Welp, yay!

Mountains again!!

imalivewhen — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:23:00 GMT

   Weighed my pack in at 35 lbs, not too bad. I think I could easily get a couple pounds less than that for a short trip like this, but not sure how to go below 30. After some packing issues, Dad and I stuck our bags in the back of his truck, wrapped them in a tarp, and headed toward the White Mountains in the morning rain. The rain cleared up once into New Hampshire, where my eyes finally had the relief of seeing topography. There’s some horrible pun in there if you want to try to make it work. I hadn’t seen mountains since last summer(!).
   We parked at the Lincoln Woods Visitor Center and were greeted by the east branch of the Pemigewasset River. A decently rushing river with dry, rounded granite boulders balanced on submerged rocks. Following the river north, the first few miles of trail were along an old logging railroad. Dad was super excited by the many abandoned pieces of rusted metal, one of which was a “dinger”? He joked in what appeared to be half-seriousness that he’d carry it out if we hiked this way on the way back. All 70 lbs of it.
   I have a fondness for beech groves, and we walked through a bunch. It was still cloudy, so the young leaves made their own green glow against the gray sky. And the trunks were all different shades of darker gray. We crossed a few streams that led into, I presume, the Pemigewasset, and then stopped at the bank of a more intimidating stream. We dilly-dallied and mumbled and tested out a couple logs as makeshift bridges. The logs would have been fine, it’s just hard to guarantee that you won’t get nervous and lose your balance 2/3 of the way through. Also, the heavy pack makes falling less graceful than you’d wish. Anyway, we decided to cross on some widely spaced rocks that looked more appealing after standing shakily on the rotting logs.
   Later, hoping to make camp before we encountered the steep slope up to Bond Mountain, I plowed through an unpromising collection of dense evergreens with low, dead branches and jutting roots. We found two, 1-person tent-sized semi-horizontal, semi-rootless areas (woah lots of dashes), and plopped our bags down. I reallllly wanted to eat dinner and had very low standards as far as sleeping conditions. So, we made a delicious wonderful supper of cheddar and broccoli pasta, which Dad and I used to eat every time we went backpacking as I was growing up. It smelled like being 12 years old.

goin home

imalivewhen — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:15:00 GMT

My backpack is horrifically squeaky, especially when it invades the silence of 1:30 in the morning. It troubles that instinctual need to be quiet and unobserved, which I probably would have worried about if not for the happy drunk undergrads wandering around Madison. The 2:20a.m. bus to Chicago was operated by a cranky impatient man who must have been pretty bad because he roused me to briefly consider being angry despite being within a peaceful sleep daze. Sunrise over the concrete O’Hare airstrip brought out dozens of starlings nesting in the crevasses of those walkways connecting the terminals to the planes. The birds flew alarmingly straight toward the huge airport windows before angling into their holes. I spent an hour preparing myself to witness one of their bodies crunch flat against the glass, but we left before then, if it happened.
Little sister Courtney picked me up from the airport after I mistakenly identified a car as hers because it also had a Rhode Island license plate. Nice. They all had RI license plates. I don’t think I’ve seen one in Wisconsin. Drove to our mom’s new house, which I hadn’t seen yet, and was exuberantly greeted by two of our dogs. Miss them so much sometimes, and it can be heartrending how excited they are to see you again. Anyway, back in the northeast! Noticeably fewer blond-haired people than in WI.

new apartment!

imalivewhen — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:20:00 GMT

I found a place to move into next August! Way in advance, I know. But I'm excited, primarily because I'll have my own private roof-made-into-a-deck to go out on. And the windows are facing south and west, which might mean my plants will survive! Or not, I might still kill them. It's certainly not beautiful on the inside, but I can cover the fake wood with tapestries. The neighbor even has a dog that will bark a welcome to me every time I open the door. So that will feel like home. Plus, it's right across the street from a co-op, and only a couple blocks from Trader Joe's.

Anyway, that's about as much exciting news as you can expect at this point.

Gallery: Madison etc

imalivewhen — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:07:00 GMT

it's snowing again

imalivewhen — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:56:00 GMT

Well, I’m a horrible updater. Sorry. Man, and there’s so much I should’ve written about being in Turkey, too. Perhaps I’ll insert little stories about that time in here when I’m procrastinating. I will probably be doing a lot of procrastinating. The past couple of weeks have been rather uneventful, mostly just half-heartedly working on research before classes start. Not saying that I find the research boring- it’s actually really great- but I keep getting distracted by whatever else I can find. Having lots of work do to has made me very productive. For instance, I did the dishes, and went for a run, and wrote some postcards, and ate a bunch more times than necessary. So that’s good. I think I might take a shower later tonight.

I have been learning some German, using the Pimsleur courses. The people who make Pimsleur cds have a very cynical perspective on human conversations. This is the order of things you learn to say (on both the Turkish and German cds):
1. How are you?
2. Would you like to eat something? Where? At the hotel?
3. Would you like to drink something? I would like to drink beer.
4. What time would you like to drink? Now? Good.
I mean, the sequence isn’t precisely that, but it is very close. A couple of my friends here are from Germany/Austria, and they make fun of my pronunciation after they finally figure out what I’m trying to say.

While running on the path by frozen Lake Monona today, I had the pleasure of finding an excuse to stop so I could look at the most awesome ice. The lake is pretty big, and the ice covering it looks at least 0.5 meters thick. And the ice has had what amounts to earthquakes! There’s a long crack in the ice that looks like the breaks in the ground that form during some earthquakes. Ice is all pushed up into the air, and it’s splintered and looks really really cool. If I have time this week, I’ll go down again and take pictures. No Mom, I won’t go out on the ice. Not where it’s broken, anyway.

Also, I am reading what I think what might be my favorite book ever. Which makes me want to tell everyone else to read it. It’s called “Eyeless in Gaza”, Huxley wrote it, and it’s brilliant. Probably I think it’s brilliant because I agree with most of what Huxley wrote. But regardless. It’s very perceptive, and if you’re interested in reading about human motives and the one-sided aspect of interactions, I really suggest it. Anyway. I’ll write more later!

Gallery: Turkey

imalivewhen — Wed, 3 Sep 2008 02:34:00 GMT

and camp's begun

imalivewhen — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:55:00 GMT

Crawled out of bed late and hungry, or dropped awkwardly off the top bunk in my hostel dorm, rather, and climbed the narrow spiraling stairs to the roof for breakfast. The terrace of Istanbul Hostel is almost absurdly luxurious. You can see the Sea of Marmara with its distant Greek islands and ridiculously large but colorful shipping barges, the residential hills of the Anatolian side of Istanbul, and all the clean, pink, orange and red buildings of Sultanahmet. Plus, there are grape vines everywhere, and you get cheeses, olives, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, tea, and watermelon for breakfast. It’s crazy.

Finally met up with the field camp group- 26 of us packed onto our own bus and drove through the industrial area outside Istanbul, the dry and agricultural area east of that, and into the tree-covered mountains and valleys near our field station in Taskesti. Sat next to a kid named Hobson on the four hour drive, and learned a ton about the corruption of oil companies in Brazil. For supper, we stopped with desperately hungry joy at a restaurant where we sat outside at picnic tables and watched kids play on the tiny playground erected amidst fruit trees and lush grass. And we had the most delicious version of Turkish cheese pizzas- grilled flat bread with greasy garlicky buttery perfect cheese.

The bus arrived at our field station- a one-story government building painted light yellow with a yard fenced in by barbed wire- in the dark, and we were greeted by at least 5 stray dogs. Nuri, our field director, started off our orientation with a ten-minute description of how to make tea, which seems to involve an unholy amount of crushed tea leaves. The rest of orientation consisted of repeated pleas and threats about wearing sunscreen, watching for or shouting about falling rocks, and do be careful the third and fourth weeks because we’ll be in sheep pastures which are guarded by giant ferocious dogs that will try to attack you but you should be fine if you just sit down and raise your rock hammers as they charge. Sweet!

I’m rooming with three other girls- Caitlin, Sharon, and Karen- and everyone is mixing up our names. I wandered out to our front stoop, and was immediately approached by two tentative teenage girls who took me by the hand and gestured for me to sit down on a carpet laid out on the ground under a streetlight. An old, spry woman with hollow cheeks and a confident, observant look was sitting on one corner, doing something that looked like knitting. Five other, mostly older, women joined us to make nine people kneeling, reclining, and squashing onto one pretty small Turkish carpet. They laughed, gossiped, and seemed to be commenting on the night and the stars. One of the teenage girls ran to get her torn English-Turkish dictionaries, and they tried asking me questions like, “Is Taskesti beautiful?” “Do you have sisters? No brothers!?” “Do you have a lover?” At which point, the girl with the dictionary proudly confided that she didn’t either. Anyway, I blast myself for not being able to speak more Turkish. But people were fantastically nice, and they showed me how to peel and crack hazelnuts from the tree over our heads. I don’t know, the women seemed extremely confident and capable in their manner, maybe more so than a lot of adult American women I know, which isn’t what Americans think about women living in pretty strong Muslim culture.

tourists in Istanbul

imalivewhen — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:25:00 GMT

Hey y’all, long time of being lazy and distracted, but I’ll try to catch up over the next couple of days.
Took the 10 hour overnight bus back into Istanbul, and while on the tram ran into a disoriented kid from Egypt who was trying to get to the same place as me. We slowly and sweatily hurled ourselves out of the crowded tram and onto the cobbled streets leading to our hostel, me wishing I had less luggage and Mido with a giant grin on his face and repeating, “I am in Istanbul.” I waited for him to wash and pray- there’s some leniency for Muslims traveling, but they still try to get in three prayers a day. The usual routine of praying five times a day is supposed to keep you in contact with God at all times, never getting very far from God even if you have a distracting and busy schedule. Painfully, one of the calls to prayer is during the abhorrent hour before sunrise, but ah well. Mido showed me how to clean your feet, hands and forearms, and face, a certain number of times and in a certain order that I forget. Conveniently, inside mosques there are usually sinks or troughs where groups of people can wash. The process is supposed to help you focus your mind on the prayer you’re about to do, as well as make prayer a distinctive part of the day. Or at least that’s what I understood.

So yep, we went to Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque, and Ayasofya, almost unashamedly hitting the three biggest tourist spots in Istanbul. But it was awesome, despite a zillion people herding through with cameras glued to their faces. I have to stop disliking droves of tourists. Part of the awesomeness came from watching how excited some tourists were- I mean, zillions of people coming to see these things in Sultanahmet must mean that there’s good reason to see the things, yah? But mainly, it was awesome because Mido translated the Arabic delicately drawn on sculptures and described the religious meaning of the museum objects. He was also just plain full of awe and reverence, and I learned more from watching his response than from anything I would have tried to interpret about Islam if I’d been on my own. So, yah, ended up really lucky.

I am so happy

imalivewhen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:03:00 GMT

Returned the keys to the rental agency without even having to sign anything, and took the bus to Sofia. While we were waiting after boarding, a woman across the aisle said, “I see you read English. You like ice cream? I bought ice cream a few minutes ago, it was so good. Yes?” Then she darted off the bus and returned with two delicious packaged ice cream cones, one for herself. “No problem, no problem, I do it to see your smile.” Man, some people are nice to foreigners. Some are not, but some definitely are.

Ps, I am getting so good at public transportation.

Forests, low rolling hills and flat yellow-brown valleys all the way west to Sofia, but just to the south were blue mountains, which looked so nice against the occasional bright sunflower field in the foreground. Oh by the way, people in this area use sunflower oil instead of corn oil. Checked into the Hostel Mostel, and immediately went to the archaeology museum, which has artifacts from the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Copper Age, right up to religious works from the 1700s. They also have big chunks of ancient carved marble just plonked down in the grass outside the entrance to the museum, like there’s just so much Roman relics that those chunks are expendable.

Seem to have accidentally been starving myself what with the traveling during lunch and dinner time, but I had some delicious potato-cheese-egg-butter-dill thing cooked in a clay pot. Then free spaghetti and beer at the hostel. Heh, AND, as I was sitting by myself, just…sitting by myself, 22 guys (seriously- all from the same engineering class, and no women were in the class) from Switzerland swarm the table in recently graduated glee. And I end up talking to one of them, actually from Lichtenstein (never met anyone from Lichtenstein, there’s only 35,000 people in the country anyway) for a loooong time about the differences between Europe and the US, basically. I don’t know, it was like a 8.5 hour long education on European languages, dialects, and cultures, with me trying to explain that the US is varied as well. Though obviously not to the same degree. We followed the mass of engineers to a couple of crazy ritzy empty horrible clubs in Studenstki Grad, where we stared at the white leather couches and overall shiny expensive snobbiness. Our taxi driver didn't speak English or German, none of us speaks much Bulgarian, but he and I both know Spanish, so that's how we got to where we were going. It was cool. And the European cultural lesson just continued. It was just fantastic. I’m learning a ton. And it’s like that gut-changing learning that is too fragile to try to describe right now lest I shape it too much, but I will let you know later. Whether you like it or not. Nah neh.

Old rural Bulgaria

imalivewhen — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:02:00 GMT

I am being sneaky because this is the same trip as the last entry, but I figured you’d get bored and give up reading without a break. Continuing south through the Devil’s Gorge, which is spectacularly sheer in some places, so much so that you can feel the weight of the rock in the walls around you, the road turned into a rough, bumpy dirt road great for horse carts. The walls of the valley turned to gentle slopes with small hay fields. And, men were out cutting hay and loading it into carts drawn by horses and donkeys. Oh I forgot, earlier that day we’d seen a car on the highway being towed by five horses. But seeing this valley was just fantastic. We saw mostly older people, dressed in traditional clothes, with the women wearing a shawl over their heads, ankle-length skirts, and baggy blouses. It was just really awesome to see an older rural culture, though I don’t know why.

On the way back home, we stopped at what was translated as “The Wonderful Bridges”. They were indeed wonderful. Big rock archways with streams flowing through. The detour definitely caused us to almost run out of gas for our crappy little mustard green rental car, and we think we ran over a something something rock viper, but we made it into town alright. Where we got lost for 2 hours and drove through the pedestrian walkway but ahhh well, it was a fantastic day.

Caves!

imalivewhen — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:01:00 GMT

Hahaha. Ok, so, renting a car when you don’t know the language of the rental agent is really difficult. But we did it after like half an hour of gesturing and writing down times and giggling. Drove about 2.5 hours almost straight south, ending up in the mountains very close to Greece. The road followed a curvy river that would have been nauseating except that our adrenaline from fear of head on collisions kept the sickness at bay. Kate, who was driving, kept screaming when we saw a car, but she insisted that that was her “everything is ok” noise. We passed a bunch of small, red-roofed towns built along the base of the steep valley walls, and every once in a while an old church or fortress built high up into a cliff.

And then we got to the caves! Oh lord, they were awesome. Seriously, really really cool, I’d never been in a real cave cave, not the kind that you picture from tourist books- low, tunnely, stalactites everywhere, goo. But this one, yeah. Small caverns then tunnels then big caverns then wide cracks in the rock, all with different shapes of rock. It was heaven. Seriously. We were being herded by a guide who had to retrace his steps and shove us along with a thick-accented, annoyed, “Hurry up!” Unfortunately we couldn’t touch the goo, which had a slimy appeal, but in some places stalagmites (the bottom pointy cave cones) had started to form on the concrete path through the tunnels.

And, just up the hill we had a brief (English!) tour through a cave dwelling dating to about 6000 years ago. Weirdly late in the game, since there were large civilizations at that time not far away, but the mountains are quite remote for people limited to walking. I guess the place was a pottery workshop-there were several fire places and a kiln, which apparently could reach up to 600 degrees C, way hotter than I would have thought. But we could see three separate periods of habitation in an excavated part of the floor. (Ash and clay and dirt when people lived there, and river sediment when no one was there.) Funnily enough, there were also human bones from 300 years ago when Bulgarians hid there from invading Turks.

Rockses everywhere

imalivewhen — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:59:00 GMT

Had breakfast of bizarrely good cheese and pear jam, heard two kids from Seattle were taking a bus to a monastery, and joined up with them for most of the day. We went to Bashkovo (it might not actually be that…it remember it sounding like that) Monastery, where frequent, engraved marble trough-type things with pipes spouting out groundwater are placed to, I guess, keep pilgrims hydrated and clean. Probably have collected a good amount of coins, as well. If I get worms, it might be from there, but in that case, everyone else has them too.

I can’t read Bulgarian and I don’t understand religious icons, but colorful paintings covered the ceilings of rooms. There were also lots of candles and gold trinket things. We were certainly a trio of heathens. But we took a small hike up to three mountain monasteries, one of which was built into an overhang of limestone. The doors into the place were maybe 5 feet tall and I could barely fit my shoulders in, so the monks must not only have been short, but also no more than barely chubby. Stairs cut into the outcrop force you to lean far to the side to avoid smacking your head on the rock. It was sweet.

Oh!!! Also! A bunch of the churches and chapels and monasteries here are built out of blocks of tufa. Tufa is a favorite rock of mine, it’s usually very porous and can have shells and plants and stuff in it. (Tufa!!!!) We saw active tufa-forming streams and waterfalls, too, which was just a brilliant surprise. Anyway, some churches are made of alternating layers of yellowish tufa and red brick, which gives them a cool look.

Plovdiv's Old Town

imalivewhen — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:58:00 GMT

I had that “ohhhh yeah I don’t like cities” feeling while taking the bus through Plovdiv, but the old town section of the city is great. The Hiker’s Hostel is tiny and amidst historic, renovated houses that all have names, along really rough cobblestone roads. The Old Town covers three hills, and from the tops you can see all of Plovdiv and the mountains to the south. So yep, the first night at the hostel was great- I wandered around relishing the quiet and cobblestoniness, and blomp oh yes well there’s a 2000 year old amphitheater. Apparently there’s a lot of archaeology around that’s only been partly excavated. Construction workers happened upon a Roman (I think) stage while building a hotel, it was briefly surveyed, and the hotel is now perched right above the site. Ok, the hostel really is great- the staff made a barbeque and fantastic potato salady stuff for us the first night, all 9 people in the full hostel sat around late talking, and I learned a bunch about western Europe from the other guests. And, we fed kittens.

Istanbul to Plovdiv

imalivewhen — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:58:00 GMT

Yo! Took the un-airconditioned bus from Istanbul to Plovdiv, which consisted of driving through at least a hundred kilometers of dry rolling hills with fields of straw and east facing sunflowers. Reminded me a bit of eastern Washington, except for the sunflowers. We were served tea and pastries on the bus, granted, they were vending machine quality, but still. At the border to Bulgaria, a thick, imposing pink granite archway with the Turkish moon and star emblem was followed by a blue cloth banner saying Welcome to Bulgaria. I had the only blue passport on the bus, everyone else seemed to be Bulgarian. I’m getting a sense of how lucky it is that I speak English, because it’s certainly the other language most people learn. That’s something that you know already, but I’m just appreciating it a lot.

Much of what we passed through on the way to Plovdiv, other than a continuation of the landscape we saw in Turkey, were old concrete buildings with windows smashed out looking out over large towns. The smaller places we passed through seemed great- red, wiggly brick roofing (I don’t know what it’s called…think of the red roofs in pictures of Greece or Italy) on small wooden houses. Everyone living in those places has a vegetable and flower garden, as far as I can tell.

I figured out how to read “Plovdiv” in Bulgarian cyrillic, which I am still quite incapable of reading in general, but was quite lost after getting off the bus. Well, the few minutes of being lost were long, since I had to go to the bathroom so badly. But, a kindly Bulgarian woman came up to me, led me to a bathroom, led me to the local bus stop, told me how much it cost and which bus to take, and not to fear, she was “a teacher, not a gypsy!” Her daughter goes to college in Miami- I find that the people most helpful to foreigners are those who have children abroad.

Istanbul- here and free!

imalivewhen — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:35:00 GMT

From the wonderfully easy Istanbul airport, I took a bus to Aksaray, hopped off and looked lost enough to be directed to a tram station connecting me to this hostel in Cemberlitas. There are little accents under the c and s. Checked into a seven bed dorm, hopped back on the tram, off the tram, and had the best orange juice of my life. I watched the waiter use a rotating machine (simple, yet novel) to squeeze at least 6 oranges directly into my glass. Looked lost again and was directed to the metro, where I learned how to read “tickets” in Turkish, hopped on, hopped off at the right stop, and bought a bus ticket to Plovdiv for tomorrow morning. Did not look or get lost on the way back to the hostel. I love it. I’ve always squirmed over being an incompetent fool at figuring out public transportation, but now I’m just so pleased to have it work in the end, that the middle doesn’t matter. And, it’s just satisfying to say “one, please. Thank you” in Turkish. I have used “thank you” and “ok” a very lot.

Decided to wander around and get deliberately mildly lost to explore the neighborhood. There are a lot of decaying buildings of all materials mixed in with merely run-down buildings once you get off the main few streets. Roads are narrow and cobblestone and frequented by taksis with too many suspicious large dents. Skinny cats and piles of uncollected garbage are everywhere in the back streets, and the parks are filled with orange and yellow marigolds (the most common flower here, as far as I can tell).

Midway through my wandering, I was beckoned over to talk to a waiter at an empty restaurant. He was bored and wanted to practice English, which he spoke really well, and his name was Kadir. I talked with him for at least an hour, and he explained some of the Istanbul culture, like the loudspeaker prayer broadcasts and the apparent unfriendliness of most Americans and Germans. He mistook me for French (until I opened my mouth) and his boss said I couldn’t be American, but other than that people have made a pointed effort to speak English to me. Surprises. Kadir also informed me that people in eastern Turkey, like the Kurdish village where he’s from, are much friendlier and more giving than people in Istanbul, but everyone I’ve met has been fantastically friendly and kind. Perhaps I’ll get to see the eastern, small-town culture someday. Kadir also directed me to the seaside, where men sunbathe and fish on the rocks. No women. Kids charge for the chance to shoot a bee-bee (b.b.? be-be?) gun at cans and a string of balloons. I tried a couple of times but I only hit the sea.

Oh, also, in the wall 2 meters way from my hostel window is a nest with baby pidgeons. So, I have finally seen a baby pidgeon. And some neighbor is playing a mix of Turkish pop, Weezer, and European techno trance.

sweet

imalivewhen — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:14:00 GMT

Well, been spending the past few days getting ready to leave and hanging out with my fam. Court's been showing me her acting skills, which are pretty good. Was kind of nervous yesterday, but today I have just enough adrenaline to make me alert and eager, but not enough to be unpleasant. I leave from Boston tomorrow morning and get into Istanbul 10 am the next day, Istanbul time. Mmm, 7 hours different from east coast US time. Istanbul's a gigantic city, but Turkey is just so orange-seeming in my mind that I can't imagine much beyond that. We will see! Boiled and reworked my hiking boots again so they won't cause the bone spurs on the back of my heels to grow any larger. Packed for Madison so I can sleep instead of pack during the 6 hours I'll be home between field camp and grad school. Hung out by the rocky ocean with Haley. Other than that, I think everything should be ok, unless I get horribly lost somewhere. Don't worry Mama. Okee doke, goin to do the things I forgot to do.

last backpack for a while

imalivewhen — Sun, 6 Jul 2008 19:46:00 GMT

Leaving the truck in a grass lot among power station consultants’ cars, my dad and I backpacked up the Mattabesett trail from the Connecticut River. The first mile was probably the twistiest, criss-crossiest stretch of trail I’ve ever been on. Intersections or merges with dirt bike troughs and rutty mud roads, and light blue blazes exactly the color of lichen growing on trees- I went the wrong way a bunch of times. It became more peaceful after a little while though, and for most of our 4 days the hiking alternated quickly from tunnels of mountain laurel to oaky and beechy swampiness to short bursts of clambering up or down rocky mounds.

The rocks along much of the trail have spectacular, well, at least cool, big books of mica. Giganormous chunks of quartz and feldspar, too, but those aren’t as shiny or as fun to tear apart. Dad was curious about the geology of the area, but I could only give him vague answers. Welp, I searched for 3 minutes on Wikipedia, but I don't know why the large crystals. There's even a series of bald rock outcrops named The Mica Ledges, though they didn’t have as much of the mineral as elsewhere. I think someone felt the need to pay homage to the muscovite but the ledges were the only prominent things without a name.

None of the ledges gave good shelter, so we got rained on the first night and poured on the second, and all three nights we were treated to shockingly close firework bangs. Before rain made me close my fly on the second night, I could see fireworks through the trees. I turned off the Turkish lessons for a bit to listen to the zheeming of the rockets, and then again to viciously ward away an intrusive demanding mosquito. The low damp areas had an infuriating number of mosquitoes on the third day, enough so that it was worth sweltering through July humid heat in a long-sleeve shirt and a bandana around my neck to cut the bites in half. That night, I laid down to sleep evily glad to listen to the seven sweetly singing mosquitoes repeatedly nudging up against the screen of my tent.

We hiked hard and every few hours would plop down for Dad to doze on any flattish surface and for me to look at things and read and admire the stench coming from my socks. I don’t know why the smell’s impressive every time, but, it is. And every once in a while, I’d get a scent of honeysuckle, a nice mix with the feet. Really though, the area’s pretty- especially with misty views of treetops and the wet colorfulness of tree trunks and lichen and rocks. Many a deer to wake you with its snorting at night, as well. Okee doke, sick of writing, adios!

I had a horrible jungle book reference

imalivewhen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:16:00 GMT

Waking up uncomfortably early, we were able to watch the mists coming out of the valleys maybe an hour after sunrise. One region sent up a tower of mist as the sunlight hit it. I like mist a lot, and the hills had that layered, mysterious look to them. So, ater starting the morning with that view, we flicked the dead caterpillars off our tents and left camp through the Kittatinny Mtn blueberry fields. Which meant John had three or four breakfasts. Following maybe the second breakfast, we saw a black bear with its head down in the berries- it wasn’t very close, but I’ve harvested a steady fear of bears while backpacking over the past 5 years or so. That was the first one I’ve seen while hiking, and I had a healthy if unreasonable jolt of adrenaline. A couple hours later, we saw a second, much closer bear that paused, stared at us, then reared up to get a better look as we moved out of its sight. Don't know what it did after that because we were busy pretending to calmly walk away.

At a water pump by a road, we met a kid from Texas who's a ridgerunner- he makes sure hikers know what they’re doing and that they’re having a pleasant and safe experience. I don’t know his name, but he was such a genuinely friendly lively wonderful person that it made me understand that I'd probably enjoy talking to people on the trail more than I'd foreseen. One of the reasons I decided not to thru-hike this spring/summer was that I wanted to spend some more time around people than what the trail would provide. But, I'm much braver and more talkative now, apparently I can’t predict myself 6 months ahead of time, soooo ah well. I would completely love to be out there right now.

The other person we met who really affected me was an older man doing trail maintenance with his son. John and I had laid out our tents to dry while napping in the grass around a fire tower. The son came and sat down, bouncing about youthfully and complaining over pack bruises, and then the old man meandered up and peered down at us. He’d thru-hiked 15 years ago, and I wish I remembered exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of: “Hiking the AT will change your life. It forms a base for the rest of your life and you will realize what you don’t need. Even if you don’t do the trail, do something out of the ordinary. Don’t let yourself become materialistic because then you won’t be happy, and don’t let your life become something you don’t feel.” And then he wished us a very heart-felt good luck, and you could tell he was talking about in life, not in finishing our little hike, and they left. Lately, on backpacking trips, I will start to feel more focused, more observant, and more like myself come midday on the second day of hiking. Well, maybe I’m never more or less myself, but I definitely prefer feeling the above things.

Okee doke, the third and last day out, we saw another bear much much closer, and I wasn’t afraid- I’m more convinced now that they really don’t pose much danger. This one ehhh, a mix of leaped and lumbered and fluffed quickly away when it saw us. It was kind of endearing and very ebony black. But, that's probably the last of any ATing for me for a while, though my dad and I are off to Connecticut soon for more backpacking.

AT in Kittatinny Mountains

imalivewhen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:20:00 GMT

So, John and I dropped off his car at the Delaware Water Gap and headed north along the AT for his first backpacking trip. Hi John. The woods seemed all spring green, but that was because of the many tender ferns and blueberry bushes, and mostly because a godzillion caterpillars had eaten nearly all the oak leaves and had started on the less tasty other trees. I mean, I've seen a lot of caterpillars before, they were pretty bad last year, but this was extra special because of the massive amounts of dead caterpillars. Yah yah, they have to die, so there must have been a lot of living caterpillars. But there were dried out, half-dried out (or half still a lively juicy, if you want), semi-squashed, sun-fried, many varieties of dead dead bugs, most of which hang onto rough bark by their back feet which for some reason remain very sticky long after death. And they seem to prefer dying in clusters. And you will sit on dead ones wherever you sit. Aaaanyway, there were a lot of caterpillars.

The first evening we were reassured that yes, those acres and acres of plants that look and smell like blueberries are indeed blueberries, so we foraged for a bit. It felt so right. At some point during the night I woke up to John saying from his tent that the stars were wonderful, so I stared through my tent screen at them in an ecstatic and thoroughly awed appreciation but then immediately konked back out. I don't know how you can be feeling that awe but still succumb to being unconscious, but, ah well. At a later point, John again woke me up with something to the effect of shit, we have about 5 minutes until the rain, after which I sleepily watched the lightning bolts across the valley, then decided to get nervous and put on the flies. Flys? Mmm, I was nervous in that waking up at night in the middle of the woods and wondering if you should have camped somewhere further from the ridge so you don't get struck by lightning or even worse so that dead tree doesn't get struck by lightning and fall and impale you way, but everything always seems perfectly fine in the morning soooo, yeah. Plus, your dreams are always more exciting if you think you might lose a limb, thus letting you sleep through some of the knobby forest floor discomfort.

I have finally seen NYC

imalivewhen — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:55:00 GMT

I bused down to New York from RI, which involved taking a tour past Yankee Stadium, Central Park, Harlem, some bus that said United States of America Ground Force One, ritzy car dealerships in Manhattan, and the distressing congestion leading into the dark pit that is the horrible Port Authority. Seeing Harlem was really cool and I suppose I was gawking hungrily because people looked like their lives are different from mine. Which they are, and I suppose I will never understand, because I think I would go nuts living in that city. I had a brief ambitious thought that it would be good for me to experience a year or something in NYC, I mean, it is ridiculously diverse and all, but if I'm looking to get all sorts of experiences, I may as well avoid the ones that are glahkful until I run out of the more pleasant ones.

And ps, I hate the Port Authority and all the grimy fumes and stress and unfriendliness and deliberate unhelpfulness. Made it feel like a special miracle when another woman and I exchanged a few words of mutual confusion as to our gate assignment. We didn't help each other much since she didn't speak much English and I've forgotten most of my Mandarin, but it was nice to stand in line next to her.