The Bright Side to Solo Travel

The leaves are about gone. Despite it being the end of December, there is still some life in them. Fall and winter so far have been quite mild here in Ankara. The bare, gnarly branches outside in front of my balcony are a sign of winter, but the 06.00 street sweeper-man moves his broom and dustpan down the street much more quickly now too. I wonder how long his season goes? What happens to his paycheck when the leaves stop falling and there is nothing left to sweep up?

It’s the day after Boxing Day and as the sun comes up I’m putting the last things into a suitcase for a trip to Stockholm. This trip is not for work and I’ll only be alone while in transit. Once I get there, I will have good friends to share the experience with. I am of course looking forward to this, but I am aware that, although walking a city with a native may take me to some non-touristic gems, the element of surprise goes away a bit. The chance encounters that a solo-woman can encounter, although often annoying, can be their own gems that just wouldn’t happen if she had a companion. Okay, so it has taken me a while to come back to writing this story. I have no excuses other than I’ve been traveling a lot.

Seconds after the guy with the big club realized I was no threat, both of our frightful expressions became equally apologetic. I felt bad disturbing him and he felt bad for wanting to bruise whomever it was knocking on his door. His English was good and he explained that he had just closed his place for the season. It was early November and the seaside town just wasn't booming with business in winter. It was late, or it seemed late, and I simply asked him if he could recommend another place for the weekend. He said that he could, of course, and as his initial shock subsided more and more, his offers increased. "Well, you can stay here for one night. How many nights do you need . . . oh, two, well, you could stay here for two, but there won't be anyone to make you breakfast. Well, I will call my friend and see if he can make your breakfast tomorrow. He can be here by 10, what time do you want to eat . . . oh, you get up early, I will ask him to be here by 8.30 . . . " His increased willingness and efforts to get me to stay were at first kind and then a bit weird, and once he invited me to have dinner with him, I was on the phone with a friend in Ankara, pretending I was talking to "my boyfriend who couldn't come with me on this trip, unfortunately." This was a case of trying to read the line between Turkish hospitality and a creepy guy thinking he's going to get lucky in his empty hotel tonight. I took a chance and stayed.

What ended up happening was me having an entire refurbished historic Ottoman home to myself. This man had created his own "Art Hotel" with antique artifacts decorating the interior common space and about 10 rooms of this inn. My breakfast chef was Jacob who spoke less English than I spoke Turkish, but we spent two-hours sharing stories over coffee and simit that morning, him showing me photos of his army days in the 80s. With pictures, a map and good senses of humor, Jacob and I laughed and learned from each other's stories.

I had a similar experience in Istanbul when I was there a couple of years ago. Walking through the busy Sultan Ahmet with my guidebook obviously seeking out a tourist trap, I was stopped by a man speaking to me in German. I kept walking pretending not to pay attention. He switched to Italian and then Spanish before I told him that I was from New York (my easy answer these days). He then apologized saying I didn't look American and that his English wasn't very good. He asked me where I was going and when I told him I was seeking out the big cisterns, he said, "oh now, I can show you something better." Red flags should have gone up for obvious reasons, but something in me wasn't afraid of this guy. He was older and smaller than I was, so if nothing else, I could outrun him, but I knew he wasn't really a threat. For the rest of the afternoon he took me to remote corners of Istanbul that few tourists had seen. I participated in an afternoon prayer at the "Baby Aya Sofia," walked into the depths of the most amazing cistern that was lined with ancient columns and sat in a traditional teahouse surrounded by a cemetery where all the locals hung out. I ended up buying him lunch, which was how I paid him back for a great day. It turned out that he was out of work from the University and he was playing tour guide to solo travelers like me for an extra buck. He offered to go with me up the Bosporus the next day, but said that he couldn't afford the ferry ride.

Yes, he was looking to make a buck off of me. Turned out that the club-guy was too. Charged me more than I expected for his private Ottoman house and that is always a letdown. It would have happened if I was alone or with someone, though, but the breakfast with Jacob and the private tour of Istanbul probably wouldn't have. Really, a lunch and an in-season price for a beautiful out-of-season experience didn't put me out much. I have choices to decline the offer or pay the money, say good-bye and end my day very happy. I have had similar encounters with friendly people in Italy too, which I am pretty sure wouldn't have happened if I was traveling with a boyfriend, probably not if I had a female friend either. The solo female traveler's vulnerability attracts the weirdoes, but it also attracts those that want to reach out to a wandering soul. My luck has been quite good, and memories many. The hidden scams are a bummer, but the hidden gems are what I always remember.

Four Strikes Against Solo Travel

I had a friend here tell me the other day that she was a slave to her office and I was a slave to travel. I’ve had an office job maybe twice in my life and I know that working from 8-5, being busy or, even worse, having to look busy for those set hours of the day were not at all easy for me. Probably why I never lasted more than a year in one of those jobs. Being a slave to a school was a lot harder work, but the time was busy and I more often than not enjoyed the work. Kids were the reason I got out of bed in the morning and if I didn’t have a smile on my face at 4.30am, a student was likely to have me laughing out loud by 8.00.

My job here in Turkey does indeed make me a “slave” to travel. My partners here, the US Embassy and an educational organization acronymed TED, have projects and schools all over the country and they send me off to check-up on all of them. I have to say that it doesn’t give me much to get out of bed for in the morning other than to pack a bag, catch some mode of transportation or to write a report, none of which chains me to an office and that I like. But the constant travel is not my favorite. As a matter of fact, after quite a few solo trips for fun and adventure’s sake, I am growing to dislike more and more setting out on the road, or into the air on my own no matter what the reason.

It’s 3.30 on a Thursday afternoon. My bus leaves at 4.15 from the main bus station in Ankara so I better get downstairs and catch a taxi. This will be a short trip. Just two nights so my bags are light. I pay the taxi, get my receipt and head to terminal. This place is HUGE! Three levels of “peron” - the bus equivalent of gate - each level having at least 50 of them – arrivals, departures and maintenance/fill-ups. Inside the terminal is lined with bus company counters battling for the passenger heading to Konya or Istanbul which are about 3-4 hour trips and even Batman and Van which are closer to 15 or 16 hour trips. Fortunately my travel budget allows me to fly to those far-reaching destinations, but this trip today will just be 3 hours by bus. I slowly realize that my bus company does not have a bus at the designated peron or any nearby peron and have to figure out where it is.

Here lies strike #1 against solo travel: dealing with the inevitable travel bumps, in a foreign language. When traveling with someone, or at least someone you like, these bumps hold very little stress and can even be good fun. For example, one person can go and check the schedule change while the other stays with the bags. Hauling around luggage, a computer and a water bottle adds a whole lot of literal and figurative weight when you’re faced with chasing through a crowded terminal in search of a bus or a plane you are now late for. A travel companion also takes away the stress of being late. Solo travel is all about the destination, but when you have a companion, missing a bus just means the two of you hang out in the terminal together, read books, listen to music, play cards or just tell stories. You’d be doing the same things on the bus anyway.

I’ve almost mastered counting in Turkish, so I could understand when the guy at peron counter #40 told me my bus was 45 minutes late and would be leaving from peron #29 instead of #25. Now, even my light baggage was an annoyance, so I headed to the spot, perched myself and read for the next hour. With the majority of the population choosing bus as their mode of transportation and so many bus companies, the coaches are generally quite nice. Fairly clean with a “steward” that walks the aisle pouring water, handing out packaged cakes and crackers and chi to the travelers. They are supposed to be non-smoking, but there is always one chain smoker that can’t keep his lips off the damn things, so his cigarette smell then mixes with his fairly strong body odor and that is less than pleasant. The 5 foot-nothing older woman sitting in front of me has been known to recline her seat back into my lap too, which is really uncomfortable. But I equip myself with a book and an iPod to escape into my own world that also drowns out the Turkish music videos playing on the TV screen. Strike #2 against solo travel: A friend with you would give you a reason to laugh about this situation. You aren’t in it alone, which makes the discomfort so much more bearable.

Three hours and a cigarette stop later and I arrive at my destination city. It’s been dark and rainy the whole time and might as well be midnight. Someone is supposed to be waiting for me there, whom I have never met. I’m not the hardest person to find in a crowd so I am sure they will find me since I will not be finding them. They grab my luggage and shuttle me to their car. Usually an English teacher comes along so I can at least have more than a conversation of “hello . . . how are you . . . my name is Ismet” with my guides. The time will be about 9.00 at night by the time I get into my hotel room. Crackers on the bus and the chocolate that I brought with me leave me feeling satiated, but I know I need something more substantial in my stomach. This leaves me at strike #3 against solo travel: dinner. Whatever the day held, good bad or whatever, having to sit down at the end of it and have a meal alone often makes it all seem pointless. I don’t mean to seem so fatalistic here. I’ve had some amazing solo travel experiences at the end of which nothing really matters . . . the smile on my face and the memories in my mind win and a good meal alone is just as good as a meal with someone. Not the case so often with work travel. You just continue to read the book and isolate yourself making the whole day just blend into a blob of nothing-special.

Salad and glass of wine consumed, bottle of water in hand and off to my room to have a shower and sleep. Now this is the situation for work trips. There is almost always someone at the station or airport to pick me up and take me to where I’m going. The solo adventure traveler doesn’t have that option always. Strike #4 against solo travel: searching for accommodation in a strange city. Sure, you can reserve ahead of time, ask directions, have a map, but when a bus drops you off in the middle of a city at night and there is no sign pointing you in the right direction, the next 20 minutes can really suck.

A recent work trip had me really close to the Mediterranean Sea so I decided to extend into the weekend and travel to the coast. Antalya is well known for it’s old city and beautiful warm beach seaside scene and even in early November, it lived up to this. As advised by a local, I took a shuttle bus from the station to the city center. I’ve been to old city centers before. Cobble stone roads that don’t allow cars to enter. It’s usually hard to miss this area. That was not the case here. Where the bus dropped me off, everything looked like a modern city. Traffic, trams, parking lots and buildings. It was dark and I was clueless. My crap Turkish got someone pointing in the right direction for me, so that direction I headed and sure enough, the cobblestone road appeared.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick was the sound of my suitcase wheels as it followed behind me, drawing the glares of the very few shot-owners that still had their doors open. The pension that I had reserved gave me walking directions from the “main bus stop” but it appeared that I had lost that lead. Old cities rarely have street signs so all I had with me now was my sense of direction, which basically meant that I was lost. Pulled out my crap Turkish again to get some more points, but my hotel seemed elusive to most of them. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick
What I did find was a hotel I had sent an email to for a room but didn’t hear back. I figured I’d go for it. As I approached, I saw that most was dark inside – not promising, but I knocked anyway. No answer. I rattled the door a bit – locked. As I turned to wander on, the door flew open and standing there facing me was a man with what I can only describe as a Fred Flinstone club in his hand – a huge fricking club raised to knock over whoever was on the other side of the door.

I’m going to stop the story there because this entry is meant to be about the negative side of solo travel. There are bonuses too, and this story continues on and turns into one of those, so until next write . . . I promise it won’t take as long to post as this one did.

Becoming a WORKING Turkish Resident Part II

Residence ID is in hand, but I found out I could get a mobile phone number without it. No worries. New dilemma is getting a work permit. This is NOT a work visa (which I have in my passport already); this is NOT a residence permit (see part I). This is something else that no one can really explain to me other than, “you need it.” So here are the steps:

• Have Dad mail original diplomas (notarized copies from the states that you brought with are not good enough).
• Take diplomas to an office to be translated from English to Turkish, even though no one in the office seems to speak English. Cost is $10 each, but if you want a receipt, it‘s $14 each.
• Have translated diplomas notarized for $40 each.
• Have passport (an internationally recognized government document) translated to Turkish for $14
• Have Turkish residence permit (government issued document) notarized for $23
• Have passport/translation notarized for $25
• Ask Embassy to write and sign a letter confirming I have a job that pays
• Hand everything in to a guy named Ali and hope it’s taken care of

I am convinced the job of notary is the most lucrative job in this country. Sure, they can use a rubber stamp faster than most, but really, these guys make a FORTUNE!!

The Gender Issue

A woman traveling or living alone in a foreign country always has to take caution. Petty theft is attracted to weak targets and unfortunately she, as a lone female, is seen to be among the weakest. Theft or physical harm is not usually the primary concerns for her, though. It can even be said that, in Muslim areas specifically, harassment is much more "passive." It can come to her in the form of marriage proposals from shop owners while she walks through the crowded market in the afternoon. It can also come to from a stranger in a car following her as she walks home alone at night, or the guy that touches her knee and says something she can't understand while he looks her straight in the eye even after she clearly says, “FUCK OFF.” It’s likely that none of these men want to hurt her physically or steal her purse, but they probably wouldn't interact with most women this way, just women like her - foreign and alone.

It can happen with people she knows too - neighbors or colleagues and that's when it can be really difficult for her. She wants to have good working relationships with the new people in her life. In her mind, that might include walking around town with a male colleague and even going for lunch with absolutely NO intentions beyond food. When she, as single woman leaves work with a male colleague, married or single, she might take some things for granted. Chances are, this lunch is only lunch. Chances are other colleagues; students or whomever will not see her with him and assume the wedding will be next weekend. If he's married, she will not be seen as an adulteress. And he will not figure lunch will lead to an invite to her place later. Or at least that would be the case back home. It all can change in a foreign country. In many places, she can't take those things for granted. In many countries, when she - the foreign woman - accepts an offer for lunch or tea from a local man, she is saying "YES" to whatever might be on his mind which could likely just be food . . . or sex . . . or a life-long commitment.

If she tried to understand this by asking a local man or woman acquaintance, she might say, "Would he treat a local woman that way?" The answer would probably be "No, of course not . . . “ So what is she left to think? Is she a victim of discrimination . . . sexism. . . .men here don’t know how to respect women? Does it mean that those she is surrounded by are at fault . . . that they have a problem and must change?

The reality is that the foreign woman is treated differently in many countries. She is more objectified. She is a curiosity and often a sexual one. It could even be said that she is to blame for not wearing enough clothing or setting good enough boundaries. In a country where local women cover their heads for reasons ranging from, “Because my husband wants me to,” to “It is personally liberating to NOT be judged by what I wear or how I look” a concrete answer to any sort of gender issue is hard to find.

As a foreigner, as a guest, she can’t set the rules. She can’t always control if, when or even how men interact with her. She can control how she interacts with them, though. Really, it wouldn’t be much different back home either. If she thinks about it, she can remember working for that guy in a school back in New York. He was the quintessential sexist pig, calling her “babe” saying he’ll be nice to her if she’s nice to him, offering to buy her a drink after work. It wasn’t easy to have a good working relationship with this guy but she had to because he was the boss. The best she could do was set her boundaries, pick her battles and continue to do the work she was there to do, thanks to or in spite of the man with no respect.

Back to the foreign country . . . she still feels pretty uncomfortable. Men look at her differently, they often approach her differently. Come on . . . there has to be a balance she can establish somehow. A balance where she can have coffee with male colleagues and still maintain a respectable professional relationship. She’ll figure it out, find the right people with whom to surround herself. In the mean time, maybe if she just wears long sleeves and walks around with her iPod, the cat calls won’t bother her so much and setting her own boundaries will be easier. Once that happens, she can truly enjoy the experience of living in a pretty incredible foreign country.

Becomıng a resident in Turkey - PART I

Before you can get a phone or have Internet hooked up in Turkey, you must have a Turkish residence ID. In order obtain this ID, you must have a very nice Turkish friend help you to do the following:

• Have 4 passport photos
• Make photocopies of your passport
• Have proof of employment (contract)
• After the 5 day holiday, get a ride to the police station
• Find block D after you pass through security
• Wait in line to complete an application for a residence ID
• Write a statement in Turkish of why you want a residence permit (Only one reason for the Turkish friend and, no, “to get internet and a phone number” are not good enough reasons)
• Find the notary and have the statement notarized
• Find block E and stand in line to pay the equivalent of about $150
• Find the cash machine to withdraw $150
• Return to the counter at block E and give the guy $150
• Go to the cafeteria to buy a pink folder for $0.60
• Return to the counter at block D and wait in line to pay $85
• Be thankful you already had that money
• Put everything in the pink folder and submit
• Wait one week . . .

First Days

It's like Wall Street on a Sunday morning. A schoolyard in July. The mall once Labor Day sales are over. The Bayram holiday in the Muslim world marks the end of Ramazan, the month where people fast from sunrise to sunset and practice deeds of general good. Bayram then becomes the Grand Finale where people visit friends and family, kids get sweets, gifts are given to the poor. It also seems to be the time when everyone in Ankara goes somewhere else. There have got to be towns in Turkey that are bulging at the seams with the influx of holiday visitors from Ankara because this place is pretty much empty.

So what is a stranger to the city to do without a car, telephone or Internet connection or a door of a friend on which she can knock? In the past couple of days I have found new ways to walk to familiar places, roamed the aisles of every supermarket within a 2km radius of my flat taking opportunities to practice my lame Turkish whenever I can. I've cooked a few meals in my “new” kitchen, read, watched a bit of BBC news and then I bought a phone card so I can phone the one person I know in Ankara.

Crisp, cool, partly cloudy fall weather has replaced the scorching heat of just over a year ago when I was in Turkey surrounding the days of Bayram. The south coast was a picture of Mediterranean blue waters inviting me for a refreshing swim. This year, in this city, a few coffee shops are open in the trendy parts of town with just a fraction of their normal young crowds. In my residential neighborhood the only places open are the flower shops, chocolate shops and bakeries so guests can arrive to family celebrations bearing holiday gifts.

As I sit on my second floor balcony, I am very aware of the view that is NOT the panorama I had at my fifth floor flat in Prishtina. I might not be enjoying sunrises and scenery so much here, but I am seeing something else that I will be enjoying. I look down and realize that I have a birds-eye view of people in Ankara. This weekend there is barely a flicker of light in the flats around me, but every few minutes an elderly woman gets dropped off by a taxi in front of the home of some family carrying a bouquet and box of treats or young couples walk hand in hand on their way to a holiday party. Once the sun has set, kids and their parents are heading back to their homes after a party whose celebratory mood still shows on the child. Makes me think of myself on Christmas Eve leaving Grandma and Grandpa's place excited for the arrival of St. Nick.

Ankara is big and modern and could be a capital city anywhere, really. The upside of living and working in a place like this is that it lessens culture shock a bit. I mean, I can find soymilk in any number of super markets and can pretty much blend myself into the people here. It makes the move a bit easier, but it can also take away from the experience of really living in a foreign country. I hope that when I begin to travel around Turkey for work, I will be offered opportunities to partake in traditional celebrations and rituals. Maybe be invited into a Turkish home and meet the family, be put in unfamiliar surroundings and situations. Then, once I've experience the unfamiliar and even uncomfortable, I will come back to my flat in Ankara, break open a carton of soymilk and watch BBC.

Building Trust

90F in the shade, seven sleeping in a room, sharing one bathroom, camp food, two hours of English classes and little to no time to use the Internet, mobile phones or iPods. Not quite a desirable advert for summer camp, I must admit. When kids leave their families for the first time in their lives to travel to a foreign country for two weeks of "English camp" with a bunch of strangers, scary is an understatement. They are put in a room with four or five strange tweens who speak a different language and they have no chance whatsoever of changing that room no matter how much they cry and . . . wait . . . this is for TWO WEEKS?! Their reactions range from, "okay, that's why I'm here . . . let's speak ENGLISH!" to, "This is stupid. I don't have to do this. Who here speaks MY language?" to eyes welled up with tears saying, "I want to go home!!!"

Presented this way, none of it sounds fun at all. It's a wonder any of them stick around beyond the first night. It's a fine line to walk. OF COURSE I want the kids to come to camp and have fun. They're kids . . . it's camp . . . but the objectives of this camp go much much deeper than simply fun. My team's mission is to provide enough opportunities for these kids to interact, cooperate, learn and have fun together in ways that require them to communicate . . . not to speak English, necessarily, but to communicate, and hopefully by the end of the two weeks, the majority of them will be in the, "Let's speak ENGLISH" category. And even beyond speaking English, my goal is for them to trust each other, which given the history of conflict that exists between these kids, is more than almost anyone could ask. Bumps in the road come in the form of big 13 year-olds that pick on small 12 year-olds, national pride, crushes and broken hearts, too much rain, too much heat, illness, hospital trips and plain ol' teenage angst.

But thanks to a pretty amazing team, most of those bumps got ironed out. I am going to quote one of my camp counselors, Ildi, who was at camp for the first time this year:

"Everyone was a little cell with their own worlds. - Interesting, unknown worlds, with their own history, habits, culture...- And these little worlds could find a path formed by the energy that love can give us to get in contact and start sharing feelings, trusting in each other, being a strong community, a family - 'cause I felt the intimacy, which a family could have, in our camp community -and i think the kids felt the same and it could give them life-long experiences."

I can't help but wonder to what extent these two weeks will prove to have given the students "life-long" lessons. They go home and miss camp terribly for a few days . . . until school starts and they see their usual friends who know nothing about this camp experience and the camp experience sort of melts away.

Unfortunately, what happens after camp, I have no control over. I do believe, however, that a large part of what happens at camp I do have control over. I have control over the atmosphere, making students feel safe and comfortable and enabling them to trust me and everything that happens at camp. Trust, it's the key link, I think. They trust almost no one when they arrive and without trust all that exists are walls. My job is to give them reasons to trust enough to step out from behind their walls. I guess if something can last, it would be the experience of learning how to trust and believing in that.

The picture was sent to me by the same camp counselor, Ildi. It makes me think of freedom, a journey and taking chances. It reminds me of trusting your own instincts. It reminds me of the kids. Without trusting themselves first, they can't really trust each other. They came a long way in two weeks and I trust that they will carry it on.

To My Camp Counselor Team

It started at the EMbassy
Barak was there too
Two weeks ago, four of you never knew
Exactly what it was you'd gotten into.

Two others were waiting
As for the third, "He'll arrive when he can."
And that is when it all began.

Making beds, teaching rules, learning names, playing games
Putting together our teams and
Building a community under the moonbeams

Staying up late, poker games, ping pong in the shade
Casino, disco, masquerade,
Making friends across cultures was our dream
It might not work to some it did seem

Beach time, campfire, games in the dark
Community service and water park
The puzzle wasn't easy, but you put it together
To make our camp family better and better

Energy, compassion, nursemaid and police
Listening ear, caring friend, sharing treats
What you came here to do I hope you now see
Loving one another makes us all free.

Cheers in the day more cheers at night
We share laughter through tears as we circle up for one more good-night
Feeling good that we've done a lot of things right

I thank you all for a job well done!

Teaching in a New Place

Pilzn. No, it's not missing a vowel. Czech language doesn't use vowels too much. Transform the name of this town to its English version and you get Pilsen. Morph the word even further and you get Pilsner. Yes, I am living in the home of Pilsner beer. Took a tour of the brewery on day two and have been drinking it ever since. Not a bad way to spend a day . . . teaching for three hours, hanging out on a university campus, exploring a new city and stopping for beers along the way.

The International Summer Language School held at the University of West Bohemia is a twenty year old program that offers courses in English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Italian, Czech and some others, I believe. Students come mostly from the Czech Republic, but there are several countries represented. There is also a large group of student from the University of Memphis here to earn a certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language. When I arrived there were even a few of them that I had met before working on projects in Kosovo. Needless to say, I have quite a few cool people to hang out with here. We all have accommodations in dormitories that haven't been remodeled since Czech and Slovakia were bound together. We shower in our sinks and sleep on mattresses with broken strings. The diet consists of potatoes, cheese, bread and pork and I feel lucky to be able to get a tomato and cucumber salad. These become all the more reason to get out and find what else exists out there.

Like Kosovo, it seems to take a while to get beyond aspects of the countries that have not seemed to change in decades. But the longer you stay, the more new gems you are able to find and maybe even get used to the older characteristics.

Next weekend will be a couple of days in Prague that will have me escaping from the tour bus and exploring a European city I have heard so many wonderful things about.

"Anywhere You Go"

Lyrics by Shane
5 years old

When you get yourself to go
When you like the colds of night
And do you know you have one way but not a single way
Did you know I have a way not for you but only for me
Where you go I don't know why
But I'll find the way for you
Did you know . . .

My nephews, like to come up with lyrics to songs. I wrote down the words to this one as Shane rallied them off to me in his best rock ballad-inspired voice. Seeing as he mostly knows me in a state of going somewhere, this one touched me a bit more closely somehow . . . movement without clear direction . . . there seems to be a right way, but various options on how to get there . . . and he puts himself in a position of helping figure it out.

Life interpreted through the eyes of a 5 year-old.

Teenagers in a foreign country

Two got in trouble for having a little teenage adventure. One got in trouble for standing at the bus stop. The kids at the international school in downtown St. Paul are just like any other teenagers going to high school. They like nothing more than to be around friends and have a good time. They have the added luxury of doing it in a foreign country surrounded by new things to see, places to explore and experiences to have. A large chunk of what they knew of the US before coming they gleaned from Hollywood interpretations. College is all about frat parties with binge-drinking and sex-crazed coeds while African Americans are all dangerous gang-bangers. A hope is that their experience going to school in the US will dissolve these generalizations and negative stereotypes and expose them to a perspective that is positive.

Andrea, Zana, Fer and Pam have all been going to school in St. Paul for at least a year. They are 17 and 18 years old and see their high school career in the US coming to an end soon. When they got an invite to a party on a St. Paul college campus, how could they say no? Sure, they've had fun the past year, but this would be a totally different experience that they may not otherwise have a chance at. They could take the bus to the party, have a good time and take the bus back home in time for cerfue at their host parents' place. No problem . . . ?

Host parents are pretty keen people. They have an extra eye open. When Zana was missing from class for the week and sitting by the office all day every day, it was clear something wasn't right. "I'm in trouble, miss, and I'm going to have to go home to the Ukraine." In another class, Fer had to give up on hiding the tears and let the waterworks flow. "Honey, go to the bathroom if you need to." Between student rumors and the input from other teachers in the know, it became clear that the girls carried out their little college party adventure and were busted for it. Having broken the law and drunk alcohol as minors, their natural parents were called immediately and arrangements were made to send them home.

Lin, on the other hand, is a boy you couldn't bribe to break a rule. He's on time, has his homework done and puts in that extra effort with just about everything he does. When he didn't show up for the usual Friday quiz, it raised questions in class. "Where is Lin, today? I can't believe he's not here." "He got beat up. A black man beat him up." When that whole story came out, it turned out that Lin and his friend were simply waiting for their bus after school. They were surrounded by a group that was saying racial slurs to them, and Lin was punched in the face several times. They were saved by the arrival of their bus and the police were called by Lin's host family once he made it home. And yes, it was black people that did it to him.

So there you go, the chance of stereotypes being broken is gone, kids got sent home and hurt physically thanks stereotypes living up to their potential. DAMNIT!

"Detoxing" from the latest fix

Still addicted. It's the basis and the theme of a lot of what she writes. This horribly wonderful thing that she is not sure she will ever be able to live without. Her biggest challenge will be to figure out how to fit it in. She moved back to to her home town to settle down a bit. Get a job, buy a house, be around family and eventually start her own. It became obvious after ten years and four moves that it wasn't going to happen if she continued moving around at the pace she was going. And besides, saying good-bye, the inevitable leaving that happens in an expat's life and entering "detox" was just getting to be too much.

However, last week she got on an airplane once again. Headed to the Dominican Republic to celebrate the wedding of a couple of wonderful people and great friends in the city of Cabarete, just outside of Puerto Plata. The beach resort and 85 degree weather were pretty amazing. it wasn't an adventurous trip by any means. Nothing like her last trip, other than Christina was again with her. She got her "hit" instead with the people she was surrounded by that week. On the last day, after spending days on end dancing, drinking daquaries, walking he beach, talking about travel, culture, experiences, sex and all aspects of life, she sat by the pool with one last Presedente beer and sat witness to it once again. Call it astrology where libras and aquarians are matched, call it chemistry where people are inexplicably attracted to each other, call it human nature or free will where people consciously decide who they spend their time with, but she was somehow surrounded once again by the people she needed in her life. By no means were they the people she knew the best at the party. She found those she had partied with during her New York days to be on the opposite end of the pool every day, and rarely if ever did they even enter her mind. The people she was attracted to, the people she wanted to spend her time with were people she had never met before, yet people she felt like she met years ago. They were single, they were married, they had kids, they had traveled, they lived in New York and Texas and on the west coast and in Mexico City. They were 5 years-old, they were 25 and they were 35 and all week she was perfectly "high" because of them. She soaked it in on that last day because she knew she was heading into cold-turkey.

It was just a week away, but in that week she was wrapped all up in the power of travel again. After 5 months of meeting very few people in the home town, it took a foreign country for her to find the people she needs. That's what it's always taken, that or a major metropolitan area. Somehow the home town doesn't provide her with that. She has never been successful in finding what she needs in the place she grew up. Does the "drug" create a false sense of reality? A lot of her family tries to convince her of that. That reality is a job you probably don't want, but have because you need it. That reality is friends that all have their own things to do and you're lucky if you see them a couple times a year. But she wants to believe that she can have it all. The family, the house, the job and the friends that give her a steady dose of adventure, exploration, discovery of something new and companionship that offers new perspective to all of it.

Is life with the "fix" always going to be temporary and fleeting? Something that she is inevitably going to have to say good-bye to, leaving her with a high from which is going to have to crash?

This is when she laughs at herself for being such a romantic who believes and fears that it has to be one or the other. If it's not perfect it's going to suck. Of course a week on a beach with constant reason to party with cool people is not sustainable reality. It's not the place that makes the moments perfect, though. "Turns out not where but who you're with that really matters." She holds onto the hope that the life she seeks can exist in a realistic setting. She just needs to find where they drug dealers are in that damn town.

Back at it

I am a teacher again. Started last week at St. Paul Preparatory School in down town St. Paul working on orientation and team-building activities with the 50+ new students who just arrived to the tundra from all over the world. They are 14-18 years old and come to this international high school primarily to improve their English and to prepare themselves for college in the US. They stay with host families all over the cities and take public transportation to school every day, sometimes commuting over an hour, maneuvering bus transfers and city skyways.

I love working downtown. It’s just St. Paul, but it is a city . . . and the skyway system is the most amazing thing ever! Walking 4 blocks to get a coffee without stepping foot outside! Walkers are everywhere whether it's on the coffee mission or the fat-burning mission. It's people and energy and I love it! I take public transportation to school too. Park the car about a mile from dad's and hop on a bus for a 15-minute ride into town. Brilliant!

I teach a high intermediate level of reading and an advanced English composition course. Once again, in a different city with diverse-background teenagers, my never-ending observations come to the same conclusion . . . teenagers all over the world are the same. The new ones in the school are scared and shy, afraid they won't fit in and fearful of failure. The ones that have been around for a while - or just six months - think they rule the roost, having earned their position high on the school's totem pole. They of course have had their speed bumps and growing pains, but they survived and spread the wings they believe they've earned. That's what's visible. What isn't visible is that they all are vulnerable. No matter the veneer, they are often a pile of scared goo underneath. Success to me happens when I can get them to reveal some of the goo. Encourage them to own it and see that they will be successful and loved despite or even because of it.

Being it’s my first semester and I am only a part-time teacher, I am the lowest on the staff totem pole. It’s always a good place to start, though. Easy to stay below the radar and get my feet wet while figuring things out. The Assistant Principal is really good at trusting her teachers to do their job and not be controlling at all. It allows me to do what I know how to do. The resources aren’t abundant. I move around from room to room, hanging my coat in the conference room. But that just means that it’s easy to hide if I want to. However, my colleagues are extremely nice and willing to answer any question that I have and that is always good. They are young and seem like they could be good fun too. Look forward to the opportunities to get to know them better. So here I am, beginning my teaching career in Minnesota!

I was handed some flowers

2009 is only a couple of weeks old and I feel like a year's worth of stuff has happened. It began on the 2nd while I was on my way home from the gym. No new year's resolution involved. As a matter of fact, I hadn't even gone into the gym because of the fleet of cars parked outside while the weight loss resolvers were sweating away inside. Figured I'd return after prime-time. The day was sunny and had been warmer than the week before. Roads were wet, but didn't seem to be slick . . . but that was my opinion. About 200 feet from my driveway, there was a car approaching me from the opposite direction and it was swerving all over the road. I thought it was someone playing around and would stop once he realized other cars were on the road. that is precisely when the car crossed the center line and torpedoed me up into a snow bank and into someone's yard. To say I was furious is devaluing the purity of my emotion of the moment. The 16 year-old driver of the other car that was bawling as I threw every curse word at him that came to mind might describe my reaction differently. The cops came, the medic trucks came and finally the tow truck came and hauled HS away from me forever. That's where the anger and the tears were coming from mostly. Yea, the reality of the inconvenience of shopping and buying a car as reliable as HS was a factor as well, but what really got me was that, the thing that had kept Grandma Helen with me since she passed away, her 1995 Ford Taurus, I killed . . . or a 16 year-old kid talking to his brother on his cell phone and "sliding on the ice," killed.

In the next couple of weeks some flowers were sent my way in the form of positive job interviews. The first one reconnected me with some old friends and introduced me to some potential professional contacts. It also was a bit of confidence boosting after being basically unemployed with no leads for that past 5 months. To talk about my professional-self and successes to respected educators reassured me that I was worthy of employment. A week later was a second interview and I really believed that one of them would hire me. The Monday after the Friday of the second interview, I got the phone call with a job offer. The irony is that it was the same morning that I found out Wendy had passed away. A smack in the face delivered with a bunch of flowers. Did you plan that, Wendy?

That exact weekend before Wendy smacked me and handed me the boquet, I bought the car that would replace HS. I like it and do feel that it's her bunch of daisies to give to me and that HS is still hanging around making sure I stay safe with her. And it's only January 21st!

A Comedic Tragedy

Never would I mean to suggest that the death of a good friend could be comical. Losing an amazing 35 year-old friend, instructor, mother, daughter, grand-daughter, sister, aunt and wife can't be anything but tragic. Wendy was struck down when there was still so much life for her to live. The magnetic field that followed her around drew people toward her. It held family, friends and students close to her. It also drew in strangers that, when introduced to her, wanted to be amongst Wendy's first-tier circle. Wendy, you spread life and confidence to everyone you touched with your beautiful smile, caring embrace, endless energy and love of a good laugh. You found good in everyone you met and were sure to tell them about it. You were to me the friend that gave it to me straight. Whether it was an outfit, a job or a boyfriend, you laid it out and made your opinion clear . . . and most of the time you were right, whether I listened to you or not.

I lived thirty-five years of life without having to deal with death. Now, in the past thirteen months I have said good-bye to four dear loved ones. One was my 93 year-old grandmother who was ready to go after raising and loving a huge family of kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. Her life was lived to the fullest. The other three were all taken way too early . . . taken in the middle of what were their greatest moments of life. This is where the "comedy" comes in. Comedy in its absurdity. Comic because, how in any real world could these lives be taken like that? It has to be a joke . . . right?!

People will often say that the bad things happen in 3's, or that it's just a string of bad luck . . . the good stuff is around the corner. I'm not so sure of the amount of truth to all that. Things like this are said in order to hold onto hope of life getting better, but they seem to suggest that all the bad will suddenly stop. What I'm finally learning after 36 years is that, yes, you must always hang on to the hope, but don't be surprised when life throws those unexpected blows, whether in 3's or multiples of 3. They can happen when things are good and they can happen when you think things couldn't get worse. That's life - cliché or not. And just as life throws its blows, it also sends flowers. It can all be spread out or it can all happen at the same time. It's the good, the bad and the time in-between and it let's us know that we are still here!

I take from these things the tragic yet comical lesson . . . . I am still here! I've lost Julie, Thor, Grandma Helen and Wendy who were all inspirations in my life. But, I AM STILL HERE!! And the greatest thing is that they were all with me in my first 35 years of life. I had them, learned from them, laughed with them, followed them, cried with them, hated them and loved them and THANK GOD for all of it! And now, I see that, because I am still here, it is up to me to make sure I continue with my life, all of the good things they did in their lives.

Maybe the comedy is the absurd. Maybe the comedy is the irony of such tragedy having to happen in order for us to see life's beauty. Maybe everything I just wrote is the comedy because it sounds completely rediculous. Whatever, I'm here and I must thank everyone in my life, currently breathing or not, for being a part of it now and forever!