Matador Network's Blog, page 2208

What I’ll miss when I leave Salvador

Photo: Vinicius Fadel

Prefere ler em português? Esse texto foi publicado originalmente na MatadorNetwork Brasil.
1. Fun being the #1 priority

Salvador is renowned for its fun-loving attitude, parties, and outdoor music shows. During the World Cup, classes in local universities were put on hold, not just for the Brazil games, but for the whole month.

I lived for five months in Pelourinho, the historic center, where freelancing proved tough. Once, when trying to meet a deadline, I heard drums in the square below my apartment. Curiosity eventually got the better of me and I decided to “pop out for five minutes to see what’s going on.” Four hours later I rocked up home with my face painted blue and a belly full of beer. What deadline…?

2. Random musical outbursts

I was waiting in line to use the bathroom in the Lapa bus station, and the two toilet attendants were handing out tissue while singing at the top of their lungs, banging away on the old table in front of them, fingers clicking, grins wide, really getting into their duet.

Similarly, stuck in a traffic jam on a bus coming back from the beach, a group of four friends started belting out their own takes on samba hits, along with a few moves. These impromptu musical outbursts happen everywhere in Salvador, from the Friday night samba in your local bar, to a group of men dancing to pagode music next to their car speakers after a win by their football team. Here, an empty water canister isn’t just an empty water canister; it’s a perfectly decent drum.

3. Bikini bodies of all shapes

My buttock-covering European bikini attracts more stares than the rather large woman in the dental-floss thong: é enorme, o seu biquini! In Brazil, putting your arse out there is way less attention-grabbing than keeping it under wraps. This is Bahia! All bodies are beautiful!

4. The unending friendliness of my neighbors

Many, but not all, Brazilians live with an open-door policy, which means your neighbors are free to come and go, help themselves to whatever’s on the stove, and fall asleep on your sofa. Neighbors are extensions of your family, and the neighborhood is an informal, friendly, supportive environment.

If someone needs a roof fixed, all the local guys will lend a hand to get the job done, as they know they’ll also need the same one day. This camaraderie creates a quasi-party atmosphere, with beer flowing, feijoada on the stove, and non-workers chatting about novelas and football.

5. Fighting to order my food

Near where I live, there’s a barraca selling fresh coconuts, snacks, fruit, etc. On my first visit, I stood there, waiting to order my coconut water with my inherent English wait-your-turn attitude. Just then someone pushed in front of me and yelled for a coconut and a sandwich.

I’ve now learned my lesson. Waiting for a polite “How may I help you?” is pointless, as the shop will close before you get a chance to order and you’ll still be standing there like an idiot.

6. Watching my novelas

Mid-manicure at my local salon, I asked about haircut prices only to be completely ignored. I asked again, but the manicurist held up a hand in a “not now querida” kind of way. Then I realized, she may be doing my nails, but she’s totally engrossed in the TV. Of course, it was novela time.

When I first arrived, I thought they’d be the kind of cheesy melodramatic efforts I’ve seen in many Latin countries, but after only two nights I was hooked, sucked in, absorbed, glued. They’re slick and glamorous with wonderfully far-fetched plots combined with real-life, hard-hitting predicaments, starring sickeningly gorgeous and well-clad actors and actresses. The birth of a guilty pleasure.

Photos clockwise from bottom left: somebody_, somebody_, Ed Butta, somebody_

7. Drinking cold beers at bus stops

Many people travel by bus in Salvador, so makeshift bars have popped up around the city’s main bus stops. Folks sell ice-cold beer from large polystyrene boxes, with cards displaying special offers, along with skewers of barbecued meat. When you’re waiting for the bus for ages, settling down on a plastic stool with an ice-cold piriguete (small beer) is a welcome treat.

With music blaring, people chatting and debating the virtues of Skol over Schin, Bahia over Victoria, you end up having so much fun you let your bus rattle by and grab another beer. I’ve gone to the bus stop solely for a beer, no bus required.

8. Eating cake for breakfast

Any country that has cake as a breakfast food deserves public accolades. Cake. For breakfast. The joy runs deep. “CAKE?! For breakfast?” asked visiting friends incredulously. Why the hell not? So it’s fine to have frosted sugar-coated cereal in your country, but not cake?

9. The endearing and sometimes confusing terms of address

Brazil has a whole range of terms of address used on the street and at home. For example, in casual environments such as the beach, you might hear men calling out “Oi, meu brodher!” (hey, brother), or “Oi gigante!” (hey, giant) to vendors, or women answering to “minha linda,” (my lovely) and “minha querida” (my dear).

One term of address I find totally befuddling, and which I’ve heard on numerous occasions, is men calling their sons and daughters “dad.” Imagine your dad calling you “dad” when you were a kid?! “Venha cá, pai!” (Come here, dad) yells a father to his three-year-old daughter in the supermarket. When I asked about it, confessing I just didn’t get it, I was the one getting the weird looks.

10. Getting psiu-ed at

Once again, in informal bars or on the beach, there’s a popular attention-grabbing technique similar to the English “pssst,” but in Portuguese it’s more of a “psiu.” At first I thought it was rude, but then I noticed its widespread use, especially at the beach.

The problem is, everyone reacts to it: “Who me? Who’s psiu-ing me?” wonder itinerant vendors of cheese, beer, earrings, and bikinis. However, when I tried psiu-ing, it just didn’t project down the windy beach. My psiu needs some work. Either that or I could just continue to flail my arms in the right direction.

11. The Brazilicization of English words

As is often the case with languages, English words have worked their way into everyday Brazilian Portuguese, yet they’re not pronounced as we know them. They’ve been given a little makeover to adapt to the country’s phonetics. Take the word “picnic.” In Brazilian Portuguese, it becomes the marvelous PIK-ee NIK-ee. “Hot dog” becomes Ho-chee Do-ggee. “Smartphone” is eh-SMAH-chee FOH-nee, and “hip-hop” becomes the hilarious HEE-pee HOH-pee.

My friend asked me if I like the band Hedchee Hotchee. I shook my head, “Never heard of them.”

“Sure you have,” he persisted. “They’re international!”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, but sing me a few lines.”

He broke into a rendition of a Red Hot Chili Peppers classic.

“But that’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers, not Hedchee Hotchee…aah!” Of course, silly me.

Dos and don'ts of cemetery conduct

Photo: keeva999

I was a teenage goth. Absolute Dr. Marten boot-stomping, black fingernail-painting, absinthe-swigging, hoodie-rocking, Anne Rice-reading, pastel-hating, SPF 125-smearing, Nine Inch Nails-worshipping, parent-shaming goth.

To mother’s delight, I’ve shed most of the trappings from that era — save my enthusiasm for graveyards. Wherever I travel I seek them out, and since burial is among the few ubiquitous cultural customs, they aren’t too hard to find. No matter where you go, chances are someone died before you got there.

Picnics

It seems a little smug to rub it in to the dead folks that you’re alive and well and eating an artisanal cheese sandwich, but there are some graveyards so beautiful they practically beg for a checkered tablecloth and a nice bottle of chenin blanc.

Case in point: Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. The place is so bucolic and the view of the New York skyline so stunning a picnic seems like a damn fine idea. Just remember not to be a dick and clean up after yourself. While you’re at it, stop and pay your respects to Jean-Michel Basquiat, arguably the cemetery’s most famous citizen. Alternatively, for the necromantic namaste crowd, Greenwood offers weekend yoga classes among the gravestones. Seriously.

Filmmaking

This can go either way. The 1988 INXS video for “Never Tear Us Apart,” with its somber overcoats, lonely sax solo, winter light, and sweeping shots of Prague’s 600-year-old Jewish cemetery, is essentially a post-Velvet Revolution promotional video for Czech tourism. It’s a do, and lead singer Michael Hutchence’s hair in the clip is nothing short of a revelation.

Easy Rider’s LSD-induced fuck session between Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and a pair of hookers among the mausoleums in New Orleans’ St. Louis Cemetery No. 1? Not so much. Following the release of the film, the Catholic Church, which doesn’t take kindly to trespassing, decreed a ban on all filming in the city’s oldest cemetery. Curiously, they were cool with actor Nicolas Cage purchasing a pyramid sarcophagus for himself in 2010. You can see Mr. Cage’s future final resting place and the tomb of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau by booking one of the city’s Save Our Cemeteries tours.

Gravestone rubbing

Unless you are Morrissey, or a direct descendant of the grave holder in question, I call the practice of charcoal transfers a don’t. Even worse is the use of shaving cream on old headstones to make them more legible. That shit contains unpronounceable chemicals not yet created at the time many headstones were cut. No one wants the last evidence of his or her life to be slathered in Gillette. Uncouth.

Photography

Photographing graveyards is okay. Photographing mourners in the act of mourning is not. The lady in black wool and a faded babushka with grief cut into her face is not an appropriate subject for a black-and-white Tumblr photo essay. I learned this the hard way in Buenos Aires’ La Recoleta Cemetery, and I’m certain I still have a blasphemer’s curse hanging around my head to this day.

Taking mementos

An ex-boyfriend brought me a bone fragment from a Roman catacomb. Shit ain’t right. It’s an invitation for bad dreams and the reason he earned the “ex-” prefix.

Leaving mementos

I’m all for an impromptu and accidentally artistic alter. It’s touching and sweetly pagan when done within reason. The mysterious bottle of cognac and trinity of roses left on Edgar Allan Poe’s grave in Baltimore? A little dramatic for my taste but appropriate nonetheless. Guitar picks, whiskey, and tit-flashing polaroids on Dimebag Darrel’s headstone? Absolutely fitting.

I draw the line at cigarette butts and lighters, though. I saw them in multitudes at Paris’ Père Lachaise around Jim Morrison’s grave. Do you really believe the resurrected corpse of Mr. Mojo Rising would be tickled to see his final resting place covered in shitty Bic lighters, bad poetry, and lipstick-stained Marlboros? I think not.

Save your lipstick for Oscar Wilde’s tomb a few rows over. It’s beautifully covered in red-stained kisses, a tribute to the man who once wrote, “A kiss may ruin a human life.” But be stealthy about it — French authorities are threatening to fine anyone caught in the act 9,000 euros. Kind of prudish for a culture that supposedly invented the art of the makeout.

29 signs you're from SoCal

Photo: Spencer Finnley

1. You consider tacos and burritos major food groups. When abroad, you miss Mexican food more than family and friends.

2. You know In-N-Out’s secret menu by heart. Your usual order: animal style, a fresh beef patty with mustard baked in, slathered with tangy Thousand Island and onions hot off the grill. When you’re feeling healthy: protein style, which swaps the bun for a lettuce leaf.

3. You shop for virtually any fruit or vegetable at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, unaware it’s out of season until you get to the cash register.

4. Either you or one of your friends is on a juice cleanse or raw-food diet.

5. You spend at least 30% of your day driving. Except on Sundays, when you just drive to the gym.

6. You own a bike, but the only time you ride it is when you load it into your Explorer, drive 20 miles to meet your bike club, tool around with your cycling buddies, then reverse the process and drive home.

7. You know how to surf, skateboard, and ski, as well as what jargon to use when engaging in each of these activities.

8. You always use the definite article when referring to freeways — e.g., “the 101” or “the 405.”

9. Regardless of distance, you tell friends it’ll take 20 minutes to get there, depending on traffic. This ensures accuracy since traffic can account for endless delays.

10. You have no idea how to ride a public bus. The only people who ride buses in LA are transplants, household help, and folks with pending DUIs.

11. You know you’ll lose friends if you ask them to take you to LAX. If that’s your departure point, you spend the 50 bucks for a shuttle, leave your car in long-term parking, or switch to a suburban airport in Long Beach, the OC, or Ontario if you want free, friendly transport.

12. You stress about jaywalking because you’ve copped one too many tickets for crossing against the light. You warn friends from abroad, but most ignore you and do it anyway. Except the Germans, who have similar rules in their country.

13. You know at least one able-bodied person with a “Disabled” sign on their dashboard, allowing access to prime handicapped parking at stores, restaurants, sports, and concert venues.

14. Cold makes you anxious, especially when temps dip below 65. Anything below 50 has you staying indoors with the heat on.

15. You only own one jacket, other than the goose-down number reserved for skiing and camping.

16. June is the saddest month, when you live with fog and gray skies.

17. You lose your driving ability when it rains.

18. Earthquakes are no big deal. If you lived through Northridge, you can live through anything.

19. You’ve never seen it snow. Sure, you’ve been to Big Bear or Lake Arrowhead for riding, but you’ve never actually seen white stuff come from the sky.

20. You consider flip-flops appropriate for most occasions. For weddings and funerals, you wear fancy sandals.

21. You’ve asked at least one friend, “Are yours real or fake?”

22. Most of your buddies have the same first name: “Dude.”

23. You’d NEVER refer to your home state as “Cali.”

24. “Dank” describes anything especially good, as in, “This burger is dank.” While Merriam-Webster defines “dank” as “wet and cold in a way that is unpleasant,” the word refers to tasty food or high-quality marijuana in LA.

25. You aren’t from Los Angeles, even if your address says so. Any pride you have about living in SoCal is overshadowed by loyalty to your ‘hood. Whether it’s Venice, West Hollywood, Silverlake, or over the hill in the San Fernando Valley (where everything is cheaper and water boils in your car), that’s where you hang.

26. Several of your friends are trying to break into The Industry. Between casting calls and auditions, they bartend or wait tables in Hollywood.

27. You’re smitten by at least one LA sports team. Whether it’s the Dodgers, Angels, Clippers, Lakers, Kings, or Ducks, you’ll watch them in action, live, or on the tube.

28. If you’re a Bruin, you consider USC students spoiled brats. If you’re a Trojan, every other student is beneath you.

29. You wonder why anyone would live any place other than Southern California.

What I miss about Afghanistan

Photo: The U.S. Army

Back in the summer of 2010, my unit, Bravo Company 1-66 TF, was deployed to the Charbaugh region of the Arghendab River Valley, Kandahar province — the very birthplace of the Taliban and a stronghold at the time. It was a beautiful patch of hell called Combat Outpost (COP) Ware and it was our home for the next year, in the middle of a literal minefield.

Even in this most volatile of places, there was still beauty to be seen, and things I find myself missing.

The shuras

A shura is a gathering of a region’s elders and tribal malaks. The objective of a shura is to negotiate terms and conditions for helping them overcome Taliban influence, as well as to understand their issues and worries. These periodic shuras are an anthropologist’s El Dorado — an entire region’s most influential tribal leaders and warlords gathered in one setting enjoying a friendly ritual of chai tea and Pine cigarettes.

Having an innate curiosity for foreign cultures, and having studied anthropology in college, this was something I took full appreciation of. The overall atmosphere of the shura determined the mood of the locals and the situation. You didn’t need a translator to understand it. Tense, wide-eyed words and fidgeting would signal a Taliban threat, squinched eyebrows and heated words would usually mean we fucked up, light conversation and laughing would mean all is well.

SLEs: Street Level Engagements

A Street Level Engagement is basically a friend-making mission conducted in surrounding villages and farms. Mission details included: bull-shitting, joking, playing with kids, handing out candy, having tea with families, hanging out with that one crazy-ass villager, and/or helping with small mundane tasks. All the while paying attention to precious intel on the Taliban situation. So it wasn’t purely friend-making, but inevitably that’s what happened. I made good pals with a kid from the Jelerand community several kilometers east of our base who greeted me with a running hug every time he saw me. Then he’d proceed to tease the shit out of me, calling me coony (gay) in Pashto. We’d usually hang out if I was on security detail.

SLEs remind me of the typical RPG video game, when you have to talk to all the villagers in a town in order to progress the storyline. We made some interesting friends during those missions. But some villages weren’t partial to us, even if they were less than a few kilometers away from a friendly community.

The kids were a huge diplomatic telegraph, too. It’s almost comical because we’d know if there was Taliban influence or presence if the kids stuck their thumbs up, basically saying: “Taliban Gooood,” or vice-versa. Either way, they were always a joy to play with, happily lost in their innocence despite the war-torn nature of it all.

Living with the Afghanistan National Army (ANA)

Being part Native American, my dark-brown skin and patchy-haired face blended well among Afghans. I became the brother of Ezetowa, an Afghan soldier my age and very professional. During mealtimes we learned about our different cultures through hundreds of questions over gallons of orange Fanta. At this time, I was trying to learn Pashto as well and frequented the ANA spaces, where I’d trade things like sunglasses and gloves for massive blocks of hash. Or candy from the MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) for some delicious goat-and-rice stew with naan.

Eventually, Ezetowa invited me to dinner with the ANA commander, an ex-Mujahideen with a face bearing a lifetime of war. He was a truly intimidating man to look in the eye. Through these dinners, I became something of a mitigator between the ANA and the US soldiers.

Scribing

I had many jobs in Afhganistan — machine gunner, minesweeper (we lived in a minefield), rifleman, team leader — particularly due to our isolation and lack of personnel. My favorite was being the patrol scribe. As the scribe, I operated a military-issued Lumix camera and a pen and paper to continuously log the patrol. It felt good to trade the weight of a 240B machine gun and the constant stroke of the minesweeper for just an M4 and small detainee kit.

As a scribe, I had the most involvement aside from being a team leader toward the end. Since my main mission was logging the patrol, I had a slightly relaxed responsibility for security. So I took pictures of everybody and got awesome photos of the villages and elders, malaks, scenery, and, of course, the boys.

The fruit and veggies

Most people associate Afghanistan with a barren desert, which is all but nearly true. In the valleys where the rivers flow, there are jungles amidst the whirling dry sands. Where we operated, the vegetation was so lush our patrols would take hours to move a few kilometers. There were farms, orchards, and forests, and canals and waterways shooting off from the Arghendab River.

Farms spat out all sorts of fresh vegetables like potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes — you name it, they had it. Countless orchards of pomegranates checkered the farms as the most prevalent crop, next to cannabis and poppy fields. Our favorite to harvest, though, were the berries from the sporadic mulberry trees. Once, we made a legit mission for fruit to make fruit shakes with. Such flora gave much needed liberation from military rations.

The mountain

My favorite outings in Afghanistan were the five-day rotations I did manning an observation post atop the high saddle of jagged and steep Pyr-e-Pamal Mountain. It was a vacation from the war below, not for lack of danger, but for the days not worrying about the explosive ghosts hiding underground. I took free rein of the entire mountain range because of the relative protection provided by the inaccessible cliffs surrounding us. During the day, the team didn’t mind idling around the radio, pulling watch during the sizzling summer, or huddling around the same radio during the bone-cold winter, while I went off exploring and rock climbing with a grappling hook I somehow acquired from the supply gods.

There was a special spot on the southern peak where I’d stare at the sunset alone in peace, watching those alien mountains sprawl into the hazy beyond, and scouring the clay villages in the green valley below. Behind to the east, while scoping out with the binoculars one day, I spotted a tall entrance to a temple on the face of a steep mountainside across a western suburb of Kandahar. A long, stone-carved staircase spiraled to the temple’s feet. The entrance was guarded 24/7 by ANA soldiers. I still don’t know what the hell it was. At night we’d watch endless battles raging all around the mountain, feeling curiously safe in our high tower of defense.

The action

War is hell. No two ways about it. But ask any combat veteran soldier what the highlight of his life was, and he’ll probably tell you some war stories about the shit he got into “over there.”

Frightening situations and hellish images and sounds plague some memories, but war in my eyes will always be the ultimate experience. No extreme sport, hobby, or skill can compare. It’s the ultimate form of expression — tearing out of you that which you really are and what you’re capable of. Because of that, war is something to be longed for after the fact, even if we may dread hearing the crack of a bullet or just the explosion of a firework. There’s a resonating satisfaction of such an intense experience — knowing that few people actually witness such chaos and even fewer can persevere in it. This danger amplifies the feeling of being alive.

9 things not to miss in the FL Keys

Photo: John B. Kalla

1. Diving the Adolphus Busch wreck

The Adolphus Busch (yes, of relation to the brewing company) is a sunken cargo ship near Looe Key. Adolphus Busch IV had the boat stripped and sunk as an artificial reef in 1998.

Considered a rather advanced dive due to its technical nature, the Adolphus Busch wreck dive isn’t visited by many tourists. At a depth of 80 feet (reaching a maximum of 100 feet), reef fish of all sorts can be spotted alongside the larger Atlantic goliath grouper, sawfish, and occasional shark.

2. Old Wooden Bridge Fish Camp

The Old Wooden Bridge Fish Camp, on Big Pine Key, is named after the wooden bridge that linked Big Pine Key and No Name Key. The cottages and docks are located at the base of No Name Key Bridge, allowing guests to fish off the bridge or take a boat out to catch larger fish. The quiet vibe is a stark contrast to the party atmosphere of Key West’s Duval Street.

3. Breakfast and a “Bloody Harry” at Harpoon Harry’s

While much of Key West is your typical tourist haunt, visitors who walk away from the commotion get a different experience. Take a seat at the bar at Harpoon Harry’s on Caroline Street and order breakfast and a “Bloody Harry.”

4. Spotting Key deer at dusk on No Name Key

The Key deer, as suggested by the name, is an endangered subspecies of deer than can only be found in the Florida Keys. The National Key Deer Refuge is on Big Pine Key, but the deer can be spotted in the wild on No Name Key due to the lack of heavy human presence. A bike ride around the island is ideal for spotting Key deer. The animal is notable for its ability to swim between islands.

5. A steamboat ride on the African Queen

Used as a tourist boat on Key Largo since 2012, the African Queen was featured in the 1951 film The African Queen starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. (The film was Bogart’s only Oscar-winning performance.) Rediscovered in Cairo in the early 1970s, the ship was purchased and sent to the United States. Recently refurbished, the African Queen is available for short charter cruises.

Photos clockwise from bottom left: Visit Florida, Clipp2nd, Karen Hoffmann, Visit Florida

6. Kayaking around Curry Hammock State Park

One of the Florida Keys’ quieter state parks, Curry Hammock is a great spot to kayak through mangroves. Visitors can paddle around Little Crawl Key, on which the park is located, in less than two hours. While the Keys aren’t well known for their beaches, the park contains 1,200 feet of shallow, sandy beach.

7. A novelty tour of the Key West Cemetery

The Key West Cemetery houses the graves of many sailors, soldiers, and Key West locals. Among the plots, visitors will find several graves with rather peculiar headstone inscriptions. One reads, “I told you I was sick.” Another, “Devoted Fan of Singer Julio Iglesias.” At the entrance are pamphlets containing a map that indicates the “interesting” plots and headstones.

8. Camping in the Dry Tortugas

The Dry Tortugas, 67 miles west of Key West, are considered the westernmost islands of the Florida Keys. A 10-site campground can be found on Garden Key, the same key as Fort Jefferson. The basic campsites have picnic tables and grills but nothing more; everything must be brought with you and packed back out.

The Dry Tortugas are accessible by ferry, private boat, or seaplane for those looking for a quicker ride. The area has world-class snorkeling, diving, and bird watching.

9. A (quick) stop at the Perky Bat Tower

Officially known as the Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower, the Perky Bat Tower was built in 1929 by Richter Clyde Perky to combat the mosquito problem that plagued the Lower Keys. Unfortunately, the bats flew away shortly after being installed in the tower. The structure remains as an odd historic landmark at mile marker 17 on Lower Sugarloaf Key.

Skateboard mission to Bali [vid]

Filmmaker Sebastian Linda has made three short movies about the “Beasts” — a group of skateboarders in Dresden — but the films have never actually left Dresden.

In his latest, The Journey of the Beasts (presented in its entirety above!), this group of self-appointed skateboarding ambassadors travel to Bali and turn the island into their very own skatepark.

Philadelphia's Mural Mile [pics]

In 1984, Philadelphia was feeling the first effects of a drug epidemic that would turn whole sections of the city into virtual post-apocalyptic wastelands. One of the symptoms of decay was a rampant graffiti movement that, despite the artistic skills it required, was considered an eyesore.

In response to the unwelcome public art, muralist Jane Golden was hired as part of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network. Her job was to meet the graffiti writers and find a more constructive way to channel their efforts. Thirty years later, there’s no missing the fruits of Golden’s labor. In the time since, the Anti-Graffiti Network was restructured into the Mural Arts Program and has helped put up over 3,600 designs across the city.

Walking through Philadelphia amounts to a stroll through the world’s largest outdoor art gallery. From prominent locations next to city hall to anonymous alleys and side streets, the murals are a proud and ubiquitous piece of the city’s cultural identity. Their themes reflect everything from a beautiful spring day to the horrific transatlantic slave trade. The murals are not only valued for their aesthetics, but are also expressions of civic consciousness. They display the spirit of neighborhoods and not-so-distant histories that have shaped the current urban experience.

The following images were taken along the self-guided Mural Mile tour.




1

Legacy by Josh Sarantitis

Legacy is one of the world’s largest Venetian glass mosaics. It was created with the help of 40 prisoners serving life sentences in Pennsylvania’s largest maximum-security prison. The theme focuses on the transatlantic slave trade and alludes to the lives of the prisoners who live in shackles. The mural offered a way for some who had been removed from their community to make a positive impact on civic life.

All photos by author

2

A People’s Progression Towards Equality by Jared Bader

This mural pays homage to the path toward racial equality set into motion by Abraham Lincoln. At the center is an under-construction statue of the 16th president. At the lower and less-complete portion are the dark days of slavery and segregation. At the higher levels you can see a more complete structure and figures demonstrating interracial cooperation. The final level is beyond our view, but it suggests a world of true equality.

3

Tree of Knowledge by Michael Webb

Tree of Knowledge is in one of the most prominent locations in all of Philadelphia, sitting just yards away from the massive French Renaissance-style city hall. The mural is in commemoration of the Eisenhower Fellowship. Hidden in the tree are items such as the scales of justice and carpenters’ tools, meant to represent the values of the fellowship.

Intermission




2
The murals of Philadelphia
by Kristin Conard



2
13 awesome street artists (who aren’t Banksy)
by Matt Hershberger




The story behind Cape Town’s newest street mural
by Deva Lee
















4

Finding Home by Josh Sarantitis and Kathryn Pennepacker

Before it was adhered onto a city wall, Finding Home was woven and dyed onto cloth. The theme revolves around homelessness and was made with the help of a number of Philadelphia’s homeless residents. Artist Kathryn Pennepacker says the material holds the “spirit, message, and hope of the people who worked on the project.”

5

Finding Home by Josh Sarantitis and Kathryn Pennepacker (cont.)

This section of Finding Home depicts many hands coming together in the same manner as the community that came together to create the mural.

6

Building the City by Michael Webb

This mural is painted on the side of a historic building on Moravian Street. It was commissioned by Jim Beasley, who also restored the structure, turning it into offices for his law firm. The mural itself is a tribute to Philadelphia architecture. Painted in the mural are Michael Webb, Jim Beasley, and their children.

7

Building the City by Michael Webb (cont.)

In this portion of the mural, workers are pouring steel, the critical material in Philadelphia's skyscrapers. In the background is a rendition of the William Penn sculpture that sits on top of city hall.

8

Women of Progress by Cesar Viveros and Larissa Preston

Painted along the side of the New Century Guild, Women of Progress depicts the change in work and gender rolls of women. Included in the painting are Anne Preston, one of America’s first female doctors, and Sarah Hale, author of Mary Had a Little Lamb and editor of one of the first American magazines marketed to women.

9

Spring by David Guinn

Artist David Guinn simply wanted to extend spring for the Bradford pear and dogwood trees around this mural. The concept came from a spring day that the artist did not want to see end.

10

Theater of Life by Meg Saligman

Made from glass tiles, marbles, and concrete, Theater of Life is the first 3D mural in the area. The different characters represent the many different roles we are all required to play during our lives. The larger hands relate to control and the woman with scissors is poised to cut the strings that control us.

10 misconceptions about study abroad

Photo: Thompson Rivers University

I’ve been working in the field of education abroad for the past seven years, most recently as a study abroad advisor for a large public research institution. We send about 1,600 undergraduates abroad a year, with around 60% of those students going in the summer.

The short-term experience is a phenomenon common and unique to the United States, and one of the biggest challenges in getting students to go abroad for longer durations is that pernicious “Fear of Missing out.” These are some of the most common excuses students give me.

1. “Studying abroad isn’t important for my future career.”

The most outlandish excuse of them all. The likelihood that someone would never encounter a person from a foreign country in their field of work is low. Studying abroad helps students develop skills like cross-cultural communication, tolerance, and independence that will be helpful in any future career.

2. “I love it here so much.”

Many students think college can’t possibly get any better, so there’s no point in leaving. I then explain about my time studying in Valencia, Spain, and going to the Fallas Festival in March. This four-night street party honors St. Joseph and is celebrated with fireworks, glittering displays of lights, and intricately detailed statues made of Styrofoam that are burned in the middle of each falla (neighborhood). The festival gave me an authentic, in-depth perspective of a Valenciano cultural tradition, something I will always remember.

3. “I’m afraid I’ll miss an opportunity here.”

We’re always missing out on something. Students studying abroad in the summer miss the chance to have three months of summer break without reading and papers, or working to save money. I missed my last semester of high school by studying abroad in Costa Rica.

But in return, I studied Spanish for a month, followed by a month of volunteering with exotic birds. I don’t know anyone else who had that opportunity in high school, and I’m pretty sure nothing “new” happened in that final semester that I didn’t experience any other time.

4. “I can’t afford to study abroad.”

There’s a study abroad program for every budget; it takes careful planning, and not waiting till the last minute to find scholarships or other sources of funding. Costs will also depend on the program model. At my former university, if a student studies on an exchange, they pay their normal tuition and fees. Students need to have all the right information before deciding they can’t afford the experience.

5. “I’ll fall behind in my degree requirements.”

Institutions handle this in a variety of ways, but credits from study abroad generally will count toward degree requirements in some way. Study abroad advising is shifting from a destination-centered to an academic-centered focus, and studying abroad in any major is entirely possible.

If students are afraid of falling behind in classes, I wouldn’t worry; they’ll come back with a new and different type of knowledge, and may even be more creative than their peers.

6. “I’m an engineering (or STEM) student, so I can’t go abroad.”

This is 100% not true. Studying abroad is extremely relevant for engineers, who may end up working for a multinational corporation, or with individuals from other countries. There are a growing number of STEM-specific study abroad programs, but it’s more common to directly enroll at a foreign institution and take engineering or science courses.

It may take extra planning, but being in the STEM fields doesn’t prohibit a student from studying abroad.

7. “I don’t speak a foreign language.”

I’m a firm believer that everyone should speak more than one language, and I envy those who are bilingual and beyond. This is an area in which the US is lacking, but there’s one big advantage to speaking English — many institutions around the world teach in English to attract international students. If a student wants to go to Sweden and study physics, they can! Better yet, students can always study abroad to learn a foreign language.

8. “I need to get an internship.”

Depending on what skills a student wants to develop, studying abroad can be as developmentally rewarding as getting an internship. Gaining practical work experience is important, though, which is why many programs and institutions offer internship options (often for credit). These opportunities allow students to develop workplace skills in a foreign environment, which employers value highly.

9. “I’ll have time to travel after I graduate from college.”

Maybe this is true, but the opportunity to live abroad for an extended period of time is less likely to present itself once students leave college and enter the workforce. Studying abroad immerses students in a new culture, giving them a more transformational life experience.

10. “I won’t know anyone abroad.”

Going abroad pushes you beyond your comfort zone. Some students may have a fear of the unknown, have not been abroad before, or have never lived far from home. Studying abroad can seem daunting, but it’s just like going to college for the first time — you’ll meet people and make friends. Plus, there’s always Skype for calling home.

How to ruin a trip to Hanoi, Vietnam

Photo: Maxime Guilbot

1. Get hit by a motorbike while crossing the road.

At any given time during the day, there are millions of motorbikes zigzagging through Hanoi’s streets. Traffic laws aren’t rules, they’re suggestions. The president of the Asia Injury Prevention Fund has gone so far as to call the traffic situation in Hanoi “an absolute crisis.”

Being a pedestrian in Hanoi is an activity that takes courage and finesse. When crossing the street, step with confidence, and don’t dilly-dally back and forth. Most drivers are used to moving around pedestrians, but if you hesitate or move backwards, your chances of getting hit go up.

You’ll also most likely find yourself on the back of a xe om, or a motorbike taxi. Besides walking, which is a terrible ordeal in the 100+ degree humid summers, xe oms are the cheapest and easiest way to get around the city. Although it’s now mandatory for all drivers to wear helmets (unlike in neighboring Southeast Asian countries), passengers don’t have to. That said, your driver should provide you one. Hold on and be prepared for a wild ride.

2. Rent a motorbike or motorcycle if you’re not experienced.

Considering all the reasons above, don’t do it. It ain’t gonna end pretty.

3. Stay put in “Beer Corner” and the backpacker ghetto.

Hanoi’s backpacker district is located just south of Hoan Kiem Lake in the city center. Beer Corner is at the heart of the area and is an intersection of open-air “bars” (i.e., short plastic stools on the curb that sell inexpensive beer). As tempting as it is to hang out in a small area of Hanoi full of cheap restaurants, cheap booze, and half-naked tanned tourists, it’s not really why you came to Hanoi, now is it?

Instead, try the Old Quarter and the French Quarter. There’s a mix of tree-lined boulevards that feel surprisingly European and tiny narrow streets lined with French colonial buildings sitting on top of modern storefronts that sell anything and everything. Escape some of the tourist mayhem on the southern end of West Lake, where you’ll find more local-filled restaurants, cafes, and markets selling local foods. There are also lots of great bars, which often feature live music, in the Tay Ho district on the northeastern inlet of West Lake.

4. Travel to Hanoi or north of Hanoi in December, January, or February with only tank tops, shorts, and flip-flops.

You may not have expected to need a down jacket on your trip to Vietnam, but the temperature in Hanoi can get to the low 50s °F in the winter months. Considering the average humidity of 80%, the cold and wet will bite down on you hard if you aren’t prepared.

5. Get stuck in town during the Tet holidays.

Tet, or Vietnamese New Year, is the biggest holiday in Vietnam. Check your calendar before you leave because the dates change every year, but it usually falls in January or February. It’s like Christmas in the West — there are big celebrations leading up to it, and then on New Year’s Eve and for about a week afterwards, everything shuts down.

Xe oms and taxis are scarce. And because most Vietnamese families will be traveling to spend the holidays with their families outside of Hanoi, buses, trains, and flights will be impossible to book last minute, and will be at least triple the ordinary price. The Hanoi roads, normally a cacophony of dizzying traffic and street vendors, will be quiet. Talk about setting yourself up for the ultimate holiday blues.

If you’ll be in the country during the holidays, plan ahead of time. Ideally, you’ll make contact with a generous couchsurfing host who might welcome you into their family home for the New Year’s celebrations. Expect the best food you’ll eat on your trip in Vietnam, all painstakingly prepared for weeks by the matriarch and daughters of the family, lots of rice wine, a trip to the family pagoda, and more generosity and love than you think you deserve.

After New Year’s Day, take a flight to Mui Ne or Phu Quoc Island and do what the rest of us orphan Christmas travelers do — sun on the beach and drink lots of cheap cocktails for the next week.

6. Spend more than $3 on a beer.

Beer is cheap. Even if you’re staying at a fancy hotel, hit the streets and local bars for your booze. Bia Hanoi (Hanoi’s local beer) should cost $1-2. Fresh beer, bia hoi, which is brewed daily, can cost as little 20 cents. It can’t be missed.

Don’t freak out if your beer comes with ice in it. It’s the way it’s consumed here, and in the hot season, you’ll appreciate it.

7. Only eat at restaurants with English menus.

Hanoi is a city of food. Really, really good food. Vietnamese fare is some of freshest, healthiest, and beautifully simple food in the world. Unfortunately, restaurants geared toward tourists mostly manage to screw all this up in an effort to appeal to the stereotypical Western tongue. If you’ve been in Southeast Asia, you’ve probably been to restaurants that have 178 choices on the menu and offer everything from “traditional” food to burritos and English-style fish and chips.

Traditional Vietnamese eateries aren’t about offering customers a hundred different mediocre choices, but rather serving one or two that are damn-near perfection. In Hanoi, certain neighborhoods specialize in certain types of food. If you’re looking for the best pho bo options (rice noodle soup topped with thin slices of rare beef and fresh herbs, often dubbed Vietnam’s national dish), head to Bat Dan Street. Leave your sanitation requisites behind and get your hands on the best BBQ chicken you’ve ever had on Nguyen Thai Hoc, aptly nicknamed “Chicken Street.” Order the pieces of chicken you most fancy, along with sticky rice, pickled vegetables, and, of course, a Bia Hanoi.

8. Let getting ripped off or being constantly hassled by hawkers ruin your day.

Hanoi is full of people trying to sell you things. Gum, cigarettes, photocopied books, purses, pink furry stuffed animals — you name it and someone will sell it to you.

Take this scenario. You’re sitting at a roadside coffeeshop downing a ca phe sua (espresso with a dollop of sweetened condensed milk), and someone approaches you with a basket full of knockoff Ray-Bans. If you want that sweet pair of neon pink sunnies, barter as much as you can stomach. But I guarantee you’ll meet a girl in your hostel the next day who got hers for half the price you paid. If you want none of that business, politely and confidently say, “Da khong, com on,” (pronounced yaa kong, kam un and meaning “no thank you”), and hopefully the hawker will be so impressed that you attempted the Vietnamese language, he or she will leave.

More than likely, though, they’ll continue selling to you, or coldly stare at you while you awkwardly ignore them, until they get bored and move on. The truth is this: Getting hassled or ripped off can’t be avoided in Hanoi. Normally you’ll overpay by a couple of dollars, which in the scheme of things matters very little. Keep your sense of humor — it’s all part of the adventure.

9. Take the wrong taxi or fail to negotiate a price beforehand.

Always take Mai Linh taxis if you can. They’re metered and are generally the most trusted brand by foreigners and locals alike. There are lots of them around the city, but if you can’t manage to grab one, negotiate a price with a taxi driver beforehand. You may end up paying a little more than you would using Mai Linh, but you’ll avoid the stacked meter scheme that lots of dodgy taxis employ.

Beware of Mai Linh impersonators, and if you do get ripped off, refer back to the last sentence of #8.

Oakland: A premier US sports city

Photo: Nicole Abalde

1. It has three major teams — and three major sports — to choose from.

Oakland fields contenders for the three biggest of America’s pastimes: the Raiders (football), the Warriors (basketball), and the Athletics (you can just call them the A’s, baseball).

To put that in perspective, the NFL has 32 teams, and the NBA and MLB have 30 each. 92 teams total spread over the entire country. Most gravitate to the huge population centers: New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles. The others are sprinkled about the country, and most smaller cities and towns are lucky to attract just one sports franchise. Oakland gets all three.

A smaller city pulling that off says everything you need to know about how fanatical the city is about its sports.

2. The city actually rallies.

And fanatical they are. You should expect nothing less from the city that actually managed to make something out of the Occupy movement. Most cities of Oakland’s caliber rally around whatever sports team they have, but that’s simply because they only have one. With three, you’d expect some poaching of fan bases. Or at least directional apathy (you can only care so much, you’d think).

Not so for Oaktown. The city seemingly comes together for every sports game, every season, packing the bars (of which Oakland is packed — more on that next) and cheering on their boys no matter what kind of ball they’re throwing around. More than that, Oakland fans take their dedication to new and innovative heights. A’s fans were the first to perform a televised version of “the Wave,” during a game against the Yankees in 1981, and the foundations of the modern Fantasy Football craze were laid by Raiders supporters in the early ’60s.

3. Beer!

The only thing better than watching sports is watching sports with an ice-cold beer in hand. And luckily, Oakland is a top-notch beer town. There’s the usual liquor-store fare, sure — and watching sports may be the only time grabbing a case of cheap brew is acceptable — but Oakland is also home to some of the best craft beer dispensaries in the country.

Good Hop Bottle Shop in particular is damn near all-encompassing, featuring 600 different kinds of craft beer and a chance to try them out in the store. Beer Revolution is another spot where you can order both “for here” and “to go.” For specialty taps you won’t find at your typical sports bar, hit up the Trappist in Old Oakland. And then you’ve got local brewing operations link Linden Street supplying dozens of bars in both the East and West Bay. All these quality craft beer options helped earn Oakland a spot on this year’s Forbes list of “America’s Coolest Cities.”

Photos: Karl + Llima Orosa

4. The weather is awesome.

Sure, it’s more a general statement about Oakland itself than it is about its sports. But have you ever watched a home game for the Green Bay Packers? There’s so much snow and mud on the field the players can hardly see. And that’s saying nothing about the fans — try cooking a hot dog in the stadium parking lot when it’s 3 degrees out the sleet’s coming down sideways.

Sure, it’s NorCal, and there are foggy days on the bay. But that -Cal suffix still stands for something, and even at its worst Oakland’s O.co Stadium doesn’t need to put a roof over its field, thanks to the city’s 265 days of sunshine a year. Going to a game there hits every romantic image that makes American sports great.

5. There’s fierce competition right next door.

They say competition spurs development. So you’d better believe Oakland, sitting right next to San Francisco, is gonna be driving that competition right up. The West Coast is lousy with great teams. There are the 49ers and the Giants right in Oakland’s backyard. The Chargers, Padres, Lakers, and Clippers are just a few hours south. All of those teams have a fierce following and a winning history, and Oakland faces all of them. Oakland is great by necessity.

Even when they’re not competing, the specter of rivalry hangs heavy. The comparisons will always happen, and Oakland has to work harder than anybody else to prove themselves. And they’ve proved themselves continuously through the gauntlet.

6. Everybody loves an underdog.

It’s not always about the king of the hill knocking down every chump who makes the mistake of coming for the high ground. People want an underdog story. They want to root for the guy climbing the hill.

San Francisco is good at sports. The Giants are obviously a major powerhouse, blowing away the baseball competition and winning the World Series twice in the last four years. But people want to see the city on the other side of the bay come on over and kick their ass for the sole reason that it’ll validate every struggle in their own lives. If the A’s can do it, so can they.

That extends far beyond the borders of Oakland — it puts the city on a pedestal to everyone who follows the game. So no matter where they’re playing, or whom, rooting for Oakland is a smart choice. When you’re in the city proper, it’s a choice you’ll never even have to make.

Photo: Bryce Edwards

7. The teams (and fans) have badass nicknames.

This is a pretty shallow aspect of the sport, but if nicknames didn’t play some part in the development of a persona, we wouldn’t have the King, the Boss, the Windy City, or the Dark Knight. And then where would we be? Most teams go for the easy answer. The Cards. The Bolts. Come on. Anybody could come up with a nickname directly referencing the mascot. That’s eighth-grade quality. That’s naming the kid who peed his pants last year “Pee Pants.”

Oakland is better than that. Just look at the Raiders. Their nicknames are the Men in Black, the Team of the Decades, America’s Most Wanted. Throw those into a casual conversation and people are gonna wonder what they did to earn names like that. Even their fans, aka Raider Nation, get in on the action, taking on the moniker “the Black Hole.”

Mystique is a powerful succubus, and soon those same people will be proud supporters of America’s Most Wanted without even knowing quite why they’re called that.

8. And they’ll play the villain if they need to.

And they’ve earned their nicknames. On the inside, the Raiders are big puppies that use their considerable clout to support social causes, such as by playing charity basketball games against the 49ers (spoiler: the Raiders won) and visiting sick kids in children’s hospitals. But on the outside, they’re more than happy to play the villain. You don’t wrap yourself in black and silver and take on the Jolly Roger as a mascot unless you want that mystique to include just a touch of fear.

But look at the track record. The Joker. Darth Vader. Hannibal Lecter. The only thing people love rooting for more than an underdog is a villain. They’ve always got the better outfits, the grander plans, the cool disregard for the rules you have to abide by. So Oakland will be the villain if you want them to be. They don’t need your validation. They only need you staring in awe.

9. Just ask John Madden.

Pow! You know who this is. John Madden is famous now for the long series of NFL video games bearing his name, and for his colorful commentating style that makes it easy for the non-fan to understand the game. “If they want to win, they’re going to need to score more touchdowns than the other team in this second half,” and all that. With a fair amount of “bang” and “doink!” thrown in for good measure. The man is a national treasure.

But before all that, John Madden was a Raider. After a stint as an assistant coach at SDSU, the Raiders brought Madden on as a linebacker coach in 1967. He was head coach by 1969 (now that’s Madden-style mathematics) and finished his first season with a record of 12-1-1. In 1976, they got their first championship ring.

So these days it may be the video games and the “doink!”s that color Madden’s legacy. But the man led the Raiders for 10 years, and his overall winning percentage ranks second in the league’s history. He never had a losing season. Remember that the next time you play a game of Madden with your best friend at a party.

Photo: David Brossard

10. Its teams have winning pedigrees.

As rare as it is for a smaller city to have a major sports team, it’s even rarer to have a winning one. But even without Madden at the helm, Oakland has a history of taking home the Ws. The Raiders have won rings in ’76, ’80, and ’83, and that says nothing of their five conference championships, 15 divisional championships, and 21 playoff appearances.

The A’s have won the World Series nine times and have American League Pennant titles to their name. And though the Warriors haven’t always played in Oakland, the history of the franchise includes three championships. A city of underdogs, a city of champions.

11. The A’s have the highest MLB winning percentage this season.

Yes, the A’s last World Series win was in 1989. But as of this writing, the team is skyrocketing towards the playoffs with a win percentage of .574, third highest in the MLB. The Raiders are in preseason and looking pretty damn impressive themselves, and the Warriors are poised to improve on their sixth-seed slot in last season’s Western Conference standings.

People talk trash on bandwagon fans, the guys who start rooting for a team after they’re already successful and act like they’ve been in it since the beginning. Want to avoid that? Start rooting for Oakland now.