The World Through My Eyes

Hmm...no title

2008-05-26T22:26:00.003-05:00

I feel like I have less and less to say on this thing. Does that mean I have less to say than I did when I was younger? Or does it just mean I'm being more judicious and careful with what I do say on the internet? I'm not really sure at this point. I do realize that my posts on this thing have been drifting off. I'm not ready to quite give up on this thing yet, but probably won't be updating it all that regularly.

Job hunting is strange. Everything seems so surreal. It still hasn't really dawned on me that I'll be done living in Champaign in a couple of weeks. It's going to be a strange summer - it'll be the first summer I've spent in Illinois for six years.

I feel like everything is sort of in stasis right now. I'll let you know when things get interesting again. :)

Endings and Beginnings

2008-05-15T22:09:00.003-05:00

Wow. It's really been a long time since I've written in here. I've sort of dropped off the face of the planet this semester. I also haven't been writing much lately. I realized this about a month ago, and that I'd been feeling agitated. I started writing in a spiral every couple of nights before going to bed, and it helped a lot. I guess I was going through writing withdrawals? Is that possible? It doesn't really seem to matter what I write about either, just that I write in general. Anyway, I'll have to remember that. Writing and running are my stress relievers.

So, I'm done with student teaching. It was...intense, and rewarding, and convinced me that I really can do this. Just in case you were wondering, I'm good at teaching, and I like it. Sounds like I chose the right occupation for my life.

I've been applying for jobs lately, but I've only heard from one so far... I do have an interview tomorrow for that one, which I'm very excited and nervous about. It's so strange having absolutely no idea where I'm going to be next year. It's the first time in my life where there is no clear next step. I always knew that junior high came after grammar school, and high school came after junior high, and while I didn't know which college I wanted to go to the whole time, I knew that I only really had to choose one and then I would go there. This is different. I knew I was going to get into colleges. I'm not so certain I'm going to get a job this year, or where it will be if I get one. This is different than the whole college application thing - in college, I just had to pick one. In this one, someone has to pick me. It's such a weird, uncertain thing.

Anyway... I'm in sort of a floating state right now. I can't see what happens beyond the end of this summer. Strangely, though, I'm okay with that. It's kind of exciting, in a nerve wracking kind of way.

Time to move forward...

2008-01-05T12:10:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year!

I know this post is a little belated, and that I've sort of dropped off the face of the earth a little bit...this winter break has been great, but pretty hectic. Running around all of Illinois and parts of Indiana and Wisconsin, seeing family/friends and still trying to relax a little bit before student teaching starts. This break is going fast.

I'm excited for 2008. It's looking really, really scary (because the entire second half of it is an unknown), but holds a lot of possibilities. This year I student teach, I graduate college, I look for (and hopefully find a job), and have no idea where I'm going to be in six or seven months.

Some of my highlights of break: Seeing my family & friends (the ones I have seen so far), Black Hawks game (they won! 2-5), haha, LAN party, Christmas, getting to meet/hang out with a bunch of Wes's peace corps friends over new years, oh yeah, and probably the biggest highlight, yesterday. My Christmas present from Wes was to go see Phantom of the Opera in Chicago. It was -amazing-. And so incredibly well done. To top it off, I had a restaurant gift card that my dad had generously given me, so we went out for a really nice dinner afterwards. Yesterday rocked.

Anyway...just letting you all know I'm still alive. :) I've got a week left of break; if I haven't seen you yet give me a call.

Wes's return!

2007-11-19T13:30:00.000-06:00

I realize it's been a ridiculously long time since I've updated. Things have been kind of crazy. Partly because of school, but mostly in a good way, in that Wes is back. For real. How amazing is that?

I picked him up from the airport on the Saturday of Thanksgiving break...it was strange because things kind of came full circle. It was raining, just like it was when I dropped him off at the airport over two years ago. And we went to Wadsworth the next night, to meet a bunch of friends at Kaisers, the same pizza place we met his friends at the weekend before he left. It was a strange, awesome sort of picking up where we left off...everything exactly the same but so different at the same time. Our reunion was of course amazing...it felt so unreal. It feels unreal now that he was still in Tanzania three weeks ago.

It's so amazing to have him back; there's going to be some getting used to things though. Mainly saying goodbye for any length of time. Wes went to Chicago yesterday to see Steve's band play, and it was so strange saying goodbye for just a night, so hard to convince myself that it really WAS just for a night and not 6 or 10 months. Casual conversations on the phone are weird too. Awesome, but weird - it's been over two years since I've had the ability to call him just randomly for a few minutes to ask a few questions, or call casually for a few other minutes, rather than worrying about making every second of every phone call count. It's going to take awhile before I'm convinced that he's really here, for real, he's not just here for a couple of weeks, and that I DON'T have to say goodbye to him for any more half-years.

Anyway, other than that... we had a lot of visitors this past weekend; Wade and Rohit were here from Wednesday to Sunday, and Kevin and Dania were in town over the weekend. It was a lot of fun to see everyone, although left me kind of exhausted at the end of it - it's hard to juggle visitors and schoolwork. Still, I had a blast, we had some great dinners made for us by Rohit, and had a couple of really fun nights out over the weekend, including karaoke! :)

Just finishing up the semester at this point...I have a LOT to do, as I have all semester, but I think I'll be able to pull it together for the end. Next semester I'm student teaching!

Eeeeeeeek!

2007-11-15T11:34:00.000-06:00

That title is a squeal of excitement. I just got off the phone - my last transcontinental phone call that I'll have to make to Wes. The next time I talk to him, I'm going to be talking to him face to face. Two days! He leaves tomorrow morning from Tanzania. It seems so strange and unreal, like we've been counting down forever (and really, we have - two years is an extremely long time to live on different continents), it's hard to wrap my brain around. Also making it very difficult to sleep at night...I'm too excited! It's really going to happen...he's really coming home.

*GRIN*

Happy Birthday, Wes!

2007-11-05T10:49:00.000-06:00

The last of three of your birthdays I can't spend with you. :)

12 days!

Random rides, the Virgin Mary, and Hyenas

2007-10-23T19:28:00.000-05:00

I went to Purdue this weekend to visit Natalie. It worked amazingly. I was planning on going on Saturday. On Friday night, had dinner with Lauren Haynes, who was driving through town from Saint Louis. Towards the end of the dinner, she mentioned that the reason she was driving through town was that she was going to Purdue. Eh? Thirty minutes or so later I was on the way with her. :P

It was a great weekend, really good to see Natalie... A bunch more random weekend events followed. Including, finding a woman's wallet (license, credit cards, -everything-). I called her at a number on a business card that was in the wallet, then left the wallet with someone who actually -lived- there, and he called her with his number...hopefully she got it back okay and didn't panic too much before she got the message.

Also went to an orchestra Halloween concert. All the kids were dressed up in costumes, and paraded across the stage, and one of them...about four years old...was...I'm not joking...the Virgin Mary. She was wearing a light blue cloak and carrying a baby doll. Weirdest Halloween costume ever.

The way home we saw a bunch of dead hyenas on the side of the road...not really. Ask Lauren. :P

I taught my first lesson in my high school class last week. It went really well except for one small slip up. We were teaching about propoganda techniques, and we had them find magazine ads that fit particular techniques. Before we did, though, we showed them examples. I found this ad for Curve perfume that was a perfect example of transfer, which is connecting one idea with another when they're not actually related. It was for Curve perfume, but the entire ad was about being on vacation. I did forget, though, to thoroughly read it before reading it aloud. I was reading the paragraph at the bottom of the page, got through stuff along the lines of "sunsets so beautiful they make you cry like a little girl," and then got to a sentence that said, "Getting frisky on the beach until there's sand in unholy places." I got as far as "Getting frisky on the beach until...um...nevermind...so what's this an example of?" Whoops. Luckily the class was mature about it and my teacher was good-natured, although she did say that she wasn't sure if it was better or worse that I stopped myself at "until" instead of finishing the sentence.

Right Brain v Left Brain

2007-10-12T22:28:00.000-05:00

Link courtesy of Lauren:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html

This is weeiiirrd... I could only see it turning clockwise for the longest time, until I concentrated really hard, and I figured out how to see her turning the other way, but I have a really hard time switching between the two. My mom, on the other hand, started freaking out that she "kept switching" every two seconds or so. I'm not sure how much truth there is to it, but it can definitely keep you amused for a little while...

Countdown continues

2007-10-11T21:29:00.001-05:00

This whole two year separation from my fiance has been getting harder lately. I know that probably sounds a little weird, since it's already been more than two years since he left the country, but, I don't know, maybe it's something in the closeness to his return that's starting to make me feel the distance more lately. I'm nearing the end of my ability to deal with this and stay sane, I think. Good thing it's almost over.

It's funny because a lot of people seem to think that it doesn't bother me anymore. Or never bothered me. It makes me laugh a little inside when I talk to people and they say, "Oh I could never do that. It'd be too hard for me." Do they think that it's easy for me? Does the fact that I continue to have a life, and smile, and even am happy once in awhile mean that it's not hard?

Of course it's hard. All two years of it have been hard. It's a constant, never-ending hard. But the way people say "I could never do that" make it sound like I had a choice in the matter. I didn't. Not really. Yes, I could have asked Wes not to go. Yes, I could have chosen not to continue my relationship. But neither of those things were really ever options at all. Wes needed to go, and I can't imagine myself happier with anyone else. And that's that. And it's all been worth it. All...700 and something days of it. Worth it.

I guess what I was thinking about in this post, was that my constant countdown? It's more than just a random fun thing to do; it's more than even excitement over Wes's return. It's a lifeline, sort of. Of course I can live on my own; of course I can function and of course I can do this whole life-thing without him. But I'm tired. It's exhausting. I'm lonely. And it'd be nice, to be able to do normal, girlfriend-boyfriendy things. Like...go on dates. Or cuddle. Or even talk to each other on a daily basis on phones, without having to worry about things like phone cards, bad connections, or meeting on skype on the internet and crossing our fingers that the connection will be good and there won't be a five second lag between everything we say, and it won't kick us off every ten minutes. Or not worrying that when I am able to call, that I'll end up with a lady on the other end saying "Caribu tena badai. [Roughly, 'welcome again later'] The subscriber you have dialed is unavailable at present. Please try again later" over and over again. (At least, enough times so that I've memorized the speech, and can even repeat it with the same accent and inflection).

It really is almost over. I'm sorry a lot of this entry probably sounds like complaining. I'm just trying to articulate...that I feel it a lot more than I talk about, or show. That countdown is so much more than just a number to me.

37.

High school and trust games

2007-10-09T18:44:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day of observation! I'm observing in a tiny high school in central Illinois. The classes are way small - I think the biggest class I am observing for was a class of 12 students. The small class size is kind of cool, though - we had time for every student to stand up in every class and tell us a little bit about themselves. It seems like it's going to be a fun semester. I'm really excited that I'm finally placed in a high school - the last two placements I've been in have been middle school. I was starting to worry that I would finally get my observing placement and realize that I didn't want to do high school after all, entirely too late. Luckily, though, I don't think that's going to be the case.

I am starting to worry about one thing, entirely unrelated to my observation placement... I am not afraid to speak up if I think I need to talk to someone; I am not afraid to be "mean" if I have to be...but I like to trust people; I like to trust that they will do the right thing; I like to respect people and assume respect back. In other words, I worry that my trust in people will get me into trouble. I've already had moments of trusting people too much in the past. On the other hand, I do think that, 90% of the time, if you trust people and respect them, they will respect you back - and I want my students, in the future, to feel trusted and respected. I want them to follow my classroom rules because they respect me, not because I check to make sure they're following them every five minutes or make them really strict. But I also know, that if I take that too far, then I will not end up respected; I will end up being the teacher who everyone thinks they can slip one by on. So how do I find that line? How can I show my students respect, and trust, without trusting them so much that they think they can get away with stuff? I don't want to become the jaded teacher. I don't want to be the teacher that thinks every student is trying to get away with something, that every glance is cheating, that every homework excuse is a lie. But I also don't want to be the teacher, or person, who gets walked on.

I'd like to think that, if I just treat people with respect, they will respect me, and my classroom, back. When I respect people, I tend to work very hard for them. But I know not everyone' s like me, and I know that's not always the case...or, even if it is, people don't always think through what they're doing as disrespectful or a breach of trust, so even if I earn people's respect they may still try things. So where's the line between trusting people, and trusting them too much?

English classes are ruining movies for me.

2007-10-05T14:53:00.000-05:00

The title of this post says it all. I used to be able to enjoy movies. Especially Disney movies. But now, after my women's literature class explores issues of women's voicelessness and lack of agency in the 18th and 19th century, I find myself seeing it in movies that I really wish I didn't see it in. Like The Little Mermaid. She has to lose her voice in order to meet the guy and get him to fall in love with her - so, essentially, he falls for the demure, quiet woman who doesn't speak up (or, if you want to look at it from a more superficial standpoint, he just falls in love with her because she's pretty). Or even Phantom of the Opera. Come on, I love that musical! But when watching the scene where Christine and Raoul run to the roof of the opera house, and Christine voices her worries about the phantom, instead of being thrilled by the scene and the following song (All I Ask of You, which is a great song, by the way), I found myself getting annoyed at the fact that Raoul wouldn't let her talk or listen to her worries, assuming that she was making it all up. What the heck? I love these movies! I want to watch and enjoy, not watch and think about how the characters are being sexist.

I suppose, though, that's what my classes are trying to teach me, in a way... to not take what I see in the world at face value, and delve deeper. But I guess what I'm wondering is, how important is it to see these issues in everything? Is it only necessary to see these issues when they crop up in novels or news articles? Or is it harmful to take seemingly non-gendered or stereotypical movies at face value?

I would suppose, that if I can realize that these issues are there, but discard them for the enjoyment of the movie, I might be able to find a happy medium. Does realizing that movies like The Little Mermaid have sexist elements in them mean that I can't enjoy those movies? Does it mean I should reject them? I think maybe it means that I can still enjoy them but I shouldn't accept the implications it gives without question - but how much am I accepting those values implicitly? I don't feel as if my values have been skewed because I watched and accepted those movies in the past; I didn't grow up thinking that women had to be quiet or that their fears weren't pertinent...

How often is a critical view of the world necessary, and how often does it interfere with your enjoyment of the world without really getting you anywhere? Or is there such a thing?

Sorry, this entry is mostly questions, but I'm sorting these issues out in my mind.

Moving blogs

2007-09-28T11:35:00.001-05:00

I decided to switch my blog over to here - I like the layout a lot better, and xanga has been annoying me. I moved some of my entries, since I was afraid of losing them...I don't want to lose my thoughts about study abroad, or Tanzania.

Anyway...my inspiration to write lately has been declining. Maybe it's because of how much information I'm trying to absorb; I think maybe it's hard to absorb and produce at the same time? Not sure. Regardless, I will try to write more, but I don't really want to write if I have nothing to say, either.

In switching over some of my entries, I was reading them over...it's hard to believe that study abroad was a year and a half ago. Even harder to believe how many things have happened in my life in the past two years, and that I'm graduating at the end of this year...time is so strange.

50 days until Wes returns.

The Laramie Project

2007-09-26T23:03:00.000-05:00

I know that the issue this post is on happened awhile ago, but I'm reading this now, and I have to write about it or it's going to eat at me.

I'm reading The Laramie Project for one of my classes right now. For those who don't know, The Laramie Project is a play written by the Tectonic Theater Project about the beating and murder of Matthew Shepherd. The members of the theater project went to the town that he was murdered in and interviewed the inhabitants there.

Some of the stuff in this book fills me with such a feeling of depression. The fact that people do things like that to other human beings in general depresses me, but I know it happens. What depresses me even more, though, is some of the reactions to the crime. There's a quote in the play that says:

"There's more gay people around than what you think. It doesn't bother anybody because most of 'em that are gay or lesbian they know damn well who to talk to. If you step out of line you're asking for it. Some people are saying he made a pass at them. You don't pick up regular people. I'm not excusing their actions, but it made me feel better because it was partially Matthew Shepard's fault and partially the guys who did it...you know, maybe it's fifty-fifty" (58).

Excuse me? It's partially this boy's fault that he was brutally murdered if he came on to someone? I don't see how hitting on someone sets you up for murder, or any kind of violence. It reminds me of arguments about rape being the woman's fault if she wore a low-cut blouse, or drank. How exactly is the victim of a crime as much to blame as the perpetrator? It just...it baffles me. It gives me an ugly feeling inside. I don't care WHAT you believe - Choosing one lifestyle over another does not make you 50% responsible if you get killed. It doesn't even make you 1% responsible. I'm pretty sure "he had it coming" is the worst response EVER to a murder or a crime.

Another quote that sickened me was a response to a question about hate crime legislation. "I would like to urge the people of Wyoming against overreacting in a way that gives one group 'special rights over others'" (48). Hate crime legislation qualifies as giving one group "special privileges"???? The right not to be beaten or attacked because of your sexual orientation/race/etc is a -privilege-?

I know that this book has been out for awhile, and I know that this stuff has probably been discussed before, but to actually read certain people's thoughts in print...I don't understand people.

Proposal

2007-06-05T16:56:00.000-05:00

The next morning we got up relatively early to catch a ferry to Zanzibar! Everything went relatively smoothly. We bought our tickets, wandered around Dar for a little while until we found some peanut butter, then got on the ferry. We splurged a bit - we paid all of maybe three dollars more to ride the ferry first class! It was really nice, and a lot less crowded than the lower floor, and way easier to get off the boat from.

This time, getting to Zanzibar was actually a little less crazy than the last time. Still crazy, for sure, just…less. Almost as soon as you get off the ferry onto Zanzibar, you’re bombarded by people who want to carry your bag (for a tip, of course), get you a taxi, show you were to go, drive you in a taxi…aaaah. We got through customs fairly quickly, and then had this mass of taxi drivers actually following us to a certain point down the road, when Wes stopped to call another peace corps volunteer who works on Zanzibar, and when they kept talking to us and ignoring my repeated “Hapana”’s (No), Wes finally told them all off and said they were being rude. This resulted, finally, in most of them leaving, and we were left in relative peace to organize what we actually wanted to do, which was get a shared taxi to the beach in about an hour.

So we had an hour to spare, and a hotel that was watching our suitcases, to walk around Stone Town. We managed to get absolutely everywhere we wanted to go and back in an hour, even stopping for me to get some kangas and scarves. That’s got to be some sort of record, since Stone Town is pretty much a maze.

We made it to Kendwa (the beach we were going to) with no problems, checked into our hotel, and we were there! We spent the next few days on Kendwa, mainly just enjoying the beach. It was a real vacation. Wes left his cell phone turned off, I couldn’t really do anything with mine if I wanted to, we just enjoyed and relaxed. We swam, laid in hammocks, went snorkeling one day, ate good food…it was a great, relaxing few days.

The last night on Zanzibar, two days before I had to leave, we went down to the beach to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous – pinks and oranges covering the sky. We walked up and down the beach for awhile with our shoes off, then as the sun was almost down, Wes pulled me aside to sit in the sand and watch the end of it.

As you might have guessed if you've looked on facebook at all recently, or talked to me, that night, on the beach, before the sun had completely set, Wes proposed.

Of course I said yes… :)

Ngorongoro Cont'd

2007-06-04T18:43:00.000-05:00

Ngorongoro was…amazing. We went down this really steep path into the crater, and were immediately greeted by herds of zebras…so incredibly cool. We spent the rest of the day in the crater, driving around, seeing monkeys, zebras, a rhino, ostriches, flamingos, hippos… at a few points in time we were actually driving through herds of animals – as in, the herds of animals were across the road, so we would inch towards them until they glanced over at us and wandered off of the road, then inch forward a little bit more until the next animals did the same thing.

Towards the end, the only thing that we hadn’t seen that we’d really wanted to was a lion…it was my second safari in Tanzania and still no lion. We drove around for awhile but couldn’t find any, so finally we decided to give up and go home…as we were driving towards the exit, we saw another car stopped with a person staring towards something. We drove closer and slowed down to see what they were staring at, and…yup, lion! Lions, actually. There were two female lions maybe two feet off the road, just laying down and relaxing…One of them got up to walk further away once it noticed us, and that’s when we noticed the male lion…so cool.

Finally we left, later noticing that some of us, including me, had markedly darker tans on one arm than the other…whoops. No big deal though. Suyenne excercised some brilliant driving skills to navigate the very steep, rocky path out of the crater, and then we went out to eat with Peter. The next day we were on our way home.

Our drive home was more eventful than the drive there…at one point in time, we saw a giraffe! Just on the side of the road, drinking water from a stream. Giraffes look funny when they drink – they have to sort of splay their legs out to the side and dip their neck all the way down to reach the water. We startled it by stopping the car to take pictures, though, so it looked up at us, then around, then decided that it wanted to cross the street – right in front of our car. How cool is that?

A little bit after the giraffe, we saw this line of some sort of fowl crossing the road… about four or five of them went to run across the road, and you could see the last one kind of hesitating towards the back, and you just know he was going “Wait up guys! Wait up!” You saw him hesitate, uncertain as whether or not to go, and then –finally- he decides to cross – right in front of our car. Thump. Oh man.

We stopped in Arusha to see if we could get the radio fixed, again… this time we ended up following a preacher on a motorcycle from one shop to another. It was a hilarious amount of incongruity – he was wearing like, baggy sweats, riding a red motorcycle, with gold “I Love Jesus” stickers on his motorcycle and helmet. Awesome.

We couldn’t find anyone who could fix the radio, but after all of that running around, Wes hit it, and magically, it worked! Amazing. So we had music for the rest of the drive home.

Towards the end of the drive, Suyenne asked me if I would be willing to drive a little, as she’d basically been driving for three days straight. I said okay. Never mind the fact that it was a bigger car than I was used to on the other side of the road. Sure, why not?

About thirty seconds into my driving, we’re stopped by a police blockade. I was sooo nervous. The police asked for basically every little tiny thing they could think of, and still didn’t seem satisfied. Finally, finally they let us go. You could tell they didn’t want to though.

So I’m still shaking a little bit from that, and then I drive through this town, with people and children walking and biking on both sides of the road, trucks coming from both directions, a guy on a bike who decides to bike in front of me, and a curvy, downhill mountain type road where you can’t really see around the corner. Fuunnnnn. It was, um…an interesting experience.

Not too long into it, we saw a gas station, so I pulled in to get some gas, and Suyenne said she’d drive again…it was all I could do not to breathe a sigh of relief and say “Thank God” instead of the “Are you sure?” I actually said. As we started driving again, she mentioned that she thought it was brave of me to drive and that if someone had asked her in my position, she would have said ‘hell no.’ I’m sitting here thinking, “NOW you tell me!”

So Suyenne and Alice were going back to Morogoro, but Wes and I were trying to get to Dar that night to catch a ferry to Zanzibar the next morning. We stopped at a town towards the crossroads towards Dar and Morogoro, and managed to make it just as there was a bus loading up to go to Dar. Wes ran over to ask if there was room for us on the bus, we said goodbye to Suyenne and Alice, and we were on our way! We made it to Dar in one piece and checked into the YMCA. (Hehe, yes, I’ve actually stayed in a YMCA, I swear. It’s a hostel in Dar).

Ngorongoro Crater

2007-06-02T13:39:00.000-05:00

The trip to Ngorongoro went much smoother than the quest to leave for that trip. We left early Sunday morning, after I got the chance to watch the sun rise over the Uruguru Mountains just in front of Wes’s house. The light in a sunrise is somehow different then the light in a sunset, just as pretty, but softer somehow. It’s a day beginning instead of ending.

The radio in Suyenne’s car didn’t work, so we spent some time running around Morogoro trying to find a store that was open that might be able to fix it or sell us portable speakers that we’d actually be able to hear…since it was still early though, and on a Sunday, no luck. We did manage to borrow a portable radio from Albert (one of the other peace corps volunteers), so finally we gave up our quest for something we could play an ipod on and left.

We drove basically all day…we were stopped by the police at one point in time for speeding, at which point the policeman said “You were speeding, you must pay a fine of 10,000 shillings (a bit under $10), and the other policeman kind of coughed, “20,000,” and the first said, “Yes, yes, you must pay a fine of 20,000 shillings.” We tried to argue the fact that the fine changed mid-sentence, but, not wanting to give them reason to hold us or cause trouble, didn’t argue too much. We paid and were on our way again.

Towards the end of the ride we stopped in Arusha, a large town a few hours away from Ngorongoro…Arusha was crazy. It had everything. Including a giant Shoprite, and a place called Steers that’s sort of like a McDonald’s…it was weird entering those places and realizing that we were still in Tanzania. Meanwhile, though, it still had the regular more Tanzanian type stores…Arusha was a funny blending of Africa and the western world.

We made it to Peter (another peace corps volunteer)’s site without much trouble. Drove up a fairly rocky road to the school that he works at and parked where we were told the car wouldn’t be disturbed and that someone would keep an eye on it, then went to Peter’s house to sleep. He was a nice guy – he had dinner made for us already, and the next morning he made coffee. We didn’t stay up late, since we were all pretty exhausted, so went to bed early. (Sleeping on couch cushions on the floor is somewhat awkward, especially when some of the cushions are different sizes. I was tired, though, so slept well anyway).

The next morning we woke up early to go to Ngorongoro…drank some coffee, and were on our way. As we walked towards the car, though, we realized something – the area where we had parked was the area that the students all assembled in the morning, and it was a school day. So we walked to the car amidst the stares of basically the entire secondary school, and then had to wait for students to move out of the way (while still staring) as we backed out of the place.

As we drove there, Wes mentioned that he had figured out that he could take out the back window of Suyenne’s car to enjoy the safari better, since it didn’t roll down…Suyenne expressed her uncomfortableness with the idea that baboons could jump into the car, was reassured that there are no baboons in Ngorongoro Crater and, even if there were, they wouldn’t be very likely to jump into the car, and just as we drove down the road into the park, what’s the first thing we’re greeted with? About ten baboons! Just chilling in the road, doing their own thing…they didn’t seem concerned by us in the slightest. Very cool. To be fair, Wes was right, there are no baboons actually in the crater, but it was pretty funny to see them just before we entered the conservation area.

We got a permit to enter the park and drove a little further into a winding mountain road…were greeted by an absolutely gorgeous view of the crater from above. Took a few pictures and continued until finally we were at the gate…you’re technically supposed to take a guide with you, but we really didn’t want to, since we had a map of the crater and we’d have to pay a guide to make the car more crowded…Wes went to talk to some of the guards, and, twenty minutes later, we were in the park, no guide. It’s amazing what some charm and Swahili will do, apparently. We were the only private car in the entire crater.

Tanzania...the second time around

2007-05-31T19:45:00.000-05:00

Okay, so, my trip...I’ll write in chunks. I left on May 13 to go to London, landed in London on May 14… waited an extra hour on the plane because first the walkway didn’t work, so then they needed stairs, but they couldn’t find the stairs, then gave us a play by play of the progression of the stairs towards us once they did find them. Waited another nine hours in the airport, in which I made a tour of practically every duty free shop in the airport and sampled about five different types of perfume and four or five different cosmetic products out of sheer boredom. I can entertain myself for quite awhile but nine hours in an airport is a bit much.
When it was at last check in time, I waited in a room until we got waved in, to walk down a hallway and wait in another room. We waited in that room until we were able to hop on a bus to the airplane. There were two Tanzanians on the bus who were joking in Swahili about how we were going to take a bus all the way to Tanzania, and I laughed a little, then they started talking about the fact that I was wearing a kanga, so I finally said something to them in Swahili and actually managed to have a somewhat intelligible conversation in it. Nothing groundbreaking, understand, or all that in depth, but still fun, and it was fun to see their surprise once I spoke.
So I finally, finally hopped on another plane to Tanzania! The last three or four hours of that flight were ridiculously long. I was so close and so far at the same time; I wanted to see Wes! It’d been over ten months by this point in time. That is a very long time. So I was, understandably, a little impatient. With four hours to go, I stopped being able to concentrate on any movies, books, or music. I grew obsessed with the little map channel on the TV screen on the seat in front of me that tells you where you are and how much time of the flight you have left to go. Four hours. Three hours and 58 minutes. Three hours and 56 minutes. I would occasionally bring myself to turn off the screen to preserve my sanity, but inexplicably, about five minutes later, I’d find my finger drifting towards the “on” switch. I was possessed. I literally couldn’t focus on anything else. I came to the conclusion on that flight that those little map screens, as nice as they are to have, are not healthy.
We finally landed, and I walked as fast as I could towards customs. I was like a little kid. I couldn’t sit still.
I got through customs as quickly as possible, grabbed my luggage, and walked outside, and fell into Wes’s arms. It’s amazing that over ten months can pass and their existence can evaporate the moment I see Wes again. It was like I’d never left from the time before. Hate to sound sappy, but it was where I was supposed to be.

The first few days in Tanzania were nice, and relaxing. It was mainly just nice to be with Wes again.
Wes worked a little, and I slept off my two days worth of traveling, although was temporarily invited to a teachers meeting on the first day to eat after about a three hour deep sleep, at which I attended, but I was swaying a little bit for most of it. Managed to excuse myself politely, and they let Wes leave as well, which is funny – they’ve held two ridiculously long teacher’s meetings while Wes has been there, that started early and went until like 11 or 12 at night, and the first one was last time I visited and this one was this time, and both times they let Wes leave with me. Hehe. The teacher’s meetings are interesting culturally – they call in students who have gotten substandard grades on the recent exam and basically the entire teaching staff grills the students individually on why they didn’t do well. All I can say is, I would NOT want to be those students. But it was nice of the teachers to invite me and offer to feed me, although it was more of an effort for me to stay upright during it than I think they may have realized.
Also had dinner at two different houses in the same day. At the first house, the house of one of the newer teachers, we were given sodas and some food, and Mukama (one of the other teachers) and his fiancé visited as well… after eating there, we went to the Igosha’s, another family’s house that we had visited last time I was there. We ate (again), which was interesting because I don’t tend to be very hungry for a few days after traveling. Wes jokingly offered me a chicken head to eat, since I accidentally took intestine to eat the last time I was there. (I wouldn’t recommend it). I gave him an ever so polite glare.
After dinner the Igoshas and we watched this hilarious television show called The Gardener’s Daughter. It’s a Spanish soap opera dubbed in English (very BADLY dubbed in English), and apparently a bunch of people in Tanzania are obsessed with it, and it’s ridiculous in a hilarious way. The episode we watched involved a nursery burning down and a guy in a wheelchair going in and magically walking out to save two children while the women cry and wave their hands around outside of the fire. Riiiiighhht. Because if there were kids in a fire that would be MY first reaction, frantic hand waving. Woohoo, they’re saved! Meanwhile the villain (who was obviously a villain because he turned and glared at the camera menacingly at one point amidst scary sounding music) was trying to steal someone’s money. Oh man.
Crazy Spanish soap operas aside, we also had a games night at Wes’s house with Albert (a peace corps volunteer), Suyenne (a girl from Holland who is originally from Aruba), and Alice (a British girl). Fun times, and a relatively diverse group, both background wise and age wise (Alice is 19, Albert is…36? Something like that). It was a fun night. That was also the night that the drama with our Ngorongoro trip began, however, but I’ll get to that in a second.
The next day we went swimming at the international school and to Dragonaires (a restaurant) for pizza with a ton of other peace corps volunteers. Good night, including a few random amusing parts. The most memorable part to me – Wes (out of nowhere): “Oh, Nora, good news – Christina and I decided you can come to our wedding.” Me: “Whaaa??”
Ok, as for the drama…we had been planning on going to Ngorongoro Crater with Suyenne and Nienke, the other girl who owned the car, on Friday or Saturday. It was Thursday, and Nienke called us and said she wasn’t coming. To make a long story short, first we were going with Suyenne and Nienke, then Suyenne and Alice, then we were just going to go by ourselves on Saturday, but there was an issue with an ATM, so we ended up going with Suyenne and Alice on Sunday after all. Craziness! But it all worked out, really well I think, despite some crazy running around on Saturday.

Randomness and a story

2007-01-25T00:43:00.000-06:00

I need to start writing in this thing more regularly again. I've been starting to internalize more and more again, and that just doesn't work too well for me. I just feel a lot better when I'm writing things regularly, even if they're random. I'm writing letters pretty consistently, but I need this too I think.

This semester's going okay so far. On the down side, I'm taking eighteen hours, and my classes all seem kind of intense, and I'm also going to be working. That's the sucky part. The up side is, I actually like about 75% of my classes - they seem really interesting. I'm rediscovering my passion for English, I think, in one or two of my English classes, and I'm even liking the math class I'm taking, despite being the only English major in there. ("What's everybody's majors?" "Mechanical Engineering." "Chemistry." "Mechanical engineering." "Physics." Me: "English and secondary education." Confused looks ensue). And I'm actually starting to feel kind of, well...educated. What? You say that was the purpose of this whole crazy college thing?

Also, now I have a laptop! Which is pretty exciting. I'm really enjoying the sudden freedom I have to move around with this computer. Plus it's just generally awesome.

Anyway...that's all I really feel like writing at the moment, but I'm going to try and start writing more regularly. Not that you care - I don't even know if anyone really reads this anymore - but it helps me, so...your mom. Yeah that didn't make any sense. Well your mom doesn't make any sense either. See, that one made sense! So I get one out of two, so that means I'm half...erm...crazy. Whoops.

Maybe this is why I haven't written much lately....

I end with a story I found in my old diarlyand site that Nicole and I wrote in AP Economics senior year of high school. It made me laugh.

There was a full moon on that cold All Hallow's Eve. A chill mist enveloped the graveyard, creating shadows evocative of creatures of the night. All was still, except for at a single tombstone. At the tombstone of Mr. Dumpty, deceased two months ago from a tragic fall, the ground began to shift.

The shattered remains of an egg, having painstakingly reconstructed themselves, clawed their way out of Humpty's forgotten grave.

Humpty emerged from his grave with but one thought in his mind: revenge. The maker of that wall was going to pay.

Humpty made his slow, stumbling course (as his legs were missing shards of eggshell) towards the wall.

Unfortunately, since he was now hollow, a gust of wind easily blew him backwards. Soon, he found himself in Canada.

He groaned out and hobbled into the street where he was prompty hit by a car and shattered. Again. The end.

ASB Trip - New York City 2007

2007-01-24T00:55:00.000-06:00

My ASB trip was pretty awesome. We went to New York City and stayed in a hostel right near Central Park. If I didn't mention, we were working with an organization called Gods Love We Deliver, that prepares and delivers meals to people too sick to shop and cook for themselves, mostly HIV/AIDs patients. We worked in the kitchen during the day, did a LOT of chopping, but also rolled burritos, and had packaging races. In the afternoon a few times we went out and delivered some meals throughout Manhattan. Some of us even got the opportunity to go with the delivery vans to different boroughs - I got to go to Queens and Brooklyn. It was definitely a good experience, and I saw some parts of the city I never would have seen otherwise, and the actions and words of the people we delivered to - and even the people within the organization itself - made me really glad we were doing what we were doing. It really felt like we were making a difference. The deliveries, though, really hit home to me WHY we were dong what we were doing. The people were from upper class neighborhoods to middle class all the way down to the projects...they were young, old, male, female, of multiple different races...AID's, cancer...they really do effect everyone and anyone. And that's really sad. On the other hand, it gives me a lot of hope to know that organizations like that, that help people who need it, do exist and that there are a lot of people out there trying to do something about it. You could tell the people in the kitchen, and the other people on this trip, really felt like they were doing something worthwhile. And that's awesome. So I guess it was sort of two sided as far as emotions throughout the week went. Certain parts of life...well they suck. But there will always be people out there trying to make them better. So there's always hope. At least that's what I got from it.

As far as our free time went though, and our group, there was nothing two sided about it; they were awesome. Everyone in the group was amazingly nice, and we all clicked so well, and we bonded over our discovered mutual nerdiness. *grin* I think we would have had fun together anywhere, although being in a big city with tons of things to do and see definitely gave us lots of options.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-02T00:06:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year!

A summary of the year:

At the beginning of this year, I walked away from my parents in O'hare to take my first intercontinental flight to live in England for five months...met a lot of new, amazing friends that I hope I'll continue to stay friends with despite the existence of, well, the Atlantic Ocean...I got lost in Norwich on my first day there but somehow managed by sheer chance and luck to find the group I had come with again about an hour and a half later. I grocery shopped and cooked for myself on a regular basis for the first time; I know that may not seem like a big deal but one more step on my way to growing older, I guess... I turned 20. Went to PoNaNa's on a lot of Tuesdays, and a few random LCR nights...saw the North Sea a few times, once in the winter and a few more times in the summer, had a few barbeques, watched a LOT of Scrubs over a lot of relatively sleepless nights, helped throw Waveney's very last party ever (it was knocked down a few weeks later, after everyone moved out)...and a lot more amazing memories of England that mean I'll never, ever regret my choice to study abroad.

I backpacked around Europe with Mary and Andrew for three weeks (well Andrew for only the first week or so), going to three new countries I'd never been before - had a lot of picnics, saw a lot of places I never thought I'd ever see in my lifetime, got lost in Venice, ran into FOUR people from U of I that we knew in Italy completely randomly, took a train when we were told we couldn't to Paris, saw a few very very cool parks in Spain, and learned what it felt like to be somewhere when I didn't speak the language.

I went to Tanzania...I got eight vaccinations and took malaria medicine in order to go, I saw Wes for the first time in nine months (and picked up right where we left off). I experienced what it was like to be very, very obviously a foreigner. Had a lot of conversations with Tanzanians, met some very cool Tanzanian teachers, I practiced Swahili and saw elephants and giraffes, and travelled around Tanzania and to Zanzibar with Wes. Celebrated Wes and my two year anniversary on Zanzibar. :)

Returned home via forty or so hours of travelling...moved into an apartment with my roommates and adjusted to life at home again. Worked a LOT. Observed in a middle school and taught a lesson to seventh graders.

I started the new year with two of my best friends (Melissa and Rachel), a phone call from another one (Brittany) with some really good news, and a phone call (albeit a short one) from my best friend and boyfriend. Looking back on this past year, I am reminded how amazingly lucky I am in my life and how amazing this past year was. There is just so much that's been packed into one year and all of it has contributed to me as a person and to my life and enriched it.

This coming year...I'm going to do a service trip to New York, enter my second semester of junior year, observe in a high school...I'm going to visit Tanzania one more time, in May, with a layover, amazingly enough, in London. I'm going to (hopefully) work at camp again, then enter my last year of college. In November Wes is coming back. There are really good possibilities for this year, and hopefully I can ensure that I make the most of them.

Resolutions? Think more before I speak, I think. Don't speak just to fill the silence. Also, when I start getting stressed, or upset about things, remember what I've just written and remember how truly lucky I am.

Happy New Year.

Oh, and one more thing that I think warrants mentioning in here - congratulations, Brittany and Brian!

Tanzania, pt. 9

2006-11-04T22:53:00.000-06:00

The next day we got up relatively early and had some breakfast at the hotel restaurant (it was included with our room). By this point in time Wes had made friends with almost all of the hotel workers and we discovered that one of the waiters was going to go to Stone Town tomorrow, the same as us, and we arranged to go together the next day.

Then we met Said on the beach to go snorkeling! (Wes had arranged this beforehand). Said brought us to a stand with masks and flippers, and we picked out ones that fit, and then Said guided us to a waiting boat. We climbed onto it and went to pick up the other people who were going to come on Nungwi beach, and then left! It was a gorgeous sunny day, and there was an upper level of the boat that you could climb a ladder to get to, so Wes and I climbed up there with a few others and lay in the sun as we went. I fell asleep for awhile, and woke up to a few people pointing at somewhere in the ocean. I could just make out some small protrusions in the water that, as soon as I saw them, they were gone – dolphins! I didn’t see them very well but it was still pretty cool that we saw them at all.

Soon we arrived near a different beach, and anchored a little bit away from shore. We put on our flippers and got off the boat. I had never been snorkeling before so it took me a little bit of practice to figure out how to breathe correctly with the snorkeling mask, and to adjust it, but then we started. It was…by far one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. There was so much coral and so many amazing fish. It really was another world from the one I saw when I lifted my face two inches upwards.

Eventually it was time to leave, so we swam back to the boat. I was starting to feel the effects of the ocean anyway – my lips were almost numb they were so salty. As I swam I felt a quick, tiny sharp feeling and then it was gone. A few seconds later another one. I was just saying “Hey I think something stung me or something” when I felt a few more. They were just tiny, tiny little pinpricks, and I couldn’t see ANYTHING in the water, but had a few small red dots on my hands after I got out of the water. Weird. The best I could determine was that they were really, really, REALLY tiny jellyfish.

We didn’t have far to go on the boat until we got to another beach, where we got off the boat and swam ashore to have lunch. The people running the snorkeling expedition had brought fish, which they cooked for us, and also offered some pineapple. I don’t normally like pineapple all that much but this pineapple was GOOD. We ate, and then when we were finished, Wes and I explored the beach a little bit, collecting seashells and being highly entertained by the tiny white crabs. Some were no bigger than my fingernail, while others were about the size of a walnut. All were extremely amusing to watch. They sort of…scuttle…sideways, and have flat little eyes on top of their heads. After awhile Wes started cracking up and pointing at a hole in the sand. He told me to watch another hole, so I did. It took watching a few different likely-looking holes where we found one where a crab scurried out, and then threw sand in the air, then scurried back in. (This was what Wes had seen earlier). I know that might not sound that amusing to you, but to us it was hilarious. We spent the rest of the time on the beach trying to find more crabs to watch dig their holes.

Eventually it was time to go. We had some extra time, and it was a windy day, so instead of using the motor, they unfurled the sail on the boat and we sailed back. Amazing.

When we got back we caught a gorgeous sunset, and walked along the beach a little bit and just enjoyed it, taking a few awesome pictures. We went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner, and I discovered that my hours of laying on the boat napping in the sun had resulted in a fairly decent sunburn; whooops...At night we went to dinner at a different place on the beach. We noticed some people had a table further away from the restaurant actually ON the beach, and requested one too. It was pretty amazing; we ate our dinner under the stars with our feet in the sand.

Tanzania - Kendwa Day 2

2006-10-05T11:21:00.000-05:00

The next morning we slept in until we woke up on our own, which was wonderful; ¦it was nice just to have no place to be. There was something else significant about this morning - it was July 24, our two year anniversary, and we were on Zanzibar. What could be better than that?

After we got up we decided we would walk back over to Nungwi to buy some bread and peanut butter for lunches for the next couple of days so we didn't have to buy them, as meals on Zanzibar, while still cheap by American or European standards, are a little more expensive than the mainland. This time the tide was still out, so we kicked off our shoes and walked along the beach to get there.

Realizing that for the first time since I'd come to Tanzania we were in a truly and completely touristy place, I walked along the beach in just my pants and a bathing suit top. After five weeks of being careful never to show my shoulders or anything revealing, I even felt a little daring doing it, like I was finally breaking some unwritten law. It felt almost liberating, to say, I don't have to worry about that here, and not to worry about who I might be offending. For the first time in five weeks I reverted back to the rules of my own culture instead of someone else's, that say it's okay to walk in public with your shoulders showing, and definitely okay to walk along a beach in a bathing suit top.

Along the way we saw some pretty cool and random things. First we noted the random crabs on the beach; they were little, and white, and kind of fun to watch. As we walked we picked up a few random shells and pieces of coral to save as souvenirs. At one point we saw a Tanzanian hanging squid up to dry; they had been brought in with the tide and left, and he was taking them, probably to cook or sell.

Probably the most notable thing we saw on the way though was a very large blue jellyfish! It was absolutely huge and floating near the shore. It was extremely cool looking, although it made me very aware of where I placed my feet when we went swimming later.

Halfway there I could no longer stand looking at this beautiful water on this perfect, hot, sunny day, so I took off all but my bathing suit, handed my things to Wes, and ran towards the water and plunged in. One thing I was struck by was how warm it was, without being so warm it was uncomfortable. Amazing. I closed my eyes and dunked my head underwater, then went back to Wes on the beach, refreshed and content now to continue walking.

We got to Nungwi and walked past the souvenir stands and the hotels into the actual town; as we did I reverted back to Tanzanian rules and put my shirt back on. It was like there was some unspoken boundary between the beach and the village, like they were two different worlds despite the fact that they occupied the same corner of the same island. The further into the town we walked the more confused looks we got...I'm pretty sure not many tourists usually venture away from the touristy areas of Zanzibar. We got quite a few stares as we walked, greeted everyone we could, and eventually found someone who was willing to lead us to a place where we were able to find bread. We bought the bread and stopped at another store on the way back to buy some jam and some biscuits.

Afterwards we went back to the beach; again I shed my layers, and we began our walk back. The tide was starting to come in at this point so it was slightly more of a challenge; at some points the beach was entirely covered by water, so at times we lifted what we were carrying above our heads, but it was an enjoyable walk and kind of fun dodging the water.

When we got back to the hotel I looked at my arm and was shocked at what I saw: somehow, in the last three or four hours, I had turned about four shades darker. I knew that we were pretty much on the equator but I guess I just hadn't realized it would have that much of an effect that quickly. I had put on sunscreen, too! I was absolutely amazed at how quickly the sun could act when you were that much directly underneath it.

We ate lunch, and then Wes located a bucket so that we could do laundry, as we hadn't done any since Andrew's house and our clothes were pretty dirty. Laundry in Tanzania is done by putting soap and water in a bucket, then swirling your clothes around in the bucket, just basically agitating the clothes and water as much as you can, like a human washing machine. Then you put the clothes in another bucket (or the same bucket, except refilled) with just plain water and do the same thing, then wring them out with your hands and hang them up to dry. We sat on the porch for a while and read as our clothes dried outside.

Finally went out to the beach to go swimming for real, not just my random dip into the water. The water was perfect. We swam around for awhile, and then just kind of floated near each other. Eventually we got tired and went back to the beach, where we put out some towels and lay and read and enjoyed the sun for awhile. It was one of the first times on the trip that we just sat and relaxed.

We eventually went back to the hotel room and showered and got ready for dinner. We decided to go someplace different for dinner, as there were a lot of nice looking restaurants along the beach. So we walked down the beach (I took off my shoes again - I took them off as much as possible on the beach; the sand felt awesome) to a restaurant we had seen that looked pretty cool earlier. As we walked in, we were handed menus...¦in Euros. We took one look at the prices, blanched, and left to find a different restaurant.

We looked at a few before settling on another one on the beach, had an amazing meal and some wine, then walked back on the beach under the stars. The entire day it took some self restraint to refrain from pinching myself to ensure that this was real - a beautiful beach on a tropical island, with my boyfriend of two years, warmth, soft sand, water...it sounds like I made it up!

Tanzania, pt. 7 - getting to Kendwa

2006-10-03T16:24:00.000-05:00

We planned to take a dala to the part of the island that we are going to stay at, Kendwa, but that's far easier said than done. The second we got out of the customs area we were bombarded with more taxis and taxi drivers. We walked forward quickly among "Hello rafiki!"'s (“Hello, friend!” – I didn’t trust anyone I didn’t know who called me “rafiki.” It generally meant they wanted something from me) and "Taxi! Taxi!" ourselves repeating, "Hapana, hapana, si etagi (sp?)" (No, no, we don't need), but a few latched onto us and followed.

One guy repeated, "But you can take this minibus, where you are among other tourists only." I looked at him quizzically. "Why on earth would we care about that?" It's sad though, because I'm guessing the reason he used this line is because it's worked in the past. I will never understand how you could really go to a place and see avoiding any and all locals as a good thing. Anyway, after he persisted for awhile, Wes told him to go away in Swahili, and finally he went. One guy actually made a pretty good sell for a...van? minibus?...though, and offered a price that we like, so we said okay. It turned out that he was not the driver of this vehicle but the guy who got customers for this vehicle, so he took us to an area along the street and made a call, which, if we were anywhere but Tanzania, I would see this as highly shady, so I was a little nervous, but Wes reassured me.

As we stood Wes negotiated, and the guy eventually agreed that we could pay almost half of what the other people in the van were paying, with the stipulation that we not TELL the people in the van we were paying that much as that would hurt their business. He was at least very honest about it. Finally the van comes, and we got in, then went to pick up another guy who was also an American, and asked us how much we paid. "I paid 7000, is that what you paid?" "Sure, about that..." Um, yeah...

And we're off. On our way we talked to the guy and he ended up giving Wes a book that he had just read, so that was kind of exciting. Finally we arrived, although apparently there was some miscommunication somewhere, because we were in Nungwi, not Kendwa. While Nungwi is NEXT to Kendwa, and accessible to Kendwa by the beach, it is not exactly where we were told we were going to be, but the driver insisted that was what he was told and that he was staying in Nungwi for the night and so not going back to Kendwa now. So now we had the small problem of getting to Kendwa, the small problem being that the tide was in so we couldn’t get to Kendwa from the beach at this moment.

We did walk over to the beach, and the sight took my breath away. The beach, and the Indian Ocean, is gorgeous. The sand is white, and made from coral, so it's insanely soft. I immediately took off my shoes and carried them, enjoying the feel of walking barefoot in the sand. And the water...the water is clear when you look at it closely, and a gorgeous blue when you look at it from farther away, and beautiful. As we entered the beach, we met a group of local people who were talking/working, and they asked us what we were up to. Wes engaged in conversation with them, and told them our problem. They seemed incredibly surprised and somewhat gratified that Wes spoke Swahili, and soon a man introduced himself as Said, and said he could help us out (which was appropriate, because Said means help in Swahili). He offered to take us over to the other shore in a boat for a small fee, and the fee being reasonable, we agreed, so just sat down to wait for a little while. The boat came, and we got in...The ride over to Kendwa was actually a lot of fun to me; the boat was a speedboat type of boat, and I received a lot of enjoyment from being over the water.

We arrived at Kendwa. Our next order of business was to determine somewhere to stay. We had reservations at one hotel, but we were only able to get reservations there for a night, and we decided we would rather go find somewhere where we could stay for all three. Said said he would help us with that too; Wes asked what he got out of it and Said explained that if he took us to a hotel and we decided to stay there that he got a commission from the hotel owner, so everybody won. Sounded good to us, so off we went.

We were first led to one hotel with a large group of workers sitting on the front porch; the hotel was extremely nice but kind of expensive, and could only guarantee us a room for the first two nights, and then could give us a different room for the third, but not the same one. Wes went to check out the room while I stayed and watched our things. One of the workers initiated conversation and I tried practicing my broken Swahili (they spoke far better English than I spoke Swahili, but I derived more enjoyment out of trying to speak in their language, and so, it seemed, did they). I did my best to explain where we were from and what we were doing here, although a few misunderstandings set them laughing, but not a mean laughter, more a friendly laughter. Overall they were kind of fun to talk to, although I found myself turning sort of red from my lack of understanding a few times. They were helpful in my mistakes though, and we continued to talk until Wes got back. Wes and I talked for a little while; they were highly amused when Wes said he wouldn’t make a decision unless I was okay with it. ("So she is the boss?").

We thought about it, determined that after so much moving around for the past week or two, it'd be really nice to just stay in the same room for three consecutive nights, so go off to look somewhere else. We looked at one or two more places before we found where we ended up staying; it was cheaper, had fairly nice rooms, and would let us stay there all three nights, so that won us over. By this time we were exhausted because we'd been on an early morning ferry, a long van ride, a boat ride, and then walked around an island for ages, so gratefully collapsed for a little while, got clean, and went off in search of food.

We didn't have to walk far - our hotel had its own restaurant on the beach. This was when it really hit me that we were on Zanzibar. The restaurant was outside, covered by a tent type thing, with tables and chairs on the sand. We ended the night eating a really good dinner, with our feet in the sand, looking out onto the beach. Amazing.

Tanzania pt. 6 - trip to Zanzibar

2006-10-03T12:03:00.000-05:00

The next morning, luckily, all the insane amounts of sleep I'd been getting started to work for me, and I felt a lot better, still not completely well, but a hundred times better than I had felt the day before. We got up relatively early to catch yet another bus - this time to Dar Es Salaam, so that the next morning, we could catch a ferry to Zanzibar!

The bus ride was insanely long, but I didn't mind all the sitting as I was still feeling kind of out of it. When we got to Dar, we were mobbed by huge numbers of taxi drivers and people who gained commission for finding passengers for taxi drivers, which is pretty standard for the Dar bus stand. One particularly persistent taxi driver somehow got commission from us even after we shrugged him off and went to talk to the taxi drivers by ourselves, which I'm not entirely sure how that worked, but whatever... we finally got a taxi to the YMCA, which was where we were staying (it was a hostel).

We checked into the Y (next time we sing the YMCA song at camp I'll be highly amused), talking to a few random people along the way, and then went to find food. Which brought us to...SUBWAY. There is a Subway in dar. It's not EXACTLY the same, of course, there are a few differences...but overall it's pretty much the Subway we know. They even have the same napkins! And by the same napkins, I mean the EXACT same - there's a customer service number for the US on them. It was kind of expensive for a meal in Tanzania - it was about the same amount of money you'd pay for a meal at Subway in the US - but oh so good. By the time we got back to the Y it was getting kind of late, and, as we had an early morning again the next day, we went to bed.

The next day we set off for Zanzibar! First we had to go buy tickets for a ferry. As soon as you get to the street you are set upon by multiple people working for ferry companies who show you schedules of the ferries and prices and offer to buy your tickets for you. We made our way through these people with much less difficulty than you would think, and got to the ferry company that we wanted. Now, here's the odd part - we had to pay in American dollars for me. How this makes sense, I'm not entirely sure, but since I was not a resident, they would not accept Tanzanian shillings. It still kind of baffles me how a country can refuse to accept its own currency.

Anyway, we walked over to the ferry, had our bags searched before we were allowed to enter (they had security like an airport, sort of - the bag searching was a replacement for the x-ray machine, I'm pretty sure) and then waited around for a long time as they got the boat ready.

One of the things that awed me about the people waiting in line was just the sheer variety of people. You had people who were actually from Tanzania or Zanzibar, people from America, people from other parts of Europe, just...everywhere. Oh, and chickens. That's right, I hear squawking and look over and a person is carrying a chicken as if you might hold a baby.

Finally, we were allowed to board the boat; it was fairly crowded but decently comfortable. So we set off. I listened to music for awhile while Wes got into a conversation with someone from a country in Europe who had actually taught in the Moshi region of Tanzania for a few years, so they compared stories and ideas for awhile while I faded in and out of the conversation, sometimes contributing, sometimes just listening. At one point Wes got up to stretch his legs and came back, telling me I should try going up to the front.

There were some steep stairs at the front of the boat, so I walked up them and discovered a random space at the bow of the bow of the ship. There were already a lot of other people but I found a spot along the rail and closed my eyes. It felt...amazing. I always thought that that moment in Titanic where the girl stands at the bow and says she feels like she's flying was really cheesy and stupid, but...it really DID. There was just this cool, sort of breathless feeling I got while standing there that I couldn't get too much of. I went back downstairs briefly to see if Wes wanted to walk around more since I had left him guarding our things, and to tell him he was right about how cool it was, then, when he said he was all right where he was, I went back upstairs.

This time I talked briefly to a Kenyan. "Hello." I responded, "Mambo." (Kind of like, "what's up?") "Do you speak English?" GRIN. "Yeah, I'm American." "Oooh, okay." We talked a little bit about where we were from and what we were doing, then I found a spot along the front to just sit and enjoy the wind and the feel of movement for as long as I could.

When the boat docked, the craziness began. Coming to Tanzania from England, where they make nice orderly queues for, well, pretty much everything, it was even more so. There was a huge crush of people all trying to get their bags which were all stowed in the same place, then other Tanzanians trying to make a quick buck by helping tourists get their bags off. One of them stepped in and helped us. Wes gave him a tip; the man looked at him and said, "No, it was ___ shillings," naming some outrageous amount. Wes shook his head, and the guy went away. We took our bags and went through customs to get our passports stamped.

We were in Zanzibar!

Tanzania Pt. 5 - Lushoto

2006-10-01T22:42:00.000-05:00

We got off the bus in Sony, a town near Lushoto where a Peace Corps volunteer named Jen works and teaches. She was working when we got there, so we dropped our things at her house and left to explore a little bit. After such a great experience with the Moshi waterfall, we went in search of the "Sony Waterfall" that we heard was nearby. There was a very cool looking waterfall that we had seen when we first got off the bus, but we didn't think that was it, and even if it was we weren't sure how to get down to it, so we just wandered. Finding very little in the way of direction, though, we found ourselves near some workers and Wes where the waterfall was. Either they didn't completely understand us or the waterfall really WAS the waterfall we saw when we got into town, but they directed us downwards and we found ourselves at the bottom of the waterfall we'd seen upon arriving. It was larger than the Moshi waterfall but not quite as cool, but it was still nice to get a little bit of alone time and just sit by the waterfall for a little while. With all the moving around, alone time had been sort of lacking, so it was nice to just sit and enjoy each other's company for awhile.

We sat by the waterfall for a little bit and then wandered back to Jen's, where we sat and talked for a little while. While we were making dinner I started feeling extremely sick, so wasn't very helpful with the dinner making. We had dinner and I felt a little better and we just sat around and talked for awhile, played Dominos and listened to music. It was a very chill night but it was nice. Went to early because I still wasn't feeling well.

The next morning, I felt awful. I got up and ate a bit and then went back to bed. We tried taking my temperature with some tempa-dot things, but discovered they weren't good anymore when one said my temperature was 93 and the other said my temperature was 105.8, which, as I was conscious and still alive, made us figure that neither was correct. So much for those. Finally we located an actual thermometer, with which we discovered my temperature to be around 101, which made far more sense. Regardless of what it was, I still felt like crap, so spent most of the day sleeping and/or lying down.

Then we had to figure out what to do about our stuff. Half of our things were still at Andrew's, which was a dala ride and a five kilometer walk away. I felt shaky just standing up, let alone walking five kilometers uphill and carrying a backpack and a shoulder bag, and the original plan had been to go pick up our things at Andrew's and then go to Lushoto.

Wes solved the problem by being wonderful and going to collect our stuff himself, and I went to Lushoto with Jen on a dala.

Meanwhile, Jen hadn't been feeling well for awhile either, and she called the Peace Corps office and they told her to go get tested for malaria in Lushoto. She met Josh in Ness's house (the girl who we were visiting in Lushoto) and he went with her to the hospital to get tested, and I...slept some more. Finally, Wes and Andrew got there, and Wes expressed his wishes that I would go and get tested too.

To put him (and my family) at ease, I agreed to go, and we walked to the hospital. Upon arrival, we were told that they had just closed, but Wes again did whatever he did the whole time we were there to make random people help us, and they agreed to test me anyway. There was an extremely nice nurse there who told me exactly what she was doing at every point - well, she told Wes, and Wes translated - explained what she was looking for in my blood, and even let us look through the microscope ourselves. No malaria. Blood looks cool through a microscope, though.

As we left, all the doctors were sitting on the porch outside the building. We asked them whether or not we needed to register and asked how much we owed them. Looking around and determining that the person who usually dealt with that wasn't there, they decided that was too much trouble and just let us go without paying or registering. Score!

Afterwards, we met up with the rest of the people who were visiting Lushoto, bought some supplies for dinner, and came back to make it. I, again, went to sleep, and woke up feeling okay enough to socialize for awhile. We played a game of Texas Hold 'em, which was fun. I ended up coming in second, and in the middle of it we had some amazing spaghetti.

I also took a "shower." Sort of. There actually WAS no shower, since there was no running water, but I took a bucket bath with some heated up water, which was entertaining, although afterwards I couldn't stop shivering. Seriously. It was ridiculous; my entire body was shaking. I went to bed early, while everyone else watched a movie.

Tanzania Pt. 5 - Lushoto

2006-09-26T23:25:00.000-05:00

Wes solved the problem by being wonderful and going to collect our stuff himself, and I went to Lushoto with Jen on a dala.

Meanwhile, Jen hadn't been feeling well for awhile either, and she called the Peace Corps office and they told her to go get tested for malaria in Lushoto. She met Josh in Ness's house (the girl who we were visiting in Lushoto) and he went with her to the hospital to get tested, and I...slept some more. Finally, Wes and Andrew got there, and Wes expressed his wishes that I would go and get tested too.

To put him (and my family) at ease, I agreed to go, and we walked to the hospital. Upon arrival, we were told that they had just closed, but Wes again did whatever he did the whole time we were there to make random people help us, and they agreed to test me anyway. There was an extremely nice nurse there who told me exactly what she was doing at every point - well, she told Wes, and Wes translated - explained what she was looking for in my blood, and even let us look through the microscope ourselves. No malaria. Blood looks cool through a microscope, though.

As we left, all the doctors were sitting on the porch outside the building. We asked them whether or not we needed to register and asked how much we owed them. Looking around and determining that the person who usually dealt with that wasn't there, they decided that was too much trouble and just let us go without paying or registering. Score!

As we left, all the doctors were sitting on the porch outside the building. We asked them whether or not we needed to register and how much we owed them. Looking around and determining that the person who usually did that wasn't there, they decided that it was too much trouble and just let us go. Score!

Tanzania pt. 4 - Amani cont'd.

2006-09-25T21:15:00.000-05:00

The next morning we woke up on our own, had breakfast, and relaxed at Thomas's house for a little while on his porch waiting for one of his neighbors to bring over a rooster. We got our first glimpse of Amani in the daylight - pretty. When it became apparent the guy was a no show, we left for a hike through Amani. About five minutes after we started our hike we saw a chameleon! He had two horns so apparently he's fairly rare, too, which is kind of cool. We spent awhile looking at the chameleon, and laughed at its slow, leaf like progress across the road. Seriously, chameleons are insanely slow. They test each step before actually taking it so they look kind of like a physical representation of a skipping record, or maybe just an animal that's REALLY uncertain of if it truly wants to go the way its going. "Here we go, wait no, hang on, well yeah okay, okay left foot, wait, hang on, oh okay..." We determined that it probably helps it blend in better when it�s actually in the grass or near trees, but on the road it just looked funny. When it finally got to the grass we watched its colors change a little bit before moving onwards.

After that pretty cool start to the hike, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. We made our way into the forest and across a river, and just kind of enjoyed the sights and sounds of the forest. Rainforests are COOL. I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually in one. And then, just in case I was uncertain, we saw a monkey! It was REALLY high up so you couldn't see a lot of details, but still insanely cool. There were also so many amazingly vivid flowers and some really cool trees that spanned greater than our heights. We found the end of the trail, which ended on a fairly high point where you could see flatter, unforested land far below...it was gorgeous. As we turned around to make our way back we saw a walking stick insect, a little green guy that blended in at first with the leaves.

When we got back we stopped in town and had dinner, and then I bought a kanga from one of the shops, which is a large piece of rectangular cloth with a design and some writing on it that women in Tanzania wear around their waist, over their shoulders, and even carry babies in! The shop owner seemed really happy that I liked them, and I actually understood what she was saying to me, which made me happy as well. Went back to Thomas's house and I took a shower. This may not seem like that significant of an event but not everywhere in Tanzania has hot showers and it was kind of cold outside as it was, so it was a COLD shower. Not just cold like a the-hot-water-just-ran-out type of cold, but cold as in...BRRR. Made me kind of glad that we spent so many mornings jumping in the lake at camp. But, clean, refreshed, and wide awake, I went back in the house and we talked for awhile, sitting on Thomas's porch. While we were on the porch one of Thomas's neighbors brought us over some sugar cane and cloves! The sugar cane was interesting. If you've ever had sugar cane before, basically what you do is cut the top with a knife, then peel the outer layer down a little bit, and then...gnaw. There's a sweet, sugary juice inside that tastes pretty good, so it was fun for awhile, but after awhile I began to feel like I was eating wood. It was a good experience though. Then we all watched a movie on Wes's laptop before going to bed.

The next morning we woke up early to go back to Muheza, then Lushoto. The ride back to Muheza was decidedly more pleasant than the ride away from it. The drivers remembered Wes and me and had saved us seats in front, so we had actual leg room and could take the three hour ride in relative comfort. On the way back we ran into the two travelers we had seen (and said goodbye to as they took the earlier dala) two days before, and led them to the bus station since we were all going to Lushoto. I had a window seat and so had fun ignoring (studiously ignoring, as they're PERSISTENT) and conversing with the various people selling things by turns. On to Sony.

Tanzania pt. 3 - Amani

2006-09-19T18:04:00.000-05:00

Okay I will finish writing about this trip, even though it's getting further and further away...at this point it sometimes seems like it never even happened. Like it was all some strange, amazing dream that I made up in my head. But it did happen, and I'll keep writing for the record of it.

We left Andrew's site extremely early in the morning, hiked a few kilometers to catch a bus going to a town that was close to Amani (I forgot what it was called). It was an extremely crowded bus and it looked like we were going to have to stand the whole time, but someone beckoned to me towards the beginning of the ride and I got a seat in the front; not too much leg room or anything but I had a seat, which was nice. (Wes wasn't so fortunate; he did stand for most of it). We arrived early afternoon and signed up for seats on a dala dala to take us up the mountain on a three hour ride to get to Thomas (the peace corps volunteer we were visiting there)'s site. We had lunch and then came back to wait by the dala stand. And wait. It turned out there was something wrong with the van that we were going to take, and they spent a long time fixing it. Finally, some really nice people offered us a bench on their porch, so we sat there, even used their bathroom, and...waited some more. Meanwhile, we met some other people who were traveling to Amani as well, who had arrived later and signed up for a different dala. We watched them come, and leave, as we continued to wait. I made friends with a few local kids who seemed highly amused with the fact that I spoke some limited Swahili, which was fun at first although after awhile I began to feel like a zoo attraction... I was sort of playing peek-a-boo/hide and seek with this one 8 year old girl, and then I talked to her and she screamed and hid, but then finally started talking to me a little bit after I asked her if she was afraid (with some help from Wes on the Swahili for that one). Shortly after she ran away and came back with a friend; I greeted her and ask her name and where she was from, she answered and then both girls screamed and hid. Shortly after THAT, they left and brought a THIRD girl. After I exhausted what little Swahili I knew, they got bored and left, and I started feeling ridiculously tired.

Several hours later, the dala was finally fixed. But still, they wouldn't let people in. First, they loaded the stuff. Beer, sacks of food, etc., it all went in there, both in the trunk and on the floor. FINALLY they let people in. We said goodbye and thank you to the people whose porch we'd been sitting on basically all day, and walked over to the dala. Wes and I discovered our seats were in the very back, and there was stuff both on our seats and underneath them. Some guy said "sit;" Wes and I looked around somewhat frustratedly and said, "WAPI?" (Where?). Finally, they moved some of the stuff, so that there were no longer any things on our seats, but there was absolutely NO leg room. The next seat was about two inches in front of ours, and there was stuff on the ground, and nowhere to put our feet. I ended up figuring out some odd, cramped position in which one foot was in a small hole and the other leg rested on top of the first leg and my backpack rested on top of THAT, and we were off. Fifteen minutes later, we got a flat tire.

Wes and I got out of the van, unable to sit where we were for very long, and paced around outside. They fixed the tire, and everyone started into the van again. I stared at it. "Wes, I CAN'T sit there again." Wes began some fast talking with the workers in the van, gesturing to where they were expecting us to sit. Some of the Tanzanians looked and you could see even they were suppressing some sort of amusement at our seats, because they were pretty ridiculous.

The van driver said something and people moved around a bit. Now I was in the middle of another row, and Wes was sitting behind the driver, leaning forward at an odd angle. We started off again. And the trunk popped open, spilling sacks out of the back. We stopped again.

Four men and I got out to help put things back in the trunk. When I got back, my space in THAT bench had shrunk to about half its original size as the guy next to me claimed more room than he should have had, and the woman next to me was a very large mama with a baby and her knees about as far apart as possible. Two hours or so later I'd lost all feeling in one of my legs and was starting to contract a headache. We made another stop, and I got off to try to regain feeling in my legs. Wes and I decided to try switching seats. It was slightly better in that it was a new position than the one I'd been in for the past two hours, but not much; it mainly just meant that my legs were burning in NEW places now. I glanced over and grinned a little; Wes had in no uncertain terms designated HIS space, and the guy who was intruding on mine the whole time looked decidedly less comfortable. I learned later that that's probably what I should have done in the first place, but was kind of stupid about it.

About a half an hour before we arrived at Thomas's site, the people in the front got out, and Wes and I moved in. Ahhh. I regained feeling in my legs.

It was dark by the time we arrived, and Thomas came to meet us. Somewhere along the lines Wes had made friends with the dala drivers, and told them we would be returning in two mornings. Thus ended the worst public transportation ride I've ever had in my life. But it was worth it...we were now in an actual rainforest.

Thomas bought us some sodas and led us to his house, served us dinner, generally took really good care of us. We talked a bit and went to bed fairly early, as Wes and I were both exhausted.

2006-08-24T19:33:00.000-05:00

Okay, making progress. I really want to write about this. Not only because I want to have a record about it to remember, and I want to share, but also because I've had so many new experiences and things going on within the past seven months that basically everything I've done is sort of in this huge knot or jumble in my mind. There's just SO much information in my head I can't really make sense of it all, and writing about it seems to be helping me organize it a bit. Anyway.

After the party at Clarissa's site we made dinner (fried rice and egg rolls! The egg rolls were amazing) and played Scrabble! The next day we left Clarissa's site and met a bunch of other peace corps volunteers for lunch in Moshi itself, then the other volunteers all left and it was just Wes and me again. We got a hotel in Moshi and stayed for two nights. It was nice; we spent some time exploring, and some time just relaxing, talked to some people, got my khangas sewn, went to a pretty cool rooftop bar...the rooftop bar was funny because we were the only people there that night, so we ended up having a fairly in depth conversation with some of the workers there about schools in America and various other topics. Moshi was also pretty good for my Swahili; I took every chance I got to speak it a little bit and I think improved a small amount. I like learning languages, and I like being able to understand - and contribute - to what's going on around me, and I also liked being able to show the Tanzanians that I had made an effort to understand THEIR language and culture instead of just assuming they'd know mine. I never learned all that much - six weeks, while it seems long, is sort of short for learning an entire language, even if you ARE immersed in it - but I was proud of myself for learning what I did.

The part that amused me most in Moshi, though, was when we went to get one of my kangas sewn by these two young women, probably around my age. They talked with us for awhile as they sewed and were fairly amused by us. Then Wes told them that I was his fiance (they don't really have a highly appropriate word for "girlfriend" that doesn't connotate "lover" so we figured we'd go with mchumbe instead) and one of the girls giggled and asked the equivalent of, "Do you want another?" Wes paused. "Uh...I have one." "Yes but do you want another?" Wes then explained that in America, you only have one, which sent them into gales of laughter.

After Moshi we took another bus to another village near Lushoto to visit another volunteer, Andrew. The bus dropped us off a couple of miles away from his village, since it was kind of small, so we walked up the mountain with our stuff. The walk, while kind of long and hot, was also pretty funny. We were greeted by sooo many people, and at one point there was this entire group of Tanzanian women all just standing there waving at us enthusiastically and all talking at once; I wish I could have taken a picture. And when we actually got to the site, the headmaster gave us sodas, and on the way back to Andrew's house, we attracted a following of a few children. Literally a following; they followed us almost all the way back to Andrew's house, and at one point started giggling and imitating the way I walked. It was hilarious. Cooked dinner at Andrew's house, and played Scrabble again, hehe.

The next day we stashed our stuff at Andrew's house and left early to go to Amani, which is a rainforest in the northeastern part of Tanzania. I'll write more about that later...

Tanzania trip, pt 1

2006-08-23T18:06:00.000-05:00

So, Tanzania. I keep promising I'm going to write about it and it keeps getting further and further away from the date I actually came home, so I'd better do it soon before I forget things.

For our trip, we spent the first night in Morgoro, then the next day took a LONG bus ride to a town near Moshi where a peace corps volunteer named Alex lived. We ended up on a sort of shady bus; it was a perfectly okay bus ride but at various points in time they had everyone in the back of the bus get up, walk to the middle or the front, and then crouch down. Wha? Other than that it was a fairly uneventful, seven hour bus ride, just sat and listened to music for most of it. Arrived in Moshi and were immediately swarmed by people; Wes somehow managed to make friends with them all in about ten seconds, then they helped us get on a dalla (the public transportation...it's like a large van almost into which they cram as many people as possible before going to their destination) where there was room for both us and our stuff, and even shooed away a crazy man for us. The whole scenario was somehow ridiculous, but made me laugh.

Alex's site was pretty cool; the next day Wes and I visited an amazing waterfall that was within walking distance of the site. It was interesting because it was really the first place I saw in Tanzania that wasn't Dar or Morogoro, and I had sort of grown used to the way things were in Morogoro. It's a lot more touristy in Moshi because Mt. Kilimanjaro is really close (unfortunately, we didn't get to see the top - it was too cloudy), and we noticed the effects pretty quickly. Everyone said "Jambo" when they saw us, which isn't actually what Tanzanians say to each OTHER, just what they say to the white tourists, and "Hello rafiki!" (friend), and "Hakuna matata" (which they ALSO don't say - they say it in Kenya; in Tanzania they say other things). It was weird. I don't understand why you would purposefully dilute your own language for the sake of the tourists. There definitely seem to be a lot of things in their culture that have either changed or developed because of tourists. I don't know what to think of that. There are so many things that can be said, both good and bad, of tourism. I think ultimately it's a good thing, obviously - I WAS a tourist there, so I can't exactly criticize the other tourists, but... I think that it can help break down stereotypes and better educate people about the world, but on the other hand, it can also CREATE stereotypes. So I guess the question is what's the good kind of tourist? How do you make sure that you make a positive impact instead of a negative one? Is it even possible to be sure of that?

Anyway, getting off topic a little...the waterfall was amazing, as I said; I posted some pictures...we went down this crazily steep path to get to it. The guide gave us walking sticks at the beginning and I didn't understand why I would need a walking stick, but I was extremely glad I took it once we started going down...we spent some time at the bottom just admiring the waterfall, then we were all ready to go when the guide asked if we wanted to go across to the other side of the river, which of course we did! That was probably my favorite part actually; we kicked off our shoes and walked across the rocks to get to the other side; it was just...fun. Some inner child in me still loves walking across rocks in water for some reason. We even could have gone swimming - the guide offered to show us the area where we could - but it wasn't very hot outside and we would have had to walk about a mile in wet clothes afterwards through a lot of areas with people, so we opted out of that one.

That night we went to Clarissa (Alex's girlfriend, another peace corps volunteer)'s site, and as we got there they were having a party! Not Clarissa; her school - they had just had some British students come and build them a classroom, and the students were leaving, so they threw a party for them, and we got to go at the tail end of it. It was a really cool experience. There was music on and everyone was dancing and I even had a teacher there decide she was going to be my friend, lol. It was definitely something I don't think I EVER would have experienced had I just gone there without going to see a peace corps volunteer. I was really amused by the music selection though...sort of regular African music, and then Celine Dion, and then Shaggy! ?!!? The teachers were even singing along to that one!

K, I'm going to leave that for now, I'll come back later, at least I've made a start!

Home

2006-08-01T07:22:00.000-05:00

So yeah, I'm jet lagged...woke up around forty five minutes ago or so and couldnt' get back to sleep. But that probably has something to do with the fact that I slept for about five hours after getting home, was up for around four, and then went back to bed at eight. But can you blame me? I was travelling for about 37 hours. Who WOULDNT sleep a lot after that? Probably the weirdest thing though is having Jessy come home for the night about twenty minutes after I wake up. Seeing as she brought in the newspaper when she got in though, I'm not sure whose sleep schedule is the strangest.

The trip home was okay...really long, as you may have guessed. Flew into Heathrow Airport from Dar, arrived about 4:30, and met Helen...then Helen was amazing and camped out in the airport with me until it was time for my checkin for my eight am flight the next morning. I have said it before and I will say again that I have awesome friends. It was such a strange thing to see the entire airport shut down and then wake up again. Then hopped on another airplane and flew home, met my parents at the airport, came home and slept.

The remainder of our trip was amazing, although I will write about it later at a more normal time of day. Saying goodbye to Wes again was...hard. Of course. And getting home was weird. It's good to be home but I'm really disoriented. I think I'm on sort of an emotional lockdown at the moment; I'd like to be excited about being home but I just feel kind of zoned-outness. Yes I realize zoned-outness is not a word. It's five in the morning, give me a break.

Anyway. I figure once my sleep patterns return to a semi normal state I should feel normal again as well. I did miss home. Seven months is a long time to be away. I am looking forward to seeing the friends I haven't seen for that long, although you might need to give me a day or two to feel human again.

Back to sleep, maybe? Not yet. Soon though.

Trying to figure out if I have time within the next two weeks to visit camp...

Beginning of our trip

2006-07-14T05:31:00.000-05:00

I didn't get that much time to write the last time I was online, spent all my time uploading pictures. :P But it was worth it, so that's okay. Anyway. I'm doing really well. Two days ago was the first day of Wes's leave time, so after Wes finished crazy amounts of grading chem exams, we got a ride to Morogoro and spent the night, and the next day we hopped on a bus to Marangu, a town near Moshi (which is by Mount Kilamanjaro - unfortunately it's too cloudy to see the mountain from here at the moment) to visit another peace corps volunteer. The bus was, well, entertaining...not a bad bus ride, but mildly shady - on two seperate occasions they had everyone in the back of the bus get up and move to the front in the middle of the aisle, and then...duck. ???

But other than that everything was pretty normal, and we got to Marangu without much event...oh, here's something - when you get off buses here (in Tanzania), you are usually swarmed by people who want to give you a taxi ride, or direct you where to go, or sometimes sell you food, water, or completely random things like wooden spoons... anyway, we were surrounded by lots of people at the dala stand who were eager to tell us where we had to go and find out more about us; Wes somehow managed to charm them all. Seriously. I don't cease to be amazed by his ability in this country to make everyone around him almost instantly like us.

One person was talking to me a bit, and I discovered that despite the fact that I know enough swahili at this point to at least get through the beginnings of a conversation and impart basic information about myself and Wes, when actually having a conversation all knowledge goes out the window. I can understand at least the general subject line of what people are asking me, but when actually asked to respond it's ridiculous. The guy asked how many weeks I'd been in Tanzania and I couldn't even remember the word for three; I had to sit there for a few seconds counting on my fingers going moja...mbili...tatu! "Tatu!" Not to mention that I know how to say "He is a teacher" and "I am visiting" but instead all I managed was to point at Wes and say "Mwalimu" (teacher) and myself and say "Mgeni" (visitor). Yeah...welcome to the world of Tarzan. I might as well have said "Me Christina." *shakes head* But on the up side, some other guy was talking to us on the way to the teacher's college where Wes's friend lives, and Wes sat silent and let me talk for awhile, and I managed to speak in coherent sentences that time, so maybe I'm not hopeless after all. :P

Anyway, so yesterday we were travelling for most of day, so just kind of chilled out at Alex's house (the peace corps volunteer) and talked for a bit. I like Marangu, its a definite different feel than Morgoro, and the air is different, so it actually feels like we travelled somewhere. I like it. It's very pretty (not that Morgoro isnt, just pretty in a different way); there's a stream nearby with all sorts of tropical looking trees; I'm looking forward to seeing more of it. Today I think we're going to just relax a bit...our plans are kind of relaxed for the next week or so, but I'll keep you posted if I can. Just letting you know I'm doing well, if you were wondering. :)

Fourth of July in a country that doesn't celebrate it

2006-07-04T14:24:00.000-05:00

Wow! Okay so I finally get a chance to sit down and write a little bit. This past week and a half has gone really well, with the exception of the lack of power all last week, but that wasn't a HUGE deal, just mildly annoying. I've been taking in a LOT and had a lot to process; this really is an amazing experience. (Not just because I get to see Wes. :P Although that's definitely the best part). But anyway. I'm not entirely sure where to start. I guess I could explain the last pictures I posted. Last Monday we had dinner over at the Igosha house, both the wife and the husband are teachers at Mzumbe Secondary. It was really nice; Mama Igosha was amazingly friendly and even showed me how to tie a khanga (finally!) which is what I am wearing in the picture. It never occured to me just how versatile a large piece of cloth could be. Seriously. Women use them for so much here. Skirts, dresses, shirts, shawls, they even tie them a certain way to hold their babies on their backs. Craziness. Plus I felt like people in Morogoro were a lot friendlier to me when I was wearing one. Not that they were UNfriendly before, just...friendlier. I like at least making the effort to show that I'm trying to respect the culture here. Same with the language. Although it's funny. People seem to vary between being surprised I know words like "hello" and "thank you" after being here for two and a half weeks, and seeming shocked that I'm not yet completely fluent in the language.

Anyway, Tuesday and Wednesday were good, Wednesday we played scrabble again with Wes's teacher friends (this time III won! It was really, really close though. Wes and I were neck and neck the whole time. And then we played again the next day and Wes beat me again. Rar. Just wait until next time! ) Thursday Mukama, Rugora, and Gosbert (the teachers) came back and came bearing meat, fried bananas, and drinks! They brought us dinner to welcome me to Tanzania. It was an absolutely amazing night. Everyone talked, and then we played this game where everyone wrote down questions to ask everyone else, not unlike questions in a fishbowl from camp or ASB, but sparked a two hour or so long, really good conversation. It was great.

The next day was amazing but for a completely different reason. We went into Morogoro and ended up going spur of the moment to this party at this guy Joel's house. (Joel isn't Tanzanian, I'm not sure what nationality he is, he works for a tabacco company). It was like a completely different world. Lots of rich people, hardwood floors, tons of food and , dancing...I had a really good time but I couldn't help being struck by the fact that it felt like we were lightyears away from Morogoro and Mzumbe even though we were IN Morogoro and only about a thirty minute drive away from Mzumbe. Anyway, Joel was really nice and even let us spend the night when it started getting late, and fed us awesome leftovers in the morning. :P

This week has been pretty good too, the power came back on, Wes has had a bit more free time, and we took a walk up the foothill of a mountain around sunset yesterday, which was amazing. (Pictures below)

Throughout everything I've been having more and more really interesting conversations; the culture's so different here. At the same time, I'm thinking that I'm pretty sure it's possible to feel at home anywhere. Cultures can be different but I think people are the same; you're always going to have the generous and the selfish, the outgoing and the shy, the rich and the poor, the kind and the rude, etc., and I think maybe it's possible to make friends anywhere if you can communicate. :)

Week 1 in Tanzania

2006-06-24T06:21:00.000-05:00

So, by tomorrow I will have been in Tanzania a week. I'm so glad I'm doing this. I am taking in so much and filing away in my head so many things to think about when I'm done processing all of this at a later date.

I'm working on learning some Swahili; I'm not doing too badly so far. I'm much less shy and more confident when I have at least a vague knowledge of what's going on around me, so I'm trying to learn as much as possible. I think I'm learning far faster here than I would in a classroom setting; there's definitely something to be said about learning by being placed IN the setting. I think I may have learned more swahili in the first week here than I learned french in my first month of french classes in high school. Then again its all still very tentative, but I'm doing my best, and people seem to appreciate that I'm making an effort at all. I'm also discovering that, although most people at wes's school speak english, they don't tend to understand me if I just talk normally. I talk to fast and, well, American. So I've been trying to slow down my speech a little bit and put more emphasis on consonants and using less contractions like Wes has been doing, but it's pretty funny, because then I get into a habit of doing that and then I end up talking to Wes like that as well. It goes the other way too though; when I start getting into a conversation I forget and start talking normally again, and then I find whoever I'm talking to sort of pause and stare at me for a second. Oops.

I've had some extremely, extremely interesting conversations with people so far. I had one very long conversation with a teacher (and later on two teachers) at Wes's school about teaching and educational systems; the pros and cons of teaching, the difficulties, whether it is better to have a more or less specialized educational system, and even talked a little about being far away from home. It was very cool to hear some of this teacher's perspectives. The beginning and end of the conversation was highly interesting to me, though. We were in the teacher's lounge and Wes was leaving to go to the computer lab; the teacher asked Wes if I could be allowed to stay and talk with him for awhile. (In English, and I was there. This keeps happening, and is bizarre. Wes's response was "its not up to me, its up to her," of course.) Anyway, the conversation was wrapping up, and Wes came back, and we were about to leave, and the teacher thanked Wes for "allowing" me to stay and talk with him. He kind of laughed and said he had nothing to do with it; it was my choice, and the teacher said, "Yes, but had you commanded her to go to the computer lab with you, she would have gone, wouldnt she?" He was highly surprised to hear both of us say that no, Wes would never order me to do anything, and if he ever started, instead of me following his commands, we probably wouldnt be dating anymore. I think we confuse people a little as a couple. Anyway, it sparked another fifteen minutes or so talking about gender equality; it was a really good conversation.

Had another interesting conversation yesterday; a student came into the computer lab where Wes and I were and said he wanted to ask Wes some questions about America. (I ended up joining in the conversation as well.) His first question was why everyone is rich in America, and upon being told that no, everyone is not rich in america, there are poor people there too, he wanted to know why there were poor people and rich people and whether it was God's doing or what the difference between the people were. The conversation spanned from inequality to diversity to differences between cultures to a lot of other things; it was fascinating both to hear these questions and try and think of how I would respond to them.

Outside of things I am learning, I saw some monkeys today! That made me smile. Just on the roof of some building, and in a tree. How cool is that?

I'm in WHERE?

2006-06-21T17:31:00.000-05:00

Leaving England was so strange. The last night Helen, Tom, and Gareth all slept in my room, hehe. Saying goodbye, driving away...it was weird. It's bizarre that there's a place I called home for the last five months, a specific group of people I hung out with for the last five months, and now I dont know when I'm going to see that place or if I'll ever be with that entire group of people again. (I'm most certainly going to see a few of them again, but whether I'll ever see them all at once again I'm not sure). The feeling was like leaving camp at the end of the summer times a thousand. I can't describe how much my flatmates did for me this past semester. They are truly amazing people and I hope you get to meet them someday if you haven't. You probably will; I don't plan on losing touch. :P

But feelings were mixed...once I finally got on the plane I started letting myself get excited. (I was trying not to let myself get excited before then; it would have been too difficult). I saw a beautiful sunset on the way, and even managed to get a few fifteen-minute intervals of sleep. It was hard towards the end of the flight, as when it got to about three hours away, three hours seemed sooo short comparitively speaking to how long we've been away from each other, but still kind of a long time to be really excited and have nothing happen.

But now...I'm in Tanzania. Seriously. That is INCREDIBLY weird to type. I'm HERE. And it only took a five and a half hour bus ride, six hours of waiting around in the airport, and a ten hour plane ride! Woohoo! (And then a two-three hour bus ride from dar to morogoro, then lunch in Morogoro, then another twenty minute car ride to Mzumbe...but that was with Wes so it's okay). Waiting in line for my visa was agonizing, as I knew Wes was right outside, but ooh it was so nice to see him again. It's amazing. And perfect. I missed him. Nine months is a LONG time. But now it feels kind of like we were never apart at all. It just feels so...normal.

So, Tanzania. Where do I start? I'm taking in sooo much so it's hard to process a little bit. Wes's site is gorgeous. We watched the sun set over the mountains the first night here; it's so cool to see mountains out the window of Wes's house. And then the stars were very pretty last night as well, although very strange; I've never been in the southern hemisphere before - it's weird not to recognize any of the constellations!

Hm, what else, the people. Everyone's been EXTREMELY nice so far. They all seem very happy to meet me and okay with the fact that I don't really speak Swahili. I'm working on learning, slowly, but so far most of my vocabulary is limited to Thank you, welcome, clean, (yeah they say clean in response to a lot of things here, its kinda funny), peacefully, you, and later, hehe. Luckily most people around here seem to speak English so it's all well and good. It's crazy to hear Wes speak swahili! I'm not used to hearing him talk and having absolutely no idea what he's saying. I'm really proud of him for it though. :P He's not going to brag about himself so I'll do it for him: so far I've seen him talk to people, interact, cook, be in the market, teach, work in the computer lab, and he's doing awesomely in every respect. *grin* I'm happy to have a boyfriend who's so adaptable and awesome at what he does, and everyone here seems to respect and like him. :)

Wes's neighbors have already had us over to dinner and are extremely nice, and one of the English teachers said that I could come in and observe her class. (Actually she was prepared to let me TEACH her class but I said I didnt think I was exactly ready for that. The conversation took a turn when she said "What book would you be interested in teaching?" "WHA? Hold up...") The headmaster seems thrilled that I'm here and even invited me to come eat lunch with all the teachers during the teachers meeting, and Wes's friends that I've met were amazingly friendly.

Although the friendliness is a little odd sometimes too. Everyone seems to know who I am on sight. It's a strange feeling. And kind of disconcerting at times. And meeting everyone can be a little intimidating. I got applauded when I walked into chai in the teacher's lounge! WEIRD. And then I sat in on a teacher's meeting, and the headmaster asked if I wanted to say a few words. Actually, he asked WES if I could say a few words, which was strange, the gender thing is a definite cultural difference that is very strange to me. Gender equality isnt quite there at the moment, as I've noticed in a few different situations, although mainly through observing others, not really through attitudes towards myself. Anyway, I said basically, hi, my name's Christina, thank you for welcoming me, I am happy to be here...and then promptly knocked over a plate. Oy. Smooth, Christina, really smooth.

The teacher's meeting was really interesting. I have tons of thoughts on it but I dont know if I'm going to write them all at the moment. Although the meeting was very long. I wasn't there for all of it, I left a few times. Already I think this trip is going to help me a lot as far as my educational viewpoints go. It's definitely a good experience to have and some good knowledge to pick up. If you want my thoughts on it, ask me.

Anyway. I have tons more I can write but I think I'll save it for a later date; I'm trying to do too much catch-up on this computer at the moment. But if you're wondering, I'm happy, in love, and doing great.

Ups and Downs

2006-06-10T14:26:00.000-05:00

World Cup Match: England, 1; Paraguay, 0. :)

I'm leaving England in a week. I'm still trying to comprehend this. It's so strange. I've been here five months, and it's become so much my home. It's so bizarre to think that when I leave here in a week, I will never be back to this in the same way again. Sure I'll be back to England; I'm DEFINITELY coming back to England. But I won't be living in Waveney, and I don't even know if my friends are still going to be in university still. That's STRANGE. How am I going to do this?

This semester really has been amazing for me. I am so glad I did it. I'm a different person than I was at the beginning of the semester, which might be a bit weird when I get back at first, but I'm pretty sure I like the change. I feel so much more adult than I did before coming here, so much more confident, so much less afraid that I won't be able to deal with things thrown my way. So many things that used to scare me or overwhelm are just normal, everyday things now not worth a fuss. It's amazing. And my flatmates were/are phenomenal. I couldn't have asked for a better set of people to help me adjust to being in another country and away from my family. It's going to be so strange not to see them every day and live with them just down the hall and see them randomly in the kitchen.

Not to mention that this semester I actually got to remind myself what it was like to RELAX. Sure I worked hard on my papers but I have had a few weeks after my exams with just...nothing. And at first I thought that would be strange; I like to feel productive, I like to feel like I'm making a difference somewhere. And I'm sure if I was just sitting around here for, say, another month, with nothing to actually do, I would begin to go a little crazy. But these past couple of weeks? They've been really, really good for me. I remember what it's like to just HAVE free time again, just relax and not worry about what else I have to get done before such-and-such a date. I remember how to breathe.

On the flip side, I miss my friends at home that it's been far too long since I've seen, and it's incredibly weird knowing staff training is now going on without me at camp. When I initially planned my summer, logically, I was thinking okay, I was maybe a little burned out this past summer, and I don't think I can really be a counselor again this summer, and maybe it will be good for me to take a break. But now that it's actually happening without me? It's so strange. The first time in seven years (I've gone eight years but I skipped a year in between the first and the second) that I won't be going to camp. I'm going to try and swing a visit in between getting home and school starting again but that's not exactly the same. Just another weird thing in the time marching on-ness. Hopefully camp doesn't forget about me. :P I will be back!

But on still yet another flip side, I am so happy that I'm going to be seeing Wes in eight days. Eight days! It's so nice to be able to count in days instead of weeks, to know that NEXT SUNDAY I'll be stepping off a plane in Tanzania and remember what it's like to have a boyfriend I can actually SEE, in person. Not to mention hug, or kiss. Rarrr. I'm in a slight amount of shock that it's actually been almost nine months. Three quarters of a YEAR. WHAT? But, we actually did it. We made it three quarters of a year and are still going strong. That's got to say something.

As you can probably tell from this entry, my emotions are ridiculously up and down lately. That's understandable though I guess. But I wouldn't give anything I've done or am doing up, so it's worth it. :)

Europe Trip Pt. 3

2006-05-08T12:08:00.001-05:00

Okay, I need to speed this up, sorry those other two were so long, I'm just trying to remember everything I can!

Hm. Venice. Venice was beautiful, and our hostel was awesome (an amazingly nice lady who gave us a map and glass figurines, and super nice rooms), but I have two complaints about it. One is that I don't know if it entirely lives up to expectations - I saw a row of about eight gondolas that looked like they were part of some boat ride at Disney World or something, and the gondoliers all look severely bored. (No we didn't go on a gondola ride, they're insanely expensive). The other is that Venice is great, and the canals are pretty...until you actually need to GET somewhere. I got lost in Venice for about two hours. I ended up in random residential areas, random store areas, none of the streets go straight, and even got to one point where I could SEE EXACTLY where I needed to go, with the exception of the eight foot gap of water in between me and the path and no bridges in sight. (I momentarily debated long jumping it - TECHNICALLY I should be able to jump it, eight feet really isnt that far for a long jump, but decided that would probably end in badness). After two hours of wandering and fighting back tears as I had no map and no phrasebook and couldn't find anyone who could tell me where to go that I could understand, I finally made it back. Highly stressed and trying to swallow a lump in my throat, I didn't say anything but instead just sat next to Andrew without a word, unfortunately started crying about two minutes later. Poor Andrew. Ah well.

But yes, despite that two hours of intense frusturation, I did enjoy my time in Venice, mostly our time visiting this island called Ludo that had a beach we picnicked on and just spent time walking around. On to Nice, we took our first night train, which was pretty cool, as the fourth person in our car didn't show up for about an hour so for the first hour or so it was just Mary, Andrew, and me, so had some fun talking/reading/dodging pillows aimed my way by Andrew.

Nice is beautiful. I've come to the conclusion that the Mediterranean is absolutely gorgeous no matter where you see it. (We saw it again in Barcelona and it was just as pretty). Spent some time chilling on the beach and exploring; it really is just amazinlgly beautiful. Best part of Nice was climbing on these huge rocks that went down from a path to the water itself. Spent about two hours randomly clambering over rocks. Unfortunately I chose that day of all days to wear the skirt I had brought in case we ended up going to church on Easter, so scuffed up my shoes a bit and was a bit unladylike at times, but who cares, it was fun. Spent most of that day just chilling out. That night we took a walk down the beach again which was mildly disconcerting - it got to the point where the ocean was black and the sky was black, so when you looked across the beach it looked like the world just...ended, right there. Mary and I spent some time walking towards it and creeping ourselves out. It really was sort of humbling.

The next morning was mildly stressful, to put it lightly. Said goodby to Andrew, went to the train station, then the fun began. We had Eurorail passes and so thought that we could just hop on the train to Paris at the time it said and all would be well. Not so. I went to check with the information guy just to verify the platform we were on, but as soon as I said "we need to go to Paris" (in French!! Hehe that was fun), he said "You need a reservation." (In English, unfortunately, kinda disappointing). "Do I NEED a reservation?" "Yes." Okay. Off to find Mary, wait in line for the ticket window, get up there, tell the guy what we need...

"It's full." "It's what?" "Full." "Can we take a connection somewhere?" "What?" "A connection." "I dont understand. Do you speak any french." "Un peu." "Can you ask it in french." This being the first time I've really had to speak french in about a year without rehearsing what I was going to say in my head first, I fumble a little bit, and in horrible, horrible grammar and accent, come out with, "Oui, j'essaiyais...est-ce qu'ils sont les autres desinations qui nous pouvons prendre...um..." trail off weakly, "...that will eventually get us to Paris?" Smooth. Real smooth. Guy looks at us blankly. We walk off, me kicking myself.

Anyway, we did eventually get to Paris... More later. :)

Europe Trip Pt. 2

2006-05-03T16:40:00.001-05:00

Okay, continuing...next day, woke up reasonably early, hopped on a train to Florence. We took a different train than Andrew because we had rail passes and he didnt, so decided to meet up at a specific time at our hostel. Our hostel in Florence was in a much, much better location than Rome, but I didnt' like how it was run as much. For one, we didnt get much of an introduction to the place, as the other people who arrived at the same time didnt have a reservation, and they guy spent most of his time yelling at them for it. (?) Also, the proprietors of the hostel appear to have decided to fill the largest amount of space possible with beds, and therefore there was about a foot of space between each bed and it was extremely difficult to walk anywhere in the room. (Not to mention that Mary and my bed (they gave us a double, for some reason) was right next to the bathroom so EVERY time someone went to the bathroom it bumped our bed. Oy). But it wasn't a horrible place all in all, so no big deal. We settled in and had an amazing lunch at the restaurant next door, then went in front of our steps to meet Andrew.

Or would have, had Andrew been there. He wasn't. We waited on some steps nearby, wandered a bit, came back...still no Andrew. Once it reached about an hour or so after we were supposed to meet, we begin to worry a bit, so decide to find a computer lab and email him in hopes that he might do the same if he had problems finding us. We sit down, email him, and then I just happen to look out the door at the exact moment that Andrew walks past. Weird. Turns out his train had some problems on the way there, and then he had difficulty finding our hostel. But now all is well.

Time to explore Florence. Florence we don't know as much about as Rome, and we're a bit museumed and monumented out for the time being, so we decide to just explore. My absolutely brilliant idea is "Let's walk towards the mountains." Now, if you understand the geography of Florence (which I didn't at first), you will realize that it is a ludicrous idea since you could walk in pretty much any direction and you will STILL be walking "towards the mountains."

Somehow, despite the idiocy of the comment, it still managed to work out really well...we walked towards the mountains we could see, walked along a really pretty river, and then discovered that there were steps leading up the sides of one mountain-like area. Climb the steps to a piazza on the top with an absolutely amazing view. We admire it for awhile, then decide to follow the road upwards and see where it leads. We discover an extremely pretty (but NOT insanely ornate) church, and an even better view, and sit there and watch the sun set over the mountains and over florence. It was absolutely beautiful and one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Next morning we discover why not everyone likes to stay in hostels. The first alarm goes off at 2:30 in the morning. That person gets up to take a shower (in the bahtroom right next to our bed). I check my clock, blanche, roll over and go back to sleep. The next alarm comes seemingly immediately after I obtain sleep again. This continues, in a nice little pattern, until absolutely about 8:30. For some reason every single other person in our hostel room was leaving that day and decided to get up and shower obscenely early. Ah well.

Our own alarms go off the second everyone has vacated the room and stopped waking us up; we shower and then go downstairs to a cafe right next door to grab breakfast on our way to Andrew's hostel, where we agreed to meet. We ask for a pastry and the guy asks if we have tickets. "Tickets?" Is this some strange form of Italian currency? No. Turns out that we're supposed to get free breakfast because we're staying in the next door hostel, and they were supposed to have given us tickets for it but in their hurry at yelling at the random people they forgot. At least I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they forgot. So we go back up to the hostel and obtain these "tickets," go back down. (This is after the hostel owners tell us not to tell any of the other hostel residents about these tickets...interesting...)

The guy asks what we want. I point at a nice looking pastry with a sign in it that says "Dolci" so I assume thats the name of the pastry. "Dolci?" "Which one?" "Dolci." "Point at it." Confused as to why he's not understanding that I want the one that says "dolci," I point, and obtain it and a pretty decent cup of coffee in exchange for my ticket. Later I realize that "dolci" merely means "sweet thing" or something along those lines, and I was basically repeating, over and over again, the equivalent of, "'Cake?' 'Which one?' 'Cake.'" Score one for the oh so intelligent tourist.

We arrive at Andrew's hostel, a bit late, and go to explore Florence some more. We find a pretty cool market that we pass an hour or so in wandering, then Mary and I go off to a food market to get food for another picnic while Andrew goes to move his stuff into our hostel (he's staying in our hostel that night but could only get it that night and not both). The market is really cool. Its a covered market area and has an insane amount of food stalls. We purchase some bread, meat, cheese, another bottle of wine (this time local to Florence) (in case you're wondering, in most places we went wine actually ended up being cheaper than water or at least about the equivalent of the price, strangely enough), and some awesome looking desert pastry things, all for about 3 euros per person.

The other interesting part of the market was that one of the stalls was giving out samples, and I picked up a small piece of bread that had things on it that looked like some form of Bruschetta. As I pick it up, some Italians turn towards us and say something and gesture to the bread. We determine that they're saying "It's hot, be careful" by way of a nice woman who translates when we look extremely confused. Me, thinking they meant hot temperature-wise, bite into it carefully, but I'm just in the midst of saying, "Wow, thats' really good, and its not hot at all," and offering it to Mary (she takes a bite), when my mouth starts burning. Oh. THAT kind of hot. We race around for about five minutes looking desperately for a place that sells something to drink to soothe the crazy burning sensations in our mouths, when I remember I have a bottle of water in my purse. We down it in about three seconds and have to go through quite a bit of bread before feeling okay again. Whoops.

Return, take our picnic to the Boboli Gardens but we're told that we can't take food inside so we eat on this really nice, slanted area on which many people are sunbathing and just generally enjoying the warmth. We enjoy awesome sandwiches and deserts; at some point in time Andrew's orange (which is on a slanted platform) begins to roll. I make a grab for it and fail, realize there's no way I can get it before it runs into something, I decide to wait until it stops to get it as to not run like an idiot after a rolling object down a hill. As I decide this, I glance down and realize that the "thing" that's going to stop the orange, if it continues in the path it is, is a woman's head. I leap to my feet, cue running like an idiot after an object rolling down a hill, but don't manage to catch up to it until it collides with aforesaid head. I say "Sorry! Sorry!" momentarily forgetting the often used "Mi scusi" that I've learned since being in Italy, woman gives me a dirty look, I return with orange, all is well. We turn our attentions to the wine bottle; an hour or so later of key-drilling, we have wine in plastic bottles. Classy.

Go into the Boboli Gardens. They're really pretty, although I'm not sure if they were worth the seven euros to get in, but still, pretty. While we're there Mary runs into her friend Joe who goes to U of I and is studying in Verona (random coincidence #2). They catch up, we stay until we're kicked out of the gardens. After we part ways with Joe we find an internet cafe where I can take time out of our exploring to sit at a foreign keyboard for an hour and do an email interview for ASB board, then we go for an AMAZING dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Next morning we get up early to go see the David, by Michelangelo. Wait in a long line, I go to check exactly how long the line is, and I come back and there's Dan and Meredith (two MORE people from U of I that we met over London weekend). Random coincidence number three. After awhile in line, we get in and see David. I wasn't sure what to expect of it, or if it would be worth it to wake up early and wait in line to see it, but it definitely was; it's a really cool statue. It's insanely lifelike, you can see the veins in his HAND, I can't imagine having the skill to carve something like that, one slip up and it's all over. *shakes head*

More later...I'll cut down on the details at some point, its just nice to have a record.

Europe Trip: Part One

2006-04-30T12:58:00.001-05:00

Europe Trip - Part one

Promised I'd tell more about the trip! Here's a bit about it, I think I'll give it in pieces.

We started in Rome; landing in a somewhat turbulent ride that started the entire front half of the plane yelling "Ahh!" like you would excitedly on a rollercoaster at the drops at every bump, and then sparking spontaneous applause when we actually landed. It was pretty funny. Anyway, we got off the plane, took a bus to the train station, then walked about a block to our hostel. We walk through a somewhat shady area, lots of graffiti and people who look like they are waiting around for a drug deal, then walk up to this door that says "Eden b&b" (our hostel is called Hostel Eden) with a door and lots of buttons on the side with names next to them. We look at them confusedly for a second as there are about three buttons that all say hostel eden with a random number next to the words, and finally decide just to press a random one and see what happens. The door opens, we walk in, are immediately greeted from a tiny kitchen area by a guy blowing smoke out of his nose!

After some initial apprehension, it turns out that the guy is named Salvadore and he's actually extremely nice and helpful; he pulls out a map and circles the areas that tourists usually like to visit, and even circles, with a different color, grocery stores and internet points, then takes us up a TINY elevator (called by mary the wonka-vator, as it bears a strange resemblance to the tiny little elevator they all go into at first in the original movie) to a surprisingly nice, flat-like area that bears a kitchen, a bathroom, some security lockers, and our bedroom. We happily rid ourselves of our backpacks and then begin the excitingness of the trip - we take a nap.

We wake up refreshed and hungry, we go and each have a pizza at a nearby restaurant...at the end, we get our bill, there is a random 3 euro charge for we don't know what; as we try to decipher the bill we strike up a conversation with a random British couple whose table is right next to us. We determine that the charge is for having a table outside (stupid random charges without prior warning), and proceed to have a good thirty minute long discussion with the couple. They turn out to be really cool people; they've travelled all over the world and they're taking a stop on their way to visit their son and daughter in law who live in Venice for Easter, and they give us advice on various places in Italy. Eventaully we say goodbye and thank them for their help, its about 10:30 or so by theis point, and given the area of our hostel, we decide to return and save exploring for the next day.

The next morning we find Andrew on the front steps of our hostel; hellos are exchanged and then we set off to explore. The first stop is the Colloseum; we take a minute to be completely awed by the fact that we're actually standing in front of the colloseum, then walk over to figure out how to go inside. There's a ridiculously long line, but we pay an extra few Euros for a tour of the place and of Palatine hill, which has the satisfying result of jumping the line, and are educated and entertained by an Italian guy with a slightly crude sense of humor, but it was still nice to actually learn things about the Colloseum and Rome in general as our first activity there. Unfortunately, as Mary and I were so excited about the warmness of the morning, we both neglected to wear coats, and as it gets cloudy and drizzly it gets somewhat COLD so I spent most of the tour shivering, but ah well. Sun started coming out, for which we were grateful, and we took our tour of Palatine Hill and the forums, which was extremely cool. Its so weird to look down on this area that has existed far longer than anything in the US, and to think about Romans meeting there so long ago, and realize that this is it, its the real thing, not a movie, not a recreation. I had a lot of those moments on the trip in general. After hearing about places in school and just in general, and always having them seem so far away, both in distance and in history, its incredibly strange to suddenly be confronted by them in reality.

Explored Rome more, went to Trevi fountain, which is an amazing fountain that also happens to have an amazing gelato place nearby...Italian ice cream is amazing, by the way. It's soooo good. I think we had gelato every single day that we were in Italy. There were one or two days we had it twice. I don't think I've ever had ice cream that tasted THAT good. After sitting by Trevi fountain for awhile, we bought some food for a picnic, and walk to this area called Pinchot. Somewhere along the lines we also spent some time sitting on the Spanish steps. Here's where I begin to realize the drawbacks of visiting an extremely touristy city. There are people EVERYWHERE trying to sell you things in Rome. Roses, random weird balloon things, sunglasses, you name it, I'm sure theres some guy, somewhere, in Rome chasing people around trying to sell it to them. Anyawy, we finally get to Pinchot, which is really cool...it overlooks a piazza and, if you look out further, basically all of Rome. It was soooo pretty. We found a random bench in the park and enjoyed our sandwiches and the view.

Next day we went to the Vatican relatively early, as on Wednesdays at the Vatican the pope has a general audience. We got seats and heard the pope, who gave a blessing in about five different languages, which was kind of cool. Everything in the Vatican is...immense. I'm not sure how I felt about it to be honest. Here is the seat of Catholicism, the center of it, and it's just so...elaborate and ornate and showy. I don't know. I had the same conflicting feelings every time I looked at one of the insanely detailed and expensive cathedrals. I think about all the money and time that went into these buildings, and I'm not sure how to feel. On the one hand, it's amazing that people spent that much time and money and dedicated it to God, but on the other, it seems to me that it could all be better spent on the people who the church says it helps? Not to mention, I don't know...buildings don't make me feel closer to God. It's a building. It can be a very very beautiful building, and I'll look at it and even be awed by it because of its beauty and detail, but I just can't connect elaborate, ornate buildings with spirituality in my mind. Again, I can't figure out how to feel about it. Maybe I'll figure it out with time, but something tells me it might just be something I'm eternally baffled by.

After seeing the pope, we wandered around for awhile and then went into the Vatican Museum. The Vatican Museum is...enormous. It would take...weeks to see everything in there and even then its somewhat mazelike so you might end up missing something. We had been advised by one of the people in our hostel that if you want to see the Sistine Chapel its a good idea to head straight to it or you'll be so overwhelmed by the time you get there you won't be able to appreciate it, so we did, and discovered it was good advice. There's a loooonnng amount of hallways and rooms on the way to the Sistine Chapel, so admired the art along the way, and then finally arrived at the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel really is all everyone says it is, it was amazing, I can't imagine the time and attention to detail it must have taken to finish it. The atmosphere was spoiled a bit by insane amounts of people and an ineffective security guard who every ten minutes said "Shhhh!!!! No pictures! No talking!" which I found kind of humorous, but we spent quite a bit of time just...looking.

We reached our limit of intakes of art and left, feeling slightly overwhelmed with even the amount we had seen. Went back, seeing the Pantheon on the way, and bought some pasta for dinner. Andrew did most of the work on the pasta cooking (and did an amazing job, may I add) as our kitchen was kind of small and it's somewhat difficult to figure out what the other two people should do once the process of cooking is started, and then we wrapped in up with insane amounts of plastic wrap and proceeded to walk around various sections of rome for about two hours looking for a park on the map we had decided would make a good picnic spot. By the time we go there, it was dark, and looked like a decidedly shady place for a picnic in the nighttime, so instead at by this balcony area that had an awesome view of rome and a beautiful fountain, but also happened to be right next to a main road so we had quite a few cars going past at all times. We ate the (amazing) pasta (props, Andrew), and then set to work on the bottle of wine we had brought with a key, as we realized none of us had a bottle opener. A few minutes later and some drilling, we enjoyed some cheap (but good) Roman wine, and then were on our way back to our respective hostels.

Granada

2006-04-27T10:35:00.000-05:00

Granada is AMAZING. This whole trip has been amazing. I don´t know if I can describe it. We fly home tonight, then we get to sit around in an airport for about six hours until the earliest train back to Norwich from London leaves, then we´ll finally be back to campus probably around 10 in the morning. This trip has been so worth every penny I´ve spent on it.

Lots of stories to tell, done tons of things, seen lots of sights, I dont really have time to write about all of it right now nor do I think I will ever write about ALL of it as that would be one ridiculously long entry, but I´ll at least go over hilights or post pictures or something.

We went to the Allhambra yesterday, which is basically a castle...it´s the palaces where the sultans used to live when the Arabs took over Granada, its beautiful, but even more beautiful was the view from the top of the bell tower. It was one of the most intensely beautiful things Ive ever seen in my life. You could basically see all of Granada, the Sierra Nevadas, beautiful sky, oh yeah and a castle that you just happened to be standing in. I have no words.

More when I get back!

The Epic Battle Against the Silverware Box

2006-04-09T17:37:00.000-05:00

There is one small kitchen in our peaceful living space for twelve people. So, naturally, the dishes sometimes stack up fairly high. One of our brave women "solved" this problem by placing a box on the floor into which all dirty dishes every day the kitchen was cleaned went.

This was the start of something terrible. As things tended to sit in the box for days, even weeks, people became less and less willing to venture into the dark unknown of what became known as "there." (As in, "I'm afraid to look in there.") Forks, spoons, and all sorts of cutlery began to mysteriously disappear into the box's infernal stomach as the box gobbled up all in sight and began to be a breeding ground for it's infernal army of bacteria and mould.

Today, quite rightly anticipating that, if left alone throughout the entire month long break, the box would have sprouted legs and probably fur by the time we all returned and be in the process of taking over not only the kitchen, but the world, I waged war against the box. It was a dangerous mission, I know, but somebody had to do it. It was difficult and long, and at times it was tempting to give up...the box had too many weopons at its disposal. But I pressed on. I even attacked them with a soft squishy thing called a "sponge." I realize that it may have been morally questionable on my part to use such a terrible weopon, but I had to take every advantage I could find...the box's powers were too many.

After an epic battle, I prevailed. The box was reduced to a flat piece of cardboard as each of its insides was extracted and soaked in that terrible killing mechanism called "soap." I stood, triumphant, and raised my soap-covered hands in the air, rightfully reclaiming the kitchen as Waveney territory.

American Stereotypes

2006-04-01T13:12:00.000-06:00

Conversation today:

(Me looking at key ring): "Oh you drive a Ford?"
"Yeah. (surprised tone of voice) Do you have fords in America?"
Me: "Yeah, isn't it an American car?"
"Oh, right, it's just that Ford makes some smaller cars and I thought you all drove huge gas-guzzling ones in America."

This was said in a completely serious tone of voice.

Sparked a conversation about stereotypes - British, American (um, basically from what I can tell the entire world has pretty negative stereotypes of us, sorry guys), etc. I've had this conversation a few times with people this semester. I am continually amazed when the actions of a few, or even many, turn into views of how all people in one country behave. You're almost always going to find people who fit stereotypes for a specific country/group, but you're also almost always going to find people who completely blow every stereotype out of the water. It seems to me that people are people, and human nature should be the same no matter what part of the world you're in. Why do we feel such a need to group people instead of taking them on an individual basis?

I'm getting more English by the hour

2006-03-19T11:25:00.000-06:00

I'm in a good mood today, and was yesterday as well. I feel so different lately. I am different. I'm not the same person I was when I got here. I don't know if it's noticeable to anyone else, or will be, but I notice it, and I kind of like it. :) I was wondering the other day what it's going to be like when I get back. I'm proud of myself though. That I'm doing this. I really am.

Interesting week...good for the most part though. These next couple of weeks are going to be a little stressful as it's coming close to the end of term so I have to get it together and everything's due in about two weeks. But I think I can handle it. I'll be working on a story after this shortly, and then reading for Shakespeare, then more working on story, then hopefully starting on an essay...everything's due at the same time but I figure as long as I'm thinking about it and worrying about it now (two weeks ahead of time) it should be okay. And then it will be spring break!!!! I can't stress to any end how excited I am about this trip.

It's March 19. It's been exactly half a year since Wes left for Tanzania. That's so strange. I miss him. But the good thing is, and the reason I write about it here, is that I don't see our relationship as having weakened in the slightest. In fact I think it might be stronger.

I realize that I've gotten used to being here when I:

-Say "cheers" without thinking about it
-Automatically think of a soccer ball when someone mentions "football"
-Say "trousers" instead of "pants."
-Called college "uni" the other day
-Don't feel odd ordering a drink in a pub
-Am not surprised by cars on the left side of the road
-Actually know my way pretty well around Norwich and no longer have to think about saying "Norrich" instead of "Nor-which"
-I sing along with and recognize British music

English healthcare and conversation of the week

2006-03-10T16:33:00.000-06:00

I went to the travel clinic on Monday to talk to them about going to Tanzania and what shots I would need/how I would get them. I need a ridiculous number - probably like six. yikes! It will be worth it though. And on the upside, I love the English National Health Service!!! I found out the yellow fever shot would be like 30 pounds, and after she outlined all the other shots I needed I began to get a bit nervous about cost, and asked "How much will all this cost?" and she went, "Oh it's covered." "It's what?" "It's covered, the National Health Service covers it. You're very lucky." "Um, yes I am!!"

Conversation of the week:

Cassie (talking to a friend of hers): Christina's going to Tanzania this summer.
Friend: Awesome! Why are you going?
Me: To visit my boyfriend; he's in the peace corps
Friend: That's so cool! I wish I had a significant other in Africa.
Me (Grin): Yeah, but then your signficant other would be in Africa.

Things to Remember in the UK

2006-02-19T16:25:00.000-06:00

If you ever go to the UK, remember:

Say "trousers" if you mean "pants." If you say "pants" they will think you mean underwear. Hence if you say, "I'm wearing a skirt because I have to do laundry - I don't have any more clean pants" they will look at you very strangely.

Jelly=jam, and jello=jelly. I mentioned a "jelly donut" and Gareth and Kunsang were very confused until Gareth figured out I meant a "jam donut" - jelly here is jello, and so that would be a very strange donut. That's also why the idea of "peanut butter and jelly" confuses them so much.

"I plead the fifth" will draw blank stares from most people, lol.

They're not going to understand why you're so fascinated with castles. Or cathedrals. And they don't understand why the idea of going to another country for the weekend is so shocking.

Have a pasty!! No I didn't forget the r, I don't mean pastry, I mean pasty. They are amazing! Like chicken pot pie almost, at least the one I got was (it obviously depends on what kind you're getting) except way better and portable. Yuummmm.

They have this candy called fruity babies. They're like gummy bears, except shaped like babies. Sooo strange. And hilarious. I found myself thinking of certain camp people who would appreciate them, lol, and also found myself walking around holding out the bag asking "want to eat a baby?" I don't really find dead baby jokes all that funny usually but the bizarreness of it was hysterical to me.

That's all I can think of for now...things are going well, speeding up a bit, I can't believe it's already pretty much halfway through the term. (Classes end April 8, then a month of spring break, then exams.) The last couple of weeks of term are going to suck because I'm going to have all my coursework due then - and coursework here is worth 50% of my grade in two of my classes and 100% in the third, so it's IMPORTANT, but I'm doing my best to stay on top of things and get a head start on things now. This semester is going FAST and I have a feeling it's going to start going even faster.

I've started planning spring break with Mary...so far plans are minimal. Well, very minimal, lol, we just have a rough outline of the places we want to go. But so far I've come to two conclusions about spring break. One, it's going to be AWESOME. Two, I'm going to be BROKE. Severely. But it will be worth it. Our plan is to go to France (Paris and Nice - Nice because I was adamant about seeing the Meditteranean), Italy (Rome and Venice), and Spain (Barcelona). This of course depends on time and money constraints (I'm willing to spend the money to have the experience, but if my money runs OUT thats kind of a problem, lol), but I'm hoping we can make it work. (If for some reason you're in Europe and you want to meet up with us for any of those countries, let me know!)

Ummmmm...can't think of anything else. More later!

London

2006-02-15T12:56:00.000-06:00

Wow. I don't even know where to start. There's been so much going on the past week or so. For one, I'm now twenty!! That's incredibly bizarre to say. I feel very old and very young all at once. Thank you so much to everyone who was awesome and emailed me/facebook messaged me/mailed me/called me with birthday wishes. :) It made me smile. I also got a call from Rachel and Melissa about 2:30 in the morning on my birthday, which made them officially the first people from home to wish me happy birthday, lol. It was good to talk to them. And my parents called me, and it was good to talk to them as well. Twenty! It's still weird to say.

My birthday went well, although I was kind of sickish, which sucked a little bit, I slept for a lot of it, lol. I got back extremely late from London weekend, and felt kind of sick in the morning, but just took some medicine and went back to sleep and felt mostly okay after that. When I woke up again I had two cards from my flatmates under my door, which was really nice. Later they all made me dinner and brought in a cake! :) It was extremely awesome and nice of them. It definitely made me smile. I'm lucky to have such awesome flatmates.

London. Was. Amazing. I absolutely loved it. I will write a more complete description of it sometime soon but it was just such a cool experience. I couldn't get over the fact that I was in LONDON. I saw the clock tower that houses Big Ben (which, by the way, is the bell and not the tower), the houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace (no I didn't see the changing of the guards, that only happens every other day and not the day I was there, but I fully plan on going back to London at some point so I'll see it eventually), some amazing cathedrals, the national portrait gallery, the Thames, the Tower of London, the place where the Mayflower was built...it was just amazing. It was the coolest experience to see all these places I've only heard about and thought that was all I'd ever do, places that I've always just sort of waved off as "oh that's cool but that's in Europe somewhere..." I also went to Greenwich, which is really cool, stood on the Prime Meridian, and explored the National Martime Museum and the British Museum, which were both really cool...almost all of the museums are free in London which is definitely a plus. We even saw a play in a theatre, although that was a little strange as the play was an American play (Once in a Lifetime) that was set in America, which meant that the actors were British actors all pretending to be American, so we were all Americans sitting in a theatre in Britain listening to British actors take on American accents, lol. They actually did really well, I felt like I was in America most of the time, although that was the weird part - I went to London to see a play that made me feel like I was in America? They did slip occasionally, at least a few of them did, which was interesting. It was kind of funny, although, while the scenery and costuming in the play was amazing, the plotline left a little to be desired. We even had tea at Kensington Palace! That was such a cool experience; we sat at tables in this palace with cups of tea, and got cucumber sandwiches cut into little rectangles, and cake, and it felt so surreal, like I was seven again and having a "tea party" except it was actually REAL.

End verdict: London is an awesome, awesome city, and if you ever get the chance to go you should. The tube system was excellent, too. It was so easy to get around. I had a strange moment on the tube when we were all going somewere on Sunday, as I looked at the tube map, figured out where we needed to go and where we needed to change trains, and got us there, and it was just such an amazing feeling to feel completely comfortable and at ease finding my way around a city in another country. That was my turning point, I think, when I realized I really won't be completely the same person when I come back. I don't know if I'll seem any different but I am changing a little, slowly, and it's strange to realize that I am while I'm in the process of doing so.

Random Notes About the UK

2006-02-03T11:30:00.000-06:00

A lot of people here say "all right?" when you're walking instead of "how are you." It's really confusing because I always want to answer, "yeah I'm fine, why?" It took me about two weeks to figure out that "all right?" was a form of greeting and you should respond, "Yes, you?"

They don't have grape here. I mean, they have grapes, but nothing really grape flavored that I have seen. Instead, they have black currant. It's strange. A lot of people here think the idea of peanut butter and jelly is very weird.

At UEA, a lot of people go home on the weekends, and the locals are the ones who go out. This means that nobody at this university really goes out on the weekends, but Tuesday and Thursday it's fair game. (Which works okay for me since I have no class on Wednesday, lol).

They drink a lot more frequently, and many are amazed that we can't drink until we're 21 in the US.

Apparently there's a lot of problems for redheads here. Two of my friends here have red hair and both have mentioned difficulties with it growing up. Really weird.

TOO MANY COINS. Lol. At home I rarely carry around all that much change, and while I don't waste it, I usually think of it as fairly expendable. Here, they have a pence coin, a two pence coin (tuppence, I finally understand that now), a five pence coin, a ten pence coin, a twenty pence coin, a fifty pence coin, a pound coin, and a two pound coin. The lowest denomination in a bill they have is five pounds. So if I want to carry anything less than the equivalent of about 9 or 10 US dollars, I'm carrying ALL change. I am learning very fast that coins aren't quite as expendable as they are in the US.

The American Revolution is pretty much a footnote in their history books. I learned in a conversation yesterday night that they barely learn about it at all. They just don't see it as important.

Norwich supposedly has "a church for every week and a pub for every day."

They love to queue. I don't know why. You see queues (lines) for the weirdest things. The other day there were queues about twenty people long for every ATM on campus.

They are a LOT more friendly to students. Almost every restaurant in Norwich has a student discount if you show them your student ID. Railfare and hostels are cheaper as well if you're a student. However, that is offset by the fact that almost everything is more expensive here. A "cheap" meal if you go out to eat is like 5 pounds, like ten dollars. Oy. It's pretty much a given that I'm not going to eat out much. However, the few times I have the food has been very good.

That's all I can think of for the moment. Just randomness.

Queues are inescapable!

2006-01-16T11:55:00.000-06:00

Last night I watched Batman Begins with some of the people on my flat. Everyone really is very nice. I hung out in one girl's room for awhile, and we finished watching batman begins and watched a little bit of Romeo Must Die, which is the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen, at least the parts I saw of it. We were making fun of the "gangsters" a little bit and then they were imitating gangster talk, except, obviously, with british accents. That was pretty funny. After that I got tired and went back to my room to...not sleep. I'm amazed at how long its taking to shake this jet lag thing. I laid there until about three or so, at which point I called Wes, who's three hours ahead from here, with "So I figured you might be getting up around now..." He answered with, "Isn't it like three oclock for you?" "Yup...." But luckily after talking to him for a little while I was able to fall asleep. although these stupid phone cards are ripping me off. The phone card I had was supposed to be a 53 minute phone card but it cut out after about 35 minutes. NOT cool. I need to find a different international phone card service maybe.

I registered today. It was...insane. First I waited in a long line at the Council House (a building where registration stuff is taken care of, I guess), and then was told that "all american studies and literature students" could go through the middle as I guess there wasn't as long of a line. But when I got up there I was told that the new students, the international students, had to go to a different line so I had to go wait at the end of another line until I finally turned in my registration form. I was given a packet with a lot of information, including my classes, but thats all it told me, was my classes. Not where they were, not when they were...I asked the woman who gave me the packet where I could find that out and she said there was a timetable on the wall in the art building. So I went to the art building to check the timetable, and then it had all these confusing things like "group one, group two," etc next to the course titles and times. so I check another list that lists all the courses in american studies and literature and with people's names underneath the courses saying what groups they're in, but I'm not listed anywhere on that list. I ask another student where to go to ask about that, and she directs me to an office where I wait in a short line to be told to check the list that I just checked. I told her that I had already checked that list, and that I wasnt on it, so she proceeded to lead me down the hall and SHOW me where the list that I had already checked was. I told her again that I wasn't on this list, but apparently she didnt believe me because she checked again for me. After discovering that I didn't for some reason decide to lie about being on the list, she directed me downstairs to an office whereI waited in another short line to ask about the fact that I wasn't on the group list. She tried originally, to tell me that I should check the list that I had already checked, twice now!, but she, luckily, believed me when I protested that I had already checked the list, and had someone ELSE check the list, and that I was not on it.

So she, guess what, directed me to another line. I waited in this line for about half an hour, and FINALLY was told when my classes were, what groups I was in, and where I had to go, and at the same time resolved a conflict with my classes becasue I was apparently scheduled to be in two places at once. I looked at the schedule to discover that apparently I had had a class about an hour ago, but luckily I checked my email and found out that that class had been cancelled for this week since registration was so hectic.

So after this, I still needed my student ID card, so I went to the library and waited in YET ANOTHER LINE to get it, and finally I'm done with waiting in line, at least for the moment. (Although I still need to get my books, and I'm not quite sure what books I'm supposed to get in any class but my Shakespeare class, in which the professor seems very on top of things as he's already emailed the syllabus. And apparently I'm supposed to have Richard V read by Thursday!)

Arrival in England

2006-01-15T12:14:00.000-06:00

I'm in England! I'm writing this from the computer lab in the library. I got here on January 11 after a seven and a half hour flight, waited in a really long line to show someone my passport and get it stamped, waited in the central bus terminal for about two hours, then went on a five hour bus ride to my school...lol, it was a very very long day. But finally I got here and moved in, I live in a place called Waveney Terrace, there are about 12 people living on my floor and we each have our own rooms with a bed and a desk and a sink, and then we all share a kitchen and a bathroom. Everyone on my floor seems really nice. I guess my floor is going out on Tuesday, so I'm looking forward to that. My residence hall seems very social, which is a switch from Busey. Wow. Its weird to realize that I will never live in Busey again. Next year, an apartment!

The first night I met a bunch of other study abroad students; everyone here is very nice and I think we all needed some friends. After I moved in we all went to the pub (yes they have a pub on campus. It's run by the union .So weird.) I ordered my first legal alcoholic drink! That was bizarre. I did it moreso because I could than anything else, lol. I barely drank any of it though, I was stupid and ordered beer even though I KNOW I dont like beer, but I didnt know what else to order, so I ended up pouring about 3/4 of my glass (which was HUGE) into another American's glass, lol. Ah well. I went to bed about 8 oclock that night; I was SO tired as I'd been up for about 26 hours or so, but then woke up very awake at about midnight. I finally know what jet lag is. Jet lag means that you're tired all the time but it's impossible to sleep at night. I was very homesick that first night; that was hard. I just felt so cut off from everything and everyone - I had no computer, no phone, no way of contacting anyone...it was hard. But I stayed up about three hours ago, wrote letters, tried to read, and then finally fell back asleep around 3.

It's nice here, very pretty. Norwich is a very cool town. Lots of historic buildings, cobblestone streets, churches...I like it. Even though I got lost!!! I went with the same group of americans I mentioned earlier, and at one point I accidentally left one of the stores with some soap without paying for it since I got absorbed into the conversation I was having. So I realized this about halfway down the street, said, "Oh my gosh, I forgot to pay for this!" and told everyone I would meet them where they were going. (I THOUGHT I knew where they were going). I bought the soap, (nobody seemed to notice that I walked in with it and walked directly up to the register), and then left, and got very very lost. I walked in circles for about an hour. No big deal though, somehow I didnt panic or anything, I just kept walking until I finally found a building that looked familiar and made my way back to where I had come from in the first place. Norwich isnt that big. What's funny is, while I was lost, a British person asked me for directions! (As soon as I opened my mouth and identified myself as an American with my accent, she did a double take and said never mind.) So at least I apparently LOOKED like I knew where I was, which is kind of cool. After that I bought a phone (email me if you want the number), to ease the cut off feeling, and then had the brilliant idea of walking down the street that I had originally lost my group to see if I could find anyone. Apparently it wasnt as stupid as it sounds, because I got halfway down the street to hear "Christina" and turn to see the rest of my group across the street. It was nice to realize that they had noticed my absense. After we met up again we ate dinner at this place called Pinnochios that had amazing food, although I think the waiter was getting a bit fed up with the large group of Americans who took forever to figure out their methods of paying and only asked for water to drink. That night I was finally able to call my parents, who had been worrying a bit since I wasnt really able to contact them for about two days after I left.

I went to Norwich again yesterday, bought some groceries, hangers, and a pillow (the school supplied bedding that I paid some money for, but the pillow was ridiculous; I ended up sleeping on folded up t-shirts the first couple of nights), ate soup and hot chocolate outside of a cafe, which was very cool, then came back...I was feeling very tired and antiosocial, but I made myself be social and go to the pub to see if I saw anyone I knew. I was very proud of myself for that. It worked out, too, because I met up with some americans I had met the first day and we, along with their flatmates, went to this thing called an LCR night which was like a dance club, basically, except run by the union. It was fun, although it cost some MORE money, which wasnt that good...I am running through money at an insane rate these past couple of days. I'm hoping that it's just as I'm settling in and that I wont keep spending money at this rate this semester, otherwise I'm in trouble. Everything's more expensive here. And the kicker is that it SOUNDS cheaper while being more expensive. Like something might be 5 pounds. And you go, oh thats not that bad...but then you realize it's about 10 american dollars. Ouch. I'm still getting used to the money too. Every cashier I've bought things from must thing I'm very slow, because I constantly have to just stare at the change in my hand before paying, since I dont recognize any of the coins. I'll get used to that too though, I think.

Things I've noted so far. A lot of English people add "love" on the end of sentences, and say "thats all right" instead of "you're welcome". English tea really does taste good. There are rabbits EVERYWHERE and they're HUGE. The cars drive on the left side of the road. I knew that already but its one thing to know it and another thing to be on a bus and constantly think you're turning into the wrong lane. It's strange how something can be so ingrained in you as "natural" only because you were brought up that way. Public transportation here is awesome. Food is expensive and comes in smaller portions most of the time. Almost everyone I've met so far is very outgong and friendly. They label red delicious apples as "the flashy american apple." A lot of people smoke. They are much less roundabout on their labels on cigarrettes, though. You know how ours have that "Surgeon general's warning...blah blah blah" in tiny letters on the bottom? their cigarrette packs just have "SMOKING KILLS" in big letters. Lol. I was amused. A lot less subtle.

But anyway, I feel like I've been typing stuff forever, but just wanted to let everyone know what I was up to! If you want ot write or call me, email me for my address/phone number. I'd love to hear from you.