things I think about during late night drives

I just got back from Newark Airport. Yep, check the time. I've had a bit of caffeine to make that happen, so figured I'd try to burn a little of it off through blogging.

I volunteered to drive my friend/officemate/academic companion Irene and her parents to the airport. They were flying home to Venezuela, where I will hopefully someday visit them, and Irene was flying to the Yucatan for a season of field work, continuing work for the EDGY project that we're a part of. I wanted to see my friend off, but also, let's be honest, I'm always up for a drive somewhere.

I borrowed mom's car because it's bigger than mine. Pro: working music playing system. I finally got to listen to a mix I made myself on my birthday ("Thanksgiving: Thankful for Josh Ritter", which had been sitting silently in my suicidal CD player since Thanksgiving till tonight). Con: Mom's new Altima has that weird new kind of transmission that doesn't feel like it's shifting, which is more confusing to experience than it probably sounds, but definitely more so because driving stick shift is deeply ingrained in my brain. (Don't worry Mom, I did not engage your e-brake thinking it was the clutch.)

It was a pleasant drive. Irene gave me a pep talk for my upcoming thesis defense, which she will sadly miss. No one was on the road because it was 2:30AM. It was clear and cool. No problem.

I already miss mi amiga Irene!

Driving home, I made a slight detour that has a warm fuzzy theme to it. Yesterday, for my work at Johnsonburg, I was talking with a woman who wanted to help promote camp in her own church. She requested some brochures and other information to hand out to families in her congregation. When she sent me her address, I realized it was only slightly off the route I was taking tonight. I wrote to this woman, telling her "I hope this doesn't come across as creepy" and asking if I could drop them off in the middle of the night on her porch and save camp some postage. Her response? "Not creepy! We're camp people!" I may have mentioned once or twice that I love the greater community that camp creates. I've never met this woman, only exchanged emails, but we're camp people. That's enough. I realize that dropping off a package to her home in the middle of the night probably doesn't require an amazing relationship, but her response made me smile. That community has allowed me to travel hotel-free through the United Kingdom and gave me some semblance of family while I was away at Mary Washington. It's given me some awesome, encouraging friends near Rutgers. It's welcomed me back for a few more months till I figure out what's next. How warm and fuzzy is that?

Of course, I'm rather fortunate in that camp is not the only strong community I have in my life. There are a lot of fabulous people at Rutgers who have greatly helped me through this Masters thingy. It just so happens one needed a ride to Newark Airport this morning, and driving her was the very least I could do.

These are the sorts of things I need to keep in focus during the crazy next few weeks of my life. Defense in two weeks; my first job interview in two and a half weeks; some holidays between now and then; that paper to finish... I should get some sleep if I intend to work on it today...

Snow, don'tcha know.

Ok, I haven't actually heard anyone here in Minnesota say "don'tcha know" but they do totally have exactly the accent I thought they would. I dig it.

So what am I doing in Minnesota, with a week left of classes and plenty of work to be done?

My friend Timmy attends St. Olaf College in Northfield, just a little south of Minneapolis. They have a super major Christmas music festival every year. He was able to score an extra pair of tickets and kindly gave them to our now retired choir director and myself. So I'm out here listening to incredible music left and right and generally hanging out for a few days.

Don't get me wrong, every time he has a rehearsal or something, I've been grading papers galore. I did a lot of work leading up to this trip, and am actually in far better shape than I thought upon my return to finish up the semester just fine. I opted to leave my laptop home (am currently borrowing Tim's while he sings in night 3 of Christmasfest, which his parents are attending) and have enjoyed the change of pace. St. Olaf is out in the middle of nowhere-- time seems to go a little slower (it also helps that my body just never adjusts to time change, even an hour difference).

Also, St. Olaf is such a great school. It's a small liberal arts school run by the Lutherans (Norwegian ones, to be specific). They have an outstanding music program (though much to my dismay there is no geography). It's got great campus dining. AND MY FAVORITE PART, CLEARLY: so environmentally friendly. Everyone seems very concious of turning off lights and recycling stuff. The sandwich place on campus serves everything on real plates, with real silverware. Their building renovations include a lot of local, renewable resources and/or recycled supplies. The bathrooms have those magic flush toilets that you have a short flush/long flush option (use your brain, you can figure out why). Also, all of the toilet paper, paper towels and napkins are made completely from recycled fibers. And finally, there is a very lovely wind turbine at the edge of the campus that apparently generates 1/3 of the energy for the campus (which makes me wonder why they don't just build 2 more, but at least they're trying!).

Other things about Northfield: it snowed the first two days I got here and the temperature hasn't been above freezing. The town motto is "Cows, Colleges, Contentment" even though there's way more corn than cows. Northfield is also home to the Malt O Meal factory. It smells like Cocoa Puffs here constantly!

Beer of the trip: Summit Extra Pale Ale. I'm not usually crazy about extra pale beers, but Summit is a Minnesota brew that my uncle had at Thanksgiving (in NJ) and it was fine then, so it was ok now too.

I fly home tomorrow morning to Newark Airport. My home church has its Christmas concert tomorrow night. I'll be up there in the alto 2 section singing Handel's Messiah and other carols, twice in a row. Intense. I have just enough time to get home, shower, and make it to warm up, assuming my flight isn't delayed. All along though, my choir director has joked that surely there wouldn't be a problem in Minnesota's end; if it snows, they know what to do. It's Newark that would fail under any sort of weather pressure. So Newark, listen up. I'm counting on you.

Despite going from 60 degree weather in NJ (yes, unseasonably warm) to 20 degree weather in MN, I am really enjoying this trip and it's allowing me to relax a little before the absolute final stretch of the semester. After all, after this I only have one semester left... it'll be a pretty busy spring semester so I'm not sure when I'll travel next!

Hola desde Chetumal!

(Hello from Chetumal!)

Irene and I arrived safely yesterday! I didn't say so sooner because we've been recovering from our travels. We arrived at our house in Chetumal about 24 hours after I woke up to pack and get going. Dad dropped us off at Newark but there was some debacle when all of the flights to Mexico were consolidated and we were not on the final flight. The nice ladies at the check in fixed this, and we were off to Houston. I finished getting my grades in during our layover, and looked up my own final grades on Irene's Blackberry right before we took off, so my semester literally ended as I was about to leave the country. I passed GIS! Moving forward with my life now...

We arrived in Cancun without any problems. The flight was mostly empty so we each had a row to ourselves. Debacle two: the bus from the airport to the bus terminal wasn't running according to schedule because no one is coming to Mexico these days (why?). We ended up taking a rather expensive taxi ride, and then waiting two hours for a bus to Chetumal. We departed at midnight, and five hours later, we met Alejandro, the project manager in the area. He took us to the house and picked us up again around noon to get some things from the market. We slept for maybe 5 hours, and then didn't eat until late in the afternoon, almost 24 hours after our last meal at Houston George Bush International Airport. Ugh.

So today we're feeling a little better rested and we've had more regular meals. We met with Alejandro in the morning to discuss what work needs to be done, and the plan is to start tomorrow at 5AM travelling to an ejido (a sort of farming village-- there's 20 in all that I'll be visiting in the coming weeks) about four hours away. He'll work with us at least the next few days. After we were done talking work, Irene and I took a bus to Bacalar for an afternoon at Laguna de Bacalar, a gorgeous lake. It was a really lovely, relaxing day.

I am slowly learning some important words in Spanish, most notably today: catira (blond). Apparently, it's very obvious that I'm not from around here, and everyone's assumed that Irene is my guide. It's kind of hilarious.

So, things are going just fine so far, except for one very, very important thing that I left in my apartment. Honestly, I was just crushed when I realized forgot it: my Trees of North America: a guide to field identification. So many amazing trees here, and I don't know what any of them are. It's pretty sad.

However, you can see in photos that life has gone on without my tree book: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v473/fishius25/Mexico/

We spent a little time in Seattle to visit Rachel, the world's largest piggy bank, a bronze statue in the Pike's Place Market, and we also stopped by a coffee shop on Battery Street where some of my friends left me a gift about a month ago when they were driving across America-- a lei, hiding behind a Robert Browning book. Hilarious! Like we said, we had dinner with Justin Anderson, who seems to be doing well out in Seattle. Our flights home were all right. Flying in Las Vegas in the middle of the night was pretty cool. Unlike most city airports where the lights just peter out over the suburbs, the lights ended abruptly at the edge of the city where it met the desert. Kind of weird. Katie's parents picked us up from Newark early this morning. We're pretty tired, but hopefully we'll get the rest of our photos up for you to see soon, and recap a few of our last awesome moments. Amazing trip with amazing ladies!

heading home

I spent nearly 20 hours in transit to get home, including a 2.5 hour bus ride to London Heathrow, where Heather and I said goodbye (she's now staying in England to study abroad for the next five months), waiting several hours for my flight, taking the 8 hour flight, getting caught at customs in the US because I’d spent time on a farm, meeting my parents, and driving to Newark and then home. Customs took forever because they had to take my shoes away for inspection upon reading my immigration card, which I was all too honest on-- not only did I declare that I had spent time on a farm, but I also admitted it was a dairy and beef farm. Something something mad cow something? I finally was released from the grand inquisition and found out the following upon seeing my parents:

1. They are now married.

2. They lost the photocopy of my passport in Newark.

This is hilarious because:

1. They got married over 24 years ago.

2. We were concerned I would have to forfeit my passport.

This was resolved by:

1. They did get married, and had the permit for their marriage license, but apparently had never gotten the license and didn’t notice the difference until recently. They picked it up on their way to the airport though. Better late than never.

2. We drove back to Newark and somehow, by luck and great surprise, we found the paper across the street from where my parents initially dropped it.

And now I’m home, and sucking at getting used to the time zone!

We departed from Newark about 9PM local time. I didn’t get much sleep on the flight; Heather didn’t get any. At least Virgin Atlantic is AWESOME. Full meal, complimentary drinks, and dozens of movie and tv choices to watch on an individual screen on the back of the seat in front of you. All right, student discount flights!

We arrived at London Heathrow about 9AM local time. Katie Marnham met us at the airport! We took The Tube back to hers in North London (small town called Enfield) and took naps. My nap was only about an hour, so I got to enjoy tea and biscuits (cookies) with Katie and her mother and sister and some friends. We ended up just walking around Enfield that evening, and stopped into three different pubs… this is the first time I've changed time zones so radically and my body isn't particularly pleased, but the rest of me is pretty excited to be here!