Life after happily ever after

I've decided to start writing again. What exactly, I am not entirely sure of. But, after 6 months back in the US, I realize the hardest part is this. I knew it. I've told enough students in the past that the biggest culture shock they will experience will be the return. It's the unexpected difficulties that you can't anticipate that make it so hard. I braced for the normal things: settling into a new apartment, reexamining a (not-so-new) city, finding a job, having a (not-at-all long-distance) relationship with my friends and family.

These are big enough transitions. But the unanticipated hardship has been settling into these changes with a completely unsettled me.

All of these transitions I took in stride. I found a job. Check. I am in the same town as most of my friends and my boyfriend. Check. I can talk to my family on a regular basis. Check. I understand the culture I am in and it understands me. Check.

And now, what?

Well, quickly into my "technically great" job I realized that it wasn't great at all and I quit. Bummer. After a roller-coaster of anxiety, doubt and unhappiness, I find myself back at the beginning, and pretty darn happy about it. I feel like I stole a little trip in the time machine and get to explore and have fun as I figure out my next steps.

I also soon realized that perhaps my long-distance relationship with my man was better than my in-the-same-town, real-life one. All those moments of waiting for my return and now we are both adjusting to all these moments of real life. Not to mention that many of my friends are taking big steps in their careers, are getting married and having the babies. It's hard to be gearing up for a fresh start, when everyone around you is in "got my shit together" mode.

So, it's been a gallimaufry (look 'er up) of transitional moments and really the only thing that has become clear to me is that life is really like travel - sometimes you get upgraded to first class and sometimes you have to sleep next to a buffalo for two weeks. Either way, you can try to plan for it, but usually your plans change.

And so, I am turning to the only thing that kept me sane during my last transition: writing.

I hope you'll follow as I write about my brand new life as a traveler, paused.

The Return

I've successfully ignored this blog to the point of distraction and so that it's become so big a task that I can't wrap my brain around it. Is it because I've been so busy having a fabulous time that I've stopped tearing myself away from the fun to record it? Or, is it because travel has become so very normal that I'm not sure what to share? (After a while, how does one really describe the craziness of travel when one moment you can be swimming in the Bay of Biscay at 8:00 a.m. drinking a beer and the next moment you are waking up in a tent in the middle of the Czech Republic with a horse staring at you).

Well, I can't avoid it any longer and I'm facing a difficult job summing up how the last few months have been. But, as I'm now unemployed and have a delicious amount of time on my hands, I'll give it the good ol' college try.


***

After a certain amount of time on the road, travel changes. A corner is rounded. You start to feel the strain. The peaks and valleys are higher and lower. The plateaus are endless.

I've spent the majority of the last three months in Spain continuing to learn Spanish. After Nepal, the transition to Spain was tremendous and painful. Returning to the first world is not easy. After the initial wonderment from electricity and running water, the bustle and routine of real life is hard to come back to. There is more distance between people and I feel the strain of social obligations. People have their lives and keep to them. I felt the isolation immediately and missed the days when you met people just walking down the street. In the first world, it's weird if you just approach someone on the street to start a conversation. I was a traveler lost in the middle of normal life.

And so, I found myself much less inspired in Spain and it was a time of language learning and introspection. As plateaus go, this was a long one and I had a lot of time to think and stare down the barrel of the rest of my trip. I wrote little and counted the days. The Fear of returning started to creep in, despite an intense longing to be done with travel. Was it going to be like this when I returned to the states? What exactly am I doing, anyway? I was in a rut.

I was saved from myself when my brother met me in Spain and I started moving again. Trains, planes and buses. Hostels, shitty dorm beds and travel shenanigans. I lay looking up at the underside of my bunk bed and I see all the bunk beds. Suddenly, I was a traveler again and it was good. Travel is like that, just when you think you know what to expect, it changes - it gets harder or easier, or you just stop noticing it all together.

After three weeks of racing around Spain and Portugal and eating as many fried baby squids as we could possibly shove in our mouths (a lot, it turns out), Dylan and I had a race to the airport and then - goodbye! On to the next. I was off to the Czech Republic to meet my boyfriend and start the last leg of my trip. Wine tasting in Moravia and a 3-day music festival in Slovakia. Camping at the beach in France and catching up with old and new friends in England. After the silent panic of my sojourn in Spain, I stopped thinking about what would happen after The Return, and found my old friend the travel groove.

Movement is a good thing, and I've had plenty of it. I feel instantly at ease once the train starts pulling away or the bus tickets are booked. And so, I find myself starting the most difficult part of my journey: returning.

Once a traveler, I'm now just broke and unemployed. I'm excited to find a new job and start over but I'm overwhelmed with the task at hand and how to go about reintegrating into normal life, doing things that are difficult under normal circumstances, with the added difficulty of adjustment and a new identity.

It is great only owning a backpack and a few possessions, but not so easily explained in a job interview. It's romantic in a novel having only $50 in your bank account and a fresh start, but in real life it poses obvious problems.

And the big question: What do I want to do now? Well, I am not quite sure. I feel changed, obviously, and I don't want to lose all that I gained on the road. I am not anxious to get back to office life; I have no interest in rushing back to the grind. I'd like to do much more intentional work and I am not in a rush to define that. I guess I am not interested in returning at all to my old life, but rather continuing. There is no going back now, it's all forward.

And so, it continues. Now, I'm just a traveler, paused. I am going to continue to write, although I think I'm just writing to space. It's no longer "How to quit your job and travel the world," but rather, "How to travel the world and return."

Some belated thoughts on turning 30

I am a late bloomer. Always have been, always will be. And so, it is exciting to me that I am finally turning 30. To think, all the things I have yet to do, and how much better they will be now that I am not such a stupid, naive and unprepared 20 year-old!

Ha, yeah right.

When it comes down to it, I am still 15 years-old: I spend my days convinced everyone is looking at the zit on my chin, I wonder when my body is ever going to look like I want it to look and I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up. The only difference now is that I am armed with better friends, wine and a superior ability to rationalize.

The bottom line is, I don't feel older (and thanks to my mom's genes, I don't look any older) and I wouldn't return to my twenties for all the money in the world (unless I could return to my younger self to pry the bread from her hands and give her a good slap regarding all things related to ex-boyfriends).

Of course, I miss the fleeting wonder of my ass at 19 years-old, but I'm so much happier now, knowing myself better, knowing what I want and need and just not giving a shit what others think.

I also find it interesting that I've spent this last year traveling. Normally, taking a year-off to travel is done after college and I met a lot of people in their earlier twenties, or the infamous gap-year kids ruining the British reputation the world over. Personally, I couldn't have done this journey any earlier and certainly wouldn't have been able to appreciate it like I have. I learned all the same things I would have learned - how to adapt to change, problem solving, language skills and in general who I am - but this time, I think the learning experience was a little bit more profound. I know who I am and more importantly, I know who I will never be. It's a whole lot easier to work on being a better person in the areas you know you can change than wasting your time wanting to be something you cannot. I can't kid myself that I will ever figure it all out, I hope I don't. It's just too much fun learning.

So, I'm a little bit wiser and my ass is a little bit wider and softer (but I care less, so it's a bit of a wash). I can't deny the importance of my twenties, I have them to thank for all those "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" moments that have brought me here today. But I happily say goodbye to them and I hope the door doesn't hit their ass on the way out.

A year later

A year ago, I got on a plane to Guatemala. The first step is always the hardest and I remember being full of nerves as I flew into Guatemala City and looked down at all the lights and all the unknowns. But after that first step, that first flight, it all just settles into a rhythm. A crazy, unpredictable, emotional roller-coaster of a rhythm. Until, you find yourself a completely different person.

And I am, completely different. Perhaps, a better way to put it is that I am more myself than before. When you take away all the external factors, both good and bad (stress, job, friends, family, income, your bed), you are left with a reality that is completely controlled and managed by YOU. That means if you are unhappy in any way, it's wholly because of you. It's in your control to change it. When you become stressed, it's obvious, based on your new, stripped-down reality, what it is that is stressing you out. Only you can make yourself happy and only you have the power to do anything about it.

You become utterly and absolutely selfish. If you don't like something, you don't do it. End of story. If you want do to something, you do. Period.

What I'm trying to say is that, over the past year of traveling, I've turned into a man. Ha!

As I look back, I look ahead. This has not just been a year-off, it's been a lifetime. I can't remember doing anything different. The feeling is very similar to some of my long-distance runs that I did when training for my marathon; at some point, you just don't know how your body will stop. When I get on my last plane home, now set for July 29th, I believe I will be starting the hardest part of my journey. Will I keep with me all that I learned during my travels? A year from now, will it all be gone? A happy ghost of a memory? Will I continue to be different, or will I slowly creep back into a routine of work and daily life, will I settle into old ways?

I hope not. I hope the lessons I have learned will be permanent additions to my life. As I have often felt over my journey, I am grateful. I am thankful to all of the people I have met and that have supported me over the past year.

So, for my last three and a half months on the road, all I know is that you never really know, you just keep going.

I found my post from the night before my travels to be just as true now as it was then:

http://scoopdumonde.blogspot.com/2008/04/night-before.html

¡Besos desde España!

18 hours in Hong Kong

1. Got drunk with Miguel before noon
2. Ate dim sum
3. Had a massage
4. Dominated at darts

Who says layovers can't be fun?

Hawasta

The world of Nepal is punctuated, underlined, by its sounds. Hacking. Spitting. "Miss, Miss!" Buffaloes groaning. The whir of generators. Farting. Burping. The silent moment of someone picking their nose with their long fingernail (specially grown for the purpose). That strange, half-laugh sound of women chasing the chickens away. The chanting songs. The rooster crowing. You haven't lived until you've heard a Nepalese band cover "Killing in the name of" by Rage Against the Machine. Or listened on hopelessly while a travel-sick goat bleats meekly on the bus.

These are all the things I will remember. The smells as well, but those I choose to forget. My days with squat toilets, and their sickening smell of sewage, are happily numbered. But, in the end, it really wasn't all that bad. You can get used to a lot, on the road. I sleep soundly in the guest house blankets, even though I know they haven't been washed that frequently. I eat with my hands. I shower when it becomes necessary. I am travel.

What a shock, then, to be heading to Europe. After five pristine days of trekking in the Himalayas, I'm having a hard enough time being in the grasping clutches of Kathmandu. But, with all things, one must move on. I'm embracing a different kind of adventure now. Learning a language. And surviving Europe on a budget of 20 Euros a day.

I will miss waking up, snuggled in a rickety guest house perched on the edge of the mountains. I will miss eating heaping meals of daal bhaat (for under a dollar). I will miss the joy and sorrow of Nepal.

Rangichangi

I am humbled writing this entry. I do not know where to begin or how to possibly explain how much has happened in only two short weeks in Nepal. In many ways, I feel that here and now, I am at the culmination of my travels. I also feel that I am just beginning my journey and I am reminded every day how important it is to get up and take each day like it‘s your first. Climbing a mountain, I find many more mountains on the horizon.

There is no way to shorten this, or make it bite-sized, so here it is in it’s entirety.

My first three days in Nepal were a whirlwind of host families, Kathmandu sightseeing and arriving in Nirmal Pokhari, where I would be volunteering. My guide in Kathmandu, Kshitiz, took me around to all the temples and sites on his motorbike and I consider myself blessed by a higher being to still be alive and have all my limbs. I loved it. In Kathmandu, I stayed with Karuna, her daughter and two servants. The poverty slowly starts to creep into your awareness, and even well-off families like Karuna do not have running water and wait like everyone else for the electricity to come on. Karuna is 35 years-old, has been married for 22 years and has a daughter that is 15 and son that is 20. How very different my life would be if I were born in Nepal. I spent a memorable evening drinking beer by candlelight and eating curry on the carpet.

After only two days, I left Kathmandu for a crazy bus journey to Pokhara, the second largest town in Nepal, and onto Nirmal Pokhari and the small village of Miadan. This is where culture exploded all over me.

I was met in Pokhara by Amanda, another volunteer that has been here for four weeks. We took a 45-minute bus to Miadan and this has to be the bus journey to beat all third-world country bus journeys. (Perhaps I shouldn’t speak too soon, I still have two more weeks in Nepal). Climbing up a road that looks more like a hiking trail, we were covered with dust by the time we arrived and surrounded by loud, curious, locals in an explosion of colors and smells.

I arrived to find that I was not working in an orphanage, as I was told, but would instead be teaching English in a resource library run by volunteers and at the local secondary school. But all that had to wait, as Laxman (my host father) was just cutting up some goat, served for special occasions, and Sita (host mother) was serving daal bhaat (rice and lentils) before going to a party at a nearby neighbor‘s house.

There, the women danced and sang, while the men kept mostly to themselves. Amanda and I were encouraged to dance, but I couldn’t quite figure out how it was done. I resorted to my own dancing, and let me tell you - the running man was a hit and they are still talking about it in the village. I think making an ass of yourself really opens doors. This theory was proved right just a few days later when I was washing with some local women by the water tap and carried some water on my head for one of the ladies. They all started waving and calling to me, making dancing movements and laughing. Still, they call to me on the road and imitate my dancing.

I woke up the next day and started my first week of teaching English. After two weeks here, I am still unsure of how to walk away from this volunteer experience. I don’t really feel as if I really made a difference - it is not long enough and Nepal is a place that needs more fundamental help and aid at a deeper level. I feel overwhelmed with hopelessness at the secondary school. The teachers don’t seem to care and will even complain about the poor quality of education, oblivious to their role in it. There is no set schedule for the students; we teach English at random timeslots, teachers don’t show up and leave classrooms full of children just waiting. Some classes are a mix of rejects - students stay behind a year if they don’t pass, well beyond their age group. Some classes have 60 students, ages ranging from 10 to 15 years-old. The English books are wrong. Classes are chaos. Kids have never had discipline, other than getting smacked around the head.

How do you make a difference with just two weeks, a school system that isn’t even trying and no teaching skills?

The resource library is a little better. Volunteers teach English and play with the kids before and after school. It is entirely run by volunteers and has a long legacy in the village. This makes it even more sad and hopeless, as it is still very basic. The children want to be there and are starving for attention and positive reinforcement. I struggle with cheery childhood activities when I know exactly where these children will end up. Even more so, I struggle when they are so badly behaved and acting out. It is an emotional rollercoaster. Most of the children are unwashed and wear filthy clothes. Sometimes they cannot go to library or school because they have to work at home. The children are fun and exhausting and adorable.

You cannot tell me that teaching English in a broken system is going to help them. I am not giving them a future; maybe I’m helping bring some play to their lives. I do not know.

I do not believe that InfoNepal is doing it’s best to help people in Nepal, but with thousands of NGOs in Nepal, I think they are perhaps better than many others. I have yet to hear of a good organization in Nepal, where the money goes where it should. There must be one out there. There are also two Dutch volunteers living here with us, from an organization called Cross Borders, that teach at the primary school. They have had a positive experience in their three months here, and they give a lot of hope to this situation.

I am not disappointed in my experience volunteering, because I think that I would be looking in the wrong direction. I am more frustrated with myself for doing so little for others during my year of travels, and like a selfish American, I am only going to return home to my hot showers and….and what? The truth is, that you cannot make a difference in just two weeks. I think volunteering has to be a longer commitment, a lifetime commitment. I feel even more selfish because I am really enjoying Nepal and the amazing experiences that volunteering is allowing me. Staying in this village, living with Laxman and Sita, is an incredibly opportunity to see Nepal at the local level.

And the local level is poor. Laxman’s and Sita’s house is pretty typical (and maybe a little nicer than most): tin roofs, a hut for the bathroom, a hut for the toilet, no running water and random electricity. There is no shower and a bucket of water is your toilet paper. You can wash at the tap, where everyone gets their water and does their washing. They have a buffalo, chickens and a small plot of land. They have nothing, but, like many Nepalese, they give everything.

And the beauty of the Nepalese people is their humor. Even when the children are screaming “Miss, Miss!!” and misbehaving, even when the women are tired from working all day, they are smiling, laughing, joking. I find that beautiful.

I laugh a lot here. Mostly at ridiculous travel moments. Apparently, moles in Nepal are quite rare. On more than one occasion I have been asked, “What is wrong with your face?”

“Um, excuse me? Oh, my moles. Koti, Koti.” Yes, koti, moles.

Also, Samanta is a man’s name in Nepal. Hilarious. Meeting new people is just a ten minute laugh riot.

After a week, I took a short break from Nirmal Pokhari and went to Pokhara for a night. I had my first shower in eight days. It was my first shower in Nepal, my last being in Hong Kong. It was a short break, but I returned to Nirmal Pokhari recharged and ready for one more week.

In Nepali, rangichangi means colorful, but also crazy or drunk. That pretty much sums it up for me. I returned to the village to be hit by more cultural bombs and my last week flew by. I went to a traditional engagement party (and the wedding which took place four days later). I helped serve food, I had my hair and makeup done. I was dressed in a sari and again, entertained the locals with my dancing. I spent the next day throwing up with a rangichangi stomach, apparently a little too much culture for my belly.














Last night, after a full day of wedding celebrations, Laxman and Sita took us to a neighbor’s house for another drum and song evening. The night had become misty and with a full moon, you could just see flashes of singers faces in the candlelight. We all packed onto the porch, sitting on woven mats and leaning against one another. The Nepalese are very touchy people, and have no sense of privacy or personal space. My hand is often spontaneously held, or an arm around my shoulder, a hand on my knee. I thought about how much my back hurt, after two weeks of no chairs. I thought of my brother, Dylan, and how much he would love the music and the open-faced humor of everyone. I thought that maybe there is hope, that simply being here and opening yourself to the village can help everyone. I felt happy to be there, happy that a life like this still exists.

I return to Pokhara with a head full of laughing, rangichangi children and song.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad mall

I didn't really know what to expect in Hong Kong. This is my first visit to Asia and I wasn't sure if I would be overwhelmed by the cultural differences and lost with the language barrier.

Hong Kong is definitely where east meets west. Most speak English and the streets are crowded with a mix of Chinese and a huge cosmopolitan ex-pat community. Oh yeah, and business rules. It's the cleanest city I have ever been in, the metro is absolutely spotless, as are the streets, and the food is amazing. Cantonese, Shainghainese, Pekingnese, Japanese, Indian, French, Italian, Tapas...all of it is living and thriving in Hong Kong.

Besides food, there is also theatres, art, temples and markets. Hong Kong has it all.

If you wanted, you could spend your entire day underground and in a mall. Exiting the metro tends to be a 20 minute walk through underground, connected malls: Gucci, Chanel, Furla...all the major brands, just as expensive as anywhere.

I was lucky to have a friend in Guangzhou; a two-hour train ride from Hong Kong, but miles away from the international feel. Guangzhou is China. Very few English speakers, very few foreigners. Amazing food. I stayed with Zach and Winnie (and their little one, Miles) and they, along with some of their friends, treated me to a cultural introduction to China. Chinese hot pot and dim sum were pretty tame. Things got weirder with the trip to get a massage. We had an hour foot massage, an hour back massage and some cupping. All for the bargain price of 110 RMB (about 15 USD). I was bracing for a painful foot massage, but they were gently for us foreigners. The back massage was more intense, but the cupping was by far the most painful (check the video, above). The things you do for good Chi.

With a Chi-high, we went to dinner. The dinner was a cornucopia of Chinese oddities...we walked aruond the mostly live fish stalls to choose our food: worms, clams, aligator, snakes, turtles. That night, I ate chicken feet, worms, clams, oysters and snake penis rice wine (surprisingly good).

I returned to Hong Kong the next day happy, hungover and very bruised. I spent the next two days enjoying more food, visiting temples and resting up before my trip to Nepal, where I write to you now.

Nepal has been a dream of mine for many years and it is amazing to be here. I have escaped to Pokhara to write this email and take a hot shower and I return to the mountain area of Nirmal Pokhari tomorrow to continue volunteering. Next week, I'll share some of my adventures!

Life's a batch

I started the second half of my adventure in business class on a flight from LA to Melbourne. I'm the new backpacker: unemployed, broke, but with platinum status and friends in great places.

People in business class always give me condescending smiles, like I'm visiting their world on a guest pass and isn't it so great for me. Sexism aside (I doubt a 29 year-old man would be simpered at the same way), I smile right back and happily take my free pajamas, cocktails and three-course meals. When I go to the bathroom, I smirk at all those suckers in economy. Ha.

Well, the joke is on me. My platinum status comes crashing to an end at the end of this month and I'll have to say goodbye to free coffee and booze in the airport lounges, boarding first to avoid the amateurs and bubbly while we wait to take off.

'Tis better to have flown in first and been downgraded, then to have never flown in first at all.

All that to say that I arrived in New Zealand completely pampered and continued to be pampered for the entire time I was there.

I stayed with Tiff and Phil - my family when I was living in London, now relocated to Auckland - and I was joined by Nicole for a week of fun in the North Island. After eight months of travel in South America, it is incredibly nice to travel with friends and share your experience.

So, New Zealand. The only rule in New Zealand is that wherever you go, whatever you see, the Kiwis have figured out a way to jump off it, into it, roll down it, climb up it or crawl through it. Abseiling, bungee jumping, zorbing, horseback ridigin, skydiving, caving...you name it, it's done in New Zealand.

Nicole and I were fearless - we jumped off waterfalls, abseiled 100 m (330 feet) into a cave, crawled our way through underwater rivers and laid beneath the glowworm night sky. We also drove on the other side of the road and didn't kill ourselves.

After Nicole sadly left, I escaped with the FloodSmiths to a friend's batch (bachelor pad = beach house) in Pauanui. Right on the beach and in a teeny tiny town. By the time I left New Zealand, I had all but forgotten the cold showers and sketchy hostels in Latin America. Hong Kong, China and Nepal would be a shock...

I leave you with some pictures and the promise of a Hong Kong episode very shortly.

Tiff and Phil's house

The FloodSmiths
Me and Nicole

America, the beautiful

Well, there is nothing like a presidential inauguration to baptize you with patriotism and make you want to drink beer, eat hamburgers and fly American flags emblazoned with "Obama is my homeboy."

I was back in the states for a month, long enough to get a little chubby, take at least two hot showers a day and recoup before my last seven months of travel. It was an interesting time to be in the U.S.; a new, black president; a financial crisis; a sense of hope and worry at the same time.

I arrive in New Zealand to spend time with my friends and ease back into travel, before heading to Hong Kong and Nepal. After a month of utter luxury (damn those fleece sheets), I imagine cold showers and dirty clothes will be tough to get back into.

Stay tuned blog friends, I'm back.