wow, this is almost getting to be boring

woot. here is my newest story in the Chicago Tribune about how to be a super ninja in booking a flight on Ryanair.

link

chicagotribune.com

How to navigate a deal on Ryanair

Ashley Colby, Special to Tribune Newspapers

October 11, 2009

Ireland-based budget airline Ryanair offers some of the best bargains for flying within Europe and North Africa. But you have to know how to play the game.

In late August I was able to book a one-way flight from Pisa to Barcelona for just 10 euros, or about $14.70. This came as a 48-hour promotion for 5-euro flights with all fees and taxes waived (except a 5-euro payment handling fee) for flights September through December. Then, on Sept. 1, I found a 6-pound ($9.80) late-October flight from London to Oslo.

When booking during one of Ryanair's incredible-sounding sales, first read the terms and conditions before getting too excited. Blackout dates and seemingly incomprehensible exceptions might be involved. Flexibility is key.

Recognize that there are certain fees that most likely won't be waived, such as the "payment handling fee" (5 euros per flight) and the "online check-in fee" (5 euros).

Most of the fees, however, can be avoided with careful planning. Skip the "priority boarding fee" (3 euros) and the "text message confirmation" (1 euro) by simply remembering to check "no" when filling out details. Other fees demand greater cunning to refuse. The "optional travel insurance" is avoided by choosing the "no travel insurance required" option, which strangely is between Latvia and Lithuania in the drop-down menu.

Be aware of baggage specifications. Ryanair (ryanair.com) charges 10 euros for the first checked bag and another 20 for each subsequent bag. The catch is that the combined weight of all three bags must be no more than 15 kilograms, or 33 pounds.

Ryanair does not charge for carry-on luggage but expects customers to fit every item (purses, coats, shopping bags) into a single 10-kilo carry-on. Failure to follow these rules means Ryanair retains the right to deny boarding and cancel a reservation without refund.

Finally, many airports used by Ryanair are connected to the city only by a Ryanair-owned bus company. Take the price of the bus into consideration when figuring the total cost.

Once you learn how to work the system, you can find yourself jetting around Europe for the price of a few Happy Meals.

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

free in Rome

While staying at Marco and Caterina's farm in Lazio, we spent each weekend on our days off going to Rome.

Although we have seen so much of Rome before when we studied here or when we returned here during our Europe trip, we just can't get enough of this city. What was the most amazing this time is how little money we spent, and I have to just gush about this now.

The first weekend Marco and Caterina were going to Rome to visit Marco's sick uncle in the hosptial, so they dropped us off in the early afternoon. We hopped on a metro (one euro each) to the Coliseum, where we found some Americans coming out and asked them for their used tickets which we then used to get into the Forum and Palatine Hill (so this was free). We then walked to the Capitoline Hill (free) and through the historical center to the Pantheon (free), sat and had our lunch (which we brought from the farm, so free) in a bookstore, and then walked over to the Trevi Fountain (free) and splurged on some gelato (3 euro each) - we both got chocolate and lemon, yummm. We also stopped at Boromini's Baroque church, which is obviously free. We took a metro (again, one euro each) back to meet Marco and Caterina to go back to the farm. Overall, this trip to Rome cost 10 euro, or about 15 dollars total.

The next weekend we took a bus from the farm (2 euro each) to a town where got on a train to Rome (no one ever came to sell us a ticket, so free) to a metro (one euro each). We went onto the Aventine Hill (free), when to a park overlooking the city (free) and into Santa Sabina church where there was a wedding happening (this is also free). We then went to another church to see a Bernini masterpiece of a sculpture (free), then to another church, Santa Maria in Trastevere, where we saw ancient gilded mosaics of the highest quality for, you guessed it, free. We decided to treat ourselves to some pizza - and we spent about 3 euro on this. We then sat in Piazza Farnese and enjoyed a free concert put on by Amnesty International and stole some wifi from a local apartment, where we called people, checked email, uploaded pictures, for free!

We then spent the night at Giorgio's - who is an old friend of Caterina's - so, free accomodation. We then got up in the morning and ate some of the delicious breakfast food he offered us - yogurt, cereal, coffee. We then headed out to see Michaelangelo's satue of Moses, free, and then went to see 9th century mosaics in Santa Prassede for free. We then caught the end of a church service in one of rome's four most important churches, St. Maria Maggiore, for free. We grabbed some bread and meat to eat for lunch at a supermarket for about 4 euro and headed to another church with gorgeous ancient mosaics, San Clemente. Then about a block away we paid one euro each to go into a tiny secret chapel San Silvestre - which you must ring a bell and pay a nun to enter. We then took a metro (one euro each) to a train (again, no one sold us a ticket) to a bus (where they also didn't take our ticket, so it was free). This second weekend in Rome cost a total of 17 euro, or 25 dollars.

Okay, so you get the idea. The last weekend we saw the Ancient Roman Forum, the Palatine Hill, The Imperial Forum, and the entire Vatican Museums, including the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's and Michaelangelo's Pieta sculpture - all for free. We paid only very little for transport and some food from a supermarket. Again, I think the total came to something like 25 bucks for both of us.

Here are some of the most famous and perfect works of art in the world, which we enjoyed for free:

satisfaction in Lazio

We stepped off the flight from Rome delirious with jet lag and excitement. Everything was familiar. The overly pretentious uniforms of authorities, dirty floors, short men, beautiful women in impossibly pointy shoes. Ah, Italia.

We found our way onto two trains, using a payphone in between to call our host and let her know we’re coming. Marco and Caterina picked us up at the station in their boxy little car, looking aghast at our immense suitcases. We tried our best to act nonchalant, despite our lack of sleep and the cramped nature of our long limbs in their tiny vehicle.

They drove us to their house through rolling hills, cultivated in aesthetic ancient patches with mostly vineyards and olive trees. Their English isn’t perfect, but our Italian is much worse, so we struggled through some awkward patches with our mutual lack of vocabulary, but mostly had an easy time with conversation.

Marco is a Woodworker by trade, and Caterina has her PhD in Wildlife Biology. They’re in their mid-thirties and have only been together for about five years. They are both from Rome, but have elected to flee to the countryside and make a go of it with organic farming. Rome is ‘too busy, too chaotic’ for them. I am beginning to agree.

They produce mainly olive oil from the several hundred trees they have on their land. When they bought this place about 18 months ago, it was abandoned and the trees were all overgrown. They got a great price (150,000 euro for a house, barn and about 12 acres of land). They now have three ducks, one chicken (they had many more of these but they were eaten by a local fox), two horses, one donkey and a three-month old calf named Gina which they feed every morning and evening with fresh milk.

The food is intense and wonderful. The Italian way of eating would be peculiar to most Americans. On the table is wine, water, bread, olive oil and often cheese. The first course is served while the second continues to cook. Usually the primi piatti (first plate) is a pasta dish, and the secondi is meat. After everyone finishes the pasta dish, the second is removed from the oven a served separately. Salad is eaten at the end. Followed by fruit or sweets. Each meal lasts longer than an hour and always includes gregarious conversation.

We have had fresh mozzarella from the next town over with basil which is grown on the front steps; heirloom tomatoes from the garden in the back; a meal with clams, squid and tuna over pasta in sauce of their own olive oil; spaghetti carbonara with bits of ham; home-made chocolate cake; gorgonzola spread over fresh baguettes; gourmet coffee; figs we picked from the tree in front of the house; gorgeous and juicy nectarines. I could go on. Yes, we are well-fed here.

The life is slow in this place. We work in the morning from about eight to one and are free for the rest of the day. Marco and Caterina take a siesta (nap) after lunch for a couple of hours. We get most of the day to ourselves - reading, writing, photographing, exploring the countryside. Sometimes I go down and play with Gina, who is always nudging my sides in affection. We will be here for a month and in that time I will see if my city-girl restlessness can learn to slow. If I can stop, look out over the hills draped in fog after an afternoon thunderstorm, letting the sun warm my face, and be satisfied.

published again!!

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chicagotribune.com

China's Shangri-La is a real dream

By Ashley Colby

Special to the Tribune

August 23, 2009

SHANGRI-LA, China -- If you've ever dreamed of finding Shangri-La -- that mythical mountain paradise made famous in James Hilton's novel "The Lost Horizon" -- it's time to wake up. These days, the elusive Shangri-La isn't that hard to find. It's in China's Yunnan province.

It might not be exactly what you had in mind, however.

When I arrived in Shangri-La, it was cold and raining, and there was a cow eyeing me as it lapped up water from a bucket in the Old Town, a patchwork of wooden houses on narrow streets. Not exactly the shining pathways and endless enlightenment I imagined, but I had just gotten there.

Shangri-La, with a population of more than 100,000, is nestled in a valley near the edge of the Tibetan Plateau in far south-central China, about 1,000 miles northwest of Hong Kong. In the far distance are glimpses of Himalayan snow-capped peaks hiding behind much lower mountains that hug the city.

In the late 1990s, with the expanding Chinese middle class thirsty to spend tourist yuan, several Chinese provinces started claiming they were the true Shangri-La. The government saw an opportunity and proposed that each place prove through empirical research that its physical characteristics match those in the novel. Several years later, Zhongdian County in Yunnan province was granted the title.

People come to get a glimpse of Tibetan Buddhist culture. Getting into Tibet can be difficult for tourists. Shangri-La, however, lies just outside the formal Tibet Autonomous Region but well within the plateau where Tibetans reside.

That culture is on display every evening when the people of the town gather in the main square, press "play" on a tape of Tibetan pop songs and start to dance. Women with magenta head scarves who seem to be the village elders lead the movement from the middle of a gigantic circle formed around them.

Shangri-La is split into areas known as Old Town and New Town. The quickly developing New Town houses most of the residents and resembles many nondescript Chinese cities -- rows of concrete storefronts selling everything from knock-off designer duds to live fish.

Old Town is a former stop along the old Tea and Horse Caravan Road, the route begun during the Middle Ages and across which Chinese tea was traded for Tibetan horses. The tiny original Old Town consists of a handful of cobbled streets lined with centuries-old traditional Tibetan wooden houses. It's no bigger than a square mile. Farm houses with first-floor barns are still tucked away at the edges of the town, pushed to the periphery by the encroaching tourist necessities: cafes, souvenir shops, art galleries and hotels.

Another big draw for tourists could be low prices. A double room at the Cobbler's Hill Old Inn, a reconstructed building from the Tea and Horse Caravan days, costs 100 yuan (about $15) a night. Our room overlooking one of the livelier streets in the Old Town was lined with dark wood and had a smartly designed bathroom, a desperately needed electric blanket (in October), TV with only Chinese-language channels and odd modern light fixtures.

A balcony gave us the opportunity to sit and watch the locals: Women in bright pink head scarves trudged up the hill, carrying huge loads of just-harvested greens in wicker baskets on their backs, while other women washed their long black hair in steaming sudsy saucers in the cold morning air -- a habit probably left over from the time just a few years earlier when there was no indoor plumbing in Shangri-La.

Food also is a bargain. At Tara Gallery & Cafe, a just-refurbished home from centuries past along the caravan route, we ordered the Indian meal ($7 per person) out of the choices of Chinese or the more expensive Tibetan Hot Pot. In the second-floor restaurant, we started on our six-course feast: Indian bean soup, potato curry, chicken curry and a large bowl of white rice for harnessing the vibrant flavors. Indian flat bread was accompanied by both a hot pepper and mild eggplant spread. Then there was just a glimpse into Tibetan food with fried yak cheese balls rolled in sugar. These melted in my mouth.

Next we headed to The Raven, just a few doors down the street from our hotel. Their best deal was a house red wine (about $9 a bottle). A place for hip locals and tourists of all kinds, it was lit by candles, and the walls were plastered with posters from New York rock concerts. Punk music blared on the stereo.

A little incongruous? Perhaps. I was a long way from the South Side of Chicago and totally immersed in the joys of discovery.

Although the low costs and vibrant and visible Tibetan culture would be reason enough to visit, the biggest draw might be the monastery a few miles out of town. On our second day in Shangri-La, the morning arrived with a sun that had been mostly absent for days. It was a perfect time to explore Ganden Sumtseling.

More than 300 years old and housing about 600 monks, this Tibetan Buddhist monastery is a place of great importance in the region. Throughout the monastery I found bright and newly redone frescoes (sometimes with English labels), 25-foot-tall statues of smiling Buddhas, golden adornments on the roofs of the temples, and red-robed monks moving from room to room, praying and lighting incense. The hills behind the monastery offer a commanding view of the entire complex, golden idols glinting in the afternoon sun, and Shangri-La in the distance in a valley surrounded by hills and several groupings of snowcapped peaks.

On my way out, an older monk placed a prayer necklace that he had made around my neck. Back in Old Town, I climbed a hill where I sat beside a giant prayer wheel to watch the sun set. Prayer wheels, a part of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, usually are cylinders on a spindle lined up in a row to be turned during meditation, meant to aid focus in reciting mantras.

I watched my first sunset in days looking over Shangri-La with prayer flags rustling in the wind overhead, bells tinkling and the smell of incense drifting from a nearby temple. In that instant, I realized I had discovered my own personal Shangri-La, a magical sense of calm and connection found in passing moments like this.

rage against the dying of the light

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas.

So, here I am again. This place where I seem to be coming back with increasing frequency. That wondrous purgatory. The questioning captivity. The exhilarating effusiveness. I am about to embark on another adventure.

It turns out that the US is an expensive place to travel. And it's also boring. Well, not inherently boring, but boring for me because I know it all too well. I need adventure! Excitement! The risk of death at every turn! (well, not death, don't worry mom) But I do need to be challenged. I need a world that needs decoding, a cultural challenge, some strangeness.

Where is this magical place, you ask? Italia! A place where the people speak with their hands and eat with their eyes. A world of ancient food culture just waiting to be devoured.

We are going to be WWOOFing there, and have already set up with a few farms in Tuscany. I just really can't get enough of this small-scale farming business. With an increasingly confusing world of corrupt politicians and greedy bankers and rising unemployment, something just makes sense about sticking my hands into the soil and making food grow.

So, here we go again. Maybe I'll find a reason to hate it and move on, maybe I'll love it and never leave. The great affair is to discover. and rediscover.

burning in the Yellowstone caldera

After finally pulling ourselves away from animal watching in the Lamar Valley, we fell into the tourist-dominated landscape that is Yellowstone's caldera. The land here sits over an enormous supervolcano, a mass of burning magma sitting so close to the surface that it effects the world above in a myriad of ways.

The landscape here is vaguely similar to that of the very early earth, when the entire planet was burning much more brightly overall. Since then, it has been slowly cooling as time passes; similarly to how our metabolisms slow as we age. Like the Earth, as well as the universe, we burn less and less brilliantly as time moves along. The second law of thermodynamics - which states simply that all aspects of the universe are subject to increasing entropy - is what eventually inevitably puts out our flame.

We saw the remnants of our former superheated world in the form of scalding hot springs, bubbling cauldrons of mud, steaming sulfuric vents and a wild variety of geysers. The most bewildering aspect of this death-world was the prismatic color in the hot springs. Some are a astonishing white-blue, some algae-like putrid green, some burnt orange, and most were often a combination of these hues.

I learned that each color was the result of a certain organism that lived in a particular temperature range within the spring. Surprisingly, the white-blue, often associated as the coolest color, is a result of the organisms that live in the hottest water. These particular organisms are also some of the oldest organisms on the planet. The activity from these geysers and springs - the releasing of gases through heating the liquid - is how our atmosphere was formed.

It was exhilarating to stumble around this alien past-world, to be among a world burning more ferociously.

remembrance of things past in the Yellowstone ecosystem

After the high plains in the great basin, and the trap of consumer culture that is Jackson Hole, the plains finally turned into a valley which was edged on one side by the Grand Teton mountains. This range was named by French fur trappers; in French, teton means, um, boob. Oh, French people. To be fair, the mountains do have that general shape, but I assume the name came more from being alone in the woods with other men for months on end. The men could dream.

Whatever the case may be, the mountains were just the sideshow. The main draw, by our standards at least, was the wildlife. This area is the largest intact temperate ecosystem in the world, and is unofficially known as the American Serengeti. Being here in this enormous valley, with the thunderheads in the sky gaining momentum, and the smell of coming rain hanging in the dry air, I looked out and saw hundreds of brown specks of animals feasting on the summer bounty. At that moment, I could almost imagine what the world was like before. Home, home on the range.

Now, I don't harbor any illusions about the perfection of times past. I recognize that there was no utopian antecedent to our current world. As our species has grown in complexity, we have grown in destructiveness. Before agriculture, life was short, brutal, unsafe; but people then have been shown to be much healthier than we are today - taller, faster, stronger teeth, and with slightly larger brains. With the growth of specialization and civilization came longer lives, but less healthy ones.

This comes to mind only because I am standing in landscape that is fairly similar to one our early ancestors might have encountered, and because we evolved on savannas for millions of years, there is something in this landscape that feels like home to me. Something freeing, exhilarating, sweet and wild. So I stand and watch the bison roll around in the dust and the antelope springing through the tall grass, the elk's majestic antlers lifted while scanning for predators, and the black bear wading into the stream to cool itself in the hot summer sun, and I yearn for remembrance.

ghosts at the county fair

I don't know exactly how to approach this county fair thing. I mean, when I was a kid there were no opportunities to show off my prize livestock or vegetables. City kids don't know about these things. At our yearly block party, I gorged myself on candies and barbeque and baked goods. Ohhh, my stomach was full of peanut butter cookies and hot dogs and smarties. Then I'd slip off my shoes and bounce around in the jumping jack until my regurgitating reflex made itself known, at which point I'd roll out of the huge balloon, chug a coke and go find the kids playing ghost in the graveyard.

All of the same elements are here at the Tuolumne County Fair. There is the gorging and the rides, the kids playing games, but the things that are different - the prize cows raised by middle schoolers, the gigantic vegetables, a product of many months of careful watering and turning - are significant. These people here are country people, or they used to be. This was a venue for them to show off their season's treasures, the let loose and paint the town red. We have adopted this in the city, except we just do the celebrating, not the working in the fields part.

Although this fair has come along way since its inception (now the major events show the grotesque strength of machines in the form of truck pulls and demolition derbys), the ghost of its past enthralls me. There was a time in America when most people outside of cities worked on the land. They came once a year to show off their labor, to mingle with their neighbors and to let their bellies hang out after gorging themselves on their neighbor's meat. I hope this ghost doesn't disappear for good.

magnificence in sequoia and king's canyon

Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks are in the southern part of California's Sierra mountain range. We drove the four plus hours from Alex's house in Sonora through the hideous, smoggy and stinking hot central valley and up into the mountains. As we climbed up to seven thousand feet, the air got cooler and clearer, a crisp and fresh break from the pollution and the endless chain stores below.

In the late afternoon, we arrived at King's Canyon, a sort of mini-Yosemite. A deep chasm (the deepest canyon in the US), it is a wilderness gem of white granite and deep pine forests set against the deepest blue of the summer mountain sky. We hiked through the varying terrain of an alpine setting - from deep and soggy coniferous forests to the moss and fern-covered banks of a raging glacial river to the harsh and surrounding desert of sun and hard granite, with gnarly, stubby shrubs and tiny lizards displaying the only signs of life.

After King's Canyon, we headed over to Sequoia National Park, home to one of the densest groves of sequoia trees in the world. Sequoia's are only found in the western Sierra's, and are incredibly unique trees as they are the largest trees in the world. Now, this is an amazing feat all in itself, but there's more. They are not only the largest plant, but they are the largest of all living things on this planet (yes, they're larger than a blue whale, I thought you'd ask that). Not only this, but they are also the largest living creature that has ever existed in the history of the earth! Amazing, is it not?

As it turns out, evolution is trending toward more and more complexity (well, that is, until homo sapiens showed up and spread all around the world, extinguishing any species larger than itself as they went along). In any case, this tree is the present point on a tremendously long series of adaptations and failures which trended increasingly toward more and more diversification of species. This tree is an outgrowth of that millions of years long process, and here we are able to witness it.

I watched a documentary recently (Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog) about Antarctica, and in it one of the interviewees said something like, 'We are the creatures by which the Earth becomes aware of itself. We are the ones through which the universe can witness the magnificence of its own creation,' and I thought that was especially poignant at this moment. There were millions of years of bacteria and plants and fish and lizards and amphibians and mammals, and now, through the eyes of this strange hairless monkey, the world's growth and change and wonders are available to finally be beheld.

And in its presence, strangely, I didn't feel like an all powerful cognizant being. As can be imagined, I felt tiny, insignificant, meaningless. Knowing that this thing existed through countless human lifetimes, through wars, famines, empires, collapses. Yes, we are the creatures that can be aware of the real beauty and meaning of creation, but with this enhanced mental capacity we are also the ones who can destroy it, and have. I am just incredibly grateful that this one beautiful creature is still here, and I hope that it will remain.

gliding down the california coast

After leaving the cities of the Northwest, we headed down highway 101 and eventually highway 1 along the Northern California coast. Back to the natural and rugged world of camping, we switched out of our city gear of nice jeans and collared shirts back into our hiking shoes, ugly t-shirts and greasy hair mode. There's no one to show off for out here in the wild.

We started in redwood forests. These trees are the tallest in the world, the largest being nearly 370 feet tall. Now that's an original skyscraper. We slept on a beach with golden bluffs lining the rugged coast where elk with giant antlers walked among the tents, and took hikes into canyons lined with giant ferns, moist and green and lush.

We moved onto an even more remote landscape in the lost coast. This region of California's coast is so mountainous that they could barely fit a windy, patchy road through it. There are a few small towns spotted along the road (and by small, I mean smaller than your highschool class), one of them being Petrolia, the first place the oil tycoons drilled in California.

At last we got to the famous highway one. We walked through tall golden grass fields and looked out over the rocky cliffs and a bright blue ocean, and I felt like I was in this Monet painting that I spent a lot of time observing at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. This woman stands on the top of a hill in Normany, the wind whips all around her, pulling at her dress and her hat. It is so strong I imagine she is almost resting against it. At that moment, I wonder what she is thinking. Does she recognize the beauty of her surroundings? Or is it part of the quotidian of her life? I imagine she breaks from her routine in her mind for just a moment. Just long enough to see the wonder and ecstacy of life, as the sun bounces from the water and onto her face, warming it. I want to always feel that way.

grateful in the cities of the northwest

We drove into Vancouver on an unusually hot, sticky late May day. The sky was impossibly blue and there were many shirtless men parading their white hairy chests throughout the city. We saw Stanley Park, a gigantic forest of a city park, with its endless stream of rollerbladers in their uniforms of tiny shorts and wisps of a top. I guess rollerblading didn't leave with the 90's on this side of the border.

We met Luigi, our couchsurfing host, who showed us to our private room and separate bathroom, handed us some keys and made it explicit that his home is now ours. (for those of you who need a refresher, couchsurfing is a website that hooks up people who have an extra couch, room, or floor space that they'd like to share with passing travellers. In return, when those travellers return home, they're expected to make their space available.)

Luigi is a man from Rome with a puritanical streak for authentic Italian food, which he insisted on cooking for us fresh every evening. We ate three-course meals: antipasti covered in olive oil and pepper, sliced roast beef, roasted potatoes and grilled artichokes, and he taught us how to correctly eat his perfect pasta (hint: it does not make use of the spoon in any way).

We spent most of our time in the city getting to know its neighborhoods - which were both plentiful and colorful. We visited the home of Vancouver's artists and artisans on Granville Island, gazed at the enormous variation in ethnic eateries on Commercial Drive, and saw the sky reflected in the endless blocks of glass towers downtown.


We moved back to our homeland in our visit to Seattle. There we stayed with Dan, an Information Technology guy, who was as "IT guy" as it gets. After we dropped our stuff, we hopped on a bus to downtown and met with a lively downtown Seattle. We were flabbergasted by the vast marketplace at Pike's, where we sat down for some happy-hour-priced clam chowder washed down with local microbrews. We found the original Starbucks across the street from the market, with tremendously talented singers performing in front of it, including a motown-style quartet who reminded me of home. Then, we curiously stopped into the socialist/anarchist bookstore down the street, where we found some books we just have to get off amazon.

We continued around downtown - finding an art show happening at the Seattle Art Museum, which consisted of hipsters doing dance routines. Argh, my generation's sad excuse for art. We then found another gigantic bookstore, which was having a reading by one of its former workers who has now become a best-selling author. We sat in on her reading, where she talked about picking up one day from Seattle and moving to Bangkok - where her literary career began. I guess travel can be quite useful as a career move? We strolled on the way back to Dan's house, where we found a cafe with jazz pouring out of its open windows. We slinked in for a cup of coffee, where we listened to the man in the fedora as his sounds bounced out into the purple-ing dusky sky.

We got back to Dan's where he and his 15 or so friends were having a barbecue. As can be surmised, the conversation revolved around new operating systems yet to be released, the viability of Amazon's Kindle technology, and video games.


We then moved on to Portland, where we stayed with Devidas, an Indian software engineer who also welcomed us with open arms. As we pulled up, he showed us to our private room and bathroom and met us downstairs where he cooked us fresh, delicious Indian food and we chatted into the night. In Portland, it was overcast and there wasn't much to do, so we spent the vast majority of our time in Powell's, probably the best English-language bookstore I've ever been in. Filling up an entire city block, its vast array of titles and sections is staggering. We spent the day reading and researching our futures and plans, looking into books on gardening and apprenticeships, grad school and immigration.

I was looking to the cities of the Northwest for a future home - as global warming makes it a more viable place to live - but overall, these cities were not any more special or magical to me than any other North American cities. They have little quirks all their own, but none of them really blew me away like the places in Europe did with the beauty and grandeur. What I took from these places is more from the people in them - the incredible generosity of strangers, the willingness to share and to converse, really astounded me and made me incredibly grateful.

variability in olympic national park

Olympic National Park is a rare and varied place. There is a rugged coastline, a lush coastal forest, gigantic mountains that aren't part of any other range, and an exceedingly rare temperate rainforest.

On day one, we ambled around a clear alpine lake as the misty fog clung to the peaks of the mountains that jut up around it as a crown. We wandered into the main lodge, complete with mounted game, a giant checkerboard set, and forties jazz humming from the cedar floorboards to the pine trunk rafters.

The following day we shot over to the other side of the park to explore the protected Washington coastline. On our nine-mile hike over a rugged and buggy beach, we found our paradise: the wild and wonderful little ecosystem of tide pools. We discovered anemones that we disguised as pebbles and seaweed, bright purple and orange starfish clinging to the crevices of the rock, and gardens of mussels, barnacles and carnivorous snails. Oh, and overhead, bald eagles with newly caught fish soared to their babies in their nests. What a vast and differing world we have to explore!

Then we wandered into the depths of the Hoh Rainforest. One of the rare temperate rainforests in the world, it is a jack-and-the-beanstalk world. There are normal-looking fir trees elongated to hundreds of feet tall like a torture victim just freed from the stretcher, and maple trees with leaves the size of my head, and all of it is dripping in moss - adding an eerie and mystical feel to the forest. Ah, the power of water to make things grow.

Lastly, we headed up to Hurricane Ridge, an alpine lookout where you can gaze into the heart of this isolated range known as the Olympics. Up there we found deer munching on snow in the mid-80's June sun, and we had a little snowball fight in our t-shirts and sandals.

From sea to lake, rainforest to mountain meadow, snowballs to glaciers and tide pools to herds of young elk to bald eagles, this park exudes the wild wonder of life.

wwoofing in washington

This week we began our first venture into WWOOFing. For those of you not in the know, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is an organization that brings together farmers with those who are interested for an exchange. The WWOOFers work a moderate amount (20-25 hours/week) in return for housing and food. Alex and I have been wanting to WWOOF for a while now, and it seemed like this Big American Road Trip was the time to do it.

We choose to WWOOF with Alma and Lou of Port Townsend, Washington because they live in a beautiful place, they expected less than five hours of work a day, and because they answered our inquiry with incredible speed. We arrived at their home after driving straight through from Sonora, Alex's home town. They welcomed us with incredible hospitality, with never-ending portions of delicious organic food filling our plates as soon as they were emptied.

They put us up in their renovated garage, where we slept on our air mattress overlooking Puget Sound and the everlasting northern summer sunsets. During our days we helped Alma with the starting of her demonstration garden, something she wants to set up to show her community how to turn their lawns into productive food. She is setting up a no-tilling no-weeding garden, where you layer organic material (cardboard, then compost, then grass clippings, then mulch) which keeps out weeds. You just plant the seeds in this layering system, water, grow, pick, serve and repeat.

At Alma's house we also met Jay, her mentor and handyman. He has been growing his own no-till garden for a decade now, and says he still feels like a baby every season he starts growing again, realizing how little he really knows. To us, he seemed like the enlightened one. The information flowed out of him like a waterfall during the season's snow melt. The vastness of our ignorance about how to provide for ourselves is astounding.

What we know now, after this week, is that you can't really know anything about growing until you do it, and that it's different everywhere you do. There are so many variations in wind levels and sun and types of soil and first thaws and first freezes. Which means we're REALLY not going to know anything about until we buy some land (1/2 an acre or so is all we'd need), and put down some roots.

a sprint in yosemite

Wanting to start our inaugural trip (starting in Yosemite) with a sprint, Alex and I started our hike on Upper Yosemite Falls. This eight-mile and 2500 ft increase in elevation hike is not an easy task for this city girl, but I wanted a serious start to what I perceive as a challenging and meditative cross-country trip.

After when seemed like thousands of switchbacks in a monotonous forest, Alex and I reached the bottom of Upper Yosemite Falls. The mist from the falls blew in our faces and cooled our glowing skin. After convincing Alex to come a bit further, he finally took a stand, philosophically and literally. He thinks we should employ a gradual increase in physical exertion (which is the way smart athletes train), but I, like a fool, wanted to conquer the mountain, to prove my strength to the indifferent gods of nature.

So, I bid Alex goodbye and took my pride straight up the mountain with me. After leaving him, the trail traversed over the face of a gigantic granite cliff, which was situated squarely in the late morning sun. no trees. or shade. Just a rock desert and a few scurrying lizards at my feet.

The top didn't seem too far away, or so I thought when I left Alex, but an hour in the sun later, I just won't turn around. I've come all this way. There's no going back. My heart pounding from the sheerness, the sweat dripping from my nose, I keep moving my shaking legs, like a marionette with pride as my puppeteer.

As I come around the last corner, the ground levels off. I stumble almost robotically towards the waterfall. The sheerness and dramatic thousand-foot drop-offs go unnoticed as I am drawn to the raging current of the falls. I am alone here, the first one on this mountain today, and it feels like I've discovered water's abundance for the first time. With panting lungs I take in the thin air deeply and let it out through my smiling teeth.

Even though the knowledge of all the steps back down and my future aching body loom, the pride and tenacity I let control me allowed me to feel mad exhilaration. And I love it.

a hundred chances

He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession', for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances...

Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.

--Emerson, from Self-Reliance

After countless interviews, emails, phone calls, after dressing up and dressing down, trial days and trial weekends, after smiling politely and saying what wants to be heard and nodding in agreement, I still have not found employment. Again, it's back to my ever faithful Plan B. This plan sits and waits while I attempt to swim against the current of my own desires. It watches me with a knowing eye, letting time pass until I come back to it, drenched and tired and begging to be part of it again. What is Plan B? It is adventure, learning, excitement, growth, change. Mostly, it is beauty - I lust after it, photograph it, write about it and revel in it; I go where I can find beauty and then I keep on searching.

More concretely: my new plan is to travel the country, my own country this time, working on organic farms and seeing the sights as we travel between farms. We are going through this organization called WWOOF (worldwide opportunities on organic farms), which provides a list of farms (most of them small-scale family gardens, not industrial agriculture), that allow you to come and work for them for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week in return for room and delicious, fresh organic board. We get to pick the farms, which list their location, the type of work to be done, and housing provided. We want to learn as much as we can about small-scale farming - from vegetable plots to animal husbandry to building fences and houses to preparing animal products. How exactly is butter made? How do you grow grapes or tomatoes or potatoes? Where does the water come from? How do you make mozzarella cheese? How little labor can be put into farming? Do we need gigantic machines to make this work? Do you know the answer to these questions? I don't, but I will.

The medium-term plan is still to get to grad school in the Fall of 2010, and this is a way to be able to focus on applications while quenching our desire to learn and travel in the meantime.

Again, I will be blogging as I go along. I will probably be creating a new blog that Alex and I will both contribute to that is specific to the things we are learning while farming, and will keep this one for my own thoughts and responses.

On the road, again!

published at last.

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chicagotribune.com

SLEEPING AROUND

Back from tsunami disaster, Thai resort is a divine retreat

By Ashley Colby

Special to the Tribune

March 15, 2009

Phi Phi Don is a Thai island made famous as the shooting location for the 2000 film "The Beach," starring Leonardo DiCaprio. It is notable, too, for being the site of about 600 deaths during the 2004 tsunami.

Less famous than its neighbor Phuket, 20 miles to the west, Phi Phi still offers white sand, crystal clear azure waters and swank resorts. When we visited the island in February, there was little to remind visitors of the disastrous tsunami. But the resort map does note a new tsunami warning system and a memorial tucked away behind the resort.

Phi Phi Island Village Beach Resort & Spa is upscale, (the second-most expensive on the island) in its own private bay on the east coast of Phi Phi Don.

The beach that runs along the front of the resort is half a mile long and dotted with beach bars and sun chairs. The resort boasts an infinity pool, gym, tennis courts, three restaurants, an Internet cafe, a spa and a launching point for snorkeling, diving, kayaking, fishing and any other island activities your mind (or wallet) can conjure.

When we were there, the weather was mostly perfect, as it tends to be in southern Thailand in the winter: lower 80s, humid but breezy and not a cloud in the sky.

CHECKING IN: Once at Phi Phi Island Village, we were served frothy coconut-milk shakes garnished with pineapple and orchids. We had to wait an hour and a half for our room to be ready (we arrived more than two hours before check-in), but the staff was apologetic and accommodating. We spent the time until we could get into our room poolside, which is not a terrible way to wait.

ROOMS: We stayed in the cheapest rooms offered, which are called Superior Bungalows. Next up on the ladder are the Deluxe Bungalows (about $175 per night), followed by Beach Front Junior Suites (about $300), which overlook the beach and have whirlpool tubs, and Hillside Pool Villas (about $415) with private swimming pools, among other amenities.

Our private bungalow, set on stilts amid the palm trees, had a lovely porch with two chairs for relaxing. Inside the double glass doors, a bamboo partition separated the bedroom and sitting area from the bathroom, dressing area and closet. Complimentary bottled water, coffee, tea and fruit were provided. The queen-size bed had fresh white linens and a mountain of fluffy pillows. A television offered all the necessary news and movie channels.

BATH: Apart from the waterfall shower head, the bathroom was unremarkable. The separate dressing area with a stylish wash basin, however, was notably chic. The coconut-scented toiletries, bathrobes, slippers and more towels than we knew what to do with left us squeaky clean and smelling like that shake we had upon arrival.

ATTITUDE: The guests were a mix of families and couples of all ages. The vibe is certainly more R&R than party hard.

The main reason people come is to relax in the spa—treatment prices range from 1,500 to 10,500 baht (about $40 to $300)—or to soak up the sun in the pool or the shallow and sometimes rocky bay.

KID-FRIENDLY: Absolutely. There is a slide at the pool, a play area with rocking horses and a seesaw. Also, the resort provides kid options in all of the activities and restaurants.

BOTTOM LINE: For a Superior Bungalow, we booked online through latestays.com and paid 5,500 baht ($157), which included breakfast.

Phi Phi Island Village Beach Resort and Spa

49 Moo 8, Phi Phi Island

Ao Nang, Muang

Krabi, Thailand

66-075-628900-999

ppisland.com

ahhh, asia

{ASIA}
{fall 2008/winter 2009}




















China
Hong Kong
Macau
Guang Zhou
Yangshuo
Ping'an
Cheng Yang
Dali
Lijiang
Shangri-La
Jianchuan
Shaxi
Kunming
Yuanyang
Vietnam
Sapa
Hanoi
Ha Long Bay
Cat Ba Island
Hue
Hoi An
Saigon
Cambodia
Phnom Penh
Ankor
Thailand
Bangkok
Laos
Vientiane
Luang Prabang
Luang Nam Tha
Thailand
Chiang Mai
Sukhothai
Bangkok
India
Calcutta
Varanasi
Khajuraho
Bhopal
Agra
Jaipur
Udaipur
Jodhpur
Jaisalmer
Thar Desert
Ranthambore
Delhi
Thailand
Bangkok
Mae Sot
Khao Yai
Bangkok
Ko Tao
Ko Surin
Khao Sok
Ko Lanta
Ko Phi Phi
Bangkok
Taiwan
Taipei

Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping,
once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!

ahhhh, the memories will never go away, and the beauty of it all is endless.