Lisa Niver's Blog: We Said Go Travel, page 309

A Girl’s Dream in South Korea

When I was a little girl, I used to look up at the sky and see airplanes flying away. I waved to them while I dreamed of being aboard, going off alone on an adventure into the big world.

For an Egyptian girl born to a conservative family, traveling solo wasn’t a very realistic option, but my desire to try it continued to grow stronger as I got older, and led to the hardest challenge I would ever face.

My parents wanted me to get married and have children after I got my degree, but I had a different dream that I wasn’t going to give up on. I worked while in college and saved as much money as I could, keeping my dream alive while family members, neighbors and friends of my mother tried to arrange marriage for me.

I turned down all of the proposals and continued saving, always looking ahead to achieve my goal. The pressure my parents put me through only made me more determined to reach my goals and live my life my way. Some people mocked my plans, saying: “You will never travel.” , but their attitude only acted as a further push forward to me.

One day I watched a travel show about South Korea. As I saw the green hills, ancient Buddhist temples and modern streets I knew I wanted to be there. I read about Korean history, took language lessons, and wrote an article for a Korean newspaper, which won me a week-long trip to Seoul! Even though I was the only winner from Egypt, my parents didn’t want to let me travel there. While they were proud of me, they were worried about the outside world.

I fought for my right and I challenged them. My mom kept saying, “How can a girl travel alone?” “You’re just a weak girl, you need a man to protect you.” She was wrong about that. I needed no one. Finally, they allowed me to go.

After years of dreaming I was actually on a flight, flying off the ground into the high sky and open air. I’ll never forget the way I felt when I landed in Korea and stepped out of the airport. I was happy and proud. And for the first time in my whole life, I was absolutely free. Free of faded traditions that somehow still haunt our society. I was free to be who I am without anyone telling me “you can’t” simply because I’m a girl. I toured the historic palaces, ate Korean spicy food, and walked in the modern city of Seoul. A week was too short for me.

I went back to Egypt with a bigger dream. After having a taste of what the world had to offer, my heart ached to have another adventure. I worked two jobs, day and night. I didn’t wait for permission; I booked my ticket and told my family that I was going on a long trip. Of course, they didn’t like it but nothing could have stopped me.

For six months I traveled around Korea on my own. I saw the red and orange leaves of autumn taking over the greens. I climbed a high mountain, stood on the summit with open arms embracing the cold winter wind. That day I saw my first white snow, flakes fell down on me, the snow was as magical as I’ve always imagined it would be. I walked through small villages in the countryside. I saw the first spring flowers blooming. I couch surfed with locals and foreigners and made friends. I’m a free, independent and confident woman.

 

My passion for traveling and love for Korea made me brave and gave me strength. Now I’m living my dream. I’m an expat in Korea and I travel.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Budget Adventures 101

Desperate to explore the world but unsure how to do it without breaking the bank? Veteran backpacker, Will Hatton from The Broke Backpacker, has been travelling the world for seven years now on a budget of just $100 a week. Today, he tells us his top tips for exploring the world and having epic budget adventures…

The 7 Secrets To Travelling Cheaply! 

1: Couchsurf and meet awesome people!

When it comes to really getting to the heart of a destination, Couchsurfing is the best option! In case your not familiar with the concept, Couchsurfing is a hospitality program where you stay with a local in their home, often on their couch but just as often in a proper bed, for free! You may choose to cook for your host (it’s good form really) but the whole thing, even signing up, is based around free hospitality! Couchsurfing is an amazing platform which will help you make new friends and save your hard-earned cash.

Cave-surfing outside the ruins of Petra

I myself have couchsurfed all over the world; I have met amazing people and stayed in amazing places – once even crashing for a week in a rock-cut cave outside the ruins of Petra!

2: Buddy up! 

It sounds obvious but if you have a travel buddy, your buying power has just doubled! Suddenly, hotel rooms are half as much, taxis cost less and you can even share meals, if your on very good terms. If you can’t convince any of your friends at home to come with you then take a look online. Travbuddy and the Couchsurfing forums are both a good bet and you are bound to meet lots of cool people. Alternatively, simply choose THE most popular hostel you can find for the first couple of days; you are bound to meet loads of other cool people who will be heading in the same direction as you! If you have a travel buddy it also vastly improves your buying power when haggling.

3: Travel like a local

Locals know everything about their country, well, hopefully. They know where to find the best food, the best bars and they know how to get around cheaply! Take local transport wherever you can – buses, trains, trams, camels – the list is endless. Bear in mind that camels are ridiculously uncomfortable…

If your feeling particularly adventurous, why not try hitching? Hitchhiking is an amazing way to get around, it’s free, unique and you will meet lots of cool people.

4: Local food

From Pad Thai vendors on the infamous Khao San Road to the Tortilla ladies of Antigua, local food is delicious, cheap and plentiful! If you eat in restaurants aimed at tourists or in international restaurant chains you will really miss out on some of the best culture your destination has to offer. Take to the street; search out hole in the wall eateries, pancake wagons (seriously, pancake wagons…) and fruit stalls! By buying local food you will save a fortune!

5: Research!

Before you travel, do some research on your destination…

Travelling to India for a year long backpacking adventure? It would be helpful to know how to book trains in advance (it’s damn complicated!).

Hitching to Romania in the dead of winter? You may be interested to know that it snows… up to a foot thick… and that hitching is nearly impossible.

Determined to get past Burmese army checkpoints and into the highlands? One simple mouse click is all it takes to find out how to do this and not get caught!

Seriously, do your research. Knowing how to get from the train station to your hostel without taking a taxi is a good example; it takes about 1 minute to find out about local transport options online but it may save you up to a small fortune! Wikitravel is a good place to start.

6: Get a job!

Every now and again, you might be really close to running out of money… Do not despair, it is usually very easy to pick up work on the road. I’ve worked behind bars from London to Hanoi and everywhere in between, often for just a day at a time. You can usually find work in hostels in exchange for accommodation, flyering jobs abound upon the backpacker circuit and you can sometimes even find better jobs such as teaching english even if you don’t have any real qualifications; saying that, I strongly recommend investing in some skills before you head off travelling – it makes finding both volunteering placements and paid work a lot easier.

7: Network like crazy!

“Your aunt’s mum’s friend’s brother lives in Delhi? Great! Can I visit?”

Networking in India

This may sound silly but I’ve crashed with people who I really have a very random link to. Meeting up with people you kind of know can be a great way to save cash, land on your feet with a social network and really get to grips with the place your exploring!

 

About Will Hatton: Writer and photographer. Adventurer and vagabond. Master of the handstand pushup. Conqueror of mountains, survivor of deserts and crusader for cheap escapades. Will is an avid hitch-hiker, couch-surfer and bargain-seeker. He is a devout follower of the High Temple of Backpackistan and the proud inventor of the man-hug. Will blogs over at The Broke Backpacker about his adventures around the world, you can follow him on Facebook and on Twitter or, if your really friendly, hunt him down on the road for a cheeky pint.

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Hungary:- My land of Independence

 

Hungary: – My land of Independence

 

I was born and brought up in a humble family in India. I lived a simple life within the boundaries of the few Indian states I lived in. My parents worked hard to put me through school and I worked hard and put myself through college and eventually a Master’s program. My parents didn’t ever let me think that anything was impossible but they did make me realize that I would have to work hard for what I wanted because we were not financially sound. I grew up knowing the value of money and what things cost but that never stopped me from dreaming.

 

I grew up dreaming of an escape from India into an unknown land where I would find myself alone. I was fiercely wild and independent as a child; my parents’ divorce created that deep sense or need for me to be brave and independent but I often wondered if I would be the same if I was left all alone in this big bad world. Did I have the courage to battle life without any help? Could I really enjoy life if I was alone and had to fend for myself? I grew up wanting to embrace this challenge someday and the few who heard my dream laughed as hard as they could. They could not believe my audacity to have such a dream. Some kind people took the time to tell me it would never happen, not only because I didn’t have the finance but because I was a girl. They only assumed that a girl didn’t have the strength to face a challenge like this. The more people told me I couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, the more determined I became to prove them wrong. I kept sending out prayers for my dream to become a reality and in God’s good time He answered, he made my dream a reality.

 

Towards the end of 2009, I embarked on a journey of a lifetime. I boarded my first ever international flight to the continent I dreamed of visiting all my life, Europe. I set flight to Hungary. God was so good in answering my prayer that He granted every minute detail I had ever requested for. Hungary was a country I couldn’t have pointed on the world map. All I knew about the country was that it was in Europe, I hadn’t heard about its history, its people or the language. This was everything I had dreamed of and so with no hesitation I boarded that flight to Hungary, a flight that took me to the promise of the unknown and away from everyone I ever loved and cared for. The excitement of living my dream overtook the sorrow of leaving home, the joy of freedom ran wildly through every vein and the mere promise of unadulterated independence pumped more adrenaline than I had ever felt before. This was it! This was my chance!

 

Freedom comes with a price; India’s history had proved it and so did mine. Life wasn’t as sweet as I had dreamed or wished it to be. Life in the new land was tough but one that was packed with more lessons than I ever thought possible. I spent a year in Eger, Hungary and every day was new, filled with surprises. I learnt a world about people and even more about me. It took Hungary to help me realize I loved my God, my family and my country with an incomparable love and I loved my independence. I was perfectly content living alone. I loved getting to know people, their culture, their food, their lifestyle. I loved introducing them to my culture, my food, my entertainment and my lifestyle. I hosted parties and played the perfect Indian host. I went to their parties, socialized, embraced their culture but continued to be uniquely Indian. I did things I had never done here in India. I travelled alone, ate in restaurants alone, spent days writing poetry in parks, went for runs at midnight, barbecued at valleys, became adventurous and tried different food, Hiked in Slovakia, invited strangers to live with me, visited and stayed with strangers and danced to Hindi songs on the streets of Eger.

 

 

 

I was, then, somebody I had never been before. I was a crazily bold 23year old Indian, oozing with undeniable confidence. I introduced myself to complete strangers and made friends that I now know will last a life time. Hungary will forever remain supremely precious to me; it was an experience of a lifetime. It was in Hungary I embraced Independence and freedom like never before and I enjoyed every single minute of it. Independence is a true gift, best learnt through world travel.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Illinois Improbable: A Story of Upending Expectations

When I was a high-school student in Bethesda, Maryland, and beginning to think about college, my parents sat me down and set a parameter: they would only allow a school within 1000 miles of our home, with the idea that I would be more likely to visit over holidays if within that range. My elder sister had already picked a school, Knox College, in Galesburg, Illinois, and now it was my turn. I pulled out a map, cut a string keyed to 1000 miles, and swept the radius. Boston and New York were too close. Denver, Minneapolis too far. But Northwestern, in Evanston, Illinois, was just right.

So, that’s where I went.

Unfortunately, I rarely left campus when studying there, and never got to know the state that hosted my formative years. I often flew over Illinois in my professional animations, but never really gave it much thought. Then a few years ago I was invited back to Northwestern to give a speech. It was spring, and as I drove from O’Hare to Evanston I was struck by the beauty; of the blossoms, the psychic valence of the architecture, the light off the lake. What had I missed on my first tour through this middle earth?

So, I decided to return, and take a deeper look. It’s a big state, 55,593 square miles, the size of Turkey, a place I’ve explored more than Illinois, which somehow seems wrong. So I figure I will start at the bottom (I’d never been south of Chicago) and work upwards.

Not far across the riverine border from St. Louis there is a place where all your witches come true….Alton, Illinois, sometimes called the most haunted town in America. Many blame the limestone rock and the Mississippi River water for so much paranormal activity here. The rock holds the energy, the water retains the psychic residue of dramatic events of the past. It is indeed, I find, a spirited place.

I begin by visiting The McPike Mansion, built in 1869 in the Italianate-Victorian style, obviously once grand, but now looking sinister and derelict. Like all good haunted houses, it hovers atop a hill surrounded by large gnarled oak trees. There are broken windows with little fragments in the jambs, like transparent teeth. There is an iron fence; a graveyard in the back; and a nimiety of ghosts. Nylon camp tents are scattered about the front yard, a little Resurrection City.

I arrive to find an old Ford truck with a Ghostbusters logo parked in the driveway. There is a sign on its side: “Paranormal Investigation On-Site Vehicle,” festooned with a pumpkin cutout, colored Christmas light strung along the top, and plastic skulls attached to the bow. Its owner, Jerome Minkes, introduces himself as a “paranormal investigator,” a popular occupation in this town. With a demeanor that might be colored indigo, he sets about explaining some things to me: “Our energy after we pass, after our physical body dies, what we were in life becomes a ball of energy. And usually that can be recorded because it gives off a phosphorescent glow, and I have recorded many of them here.”

I go in to take a look.

The place is falling apart. There are 16 rooms, 11 marble fireplaces, carved stairway banisters and a vaulted wine cellar, but everything broods, as though remembering a former glory. It was long abandoned, but in 1994, Sharyn and George Luedke picked up the place in auction for a song (not Ray Parker, Jr.’s) Their dream was to restore it, then turn it into a B&B. But it has turned out to be a more expensive enterprise than imagined, and going has been slow. To help finance the restoration the Luedke’s hold ghost tours, and overnight campouts in the front yard.

When the Luedke’s first bought the mansion they didn’t know it was haunted. Six weeks after closing Sharyn was tending plants in the front yard and looked up to see a man in a striped shirt and tie standing in the window looking back at her. After a moment, he disappeared. Then, after researching the history of the building, Sharyn came across a photograph of Paul Laichinger, the original owner, wearing the same outfit.

Visitors see figures throughout the house. Many have the sensation of being touched by an invisible presence. Sounds of footsteps are heard pacing up and down hallways, and down the staircases. Objects vanish only to materialize in other parts of the house.

I wander about, hieing past yellow caution tape, ducking beneath hanging wires, touching the cool walls, and feeling a bit spooked. But I don’t see any hard evidence of haunt.

Once back outside I confront Jerome: “Do you really think this place is haunted?”

He stiffens up a bit, and then says: “In all my years working at this location I have caught enough information to proclaim that yes, this McPike Mansion is definitely haunted.”

From McPike I head downtown, to the most haunted building in Alton, the century-old Mineral Springs Hotel. This place is landlord to so many ghosts, it’s like an almanac of spirits, a real Boos Who. But the spirit I meet is Cassandra.

Cassandra was a ten-year-old girl who drowned during her birthday party in the basement swimming pool, once the largest in Illinois. Cassandra was running in play and slipped and hit her head and fatally fell into the water. Ever since visitors have heard her screams, have watched her roll marbles, and have witnessed tiny wet footprints appearing by the pool.

Brandon Klein from the Gateway Paranormal Team is a happy medium. He uses a hand-held ghost hunters tracker …it detects the electromagnetic energy of spirits…to see if Cassandra is around. After calling to her, the lights on the device begin to flash.

Jasper, my seven-year-old son, seems to connect with Cassandra and they start to communicate. He talks to her, and seems to hear her response. He shakes her hand. And, after a spell, he says out loud, “I love you Cassandra,” and the lights on the device begin to flash rapidly. Jasper has become a ghoul’s best friend.

“She’s using too much energy!” Brandon cries. There are half a dozen of us on this tour. We aim all our cameras, all our lights and recorders in her direction, and then…suddenly all our devices go dead…and the room goes dark. Cassandra sucked all the energy from our batteries.

“Who ghost there?” someone asks.

No answer.

Is this for real?

I don’t know.

Come to Alton and see, or feel, for yourself.

I never expected to find ghosts in Illinois, but I also never expected to find fine wine. From Alton I drive southeast to Shawnee Hills, spirits to spirits.

There are a dozen wineries on the hilly, wooded Shawnee Hills Wine Trail in Southern Illinois, all stitched together on one terribly scenic roadway that threads through the Shawnee National Forest. The only pain on this road is champagne.

I happen through in autumn, and the leaves shout with paint, more than the typical New England passage, but without the conveyor belt massclusivity of leaf peepers, and the surfeit of antique shops.

One of the many pleasures is The Blue Sky Vineyard, modeled after a 400-year-old Tuscan villa at the eastern end of the trail, well worth the sip. I spend the shank of the afternoon here on an enological expedition, discovering the velvety folds of Chambourcin grapes, and soaking in a gustatory and visual feast.

The area is named for an Indian tribe that settled there in the 18th century, and was the state’s first AVA, or American Viticultural Area. The idea for the trail started in 1995, when the region’s first three wineries — Alto Vineyards Pomoma Winery, and Owl Creek Vineyard — decided to band together. Now, it’s a full-bodied destination, even sporting an eco-zipline down the road.

I run into Cindy Cain, who bears the scars of a happy childhood. She has lived and worked in the area for almost five decades, and is an unstinting advocate, a slice of sharp Cheddar on a warm apple pie. She says, “We have our own unique grapes, unique wines, and singular scenery, and one of the best parts is that we’re still a bit of a secret. You can be driving along, walking the trails, and feel like you own it.”

It’s true. Even though I am here at the height of fall colors, I pass few other vehicles while meandering the trail. I stop at one winery and enjoy a first for me…a wine slushy…and while leaning against my rental and leisurely slurping the frozen wine, I count the cars who pass…..zero.

The same is true when I head to a short nature trail along the path of the now abandoned Cairo & St Louis Narrow Gage railroad. A bluff overlooks valleys of red, orange and yellow leaves from maple, black walnut and oak trees, and a patchwork of vivid green fields and golden corn stalks. A trail leads to the bottom of a limestone cliff, where I walk beneath the leafy canopy on an easy trail, but I pass no one else…this contrapuntal world is my own.

Illinois is a long state, about 5 ½ hours’ drive with the velocity of desire, from the southern tip near Shawnee Hills to Chicago. Yet it’s an intolerably scenic passage, so much so I stop more than I should to admire the jigsaw puzzle of fields, the sky of unnatural depth, the fizz and riot of farms, and it takes me about eight hours. Around midnight I check into a small, anodyne hotel, The Kinzie, and settle back to ready for the morrow.

When in college I got to know a little of iconic Chicago, dropping in blues bars, clubs and shnorking deep dish pizza. But I never really explored the museums. After all, I was from a suburb of Washington, D.C., which overindulges with museums. And tastes were different back then….I preferred the brew and the bash over art appreciation.

Now, though, I am intrigued with what museums might offer, and titillated when my friend Barney Harford, CEO of Orbitz, says that Chicago may be The Second City, but it bends the light waves like no other when it comes to museums. It is a city on the edge of forever.

Chicago, once an upstart crossroads, emerged as the grommet through which the economic world was stitched by the late 19th century. In 1893 it decided to celebrate with The World’s Columbian Exposition, The Chicago World’s Fair. Ostensibly commemorating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World, it was really a chance to showcase the advent of urban Exceptionalism. With the flowers of industry and commerce blooming, there came new prosperity, and with that the means and desire to create halls where scientific specimens, works of art, and other objects of value were displayed. This was the wellspring for the Great Museums of Chicago.

I first head to the Museum of Science and Industry, largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere, with 14 acres of exhibit space. I meet up with Anne Rashford, Director of Special Exhibitions, who tells me, “We’ve completely reinvented the museum; more than 75% of the exhibits on the floor have been redone.” I take a look around; everywhere rum little scenes clip into action. I swirl around a 40′-high tornado. I crouch and follow The Great Train Story model railroad which has over 20 trains running on 1,400 feet of track, completing the winding journey between Chicago and Seattle. I get a near “real-time” view of our planet Earth with a 6-foot-in-diameter, solid carbon fiber globe suspended among computers and video projectors, loaded with data sets from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. I can see the flow of our ocean currents, changing cloud cover, the geophysical forces that shape the planet; the Earth as a dynamic, living system. Doubters and panjandrums should come here: you can see global climate change in action.

And finally I step into an actual German U-505 submarine, which in June 4, 1944, was prowling off the coast of West Africa on a hunt for American ships, when depth charges from the USS Chatelain blasted the boat out of hiding. It was the end of a violent run for U-505, which had terrorized the Atlantic Ocean as part of a massive U-boat campaign that almost altered the outcome of World War II. Now, it is a national memorial to the 55,000 American sailors who gave lives on the high seas in WWI and WWII.

A short Uber ride and I’m in the main hall of the Field Museum of Natural History. Here I meet Gretchen Baker, Exhibitions Planning and Operations Director, who stands in front of the star exhibit, SUE, world’s largest and most complete T-Rex. “SUE had a long journey getting here. She was discovered in the hills of South Dakota, and immediately every museum or collector wanted her, or pieces of her. After many disputes and a court case she ended up in auction at Sotheby’s in New York, and we were the lucky bidders.”

She is an allure with a nimbus, but just one of a collection that numbers some 25 million specimens, in over 350,000 square feet of public space, making the Field Museum the fourth largest natural history museum in the world. I take a look around, and am especially drawn to the dioramas, all made by Carl Akeley, the legendary taxidermist who died of fever in the Congo in 1926.

Finally, I make my way to the Art Institute of Chicago, which at first is like being in a dark room at the moment the blinds are opened on a bright day. After a while the shock of so much familiar art subsides, and the experience becomes meditative. Here I meet Rebecca Baldwin, Director of Public Affairs. She explains that as Chicago emerged as a world trade center, minting fabulous wealth, many had the fortune to see and collect great art from all corners. These same people felt a responsibility to give back to the city that enabled their prosperity, and founded the Art Institute, and donated personal collections.

“Some of the greatest pieces, American Gothic, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, were purchased directly from the artists before they were well-known, and then when showcased in these halls, their fame emerged.”

Why is showcasing art important, I ask?

“Having first-hand experiences with art goes beyond just seeing the pieces. It enables people to understand the creative process, and then to think creatively themselves.”

My takeaway from a day of Chicago museum tasting is that these halls are passports to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, art, experiences, the hopes and cycloramic dreams and strivings of all human beings. They are a sort of beneficial virus that absorbs information and infects those who pass through. They store the energy that fuels imagination, open the lids to treasure chests of knowledge. Museums done right change you. And inspire you to explore, not just interior worlds, but the great outdoors.

And so inspired, I hit the road again, and join the flock to the rock. I drive a couple hours southwest to a sumptuous state park called Starved Rock. I check into The Starved Rock Lodge, reminiscent of Yosemite’s Ahwahnee, with its Great Hall, timbered log walls, chandeliers, massive stone fireplace, and picture windows that peer into the lusty stealth of Nature. Here I meet Kathy Casstevens, the Director of Fun at the lodge, who talks in very rapid, perfectly formed sentences, like a dancer performing fouettés. She offers to take me on a hike.

We begin with a short walk from the lodge to the eponymous Starved Rock, a huge stony hand that lords over the landscape. The steps are slightly bowed from generations of traffic, the edges rounded down like a pouting lips. According to legend, in the 1760′s the Potawatomi and the Ottawa surrounded a band of Illiniwek atop this butte, and held their ground until the Illiniwek died of starvation.

There is an idea maze of trails through 18 canyons in this park, and we set off to hike a few, including French and LaSalle at the edge of the woods, along the Illinois River, whose waters ripple with the drift of eagles for much of the year. We veer inland, through clusters of Virginia bluebells, and floral arrays of marsh marigolds, wild iris, trillium and Dutchman’s breeches, plus purple-flowered spiderworts, nodding columbine and blooms of shooting star. We step up a steep-walled sandstone slit to a silky waterfall.

This is unexpected. It looks like Arizona. Here, in this quiet warm-toned canyon, with a crack to heaven, there is the kind of repose that inspires poets and dreamers. There is a sense of collaborating with the forces behind the pageant of the world. But this is not Switzerland or Colorado….this is Illinois.

It is utterly still at the end of this little rift, the only movement the lazing turning of my own thoughts.

How can you explain that you need to know that the oaks and pines are still there, and the hills and waterfalls and sky? Everyone knows they are. How can you say it is time your pulse responded to another rhythm, the rhythm of the day and season instead of the hour and minute? No, you can’t explain….you just come here.

Hiking always goes well with boating, so I next board a packet boat called “The Volunteer,” a 76-foot replica of a 19th-century canal boat that plied the 96-mile, hand-dug I & M (Illinois and Michigan) Canal, with a lock system from the designs of Leonardo da Vinci.

This is the canal that turned Chicago from a swamp into a global commerce hub, as it connected Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River, allowing cheap water transport to, from and between the East Coast and The Gulf of Mexico, enabling the efficient mixing of ideas and markets.

There is less than a mile of the once great canal open for navigation, between two turtle-filled locks in LaSalle, and just two mules, “Moe” and “Larry,” who now trudge the towpath pulling the craft. Legends still swirl, though. Wild Bill Hickok was a mule tender here; Lincoln took his family on a trip; and the Marx Brothers were chicken farmers nearby.

Before continuing up the road I stop in the nearby town of Utica for refreshment, and step into the August Hill Winery tasting room to find a pairing I never imagined. They are offering “Sip ‘n’ Snip” Wine & Craft Beer Tasting for an organization called No Animal Left Behind, which uses proceeds to spay and neuter local cats and dogs. I do my part, so they can lose theirs.

Then I make a three hour trek northwest along tree-dotted rolling hills to the former rip-roaring lead-mining town of Galena. In 1845 it produced almost 85% of the nation’s lead, and was the busiest Mississippi River port between St. Louis and St. Paul, a bustle bigger than Chicago.

I check into the DeSoto House, oldest operating hotel in Illinois, opened in 1855, the year Congress approved $30,000 to test camels for military use and founded “The U.S. Camel Corps.” (Except for the date, there is no relationship between these events, but I do find them interesting.) Lincoln stumped from a balcony here; Ulysses Grant used a couple rooms as presidential campaign headquarters, so the place sings with history. (Grant might not like that phrase…he was supposedly tone deaf, and once said “I know two songs…one is Yankee Doodle Dandy, and the other isn’t.”)

And it may be the last hotel in Illinois that uses actual room keys.

Galena has been cited as having “The Best Small Town Main Street in America,” because it looks like a movie set idealization of Norman Rockwell’s home. Of course, the actual movie theater appeared in the movie Field of Dreams.

By the middle of the 19th Century, Galena was one of the richest river towns in the Midwest. But when the lead ran out and the Galena River silted up, the town went into a century-long dive. The townsfolk became too poor to tear anything down. That, it turns out, was its salvation, and today the town appears pretty much as it did when Ulysses S. Grant worked in his father’s store on the red-hued street. Now, that preserved-in-aspic quality is the lodestone, the touro-dollar draw.

The street is exuberant with boutiques, bars, reliquaries, art galleries, cafes, ghost tours, trolleys, locals sporting thick, black Ulysses S. Grant beards, and shops specializing in everything “craft.” The old brown brick buildings host handcrafted jewelry, homemade fudge, artisanal cheese, hand-sewn clothing, self-published books, in-house roasted coffee, immaculate confections, stove-popped gourmet popcorn, and, of course, craft beer.

I stop in at the Galena Brewing Company, where these is a sign on the wall, a nod to the movie partially filmed across the street, “If you tap it, they will come.” I order a flight of their craft beers, and my waiter, sporting a Ulysses S. Grant beard, presents a menu, featuring gluten free and vegetarian roasted garlic hummus (“Nothing fried here!”). The beef, it turns out, comes from cows who attended Waldorf schools, and were slaughtered under the adoring scrutiny of ethics majors (just kidding).

I see a large sign over the bar for Red Stripe, the famous Jamaican beer, and ask what it is doing here…seems a bit out of place. Turns out Red Stripe was invented in Galena, by the original Galena Brewing Company, back in the 1830’s. But when the brewery closed down some 80 years ago, a couple of British investors bought the Red Stripe brand, and moved it to Jamaica, where it gained a following among stationed soldiers in World War II. Now it has come full circle, and is here to savor, along with the Pulled Pork sandwich.

In the lambent light of morning, I make a desultory stroll the length of Main Street and notice an elision of neon, franchises, fast food, and the major technological trinkets of this century. Folks are simply enjoying themselves, vendors and visitors alike. Through the big iron gates at the south entrance, built to prevent the Galena River flooding into town, I stop into Fever River Outfitters, a kayak, canoe and stand-up paddleboard shop that also rents scooters for a self-scoot to the Galena Cellars Vineyards, 12-miles down a country road. I meet Debra Malone, the hoydenish owner, who gives me a map and a driving lesson, and then points me in the right direction.

Jasper Bangs falls for Illinois. Photo by Laura Hubber

I get the lead out on a Cali Classic 50, zipping through gently sloping hills, tartaned with pastures spotted with grazing cows. There is a shy glance of deer at one junction, and at another a couple of huge turkeys scatter like shot out of the trees. The final destination is the vineyard where I sit on the lawn with Linda Davis, the manager, who confesses, “With this job I don’t drink wine anymore; I don’t drink any less, either.” We sample some surprisingly good locally-crafted wine, which is paired with some of the craft foods in town (The Bunny Blush goes with asparagus quiche), including, get this, the craft popcorn.

For my final stop in this revelation tour of Illinois I make my way back east, to Lake County. My friends Didrik and Cynthia have joined, and brought their sons, Oscar and Huey, so we decide to make this a kids’ stop.

We check into the Keylime Cove Resort, a Caribbean hotel built atop a waterpark…its dessert all the time…and then head over to Six Flags Great America, which has been called the Best Theme Park in the World. It has the tallest, steepest, fastest roller wooden coaster in the universe (The Goliath), and is the self-proclaimed “cleanest theme park in the world”…all the employees carry long-handled pickers to pinch up any stray trash.

We all become champions in theme parks, and this one more than most. Children become super-heroes, twice their age and size, and parents become young and dashing, as we all conquer the dragons and a Homeric catalogue of roaring rides. With oceans of kids pulsing about, this is contained creative destruction. I spend the day riding with five-year-old Oscar, who puffs out his chest at each twist and turn, while I scream and giggle like a guileless boy.

This seems to be a metonymic shorthand for the whole of Illinois. It is a place for small and tall, a land modest and grand at once, a state of being that surprises and delights, that beats to the sound of awe. It is an axe for the frozen sea within us; a hub that spokes to the world, a thousand miles from everywhere. Happiness may be reality minus expectations, and as such, Illinois, which defies presumption, is indeed an improbable and authentic joy.

 

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I Belong Here in the USA

I was the only “half-breed” (yes, that’s a Cher reference) in a small Oregon town. Largely white with a sprinkling of Latinos, it was assumed that my father was Mexican—nobody knew what an Oklahoma Cherokee accent sounded like (let alone what a Cherokee looked like). And me? I was whiter than my mother. By the time I was 12, strangers assumed my father and I were dating when we went out alone together. By 13, I refused to be seen in public with him.

It’s impossible to squeeze the myriad of jabs, one after another, into something of an essay. The renowned poet Marvin Bell recently asked me, “Is it all true? Did this all really happen?” Yes—completely. My father disappeared when I was 15, popping up a couple of years later from a cancer-soaked deathbed in an Indian hospital. My mother kicked me out the summer I turned 16, changing the locks on the doors and leaving a bag of my clothes in a trash bag on the porch. I spent a few months homeless, but not car-less thanks to working under the table jobs since I was 11. I showered in Pilot Station bathrooms, sold torn out stereo equipment in pawn shops. I was a kid and this was an adventure. For the first time in my life, I felt free.

That was a lifetime ago. I think it’s that tenacity that honed my gut instincts, my dogged heart-following tendencies when even the most obtuse of people would say it’s a mistake. I’ve never made a mistake, but I’ve had plenty of adventures. I’ve been in love once—hard—still am, in fact. He looks like my father and has all the same “good parts” but none of the bad. But he’s the “wrong” kind of Indian, the kind that grew up along the Arabian coast and snuck parathas dipped in ghee as a child instead of M&Ms. It took six years of heartbreak, my running away to Costa Rica, and him risking being ostracized from his family (he was supposed to be arranged, after all) to come to this: An impending wedding in Mumbai, elephants and mehndi as accoutrements.

I’ve lived enough close calls and in enough countries by now to understand that “belonging” isn’t a physical space. There were times London felt like home. It’s easy when you’re in graduate school, flush with fellowships and living next door to Hugh Grant (though I never saw him), gorging on real Christmas pudding. It wasn’t so easy when I failed moving there permanently with a work visa. There were slivers of home in Seoul, when I let fish eat away at my feet and got foggy from too much Korean barbeque. I’ve felt at home in Costa Rica, the United Arab Emirates, India and even (sometimes) when I visit that small Oregon town.

So, where do I belong? Where am I free? It depends who you ask. I was never accepted in either of my “born into it” cultures. I “pass” as white, though some strangers with sharp eyes saying, “You look something.” (It’s in the eyes. Those high cheekbones). But I never felt at home in that culture. Never unshackled. My Cherokee family was scared of me, a blonde little girl who couldn’t speak the language and hated those Oklahoma granddaddy long legs that scaled the front doors. I tried so hard to fit into the “right places” and felt like a fraud in each of them. The high school cheerleader. The sorority president. The one who got a good corporate job and was miserable in zippers and skirts. Through it all, I kept where I was from a secret—nobody wants to hear about that. Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else says about where I belong. I know where that is now.

I belong “here.” I’m free “here.” In my words, and in my writing. I belong in a healthy body, one that isn’t emaciated in eating disorders in another valiant effort to look like a Pinterest board. I belong with my partner so we can see how a real lifelong love story unfolds. I belong deep inside books, my favorite yoga poses, and on that special hiking trail I worked out for myself amongst the forest and rose gardens. I belong to nobody and everybody, including myself. Freedom and joy are everywhere. Look around—and don’t forget, from time to time, to look within.

About the Author: Jessica Tyner, born and raised in Oregon, is the author of The Last Exotic Petting Zoo  and What Makes an Always, published by Tayen Lane Publishing. She is the founder of MehtaFor, a writing company which serves a variety of clients including Fortune 500 enterprises and major media outlets. As a member of the Cherokee Nation, Jessica offers complimentary writing and editing services through her company to Native American students as well as non-profits based in the Pacific Northwest and/or serving Native communities.

 

Jessica currently lives in Portland, Oregon where she writes and practices yoga.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Not Like the Movies in the USA

Not Like the Movies in the USA         

          After I send my new love this picture, he emails back: “Wait a minute! You live in this cabin?! No way you live in this out-of-some-movie cabin?! No way! Okay, can I be your friend?! Please? Please? Okay, I am overwhelmed with this! You should write something romantic out there.”

            In reality, my little cabin has nothing remotely cinematic about it. Compost toilet, perennial mice, flies, a water system that breaks down every winter, so that many months of each year are devoted to “hauling water,” a new chore unfamiliar to me in my previous existence as a city-dwelling professor living on every grid that exists.

            Some old colleagues came to visit, and uniformly agreed: “I could never live out here,” and I knew they weren’t talking about the compost toilet, because they hadn’t yet entered the cabin.

            But my beloved, also a writer, was thrilled when he actually visited. “I bet I could finally finish something I started out here,” he said, imagining life off the grid not as a hassle, not as an interminable drive over excessively wash-boarded roads away from what some call “civilization,” but another reality entirely. A place where one can “hear oneself think.”

            Pronghorn antelope roam the meadows, sometimes seating themselves at the edges of the road, taking in the morning sun-warmed dirt. Every summer one male, cast off by his group, searches for a new herd. His horns sometimes appear over the crest of the hill a mile from the cabin. He is my sentinel, alerting me to the nearness of home. Surely it’s not the same youngster each of these seven years, but I sense a similar melancholy in these boys. Cast out, seeking community. Perhaps some of my visitors feel the same when they come to this wide open space without trees. Perhaps they feel cast out of someplace else rather than welcome to this vast land.

            Never in my life had I imagined living without trees! I moved here from the excessively verdant Pacific Northwest, where moisture drips incessantly, moss burgeons across rooftops and sidewalks, and the forest overwhelms the trees.

            No obvious shelter here, no deterrent to the relentless wind that sweeps the acreage, picking up lightweight rocking chairs from the deck and smashing them, piecemeal, onto the scrub. And yet, there’s something elemental about that openness to sky and cloud and weather of every kind. The hawks glide the thermals and sometimes land for a kill: mice or voles or moles or prairie dogs. Out here, you have to make peace with the critters, or you’ll never survive a year.

            Inside, the walls are adorned with my son’s drawings, Aboriginal prints from Pitjantjatjara, bark cloth from Fiji, and hundreds of Crayola-colored bundles of yarn for rugmaking, which also help to pad the uninsulated half-log cabin. Yet the wind can blow them through the cracks and hurl them onto the floor, lift the curtains from the glass with numbing velocity.

            What will we look forward to out those single-paned windows? Spectacular cloudscapes, storms that linger in summer, casting hail on the nasturtium flourishing in pots lining the deck. This year, mice gobbled my germinating buds – inside!

            New problems announce themselves regularly, and one has to be innovative to create solutions. Nature is in charge here, not people. I prefer it that way. He likes the coyotes infiltrating the night silence, and the way unexplained lights pierce the dark. Looking ahead to winter, our fantasies of being snowed in bode well for when the roads slick up, and drifts lace the ridges, when we human beings are really, truly, out of control.

 

 Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

 

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Who Are We? The Three Lessons of the Grasshopper

The Three Lessons of the Grasshopper

Parashat Shelach-L’cha Shabbat sermon at Stephen S Wise Temple

by Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback

      

Shabbat shalom.

Some of you might remember the old 1970s television show, Kung Fu which aired from 1972-1975 on ABC. I remember it from re-runs.

The main character of the series, Kwai Chang Caine, is played by David Carradine. Kwai Chang is the orphaned son of an American man and a Chinese woman As a boy, he comes to study martial arts and wisdom at a Shaolin Temple. His master is blind.

“You cannot see,” the boy says when he meets the master for the first time.

“You think I cannot see,” says the master.

“Of all things,” says the boy, “to live in darkness must be the worst.”

“Fear,” says the master, “is the only darkness.”

Spies Like Us from Stephen Wise Temple on Vimeo.

Later in the scene, the master instructs the boy:

“Close your eyes – what do you hear?”

“I hear the water. I hear the birds.” – says the boy.

“Do you hear your own heartbeat?” asks the master.

“No.”

“Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?”

The boy looks down and sees the grasshopper. He is amazed.

“Old man, how is it that you hear these things?” asks the boy.

“Young man,” says the master, “how is it that you do not?”

From then on, the master calls the boy “Grasshopper” as a term of affection.

This week’s Torah portion offers us several “grasshopper” lessons.

Here’s the context: God tells Moses to send scouts to spy out the land of Canaan, to see what the land is like, what types of agriculture it supports, what the people who inhabit it are like, are they strong or weak, are their cities fortified or not?

Twelve spies are sent out – one from each tribe.

Ten spies bring a negative report. Agriculturally speaking, they say, the land indeed flows with milk and honey. It’s a good land. However, the inhabitants are fierce, their cities are well-fortified, and there are even giants there.

Caleb, one of two spies who bring a more hopeful account of the land, tries to calm the people and tells them: “We should go up at once and possess the land for surely we are able to do so! We can do it”

עָלֹה נַעֲלֶה וְיָרַשְׁנוּ אֹתָהּ–כִּי-יָכוֹל נוּכַל, לָהּ.

But the spies retort: “We cannot win – לֹא נוּכַל. For they are stronger than we – כִּי-חָזָק הוּא, מִמֶּנּוּ.”

And then, after just praising the land for its bounty, they now spread lies about it, calling it a land devours its inhabitants – אֶרֶץ אֹכֶלֶת יוֹשְׁבֶיהָ הִוא.

And then, perhaps the most devastating part of all, the ten spies say that when they scouted out the land they came across the Nephilim, the “fallen ones”, the sons of Anak, the giant. “And in our own eyes, we were like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes as well –

וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים, וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם.

Three lessons of the grasshopper:

The first lesson I’ve already shared and it comes, ultimately, not from the Torah of the ABC series “Kung Fu” – but is actually based on the teachings of Lao-Tze, the great Chinese philosopher who taught approximately 2500 years ago. There are many kinds of darkness. The master may be blind but he can see many things that the student cannot. The spies who go out into the land “see” many things but what, ultimately, do they understand? Lesson number one, young grasshoppers: there are many ways of knowing, many ways of seeing, many ways of apprehending and sensing.

Lesson number two comes from the Midrash. Our Torah portion says: “In our own eyes, we were like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes as well!” – Says the Midrash: “I take no objection to your saying “In our own eyes, we were like grasshoppers,’ but I take offense when you say, ‘and so we were in their eyes as well!’  How do you know how I made you look to them?  Perhaps you appeared to them as angels?”

אמרו: “וַנּהִי בְעֵינ֨ינוּ כּחֲגָב֔ים”. אמר הקב”ה: “ויתרתי עליהם.” אלא, “וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בּעֵינֵיהֶם.” יודעים הייתם מה עשיתי אתכם לעיניהם? מי יאמר שלא הייתם בעיניהם כמלאכים?

Here’s the lesson – we mustn’t allow our fears to paralyze us. It’s natural for the scouts to be afraid – they are a group of former slaves who must imagine what it would mean to conquer a land populated by other nations with armies and fortified cities and men of great stature. Sometimes we feel like grasshoppers, small and insignificant. But we mustn’t let our fears get the better of us. The spies are certain that the Canaanites see them as but grasshoppers. How could they know this? Maybe, as the Midrash suggests, the Canaanites saw them as angels? As holy men? Or, perhaps, as fierce and clever warriors. It’s OK to be afraid, young grasshoppers, but as the Midrash suggests fear is a type of darkness that must be managed.

Lesson number three comes from the great Hassidic master, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. He turns the Midrash on its head. The midrash asks how the spies could have known how they were seen to others. The Kotzker is upset that the spies should care how they looked to others. When the spies say, “and so we were in their eyes as well,” the Kotzker replies: “What’s with this?!?!? What do you care how you appear in the eyes of others.” (Itturey Torah, 5, p. 83)

They see you as grasshoppers, they see you as angels – what difference does it make? asks the Kotzker Rebbe. The important question is not how do others see us but WHO ARE WE? What kind of people are we? Are we good? Are we kind? Are we generous? If others see us as those things but we are not really those things, what have we accomplished? Will we have fooled God? Will we have fooled ourselves?

As Rabbi Steven Kushner puts it: “…their sin wasn’t simply that they lost faith or that the scouts had misrepresented what they had seen… Their failure wasn’t even that they had low self-esteem, that they saw themselves as grasshoppers. For this they could be forgiven. Rather it was their preoccupation with how others saw them that was their sin.”

Lesson number three, young grasshoppers: Worry less about how others see you and more about who you are and about who you are capable of becoming.

One last lesson that’s really about right now, this place and this moment: There is in this world much of which to be afraid. Escaped felons, dwindling water supplies, nuclear proliferation, rising antisemitism around the world and on college campuses, racism, this past month’s report that the number of homeless people in our city – right here in Los Angeles – went up 12% over the past two years– the list goes on and on.

But there is an even bigger list, a list so big that it makes this first list look puny and small like a little tiny grasshopper – it’s a list of the things in this world which give us hope and strength.

Our 3000+ year-old tradition of wisdom and learning

Our community right here and communities like it across the Jewish world

Our Jewish belief that better days are ahead of us, not behind us

These doctors, these nurses who brought healing with their hands and their hearts their intellect

Our tikvah – our hope – that our world can be perfected, that it will be perfected and that WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE in our world today, we can make things better, more just, more loving, more peaceful…

This list goes on and on and on and on.

And so, when we are afraid, let it be Caleb’s voice we hear when we close our eyes, telling us:

עָלֹה נַעֲלֶה וְיָרַשְׁנוּ אֹתָהּ–כִּי-יָכוֹל נוּכַל, לָהּ.

We can do it. We can be more. We can sense more. We can know more. We can love more. We can…

Shabbat shalom!

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Peaceful Travels in Germany

Peaceful Travels in Germany

Maria Posada says, “I belong to no one.” I say, “I belong to no one place.” Traveling the world is my aim and each time I globe-trot my heart thumps with a sense of joy and freedom that no woe could ever touch. I am twenty-four, and chapter twenty-five of my book will begin as I leave the U.S. soil to spend a romantic weekend with my truelove exploring the glaciers of Iceland, and then to visit the very place where I discovered the true version of myself nearly five years ago (then rediscovered myself two years later while on a three-month backpacking adventure), a place that tugs the strings of my very being, a matchless little land called Germany.

Unexpectedly, at the age of sixteen, I was thrown into independence after I sole-survived a speedboat accident that killed my whole family. Five passengers—a happy family that never ceased to encourage me to follow my own path—but only one survivor: Me. As you can imagine, I was quite lost throughout the years following the boating accident. I was a teen trying to discover my true self and my proper place in this chaotic world while having to start a new life without the support of family. I had to embrace my emancipation and learn to adapt emotionally and financially.

I have lost the most that life could ever take from me. After a storm as thick as my mine, there is nothing left but light. My survival has opened my eyes to the horrors of this world, but also to the gift of its beauty—the realization of life’s fragility, how quickly, in a snap, life can be yanked from within you, taken without any hint or sudden warning.

Amid my storm I found clarity, and latched onto it before it could wash away. What brought forth my clarity? A tiny idea—a silly one, really, that I could somehow gather bits of family history and find a way to contact my very distant German relatives—people I knew existed, but had never imagined having the chance to actually meet.

Maybe it was the gloomy halls of my grieving heart leading me to wander toward a sense of family, toward my roots, to the country my ancestors roamed long before my book of life began, or maybe it was the result of my newfound independence that gave me the courage to do something most people dream of, yet never take action and do; I contacted my distant relatives, worked two jobs while attending college to save up every penny I could, and on my twentieth birthday, I took my very first international flight, alone, to Germany where I spent thirty days roaming the precious streets and traveling by train each weekend to visit my “new” family in the wunderschön old town of Heidelberg.

When I think of my deceased family, I imagine approval lighting up their smiling faces, my mother, sister, and brothers shooing me earnestly, saying, “Go, Jennifer. Live your life. Follow your heart. Build your own path,” and I smile. I smile and I tell them, “I will. I will carry on.” And when I travel, I take more than just their memory with me. So far, I have spread their ashes in Germany’s neck of the Rhine River, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and in the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean. Their ashes will carry on up an undetermined path just as I will, across the world, from sea to sea—independent, content, and free.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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A Week to Remember: One Week in France

March 26 marked the beginning of my travels and my first official solo travel. I walked through a gray and drizzly Bologna, neon orange backpack stuffed and on my back, tote-bag in hand, to the train station, where I caught a bus to the airport, and from there I boarded a plane to Paris.

Yes, you read that correctly, my travel plans began with spring time in Paris. I have been to Paris only once before as an awkward middle schooler, complete with braces, a younger brother, two parents, and two grandparents as travel companions, so right off the bat I knew this experience would be drastically different.

The flight was fairly short, but getting to the hotel was most definitely not. It took nearly an hour to get out of CDG – I had to wait in line to buy a metro ticket since I didn’t have 10 euros in coins and the machine would not accept my credit card. After about 40 minutes on the metro I got off at Notre Dame and attempted to find the hotel. Easier said then done. Armed with the address and the map, finding the hotel was still an hour long endeavor, since the street the hotel was located on was not printed on the map. Eventually I found it, checked in and deposited my bags – which at this point were so heavy to carry, I was convinced they weighed more than my full-grown golden retriever right after she had eaten far more than just dog food.

I walked around, across the seine and ended up in front of the Louvre. In the golden light of the setting sun I spotted the Eiffel Tower. Despite having seen it before, the sight nearly took my breath away and I made it my mission. I walked forward through the Tuileries, back across the river and onward. I arrived just as night was setting in and rewarded myself with hot chocolate buried under whipped cream which I drank directly beneath the tower. Later in the light of the glittering tower, admiring it from across the street, I indulged in a nutella-almond crepe before making my way back to my hotel.

The next day I spent meandering around Ile St,Louis – a place I would describe as the epitome of Paris magic. I shopped, wandered into bakeries and then took myself out to a delicious lunch. Later I walked back along the left bank to the Sorbonne and the Luxembourg gardens. In the late afternoon I returned to the hotel and gathered my things before making my way to the train station to catch a train to St.Pierre des Corps.

My train was was easy enough to find, but once aboard i ran into some trouble. About halfway through the train broke down. I and no wifi and no way to communicate to the people I was meeting that I would be late. After about 20 minutes I took the plunge and turned on roaming data. For those who want to know: it worked…for about 4 minutes before shutting off (which gave me enough time to send the appropriate messages). Fortunately my train was not stalled too long and I arrived only 30 minutes late. Upon arrival I was greeted by my friend Rebecca and my dad’s friend Peter, who was hosting us at his vineyard for the weekend.

The weekend at La Meslerie was truly exceptional. Peter and his partner Juliette are two of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. Juliette is also a phenomenal cook – she made lamb one night for dinner and it was probably the best meal of my entire 9 nights in France. Their 3 year old daughter is one of the most enchanting and playful little girls. While we were there, Peter took us on a tour of the vineyard and showed us where the wine is made and stored. We did a tasting of still-fermenting wine, as well as of several different bottles. In case you were wondering, the wine from La Meslerie is utterly fantastic. If you even sort of like white wine I would highly recommend it. Our weekend also included a trip to Chenonceau – a gorgeous Château nearby – and a trip to the town of Ambois, where we visited  Clos Lucé – the Château which served as a residence fro Leonardo Da Vinci. The grounds at Clos Lucé were almost fairly tale like, complete with live peacocks wandering around.

After two marvelous days, I returned to Paris. After checking back into my hotel (and feeling successful because I knew how to find it this time around), I took myself out to dinner at Cafe Flore. The next day (monday) I walked across the city, up to Sacre Coeur and Montmarte and then to the Orangerie where I gazed at Monet’s water-lillies for a very long time. Truly, nothing compares to Monet. After a wonderful Parisian day, i decided to throw myself a Parisian picnic. I bought wine, a baguette, cheese, and a small chocolate cake and camped out with it in the hotel.

Not fully getting my Monet fix at the Orangerie, I decided to spend the next morning at the Musee d’Orsay. The impressionist floor was well worth the hour long wait for museum entry. After much Monet-gazing, I finally left and headed down the Champs Elysee over to the Arc de Triomphe and then over to the Latin quarter. For my last night in Paris, I took myself out to dinner again. The food was delicious, but the real star was the Crème brûlée I ordered for dessert.

I don’t know if words can fully explain my Paris experience, but I will say this: In some religions you make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in others to Mecca, but in mine: Paris.

On Wednesday morning after checking out of my hotel I double checked my train ticket to Nice. April Fools to me! The train was scheduled to leave from Gare de Lyon not Montparnasse. Looking at a map and my watch it seemed do-able. I had about an hour. I walked onward and slowly became more anxious as the minutes ticked forward. I tried and failed several times to hail a cab. Towards the end of the hour I was running – a nervous ball of anxiety, absolutely certain i was going to miss the train. To my intense relief I walked on board at 9:14 and at 9:17 we were pulling away, bound for the south of France.

Immediately after checking in and dropping my bags off in Nice, I wandered down to the waterfront. Everything was beautiful and blue. The water was a brights shade of aqua and glittering in the sun. People were lying out on the beach in swimsuits (note: I did, during my time in Nice see people swimming, but it was probably only in the lower or mid 60s while I was there). I walked down to the port and back to the beach. After taking myself out to dinner I walked on the beach some more in the twilight before going back.

The next day I walked around the old city and the open air market. I bought myself marzipan and raspberries, which I promptly brought down to the water and ate with and oceanfront view. Afterwards I climbed up “the rock” to  a small castle perched on a boulder. From their I got amazing views of the city and the ocean. behind the castle was a park and a waterfall.

I spent the next morning wandering around the city and the oceanfront again before meeting up with Rebecca and her friends who just arrived in Nice for their vacation. We did some shopping and then went out to dinner. Dinner started late and became a very long two hour affair due to slow service, but the food and the company were both wonderful!

The next morning I made my way to the train station and proceeded to take three trains – Nice to Ventimiglia, Ventimiglia to Milan, and Milan to Bologna – before returning to my apartment for a short break after my first week of travel.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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The Mother Theresa of Africa in Ethiopia

Abebech Gobena invited us to have lunch with her after we assessed her orphanage. We were served spaghetti with red pepper flakes in it, and coleslaw that burst like cold, wet fireworks inside my mouth. Then her tale began. I was a child, a limp and starving pile of bones, hanging on every drop of life that slipped through her yellow teeth.

 

When the story began, Gobena was younger than myself—18 perhaps—and already married. She spoke that God was calling her to go on a pilgrimage. She walked forty days in fasting and prayer, until she reached a northern Orthodox temple in Ethiopia. When she arrived, in the  temple’s shadow she saw black masses covering the ground. Bodies like decks of cards were being folded and stacked up; it was 1990, a time of famine, and these were the starving to death. She went inside the temple and prayed: “God, use me to bring your kingdom here onto the earth, where your will shall be done.” Some of the last words of Jesus came to her: Do you love me? Then feed my sheep.

 

The demand wasn’t money in a moment; it was a lifetime.

 

She wept, rose from her knees, left the clean wooden floors, and she went to where soldiers were standing lazily in rows, guarding themselves against the dying with stabbing jokes as they passed—those plump, fed soldiers mocking death as it sat on the chests of frail bone sacks with bulging eye sockets and bloated stomachs, gasping through thirsty lungs for one more breath. Gobena walked toward them; they fired warning shots, shot at her feet, over her shoulders, and she kept walking. She walked right past them without stopping.

 

There were so many bodies, everywhere she stepped to find someone living among the dead was on someone’s mushy flesh. One woman cried out, unable to move from the ground, and Abebech Gobena went to her. “Take my baby,” she pleaded softly of the bloated lump on her chest. After giving the woman some water, she took the baby. She heard the sound of another crying and found it where it lay screaming on the sunken chest of a dead woman, brittle and broken. She picked it up, soothing it, keeping it at her other hip.

 

I sit at the table and sip my tea, watching her tell her story, twisting my ankles together under my seat. Hyenas are now coming out of her mouth, something about hyena angels and a miracle. Eden is coming out of her mouth as she speaks the story of staying the night with those babies in a nearby graveyard with the guards in the distance.  They were drunken and loud and threatening. They were also afraid of the hyenas that would come out at night to feed on some of the dead bodies. That night, the hyenas surrounded the graveyard, she said, protecting her and the babies from the soldier men; they were laying down outside the fence, Ethiopian Sphinxes staring down the darkness.

In a depraved land, where women have no mouthpiece, she took both the babies home. “God told me to take care of his children.” Her Adam gave her an ultimatum—him or the babies. She chose them. Two babies turned into twelve. Her home became an orphanage, and over time she became Mother Africa—Eve bearing all children. Today, thousands call her momma, and she runs the largest and most influential orphanage/non-profit in Ethiopia.

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