This just pisses me off...
How frustratingly unfair, especially to people like me, trying to make an honest break into this industry:
http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/04/14/lonely-planet-scandal-ohnstamm/Hey jerk, your book sounds like it'll be a bunch of ego-maniacal drivel, written by the types of travelers I despise. Switters you most certainly are not, my friend.
New blog
Now that I am not (for now) going around the world, I would like to start a new blog for non-travel-related things.
Any ideas for a name? Blaas goes to Brooklyn would be fun, but I'm technically not a Blaas yet. And I'd have to change it again anyway when we leave Brooklyn.
Home (well, temporary home) for now
Well, we're back from the latest adventure. Two months in Mexico and Central America certainly wiped me out much more than 7 months through Fiji, NZ, Oz and SE Asia did last year, thanks to a rushed and constantly-changing schedule (I like evolution of travel plans, certainly, but not when it's full of stress thanks to steadily-dwindling time and money). All exhaustion was certainly cured, though, after 2 amazing weeks being spoiled ocean-side in the Bahamas.
One day I will have a better computer and will be able to post photos directly to this blog. For now, however, that process is entirely too convoluted and takes entirely too long. Photos from the Bahamas and Costa Rica are already posted on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/rizzoloca, with more to be added in the coming days.
Sorry for the lack of adventurous updates on this journey-- I can probably count on one hand the number of times we used an internet cafe after leaving Mexico. For some details about the trip, check out the pictures, or, wow, call me and I'll happily share a tale or two. For now, I'm saving major stories to try and use to get published. If I find success, I'll let you know where to find them here.
We're currently in RI, crashing with the parents, while we search for jobs and digs in Brooklyn. Any RIers, I'd love to see you and catch up-- give me a call or an email (arizzolo at gmail dot com).
Hope all is well!
Viva Mèxico!
I have to admit, the blog posts on this trip will most likely be few and far between (not that I was all that good at keeping up last time...). Actually having Karel with me this time around just makes the idea of spending time in an internet cafè all the less palatable.
At any rate, I'll try.
So, Mexico...
There must be some sort of celestial significance in the fact that Karel and I have thus far embarked on 2 international adventures together, and both started with us trudging wearily through darkness without a place to stay, then subsequently meeting a complete stranger who offered us their home for the night. This time we accepted. Enter Autumn and George, an ageless couple from Durango, Colorado, who have enough stories between the two of them to keep the gang rallied around the campfire for weeks, if not months. Actually, probably even years. They took these two vagabonds under their wings as easily as if we were their own children and made San Carlos, Mexico, full of happy memories instead of bitter ones.
Why bitter? Well, upon arrival at the much-hyped (for me, as Karel had already embarked upon it a few years ago) Duke of Slesvig, we found that, while the boat was supposed to be all set to be put in the water and go, much remained to be done... No rigging, no sails, a chunk of the wood deck that extended past the sides broken off, wood work not done, tape up for painting the deck (for months, by the looks of it), but nothing painted, etc., etc. The, again, much hyped Mexican drinking buddy of Karel's uncle, el que le llama el "Brother" (the one they call "Brother"... Really, that was the name we knew him by) had done seemingly nothing during the past 4 years he'd been paid. Lesson learned: a good drinking buddy does not always a good worker make.
So, the sailing trip I had so eagerly awaited fell by the wayside. Still, we met amazing people and had great times, thanks to George & Autumn, Jim, our neighbor in the dry yard, and Corey & Lisa, a couple George and Autumn introduced us to who brought us out on their sailboat. At least I've sailed a bit, anyway, in Mexico.
After about a week in San Carlos, it became clear that the long-awaited sail was not meant to be. So we set out, instead, by bus.
Since then it's been fire dancers (my other true love) and grubby digs in Mazatlan, boat rides down a river in a mangrove jungle with Robert the sage and Jack the former Barcelonian clown and current drunk in San Blas, reliving España in Morelia, finding thrill in the white buildings and serpentine cobbled streets (and heartbreak in the pinche Superbowl) in Taxco, a terraced city clinging to the side of a mountain, followed by frustration and disappointment in Puebla, and, now, further frustration but a thrill at least in the mountain-town beauty and charm of Oaxaca.
Ah, travel, with your highest highs and your lowest lows, how I've missed you. It's also nice to know that the thrill is in no way gone -- in fact, it's enhanced -- when embarking on a journey with someone else. I've certainly been embroiled in lots more adventure than I'd have dared to pursue if I had been solo. And hopefully it continues. Aventura aventura!!
At some point I will fill in the gaps of the above paragraph, but for now I just want to update everyone with our progress so far. From here we go to San Cristòbal de las Casas in Chiapas (a town with good coffee!! No Nescafe! Hurrah!), to Palenque and then into Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Bahamas. No sleep til Brooklyn, for sure.
Labels: Karel, Mazatlan, Mexico, Morelia, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Blas, San Carlos, Taxco, travel, travels 2008
All for naught...
This past week has marked a year since I left LAX airport in tears and sans bag, boarded a plane to Fiji, and experienced a time warp in which September 4, 2006, never existed. Last year this time I was on a hammock under a palm tree on a Fijian beach pondering the sorry existence of my poor former colleagues as they geared up for a new year with the kids. This year marker has had me kicking myself for not writing more, and challenging myself to return to the blog and reflect a bit. Then today I put my passport through the wash, and that was the kicker.
All those lovely stamps acquired while passing through a dozen or more countries, all those beautiful full-page visas... I used to flip through my passport to admire it all, hard copy evidence and visual reminder of the things I'd experienced this past year... And now it's a mess of unwoven blue-ness. That may be some sort of analogy there, but before I stop to think about that, I must pause in remembrance. Also, I ruined one of Karel's shirts in the process. The final victims of that damn robbery in Barcelona--I'd been using my passport for ID when I go out, as my license had been stolen. Hence it was in Karel's shirt pocket. I finally received my new license in the mail today...and then went on to send my beloved passport through the wash, erasing evidence of all my hard work.
Oh well, I'll just have to do it all over again...
Oh, the places you'll go...
Dr. Seuss would be proud.
I've frequently experienced points in my life when I've marvelled at how I got to the place where I was. Standing next to a lake whose color was reminscent of Kool-Aid in New Zealand, walking down the street in Bangkok, listening to a song that I used to listen to while running down (well, walking, but walking fast) Blackstone Boulevard in Providence, flying on a zip line through the canopy of the Laos jungle, negotiating the mad traffic through a rotary on the back of a motorbike with Karel in Vietnam. This most recent one, though, takes the cake.
Ponder this. How does a girl whose been a vegetarian for over half her life, who 8 months ago was tossing herself from a plane over sheep fields and glaciers in New Zealand, who loves nothing more than zooming around SE Asia on the back of a moto, how does she end up walking down the streets of downtown Indianapolis, in her cutest red strappy 3 inch wedge heels, carrying 15 pounds of raw, as in bloody, beef tenderloin? Now that, my friends, is a moment to ponder.
Labels: Indianapolis Indiana
God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
TS Eliot once said that April was the cruelest month. I very nearly worshiped this man during my adolescence (speaking of which, is it bizarre to fancy yourself the reincarnated wife of an obtuse poet who died 15 years before you were born? At least my ego wasn't so big as to fancy myself a reincarnation of the man himself.) But, I digress... While I continue to this day to read his words with bated breath and a look of glee, it used to be that I had to disagree with him on this issue. April the cruelest month? No, my friend, I have to say March is the cruelest. First it was out of the naive beliefs of a teenager, who feels that winter refusing to release its bony hold is the only thing that can make a month cruel. Then that inescapable quality of life on this planet, tragedy, caught my heel, making a comparatively small, yet still indelible, mark, and I had to
disagree even more strongly.
Now, though, as I sit in sleepy Indianapolis, in the midst of a winter that still refuses to let go, even at this late date in April, I have to start at least partially agreeing with Mr. Eliot. Not so much because of the weather, though it certainly has done its part to make April cruel, but thanks to the passing of that other literary god of mine, Kurt Vonnegut.
As I drove through the lovely, though flat and looooong, state of Pennsylvania on my way out here to Indiana, the sun was shining a brilliant silvery-white. I'd never seen it such a color. Then sun's usually golden yellow, right? But here it was, a brilliant white light, like the moon was out, hundreds of times brighter, during the daytime. I had no idea if it had anything to do with the lack of pollution, or with the coldness and dryness of the atmosphere, but as it shined through patchy cumulous clouds, I swore I'd never seen a diamond more brilliant than the sun then and there. I kept staring at it and blinding myself, probably not the best thing to do during hour 10 of this 11-hour driving day, but I couldn't help it. Nor could I help thinking that, if this is what the sun is like out here, maybe the midwest isn't all that bad after all. I started thinking about the pros of moving out to Indianapolis. The greatest pro, by far, was that it was truly the land of Vonnegut. The restaurant behind our apartment was designed by Mr. Vonnegut's grandfather, and his family comes in often for lunch. In fact, when Karel told me about he bust of Vonnegut that sits in one of the rooms, I became ok with my decision to move out to the midwest. Not only that, but this happens to be the Year of Vonnegut: the city has chosen this year to celebrate Vonnegut's lie, and he was meant to speak on the 27th of April, reading out of Slaughterhouse Five, recently chosen as Indy's book of the year. For this girl who's harbored dreams of being a writer since she was a little girl, this was a sign if there ever was one.
And isn't it fitting, then, for those familiar with the surly curmudgeon, that Vonneut, who'd been anticipating his death for over a decade now, would end up kicking the bucket right in the middle of all these festivites in his honor, 2 weeks before he was meant to speak and I wasmeant to fulfill my intense wish of seeing him speak (after having missed the opportunity during my freshman year of college.) Now there's comedic timing for you.
So it goes.
Well, Mr. Vonnegut, you stirred the heartstrings of this here girl, beginning at a very tender age. Most recently, I found a sort of solace in Billy Pilgrim's story during my travels. Thanks for that, and hope the afterlife finds you happier than you were here on this Earth. I cheers to you, sir. Que descanse en paz.
Labels: Vonnegut Indiana Indianapolis
