhm well- bombastic side eye

Okay DAZAI is an unhinged dude back in his mafia days but even he is lowkey terrified of you. He likes death, but not the idea of pain or suffering – so the fact you'd be doing all that without batting an eye makes him wanna bury himself 6ft under.

MORI also begins to regret his choices, but hey you and your boyfriend do some amazing teamwork so to hell with it ig

Of course, showing your angrier side is a surprise. You're always so sweet looking with that calm aura and smile. But then ayy full 360, who is this gruesome serial killer woman??

Eh ... well, let's say no one wants to know. Simply, you and AKUTAGAWA are a sweet duo when you're not being petty and insulting him ykyk

He doesn't really snap back at your insults. Dude just tries to deny it with a straight face.

"I'm not depressed. I'm not emo. I have eyebrows."

Last one is not true but ok

Rest assured, you and him are still a good couple. He loves you, might never admit it out loud – but you already know it so you don't need to hear it from him. Just a love life of teasing, insulting, but still pure and genuine love from each other.

[wingingitonwheels]

Monday 11th November: Tome

It’s only two days that have passed since I last wrote, and whilst sitting on a bike and simply pedalling seems such a basic and functional existence, it feels like I’ve had a month’s worth of experience despite geographically having not made much progress south. Avoiding Ruta 5 is proving to take me on the path less trodden and although I’ve only one degree south since Saturday, and overall just 2 degrees south, each day has delivered new vistas, different cultures and daylight hours are accelerating so fast, I wake up confused each morning as to whether I’ve slept too long or not. It’s getting colder and I’m starting to need my jacket both in the morning and descending. It is still spring here and I’ve got hay fever for the first time whilst abroad! In just 5 days, the temperature has moved from oppressive to pleasant, and just 3 days ago, it seemed I’d found Chile’s tranquility. Followed by its wine region, which leaked into Chilean Wales and finally to the Pacific town of Tomé, a busy seaside town north of Concepcion.

My rear tyre will likely need replacing by Puerto Montt and yesterday as I slogged up my fifteenth hill of the day, whilst cursing my mobile home for the twentieth time, I considered that like my tyre, I might arrive in Puerto Montt too tired to enjoy the reason I came. I worked through how I could get there and miss the rest of Chile. Plane (cheap but need a box), bus (three legs - fine if you don’t have a bike) or hire a car. All very reasonable ideas and possible from Concepcion. However the weather in Puerto Montt (the reason I didn’t fly directly there as initially planned) is still poor for another ten days. The reality is that my long held dream could be a damp Squibb by rushing. And whilst I’d love to make the most of my camping gear, as I cross Chile, tired and dirty at the end of each day, given the choice of an average hotel at a reasonable price or a tent where now the nights are cold, it’s an easy decision to opt for comfort. It is a real dilemma though.

I’ve figured out that if I convert a mile for a kilometre (kilometres measure distance here), I’ve found my formula for calculating how long it will take me to get from point to point. In the olden days, when I used to have a fast bike and legs, and carried very little, I’d roughly cover on a good day, twenty miles in an hour. Now I cover twenty kilometres on average in an hour. On a good day that could average twenty-three, but it makes me feel better to think as kilometres as miles so I’m not so disheartened at the slow pace I’m moving. But now with ten days or so until it’s worth getting to Puerto Montt, I may as well make my days shorter for the 785 kilometres remaining until the planned journey might commence 😬. In terms of the UK, that’s roughly John O Groats to Kendal or going north, Land’s End to just north of Lancaster. So today I’ll pass the midway point to Puerto Montt! Woohoo!

Saturday 9th November

Having arrived the night before to Eliana’s little cabin, sun baked and frazzled, I took my time getting going. After saying goodbye to Bongo, I put on my music and hit the road, feeling much better for a later start and allowing myself a shorter day of just thirty miles if I chose, which would take me to Cauquenes for around lunchtime. Not long into the ride, my rear wheel juddered weirdly, as though the wheel was misaligned. It was disturbing but I figured I must have ridden over a rumbly bit of road and got over it. About ten minutes later, I looked back at my rear hub and noticed the tool Allen key bolt still attached to the skewer (this is a tiny slot in key rather than a full length key for clarity) from when I changed my tyre. Doh! Stopping to take it off, I noticed my pannier wasn’t securely shut, so scalded myself and tightened it and continued. The hills seemed like less work than other days, I felt lighter and happy, singing loudly to Sophie B Hawkins Right Beside me and Randy Newman’s One day I’ll Fly Away. She has to be one of the most emotional singers in history. It was Almaz that helped me write my best ever English essay, a story which was really quite sad of a lonely boy living in probably Colorado (where at the time I’d never been, who walked up high into the Aspen forest, lamenting the world whilst taking in its beauty as birds soared overhead whilst he perched on a ledge). After returning tot the real world from my deep and distant thoughts, it immediately occurred that I felt lighter. Perhaps not fitter? At exactly seventeen miles and at the top of a climb, I stopped and checked…had something fallen from my loose pannier? Frantic checking followed and lo and behold, my telephoto lens was gone, a gift, the single most heavy piece of equipment and the thing that nearly didn’t come. I held back tears and considered what had happened. I expected the juddering was the lens falling out of the pannier and being caught in the back wheel before it was spat out and exploded on the road behind me. And of course as I was listening to music, I didn’t hear it drop. Disaster. Was there any point at riding back a likely fifteen miles to see it obliterated? I had to. I couldn’t go on not knowing. And perhaps I might be lucky. There was a hard shoulder all the way and if it wasn’t broken it was unlikely someone would stop at exactly that point. With a very heavy heart, I turned back.

There was no question of it appearing in the first thirteen miles that I retraced. Any fatigue was replaced with adrenaline. Whilst I acknowledged the positive beeps from the friendly and supportive motorists, I was laser focused, riding the wrong way on the hard shoulder. As I got closer to the judder point, my eyes traced every contour, every gutter. Nothing. With two miles to go till I was back at the start, I decided there was no harm in simply asking my hosts if anyone had found a lens. I waited by the gates as Bongo and Max bolted towards me, followed by Elish…cuddling my lens like a baby. I could have kissed him! Tired Chell makes mistakes. Chell was VERY tired that morning!

All’s well that ends well. Lunch of Chicken leg was consumed at the roadside cafe where I started the day and four hours after initially starting the day, I started again, a little heavier, but happy. Dumb ass 🙄. And although a complete pain in the ass of a day, look at the beauty I saw alive at the side of the road? A Chilean Rose Tarantula. Incredibly stunning…

I’m a day behind but there’s too much to say about my next night and day for now, so reader (assuming there’s still a few), you’ll have to wait. 😄. Adios!

[heidiandellie]

Distancia de Rescate

Se ha demostrado que los pesticidas contribuyen en gran medida al cambio climático. Aunque los plaguicidas han demostrado ser extremadamente beneficiosos para el bienestar del suelo y la agricultura cuando se usan correctamente, si se usan incorrectamente, podría haber consecuencias peligrosas. Por ejemplo, el agua, el aire, y la vida rodeados por el rocío descuidado de estos pesticidas pueden verse gravemente afectados.

Sin embargo, a veces, somos incapaces de entender cosas que no nos afectan directamente. Por eso, te recomiendo que si algo te llevas de este blog sea que las Distancia de Rescate de Samantha Schweblin traducido por Megan McDowell. Este libro es descrito como una novela inquiertante por el New Yorker. El libro en sí es corto, sin embargo, es capaz de llevarte a un viaje emocional con los personajes. Fever dream está estructurada como una obra de teatro, con solo dos personajes y sin mucho movimiento.

Los hablantes del libro son Amanda, la protagonista y su hija Nina que viaje al campo donde ellas conocen Carla y su hijo David (el otro narrador). El libro muestra unas vacaciones tranquilas, que ràpidamente se convierten en la peor pesadilla de alguien. Rapidámente aprendemos cómo la toxicidad se vuelve central en la trama e impulsa el conflicto principal de la historia. Nosotros podemos ver esto conflicto entre los cultivos de soja cercanos que envenenan a los niños que viven en el barrio. Tambien, podemos escuchar a dos voces. Primera, Amanda, una de las protagonistas habla desde su lecho de muerte emergencias, y David que se emborrachó bebiendo agua de un arroyo, y por eso que necesitaba someterse a un ritual espiritual que lo sanaría pero también migraría la mitad de su alma y la reemplezaría con un alma limpia. En el libro David intenta guiar a Amanda hacia la verdad de lo que está pasando, para preparla para su experiencia cercana a la muerte. La trama comienza y se desarrolla en la oscura y vacía sala de urgencias. David intenta encontrar el momento específico en que “las gusanos” (en términos de intoxicación) tocaron a Amanda por primera vez.  

Probablemente te estés preguntando qué tiene que ver esto con el cambio climático y las malas prácticas en la agricultura. Pero lo que debemos reconocer es que, si bien esto sigue un tema desgarrador de estar fuera del cuerpo y ser alguien diferente a ti, la raíz de los problemas de los personajes era el agua insalubre por los pesticidas. Especialmente al reflexionar sobre la locura por la soja que ha afectado fuertemente a Argentina. Debido a que las demandas de soja son tan altas, esto ha llevado a los agricultores latinoamericanos a utilizar agroquímicos. Esto ha llevado a que Argentina sea el mayor consumidor de glifosato por unidad de tierra culvitida. A veces, los restos de pesticidas se encuentran en los ecosistemas acuáticos y terrestres, en el agua de lluvia y en el aire. 

 Schwelbin, subraya el problema de la mala praxis en la agricultura y los graves efectos que puede tener en la vida de una persona. No creo que las consecuencias son los mismos que el libro, pero el libro demuestra la hospitalización de las personas y vuelve a enfatizar la importancia de las prácticas agrícolas éticas.

Yo recomiendo el blog de Madison y Hannah sobre la diversidad lingüística y preservación de lenguas. El blog habla sobre la importancia de las lenguajes y como nosotros podemos preservar estas lenguas. En un publicación especifica, los autores hablaron sobre como la lengua es una parte cruial a la identidad de una persona.

También, yo recomiendo el blog de Neeladri y Will. El blog se llama Chile: Un País con un Futuro Brillante y habla sobre las protestas diferentes y cómo las personas chilenas crea cambio en Chile. En su entrada más reciente, ellos hablaron sobre las protestas por los estudiantes, por ejemplo en 2006, los estudiantes protestaron contra la sistema de educativo desigual de país. Este blog me recuerda el cambio que todos somos capaces de hacer.

Fuentes:

Otras Cosas:

Heidi Wu

[fandomgalore-blog]

Whoever wrote the script for season 5 of One on One needs to be sent to prison cuz honestly wtf was that?! It had the same energy as the last season of that ‘70s show with main actors gone and a couple we didn’t want to see together in the end. But damn, even that 70s show at least had an ending instead of a cliffhanger. I think it’s because they were expecting a season 6 but never got picked up. Either way that last season didn’t even feel like the same show at all.

[smileybokuto]

You Broke Me First | Song Fic

song: you broke me first ~ Tate McRae

wc: 464

genre: ooo chile this is angst

warning: toxic relationship, mentions of cheating

a/n: I really don’t know why i think up so many angsty situations with Shoto Todoroki 😭. I promise I do love this man...

     Sitting on the couch starting at the door waiting for the 'love of their life' to walk in. An array of thought flood their mind as tears start to form in their eyes. Brimming their eyes one thought kept persisting.  

'Was I not good enough?'    

     The picture in their hand crumps a little at the discomfit the thought brought. And then it happened. The doorknob jiggled. Y/n got up and held the lock in place resting their head against the door, praying he wouldn't come in. That this could be a terrible dream. That he didn't actually do this, that he didn't break there     

       "What the fuck... Ugh... Why isn't my key working," he mumbles outside of the door agitation clear in his tone. "Fuck, y/n's definitely asleep." He bangs on the door which startles y/n as they back away from the door. Y/n heard a loud sigh as the doorknob giggled once again. Standing in the middle of the room with a tear streaked face as he walked in.     

      "Oh my god baby, why are you crying?" he walked over to Y/n with his hands reaching towards their face. Y/n rips their face out of his hands and takes a few step backs. "Baby?" his two tone hair becomes visible as he walks into the light.    

       "Midoriya and Bakugou came by today..." Y/n's voice trembles looking at his blue and brown eyes as his breath catches. "I have a question... It's... Important," y/n's voice is above a whisper. Like if they spoke too loud it would shatter the remaining hope they had that this was a bad fever dream. "What is this?" Y/n hands him a photo of him kissing another person.

        "Y/n... I can explain..."

        "That is not the answer I wanted to hear, Shoto." A lump forms in Y/n's throat. Swallowing down the lump a glare settles upon there face as the stare at the man who broke their heart. 

        "I'm sorry," tears start to fall down his face. "It meant nothing. I swear I felt nothing."

       "I'm leaving you... we are over." Y/n says walking over to their shared, Shoto following behind them. 

        "Baby please, i'm sorry I swear it won't happen again." he begs. 

        "What did you think would happen?" Anger boils out of Y/n like a volcano.

        "I'm sorry please god... Y/n please don't leave me!" 

        "Where do you get the nerve to tell me to stay when you broke us! You're right this won't happen again! Because there isn't an us anymore." Y/n violently opens the dresser shaking the mirror on top of it.  Then starts stuffing their duffel bag with their clothes.      

          "Y/n please... please take me back..."Shoto falls to his knees tear stained face looking up and them pleading for them to stay.      

         "You could say you miss all that we had but I don't really care how bad it hurts... you broke me... Shoto... I don't care how bad it hurts... You broke me first." Y/n grabs the duffel bag and walks out of the house with their back turned. All Shoto could see was the love of his life fading out of his view.

[discombobulated-starburst]

Welcome gremlins and goblins to episode 16 of ✨wasting time in French class✨

I’m not dead

YET 🤡

Chile anyways-

This is my new oc Lillian :3

*COUGH* if only i new how to draw so that she could look like how i intended her to look *COUGH*

She came to me in a fever dream at 3 am last night with another person

i’ve decided to call the other one viktor.

he’s cool i think

Anyways I’m going back into my depression hole so bye bye :3

[luvdsc]

miss cat have you seen the video of nct dream getting detained in Chile?!! I lost my mind cause the music and voiceover was so dramatic like they were talking about how the team was going to jail and jeno is just waving at the camera 💀💀 nct is such a fever dream at this point also there’s a vlive where chenle and renjun’s car was getting pulled over and they just continued with the vlive 😂😂😂 honestly these boys can’t be real lmao I love them

omg I did see it, sweetpea!!! 💓 This is the one time my three years of taking Spanish came in handy LOL 🤧 IT WAS SO FUNNY DJDJDKDK I can’t believe renjun was making a peace sign for the security photo 💀💀 the security people were like “they think just because they’re celebrities, they don’t have to follow regulations” and then cut to jeno just waving to the cams before getting detained sndjiedncjkcc this reminds me of when chenle and renjun got called out over the PA at the airport in the past too rip

[epafassianos]

I would really like to thank MISE-EN_PLACE for having me selected in MISE-EN MUSIC FESTIVAL 2020 (Greenpoint Hall, 341 Calyer St, Brooklyn, NY 11222, United States) A list of the selected works is provided below: Rodrigo Cadiz (Chile): Particles (2003, NY premiere) Fede Camara Halac (USA/Argentina): untitled2 (2018, US premiere) Manolis Ekmektsoglou (Greece): Inside (2020, world premiere) Epa Fassianos (Greece): Metamorphosis (2019, world premiere) Micah Frank (USA): Terraforms (2019, world premiere) Nicola Fumo Frattegiani (Italy): Gusseisen (2018, NY premiere) Leonid Galaganov (USA/Estonia): Big Dreams of Big Ducks (2020, world premiere) Bradley Green (USA): Crest/Clutter/Clamor (2019, NY premiere) Pinda Ho (USA): Parle Do I (2018, an additional performance) Amelia Kaplan (USA): Life consists mostly of boredom interrupted occasionally by panic (2020, world premiere) Markku Klami (Finland): aura (2009, US premiere) Patricia Martinez (Argentina): EXPANSION (2019, NY premiere) Alessandro Massobrio (Germany): Senza (2020, world premiere) Ted Moore (USA): still motion (2017, an additional performance) David Nguyen (USA): Adumbration (2019, world premiere) Seán Ó Dálaigh (Ireland): (in)harmony (2018, US premiere) Yuko Ohara (Japan): the fourth dimension (2020, world premiere) Lina Posėčnaitė (Germany/Lithuania): Un-titled (2019, US premiere) Angeles Rojas (Argentina): We breathed as breathes the sound (2018, US premiere) Matthew Schreibeis (Hong Kong/USA): Parallel Lives (2020, world premiere) Jee Seo (Poland/S. Korea): On Fever Ⅱ (2017, US premiere) Yiheng Yvonne Wu (USA): Duo for Flute and Percussion (2014, NY premiere) SoJeong Yoo (Germany/S. Korea): No Answer to this Question (2019, US premiere) Qianqian Yu (China): Flower of Life (2020, world premiere) (στην τοποθεσία Greenpoint Hall) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB8kmamHl7w/?igshid=166cheznvgmmu

[syttis7v]

late night season 3 thoughts

what’s up guys i finally finished all the work i’ve pushed off until now so it’s time to vocalize my thoughts

also i’m not including photos or anything it’s too late for this and i’m exhausted

let’s start with wuffy! 

i guess they cute? i wish they had more development on screen than off but i can’t be too mad

and tbh i thought that they were way less awkward than i expected them to be. idk i guess i just thought there’d be 0 chemistry

bexie! oh boy

who is surprised??? no one.

let’s be real bexie is cute as hell but in terms of a timeline, their relationship is awkwardly rushed after just reconvening like less than a year ago or so (not too sure so if anyone would like to explain the am timeline feel free please)

ok but moving on from those two factors, oh boy do i have some words

poor jonah beck lmao can you imagine going to frisbee camp for 8 weeks, thinking you and your girl are solid enough to go without that much communication, just for her to assume y’all broke up the day you came back? whew chile...

that being said, jandi has immediately started season 3 off to a bad start but i have no doubt in my mind that they will fix this within the next two episodes? five? twenty? i cant tell with jandi tbh

but i’m fairly confident in assuming they won’t break up, i’ve accepted disney is holding onto their token ship since they keep promoting it omg

but on a lighter note, ham is back!!! and so is my will to live. i hope cece is happy and thriving because we all know how much they love each other & i want that wholesomeness back in andi mack

also give us back happy andi season 3 please i’m tired of Angsty Andi it’s tiredt.

also i’m just gonna say it, cyrus did not need to be in this episode. with the accent and the absolutely disgusting ascot, i loathed it more than i did the cgi jonahs during the wedding dream sequence (that i refuse to mention more than this)

honestly this whole episode felt like a fever dream to me none of it seemed real especially the random dancing??? i have no idea where tf that came from??? i was confused b

anyway i’m sleep now thanks for reading my mess of first impressions maybe i’ll be more organized next week but probably not 

[celestialmazer]

Angela Maxwell's website - https://www.shewalkstheearth.com/

BBC article:

The woman who walked around the world

Seeking a deeper connection to the world, Angela Maxwell set off to walk it alone. Six years and 20,000 miles later, she brought that connection home.

By Florian Sturm

"Why?" It's a simple question, and one that people ask Angela Maxwell frequently. Yet until recently, the American struggled to answer why, exactly, she upended a perfectly fine life in pursuit of a big dream. But for Maxwell, "why" is a question worth answering. After all, she embarked on a journey that very few people attempt: in 2013, she decided to walk around the world – alone.

A solo walk of this magnitude wasn't something Maxwell had planned. In fact, she left only nine months after having overheard a conversation in her art class about a man who supposedly walked around the world.

Maxwell's journey did not sprout from a place of loss, defeat or personal crisis. When she decided to embark on a long-distance walk, she was in her early 30s, ran a successful business and was in a relationship. "I thought I was happy," she said, "but in retrospect, I realised that I was searching for more… for a deeper connection with nature and people – by living on less and connecting with the world around me."

The best way to find that, she figured, was by setting one foot in front of the other. Walking would minimise her carbon footprint, plus the slow pace meant that she could fully immerse herself in nature, meet people she would otherwise only drive past and get to know other cultures in a way that is unique to long-distance walkers.

As she prepared, Maxwell found a whole world of women explorers to embolden her. She fell in love with the writing and slow travel style of Robyn Davidson, who traversed Australia with camels. She learned about long-distance walker Ffyona Campbell; and read up on Rosie Swale-Pope, who hitchhiked from Europe to Nepal, sailed around the world, crossed Chile on horseback and, at age 59, began jogging around the world.

"I read their books in hopes of finding encouragement – and I did – by learning about their challenges and struggles as well as their triumphs. Each woman's story was vastly different and it gave me the confidence to give my walk a try," Maxwell said.

Once she made the decision to go, Maxwell sold all her belongings and organised the necessary gear. She packed a cart with 50kg of camping equipment, dehydrated food, a military-grade water filter and four seasons of clothing. Maxwell left her hometown of Bend, Oregon, on 2 May 2014 and headed into an adventure so grand it was probably best she didn't know exactly what was waiting for her along the track.

When I first connected with Maxwell over Skype in June 2018, she was already nearly four years into her journey, having walked more than 12,500 miles in 12 countries on three continents. Curious, I asked her what kind of person it takes to walk around the world. Her face gleaming, she quipped, "a stubborn one". She then added, "It's probably a combination of ambition, a little stubbornness and a pinch of passion – not for hiking as a sport, but for self-discovery and adventure."

Maxwell told me that even though she quickly found her routine – wake up around sunrise, have two cups of instant coffee and a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, pack up, walk, pitch the camp for the night, eat instant noodles and snuggle up in the sleeping bag – no day was the same. Initially, she set out with a plan, but quickly realised the detours make the adventure. That's why, despite following a general direction, she would always trust her gut feeling of where to turn left or right.

Maxwell would suffer from sunburn blisters and heatstroke in the Australian desert and dengue fever in Vietnam. She would be attacked and raped by a nomad who broke into her tent in Mongolia; hear gunshots while camping in Turkey; and learn to sleep with one eye and one ear open, awake to the vulnerability of deep sleep. Even though it was impossible to know what they would be, Maxwell had anticipated hardships of all sorts.

"Still," she said, "I didn't start walking because I was fearless – but rather because I was terrified. I was more afraid of not following my heart than I was of losing everything I owned and loved."

Coping with the trauma of the sexual assault turned out to be a defining moment, one in which Maxwell ultimately resolved to keep walking. While she was still scared, other women's stories of perseverance and strength helped her continue: "I was determined not to let the incident force me to give up this dream of mine and go home. I had left my whole world behind, had nothing to go back to and understood the risks inherent in my journey." Maxwell was walking to discover just how strong of mind and body she could be, even in the face of violence.

Along the way, her slow pace allowed her to be drawn – briefly but deeply – into other cultures. She roamed tiny seaside villages along Italy's Tyrrhenian Sea, soaking up the vibrant atmosphere and accepting invitations to talk, sit and drink wine. In Vietnam, exhausted after reaching the top of Hai Van Pass, she was greeted by an elderly woman who invited her to rest in her small wooden shack at the summit for the night. One friendship blossomed at the border between Mongolia and Russia and led to a reunion years later in Switzerland. Maxwell even became a godmother to the daughter of a woman she met in Italy.

Whether these intercultural encounters lasted seven minutes or seven days, Maxwell always kept two things in mind. First, to be a good listener in order to learn. "Walking has taught me that everything and everyone has a story to share, we just have to be willing to listen," she said.

Along her journey, she learned generations-old family recipes in an Italian village, beekeeping in the Republic of Georgia and camel handling in Mongolia on the historical Silk Road. Second, Maxwell learned the importance of contribution. She chopped wood in New Zealand and handed out food to homeless people in Italy. In Sardinia, she helped an Italian farmer renovate his house.

More often than not, however, Maxwell's stories were her biggest contribution. She spoke at informal gatherings, schools and universities, and even on the TEDx stage in Edinburgh, sharing her experiences to inspire others. She became a voice for female empowerment, especially after she decided to continue walking despite the attack in Mongolia. "Quitting was never an option," she said.

Throughout her pilgrimage, Maxwell collected donations for NGOs such as World Pulse and Her Future Coalition that focus on supporting girls and young women. In total, she raised about $30,000.

Embracing curiosity and open-mindedness, Maxwell said, is a powerful way to "more deeply experience the world and its inhabitants". For six-and-a-half years, Maxwell chose a lifestyle of curiosity, uncertainty and extreme vulnerability. And she did so in search of something she could never be certain to find: personal happiness and a deeper connection to the world around her.

On 16 December 2020, Maxwell's pilgrimage ended right where it started: at the house of her best friend Elyse back in Bend. Just as she had answered the call to begin her journey, she knew the time was right to end it. She knew, too, that this adventure had become a way of living that she could return to at any time. For now, though, she's working on a book, planning future journeys and creating ways for women to find, express and embody courage in their daily lives.

Whether a walk leads halfway around the world or just down the road, Maxwell has shown the true worth of slowing down, paying more attention and giving more than we receive along the way.

[sportymama]

“The tragedy of this life is not that it ends so soon but that we wait so long to begin it.” 

Packing Shenanigans

The cinnamon whiskey is hot as it’s sweetness hits my throat and coats my belly. It makes me feel good and warms me up. Although the inside of our paper-thin ultralight tent is like a sauna inside, I’ve been freezing all day. I lay back and hear the murmured whispers of other people around us. Backpackers are rolling into camp, setting up their room for the night. The wind is hard, and it’s whipping the thin material of our tent vestibules, making it hard to rest. The sun is still high. Today, thank God, was an easy hiking day. I need to sleep. Only a day prior, I had been fever-ridden, sleeping restlessly in a hostel in Puerto Natales, Chile piled four-high with sheepskins for warmth. I lay back wondering if it was smart to start this journey. It was risky. I had considered staying back in Puerto Natales and sending G on his way, but I had to give it a shot, knowing that once we started, there was no turning back. No search and rescue, no way off of the O except finishing it in its entirety. That’s the stubbornness in me. 

When I had woken up this morning, the fever had broke. I still felt like death when we boarded the bus in Puerto Natales that took us to the ranger station of Torres Del Paine in Laguna Amarga. This is a two-hour trip, so I slept on the bus and prayed that this sickness would leave me. There was too much planning, logistics, and heart that had gone into this trek — one of the hardest travel plans we’ve EVER made. 

We climb out of the bus with 60 other backpackers, check-in, and start our day. It’s slow, my chest incredibly congested, my nose stuffed. Even on a good, healthy day, I knew this journey would have some difficulty. I second guess my decision to start. What if I literally cannot make it? I have to! We are carrying everything we need for the next eight days on our backs, and even though we are accustomed to this and have packed light, my pack feels heavy. I am so congested. My breathing incredibly labored. 

The mostly flat/rolling terrain and 13-kilometer hike was a blessing on this first day out of Laguna Amarga. I was still star-struck with the whole idea of us being in Patagonia. Pata-freaking-gonia, I kept thinking. It’s one of those trips we’ve talked about and dreamed about for years. Now I’m sick and miserable and fighting each step to get to our first camp. 

As I lay back in our tiny Big Agnes tent, I think, “there’s no turning back now.” 

We are at Serón. 

Logistically speaking, this trip was outrageous! We didn’t want to go with a guide, a team, a mule train…you get my point, so I was left to the booking arrangements. There are three players in Patagonia;  Fantastico Sur,  Vertice Patagonia, and CONAF. These are the three places you will go to for booking all camps and refugios. We had decided to hike both the W and the O circuit; The “O” includes the “W” trail, with the addition of the backside, or northern section of the mountain to make it a long loop, – 130 kilometers. A max of 80 people are allowed onto the backside O a day. It’s undoubtedly a more challenging trail, and it’s also without refugios, but it’s all worth it when, as you finish climbing John Garner Pass, you get an unprecedented view of the icecap Glacier Grey. 

The booking process was maddening. Very strict dates are required, and none of these agencies work together. Not to mention they ALL hold different camps and refugios on different parts of the trek, and not in order. CONAF being the government-held camps does not even open for registration until much later in the year, so as we booked Fantastico and Vertice camps in August for our February trip, we could not book CONAF until sometime around November. The spots fill quickly, so as you can imagine, by the time CONAF rolled online for reservations, the dates we had booked through the other two agencies didn’t work out into the CONAF schedule. The day we landed in Santiago, Chile, we didn’t have a full camp itinerary, and let me tell you, as you walk into each camp, they check your reservations, along with your passport and the PDI slip. If you are off by a day, you will be asked to go back. 

Campsites are arranged like this:

Vertice Patagonia – Campsites: Dickson, Los Perros, Grey and Paine Grande

Fantasticosur – Campsites: Serón, Los Cuernos, El Chileano, Central and Frances

CONAF – Free Campsites: Italiano, Paso and Torres Ranger Station & Camping

After arriving in Santiago, Chile and spending a day and night we flew down to Punta Arenas and stayed at a great hostel. I was chilly as we took a walk around town, and we were amused that our weather app showed that we were in the “Antarctic Zone” as it is the southern-most city before Antarctica. We wandered down by the water; The Straight of Magellan, for a while and headed back to our hostel and to bed early as we had a bus to catch at daybreak.

Straight of Magellan

Punta Arenas

Punta Arenas

Straight of Magellan

Thankfully we had three days to spend in Puerta Natales before heading onto the O. I was incredibly sick and we still did not have our reservations for camp. After going back and forth between the offices of Vertice and Fantastico, waiting in line and jostling dates we thought we had them all together, but after further review I had missed a camp, shifting a date, and had to start all over with new dates. I was down for the count at this point, in bed, shivering with the worst flu ever. My poor NON-Spanish speaking husband had to go back to these offices with new dates. By the grace of the Holy God, he was able to “pictionary” his way through. They made some calls for him and BOOM, he came back with our itinerary…..to leave in the morning!

Seron Camp is a basic camp. It’s a grassy field with two picnic-style tables that have a tarp for wind cover. You have to cook in these designated tarp areas only at every site. I barely remember being at Seron, to be honest. I slept and went into the hut to cook dehydrated soup with our MSR stove one time. I loved hearing and seeing all of the friendly faces and different nationalities and languages of the people we would be spending the next 8-9 days alongside. Once you start the O-circuit, and because they limit the number of people on the trail, these become your leap-frogging trail friends. 

The following day, we broke camp early and headed out to Dickenson Camp. The views were unbelievable, and we kept finding ourselves stopping every chance we got to take it all in! It’s a steep climb and steep downhill coming into Dickenson. Today was 19 kilometers; It’s one of the most beautiful camps on the O. Once you arrive and check-in, you can find a spot for your tent anywhere you want. We shrugged out of our packs and wandered around. We saw a fox scampering along the treeline. We set our tent so that in the morning, as we unzipped to make coffee, we would have a perfect view of the soaring mountains and glaciers. Dickenson has a great set up for cooking. A little cabin-like shelter, with electricity — also, hot showers and bathrooms and even a small area where they sell snacks. We bought Pringles and chocolate here. 

After pitching our tent, we showered and laid in the hot sun, waiting to see who and when the others would roll into camp. It was at this camp that we met “the two traveling nurses” who were from the States, working at different locations in the States until they save enough for their next great adventure. They travel on their earnings for a few months, return to the US, work for a few months only to repeat the process over and over. We loved swapping stories about the places we’ve all been in common and the enjoyment of different cultures, cuisines and our unquenchable wanderlust. 

We also met “One Pole and the Goodr Girls”, a group consisting of a guy and two women traveling together. One Pole lost one of his trekking poles along the first leg of the trip and came into camp with one…deeming him “One Pole” The women he was with both wore my favorite brand of athletic glasses; Goodr and have friends who work for the company, thus-The Goodr Girls.

There was also an Argentinean father and two sons, two Chilean buddies traveling together, and a pair of Aussies (a father and son) who we cooked and had dinner with at Dickenson. We’ve never laughed so hard in our lives as we did with these two and their quirky personalities. Still, some of the moments we laugh about the most from this trip come from these two. 

Con’t-

Patagonia Dias Uno a Siete "The tragedy of this life is not that it ends so soon but that we wait so long to begin it." 

[itsmorefuntohavebadtaste]

Braving the RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #55, The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

(Start date: April 19th, 2018 / Day 327)

From Rolling Stone:

Hendrix's third album was the first he produced himself, a fever dream of underwater electric soul cut in round-the-clock sessions at the Record Plant in New York. Hendrix would leave the Record Plant to jam at a club around the corner, the Scene, and "Voodoo Chile" – 15 minutes of live in-the-studio blues exploration with Steve Winwood on organ and Jefferson Airplane's Jack Casady on bass – reflects those excursions. In addition to psychedelic Delta blues, there was the precision snap of "Crosstown Traffic" and a cover of "All Along the Watchtower" that took Bob Dylan into outer space before touching down with a final burst of spectral fury.

I listened to this a few days back but I never got around to posting my notes for it.

Either way, I like it a lot. The general sound is very Wall of Sound but applied to funk in its dense and interesting production. Very experimental, and the arrangements remind me a lot of jazz. It has a nice musical cohesion, but it’s loose enough that it doesn’t sound overbearingly homogenous, such a delicate line to walk. The Dylan cover also puts Dylan to shame, as do most Dylan covers. Interesting.

Year: 1968 Standout Track(s): Voodoo Chile, All Along the Watchtower Rating: 4/5 - Wonderfully constructed.

[midnightiscoming-kasabian]

New/Old interview with Ian (November 2016) _______________

Mike Dolbear DRUMS | Interview with Ian Matthews - Kasabian

“Rock compares to jazz like killing someone with a baseball bat vs. putting a pillow over their mouth”. Ian Matthews has both ways down like few others.

Coming from a jazz background he swapped the thin sticks for some proper wood and has been the power house behind British Indie Rock band Kasabian for the last 13 years.

2015 has also seen Ian seeking out new adventures joining a team surrounding master drum builder Keith Keough launching the brand new British Drum Company.

I caught up with Ian after his performance at the London Drum Show to chat about his musical upbringing, Kasabian and his new venture into the drum building business.

[x]

You started at the age of four after your babysitter taught you your first beats?

Yes, my babysitter (now passed away) was one of my dads mates and a long standing friend of the family. He would come to babysit me and bring me drum sticks when I was about two. I still remember ‘Mama - Dada - Mama - Dada’. His dad had an amazing red sparkle drum kit which I always loved. I think that’s where the seeds were sown.

My dad being a pianist wanted me to play the piano too but he realised that I wasn’t interested. So when I was four he tried to find a teacher who would teach somebody so young. There was a guy who lived just around the corner in Bristol called Mike Holmwood who was playing as a session player at the time for a band called The Brotherhood of Men. He had me come round the house, stick on some Cowboys and Indians or whatever was on the telly on a Saturday morning, gave me some milk and biscuits; take me up to the drum room for ten minutes to teach me some stuff; then back down for some more Cowboys and Indians; then back up for another ten minutes and so on... He did that for several years and taught me how to play brushes, jazz independence, how to read and all that. He got me to a point where when I was seven years old my dad turned around to me as he was packing his organ in the back of the car and went: ''Son, you’re coming with me''. The drummer for his social club gig was ill so I filled in. I went to do the gig with him and got £5. From that point I was hooked.

This guy Mike used to tell me about playing with confidence and feel. It was something I didn’t quite understand then but he sowed those seeds in my head. I’m making music for the sake of how I’m doing it as opposed to what I’m doing and I’ve got on as a drummer from the age of 19/20 as a drummer by going into from that direction.

Was it a conscious decision for you to make drumming your career or did it just happen?

I went through school still doing all these gigs with my dad and then joined a Bristol drum corps called The Troopers when I was ten. I don’t think we were a very good drum corp; we rehearsed twice a week and we also came last in the championships, but it taught me how to play with others and we used to race each other on rudiments trying to become the lead drummer.

I also did some school orchestras and in the band of the Avon and Somerset fire brigade learning to play with a wind band, playing military type stuff and lots of reading. I also did wedding gigs and jazz gigs, so I was always involved with music through school.

Even my drum teacher at the time, Eddy Clayton, used to dep me out for his gigs so I was playing in the pubs of Bristol when I was 13. Props to all these middle aged jazzers letting a 13 year old boy sit in and count them in.

I left school and had some crappy jobs which all weren’t really well paid and I just realised I could make nearly enough doing a couple of function gigs on the weekend. So I decided I would like to just sit at home and have to do nothing else but just play the drums and see if I can live of that. So I did.

You once made this beautiful comparison between rock and jazz being like “killing someone with a baseball bat vs. putting a pillow over their mouth”.

[laughs] Yes, this was kind of a half joke between me and a friend of mine who’s a jazz violinist. I’ve done jazz gigs with him and it’s so different than going on stage for a hundred thousand people driving a drum kit through the stage. That’s why we came up with that. To me, brewing on a ride cymbal at mid- to up- tempo, or even a slow brush thing, the inner me is trying to bring as much intensity to that musical moment of a whisper as I would at a yell.

You’re left-handed but you set up your drum kit right-handed?

I had this question a lot during my time as a teacher. You find people have left/right issues with their bodies. For me, I’m left-handed writing but my natural instinct is to kick a ball with my right foot, so my right foot was always gonna be my kick drum foot. Also, I was just put on a traditional drum set by my first teacher. I can’t even remember if he made me play like this or if I just naturally did it because I as a kid I watched all these drummers on our little black and white TV making their drums shake, guys with massive bangs of hair and huge sideburns. Maybe that’s where it came from. I’m not against playing lefty but it’s just the way it rolled. The right foot thing though was important for me.

Let’s talk about Kasabian.

I had a teacher who indicated to me that if I wanna get on the scene I needed to make sure to make friends and connect to as many engineers as possible. That’s where you meet the musicians who are doing stuff and where you get a call of people who need a drummer. These are the guys who are active, not the getting stoned in a bedsit dreaming about being a rock star.

I had red light fever and every time the recording button got pressed I would jam up. I tried getting as much training as possible, whether it was paid or not.

Mat, a friend of a friend, ran a studio called Big Bonk and I used to go there and record for free on his projects and in return he would throw me some work. Sometimes there was 50 or 100 quid in it. Kasabian from Leicester were coming down. They got some development money from their manager to spend on a drummer and Mat recommended me.

The day before the recording I fell down the stairs, sprained my right ankle badly and was inches from picking up the phone to cancel because I couldn’t walk. I still did it. I limped down to his basement, the boys looked at me and I went: ''I’m your drummer for the day''. That’s when I first met them. I did the session in pain you wouldn’t believe, they were blown away it seems and I did a couple of sessions with them after that.

They got signed the year after in 2002 but I couldn’t really get involved because I was doing enough stuff already. I was working with a guy signed to Virgin, another artist signed to Real World and was going to Paris a lot doing some African crossover stuff replacing Manu Katche in a band.

During that time the guys were sharing a farm up in Leicester working on their record. We lost contact a little through 2003 and later that year they started getting on the road playing the Dog & Duck here, the Dog & Duck there, driving up and down the motorways in a Mini Metro and an Austin Maestro.

In 2004 the manager called me in a panic saying they needed a drummer next week and they wanted me. It was Easter holidays so I went in and we tore it up for two weeks. After that the manager said: “Do you want to come and work with us? I can hire you and we have enough money to replace your teaching and feed your family. Come with us for 18 months.” I went for it and it was amazing. In fact they made me a band member in 2005 - so it’s kind of a gradient in membership. I wasn’t just parachuted into a famous band. I proved myself, we proved ourselves and together we made it all possible. I met them 15 years ago and it’s all been developing ever since.

There’s a bit of a time off for the band at the moment?

Yes, we last seriously toured in 2014 when we headlined Glastonbury. That was a big gig. That whole year was really dense.

Then 2015 we just did about 15 or 20 festivals mostly in eastern Europe, we also went to Brazil and did the Lollapalooza tour of Latin America taking in Chile, Peru, Colombia and Argentina. Then come the end of August we decided we’re on our sixth album, we need to give us some time off. We also wanted to give the public some time off and not just bring out another album and go back out on tour.

This coincided with Keith inviting me to become partner in the British Drum Company.

2016 was quiet apart from May where Leicester, Kasabians favourite team, won the Premiership in the most dramatic way ever and we played their victory parade in front of 150,000 people in Victoria Park. In my down time I did some jazz gigs, some funk gigs, a little bit of session work here and there, the drum company and my family. I’m not pursuing a project because by the time it gets going Kasabian will be back out.

Let’s talk about the British Drum Company for a bit.

So Keith is a guy I met a few years ago at the Scottish Drum Fare and we got on like a house on fire straight away, it’s like Bro-Love. We stayed in contact every since and every time I was in Manchester we met up for a drink, some food or he came to see a gig - we just became mates and we would trade on each other on our perspectives on drum maker vs. drum player. I always knew I wanted to work with but he was with Premier and I was with DW so we just didn’t have the situation.

It came to that he left Premier and Al Murray convinced him to keep on building drums, so the two of them started collecting partners. Stu Warmington does our marching devision, Alan Kitching is our product designer and there is me, which is flippin’ amazing. Keith literally just turned around to me at V-Fest, the last gig of our tour and went: “You’re up for this then mate?”. And I just went: Wow! Fuck yeah!

It must be something like a little boys dream to be involved in building your own kits. Is there any limit to what you can do or can you just try anything?

Mate, it’s incredible! Keith is the genius and what the rest of us do around Keith is to steer his genius in the right way. We’re like a band. We’re flying very quickly, we’ve only just gone a year and already everybody is going: oh yeah, British Drum Company. People are intrigued still  but we all came together because we’re all senior in what we do somehow. We’re not ‘having a go’ or just investing in a business and try go get people in to run it who are not that emotionally into it. We’re five partners who came together to create something magic that we’re proud of and I think it’s working.

I think it has taking people by a bit of a shock that a little Manchester workshop can create a drum kit which sounds f**king unreal.

I had that moment when I left DW, who I was very loyal to, and turned up to London Drum Show last year [the official launch of British Drum Company]. I got up in the lift, got to the booth, drums all over the floor, the boys all red-eyed because they’d been up all night to finish the last drum kit and you could still smell the solvent. Keith gave me a drum key, put me on this 24” kick drum kit and told me to tune it up. I took a deep breath: Right, this is the moment, let’s see what I’ve done. I hit the drum and I tell you now: the adrenaline that went through me when I realised I’d done the right thing was incredible. We set the whole thing up, I played it and my first words when I turned to Keith were: ''I’ll take this kit on a stadium tour tomorrow. I’ll never forget that moment''.

I’m catching you just after your masterclass in the Mike Dolbear room here at the London Drum Show. How does this compare to being on stage with a band?

Well, I’m coming here to a full room of people and I have Ash Soan, Karl Brazil, Mark Richardson, Cherisse Osei and Tina from Zildjian out there who all came to see me. Bloody hell! I’m nervous of those situations but it’s not the playing, it’s the talking. Am I actually gonna manage to entertain these people and give them something?

When it comes to playing music I’ve been doing it long enough. The intense acceleration of Kasabians career happened in the mid noughties - especially when Fire came out. Suddenly we started headlining all these festivals. I remember being at T in the Park and looking at this enormous stage, there was Channel 4, T4 cameras everywhere, celebrities hanging about and 60,000 people out the front and I shit myself! I had my moment of ‘Wow’ and had to talk myself down of it. I told myself: I’m only here because the boys want me here and the way I play. I can’t change the way I play that’s just the way it is. We are only here because the people out there want us there. We can’t change the way we play, that’s the way we do it. So if we only go on stage and play the way we play and not be scared of that, then happy days surely! We spent hours together in dressing rooms and tour buses talking about these issues, Tom just always went: ''You have nothing to prove''.

So I think those other drummers can think what they like, we’re all mates. I could have a bad one today and wouldn’t give a sh*t. I’m only human.

I know that I’ve made 100,000 people jump at the same time in a field so there is something about my humble basic beats that works. That’s me being arrogant of course but if we get into the psychology of it... and maybe there are some readers out there who might have to read that. It’s like sports psychology.

Finally, what’s next?

The company is keeping me busy pretty good. We’re doing most of it via social media so my phone is just going ‘bing’ all the bloody time.

In the meantime, the weather is changing for Kasabian, we’re gonna be brewing up. The new record is in completion I think and for all you Kasabian fan readers, there’s gonna be something special coming your way.

That’s the good thing though: if I do go out back on tour with Kasabian this year, I’ll still be helping to manage the company.

I feel very lucky at the moment.

Thanks a lot for your time Ian!

Interview -Tobias Miorin

Photos - Francesco DesMaele

www.mikedolbear.co.uk

[backtothegypsy-blog1]

Chapter 1: The Choice is Made

Well.... Here I am, sitting in the shade, yet still sweating my figurative balls off at my lovely hostel in Moshi, Tanzania, reflecting on our journey here, which started 2 days ago, but really months ago as these things typically do. So, reaching back and considering how this came about, how I'm sitting here, wasn't born of a daydreaming revelation after our previous adventure, as my travel plans typically do. Coming home from our last adventure, remember that grand Patagonia region - if not then I got some recommended reading for you with my other blog: The Grand Patagonia Adventure (hint hint, nudge nudge). I was still so caught up in the high of that trip, didn't want to let it go, holding onto the memories tight in my brain, reliving it over and over again. Man that was an amazing time, the mountains, the hiking, the camping spots, oh Consuela how I miss you dearly... Oh shit I've gotten off track, breath, you're in Africa, focus (this heat might be messing with my head). Anywho, once I could come back to reality, I honestly thought I would be returning to a Latin American country, or possibly several, for our next tour. I love South America and knew there was so much more to discover there and had all intentions of improving my Spanish, heading back down, maybe not as far, maybe do a circuit of Central America, there began talk of Panama, Guatemala, Belize... you get the idea. However, when it came time to decide when we would be able to go, for how long we would be able to take off this year and so on.. We decided that January would be the only realistic time, and 4 weeks is what our circumstances would allow. This brought another significant detail into the picture. January is my birth month, not only that, but I would be celebrating turning the ripe old age of 30! My goodness, I'm going to be a full fledged adult, when did that happen? Now if you know me, you know that I take birthdays very seriously and think that Milestones should also be celebrated with style, basically anything of note is cause for some kind of celebration in my world! But this is a big one. So this trip and the day of my 30th birthday obviously had to be epic.... If I wasn't going to be dressed in a costume and dancing around the streets of Halifax, then what was I going to be doing, and more importantly, where? Whatever I was doing had to be monumental! So then it began, what epic way did I want to spend my 30th? Well out came the bucket list journal to see what younger Shauna had to say about that (she was good for some things I swear). So much of my bucket list involves hikes, long ones, short ones, steep ones, flat ones, red ones, blue ones... Oh dear... There came a full bout of mountain fever. A mountain, of course a mountain, what else could I possibly do but climb a mountain? I mean I'm turning 30... Why not officially embrace over the hill status by going over a really freakin' big hill? Alright well, which one? It's gonna be winter, so somewhere warm would be nice, probably shouldn't choose a mountain in the north where I'll be trekking through knee deep snow for a week to reach (though that would still probably be a good time). Did some research of mountains to climb in Central America, there are volcanos mostly, all of which are basically day hikes, and none grabbed me with the epic factor I was looking for... I needed something bigger, longer, monumental! Near the top of that bucket list was of course Mount Kilimanjaro. I stared at my notes on this one, it had everything I was looking for in an epic birthday trek, Tanzania of course would be warm (as I, sure it is all year round) and beautiful (it's freakin Africa) and have amazing animals so see as well (the Serengeti anyone?) I quickly googled best hikes for January and Mount Kilimanjaro popped up on top of every list I could find, apparently it was the best time to climb, best weather, clearly the universe was trying to tell me something.... So naturally my heart was instantly swollen with that familiar yearning for this to be it, this to be my birthday Mecca. Once I get an idea in my head, a trip in my heart, a grand desire for the perfect adventure, it is very hard for me to settle for another path (impossible really... I'm kind of insane, but in a good way, yes? Hmm). In this moment I felt light as a feather, giddy... You know that feeling of new found love with a person, on like your 10th proper date when your like, wow I can tolerate this person, I want to actually spend more time with them? Well that is what I get when I fall in love with a travel experience, only probably x 10. Come hell or high water I will have it... Wanderlust like fire through my veins, mountain fever making my head swim, jaw aching from the large grin I can wipe off, god damn I love the tortured bliss. As I peruse my notes, I come across my only real challenge, the word I had written in bold and underlined 3 times: EXPENSIVE! It ain't cheap to climb Kili folks, it ain't cheap at all. So what you need to understand about this as opposed to many other climbs and treks, is that there is a ton of regulations/rules/government fees involved with climbing Kili that make it so expensive to do. All prices are shown in US dollars when you do the research, so I'll be a lovely little peach and convert it for my Canadian readers. Let me break it down for you: A 6 day trek (standard) Rescue fee: $26 Conservation fee: ($92 x 6 days) = $552 Camping fee: ($66 x 5 nights) = $330 Porter/Guide entrance fees: $17 each Porter wages: $13.15 x 4 = $53 x 6 days = $318 Assistant guide/cook wages: $20 x 6 days = $120 Guide: $26 x 6 days = $156 Food for 1 person plus crew = approximately $290 Transport: approximately $84 Add all that together and you gettttttt...... $1978 This doesn't include any gear you may need to rent, like a sleep bag or warm jacket. Also you are required to tip your porters and guides so that they can have a decent living wage. You see... It ain't cheap. Now this is obviously negotiated, you can certainly get it for less, this on the high end of the scale for a non luxury company, however you must do so with a bit of caution. The fees are set in stone, which are government regulated and you have to pay, no ifs, ands or buts. You also have no say in the amount of porters you have, the amount they are allowed to carry is regulated by weight, and they actually weigh every bag at the gate to ensure it is so (generally 4 per person, but could be 1 less if you're in a group since certain equipment is shared). You are also only allowed to carry a certain amount yourself, which is significantly less, basically a small day pack. So when it comes to getting a cheaper rate, that means the tour company may have to skimp on certain safety items, equipment, food, or the guides and porters wages (which obviously is a dick move since they don't make much per day for the hard work that it is). Either way, it still ain't cheap. Being the mostly seasonal worker that I am, and avid travel junkie, I had as usual been putting away money for whatever trip I would be going on this winter, and usually by now it's at a pretty decent amount, generally more then I think I will need, so the money existed. However, the real challenge here isn't necessarily the money, it's convincing my boyfriend that we are spending this amount of money on a trip. Now, it's not like Sean is a dream killer or doesn't have the same desire for travel and trekking that I do, but, as most of you know, we had just completed a long not so cheap trip on our last adventure, Consuela took almost as much from our pockets as our hearts, and living the van life in Patagonia isn't the cheapest region of the world to do so. One of the reasons for our thoughts on hitting Central America next was so our dollars could stretch a bit further then they had in Chile and Argentina, then maybe we could consider something a bit more costly for our next trip. So what I will be presenting to Sean is obviously the opposite of that. EXPENSIVE. Why did I have to write that so boldly? So I presented the idea to Sean, and got the response I was expecting, "I thought we were going to do a cheaper trip this year? We aren't rich dear, didn't we just do a trip of a lifetime?" But at no point did an absolute no escape his lips, so I knew, I could wear him down, I could grind on about how wonderful it would be and how it would be a dream trip and oh yeah remember it's my 30th freakin birthday?! Though he kept shaking his head at his silly pipe dream little girlfriend, telling me I'm nuts, saying we will discuss it more when he gets back from sailing, taunting me with indecision... Sure enough, on a glorious day in November, he passes me a piece of paper that it takes me a moment to realize is... His approved leave pass for Tanzania! That shithead had just been teasing me and grinding gears right back at me all this time, though I knew that he would come around to the proper way of thinking, how could he not, how could he deny me? And besides, I already bought the guidebook. So here we are, ready to fork over a small fortune to this delightful and hot country so that we can drink in it's beauty, OD on adventure and meet some enormous kitties (which you get to cuddle right?). Here, sitting in a pool of my own sweat, I look around breath deep and I already know, it's totally worth it.

[themightygoat]

4, 8, 22, 26

4: Considering i’d like to consider myself a rogue with my lightness and soft steps, probably some light leather and a dark hood. With embossed leather and embroidery that fits with a dalish sort of thing. I relate to the dalish a lot as a native woman.

8: Oh! This is a great ask because I used to work with perfumes when I was a manager at Ulta. I love spicy scents. Patchouli works well with me as well as vetiver but I also love berry and honey scents that all work together pretty well. The most common perfume I wear is Jimmy Choo Fever which is black plum nectar, heliotrope, and roasted tonka bean. I also use a tonka shampoo and conditioner. Tonka is a favorite because it’s sweet like sweet pea scent but more spicy like me. I also like the smell of chiles. especially roasted green chile. I’m from new mexico. Another favorite scent of mine is Angel Muse (hazelnut and whipped creme) and Shalimar which also has tonka in it.

22: Hm a witch curse.... Probably something that watches me. I see a lot of shadow people but I’ve never been scared of them. We’re cool. but sometimes I have an overwhelming sense that something is watching me. And its not them. It feel much more menacing and malevolent.

26: Well aside from the mentioned, I’ve experienced several extraterrestrial situations. When I was a baby, my mom said she had a dream where they were trying to take me but I was at my grandparents’ house. My grandma had the same dream about her as well. I’ve seen lights. I’ve seen strange creatures. I’ve looked at the stars and cried feeling like that’s where I belong. When I see lights, I feel like they might be watching or waiting to take me. Letting their presence be known to me. Maybe I’m just in a vessel and they’re waiting for my work on earth as a human to be done so i can join them. Idk. There’s just so much I’ve seen in my life that it’s hard to deny extraterrestrials or even interdimentional beings. Or an after life.

[adambstingus]

Eating Drunkards Stir-Fry With Anthony Bourdain

Way back in 2013, while I was in the throes of researching my book, Pok Pok The Drinking Food of Thailand, I approached Anthony Bourdain and asked if he’d consider meeting up in Thailand to share a drink or two at a spot that specialized in aahaan kap klaem. To my surprise, he proposed devoting an episode of his CNN show Parts Unknown to the drinking food of Thailand. I eagerly volunteered to be his guide. This, I figured, was the perfect opportunity for my first foray into phat khii mao.

After all, of all of Thailand’s drinking food, phat khii mao is perhaps the only dish named for its purpose. The literal translation is “drunkard’s stir-fry.” The explanations for this title vary. Some say a drunk man invented the dish, his hunger inspiring its late-night, raid-the-fridge composition—just as my buddy Adam (who edited the photos in my book) and I, as pissed lads, used to throw together pasta, peanut butter, celery, and chile that we found when we raided his roommate’s fridge late at night. Others claim the name comes from the aggressive seasoning meant to tear through the dulled palates of the inebriated. Whatever the reason, phat khii mao became quintessential boozer grub—fiery and salty enough to encourage another round.

Americans might not know much Thai, but my guess is that if you’re reading this, you have at some point rattled off the words pad kee mao. Like phat thai and green curry, phat khii mao (as I prefer to transliterate the dish’s name) is so ubiquitous on Thai menus in the United States that you’d think you’d find it on every street corner in Thailand. Yet during more than two decades of eating in Thailand, the dish never made it onto my table—not abroad or in the States. I had nothing against it. But in Thailand, at least outside of the tourist ghettos, phat khii mao is just one Central Thai dish among hundreds. There was so much else to try. The story was similar back home, where I typically seek out a Thai restaurant’s specialty—that is, what Thai customers order. And that’s just never happened to be phat khii mao.

I might not have eaten phat khii mao, but I was aware of its defining ingredient: noodles. Nearly every American menu offers the translation “drunken noodles.” In Thailand, I’ve seen the dish in woks and on tables, and it featured noodles as well. This struck me as odd, since I kept hearing from knowledgeable friends in Thailand that the original dish didn’t contain noodles. By now, I’m used to these seemingly contradictory revelations—constant reminders of the chasm between our understanding of “Thai food” and the food of Thailand.

To get some answers and to make sure Tony ate well, I put out the word among friends that I was looking for a place that served a killer version of the noodle-less dish. I settled on Raan Kaphrao Samrap Khon Chawp Kin Phet, or “Restaurant That Sells Stir-Fried Holy Basil Dishes for People Who Like to Eat Spicy Food.” (No shit, that’s more or less the name.) It isn’t frequented only by the intoxicated, but it does attract its fair share. When a waitress, surprised to see a group of farang enter (me, Bourdain, and a camera crew, no less), asked which of us had picked the restaurant, someone nodded in my direction. She smiled and asked, teasingly, “Pen khii mao, chai mai?”—“He’s a drunkard, right?”

Since that visit, I’ve been haunting the restaurant to eat its exemplary version of phat khii mao as well as several other spicy classics and to interrogate the owner, Mae Tu.

Even in Thailand, phat khii mao has become so closely associated with noodles that many people assume it is and always has been a noodle dish. Mae Tu is not one of these people. “The original was not,” she said. “But nowadays, Thai people want to eat everything with noodles.”

Sometimes the evolution of food involves immigration, occupation, and war. In this case, I suspect it’s just because Thai people love noodles. In an ironic twist of cultural crossbreeding, if you conduct an Internet search in Thai for phat khii mao, the top hit is “spaghetti khii mao”—aka the dish made not with wide rice noodles but with spaghetti.

To come up with her rendition, Mae Tu ate the dish all over, then came up with a composite that showcased her favorite qualities (essentially what I try to do at my restaurants), in particular several sources of aroma and heat: phrik khii nuu (rat-shit chiles) crushed with garlic, phrik thai awn (fresh green peppercorns), bai kaphrao (holy basil), krachai (a spindly ginger relative), and slivers of phrik chii faa (skyward pointing chiles). These strike a beautiful balance in the saucy, noodle-less jumble of beef, long bean, baby corn, and onion. To those raised on the starchy American version, Mae Tu’s take is only vaguely recognizable.

Although no rigid formula exists for any food, and particularly not for a dish thought to be concocted on the fly by a sot, there are emblematic seasonings. “You can’t forget the green peppercorns or the krachai,” she told me, which of course, American versions almost always do, perhaps because in America these ingredients, at least until recently, have been almost impossible to find fresh.

She doesn’t explicitly offer phat khii mao with noodles, though she doesn’t deny the occasional customer who requests it. So much of the food in Thailand, especially dishes made to order such as stir-fries and papaya salad, is customizable. This makes it especially susceptible to shifting tastes and fashions, even changes to its fundamental makeup. The noodle version, then, has become as Thai as anything. Still, when I’m crowded around a table full of beer, it’s the original phat khii mao that gets my attention. It’s the dish that sent Tony Bourdain into a fever dream. Mae Tu was proud. To this day, she displays a banner with a photo of her and her family with Tony at the front of the restaurant.

Andy Ricker is a two-time James Beard Award winning chef and owner of Pok Pok Restaurant in Portland, Oregon and several other establishments in Portland and New York, such as Whiskey Soda Lounge, Pok Pok Wing, Pok Pok Noi, Michelin Starred Pok Pok Ny, charcoal company Thaan and a drinking vinegar company called Pok Pok Som.

Reprinted with permission from POK POK The Drinking Food of Thailand by Andy Ricker with JJ Goode, copyright © 2017. Photography by Austin Bush. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/eating-drunkards-stir-fry-with-anthony-bourdain/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/170773421787