A reflection on Christmas before the New Year

I talked to my mom on the phone today and like all of you that are reading this blog right now, she reads this blog. She said that she read Mike’s recent post about Christmas and wanted answers, she wanted to know what I said in response to his question, what is the meaning of Christmas. I don’t know if this question is interesting to people because it is actually interesting or because it is clearly undefined. First, I must make the disclaimer that I do not mean to say that I represent the general Christian consensus on this matter. In fact, on this trip, I realized that I could more easily pretend to be Jewish based on knowledge than I can pretend to be Christian. This has actually given me a bit of anxiety when we pass a church and people want to go in. I have felt twice on this trip like a fraud. If someone asked me even the simplest of questions about Christianity, I could not answer. I mean I can’t even formulate a hypothetical question here to not answer because I don’t know enough to not know.

But I do celebrate Christmas at home. And I try to celebrate in some way or another when I am abroad, even though I am with my Jewish boyfriend, which as you can imagine always brings up some discussions.

Having been away from home for 4 of the last 6 Christmases, I find that the simple answers to the question, what is the meaning of Christmas have sort of faded. I know what I miss. I miss my family and being inside and it being cold out and eating a big dinner with my extended family. It always sounds so fun when I talk to them and they are all hanging out getting ready to eat. I miss waking up on Christmas morning and having nowhere to be. We stay in and eat breakfast together and watch Die Hard or another holiday movie, like Die Hard 2. We don’t go out to the store or to a friends house or to work. We usually make a fire and sit there. So, from what I miss, I would say the spirit of Christmas is defined by being with your family when it is cold outside and warm inside.

But that sounds too simple. What about the spirit of giving and charity, which my mother so eloquently brought up when I didn’t really answer her on the phone either? Well, I did like getting presents for people, that is/was fun, but that is so fleeting. They open them and then it’s over. What about the spirit of charity? A lot of our friends do extra charity work around the holidays, but I can’t honestly say that being removed from the in your face charity ads in the states that I really even thought about it anymore than I usually do. Except when I was specifically trying to figure out what it was about Christmas that makes it Christmas. There aren’t a ton of people collecting money that I can see and it seems to be business as usual here. The shops are a little more crowded, but nothing too crazy. Thailand was the same. There was a night market and a tree, but nothing special, no extra charity there either. I think France had some of the red pots, but not being a native French speaker, I didn’t get all of it I’m sure.

The point is, I still don’t know. The reason Mike didn’t answer the question in the blog was that I didn’t answer it in real life and even after a long discussion with the other Christians on Christmas, it turned out to be just a discussion and no real answers. I am finding that it means something really different to everyone. I realize how much it means to Mike that he is not a part of it and how much it means to so many others that they are, but it is still just a huge blurry blob of feelings that really is nothing at all. It really makes me think about the power of tradition and I realize that that is the spirit of Christmas–tradition. It is whatever you have done for years and years.

Unfortunately for me, my traditions will never mesh with traveling. This year was close, I was with a fun family drinking and eating at home, but it was still 80 degrees and we cooked meat on the grill instead of turkey or ham and we sat outside until after dark. Similar, but not my tradition. Mike is lucky, his Christmas tradition is transience and solidarity, which are both easy to find while traveling. Now I guess, because I have to end every blog on a positive note, I am glad that I have spent enough Christmases away to know what I miss. It makes it easier to recreate those experiences and times at home on days that aren’t Christmas. Every year when I come home from traveling, we make the following day Christmas, we do the same things that we used to do on the actual day and spend the day as a family and it is great. I get to have the chance to see that it really doesn’t matter what day you do it on, you can always have those feelings. I get the chance to slow and see that you can spend the day with your family or volunteer at a food bank or have a fire and buy people presents on May 10th or Aug 8th, you could even have Christmas everyday. Although I am sure you would start to miss other things, like the good old 4th of July!

Tom presiding over the grill. Xmas 2007 in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Mike at the market. Xmas 2006 in Mae Hong Son, Thailand

Celebrating Xmas the right way with treats and liquor. Xmas 2006 in Mae Hong Son, Thailand.

In the phone booth with “Sizeo,” our xmas tree. Xmas 2005 in Paris.

Unsober on Xmas with Sizeo, Autsy and Rob. Xmas 2005 in Paris.

Mike with Russian. Xmas 2004 (Mike in Goa, India, Azure at home).

If Xmas is a feeling, we celebrated for 2 months with Kim and Adam at the Chateau in St. Julian L’Ars, France. 2002.

Yeah. St. Julian L’Ars, France 2002.

Thailand stuff is up

Hey everyone, we uploaded emails from last year’s trip and added some pictures, and now they’re up on the blog. Look on the left side and you’ll see some posts from 2006 and early 2007 – those are updates from Southeast Asia. If you weren’t on the list because we didn’t know or like you at the time, now’s your chance to live it for the first time.

Enjoy!

The dog saga

I was walking down the street in Punta del Diablo one morning and passed a dog without giving it any notice. I suddenly felt him hop up on my leg a little in a way that was so amazingly clear, amazingly communicative, as if to say “Hey! It’s me! Remember?,” in the same way someone might tap you on the shoulder. I looked back and he was wagging, smiling and I did recognize him as the dog that had been hanging around our house, that we fed every-once-in-a-while. He’d lay under Azure’s chair while she was reading and outside our door when – probably – he was bored.

Hola.

The day before I had gotten spooked by a guy I thought was following us in the town. Turns out he was just weird, we think, and not a threat, but it occurred to me I should feed the dog more often so he would become loyal, protective of us so that if something did happen with the guy or any other guy, he’d be there for us.

It makes sense that it’s an agreement, an exchange, a relationship. We’re used to money-based exchanges so I didn’t register this as a non-monetary exchange because one party appeared to be begging for food. But when I looked at him that morning he didn’t have the ashamed, deferent look of someone who takes whatever he can get without giving back – he looked like someone I’d established a relationship with, a business partner with whom I’d dealt honestly. It was not begging, it was a trade, and he’d already been keeping his end of the bargain. I just hadn’t realized it.

On guard.

I indicated that I remembered him and he should follow me on my walk – I was going to take pictures at our rock – so he came along and hung out for a while. He followed me back to our house and laid down on the patio (never crossing in) while I ate breakfast. At the end of breakfast I enforced the exchange by grabbing the prior night’s leftovers and put them outside for him.

The exchange was our food – which we recognize as a commodity and vaguely as currency – for his time and protection. Not all animals can protect but every single animal has time. It’s the one resource every being is given equally and will continue to have throughout its life. We’ve traded away our share for other commodities, and we work hard in life so someday we might be rich enough to have it again.

Over the next few days the dog would show up on the porch at dinner time or we’d see him in town and he’d hang out with us for a while. There was one day of drama when another dog – one that looked like Lassie – was curious about us and our dog was really standoffish. The Lassie dog made friends with our dog, but I didn’t want any part of the new relationship (not much different than I am with humans) because I wanted to show our dog that I was loyal to him.

The drama!

It only makes sense in developing any kind of relationship with any animal that time-given will be a major component of it. It’s a gift, the only gift that we recognize as a commodity that can actually be given by someone with no material possessions.

We never got to say goodbye to that dog, but we’re pretty sure he’ll be ok without us. It’s a tourist town and the dogs are probably just as used to the 1-week relationships as the grocers are, and are probably just as hardened by it. Mid-way through the week we saw him hanging out at another little house, getting scraps from another couple. I wonder how many of those relationships he’s developed.

That’s him on the morning he hopped on me. He thought he was majestic.

Something to look at

Punta del Diablo moonshine

I learned a lot about using our camera in Uruguay and this is one of my favorite pictures – a 15-second exposure of the ocean at night (this was late, no sunlight in this picture). It’s too grainy, and I think that’s an ISO issue… still learning, but I like it anyway.

That night the land actually looked like the edge of a sphere – a rock rolling in space – and the horizons were thresholds instead of limits.

The first time I got on an international flight alone I saw all these people (especially in business class) who seemed, somehow, to be participating in the most broad sphere of human communication… the bankers who regularly go from Singapore to London to Bombay and watch CNN and read the Herald Tribune in the top floors of nice hotels… international people’s chatter. I remember admiring them because they traveled these enormous distances as if it were nothing special, I remember wanting to be like them. I, in fact, made a goal that by the time I was 30, I wanted to be traveling internationally like it was no big deal, a weekend trip.

But I can see what a curse that would be, to not be in awe of something special. When I looked at the horizon that night in Uruguay, I felt like I could see the broadest sphere of communication, and CNN was not involved.

Email 4: Back in Buenos Aires

Hola!

On Monday Azure and I woke up from a siesta at about 7pm, stomachs still full of meat, we were slow and aching.  We were in this quaint but plain room on the second floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, and the traffic outside the room had died while we napped – cabbies and bus drivers headed home for Xmas Eve. 

Though we knew it would only be a salad, probably a side salad at that, and probably split between the two of us, we stepped onto the street looking for something to eat because if we'd stayed in the room we would have felt like crap the entire night.  Buenos Aires feels a lot like Paris when you're on the street – small trees line the sidewalk, the sidewalk is made of tiles which are often loose, there's a good amount of dog poop on the loose tiles and in the morning all the shop keepers and doormen wash down the sidewalk with hoses.  The buildings themselves alternate between tasteful old and tasteful new, the old ones looking a lot like the common, gorgeous buildings that make Paris Paris. 

San Telmo

There weren't many people out that night, but across the street we could see a church service just getting out.  We crossed so we could walk through the crowd.  People were dressed nice, in white, they smelled good.  I saw a priest kiss a baby on the forehead as the mom carried him out of the church (the baby, not the priest).  The next doorway was the chapel and I ducked in – nothing special, really… pews and a bunch of idols.  But the chapel was attached to the courtyard where the service was held, and when I hopped a little barrier to go in there I was really struck.  The courtyard was immense, but the buildings were very high, so it felt like you were in a coffee cup looking up at the sky.  It was such a different atmosphere than other churches I've been in, having an open roof seemed fitting. 

Outside, walking alone now, I asked Azure what Christmas is actually about.  I mean, we know it's the birth of Jesus (though the date was changed for political reasons), but what is it supposed to make you think of?  To become?  I grew up not celebrating Xmas but you'd think I'd be inculcated with its message by now.  In Judaism, we have a holiday where you reflect on the past year and make amends, we have a related one where you think about the future.  There's another where we recommit to understanding what our freedom means, what it cost our ancestors.

On the street we passed a couple little kiosks (one-aisle minimarts) that had tables set outside and people sitting at them, which was unusual.  I don't know if I'm right, but I assume the people were the wives & kids of the employees, wanting to have Christmas Eve together despite the husband having to work.  The families were eating what looked to be pretty full dinners, right there at an improvised sidewalk cafe.  We were about 4 blocks from the main avenue, walking East toward it.  The food smelled good – it looked like a side of pork and a bunch of really red tomatoes with olive oil on them or something.

I asked about the meaning of Christmas because I wanted to write this email to you all, and I can't just pretend the holiday isn't happening when it clearly is, for most of the people I know.  I figured that if I wasn't going to write about Christmas itself, I could write about its theme obliquely, so that I was referring to it without actually acknowledging it.  That might work if I knew what it was about.

Azure wasn't feeling well.  We had reached the main avenue – Santa Fe – and the meat still wasn't sitting right (and, writing this 2 days later, it's still not sitting right with her).  So she made her way back to the room and I continued down Santa Fe looking for a diner or something.  The street was eerie – so wide, I think it's about 7 or 8 lanes each direction, and in a city with 20 million people there wasn't anyone out.  It reminded me of our annual "once-in-a-century" storms in Seattle, and how everyone makes a run on duct tape and water before barricading themselves inside and you can just feel the anticipation in the air, even if you're alone outside. 

Walking down Santa Fe, I spotted a corner diner that looked like it was still open and I went to the doors – yep, open.  I was a little nervous about walking in, getting a table for one and getting the sympathetic looks of, "Awww… he's alone on Christmas Eve.  I wonder what horrible things he's done to deserve this."  But I walked in and it was all tables for one.  Every one.  There were probably a dozen people there, and they were all single men around 40 years old, sitting alone watching men's gymnastics on TV.  Good crowd.  I ordered from the waiter an orange juice and a side salad.  They came and they were awful.  A kid walked in and went to a table to beg.  The waiter, I expected him to come up and shoo the boy out, but he put his arm around the kid and led him back to the kitchen where I assume he was fed.

Growing up, while everyone was with their families on Christmas Eve I'd go for these long walks around the neighborhood, up to Somerset Elementary, into the forest and down the streets.  I'd see families celebrating in their houses with the orange light and the streets were so quiet and I could see my breath.   I didn't feel left out at all.  I felt that for one night I had the entire world completely to myself, within and among my own (geographic) community as it faced inward, that everyone for one night forgot about the clouds & moon & trees.  That feeling – of being oil among water or the other way around – defines travel and also defines my experience on Xmas in Bellevue.  I still resist celebrating it even though I know Azure's family doesn't celebrate religiously.  I just don't want to lose the separateness.

I grabbed some rolls as I left the restaurant to give away as I walked home in case I saw someone who wanted them.  Still on the main street, I walked past a group of street kids and made eye contact with one of them.  I passed them, and as I crossed the street I looked back to see someone trotting after me.  One of the girls in the group came up and put her hand out.  I offered her a roll and she shook me off.  "Cambio?"  She wanted money.  I didn't give her any even though I had some loose change in my pocket.

Up the street now to the hotel, and there were a group of homeless men in an entry way.  I made eye contact with one of them and he smiled or nodded at me, so I offered him the rolls.  He took them and thanked me.

Last week I took this picture in Punta del Diablo.  It was a picture of a candle-lit restaurant at night, from the outside, with the moon overhead.  You can see people are together and warm inside, there might be music, there's definitely wine and good conversation.  If you look close enough, you can probably smell the food and perfume, you can probably hear the laughter.  But you can also see that there's action going on between the clouds & moon above, and there are dark corners on the ground as well.  The night is pleasant, beautiful and dramatic and it's interesting – enlightening – to be outside.

Much Love,  Happy Holidays,

Mike & Azure

Seize the Cow!

The other night we went to dinner at a place in BA called Siga la Vaca.  You pay 40 pesos (13.3333333 dollars) and in return you get a full bottle of wine (for each person!), a pretty good salad bar and all you can eat meat from the grill.

At this point I should clarify something: I am not lying. 

The enormous grill has fillets mignons, tenderloin, ribs, intestines, chicken breast & pig parts… we by no means exhausted our options and when we go back I'd like to figure out what else is there.  Spotted owl?  Maybe.

People often ask how we can travel to all these places we don't speak the language.  If you were walking up to a grill and you wanted pork ribs or a medium-rare beef steak, how would you communicate that?

Azure, Taeko, Tally, Cow, Maya, Tom, Mike

Email 3: Punta del Diablo

Relaxing with dog.

Hola Everyone!

To make several long stories short, we´re in a place called Punta del Diablo renting a little white house that´s directly across a dirt road from the ocean. The house has a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen, and the kitchen table is under the window that faces the sea. The wind is constant, there´s nowhere in the town you can´t hear the waves. Diablo is a very small fishing village on the coast of Uruguay, about 1 hour from the Brazillian border. There are a few dirt roads and lots of beach, rocks, dogs, fishing boats etc. Apparently after xmas is the high season and the town fills up with tourists, and we´ve been here for all the time leading up to it where the townspeople repair rooves, spruce up their houses for rentals, etc. They don´t take care of the dogs, the dogs just run about, I´m pretty sure.

Yesterday I woke up with the sunrise and walked through the town as it woke up itself. The fishermen were already up and having their mate (mah-tay, the ubiquitous tea) before they´d all push their boats down the beach and out to sea. I walked past them all, past the main street and out onto the point after which the town is named… there´s an abandoned building out there that appears to have been a restaurant, so I went in and took a bunch of pictures of the destruction.

“Stop objectifying me.”

Wood, metal and glass in the abandoned building.

We spent the day walking around the coast, sitting on the beach or reading, whatever. There was a siesta in there somewhere. It´s always quiet.

At about 4pm we got up and I went to find our fish guy while Az stayed at the house and read under the awning. I bought some shrimp that was literally just hauled in from the water. I also bought some veggies – onions, peppers, carrots, garlic, sweet potatoes. When I got back home, Azure read at the kitchen table while I shelled the shrimp (for the record, she´s a fine shrimp prepper when she´s not engrossed in a romance novel) and we got the veggies ready, then we put it all in the fridge and walked the 5 minutes out to ¨our rock.¨

They tasted better than they looked. The shrimp, that is. My fingers tasted awful.

Some veggies.

Our rock is this boulder that has a ridge in it that´s perfect as a bench, a perch above the waves, pinning us against the ocean and sky. We sat there for maybe an hour and a half with the sun beginning to set to the northwest, kinda behind us as we faced Antarctica/South Africa, we sat and talked and didn´t talk, we snacked on foccacia bread, we watched the whole time the waves bashing the rocks, on a stage right in front of us, a show like fireworks, each wave different. I always get this feeling that I need to capture and catalog the beauty in a photo or something, like each wave is unique and significant somehow, and it shouldn´t be forgotten. But then I did the calculation and it turns out that over the last 10,000,000 years, 2 trillion waves have crashed at that spot, give or take. I´ll bet a lot of those have been forgotten. Once again, as with the gorgeous valleys we saw on the motorcycle loop in Thailand´s mountains, I just have to let it be and enjoy it when it´s happening.

Our rock, from the top.

There were two fishermen to our left, they use bamboo poles and instead of bait at the end of the line there´s a weight. The hook and bait are about three inches up from there on a separate line tied to the main line. While we were watching one guy got a fish on, set the hook, then lost his whole rig when the fish fought around a rock.

From our perch, we could see miles down the beach to the southwest and another half mile up the coast to the point. I could sit there forever, I swear.

The view to the Southwest.

Anyway, at sunset we walked back to our little casa and threw the shrimp in with the veggies, black beans and rice and covered the whole thing with this sauce called ChimiChurri which I can only pray they have back in the States. They probably do, they have everything back home. Az made the sweet potatoes into an amazing fried thing with more ChimiChurri and we poured some wine and had our dinner with candles. It was followed by chocolate, of course.

Finished product.

We´ve lived this day each day for a week now, and I don´t know why we´d ever leave, but we are leaving, tomorrow, going back to Buenos Aires. BA is sensational in a totally different way, and we´re excited to be there as well.

I would have sent this email sooner except Diablo´s internet was out since we got here. Some technological notes: since last year traveling some things have changed. In the hostels & internet cafes, EVERYONE (EVERYONE) has accounts on Facebook and Gmail. Those two things have taken over completely. Any traveler we meet we can be sure will stay in touch via Facebook, it´s amazing. Technology note #2 is that last year this email would have been lost if I´d been using AOL – the computer died in the middle of writing this and if it weren´t for Gmail auto-saving every few seconds, you would have gotten a two-sentence email: ¨It´s nice here. Hope all´s well at home.¨

Make sure you check out our blogs, as there´s other stuff there that I haven´t been emailing, including instructions on what to do with my remains, in case you happen to be the lucky one who deals with them. Azure also wrote a long, detailed post about all the coincidences (the long stories) that lead to us finding our little casa here in Diablo.

As always, send news of your lives and related gossip, it makes the world go round…

It´s nice here, hope all´s well at home,

Mike (& Azure)

¿Donde estamos?

Estamos en Uruguay. I think.

Whenever we travel without solid plans or reservations, luck is always something I think about a lot. I remember the first time I travelled like this, my friend Darren and I got to CDG airport in Paris and turned to each other and said ¨Why did we think we could do this?¨ Neither of us spoke any french and we had never traveled out of the country before. We got on the nice metro bus heading to the center of Paris and ended up in Lyon, a city 2.5 hours sounth of the city. I now know that there aren´t any ¨nice¨ metros and I have some sort of understanding of some of the language. Since then, I have developed a more healthy and aware attitude. I now know how lucky I am when the blob on the map that we are walking towards for an hour in the sun turns out to be what we thought it was. We are lucky when the bus comes when it says or the bank is open on whatever day you need it, because once you get out of the US, where professionalism is inborn, it is not a given that these things are certain.

This last week has been both a test of attitude and of luck. I am happy to say we managed to stay positive (except for the 15 minutes about an hour ago, where I was resigned to the idea that Uruaguay, and apparently Brazil did not take Visa and having 6 different Visa cards with us, we would not find money anywhere).

We left BA on Thursday morning and headed for the ferry to Uruguay. Like good travellers, we showed up for our 9:30 boat at 8:45. But the boat was actually at 9:00 and we were some of the last people to clear customs and make it on. We´re so lucky. We got in to Montevideo around 4:00pm and wanted to go to a place called Punta del Diablo because Mike had seen on Lonely Planet that is was a really great fishing village with some nice beaches. We went all around trying to find a bus, but the last bus to PdD had left an hour before. Crap! But, there was a bus that left in an hour that went past PdD and stopped at the entrance to the town. Perfect. So lucky! We easily took out some money and found our bus. The farther and farther we got away from Montevideo and the darker it got, the more we wondered if it was such a good idea to get dropped off at the entrance to a town. We were told, or so I thought that there would be a taxi or something to get to the center, so we had to go on good faith, because you can only ask someone to repeat something so many times before you realize that you just aren´t going to unerstand. I kept asking the bus driver how many more minutes to PdD and as the time got smaller and smaller and there still weren´t any lights, we definitely got ourselves prepared to walk the 5 km from the road to the town. The bus finally pulled over and we got off in the dark in the middle of nowhere, but luckikly, so did another couple. She was from Germany and He was from Nicaragua and they both spoke great spanish. We started to walk together, when the girl noticed a car and went over to them. They had offered us all a ride. Lucky, lucky lucky!

Getting dropped off the bus at “Entre” Punta del Diablo. The ocean is 5km behind us in the dark.

When we got to town, we started looking for the hostel that we had booked for the night-see how we plan ahead. The ¨only taxi driver in town¨ told us that we would never find it without his help, so not wanting to be ripped off, we left and set out to find it ourselves. We were just going to go along restaurant by restaurant, asking along the way. The first place we went was this pizza place in town and guess who we saw? Pretty much the only people we knew in all of South America, the Irish guy and British girl from the Mendoza wine tour! They had been staying there for 4 days and had rented a hut by the beach. They had extra beds, so we stayed with them. It was fun to sit and have some beers and feel so relieved that heading into the middle of nowhere in Uruguay, you always end up having a great time with nice people.

Nick and Sarah were gracious hosts. They gave us a place to sleep and showed us the ways of shrimp

In the morning, we went for a walk around town. It was what Lonely Planet had promised- a small fishing village with some nice beaches. Very humble places and very nice people. On our walk, we went by a small house with a sign for rent. Since the guy was there we asked him about it and 40 minutes later, we were moved in to our little home for a week that is right on the beach road right up the street from all of the fishing boats and beaches. It really was perfect. It had an indoor and outdoor cooking area and we can see the rocks and ocean from our kitchen window. Later that day, Sarah and Nick (the couple we know) showed us how they had been living for the past week. They bought fresh fish from a guy named Robert, who got a fresh catch daily and cooked it over the fire with some vegetables. Of course we fell comfortably into this life. It was fishmas every day of the week.

Robert, the fisherman gives fish on credit. What a great system.

Everything was perfect when we went to bed, but when we woke up, we realized the catch. Mike had 104 mosquito bites and I had 23. We feared that we would have to leave our perfect house, but we had to go to Chuy that day anyway because there are no ATMs in PdD and apparently Chuy is big (You can even see it on the map!), so we thought we would look for a mosquito net there. It turns out Chuy is not big. It is a small border town and has tons of duty free shops with liquor and other gear, but no ATMs that take Visa, or at least not on Saturays and no mosquito nets. Our plan became this- buy enough food with our credit cards to last us for 2 days and come back on Monday. Live off nothing until then. So we did, we learned how to cook beans and bought some fish from Robert on credit and lived fairly well. We also bought a tent! So now we sleep in a tent in our room on a bed and it is great. no bugs, very nice.

Our tenty-bed setup

Today, Monday, we are back on Chuy or Chui depending on which side of the street you are on, since one side is Uruguay and on is Brazil. The ATMs still didn´t work in Uruguay, so we went to Brazil and found 1 ATM that worked, but it only had some money. We took all the money we could from the machine and were told to come back when the bank opened 10am. We got the rest of the money we needed, walked back across the street, changed it into Uruguay pesos and are now living in luxury. Mike is looking for some sandals and I am sitting here online. Yay. Again, I am overwhelmed with the feeling that we are so lucky. We found money, we are headed back to our nice house with its tent and kitchen and great fishermen and beaches. And I just feel really lucky that we got do have these problems. It is sometimes hard not to get angry when things I take for granted at home are different here. The first time we went to the bank it was going to open at 1, when we went back 15 minutes later, they had pushed it back to 3. WTF??? It is a bank!!! But it is always interesting to see how people do things elsewhere. I guess if I want consistent hours and products, I should stay home. Ok, off to buy Mate cups and try sipping Mate all afternoon because we are suddenly rich!

Merry Fishmas to all and to all a fish tonight

Recoleta Cemetery

We went to the Recoleta Cemetery today – a cemetery so popular that the Hard Rock Cafe built a restaurant overlooking it. This confused us when we approached from the wrong side (we thought the cemetery had been turned into a mall), but it’s still intact. Outside the cemetery entrance there’s an enormous tree that has branches that reach out like spider legs covering half the block. It created a nice canopy under which there were several benches and some cafe tables. Az and I took some pictures there, they’re already up on Flickr. I really loved being under the huge old tree, it reminded me of the one in Lisbon with the kids climbing in the branches. This one was fenced off, though, and quite a bit larger. This one had presence – something about it made me happy.

We followed everyone (including a funeral procession, it appeared) into the cemetery to look at all the intricate, posh, gaudy tombs of Buenos Aires’ passed elite. The whole place is a series crypts with the oldest family members buried deep underground and successive generations above, until the most previously deceased rests at the top. We didn’t take a tour this time, but we will in a couple weeks, and I’ll bring our better camera. There were some beautiful gates and statues, some very striking crypts. I particularly liked the ones that had natural light coming in from the top.

As for me, let me rot. If I ever die, god forbid, leave me under an evergreen tree in the forest and let the animals and bugs and plants take me back. The cycle of grow-decompose is beautiful and natural, it’s too bad people choose to be buried in in coffins, to end that cycle, to be alone. Why wouldn’t we want to be inhaled by the earth’s next breath?

If an evergreen grew with the help of nutrients from my ancestors’ bodies, I wouldn’t want that evergreen cut down. I wonder if our relationship with nature is fucked up because our ancestors’ bodies aren’t (literally) in the trees. I wonder if it’s the other way around – we bury our dead in coffins so we don’t have to feel accountable to nature and can therefore do whatever we want to it.

But then I’ve never been impressed by fancy tombs and the like. The Sistine Chapel seemed like one big BJ given by one rich man to another, the Vatican felt the same. The crypts at Recoleta Cemetery today were gorgeous monuments, but I was more moved by the powerful tree outside.

So, I want to rot into an evergreen tree in a forest in the Northwest, maybe in the little park behind Somerset Elementary school. I wonder if you have to get a permit to do that. I could be buried, that would be fine, but no cremation, no coffin.

Happy Birthday Arnie Goldstein

Hello, Buenos Aires

Mike making his debut on the streets of BA. I was actually trying to take a picture of the restaurant behind him because they have real chandeliers in the outside dining section. But, mike likes attention, so here he is.

Just a little walking tour we did yesterday of Palermo. Tom and Maya (Tom especially) have been taking us on great tours of the city. Yesterday, Mike and I decided to go out on our own and see if we could make it back. We brought a map of course, but ended up snaking through a lot of Palermo. There are so many parts and so many details to the city. I know these pictures will not do it justice, of course, but everywhere you look, there is creativity. It is like if you took the trendiest places in Seattle and just lined them up all over. Mind you, I only really had my camera going hardcore for about 4 blocks and these were the highlights. I’m sure others could walk one street off of our path and find a whole other set of great buildings.

I love what some stores and restaurants do to the sidewalks here. Again, I know I am a sucker for outside dining, but some of the setups are so nice. I saw one store that pained the whole sidewalk in front of it an aquamarine color, like a carpet outside. It was very alluring. The rose bouquets in the background were so detailed and I love the checker board sidewalk.

This is Mike’s favorite building. He thinks that a whole town should be painted in black with gold trim. **SPOILER** Expect a gold headband in his future.

One of the great things about the neighborhoods is that there are cafes on pretty much ever corner. This one in particular had a really beautiful look with the ivy over the awning.

This is an old mansion that has been neglected. Many of them have been restored and used as homes for businesses. The Nike store, for instance is housed in an old mansion with tons of different rooms. I’m sure this one will be bought soon and fixed up. It is sandwiched between two apartment buildings.

Email 2: Buenos Buenos Aires

Hello Everyone!

I’m lucky enough to not only have family in Buenos Aires, but I have the warmest, most welcoming and intelligent and interesting cousins in all of Buenos Aires I’m pretty sure. Maya, Tom and Talya have been absolutely the best hosts Az and I could ever hope for, and we’re grateful.

During lunch yesterday I turned to Azure and said, in all seriousness, “We live such a luxurious life!” Well, it felt luxurious anyway. I looked down at the table and the four of us were eating/drinking/stealing bites of coffee, sparkling water, croissants, a slice of pie, an orange juice and a strawberry smoothie. It was under $3 per person, actually, nothing luxurious about it, except for all the different tastes.

An hour before we were walking through the San Telmo flea market. San Telmo is near the president’s home in downtown BA and it’s this market crammed into a narrow street with leather and antiques and books and art on both sidewalks, sometimes in the middle of the pedestrian-only street. There’s plenty of stimulation, tons of tourists and locals alike gawking at the goods and at each other or the buildings or street performers. About half way through the market we saw a couple guys holding signs that said, “free hugs,” (in Spanish) so Maya and I went and got our hugs. It wasn’t a crap hug, either. The guy held on for a while and he clearly meant it. It was really a great feeling. I wasn’t sure how to end the hug, though. When you have an intimate hug with a stranger do you pull away and smile or give a high-five or say something or just walk on? When it was over he looked at me and said, “Gracias” and I realized almost immediately how important it was to say thank you – almost as important as the hug itself. I’m still not sure why it felt that way, but I know it’s right.

The value of an experience can have nothing to do with its price.

We walked further up the narrow street and came to a tango orchestra consisting of four violins, three bandoneons (accordions), an upright bass and a piano making some wonderful noise for the tourists. Notice anything missing? My favorite instrument in the world? No, there were no drums. And after hearing the music they put out, I could see why. It was beautiful, rich and fluid, I could see how a drum would have changed it. Drums are structure and without drums the rest of the instruments created a sound that was more of the beauty and less of the measurement. The solo seemed to be communal, as if it flowed from one player to another, in and out of the listener’s perception. I was really moved by this music, and it seemed the rest of the crowd loved it, too.

The tango orchestra.
(this is someone else’s video)

When I turned around to find Az & Tom & Maya again, there was another free hug girl so I went up and hugged her. This time I made sure I said, “Gracias.” She said, “Gracias a te!” and something else in Spanish that I didn’t catch. I felt so good after those hugs, just giddy-happy. I have no clue why 95% of the people on the street walk right past them.

At that lunch, the one where I felt we lived luxuriously, Maya pointed out that when they lived in Mexico they didn’t have the variety of food we were enjoying now, but they had plenty of time, which might be the most important luxury. It makes up for most bad conditions.

Long-term travel takes me from my home and strips me of my possessions and challenges me, “Now, what do you really enjoy?” Not only does the barrage of experiences (including boredom) teach me about my values, but also the experiences are stimulating in the present tense, rewards in themselves. When travel forces me to shed the the things and responsibilities of home, I’m left with only the good stuff… I think that’s why I felt that luxury yesterday: family, food, people, music, food, time.

In “Guns, Germs and Steel,” Jared Diamond wrote, “We tend to seek easy, single-factor explanations for success. For most important things, though, success actually requires avoiding many separate possible causes of failure.” What is your definition of success?

Love you all,

Mike (& Azure)

The Bill and Hillary of Argentina

An interesting thing is happening today in Argentine politics. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is taking office as president of Argentina after her husband served only one term. Like the US, Argentina has a term limit of two terms. Not wanting to become a lame duck in his second term, Nestor Kirchner handed over power to his wife with the idea that she would serve one term, then he and then her again. He maintained very high approval ratings and left office beloved by his country.

We are watching it on tv right now, but have been down to La Casa Rosada (“The Pink House”) the last 2 days. It was exciting to see all of the preparations being made for the ceremony. We were going to attend the actual parade, but opted to stay out of the heat and the crowds.

Quote from Jared Diamond

From the book Guns, Germs and Steel:

"We tend to seek easy, single-factor explanations of success.  For most important things, though, success actually requires avoiding many separate causes of failure."

Legacy

Before we packed up the raingear under Seattle's beautiful, asphyxiating skies, I'd started looking into our family history and, more specifically, my own genetic origins. I suppose I'd always thought of people who did this kind of thing as altruistic in a way, or at least honoring their ancestors. To be honest, though, I initially started looking into it because I was curious what my diet should be. My body is obviously forged by thousands of years of evolution into the statuesqueness you have before you now, and obviously much of that evolution happened among natural conditions that included food sources, so obviously my body is adapted to whatever foods my ascendants were eating back in the day. I want to find those food sources to maximize my statuesqueness.*

Anyway, I found out that parts of my family have been in the US (Pennsylvania) since the 1660s. Cool. Many were from Germany, originally, which puts my German genetic makeup at between 0.25 and 0.125.

At the same time, because we were traveling to South America I started reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" since it talks about how different populations developed at different rates. Reading this book here is striking because South America is the first place we've traveled where the original population isn't the dominant culture.**

When I read about the horrors that happened here I find myself rooting for the indigenous people and for a split second I forget the present and wonder what will happen in the story – will they finally pick up arms and fight back? Will they organize themselves and find a way to defeat the Europeans? I have hope that the innocent can win, that the next sentence will reveal the strategy that worked.

The split second goes by too fast and I look up from my book to see the tall, whitish people of Argentina buzzing around the city. I get angry about the awful things done by the Spanish (in this case) and wonder how the current population of Chile and Argentina can live with itself knowing what it took to get here! These buzzing people must know that their ancestors were ruthless murderers! I look at them and wonder what right they imagine themselves to have to continue to be here, still, now, in the place they stole.

My ancestors, the ones from Germany in the 1660s, would never have done that.

—

* One stumbling point is that my genetic origins in Central Europe don't extend back further than 11,000 years, probably. Not really enough time for a ton of natural selection to do its work. I might be better off finding out where the peoples of those European regions came from after the last Ice Age.

** Obviously that's not exactly true, as many many cultures around the world consist of the agricultural crew that slaughtered the hunter-gatherers who didn't go along with the hoarding of food plan… but it is different, somehow, in the case of indigenous Americans.

Impressions of BA

Thanks to Tom & Maya & Talya it's been a very soft landing in Buenos Aires. The entire time we've been here they've been raving about BA and its barrios, cafes, vegetable markets, delivery system for anything you want… So I asked Tom and Talya (separately) what wasn't right with BA. What's its fatal flaw?

Talya thought about it for a minute, searched for an answer, and said something along the lines of, "Sometimes the sidewalks have dog poop on them," which is much more manageable than, say, race riots. Paris has race riots AND lots of dog poop, so it has BA beat by a long shot.

Tom was unable to come up with anything.

Buenos Aires is a European city almost lifted up and set down in South America. All the things Az and I love about Paris, Barcelona and Lisbon are here: great cafe/street life (that often doesn't get started until late late. Talya's friend called last night at 2 to see if she was coming out), tons of unique art & handicrafts, every street is mixed commercial on the ground floor and residential above, parks, tree-lined streets, great public transportation. But it has the advantages over Europe of being a latin country with its requisite warm people, and the obvious price differences.

We're still getting to know this huge city. We're looking for an apartment this weekend, which means we get to explore different neighborhoods with the idea in mind, "we could live here by that cafe
or there by the park or here next to the flea market…"

Buenos Aires!

We arrived in Buenos Aires today after a 14 hour bus ride from Mendoza. We're staying with my American cousin and her husband, both of whom run 'virtual businesses,' as they call them. Their daughter Tallia is finishing her second year of college at 17 here as well. Tom has a company that sells magnetic bracelets in the US (he set up his company, hired someone to run it in Portland, and manages it from abroad) and Maya writes weekly articles about mindfulness and has several blogs. She recently signed a deal with Random House to write a book that's broadly about alternative education.

They've been excellent hosts in the first half-day we've been here, already taking us out to a great lunch & dinner. All three of them are warm, welcoming, interesting and intelligent. Being ex-pats, they have perspective on the US that's clear-headed and refreshing.

I'm inspired by their lifestyle, it's essentially the same as the lifestyle Azure and I practice while traveling, but they live it in 'real life' as well: they wake up and go to coffee, sit in their wonderful apartment and listen to music, talk, go to lunch, nap, then work a couple hours when everyone wakes up in the US. Work, for Tom, consists largely of emailing to make sure everything is going as it should back in Oregon.

We love BA so far – it's very European but affordable. Tomorrow we're heading off to look for a neighborhood to rent an apartment!

Email 1: Los Cinquos Centavosos

Hello Everyone!

Since I´m not feeling so creative yet, this email is going to be about the 5 senses of our trip so far, something cliche you might be able to find on AOL if you look hard enough. Enjoy!

Taste:
After Santiago we headed to the coast of Chile and the geographically intimidating town of Valparaiso. It´s on the Pacific and, as Azure said, ¨it uses its waterfront about as well as Seattle does¨ with a shipping highway where beaches probably existed a generation ago. There´s a section of the city that´s gritty and bustling for about 7 or 8 blocks, then it sweeps dramatically up these steep hills that would be lush and green if there weren´t houses of all kinds crammed everywhere… we took a long walk up into these neighborhoods and saw a spectacular view of the city below, the ocean beyond and other neighborhoods crammed onto other hills.

We got a room in a lady´s house near the center of the city and one night made dinner for ourselves… I had this mind-blowing chicken stirfry planned, but the lady had no spices and we couldn´t find a frying pan, so we ended up semi-boiling-steaming our veggies and chicken in a pot and it came out tasting a lot like the cuisine we´d eaten in the town: great ingrediants prepared blandly.

Luckily for the taste part of our 5 centavos, Azure went and grabbed a 2$ bottle of Chilean red wine… and it was wonderful! I don´t know my wines much, I only know what I like and don´t like, but this wine was the perfect amount of sweet, ¨round¨ (if that can be a taste adjective) and fruity. I´d argue the best red wine I´ve ever had.

Sight:
The next morning we hopped on a bus with a bunch of snacks and took off for an 8-hour bus ride to Mendoza, Argentina (where we are presently). I was a little apprehensive about covering such a large distance by bus rather than plane, but it was great: we got to SEE everything we were passing (as opposed to being on a plane), we got to see the transition from Pacific to mountains to plains. To start, we tore up these steep hair-pin turns going high into the Andes, then through a long tunnel into Argentina. Coming down there were breath-taking mountains that looked like they could have been one piece of rock jutting to the sky. They made no concessions to the size of the busses, people, trees or animals around. A reminder that this planet wasn´t made for us.

As it flattened out, we saw scattered ruins of old rock homes on fields near the river… I have no idea their purpose nor their age, but I´d like to imagine they´d been there for thousands of years.

Smell:
When we finally reached Mendoza we found our Servas (UN homestay organization) host´s house. It´s in this flat little suburb under streets lined with beautiful green trees. The houses are all low (one storey/storie/story? It´s been too long since college) and connected in the front – there´s no gate to get to the back yard so nobody can break in. A very smart idea.

Anyway, you walk through the house and onto a little brick courtyard with a mosaic table in the center, the whole thing under a roof of grapevines . We were sitting back there talking to him and I suddenly smelled this amazing scent. I looked around and found it – a plant that looks a little like rhodedededendrons (did I spell that right?) with these white flowers that made my heart race. I went over and smelled them… sweet, tropical… and smelled them again, and again. I don´t know what the host thought of me just rolling into his courtyard and standing under the bush smelling flower after flower on the same plant, but I don´t care.

I´ve never thought of leaving Azure for a plant before, but now might be the time. Turns out it´s Jasmine (as far as I understood him). I´ve smelled the artificial jasmine scent before and it makes me sneeze.

Touch:
We walked to the town plaza where people were all strolling, talking, hanging out, looking at handicrafts and listening to music for the evening. A bunch of enormous trees drop these little orange flowers, so the park has some parts that are a field of orange (no synonyms, sorry). I wanted to smell one of the little flowers, so I picked it up and there was a sharp pain: I could feel something going into my finger slowly, deeper, pushing in deliberately. I dropped the flower and looked: a dying bee was clinging to the petals and stung me in its last act. It really, really hurt. I can´t even remember the last time I was stung – maybe at Kelsey Creek 20 years ago?

Sound:
After frantically sucking out the poison, Az and I sat down in the plaza´s ampitheater and listened, with a few hundred Argentinians of all ages, to a man play the guitar and sing. People clapped along, there were a few doing some beautiful dancing, waving scarves around. A lot of people sang along with the guy… they might have been traditional songs, I didn´t recognize them, so I recorded them on my MP3 player.

It was a beautiful evening to just sit there and listen to the buzz of the plaza while the sun set. My favorite part, I think, was watching a group of younger girls flirt with a group of older boys directly in front of us. The girls would ball up pieces of paper and throw them at the guys´ backs, then the guys would throw it back at them. One guy was kinda ignoring the girls because he was obviously too cool for them, but his friend was into it. Very cute.

Bonus Sixth Sense:
I had a dream the other night that it was snowing in Seattle so I went to the Seattle Times (I don´t know why I went to that conservative rag… usually I go to the liberal rag, the PI) and saw that it HAD, in fact, snowed the night before! I´m psychically linked to Seattle. Last night I dreamed I was naked in public, so I guess we´ll see where that takes us today.

Anyway, I´m sorry to read that LSU and Ohio State are playing in a farce of a championship game. I´m glad I´m out of the country or else my blood would be boiling about it.

Thank you to everyone who´s emailed! Take care,

Mike & Azure

I guess I´ll blog about Chile

This may be lackluster, I dunno. We flew into Santiago and had already booked 2 nights at a hostel that a friend had recommended. We easily found our way to town thanks to the internet navigating skills of my dad (yes, he can apparently use google!). The hostel was great, it totally reminded me of the chateau that we stayed at, same hallways, windows and most importantly, smells. It had a nice pool and we easily spent the first two days walking around the city and getting some color by the pool. The city was nice and easy. we walked about 5 miles a day, which is something we don´t really do at home due to el car-o. We found the ¨Greenlake¨ and ¨Capitol Hill¨ of Santiago and ate dinner at an outdoor restaurant. Can you tell I am a sucker for outdoor dining? I am from Seattle, we don´t get a lot of it!

What else can I say, we found the city to be a little plain, though aesthetically appealing. We ate tons of Empanadas, walked some more, rode the metro, ate at the overpriced fish market that the girls at the hostel recommended. In all things were expensive by SA standards and very very mediocre. Santiago is where we discovered that we would much rather eat at a really average, but cheap and authentic place than eat at an expensive restaurant that is marginally better with white plates and small portions. We tried a sushi place next to our hostel and the waiter was so snotty to us. I wanted to say ¨Are you kidding me? You are going to turn your nose up at me when there is better sushi than this on every corner in Seattle?¨ Most times that we do fancy things, like spending New Years in Monaco, we find the experience to be stuffy and lackluster. I would honestly take nice waiters, real people and food poisoning over some of the upscale places that have snotty service and no vibe. I realize that I like people who don´t care if we want to play cards before dinner and don´t have appearances to keep up, because honestly, nothing in Santiago was that amazing. Sorry.

We thought we would have more luck in Valparaiso, a smaller coastal town in Chile that everyone raved about. We took a room from a lady at the bus station (this always works out well for us) and ended up staying in the center of the real Valparaiso. We walked to the touristy parts and they were nice, but our part was nicer. People sold things on the street and there was a funny version of a Christmas market, but…everything was mass-produced, lots of children´s clothes and cheap garlands.

The really awesome part about the city was that it was so colorful and beautiful. There is always something to be said for cities built on and around hills. It takes so much extra effort to first build a 100ft high wall before building your house on it and then build your neighbor´s house on top of your’s that you have to do it right. There were no gray houses and the colors taupe, muddy river, and rust were apparently not for sale in this town. You want pink, turquoise or yellow? No problem. I liked that there were paint drops on the sidewalks. People didn´t seem to use drop clothes and didn´t really care that their house was glowing. I suppose you could just paint it another color the next year. The attitude towards their surroundings was inspired and fun. I can see why so many artists get wrapped up in its charm. When we were walking one day we saw a guy painting on a gray wall. Again, no gray allowed. It was so beautiful, I would say it was a mural, but it was just pure blotches of color in a shaded rainbow. I loved that there could be no plain walls in the entire city. None. That is what I liked about the city, but…

The next day we decided to go to Argentina. For some reason, we couldn´t get into Chile. We took a 7 hour Bus to Mendoza over the Andes on a road that is only open in the summer, rightfully so and it was awesome and captivating. I kept thinking about my old favorite book ¨Alive¨ where the team gets stuck in the Andes after their plane crashed and ended up eating the dead passengers. I can totally see why. You get caught in the Andes in the dead of winter and you are so screwed. Every hill ends in a cliff and every cliff gives way to an equally steep cliff usually with some loose of falling rocks.

Squeezing the fun out of the magic of travel

Az and I spent last night talking about what makes an experience good or bad when traveling.  Typical to my need to systematize even the unsystematizable, I came up with a little matrix kind of thing by which we can grade a place.  Or a scoresheet.  Checklist?  No, scoresheet works.  That´s most accurate.

When we´re in a new place, there are 4 factors that contribute to the quality of the experience: A) Housing.  B) Transport.  C) The City/Town/Place. D) The Geography/Environment.

Within each there are several variables:

HOUSING
1. Security (10 possible points) – Is it private, is it well locked, do we feel safe leaving our things out, does anyone else (a cleaning person) come in?
2. Stability (5) – Are we there for a month or for 2 nights, will we have to change rooms, do we get to know the city well?
3. Comfort (5) – Clean, sleepable?
4. Location (5) – In the suburbs/country/city?  Is there a grocery store close by?
5. Amenities (5) – Is there a kitchen, a pool, a view?
6. Price (5)
7. Bonus (-10 to +10) – Is it a chateau, a log cabin, a sailboat, does it have a view of the neighbors changing or a mango tree?

TRANSPORT
1. What kind of mobility do you have? (20) – Motorscooter (16-20), Car (12-15), Bike (10-15), Location doesnt need self-transport (10-15), Good local transportation (8-15), Bad local transportation (1-8) (hi, Seattle! 1), No local transportation (0)

PLACE
1. Cultural Authenticity (20) – Unique & beautiful archetecture, locally-made goods & art, minimal restaurant franchises?
2. Central Interesting Activity (15) – Is there something you could do over and over again, day after day?  Is the city explorable?  Is there a beach culture?  Is it a chateau?
 Is there a dope swimming pool?  Can you learn something there like tango or French or yoga?
3. Price (10)
4. Is it intellectually challenging? (10)
5. Bonus (-10 to +10) – Is the food good (+20 if it´s Italy), is it a spiritual center, is it your ethnic homeland, are the people especially beautiful, etc

ENVIRONMENT
1. Does it have significant natural borders? – Ocean/lake/river (5-15), Mountains (5-10), Nothing (0-4)
2. Is the climate right for the trip? (10) – Is it hot at the beach and cold for skiing?
3. Is it beautiful or ugly? (10) (hi, Seattle!  10) – Trees & hills? Other beauty?
4. Bonus (-10 to +10) –  Is it windy? An island?

Anyway, when we broke it down like this we could see why we feel ambivalent about Mendoza: It´s a beautiful city in an environment without natural borders.  It has interesting activities and local art in a beautiful main plaza, but it´s tough to get there from our housing in the suburbs.  In other words, we love the city but we aren´t as self-sufficient as we´d like to be.  Travel is about finding the combination that makes the experience totally wonderful.  For those 1 or 2 times per trip when everything comes together it becomes the experience of a lifetime that makes you dream of traveling again (as happened in Thailand and Barcelona for the two of us, itt came together for me in Portugal, it happened for Azure in the chateau… among many other places).

What else should be added to this?