415 Days Later

Well. We are havıng a hard tıme tryıng to fıgure out what to say on thıs day -- for those of you who don't already know, today ıs the last of thıs trıp. Tonıght Laura and Paula wıll put me on a traın bound for Budapest where a job and home awaıt, whıle early tomorrow mornıng they are gettıng on a plane headed for Phıladelphıa (by way of Chıcago, because we are stıll ınto sufferıng ın the name of savıng money).

Our last week ın Turkey has been spent drınkıng Turkısh coffee, eatıng delıcıous hot(!) helva, faılıng to become accustomed to the call to prayer that domınates the cıty for a few mınutes at a tıme fıve tımes a day, and vısıtıng the Hagıa Sophıa. Yes, the Hagıa Sophıa was ıncredıble ın ıts sıze and desıgn and most ımportantly allowed Jess a proper forum to dıscuss her newly learned archıtectural terms (as her teacher I enlıghtened her on such topıcs as squınches vs. pendentıves, groın vaults, and spolıa). I wıll, however, remember Istanbul most fondly for the people we have met whıle beıng here. Not sınce our Yoga teacher certıfıcatıon program way back ın Indıa have we been ın one place for such a perıod of tıme and had the opportunıty to make so many frıends. We have been made part of a lovely Turkısh famıly wıth a mother who overfeeds us and reads our fortune ın the graıns of our coffee, a 13 year-old son who may be on the ınternatıonal playstatıon cırcuıt, and an older son who has acted as our ambassador and socıal dırector.

It has ındeed been the best way to brıng thıs trıp to an end -- gettıng used to the ıdea of beıng ın one place agaın. We thınk ıt wıll be a bıt strange at fırst. The thıngs that we are excıted about range everywhere from real towels to ıce cream to sweatshırts to adorable babıes named Henry, and havıng these thıngs at our dısposal all at once wıll be overwhelmıng. Clearly, there wıll be some reverse culture shock ın effect. Yet, we are ready to be ın one place and are lookıng forward to all the adventures that the comıng months wıll brıng.

Thanks for keepıng up wıth us on our blog. It hasn't always been so thorough or up to date, but perhaps that ıs because the amount of tıme spent bloggıng about our travels ıs ın ınverse proportıon to the number of adventures and awe-ınspırıng experıences we have had along the way.

PS. For Marcus -- fınal tally: us 400, world 15. We wın bıg tıme.

We won't be eating turkey on Thanksgiving, but we will be IN Turkey. Who wins?

We realize we have been terrible at the whole Blog writing thing as of late. Let's just say that we think that perhaps the traveling has finally caught up to us. It only took 13 months.

We are still having the most fabulous time. After Albania, we hopped a very schmance bus to Thessaloniki, Greece. Ah, we have come so far since the 4 day bus extravaganza that happened just one year ago while traveling from Peru to Santiago. Compared to that hellish experience, this bus was pure luxury. That is, if you consider luxury to be watching very loud and poorly produced Albanian music videos for 6 hours straight. Thankfully, we see everything as a cultural experience.

Greece proved wonderful. We were staying with a university student who quickly taught us how to score free food from the dining hall, and free internet from the library. We were also in Thessaloniki for the start of the annual international film festival. The MC of the event is a favorite of this group - director Werner Herzog. Alas, I am constantly reminded just how unique Los Angeles is for the film industry everytime we go to film events. At the Herzog exhibit for example, the projectors were not working. The PROJECTORS were not working at a FILM festival. Despite minor setbacks such as the one just described, Greece was still magical and a great place to celebrate my 24th birthday. Yikes how did I get so old? After borrowing 20+ apples from the dining hall, Laura managed to make the most delicious apple crisp to celebrate the day. We also visited the local bar, complete with local Greeks. We like Greeks. One of the pictures is of Laura and the beautiful view over center Thessaloniki out to the ocean.

Onward to Istanbul we went. We were greeted by a very proper city, and a very welcoming family. Good thing I met a real Turkish momma, because I proceeded to come down with a mysterious illness (I am refusing to fall victim to the swine flu hype) but recovered in no time thanks to delicious hommeade tea, and no end of mysterious herbal compresses. Turkish momma also has some fascination with trying to make me fat. This is a fact she states to me every morning as she plunks rice and salad and eggs and vegetables galore in front of me - too skinny! I am ok with the situation. Especially when she gives me ice cream at the end of Sunday brunch. This is the way to my heart so take note all.

We have seen some of the sights, but not any of the big ones yet. For now we are satisfied wandering in and out of small mosques, and generally losing ourselves in Istanbul. We have more than a week here still, so we are taking it slow.

We wish everyone in the states a very happy thanksgiving! Laura and I are determined to make this one better than the last. That shouldn't be too hard considering last thanksgiving consisted of cream cheese and orange soda in a bus station. We have plans to cook proper holiday food, and any suggestions are welcome. I should mention that besides the picture of Laura and the view, there is a picture of us in Tirana (capital of Albania) at some sort of world record setting thing. The record was the largest mosaic ever made out of paint brushes. Yeah. We don't get it either, but the mosaic was of MJ, and we do get him.

Love and kisses to all!
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In a flugon

Here we are back at the trekking - overlooking the biggest fjord in southern Europe in Kotor, Montenegro.

It has been a while since we have traveled in anything than the most standard modes of car, train, and bus. Now, however, we are in Albania which means things aren't quite as easy and I must say that the change is welcomed. At the moment I am sitting front and center in a mini bus as the driver pays equal attention to the woman talking on my right as he is to the winding road he is navigating. The location of the bus stop was a total mystery as is the tin foil wrapped food that was just flung onto the dashboard.

Albania is beautiful as I am just now getting the chance to see - we are in the midst of a mountain range (maybe the Balkans?) and I am seeing the leaves change color for the first time in two years. Beautiful, yes, but also disorganized and covered in garbage. As we have only been here for one day there is much to learn, but this is what we have so far - Albania was under intense isolationism led by a paranoid leader who thought Maoist communism was too lenient of a policy. Physical remnants of this recent historical period cover the landscape - low lying, UFO-shaped cement bunkers. The then dictator thought it better to build said bunkers for all of his countrymen in case of attack instead of allying himself with a more powerful country (any really). Supposedly these bunkers are virtually indestructable as people have been unsuccessfully trying to level them since 1990. Since then it seems as though Albania is doing pretty well - it is now the 2nd poorest country in Europe (sorry Moldova) and its capital city Tirana certainly seems to have the modern amenities of other major cities.

We are now in Albania after a short time in tiny and beautiful Montenegro and a bit more time in Serbia and Budapest, Hungary. While in Serbia we were educated on what really happened when Yugoslavia disbanded/fell apart mostly by a German woman whose farm we were working on for 2 weeks. After the death of George we needed some time to come up with a new plan so we headed to yet another wwoofing venue outside of Belgrade to once again plant little lettuces and general toiling in the fields. The farm was nearly sustainable and so it was very interesting to see how they use everything they have to feed themselves and their animals while accruing very few expenses (this is in part thanks to their refusal to heat our rooms).

I am going to stop blogging now as we are off the bus and I just slipped on an orange peel, yes actually, and should go clean up.
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The problem with mobile blogging...

Although the photo on the last blog of Paula and David Bowie serenading each other on her birthday is nice, I wanted to put a photo up all of the girls at our candlelit cooking class.

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One year anniversary (plus a few days)

As unreal as it may seem, a full year of travel has passed by for us. Using the term 'passed' makes it seem like someone has died or we haven't been conscious of what a rare, incredible experience we have made for ourselves. Thinking back on what we were thinking, feeling, and doing a year ago is a comedic endeavor - we actually had no idea what we were doing. We were terrified of spending any money which meant a lot of aimless wandering and empty stomachs. We still do not like to spend so much money and firmly believe that wandering around a city is often the best way to get to know the place, but suffering is unequivocally out of our lives. In fact, we are pretty good at this whole traveling thing by now, but were very happy and grateful to have a 2 week reprieve from our lifestyle as my mother and later on my sister in law came to pamper us.

The benefits of my mother's arrival proceeded her by exactly 10 kilometers. That is to say, George gave up at that spot and my mother was able to quickly lift our spirits through her motherly comfort, dry white wine, and clean clean beds. Our two weeks in Portugal and Spain were action packed.

We drove through landscapes covered in olive trees as far as eyes much better than mine could see, went to a flamenco show which was surprisingly impressive, toured beautiful Moorish buildings, gawked at Las Meninas(!) and Guernica(!!) on the SAME day, and got to the bottom of Spain's 20th century history, to name a few.

On my mom and Katie's last day with us we took a cooking class in Barcelona. It was a great experience the whole way through. Our instructor was a soft-spoken woman who knew of Amma our favorite Hugging Hindi Saint and wore sequin covered sneakers - two points to her. She then tells us that we are going to learn to make the group's three favorite Spanish dishes - gazpacho, tortilla espanol (a fancy omelette filled with potatoes), and paella. While Katie and I are blanching tomatoes, the power goes out. Although this delayed our cooking and prolonged our 'starve', we happily imbibed in the fully stocked refrigerator's supply of wine in the impromptu candlelit kitchen - thankfully only the eating was ahead of us! It was a wonderful conclusion to a lovely two week 'vacation' from our usual traveling.

Due to George's death, we took the opportunity to change around our plans for the next month or so. A day after the Fox ladies returned to the States, we boarded a plane to Budapest, Hungary. The city is beautiful and all, but honestly we are having a tough go at it. We have had a huge shock to our systems as we currently find ourselves in the first properly cold weather in a year and a half. Within a few days we will be in Serbia on a bio-dynamic, sustainable farm just as we were at the same time last year in Argentina. My hope is that in the past year I have become patient and calm enough not to have a near breakdown this time around while picking burning, fly-covered weeds eight hours a day in the fields. Progress reports to follow.
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George was euthanized.

Worth noting: here we are waving hello to the homeland as we overlook the Atlantic on continental Europe's most Western point, yayer.

So yesterday morning we woke up at 5 am in order to make it to Lisbon in time to meet my mother and commence two weeks of comfortable beds, bountiful beakfasts, and flowing wine amongst other things. The drive into Lisbon was easy, maybe too easy as we are accustomed to getting hopelessly lost at least once on every drive, which of course means that something is bound to go wrong. 10 kilometers outside of Lisbon we pull up to the toll booth and as my foot is firmly on the brake, George starts to roll backwards. As we are blocking the morning commuters into Lisbon, we push the car out of the way, or at least try to when a man jumps out of his car and says in accentless English, 'do you need some help?'. Thank god for Canadians. After our new friend made a call to his mechanic, we saw George towed away and told by a man with no front teeth and a pinache for flirtatious lip movements that George was dead - he conveyed this to us by clasping his hands together at the side of his head and pretending to sleep after trying to make engine work. Moral of the story, George is legally dead and being compressed into a small block to be sold by weight - we are in mourning. Thankfully my mother has arrived and we are already enjoying the luxuries and comforts of having some mothering.
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Mission accomplished!

I feel a bit like a Pilgrim setting up a charter in New England, but, yes, we set out with a mission to go around the world and we have done just that. Well, mostly. We left the United States from the Western edge of the Atlantic Ocean and are now situated on one of Europe's farthest westward reaching Atlantic coastlines, but aren't done yet! We have been in Portugal for only a day now and we enjoy it thoroughly so far. Portugal has always been a bit of a mystery for us. At this point we are fairly well traveled and have met many other travelers from every corner of the globe, but until yesterday I didn't know a single Portuguese. It has been rationalized to us by the mere fact that the entire nation is just a touch larger than the population of New York City, but with slightly less spending power and thus traveling abilities. So, yes, Portugal is great, as was our far too quick jaunt through Spain and France. In France we were lucky enough to meet up with two of our friends from the good old days in the Australian camper can - Laurene and Olivier. It was so nice to see some beloved familiar faces despite being a bit shocked that we have been doing 6 months of continual traveling since last seeing them. After visiting them in Lyon, we had a few days to explore the Basque country on both the French and Spanish side and it was not only a beautiful region, but it seems as though the people there have a heightened awareness and appreciation of the beauty of their land and culture that seemed to make it a very nice region in which to live. The reason we are moving quite quickly through this area of the world is that tomorrow we are meeting my mother in Lisbon for two weeks of travel through Portugal and Spain (yes, George was invited too) that is sure to be a lovely time and a long anticipated reunion!
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Germany (especially Germans) are spectacular

As the radio is particularly bad on this sunny Sunday afternoon spent flying down the autobahn in the mostly trustworthy George mobile, I have time enough to reflect on the 5 weeks that we have spent in and out of Germany which today officially comes to a close as we are headed to Switzerland. Germans are great, albeit chain smokers, who have been very friendly, thoughtful, and bearers of good conversations.

After a most interesting week spent in Poland getting an education on the Soviet Bloc, we went to Berlin and did pretty much everything someone of our generation 'should' do while there - we spent time in awe of the Pergamon Altar (a masterpiece of Hellenistic Greece that the Germans replanted to Germany in order to 'protect' it), drank delicious German beer in dingy bars, discussed contemporary art and cinema, and stayed up way too late dancing. Berlin seems to be an extremely complicated city with everything from pristine commerical and the yuppies that go along with it to areas of grafittied, mostly abandoned buildings inhabited by anarchists and Turkish immigrants. The remnants of the Wall and the division it represented is ever present, but, for me, it wasn't depressing as the city is so alive with a constant stream of artists coming to the city to benefit from the city's massive arts initiative program. Most importantly while in Berlin, our dear friend Paula joined us and has already folded into our lifestyle and all signs point to her approving of said lifestyle. It occurs to me that what we do on a daily basis remains a mystery to most people and so I think Paula should write a little guest blog in a bit to give her opinion of this life of ours. After leaving Berlin we drove to Nuremburg with the intention of staying for a short while and then making the short trip to Munich to spend a day at Oktoberfest. Instead of spending too much money drinking with British and Japanese tourists in an overcrowded tent as we were told we would, we decided to stay in lovely Nuremburg and make our own Oktoberfest and I must say, we did pretty well for ourselves. We watched a soccer match while at a beer garden, ate traditional Bavarian food, learned how to pour and drink proper Bavarian beer from proper Bavarians. In other words, Germany has been very good to us. As we cross the border into Switzerland, a new phase of our European chapter begins - the mad dash to Portugal. We will spend the next ten days 5 countries with the goal of meeting up with my mother in Lisbon for a much anticipated tour through Portugal and Spain. We are often told how 'American' our plan to drive such a distance in such a short period of time is, but we are looking forward to it as we anticipate it being very beautiful drive, and besides, the possibilities for adventure are endless.
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#17 (countries, that is)

Hello from Poland. If I knew how to say/write hello in Polish I would, but let's not kid ourselves here. However, I DO know how to say "dziekuje" ( pronounced something like "gin qu yay") which means thank you, never mind that I get laughed at almost everytime I say it due to what I guess is poor pronunciation. Oh, I also know how to say "nastrovia!" which is synonymous to our "cheers!" pre shot. What else have I learned since being in Poland?
1. I cannot keep up drink for drink with 3 polish men, though I tried valiantly.
2. Pierogies (dumpling-like things filled with cheese, potatoes, or sauerkraut) are the only things that will make you feel better after trying to keep up drink for drink with 3 polish men.
3. Polish highschools are the same as highschools in the states.

I will elaborate on that last one since it didn't really flow with my previous train of thinking. We were asked by a friend who teaches English at a local Polish highschool in Kolobrzeg to come in and talk to the students about our travels and our lives in the states. Laura, who does not have the fondest high school memories, actually reported feeling nervous as we walked through the doors and throngs of youngsters copying homework, flirting, and texting. They were just like us 7 years ago. The building itself also had an eerie familiarity - walls painted a terrible shade of olive, smells of burning oil from the cafeteria and bleach from the bathrooms, and the ubiquitous flickering flourescent light fixtures that I am now convinced are put there by THE MAN to induce headaches in students worldwide. But, Laura worked through her anxiety (plus, I promised her that if any girl was mean to her, I would steal that girl's boyfriend) and we ended up having a great time with the students sharing our pictures and stories.
The students and teachers also helped to give us a history lesson about the eastern European bloc, as we talked a lot about Poland's tendency to be invaded, and eventually the success of post-Solidarity Poland.

Life in the GeorgeMobile is well. Ah, yes, we have christened the minivan in honor of the one CD we could afford at the used record place in Germany - Faith, by George Michael. A classic for sure, and it came with a nifty poster that has a place of honor in the front. We have been enjoying driving around the Polish countryside, blasting the sounds of our man George, making friends, and exploring this oh so fascinating part of the world.

For Marcus, just to let you know we are still keeping count: us 311 world 15. Yah, we are still kicking bootay.
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Back in the West

These photos may be in need of captioning - in no particular order they are my leg after falling down some wet steps, Jess' shoes being laid to rest in a mall trash bin, me with the biggest dyke in Holland(!) and the precious little town of Edam.

Less than 20 days in Europe and so much has happened - I suppose that is what can happen when you can drive through multiple countries and experience their unique cultures and languages within a few hours. Flying into the Frankfurt International Airport was like any other fancy, big airport we have been in lately. The public transportation, however, felt very, well, German. It was so clean that it didn't have any smell and instead of using the area surrounding the train tracks as your trash bin, there not only was a trash bin on the train, but next to every set of seats! It was also silent - an experience we have not had in a very very long time. When we emerged into one of Frankfurt's main squares in the middle of a workday, the sight actually caused us to stumble a few steps back in shock - there was no one there! Well, hardly anyone...and the people that were there were not trying to sell anything, befriend us, or try to get our attention in any way. As a contrast, on our final taxi ride to the Delhi airport while sitting in traffic, an Indian ladyboy (I am forgetting the proper term now but Hindus believe they have mystical powers and can curse you) stuck her (his) hand into the car with neatly folded 10 rupee notes between her fingers urging me to add to the collection by smiling, batting her eyelids, and repeatedly jabbing my thigh with her hand. Jess on the other side of the taxi is having fashion magazines opened and thrown in her face while she is simultaneously yelling at the ladyboy to leave me alone. Moral of the story, if something goes terribly wrong for us, it is because we didn't give some rupees to the ladyboy AND the transition from India to Germany felt like we were both coming home to a familiar place and entering an alternate universe as the two countries could not be more of a contrast. That being said, we loved India - there is truly no place like it on earth that we have been to - and being in western Europe has also been spectacular. Drinking tap water, eating salad, and not being grimy at the end of a day are all greatly appreciated novelties for us.

While still transitioning to life in the West we thought it high time to buy a car. Please do not jump to conclusions by assuming that Jess and I are prepping our families and friends for the announcement of a civil union with our decision to buy a minivan, but yes it just so happens that a minivan is the most responsible and biggest purchase that we have made individually or as a unit. We had been told that buying a car in Europe while not being a part of the European Union is nearly impossible, but hey, we like a challenge. We found a guy on the internet in the city of Koblenz near to Frankfurt who sold campervans and also bought them back when travelers were done with them. After realizing that we actually cannot drive manual cars not to mention an old VW Westfalia on the Autobahn, we decided to try our luck elsewhere. We proceeded to spend the next 3 days in the office of a Lebanese man who refused to speak English to us and was referred to only as chief by his trusty assistant and our new friend. Before setting off in the sun with our legally registered, export plate-d minivan, we discovered that Koblenz is actually a lovely city filled with historic buildings, a rich history, and darling people. We then continued on to Cologne, Bruges in Belgium, a few small cities in the Netherlands including Amsterdam, and then back into Germany to Bremen a few days ago and Hamburg as of yesterday. I think this is the fastest we have been moving in the past 10 plus months, but getting in our lovely minivan every few days and driving for a few hours through lovely countryside is not so difficult a task. Here is a varied list of things we have learned recently - Belgian waffles really are better in Belgium, the cheese in Edam really is as good as you would think (Jess snarkily points out how much sample cheese I ate there), blonde children might just be the cutest, our minivan does indeed have a CD player and Melanie C isn't so bad, electrical tape does not permanently repair shoes, Jess is average size for a woman in the countries recently visited, my German is not so shizey, Holland and Netherlands (colloquially) are the same thing, Lebanese men know how to export a car, swans are nearly deadly, Belgian beer really is that delicious, Colin Farell is sadly not running around Bruges, Formula 1 racing might actually be interesting, German bars really look like how they are imitated to be in the states, neo-Nazis exist, Grimm fairy tales can really help a city's tourism, the west is obsessed with cleanliness and there are no smells here, Van Gogh didn't start painting until the last 10 years of his life, finding a parking spot for a minivan is not so easy in a city planned a thousand years ago, and to round the list out, people are kind to us wherever we go.

Jess and I, being of a certain breed, are naturally inclined to plan and perhaps you could go so far as to say that we can even overthink things on occasion. Thankfully, traveling beat that out of us pretty quickly so here we are, in Hamburg, with our minivan embarking tomorrow on a journey into former Soviet occupied Germany and Poland. We decided this yesterday and think it will be great fun - vodka, accordions, perogies and all.
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Ch-ch-changes!

We have been slacking and thus have a myriad of updates to announce. I will proceed in chronological order - first, we have adopted a kitten, or perhaps she has adopted us. While Jess was reading in bed, she heard the most pitiful whining and before she could identify the source, she had a little, black alien kitten curling up under her chin. We have named her Kitten, a classic, and have spent the last few weeks becoming too attached to her whiny, playful little self while being amazed by her growth and progress. As I said, she looked like an alien with huge eyes and protruding cheek bones, and is now just an adorable 6-ish week old kitten who has now worked up to catching and eating little lizards and spiders! We are very proud mothers, yet have failed her in a way by transforming her from a survivor, orphan kitten to a domesticated baby who sleeps only when having direct contact with a warm body (in other words, German neighbor Deiter's method of putting her in a small plastic bucket at night is unsatisfactory for both Kitten and me). We are currently trying to recruit some equally sappy, sentimental kitten-keepers to look after her when we leave, which is quite soon because...

We are officially yoga teachers! After a month of daily practice, leading classes, and putting our bodies in new, unforeseen positions, we are certified. One may think we would be the very vision of health, alas...

We are both sick! Well kind of, mine is self- inflicted as I have decided to do this Ayurvedic cleanse called Panchakarma that has been hip and trendy in India for say, the last 5,000 years, and has just caught on in the greater Los Angeles. Jessica warns me against sharing this as all of the Los Angelinos will judge me for giving into the latest of the Hollywood health fads along with Lindsay Lohan and Madonna, alas the 2 week treatment comes to a close tomorrow and it has been a most fascinating experience. Unlike western medicine that concentrates on curing the physical with medication while discounting the role of the emotional and mental self, Ayurveda takes all three as equally influential on the functioning of the body and its health. The point of the cleanse is to take the toxins out of the body which means that the doctor took a wooden stick and pressed it into very specific pressure points all over my body provoking the organs to release the stored toxins. So for a few days I walked around with 23 years of toxins flowing out of my organs causing me to be weak, nauseas, and a little unhinged - generally a joy to be around. The toxins are now out and I feel very, well, clean. Our fair, sensitive Jessica, however, is legitimately ill and didn't even invite it as I did. She has Giardia, not to be confused with the amoebas that she had a few weeks ago (and may still have), which is a hearty, hard-shelled parasite that is forming an army in her digestive system as we speak. It doesn't take excellent hearing to sense that something is amiss as her stomach sounds like the belly of a ship during a tempestuous crossing of the Atlantic. This most recent development has caused me to pull a mom move. I am not the best at channeling my maternal instincts, but I suppose that when I do, they come full force. We are flying to Germany in less than a week.

Ah the joys of living without plans and commitments...I was sitting at the computer with the task of buying our plane tickets to fly to Germany at the beginning of September and started to think that the next few weeks might be spent in a bathroom instead of on a camel or motorbike as planned. With this very sudden change of plans, lifestyle, and mentality, we will be arriving in Frankfurt with the mission of buying a cheap, used car and embarking on an epic road trip alllll over Europe in what is surreally the final leg of THIS around the world adventure.
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We had a baby!!!

Don't worry mom, that was just an analogy. An analogy that we feel is appropriate given the fact that we have been traveling for 9 months and 3 days. And, it strikes Laura and I that there are some eerie similarities between our 9 months of travel, and the things a woman experiences when letting a baby live inside her. I am told that the first trimester can be the hardest, and it is fair to say that the first few months of our trip were the most difficult mentally and physically. Looking back we really had no idea what we were doing, and that showed. But as time passed, we got more comfortable with traveling, and the major morning sickness feelings passed only to be replaced by little kicks every once in awhile. While those kicks were sometimes uncomfortable, they were also reminders of how special traveling is, and how something like this trip sometimes has a mind of its own. Finally, the last push to the 9 month mark was challenging in a very physical way as both Laura and I found ourselves as sick as 2 girls our age can be, but now, a few days past major sickness symptoms, we are feeling rather proud of ourselves. And we have this incredible trip, that is still far from finished, but at this point we realize that it has become a life all on its own, that often we cannot control. We are just happy to be along for the ride. Please send flowers and stuffed animals to 600 stairs north of Baghsu.

Other thoughts, and emails from concerned friends and family, have lead me to realize that according to the last few blogs, my personal India experience has been nothing but guns and squat toilets. Hence I will now list, for your reading pleasure, 10 wonderful things that have happened to me in India that do not involve train jail cells, men harassing me, or anything you can read about on webMD.

Ahem ...

1. I met the nicest boy and his little sister in Varanasi. He was maybe 12 years old, and just was the cutest. He wanted to talk about everything American, was more than happy to explain the mysteries of cricket to me, and I watched his eyes grow as big as mangoes when I told him I lived near Hollywood.

2. Mangoes - mangoes here are the most delicious!!! We eat as many as possible, and I am always the most satisfied after a meal if I am washing the sticky sweetness of a huge mango off my hands.

3. I watch Laura's headstand improve everyday. This is sometimes comical, but mostly awesome.

4. I had to take a moment to really just STARE at the Taj Mahal. It was that beautiful.

5. We have made some great expat friends, all who have shown Laura and I the ropes. People who do not hesitate to share their homes, or their chappati, or their knowledge of the local bus system.

6. I learned to make Indian food! I am now the proud chef of paneer butter masala (as healthy as it sounds, btw ... That is sarcasm for those who can't pick up on my dry humor on the interweb) as well as Dal Fry, hands down one of my favorite Indian dishes.

7. I have been initiated into the great tradition of Indian crystals and jewelry, thanks to a friend who was shopping wholesale for things to sell when she returned home. I spent hours picking out the most beautiful things, and though I am the skeptic sometimes, I really did feel the energy when I held the funny Merlin-esque crystal magic wand in my hand.

8. Once, after the most frusturating day ever in Chandigarh, and before a sleepless nightbus ride, a very nice middle aged Indian woman struck up conversation with me because she could see that "my face needed a friend." This encounter literally warmed my soul, especially since women are encouraged to be seen as rarely as possible and not heard at all when in public places in India.

9. Because of the climate in southern India, avocados are relatively plentiful in the area where Laura and I are currently. For a girl who grew up with an avocado tree in her backyard, this is a very, VERY good thing.

10. Who remembers the ridiculous white pants that Laura and I had to buy for the 4 day meditation in Chiang Mai, Thailand? Well, they have been put to good use in yoga class, and we do so much yoga, it is fabulous.

How's that for a good time? Xoxo
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Quintessentially India

Ah India, a complex and diverse land...a place where Giardia, Gurus, and Gandhi are all terms commonly thrown around in our conversations these days. We are 10 days into our yoga teacher training course and I suppose we are checking a lot of the 'to-dos' of India off the list - we sit around with our old German neighbor, Deiter, who hitchhiked TO India in 1969 and has more or less been here since, and are educated on such topics as the CIA's successful plotting to assassinate Indira Gandhi (note to government agents: plots by the CIA to kill Indians is a popular theme on this mountain, so beware) and the Bavarian Illuminati's current and past control of society as we know it.

Something else that has punctuated our time here thus far is the confirmation that we have amoebas living in our tumtums - to be in India for three months especially during the monsoon season and hope not to get sick would just be foolhardy so in a way we are feeling like it is a badge of merit. Perhaps this is my opinion as such because I, unlike the lady I share a room with, did not spend multiple days more or less sleeping in a squat toilet outhouse. I recently read that a person should not make her life an open book, so suffice it to say that Jess' symptoms ranged from those of Giardia to Dysentry over the past few days and webMD can provide further elaboration.

While Jess was slimming down, I was taking steps towards spiritual enlightenment, or so I'm told. Our yoga instructor, Shivam, invited a group of us to come celebrate 'Guru purnuma' at his guru's ashram - it is a yearly celebration in India during which devotees visit their gurus and give thanks. As the full moon auspiciously rose in the sky we made our way through a small town of terraced farms. We reached the ashram with our hands filled with Indian sweets and flowers as a gift and were met with a surprisingly casual scene. We walked into a room where a few people were sitting on the floor chatting with a very tall, very thin bearded man cloaked in orange robes and with a pile of dreadlocks wrapped on the top of his head. I understand the inherent skepticism that some may feel when they hear the term 'guru' - new wave cults and quack financial advisors. In Hindi, 'gu' means dark and 'ru' light so a guru is anyone who turns darkness into light for you through his teachings (I think it also helps to be able to sit in double lotus pose - Jess says that if my hips get a little looser and I can get into that position, she will name me her guru. The only setback with this might be the whole discrimination of women as impure and lesser beings detail...). Regardless, this man had the kindest eyes and warmest demeanor so I can see how people would be drawn to him. We spent the night listening to his followers sing devotional music with the accompaniment of a harmonium, drums, and bells and being mildly embarrassed by Shivam who has this habit of flailing his body and head around while singing out of tune during meditation. We slept on the roof of the meditation hall and were woken up early by chanting so I made my way to a grassy knoll to read a book while waiting for whatever it was that was going to happen to unfold. The guru walked over to me and asked what I was reading - I told him it is about the Yoga Sutra and he was delighted to hear that I practice yoga and says he does also. He then asks me if I understand everything about yoga and I say certainly not and ask him if he had any advice for me to improve my meditation. He replies that he will think about it and tell me when it is quieter. Later when more and more of his devotees are coming to give him and us some not so delicious buttery sweets that we are unable to refuse, he points to me while speaking to Shivam in Hindi and beckons me to his side to ask my question again. As you may imagine, the already inclined to staring Indians are really taking in this white girl and her interactions with guruji. While kneeling next to him, he orders Shivam to do something and I am told to follow. I am ordered to stand next to the puja, a religious firepit, and throw ashes into the flame five times while repeating the chant of a group of religious men in robes that have surrounded me and then genuflect with my hands in namaste (prayer) at the base of the altar. Yes, a little strange and idol worship-y, I then returned to the side of the guru and was told to place the red vermillion paste on his toe and third eye while he gave me a blessing. This was all a mystery to me until Shivam very excitedly explained it all to me afterwards. He said that it was a big deal that guruji would actually answer my question, not just let me ask it, and this was because the guru and Shivam both sensed that my energy was 'pure' and 'joyful' (you may recall the conch shell lady in Varanasi saying Jess was the one with the good aura and I was too much of a thinker, but different strokes for different folks/spiritual guides I suppose). Moral of the story, the mantra I chanted is now my 'guru mantra' as it was given to me by one and I should use that in my practice.

Once returned from the ashram, I was met by a very pale, pitiful Jessica and must have been overcome with sympathy pains as we both walked down the mountain early the next morning to make our way to the hospital. I'm not quite sure one could say she has really lived if she hasn't walked down hundreds of stone steps in the early dawn hours with a stool sample in a used coffee can/gherkins jar to a medical clinic overseen by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

In between feeling exhausted and trying to improve our health through a combination of antibiotics, raw garlic, grapefruit seed extract, black salt water, and aloe vera juice (one or a combination of which may possibly be making us manic as we spend hours in fits of uncontrollable, idiotic laughter which is balanced by short bursts of intense agitation - any thoughts medical personnel?), we have enjoyed not planning our next move, practicing a whole lot of yoga, and getting to know those around us. One of our favorites is Sunil, our resident Sanskrit scholar, who is teaching us Vedic mantras as part of our training. He has minimal confidence in his English, but it is easy enough to figure him out through his impassioned singing and his expressive moves as he has been joining us in class. Yesterday he convinced Muriel, a woman in our course, to be tied up with the straps we use in class so that he could put the straps in his mouth and lift her body with his teeth alone. A most interesting mating technique.

An odd note to end on, yes, but the thick fog encompassing the mountain right now that makes us feel like we are on a platform detached from Earth is having a similar affect on my mind.
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The way the Himalayas makes me feel! (they knock me off my feet!)

If you read the previous blogpost written by my fair companion, you will know that Laura and I had experienced a bit of bad luck. At least, I think that's what it's called when a man who assumes you are a fare dodger holds you at gunpoint and then eats half of your candy bar as a bribe to release you from the drunk tank ... I digress. Anyways, suffice it to say Laura and I had a break coming to us and thank the stars in the sky, I believe we caught one. As the attached pictures show, we are in one of the most beautiful places on earth, and we are wonderfully happy about it.

I write to you from approximately 600 stairs north of a town high in the Himalayas called Baghsu. Yes, we do have to climb up and down 600 stairs every day, sometimes multiple times a day. And yes, it is worth it. The peaceful view, the mountain energy, the fact that our booties will eventually look better than JLo's, the incredible people we have met who are as crazy as us to make the same hike everyday, everything is great from way up here. Anyone who knows even a little bit about me will not be shocked by the next statement - Laura and I are spending the next month in this exact spot, training to become yoga teachers. It's official, Jessica will indeed take the final yoga plunge and jump to the teaching side, and I cannot think of a better place to do it. Yesterday, we had a preliminary class with our teacher Shivam. He is everything you might expect from a yoga teacher in India - he wears long, flowly, white clothing, and inexplicably starts asking us existential questions about water in the desert in the middle of meditation. I think that he will be great. The next bit is mostly for our mothers who are interested in the daily schedule - we will train Monday through the morning on Saturday for 4 weeks. We wake at 7AM for a hour long meditation followed by 2 hours of asana practice, followed by a lecture on such subjects as sanskrit and mudras and vedas and anatomy and other such subjects. After a lunch break we start again at 3PM with 2 more hours of asana practice, and at 5 have a final hour long meditation. Whew, if that doesn't satisfy our need for yoga, nothing will. It will be hard, and I am sure the coming weeks will be filled with blog posts of various energy levels, but for now we are both happy and excited.

And, this morning, Laura and I unpacked the packs for the first time in 8 plus months. What a strange feeling. What a GREAT feeling. I think committing a month to this beautiful place will be well worth it, and is probably exactly what we subconsciously need after moving around so much.

That's the big news from here. We hope everyone at home is well and listening to MJ on repeat.

Love love love and sunshine!
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It was just too easy...

Very soon after Jessica's latest post, a series of mishaps coupled with being in the wrong (or sometimes right) place at the wrong time led to the first time in a very long while that our traveling could be classified as 'difficult.' As the events I am about to retell are actually not so harrowing, I suppose this is more of a testament to what good travelers we have become and how often that fact intersects with great fortune and wonderful people/opportunities.
While on our way to the train station in Delhi we were remarking what a pleasant time we had - filled with rest, cooking, and clean laundry. This was made even more pleasant by the fact that Delhi seems to be the last place any backpacker wants to be when in India, with its notorious scams, pooping in the streets, and extreme heat. Indeed, we had had it too easy. Our rickshaw wallah dropped us off at the wrong train station which forced us to get into yet another rickshaw with a man whose business practices Jessica disapproved of so much that her only words for him were, 'no, I do not want to go with you, we don't like you!' Alas, sometimes you are desperate and need to catch the last train out of town and he did get us to the train station on time, so good on him. As a preface to this scene there isn't much to say to quell the nerves of the mothers, but I will say two things: 1) the train system is insane in India, but not in the way that my brother's friend Brian thinks ('I hear people just disappear on those trains and are never heard of again...'), instead we have found the train system to be rather orderly and secure. This does not, however, outweigh the fact that there are over 1 billion souls in this nation and everyone is on a family summer holiday. The trains are also full so missing a train is an undesirable situation as it is not guaranteed that you will be on the next train to your destination. In other words, missing our train was not an option.
2) I promised myself a long time ago that I would never run with a backpack on. Any of my friends from college can attest to my disapproval of our fellow students who had their priorities so maligned as to run to a class not to miss the first 5 minutes and to sacrifice their pride, the cleaniness of their clothes, and the increased risk of stress related diseases.
So there we are, it is 1022 PM, the train is scheduled for 1020, and for the first time, a train is pulling out of the station on time - perhaps since independence in 1947. We ran, oh did we run (or perhaps waddle) with our backpacks, some mangos, and a bar of chocolate after the moving train. Jessica and I have been accused of being eerily similar people -- one difference is the cause of the ensuing scene. Jessica is a more cautious person than I am, therefore, she ended up in the drunk tank and I didn't.
As the train pulled away I took a few long strides, stuck out my arms, and clung to the handrails while imploring the men standing at the door to pull me in. My last sight of Jess was her standing on the platform, arms at her side, palms raised in a gesture of utter disbelief and panic/weighing her options. That was Monday night, I haven't seen her since...

Just kidding! But it did get pretty bleak there for a moment. I found myself in a general seating car and thus had to make my way up to our slightly nicer sleeper car that was of course on the other end of the train. General seating carts, especially on overnight trains, speaking generally (ha) is filled with people who are pretty hard up for cash - this means that they do not see white solo women that often in the flesh or have no qualms about acting as though they haven't. Have we mentioned the staring in India? It is unabashed which, to me, is better than trying to hide it, but it means that we feel like we are in the zoo. Slowly I made my way through the train and finally reach our car when Jessica bursts into the door babbling and hurling herself on me. After a moment, she coherently recounts her travails of the last hour. As the few cars behind the one I leaped onto were filled with people, she had no choice but to jump onto the last one. As the adrenaline of jumping onto a train gaining speed is not enough for a girl who has 1 and a half functioning legs, she is met by a man with a gun, a gun pointed at her, the fare dodger. Jess had found herself in the police car that is used to 1) keep fare dodgers like herself off the trains 2) lock up the drunks and other unruly folks wreaking havoc on the train. Quite clearly our Jessica represents one if not both of these characteristics, so it is only understandable that the officer(after lighting up a dooby) locked her up in the drunk cell before letting her explain her story. I am told he considered letting her go to her seat not after seeing her ticket, but only after she surrendered half of our candy bar to him. After our stories were told and our blessings counted, we fell asleep to wake up in Haridwar, yet another holy city on the Ganges. The city, to our sleepy eyes, was filled with pushy Indian grandma-pilgrim types and a lot of poo so we decided to return to our friend, public transportation, and take the hour long bus to Rishikesh where Jess once again used her line about not liking a person as a reason for not getting into his rickshaw, fair enough. After said unlikable rickshaw wallah dropped us off at the wrong point, we had to walk through yet more crowds of pushy grandmas on pilgrimage before reaching our much anticipated destination.
As many practitioners of yoga know, Rishikesh is the self-proclaimed yoga capital of the world so we were anxious to reach a place we were hoping to spend quite a bit of time. Turns out the world's center of yoga has an off season. Frankly our patience was a bit low as this was the second city in a row that was underwhelming. Once again, this is a testament to the breadth of incredible places we have been over the past 8 months. In an effort to be pro-active, we started to research other cities that offered many yoga opportunities this time of year and settled on going to Dharamsala earlier than expected, but would first stop in Chandigarh for a few days. Chandigarh had been described to us as the Canberra of India. To make that allusion clear, Canberra is the capital of Australia - a wealthy, well-planned city that is also totally devoid of culture or anything else of interest. With this image in mind, we decided to still give Chandigarh a chance as it was not only on our way, but had various 'points of interest' most notably the government sector which was designed by Le Corbusier - one of the gods of modern architecture that I had studied in depth at university.
Something was off in Chandigarh from the start. It is a new city that was designed in such an ultra-modern way as to set the tone for a 'new India' - after having just received independence, there was a desire to show that it could keep up with the first world, but that just isn't India. Chandigarh had everything that frustrates us about India while lacking all of that which makes India such a singular, great place. Frustrations included the black hole where cheap accomodation should be, the cryptic, elusive way in which we had to get a bus out of the place while being told that it was impossible, everybody's inability to tell us where Le Corbusier's buildings were, and the bureaucracy(and military barricades) that finally made it impossible for us to see the buildings. The upside of Chandigarh being a bit of a ghost town is that we were able to scramble onto the top of a roof parking lot to catch a glimpse of some of the buildings before being politely shooed away by some military personnel. Let's just say that the most pleasant time spent in Chandigarh was the hours spent waiting for the bus we were told wouldn't come. Alas, the bus did come and we arrived early this morning in Dharamsala, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas that is home to the Dalai Lama in exile along with many Tibetan refugees. The scenery is beautiful, the feeling calm, and the weather pleasant as opposed to the oppressive heat that has characterized our first few weeks here. Along with all of these positive attributes, yoga opportunities abound and we are in the midst of figuring out if we want to participate in a month long yoga teacher training program taught high up in the mountains by a man in flowing white clothing. Things are certainly looking up for us and we are heartened by the prospect of lots of yoga, trekking, and the absence of long-distance transportation for the foreseeable future.

And since you were wondering, yes, the headline of all the newspapers here, both English and Hindi, read 'The King of Pop is Dead.'
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Making our way North

Well, we can check a few major tourist sights off our list after spending the past few days traveling through Agra (oh so briefly) to Delhi. A few days ago, Laura and I saw the Taj Mahal, and let me tell you that no matter how many pictures you see of that thing, there is nothing like actually standing in front of it. It is the definition of a surreal feeling. Almost an out of body experience to be actually looking at something that you can recall an image of in your mind so easily. As you can all imagine it really is that huge and white and ornate. I know I am a cynic when it comes to this stuff, but I wasn't really blown away by any romantic feelings that apparently some people get caught up in when wandering through the ornate gardens and gazing at the huge central dome. I mean, if some guy built ME a huge white gravestone after I died giving birth TO HIS 14TH CHILD, I would not be in such a romantic mood. Seems more like the guy was feeling a wee bit of guilt to me ... But again I'm a cynic. We spent less than 12 hours in Agra because everyone told us that, aside from the Taj Mahal, not much else is going on. Plus, it makes no financial sense to spend more than one day looking at the Taj, because it is ridiculously expensive to get in for foreigners. Everything in India has 2 prices - one for Indian nationals and one for foreigners. The mark-up for foreigners is extreme. If I could only convince someone that my fair skinned, 6 foot plus self was an Indian national, then I would only have to pay 10 rupees to see the Taj Mahal. To give everyone in the States a sense of what that means, 10 rupees equals about 5 US cents. Instead, Fox and I must pay 750 rupees each, about 16 ish dollars! No fair!!! Oh well, now I know how everyone who is not from California feels when they get to the gates at Disneyland. But I must say that even though we paid 75 times more than the obnoxious group of men who would not stop taking pictures of us, (is that correct? My math is on very shaky grounds these days) the Taj Mahal was indeed breathtaking.
While on the subject of men in
India, let me note that though we are always safe and not in any danger at all (I promise mom) the way we are treated in this country, because we are women, is out of control. I noticed the other day that when we are walking around, I actually keep my head tilted toward the ground and keep my gaze on my feet. If I do look up to check out a cool modern Delhi flat, or to make sure a crazy rickshaw wallah isn't gunning straight for me, I am extremely careful not to meet anyone's eye. I have learned in the past 2 weeks that any kind of eye contact between myself and a man, no matter how incidental, is an open invitation for that man to either catcall and make a huge ridiculous scene, or to start following me and ask me questions that inevitably lead to some proposal of marriage. Neither situation particularly thrills me. A friend, Wes, who lives here in Delhi was explaining that the men literally can't help reacting that way, because of the huge disparity of women in the country. Open any newspaper here in Delhi, and you will easily find some horror story about a newly wed Indian woman being beaten and in some cases killed by her new husband's family because her dowry was too small. India is a country where female infanticide is a huge issue, because female children become quite expensive for a family once they are at the marrying age. Someone clearly wasn't thinking ahead however, because female infanticide has led to a shortage of about 50 million women across India. Hence the marriage proposals and catcalls Laura recieves even when she is wearing a moomoo and sweating profusely and has a streak of dirt across her forehead.
Being back in a big city, Delhi, for the past few days has been lovely. We went to an "excellently curated" modern art museum a few days ago (Laura took a class on curation once). The highlight however was going to a hindu temple complex that operates more like a theme park. There was a boat ride a la the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland (mentioned twice in this blog!) that had the ambitious task of covering "10,000 years of India's history in 10 minutes!" Yikes. Highlights also include an epic movie shown on an imax-like screen about a boy who left home at age 7 to find enlightenment. Advertisements for that proclaimed that the cast had over 45,000 people!!! Almost nothing in India is small.
Tonight we are taking the overnight train to Haridwar. There is an extreme amount of yoga in my future which I am really excited about. We also have some good leads on NGOs with whom we hope to volunteer with in a few weeks time. Love and baci to everyone at home.

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Hmm...

Where could we BE? At this VERY MOMENT?
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There are buffalo stampeding in the streets and dead bodies burning all the time...

...and it's just another day in Varanasi. As I write, we are on yet another train adventure through India where feeling like a celebrity when all eyes are unabashedly on you, proposing marriage, and kids pooing on the rails are all commonplace. Tomorrow morning will bring us to Agra and the Taj Mahal - yet another world monument that will surely amaze us on this journey of ours. Not that what we have done and seen in India thus far hasn't proved to astonish - after leaving Kolkata on a most memorable 20 hour train ride in which I received first said marriage proposal (I admit this was my fault - I was reading the matrimonial section of the newspaper in plain sight of all of our fellow passengers. Just because I was curious about what a tall, charming, well-educated, Sikh man from Punjab without any issues(children) wanted in a wife didn't mean I wanted to be that wife. I digress...) and we made friends with the nice Indians around us while getting schooled in the ways of train etiquette/survival. This 20 hour train ride led us to Gaya and eventually Bodhgaya - the home of the Bodhi Tree, under which Buddha achieved enlightenment. We had been out of Southeast Asia for less than a week at that point yet seeing orange robed Buddhist monks already gave us a twinge of nostalgia. The town is totally devoted to the tree, surrounding temple complex, and scattered monasteries sponsored by various Buddhist nations to accomodate their pilgrims. This was most interesting as the vast majority of visitors were Hindu Indians, dirty backpackers, and a smattering of Western 'spiritualists' who thought they were holding a sacred commune with aliens with the help of the Buddha, etc, etc. Needless to say, it was an eclectic crowd -- two days well spent under the Bodhi Tree and getting a taste for a small, rural Indian town.

After not quite meeting our goal of also achieving enlightenment, we moved onto Varanasi where we spent an entire week - nearly a record for us. Varanasi is without comparison. When I thought of India I now realize I thought of this city. It is claimed to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, it is the city of Shiva (one of the most impertant Hindu gods) and is located on the Ganges River - this combination makes for a city with thousands of temples and a continual stream of pilgrims bathing in the river/raw sewage. It is belived that if a person dies and is cremated on the banks of the river, he will bypass reincarnation and attain union with the divine. For us, the sight of dead bodies and family members preparing for the funeral rites is not only somber but a bit eery, whereas for the people going through it, we were told it is a joyous occasion because the family knows that the deceased is being liberated. Regardless, a dead body wrapped in white cloth and covered in flowers and smoke is a stirring sight to behold. While in Varanasi we walked along the ghats - steps that lead from temples to the river - where our senses were endlessly engaged. The feeling of the paralyzing heat. The sight of the wandering holy men and brightly clad women making their pilgrimage to bathe in the holy waters. The sulfuric scent of those holy waters. The unending sound of boatmen luring us for a sunrise boat ride. And the taste...I think it is a good thing that I cannot associate a taste with this experience!

Aside from its historical and spiritual aspects, one of the greatest parts of being in Varanasi was meeting Nandan, the founder of an NGO that works to bring sexual health, mainly AIDS, education to high school aged children in a country where the discussion of sex is taboo and the number of AIDS cases has recently outpaced that of Africa (really!). We met him as we were interested in volunteering some time to his cause and in the process were welcomed into his home, provided with great conversation, and invited to a girls summer camp 'graduation' where we were made guests of honor. The summer camp was a program for local girls in a small village outside of the city that taught them some basic skills in handicrafts (okay) and computers (really good!) that would enable them to become financially independent. The girls performed dances for us and gave us paintings, jewelry, and candles they had made - a very touching and insightful experience that we were fortunate to be a part of.

Slightly related to the ever-popular discussion of the role of women in society is the conduct of Indian men. One can never make blanket statements about a group of people, but it seems that the men of India have made a reputation for themselves - they stare a bit more than makes us comfortable and seem to have a rather strong fascination with foreign women. As per usual, we make our mothers proud with our prudent choices coupled with our alibis regarding husbands working in Delhi. Our responsible behavior led us to do the safest thing possible for Saturday night entertainment - a night at the mall! Malls are the same all over the world. There might be a cow lying in the street with charcoal around its eyes to protect it from the evil eye, but there will definitely be frozen yogurt and teeny boopers - without a doubt. Our objective in going to the mall was to see a movie and the movie we saw for a cool 100 rupees each (2 dolla) honestly delivered in everyway a movie could - singing, dancing, a love story, psychic abilities, dismantling bombs, matrix-like fighting, dream sequences in familiar New Zealand scenery - all the pageantry I am just learning to expect from Bollywood. Yes, it was in Hindi, but I think I can still vouch for it being a work of cinematic excellence even though we were consistently laughing apart from the rest of the audience.

Today we spent our last day in Varanasi at a yoga class which seemed rather appropriate seeing as Shiva created both yoga and this city. The class was Jess, me, and the teacher aka Jess's biggest fan. We began with some standard sun salutation series and various other poses when the yogi abruptly decides that we can do those poses when we are in the States and instead we would work on some breathing techniques to help align our chakras, improve our practice, and eventually unite us with the greater consciousness of the universe. All right, sounds like a plan. Then she demonstrates 'fire breathing' for us in which her belly moves in and out like the graphing of a soundwave and her breath sounds like an old radiator heating up. I almost fainted from all the breathing. Maybe that was what took me off of the spiritual plane or instead perhaps the blowing of the conch-shell-made-of-my-hands action. Fast forward to the end of class: the teacher is telling Jess she possesses a lot of white light around her and the placement of Jupiter means that spirituality is very integral in her life whereas the moon is strong for me which indicates that I am an intellectual who thinks too much and for whom money will never be a problem. I may not be on my way to nirvana, but at least I have money in the bank (astrologically speaking).
The images shown below (hopefully) are of a sadhu, holy men who wander between holy Hindu sites; young girls dancing at their summer camp party taken from our perspective as the guests of honor on stage; the gifts we received from the girls; and Jess being assisted by some kindly cobblers in the repair of yet another bag.
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INDIA - a family affair

It took me less than 24 hours to fall in love with India. As I was being pushed and shoved off our first bus ride through the center city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), I turned to Laura and announced that I was seriously considering permanent residence. The bus ride was a test of balance and trying to control the flow of sweat down your face. We had to hop on the bus as it was steadily pulling away from the curb, because no bus ever actually fully stops. Like the buses in Peru, men hang out the doors of the bus and yell out destinations and routes and it is your job to hear your destination, and then take a semi-flying leap onto the moving vehicle. Our first bus ride was packed, and Laura almost fell over due to a lack of anything to hold on to as the bus lurched forward, but we made it to Northern Kolkata in one piece. It may have been this bus ride through the city that solidified my intense feelings for the country in such a short time. Call me crazy, but there is something magical about being here, and I am not the first visitor to India to pick up on the energy and vibrancy that this country and its people exude at every turn, no matter how bumpy and unstable that turn may be.
Only 5 days ago, in the wee hours of a beautiful Bangkok morning, Laura and I left our friend's house in Bangkok (thanks again Meg!) and went to the airport to catch our plane to India. Our last day in Thailand was well spent -- our last dinner was actually the SPICIEST curry I have ever eaten EVER, and though my lips were painfully tingling for the rest of the night, it was well worth it. I was also strangely exhausted on our last day, and I was thinking about a friend and fellow traveler who says that she always gets exhausted before big transitions in her trips. I think I was feeling the same way. I felt like a little girl who was soo excited to go to Disneyland the next day, that she stays up thinking about it all night, and the next morning is a tired mess and loses it while waiting in line for Space Mountain. That was me in the Bangkok airport. Over stimulated. But the flight was wonderful and a painless 2 hours and I was ready for whatever India has to bring as the descent was announced. Immediately, the plane's descent alerted me to a totally new atmosphere. Everywhere you go in India, there are tons of people. Makes NYC look a little deserted at times. In a break fron SE Asia, it is mostly the men running around on the streets because the women are expected to stay at home, and there are people filling every nook and cranny of every concieveable place. Hanging out windows, down alley ways, waiting on curbs, simply everywhere. This was plainly evident as we got closer to the runway and from the plane all you could see through the dusty orange haze was house upon house with numerous apartment buildings thrown in for good measure, all set about, to my eyes at least, in the most haphazard way possible.
Our first challenge was to get from the airport to the apartment of a friend living here in Kolkata - Elena. I called her cellphone and she tells me she just started a new job and could we wait at her in-laws house for a bit? Sure, no problem. New address in hand we deal with the taxi drivers who stampeded toward us the moment we showed our backpack adorned bodies out in the sunlight and thick blanket heat of the pick-up area. The drive to the address takes over an hour. I realized the best way to avoid gasping every time I thought we were going to be hit by a bus, or alternatively, hit a bus ourselves, was to close my eyes and try to practice some of the calming meditation that our monk friends in Thailand imparted to us. The combination of little kid pre-Disneyland like exhaustion and the thick heat was too strong for my Buddhist monk training and I fell asleep to be awoken by Laura when we arrived. At this point, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I certainly was not expecting was conversation and a luxurious lunch with Elena and her mother-in-law in their beautiful flat in center Kolkata, but that is what we got. Flo and I are actually the luckiest girls sometimes. After lunch, which was traditional Bengali food (minus the fish!), we were taken back to Elena'a apartment by a personal driver and spent the rest of the afternoon in a delicious food coma nap, a luxury we are not privy to on this trip. Elena mentions that she works for an NGO and has been involved with families who live in slums, and that she has arranged for an important medical operation to take place the following day on a little girl she met while in the streets one day. The girl had been terribly burned by a pot of boiling milk, and the scar tissue had caused her arms to fuse to the sides of her body. Elena knows some doctors in the city, and arranged for the girl to have surgery to free her arms virtually free of charge.
So the next day, Fox and I set off to explore the city while Elena went to the hospital. Laura and I walked around the city for hours, and spent many of those hours lost. After that first bus ride already described, we walked thorugh a market dedicated entirely to selling devotional flowers. People, again, were in every place possible. Men kept pushing by me with huge heavy packs balanced on their heads. Women were crouched by their orange and white and pink and yellow flowers, inviting customers in with smiles. As you may imagine, L and I do not necessarily blend into this scene so seamlessly, but we endure our first bout of stares and "HELLO!!!" shouts as we pass. After the market, we crossed the famous Howrah bridge on foot and went back to center city. There is a big park in central Kolkata, with a famous memorial built to honor Queen Victoria. The building gives a lot of insight to the colonial history of the city, and was very interesting to see. We spent most of the day in the streets surrounding the park, trying to find the memorial. In Kolkata, even very large, ornately decorated buildings built entirely out of white marble get lost among the crush of people.
That night, we were planning to cook Elena dinner but we were pleasantly surprised when an entire family arrived home with Elena. Turns out that the surgery went very well for the little girl, but she needed recovery time, and she risked the chance of infection if she returned to her own small home in a poor area of the city. That night, the little girl and her grandmother spent the night in Elena's living room. The grandmother alternated between sleeping on the floor, and sharing a small cot with her granddaughter. The poor little girl, understandably was not in the best of moods. She was tired and missed her family and her own home. The grandmother was also, understandably, uncomfortable on the floor, and there was talks of the little girl going home. But, this would put the girl at risk for infection, and Elena simply would not have it. So the next day she opened her house to the entire family. Mom and Dad plus 7 or 8 kids and whomever else wants to drop over. She moved her own big bed out to the living room where everyone slept together. We girls squeezed onto mattresses on the floor in a seperate room, and fell asleep listening to the universal sounds of the united family in the living room. This morning, Saturday morning, was spent cooking for the children, and watching movies on the laptop. As I type, there is a massive cleaning session happening -- babies, clothes, house, floors -- there are a bunch of naked little kiddies running around every room, and I cannot think of a more appropriate way to start our India adventure.
Elena has a friend from school also visiting her, named Amu, and she has been helping Elena take care of the little girl and her family. Amu and I were discussing the family this morning, and it occured to us how hard it is to take care of a family like this, knowing that there is only so much a person can do. Inevitably, the family is going to have to return to their own way of life, in their own home in the slums of Kolkata. It is easy to become a depressed cynic in a world like that, always feeling like the world is a dark place, and there is nothing a person can do to create lasting change. As we were talking I was reminded of the Senior Monk who came to the last day of the retreat that Laura and I went on in Chiang Mai, Thailand. A man in our meditation group asked the Senior Monk if he ever got depressed thinking that the world was worsening every day, and no matter how at peace with himself the monk was, no matter how many good deeds of charity the monk accomplished, there was no way to ultimately help all the people of the world. Basically the man was challenging the monk and his existence, and I held my breath waiting for the monk to react. The Senior Monk's honest response was surprising to me because it inherently admitted to defeat, admitted that some of what the man said was true. The Senior Monk responded by saying that, of course he had low moments sometimes, and of course there is only so much a person can do to help others, but what is important is staying optimistic and keeping hope alive for a better world. I think that is what Laura and I have been witnessing our first few days here in Kolkata. A few people doing their best to help those around them. In Elena's own words, "It is what I do," helping those around her. It is what we all should be doing, every day. It is what Laura and I are trying to do over the next few months we are in this very special place.
Tonight we leave Kolkata for Bodhgaya on an overnight train. After a few days exploring there, we head to Varanasi where if it works out, we plan to spend a long while volunteering and working with the community there. All is well and we miss everyone at home so so SO much.


Love, Jca

ps. for marcus, im still keeping count - me 221.5, world 14.5 - aka we win at life.

ends days by katy

hi hi hi,

as i write this, i'd like to disclaim that i am a little foggy headed from jet lag. this jet lag is a result of an international flight, and yes, i am back in the united states. i have spent the last three weeks running around europe, eatings as much cheese as possible, recovering from some egyptian stomach ills, trying to speak spanish in spain, seeing marcus in france (dont worry caimi family, he is doing GREAT), and drinking warms pints in the uk. europe was awesome! three weeks was quick, but enough time to realize that there is and always will be somehting special and magical about europe. i think i am too jet laggy to keepy writing, and i didnt take so many pictures, but i want to post just to say i am home, i am safe, and i am feeling all sorts of funny. i need some time to decompress, get my bearings, and begin to process the last few months. i am in pennsylvania right now and will be around the east coast for two or so months. so, technically, i am still traveling, still living out of the backpack, and i'm sure the united states will be an adventure after having been gone for so long. initial opinion: its almost like being IN tv show about the us. all i've done is go to a diner, but let me tell you... woweezowee, its a diner in the us! i forgot what it was like. endings are new beginings, eh? here is the link to some pictues of europe:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024619&id=33500228&l=8385b3066a

love y'all, and be in touch on my CELLPHONE if you want.
xoxoxox katy jane

72 hour vow of silence complete! *

If I told you that I had a catchy jingle called "staaanding staaanding staaanding intending to turn" in my head -- could you guess where we have been for the past 4 days? If you're thinking a Buddhist monk led meditation retreat, you would be on the right path (but not necessarily the 8-fold path). The overnight retreat was recommended to us, but being the "jumping in head first" people that we are, we chose to commit to the 3 night option. Needless to say, we didn't know what we were getting into -- I honestly didn't think you could meditate for 12 hours a day, nor did Jess think that taking a vow of silence meant that we couldn't talk. As you may imagine, the group of people who find themselves in Chiang Mai, Thailand and THEN choose to go on a 4 day retreat are a rather eclectic crowd. Jess and I are professional speculators, but with a vow of silence in the way, we were left to ponder our new theories alone. We both agreed, however, that a stand out moment was when Michael, the overweight, middle-aged German man's white pants (we had to wear all white) fell to the FLOOR ever so slowly as he tried to clear his plate from dinner. Clearly the passive Buddhist thing to do was to stare at the table, breathe in deeeeply, exhale slooowwly, and try not to laugh.
I am now realizing that most of what I would say in this post would only be funny to Jess and myself so 1) please accept that if it doesn't make sense to you, it does to us 2) I will give a little rundown of what we did: A gong woke us up at 5 am, we started chanting at 5 30 am, ended chanting at 9 pm and went to bed shortly there after. The day was filled with meditation, no surprise there, which varied from sitting, walking, and lying down meditation. Whenever we were left to choose our own type of meditation, I consistenly chose to lie down in the back of the room and maybe take a nap. The meditating was punctuated by mini lectures by our leaders, meals, and yoga which was taught by our very own Jessica (the * in the title is used to denote that Jess had to break her silence in order to teach the yoga class --we'll let it slide). A priceless scene was having all of us on one side of the hall in warrior one and then seeing the monks waaay on the other side following along in their orange robes -- one of Jess' talents is adjusting your body while in a pose, but the monks were not privy to this due to the potential enjoyment that would result from a woman's touch and thus lead them away from the path of righteousness, too bad as Prat #2's shoulders were up all near his ears. Due to the said vow of silence, the lectures we received from the monks were a bit one-sided. When Prat # 1 was talking about the difference between being a proper Buddhist and being one just out of tradition, the combination of lacking confidence in his English and a non-responsive audience led him to tell a "joke" about joss sticks, praying for health, and lung cancer due to too many lit joss sticks. I could continue, but I have an inclination that our experience is not translating to this medium so well. Suffice it to say that the past few days gave us ample thinking space to reflect on what an incredible experience we have had in southeast Asia. The temples, the food, the weather, the landscape, and most importantly the people have made this all an unforgettable experience. We now have a few days to make it down south to Bangkok, which is just enough time to eat some more delicious Thai food, see some old temples, and prepare for our next (sub)continent -- INDIA!

Thanks dad

Whew. What a great 20 days. They were certainly eventful -- trekking, elephants, waterfalls, kayaks, falling out of kayaks, sprinting through rainstorms, tuk tuk rides (or, as my father called them, death tuk rides ...), all kinds of boxing events, and a TON of wats. Since there is so much to tell, and only so much internet time, I will describe for you loyal readers a singular episode that shows off some of the brains and brawn of my father, since he was so great to come and hang with Laura and me.
We were in Laos, in the capital city of Vientianne for 5 nights and after exploring the city decided to get out into nature a bit (apparently, Laura and I are into that now) and take a kayaking trip on the river. After shopping around for a bit, we settled with a full day trip sold to us by a woman who we deemed simply "the crazy lady." If any of you are in Vientianne in the future, I am sure you will be able to recognize the hyper woman who could NOT stop smiling or talking a billion unintelligible words per minute or bursting into infectious fits of laughter. I loved her. Whatever she was on, I wanted some. She sold us a trip in kayaks down the Nam Lik river, complete with lunch at an "eco village" and transfer to and from the city both ways.
So, we received an early morning wake up call and found ourselves at the local bus station minutes later. We were all expecting some sort of bus or mini bus for our transfer to the river, so we were a bit surprised when we were piled into a sawngthaew, which is a pick up truck with two benches facing eachother in the bed of the truck. No big deal. We had plenty of room because the only other thing in the truck initially was bags and bags of spring onions. Based on previous experiences with public transportation, I expected the truck to fill up slowly, but neglected to inform my father -- who has the same long leg problem I have, but also the additional pain of not being able to sit up straight in the truck because he is too tall. 3 smelly hours later, we arrived at our destination. We had a bit of a problem locating the place we were supposed to pick up our kayaks from, but managed to figure it out. We received no guide or instructions. In fact, the only people to see is off were a group of dirty yet adorable children. The eldest waved down the river and told us to stop at the eco village. Then we realized we were only given two kayaks, each for two people, so someone was going to have to double up. Still tired from the early morning wakeup, I made a decision that would determine the rest of the afternoon. Laura would make me paddle with her, while I could simply cruise in the boat with my dad, so I gave Laura her own kayak and hopped in the front of my dads boat and we took off down river.
The beginning of the trip was pleasant and comfortable and beautiful. The jungles in Laos are stunning. Mountains and clouds and perfect light and thick foliage, complete with all kinds of jungley sounds that I can't identify but find beautiful none the less. The problems started when we neared a large rock with the word STOP written on it. Perched atop the rock were two boys, one of whom was holding a shotgun. They start gesturing us to pull over, so we follow command. We realize they are queuing kayaks over the large rapid nearby. Laura was ahead of my father and me, and watched a pair of two germans attempt the rapid unsuccessfully -- as in their kayak tipped over and they were forced to figure out a way to get back into their kayak while not drowning or getting eaten by whatever might or might not be lurking in the water. Laura is prodding me to note a key detail I had forgotten, the germans had sturdy helmets, and a guide. Two things the crazy lady did not sell us. After seeing the look of fear on Laura's face, the boy without the shotgun hops down from his perch and offers to ride the kayak through the rapids for Laura while she climbs down the rocks nearby. Laura, wise girl that she is because she graduated from high-school (hi Mr Fox!), decides to take our friend's advice and she climbs out. I assumed my dad and I would wait for the kid to get back to our kayak so he could do us the same favor, but no, my dad pushes off and starts paddling toward the rapid. I, who had limited control of the boat, shot a panicked look at Laura on shore and shouted "Laura!!! What is he doing???!!! We are going over the rapid!!! I don't want to!!!" there may have also been a few expletives thrown in there, but I'm not sure. Laura, no doubt, had the best view of the comedy that ensued ... I just asked her for details and she reports that my dad was yelling "keep paddling!!!" which was almost un-hearable above my bloodcurdling screams. Then she says, and I quote, " it was a quick 1 2 3 OVER. You guys had no chance in the world. Then you disappeared from sight, and I thought I was left for dead with your digital camera and the kid with the shotgun."
So, we tipped. My dad is yelling to keep hold of my paddle, which I manage to do. We get tossed through the rest of the rapid and once we get to calmer water we pull over just in time for me to watch the kid in Laura's kayak shred through the water like he is on the discovery channel and come to my rescue. I am trying to flip the boat back over, which I am sure looks to him like I am drowning. He flips it over in one fell swoop, and holds it down while I hoist and lunge and shimmy back into position. He pushes me off to pick up my dad who floated further downstream. In my traveling partner's oh so eloquent words, 1 2 3 and I flipped AGAIN, this time floating past my dad with the boat and forcing the kid to rescue me again. He probably thought I was really great.
Don't worry, we recover from this crisis. We find Laura, get everyone back in their boats, and continue down the river. But something has definitely shifted in the Caimi boat. The balance is really hard to keep, and of course I think it is my dad's fault and he thinks it is my fault. There is name calling and fault laying much to the bemusement of Flo. I become convinced that my dad is shifting around too much because I am forced to dramatically lean to one side out of the boat every few strokes just to keep us afloat. I get frusturated and let the boat tip over. My dad and I float near some rocks on the shore and Laura continues on. We right the boat, climb in, and immediately flip. We try a different entrance technique, and immediately flip. My dad asks me to hold onto a large boulder next to me, and when I reach out my hand I see 2 spiders the size of my hand in the exact place I was about to grab. We flip again. I lost it at this point, really fully lost it. I clambered on a rock nearby, still holding onto my paddle and announce that I want my dad to continue down the river without me. I will have my paddle for protection, and he can send a boat back for me. We have been marooned for about an hour at this point, and no sign of miss Fox, so my dad dismisses my plan saying he has no idea how long it will take him to get back to me. He forces me back into the boat, and again we flip. Neither he nor I can figure it out at first -- something must be wrong with the boat. I realize that it may be filled with water, so my dad drags the boat on shore and uses his brute strength to lift the kayak, and drain the water inside out of a hole near the tip. After draining it, I re-announce my intention to brave the Lao jungles with my paddle until he can send a proper boat back for me, but again he gets me back in, and thank the stars in the sky, we stay afloat with ease. My dad tells me to paddle hard. We haven't seen the Fox for over an hour and, have no clue how much further we have to paddle.
I kid you not, 75 yards down river, around a small bend, we see the darn eco village. The whole ordeal, we were 75 yards away!!!! We could have just swam to the finish. We find Laura ensconced in semi luxury with a chain smoking french man who has clearly spent a wee bit too much time in the jungle. She claims that after we didn't show up for awhile, she asked the french man to send a boat to get us, and he refused on the basis that 85% of people flip, and he couldn't be bothered. After hearing this fact, discussion turned to whether or not the crazy lady was trying to kill us or not. The french man and his family prepared us a yummy vegetarian meal, and then it was back to the big city for us. That night in the shower, I cannot even begin to describe the pond putresence that came off of me.
So, this is just one of many adventures that we experienced while trying to keep up with my dad.

Love to everyone at home. For those who don't already know, we fly to India June 2nd!

Disclaimer: Jess, being more of a 'big picture' kind of lady, asked me to proof-read her entry. With my duty of correcting her spelling and grammatical errors fulfilled, I find it necessary to add that 1) I did attempt to paddle back and be of any assistance after waiting a solid half hour for the Caimis to mount their boat again. Alas, the current was a bit strong so my efforts were in vain and only resulted in some passing fishermen judging the girl paddling upstream with no progress.
2) when Jess says she 'lost it' in the water, I think knowing that she threw up while staying afloat with her paddle under her knees 'girl scout white water rafting education style' is an important detail.
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