Most of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances found 2009 a harder year than years past. The global economic downturn and its residual effects of course weighed heavily on all of us—some more directly than others. For me, 2009 really wasn’t bad, and I’m going into 2010 with some good momentum.
This year I’ve traveled only a quarter of what I traveled last year. Though I have friends in most places I visit, it has been nice not having to go overseas so much. The real difference, though, is not measured in miles traveled or time abroad. The difference is that this year Ray really notices when I’m away. …
I just got back from my first official “Food Bender”; a ritual I will repeat annually from now until circumstances dictate otherwise. Contrary to what you might believe, Food Bender 2009 was not, in fact, a convention for vegetable origami. It was a weekend in which friends and I traveled to a destination simply to eat. Some guys go to Vegas. We went to Portland, Maine—my old stomping grounds and in my opinion, one of the best foodie meccas in the country.
I just returned from a 10-day mixed business-vacation trip abroad. The business was as always in Germany—the vacation to the city of Istanbul, not Constantinople.
I’ve been wanting to go to Istanbul since 1991 or so, when I came across a series of scholarly articles on the Hagia Sophia during an architecture course. Medieval arabic cultures have always fascinated me, partially because I’ve always been confounded by the complexity of their aesthetics and philosophy. …
The small army of people who have read certain articles on etherfarm, as well as anyone who knows me in real life, has pretty much written me off as a bag whore. I’m not alone. This affliction—BWS (Bag Whore Syndrome)—is common among photographers, travelers, outdoor enthusiasts, cyclists and fly-fishers. I happen to be enjoy all of those things, which perhaps makes my particular case of BWS more acute than most. …
It’s fair to say that my participation in (and to some extent, passion for) all-things-blog went on walkabout in 2005. The list of blogs I visited on a weekly basis dwindled to three, and after launching the most recent version of this site, entries destined for public consumption went instead to a folder named “Posts” or directly to the Trash. I tend to sculpt entries over a period of time rather than fire off fleeting, inconsequential whims, and I suppose a byproduct of that methodology is, among other things, a folder of 43 entries which have never seen the light of day.
Well, we’re back. I’m a bit overwhelmed by a lot of things—not the least of which is the number of emails and messages asking about our well-being. We are fine and safe, and thanks much for the concern.
I’d be overwhelmed regardless of the catastrophic events which took place a little more than a week ago. …
Popping in from Bangalore to issue a sub-continent communique to concerned comrades, a lame one-off response to an email inbox I fear checking.
As I mentioned in a farewell email to the mother-in-law, we intend to come back in on piece, accompanied by plenty of photos and stories and as few parasites as possible. …
I’ve just returned from five very intense weeks of work in Darmstadt, Germany, and nine days of very intense eating in Andalucia, Spain. I’ve been to Spain three times prior to this trip, but never have I spent any significant time on the Spanish coast. What an absolutely fantastic place to spend a few days after a lengthy stay in Germany.
My return flight to the states landed me right-smack-dab in the middle of The Red State—Dallas/Fort Worth. …
I’m currently typing at you from an internet cafe in Granada, Spain. Forgive chickenscratches and heavy accents. I’m using a keyboard designed for people who purposefully speak with a lithp.
An eerie realization came upon me a few days ago. …
As mentioned in my previous entry, Germans are renown for their industrial engineering, which often produces everyday technology which is simultaneously more advanced, safer, and easier to use. I used to think this was because Germans tend to appreciate a seamless integration of technology with life.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Underneath their stoic and perhaps austere demeanor, most Germans are, at their core, filled with reckless abandon. …
A good friend of mine did his Ph.D. research on something I’d never be able to describe with any precision, but it had something to do with car frames and keeping them together. In any case, for quite some time, he was The Authority regarding all-things-car. He once explained, perhaps in jest, that the reason German cars were so safe was because German engineers would find the minimum thickness required to keep a cabin intact in a collision, then triple it. …
By the end of this year, I think I’ll have spent as much time away from home as I have at home. In about 11 hours I board a plane for Germany, where I’ll be doing some consulting work until the beginning of November. As I mentioned previously, my goal during the dissertation phase of the Ph.D. is to work full-time three to four months out of the year, which will afford me the ability to work full-time on the dissertation the rest of the year. …
9,237 miles (14,928km) and 58 days (58 metric days) later, I returned home. August has been a whirlwind: recuperation from the roadtrip; another (relatively) small roadtrip to Tahoe to flyfish, a four-day marathon to write and submit my dissertation prospectus, and some light thinking about the honeymoon to India this December.
Vancouver is easily one of my favorite cities in North America. Last time I was in Vancouver I came down with a nasty flu-like thing, and while I clearly remember being awed by the city’s potential, my other memories of that trip are murky, seen through phlegm-colored glasses. …
Tell people you’re going to drive through central Canada and you’ll get the same response you get when you tell people you’re going to drive through the midwestern United States: ”“Why?”
It occurred to me that this trip will bring me further north on the planet than I’ve ever been. Prior to this, the furthest north I’ve traveled was the northern tip of the Gasp̩ peninsula in Qu̩bec
It may well be the case that since the days of explorers and pioneers there hasn’t been a better reason to traverse the 500 miles of wheat and canola between Winnipeg and Saskatoon than to have a teenager in the back of his parents’ Buick call you a fool—in writing no less—at 120km/hour.
Anyway, yet another post to say that I won’t be posting for a while, unless wireless access is readily available in the rural expanses of our northern neighbor (something I sincerely doubt… despite how cool and how large Winnipeg seems to be, I had to ask about 30 people until I found one who knew where I could get online).
In perhaps the most tangible example of “fate” I can think of (or, if you rather, the surest sign of the apocalypse), in less than four days I’ll constitute the lesser half of the Nara and Narayan Nayar duo. When Nara is asked if she’ll be taking my last name, she responds, “How could I not?”
My love for the amblin’ roadtrip stems from my bicycle touring days, when I’d load up my old Bianchi with camping gear and just leave for a few days, no destination in mind.
In order to give me enough time to get up the stairs and down the jungle path to the road to meet Nerio, I had to wake up at 3:30am. This of course wasn’t a problem since I didn’t fall asleep until about 1, when it started raining pretty hard. The comforting sound of a jungle downpour didn’t stop me, though, from waking up every 10 or so minutes thinking of the various ways venom works its way into a human’s bloodstream.
Turns out that even at the equator, mountain altitudes at 4:30 in the morning are really friggin’ cold. …
I’m laying on a cot made of split bamboo, enshrouded by mosquito mesh draped from the ceiling to the mattress, listening to the sounds of bats, snakes, frogs, geckos, monitor lizards, falling coconuts, and other things which go bump in the night. All of this is somewhat compromised in some ways by the light of my Palm’s screen, but what’s a jungle without a keyboard?
I’m now more or less in the middle of nowhere. The day before yesterday I settled in at Nuts Huts, a backpacker’s hostel located about 10 km north of Loboc on the banks of the Loboc river valley on the island of Bohol. …
The ferry ride from Cebu wasn’t so bad. In my last entry I described how the ferry was being delayed for several hours due to rough seas. While I’m glad the departure was held for safety reasons, I can say that the seas were not rough. The seas between Spain and Morocco—those are rough. …
A quick ‘happy new year’ message to all etherfarm readers. Thanks again to those of you who stop by regularly. Look for more in 2004. More of what? …
This page lists all 25 entries filed under the Globetrotting category in Synapse. Entries are listed in reverse-chronological order.