Gone West

Greetings from San Diego, California, USA,

We're back. After 30+ hours of travelling, we arrived in San Diego airport...well, quite a while ago now. About two weeks ago actually.

Heads up, Liesl isn't editing this post, so forgive my errors please!

The last of our time in India was fairly eventful. As I'd mentioned, we'd again grown rather bored of Sadhana, and were ready to go back to California. We were just done; a month was a good amount of time to be there, a month and a half was too much. The time dragged on. We continued, every morning, to ritualistically tick off the days on our countdown calendar. Strangely--and ridiculously--every day we felt like if it was just one day less (say, five days left instead of six) it would seem so manageable.

On the Saturday of our last weekend in India, we met two of our friends for lunch in Kuilapalayam. They had spent a while at Sadhana and were currently staying in a guesthouse in Auroville. Liesl and I were talking about how bored we were just sitting around at Sadhana, when they suggested that we come and stay with them. We mumbled about it being too last minute, but it didn't take long for them to persuade us to go and stay with them. We quickly realized that this was something that we should have done weeks ago. It was about the same price for food at Sadhana as it was to stay in a guest house, eat street food, rent and pay for fuel for a bike.

So that night we packed our things and got our deposits and the last three days of our money back. I had a really horrible sore throat that night--it kept coming back, and didn't actually really go away until a couple days after I returned to the US. I almost decided to go to the hospital and get some antibiotics, but it was a bit better the next day so I didn't. It would have been really absurd to have gone our whole trip without having to go to the hospital or to see a doctor, and then to go two days before we left. But gosh, we just couldn't stop getting sick in India.

We left in a hurry that morning, barely getting a chance to say goodbye to anyone. I believe two out of the three people I somewhat arbitrarily hugged I'd never actually had a proper conversation with.

The guest house was about a block from the beach, and was almost exactly the same as the couples' huts at Sadhana. On that note, when we left Sadhana, I'd say that roughly 90% of the volunteers there thought that Liesl and I were a couple. We neglected to set anyone straight since it really wasn't that big of a deal. For a while we'd joked about how we should have pretended to be a couple so we could have gotten a couples' hut, the only short-term volunteer living spaces where you have anything resembling actual privacy. Then one day a long-term volunteer asked Liesl if she and I were a couple, and Liesl said no. The volunteer said oh, okay, I was just going to offer you a couples' hut, but never mind. It's too bad she asked instead of just offering us the hut, because at that point we probably would have taken it. Ah well.

Anyway, back to Auroville.

It was freeing to be outside of Sadhana Forest. We went to a potluck, hung out with some nice people, and generally had a good time for our last three days.

On Monday we were supposed to get a bike (a moped that is) but the guy who we were going to rent it from didn't have it. Well, welcome to India. That's how things work. There's really no conception of timeliness or reliability, so it can be maddeningly difficult to accomplish even the easiest of tasks.

We did get a bike later that day from someone else. Finally! We were so stoked. It was really easy to drive, there was really nothing to it. The hardest part was staying balanced as you got started. Now we could get around easily without having to deal with, or pay for, taxis or rickshaws. We even drove on the highway, which I was really nervous about, but it was actually no big deal. It was fun driving somewhere with such a lack of laws and regulations. You could do what made sense, instead of what the driver's handbook said. Horns are probably the most important part of any vehicle in India, used to pass up other drivers, to tell animals, pedestrians and other drivers alike to get out of your way, to alert anyone coming around the bend ahead that you're approaching, and more.

The most important thing we did during our last days in India was rescue a puppy. Our friends were actually the ones that were originally undertaking this task, Liesl and I just jumped in to help. It was this cute little puppy that they'd found at a bakery, and nursed back to survival by giving her a vanilla shake. So they named her Vanilla.

When we arrived at the bakery, Vanilla was not looking good. Liesl held her, and she had this black hole in the top of her paw that was sort of bubbling, like there were little creatures inside of it, (which actually, there were). We ended up taking her to a dog sanctuary, and offering our help to the woman who ran the shelter, who said that the black hole was a maggot wound that could kill the dog.

Vanilla was brought back to our place and the four of us spent a while removing all of the ticks and fleas from her body. There were so many, she was absolutely infested with the bugs. She must have had a clump of about ten ticks alone just behind one ear.

Liesl was driving us to Kuilapalayam to take the puppy to the vet, when our bike started making scraping noises. It was obvious that something underneath was bumping against the ground. We got off and checked it out, realizing that our back tire was totally fucked. It was completed flat, and ripping off of the wheel. Liesl started pushing the bike while I walked behind, carrying Vanilla. These guys in a truck stopped and offered to give us a lift. For 500 rupees. We said no, if we had to pay we would just push the bike ourselves, but if they wanted to give us a ride--Kuilapalayam was only a mile or so away--that would be great. Instead of helping us out or going away, they kept demanding payment, lowering the price a bit. It was incredibly annoying, as we'd told them maybe fifty times that we weren't going to pay and that we were fine with pushing the bike. Eventually we just walked away and they left. It struck me as rather absurd that in a capitalist everything-is-for-personal-profit country like the US, tons of people would have offered us their help and a free ride, had we been in this our country when this happened. Yet we were in a country with a culture that I assumed would be far more kind and helpful than our own, and less money grubbing.

Anyway, Vanilla needed to get to the vet, so Liesl hitched a ride with someone to take her there. I pushed the bike to Kuilapalayam on my own. It was faster than it could have been, since the engine was fine so I could use the gas, but it was really hot out. Eventually I got there, and Liesl arrived shortly after.

It was a real drag getting the bike fixed. We called a few people and even went in person to one place, but no one would fix it or could fix it soon enough. We finally found a guy, but he took the wheel back to his shop to work on it, and ended up working on something else even though he knew that we were sitting there patiently waiting for our bike so that we could get on with our day. Liesl actually had to hitchhike to his shop to see what was going on because it had been so long. He probably wouldn't have fixed our tire if she hadn't gone to find him.Eventually it was done, but it took a number of hours, and, of course, was more expensive than we thought it would be.

Vanilla had had her wound all cleaned up and bandaged by the vet by this point, and he'd said that it would heal in a couple days. We left to take her back to her new home at the dog sanctuary. It was my turn to drive, the second day I'd driven the bike. Liesl was on the back, holding Vanilla in a pink dog-carrier basket. I felt pretty comfortable with driving at this point, and was excited to have a turn to drive a longer distance.

After a little while of driving on the regular streets, I turned right onto the beginning of a long dirt road, with many bumps and dips. We continued down that road for a few minutes, and then I steered the bike right, turning down a smaller dirt road with trees scattered at the sides.

I don't know exactly what happened, but about 100 feet from the shelter gate, as I was navigating the bumps of the road and trying not to run into a tree, the bike suddenly went out of balance, I turned the handle turned too sharply, and Liesl, Vanilla and I were abruptly flung off of the bike as it crashed to the ground, before anyone really knew what going on.

I skidded on my stomach and lay there panting for a second, hearing the vrooming sound of the bike gently die (I guess I never grabbed the brake, woops). Then I quickly got up to see if Liesl was alright and the puppy were alright. Liesl was sort of moaning, and had a nasty gash in her lower leg, a burn on her foot, and a few other wounds. She said that she landed on top of Vanilla, who was in her basket. Thankfully, the dog was not only totally uninjured, but also seemed completely unfazed. I guess  falling off a moped and being slightly squished by a human just isn't that big of a deal in comparison to being eaten alive by ticks, fleas, and maggots.

I had some scrapes on my knee, my leg, me elbow, and my stomach, but none were as bad as Liesl's. I soon got a really nice bruise on my stomach though, it even turned sort of yellow. My knee hurt for a couple weeks after that. I think it got really bruised. Luckily Liesl wasn't pissed at me for getting her all cut up, because this was obviously not a stupid driving mistake, it was something that could have happened to anyone but did happen to me. When we got back in to the US Liesl was walking constantly or sitting down, because if she stood still her foot would hurt a lot. Elevating it helped too, and I got this great picture of her doing dishes at her house in San Diego:

Our bike was mostly fine, just the front light was detached slightly, and the mirror and stuff on the right handle bar would sort of slip down. I had to pay extra for that though, which was stupid because the dumb bike obviously had a really shitty tire which we also had to pay for on our own.

So back the the dog. After all this, we walked down the road to the shelter and lady wasn't even home. Of course. Liesl drove after this.

We were pretty stressed out most of this last day and just ready to leave. We said goodbye to our friends and got in our taxi for the three hour drive to the airport. Driving in the city in India is awful, and I don't think that we experienced the worst of it by any means.

Amazingly, nothing went wrong. We got on all of our flights with plenty of time to spare. The first ten hour flight was good because we slept a lot, but the second ten hour flight sucked because we were both awake almost the whole time. It was the worst non-turbulent flight ever, it was just so maddeningly long and uncomfortable. The flight from San Francisco to San Diego was short. It was so weird seeing California again. At the San Francisco airport we stood outside for a while, and it was so refreshingly un-humid. Southern California is pretty unattractive from above. There are a lot of lumpy, bald hills. Even so, it was nice to be back. I think I recognized Carlsbad from the air, which I've never done before.

It's was very, very strange to Liesl and I that our trip was really over. It was weirder before it ended I think, just realizing that it was really almost over. Being back feels so normal, it's weird. It almost feels like our trip didn't happen a little bit. But then I think about what I was up to say, last month, and hey, what do you know, I was planting trees in India. I guess coming back after travelling is just strange like that. I've never been away for so long, so I didn't really have much to compare it to.

I am glad to be back, I haven't even gotten bored of San Diego yet, but there are things that I miss about our trip: Everything about London, the Bristol punk scene, the greenness of Ireland, street food in India...But it's been great experiencing San Diego culture again after so long. Six months without a proper burrito is pure insanity.

I don't really know how to end this, so I guess I'll just end with the thank yous

I'd like to thank the Academy...just kidding. But on that note, I realized when watching the Academy Awards recently--watching it fully for the first time ever, actually--that I had not seen a single film that was nominated. I guess this can be attributed to the fact that I was out of the country for part of 2012, but not for all of it...

Okay, back to the real thank yous.

Particular thanks to the Oestreichers, who were ineffably helpful to us during our whole time travelling, and while we were planning our trip. Thank you to all of our amazing, wonderful hosts. Thank you to all of the friends and family that offered emotional and financial support. Thank you to all our new friends for making our time abroad infinitely more fun. Thank you to everyone who helped us out with our travels, whether you donated to our trip, gave us a job so that we could save up for our travels, bought us things that we needed for our trip, gave a place to stay while we were abroad, showed us around cities and places that were new to us, introduced us to new people, hung out with us, had good conversations with us, became friends with us, taught us things about places that were new to us...I could go on. Thank you all, Liesl and I deeply and sincerely appreciate everything you've done for us.

Also, thank you Liesl for inviting me to come on this trip, on the way to that Rancid concert a year and a half ago. It was amazing travelling with you and getting to know you better, and, despite the many road bumps and unlucky experiences that we had, I had fun on our trip.

And a last thank you to those who read my blog! It was nice to have your support, and I've greatly enjoyed documenting our travels.

Maybe someday I'll write again, when Liesl and I travel together to some new places.

Yours truly,

Stephanie

India, Part 2

Greetings readers,

So you as you probably now know, Liesl and I will be returning to the US early—the 20^th of February to be exact. You presumably don’t have too many doubts as to why this is, if you’ve read my last post. However, I do need to make some amendments to it—or actually, more like additions, really.

For a while we really weren’t having a particularly good time here. We didn’t feel a strong sense of community, the work wasn’t particularly fulfilling, we were tired of travelling, ready to go back to a more sedentary lifestyle in the western world. However, though I was not expecting this at all, we actually ended up having a really good time here. For a while, anyway.

We made friends with some really awesome people, and actually started leaving Sadhana and going out to eat and such with our friends. Neither of us really had the funds for this, but thriftiness can only last so long, and eventually we went on a binge. So while this was really rather idiotic financially, it was incredibly intelligent emotionally, as it made us much happier not to just sit around bored all the time.

A few weeks ago we made a calendar counting down the days left of our stay here, starting at 37 (?) days. For the first week or so, the wait seemed endless. We began a perpetual discussion about San Diego, the things we missed, what we were excited to do when we got back, etc. We would have conversations that lasted hours, about anything that we could think of that would distract us from the fact that we were here. It worked, too, but reality always came crashing back at the end of these discussions, and was almost worse than before them.

But there was a time—a week, maybe two (when neither of us was I might I add) that instead of going to bed at 7:30, we would stay up and hang out with our friends in the kitchen, or the main hut. There were days when instead of sitting around, lying on our uncomfortable beds, staring blankly at the squirrels scampering across the ceiling, we would go into town with some people, eat, actually have conversations. We finally ate some real Indian food for the first time since being here—and we’d been in India for about, mmm, four weeks at this point—though it was north Indian food, and we’re in the south.

That was the first time that either Liesl or I had ridden on a bike. Just to clarify, “bike” here means motorbike or more commonly in the US, motorcycle. “Bike” does not mean bicycle. “Bicycle” means bicycle. Terminology aside, riding on a motorbike is just the most fun thing ever. The roads here are really bumpy and have a lot of pot holes, and dents and whatnot. The roads right around Sadhana are dirt roads, and have lots of ups and downs. But anyway, motorbikes are definitely the preferable means of transportation around here. Taxis are cheap, but they do start to add up if you go out a lot. Bicycles are fine if you’re comfortable riding on roads with lots of noisy, confusing traffic, but it’s so hot that that’s not really a desirable option. (By the way, they drive on the left side of the road here. Interesting that all of the countries we’ve been to on our travels are the same in this respect). Walking takes a while, and there’s only one town (street, really) here that’s close enough to walk to. Also, it’s really hot, so walking sucks. The other option in going by bike. Conveniently, many people here have bikes, and as an added bonus, know how to drive them, so we’ve been able to hitch a ride most of the time we go out.

Technically bikes are usually meant for two people, but you can fit three, so you do. Riding on the back of a bike with two other people is thrilling, although nerve-wracking. At every bump--to a degree--you’re in danger of being thrown off, so holding on to the person in front of you is very important. It’s so nice rushing past the colorful buildings, the animals crossing the streets, the people going about their everyday lives, feeling the wind blowing on your face, through your hair…it’s even more fun at night, because it’s not so hot, and because things just tend to be a bit more exciting at night. Bikes are great because they’re small enough that you can squeeze in between small spaces and pass up other drivers, as well as go off road for a bit if something is blocking the street—and often something is, say a large truck for construction. I never thought I’d be a motorcycle sort of person, but I really want to learn how to ride a bike (note: I learned to ride a bicycle quite a while ago). Hopefully I’ll find someone to teach me before we leave, though I’m not sure that I’d actually want to drive it on the streets here.

For a while, crossing a day off on the calendar was not at all the most exciting part of our day. It was a part of every day, certainly, but it wasn’t important, it was mechanical. There was a time—a few times, actually—when either or both of us actually felt that not only was the few weeks we had left here not long at all, but that maybe, just maybe three months wouldn’t have been that bad. Though to be clear, the latter was more of a fleeting thought, a testament to our new-found happiness, not an actual desire not to have changed our flights. Even during those moments I would stop and consider, and three months still sounded too long.

The work became more enjoyable. We learned to avoid kitchen work at all costs—impossible really, since we usually got a mandatory dinner cooking shift at least once a week. But we didn’t volunteer for it anyway. Working in the kitchen here is a real drag. It totally sucks. But we volunteered for other jobs instead, like working in the forest.

At first, planting trees wasn’t very fulfilling. It just felt like moderately boring physical work. But gradually what we were actually doing began to sink in, and planting trees became both enjoyable and fulfilling. Hygiene was pretty good too. Hygiene is essentially cleaning the bathrooms, dealing with the compost toilets—the poop is composted and used to plant trees, and the pee is fermented and becomes ammonia. It’s actually pretty cool, though it does sound odd at first, if not sort of disgusting.

We went to an Indian wedding reception a couple of weeks ago. One of the police officers that guard the gate to Sadhana, or their driver or someone like that, was getting married, and the whole community was invited to the reception, which took place a couple of days after the wedding. (Indian weddings generally last for a few days). We got dressed up and went along with most of the community. It was located right down the road at this large sort of mansion-ish, colorful place. We sat in a wall-less room, watching the newlyweds pose for pictures with everyone that came. It’s traditional to give money at weddings here, so a group of people would go up and the photographers would snap a shot of someone in the group handing some money to the bride. This was a rather odd experience, since money tends to be so hush-hush where we come from, or at least in some respects. You certainly wouldn’t go up in front of a ton of people and present someone with a wad of cash. It was rather amusing when all forty or so people from Sadhana went up and took up the entire space posing for a picture.

After the photos, we made our way outside to these long tables where we were to be dining. We had to do it in shifts since there weren’t enough seats. The food was so good though. It was our first experience of authentic south Indian food. It’s cool, you get to eat with you hand—your right hand, since you use your other to wipe yourself when you go to the bathroom, though hopefully you wash it afterwards—and banana leaves are used for plates. The food is spicy, but it’s delicious. We ate rice, and curry, and these little fried cauliflower things. We left after the food, as that was pretty much the end of the event.

We went out for Liesl’s 19^th birthday too, to this place in Kuilapalayum with vegan pizza. A bunch of our friends came along, and it was altogether a very enjoyable evening, though this place that we were going to get a vegan brownie at was closed. That’s the thing about India, or at least the non-big-city parts of India, is that there’s zero nightlife. Everything closes at, uh, maybe 7 or so? The occasional place is open a bit later, but not much.

Liesl started giving weekly discussion-based workshops on LGBTQ, which have been going really well. She’s given five of them already.

So for this period of time, life at Sadhana Forest was not only bearable, but actually enjoyable. Then everything took a turn for the worse. It became apparent to us that pretty much everyone that we had been hanging out with up until this point was leaving. Over the course of a week, all of our friends left to travel more in India, and we quickly sunk into a glum mood. Mostly people left in twos or threes, but last Friday six of our friends left together. Since then we’ve been less than excited about our time here. I know, it sounds stupid, why don’t we just make new friends? But these were people we’d known for weeks, that had arrived roughly around the time that we had, and most people that are here now have just arrived. Not only is it kind of a drag to have to keep putting yourself out there to make friends, but it also seems slightly futile since we’ll only be around them for another week. Don’t get me wrong, there are still awesome people here that we like hanging out with, it’s just that it’s not the same as having a whole group of people to hang out with.

And of course, I've gotten sick again. Our trip was going so well in terms of illness until we came to India. This time I just have a sore throat and I felt really tired a couple of days ago, so it could be worse. But normally when you have a cold or whatever you have the option to just sit on the couch all day and watch movies, and we can’t do that here. I felt like total crap a few days ago, and it sucked. I’m feeling a lot better now.

Liesl must have been sick like five times since we've been here, the most recent time being a couple days ago. She's better now. And while the healing methods for colds and the like are okay, just some natural medicine if you want it, the way they deal with diarrhea here is just really stupid in my opinion. Firstly, they make you fast for as long as you can possibly stand it. Then, when you’re really hungry and you just have to eat something, all that you can eat is plain rice, or worse, rice water (just like it sounds, a few grains of rice in a bowl of water). This is supposed to help clear out your system, as opposed to fruits and vegetables and basically everything else, which supposedly makes the infection worse. What we've noticed from personal experience and from talking to people that have been sick, is that pretty much without fail, everyone gets better only when they say screw it, and start eating whatever the hell they want. Liesl did this a few days before me, and hence got better faster. I waited nearly a week, and then started eating properly, and was better the next day.

Not only is this healing method totally counterintuitive, but no one takes the time to explain to you why it’s supposedly the only way to get better. They say something about sugar, and tell you to keep drinking your revolting rehydration salts. These salts are poured into a couple liters of water, and taste both incredibly salty and incredibly sweet at the same time. They’re thoroughly vile. You also have to take natural medicine, which may or may not work, I don’t know. And as if all of this weren’t enough of an ordeal already, we found out about a week after we’d both gotten better, that we in fact had to pay for the medicine and things that we’d taken. It wasn’t that much, but someone could have told us that it cost.

The next time Liesl was sick, she told them that she was going to deal with it herself, and they literally would not let her. They made her take the medicine, and pay for it, and banned her from eating normal food. I snuck her some fruit though, so no worries, she didn’t die of starvation.

For a while though, every week there were at least a couple of people that were being carted off to the hospital because they were so ill. I heard from one person that went that the doctors said that not eating is not going to help you get better at all.

Also, when you think of going to India, you realize that it comes with the price of getting pretty ill at least once, but after talking to people here that had travelled around India before coming to Sadhana, the standard India illness is nowhere near as bad, and doesn’t last nearly as long as the Sadhana sickness. We’re pretty strict about hygiene here, so I don’t really know why this is. Maybe just because there are so many people living in one small space. There were 130 people here at one point, though it’s dwindled down to about 50 or so now.

The food here, which at first we really liked, has become boring and bland. We’ve literally had the same thing for lunch every day for the past two weeks. Mostly we’ve been surviving off of snacks that we buy in town and keep in our room.

I currently have a really gross wound on my ankle that has gotten infected, been cleaned, healed, and gotten infected again at least five times already. I’ve decided to just keep a bandage on it until I’m back in the US, because honestly, this is getting quite absurd. I think I got it from scratching a mosquito bite on my ankle. I had some other wounds on my feet from mosquito bites as well. Normally if you scratch a bug bite it gets bigger, but it eventually goes away. Here, if you scratch a bug bite, whatever bacteria that is in the environment gets into your skin and then you have a gross, puss-filled wound. It’s ridiculous, because it’s not as if I was scraping the skin off of my ankle. It wasn’t bleeding or anything, it was just like if you scratch your arm and the very, very top layer of skin sort of breaks a bit. You wouldn’t even notice normally.

And the mosquitoes are horrible, they’re relentless. They get in your bug net and buzz around you all night. Covering yourself with a blanket is the only way to deal with this, but it’s been so hot here, even at night, that this really isn’t a good option either. The flies are really bad too.

Liesl and I are both really excited to be leaving in a week, though we have appreciated and even sometimes greatly enjoyed our time here. I’ll probably post once more, maybe after we get back.

Thanks for reading that long post, those who did.

Stephanie

India

Again, there's too much to say. So I'm just going to say what I recall right now, get to the point, skip the fancy storytelling,

We had to wait in the airport forever for our flight, which was long. When we got to the Chennai airport, we had to wait for our bags for forever. The ATM didn't work for us. The airport was disorganized. We stepped outside into a horrible, all-engulfing, moist heat.

We found our driver and again, waited. He brought the car and drove us to our hotel. I don't mean any disrespect to the culture by what I say, this is simply my opinion, and India is just not for me. The streets of Chennai were absolutely filthy and revolting, piled with trash. Bone-thin cows and stray dogs lined the roads, and cars honked at them to clear the street.

The people we talked to at the hotel barely spoke English. They took us to a different hotel with no explanation. They didn't speak much English there either. They kept wanting to call us a cab, even though we'd already booked one. People have told us that we probably got ripped off.

The room was dingy, hot, full of mosquitoes. We felt horrible, anxious, worried, displaced. We couldn't sleep.

Our cab came in the morning, thankfully, and we drove the three hours to Sadhana Forest. It was dreadfully sunny. The way driving works here is everyone honks their horns at everyone else. It's quite headache inducing.

We got money at an ATM. When we arrived at our destination, some people said hello, but we didn't really know where to go. We eventually were shown around a bit.

There are no "indoor" buildings here. It's all huts, made of bamboo or something, and open on the sides. There are no regular toilets, just stalls with holes in the ground. No toilet paper, just water. There aren't regular showers or laundry facilities, just buckets to fill with water and soap and whatnot. There's nowhere with any privacy. Luckily we got the best dorm, I think. the "rooms" are just curtain partitions, and we have uncomfortable wood and rope beds that sag in the middle and rise on the ends. The pillows and mattresses are hard and lumpy. The blankets are rough. The floor is dirt. Other rooms on top floors just have beds on the floor. We all have mosquito nets around our beds, easily the best comfort feature. The main hut has cushions to sit on, but no matter how you position yourself, there is really no comfortable place to sit around here.

There are tons of bugs here. The first day or so. Liesl and I got so many mosquito bites, it was insane. Liesl had more than fifty bites on one of her legs. She also got ringworm a few days ago, and has to change her bandages all the time. It's really contagious, but it's not an actual worm, it's a fungus, so it's not quite as gross as it sounds. Liesl's mosquito bites are mostly better, but a lot of mine are still really itchy.

Flies constantly land on me, and I hate it. It tickles and flies are gross, and the flies here are totally relentless, they won't leave you alone. We saw this giant spider--the biggest non-tarantula spider I've seen in my life--in the forest while we were planting trees.

The forest isn't tall like our forest in Ireland, it's more shrubby.

The project does really great things for the world. They plant trees to regrow the depleted tropical dry evergreen forest here, they use solar energy, grow a bit of food...The food they serve here is very good, it's all vegan, and it's totally wholesome, not processed, no refined sugar. It's easily my favorite thing about this place. Everything they do here is very low-impact, environmentally, which Liesl and I totally support. But somehow, it's just...unpleasant.

During the first few days, Liesl and I both felt the same sort of roller-coaster emotions: part of the time we felt a horrible foreboding, and thought that there was no way that we could possibly stay here for three months. Then, for a spell, we would feel better, and think that three months was doable. Eventually our negative feelings prevailed, and we decided that there was no way that we could stay here for three months.

We went to Koot Road the second day, which smelled bad and didn't have anything of interest for me. I felt sick on the way back, and spent three hours or so lying in bed, restlessly tossing and turning, with horrible stomach cramps. I tried taking pills, but they didn't help. I eventually threw up and then I felt a lot better.

We arrived on a Friday, and there's no work on the weekends, unless you have a dinner-cooking shift or something. I was awakened in the night by incredibly loud, amplified music coming from three different temples nearby. It  was a reminder of just how far we are from the Western world...it lasts for multiple hours, and begins at maybe 3 a.m.

We wake up at 5:30 a.m. on weekdays to work. It's not as horrible as it sounds, because the singing from the temple has mostly woken you up by then, but it is early. The work includes cooking, cleaning the toilets, planting trees...most of it is about maintaining the facilities really.

I don't like work in the kitchen. Planting trees is better, but to be quite honest, it's not as fulfilling as you'd think. It's okay, it's just not rewarding really.

There are two work shifts; the first one ends around 8:30 and then we have breakfast. The second one ends around 12:30 for lunch. Ash and coconut husks are used to clean the dishes.

The rest of the day is free, unless you have a shift. There are workshops that people give, on whatever subject they want, yoga, making things, whatever. People make it sound like you're never bored here because there's so much to do, but honestly, unless you have the money and the desire to go into Auroville, or Pondicherry, or another place, the name of which I can't really pronounce, there's not much. We can't afford to go into town all the time, even though India is really cheap, and honestly, we don't have a great desire to go. Maybe we'll go once or something.

The days here are often hot: horribly, wretchedly, disgustingly hot. Sometimes is moderately cool though, I mean for India. It gets cold at night sometimes.

We've met some nice people here, but in general, we have not felt a connection to most people here, or to the community at large. There are a lot of people that we don't like, actually. The family that owns this place, that started the project, are disappointingly unlikeable. They were out of town when we got here, and they came back, never introduced themselves, and they barely participate in the community. I didn't even know who the family was for the first few days. Liesl only recognized them from the website.


There's a lot of diversity here, which is really cool. People from all over the world come here. It's kind of the opposite of our experience of Ireland in that way, and in many other ways, but somehow it's also very similar. Again, the duration of the stay seems unbearable. Again, we're sinking into a depression. But this time there are too many people: there's not privacy, which I hate. and the climate is not at all to my liking, and it's not pretty here to me. And this time, toughing it out does not seem doable.


The first thing that the guy that runs this place said to the community when we were here, was that Sadhana Forest is is really struggling financially, that they're in debt, and that they need donations, or at least would encourage us to ask our friends and family for money for them. While, like I said, we totally approve of the environmental work, neither of us felt compelled to take any action. Every day, the things that we don't like about this place accumulate. Every day we like this place less and less.

I realize that this is a big judgement to make without really having been to much of the country, but I can honestly say that I do not like India at all. Even though it's green here, I don't find it beautiful. It's hot, it's humid, and it's sunny almost all the time--in the south, that is. From what we saw of the city, that doesn't seem nice either. I can't really think of anything that I like about this country.

Another thing that is good about Sadhana is that there's this adorable little puppy that lives here. There are other cute dogs too; at some point they decided to take in stray dogs, only if they came here on their own, or followed someone here. I think they're hoping to make an animal shelter here, which is great. There's also Sadhana Forest in Haiti and one is coming soon to Kenya.

On Saturday night, I had horrible, uncontrollable diarrhea, and literally shit my pants multiple times in the night. I must have gone to the toilet six times. It was the worst diarrhea I've ever had. Liesl got sick in the night too, but she got cold, very, very cold. She was wearing my thick long underwear and sweatpants and layers on top and had two or three blankets and she was shivering. It wasn't that cold. She threw up and has also had diarrhea since then. People are very nice and helpful when you're sick; they've been taking care of us. I'm still sick. I was getting better, and then I had diarrhea again. I think Liesl is mostly better. Everyone gets sick in India. I was just hoping that I'd had my illness last week and that that was it.

Dinner on Saturday was the last real meal that Liesl and I ate, and I only ate a little, I wasn't hungry really. Probably because I was getting sick. Then we didn't eat anything until Monday at lunch, when we had some rice. We can't have fruit or some other things when we're sick, we can only eat plain things like rice. We didn't eat dinner or breakfast, but we ate some rice and mashed potatoes for lunch. It was so nice to eat something.

Now I'm afraid that if I leave Sadhana, go to Auroville or something, I'll get sick again. And I do not want to be sick again.

The whole time we've been here we've been missing somewhere else. For a while it was England, and our lovely house in Clapham. It felt like home. At times it's even been Ireland that we've missed. Liesl really misses camp. Now we miss San Diego. But changing our flights is so expensive that it makes the situation very difficult.

We've spent the last couple of days not really doing anything because we have been sick, mostly just talking about San Diego, and how much we wish we weren't here. I've been reading a lot. I finished one book and I'm close to be done with another. I'm happiest when I forget that I'm here, like when I'm reading. I don't want to be here for another minute, I hate it.

We don't know what our plans are right now, we're working on it.

That's all.

Stephanie

Lovely Times in London

Greetings from India,

It’s been a long time since my last post, and there’s so much to say. However, after the fact descriptions tend to be like leftover food: only good for so long. And so, I am not going to go into the usual detail with everything, particularly those things that we experienced in London. It was just too long ago, and I don’t want to spend hours and hours on this. I’d like to make it clear that this is in no way because I didn't enjoy London; I did. It was probably one of the best parts of our trip. So I’ll give a brief recap.

Our time is London was absolutely wonderful, it really was. Our house was great, we had the cutest cat in the world, and we got to hang out with Liesl’s awesome family. We went on a trip to Wales to retrieve Liesl’s guitar, and stayed in a guest house almost on the beach. We spent much of our time in Wales exploring old castles. I went properly inside a castle for the first time. We also went on a lovely and adventurous hike along a murky brown river surrounded by sort of tropical looking plants. We tried to meet up with our friend Jon in Bristol—you may remember him from our camping night in Castle Park in Bristol—but, sadly, it didn’t work out.

We did numerous fun things in London, including seeing two musicals, Rock of Ages, which was fun, and Billy Elliot, which was really good. We went to the Tower of London, and went inside this time, seeing the priceless crown jewels, which are quite exquisite. The royal family owns them. It’s crazy how excessively rich the monarchy is, really.

Liesl and I had not let go of our desire to go ice skating, so we went again to the Tower and went skating in the seasonal ice rink there. It’s in the place where the moat used to be, which was really cool. It was weird skating around, spinning in a circle only to find myself facing a huge castle. I kept forgetting it was there.

We went out to eat a lot, which was really nice. Oh, and we went on a tour of the Old Globe, a recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe, which was located somewhere nearby, and burned down during a play. They fired a cannon and, what do you know, the flammable roof caught fire and the wooden structure burned. We learned a lot of interesting things about the Globe, like how people used to say they were going to “hear a play” instead of see one. This is because plays used to be more about the language, so hearing the lines was enough. Because of this, sets were not very important, and were not frequently used.

New Year’s in London was great.  First of all, we cleared out our backpacks of all of the unnecessary things that we had with us, stuff that we no longer needed, and stuff that we hadn't used and wouldn't need. It was a beautiful experience, let me tell you. Liesl’s pack was so light, it was almost comfortable to carry. Mine was heavier, because I would be abroad longer, but it was still much lighter. Liesl cut my mohawk off, so I have short hair now. For the rest of the evening we just hung out at home, and watched some comedy on the telly until the fireworks starting. Let me tell you—and this is from the perspective of someone that has seen at least 18 firework displays in her life, every Independence Day—you have not seen fireworks if you haven’t seen these. It’s a great display, it’s so cool. Fireworks were actually kind of boring to me before this. It was really cool too, because we could sort of see them outside, too, though they were mostly obscured by trees. They were fired off/around the Eye of London, which is this giant ferris wheel near Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey.

It was so wonderful to spend time with the Oestreichers, and they took us to so many awesome places, we got to do many things that we wouldn't have been able to do without them. So Oestreicher family, thank you so, so very much for a great Christmas and a spectacular time in London.

I was nervous about India: the different culture, the fact that it’s a developing country, so different from the western world, the heat. But shortly before we left London, I did start to get very excited. Liesl was very excited for this all along, though she was worried about spicy food. I knew that the community we would be living in was all vegan, and didn’t allow drugs or alcohol, which was quite a relief for me. I’d never spent much time around people drinking large quantities before this trip, and it’s not an experience that I particularly enjoy. And while being a vegan in London is no problem, the ignorance about vegetarianism in Ireland was tiresome. Both Liesl and I were happily anticipating finally actually getting down to some serious volunteer work.

Our flight was at 6 a.m., and the family that lived in our London house was coming home late the night before. So we hung out at the house and got our stuff all packed up and watched a movie. I can’t emphasize enough how much I love being in London, and how totally comfortable I was living in whoever’s house we were in. It honestly felt like home, and I was sad to leave it.

Next up: India

Cheers,

Stephanie

Christmastime

Dear Universe,

I don't mean to be unpleasant, but I would like to demand a refund on three countries, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and England. (And probably Wales, too, for that matter.) There is simply to snow, none at all. Despite Liesl and my desires for a white Christmas, or at least a white day sometime while we're in this part of the world, the closest we've come is to actual snow is frost and a mildly frozen lake. It snowed in some places in the USA, which you may have noticed is considerably closer to the equator than here. I find this very unfair, and I would like a refund in one way or another please. Thank you.

Yours in sincere disappointment,

Stephanie

Hello Readers,

Happy Boxing Day!

...and Happy Christmas.

Boxing Day is one among many of the UK and Ireland's bank holidays, which means that lots of places are closed. Because of the union between church and state, everything is closed on Christmas, and Christmas Eve, and New Years for that matter. And I mean everything; the tube is closed, the buses stop running...you can't even get a flight within the country.

The last of our days in Ireland passed pleasantly enough, with the pinnacle of excitement being the day we spent hours outside playing with the ice that covered the top of the lake. Ah, the sheer joy holding breaking the glass-like surface the lake and pulling up a sheet of ice. The urge to lick the clear blocks of ice was irresistible--and resist it we didn't. I know it was gross lake water, but it just looked so clean frozen! And it tasted just fine. We tried so hard to stand on it, but it just wasn't quite thick enough, though it did get up to about two inches thick in some places. And just as it seemed that the lake might actually freeze enough to walk on--it would need to be at least three inches thick--it thawed. It was so cool though! We seriously spent hours playing with ice. We would break some off and throw it onto the lake. There were also little frozen puddles that were fun to step on.

One day we kayaked on the frozen lake, and that was awesome too. We had to thrust the paddles through the ice, cracking it, to move forwards. The shattered blocks of ice made clinking, musical sounds as we rowed through them. It was a little winter wonderland.

We had a Curry Night with our neighbors the night before we left, which was fun. The following morning, the 19th,  our hosts kindly drove us to the airport where we boarded a plane to London. I had very neatly written out all of the information that we might need to show to the officers at immigration--phone numbers, addresses, etc. We were sure that they would be suspicious of our reentering the country, what with our detainment and all.

When we got off the plane in London, we approached the desk for people with non-European passports, and produced our passports for the guy at the desk. He asked for our boarding passes, which we then produced, but he had no interest at all in looking at our passports. We were sure that we would have to go to some other place where we would need to show our passports, but strangely--amazingly--we didn't have to. An officer with a dog came up to us and asked where we had come from, Madrid? No, Ireland. She said okay and let us go on our way. That was it. No immigration, no waiting, no questioning, nothing. It was because we were coming from Ireland, which is so close we were later told. But when we got to Ireland from England in October we had to go through immigration, so we're not really sure why we didn't need to when doing the opposite. But hey, no complaints there! Well actually, just one: we were slightly put out at not being able to prove our newly-found organization and overall competence as travelers to immigration. Oh well.

Unfortunately, the Gatwick airport--though allegedly in London--is actually about thirty miles outside of London. We had to take an almost two hour bus ride--which, ridiculously, was longer than our flight--to get into central London, where we were staying with our friends Elena and Zoe in Harrow.

It is a testament to the absurd weight of our backpacks that, even now, nearly four months into our trip, I still crumble, physically and emotionally under the weight of my pack. And my sitting around phase in Ireland ending a long time ago. I was running and conditioning almost everyday, and I ran about six miles or so a couple of times, so this has nothing to do with my being in horrible shape or something. These backpacks are really and truly absolutely horrible. The best thing about them is that they inspire in us a sort of amusement at their ridiculousness, a humor that comes when you've passed the point of frustration and anger.

We've both decided that once we get back to the US we're going to sell our backpacks and maybe get some smaller ones. Personally I've grown to hate REI with their overrated, overpriced, mediocre-quality outdoor supplies. I guess it's mostly because of our stupid backpacks, but honestly, why on earth would anyone need a backpack that big? It's ridiculous. They should have suggested smaller ones for us, they should have known that no backpacker however experienced needs a pack that gigantic. Though we're not going to sell them right away--we're going to be sure to keep them around for long enough that anyone who questioned our decision to quit the Coast to Coast, and anyone that thinks I complain about the backpacks too much, can have a go at carrying one for a while. Fully packed, of course, as heavy as they have been for us.

Luckily though, we're giving some of our extra, unneeded stuff to the Oestreichers, whom we are currently living with in London, to take back to the States for us, so hopefully they'll be significantly lighter when we leave for India on the 3rd.

On the note of heavy things, Liesl and I went grocery shopping for all of us the day before the Oestreichers arrived. It was Christmas Eve, and the store was jam-packed The grocery store was only maybe half a mile away, but we ended up filling five bags with lots of heavy food and having to walk back carrying it. It sounds like not that big of a deal, but plastic really cuts off your circulation; it wasn't so much the weight, just the awkwardness of carrying grocery bags, though it was exacerbated by the weight. Also we'd just had to carry our packs around the day before. No rest for the weary I guess.

Once we'd set the groceries down at home--wherever we are currently living immediately becomes our new home--we went to Whole Foods. It is so, so fantastic to be in a vegetarian-friendly country again, after the cluelessness of Ireland. And Whole Foods is a wonderful, beautiful place. I must have applied for a job there (in San Diego) ten times by now. This one was small--not as small as most of the tiny health food stores here though--but it was still so nice to be in there. It smelled herbal, and had tons of wonderful healthy food. We walked around it for a while, taking in the loveliness, and then bought some things to make vegan cheesecake for Christmas dinner. This was seriously one of the best events of my week, and not at all because my week was boring; it wasn't boring at all.

It was nice to see our friends in Harrow again. They have this Christmas party on the tube every year, where a bunch of their friends get together and decorate a train car, and just generally spread Christmas cheer on the underground. We went to the party on Saturday, and it was really cool. It's was awesome seeing the usual normalnes of the subway turned upside-down by young people singing Christmas songs--different ones than we have in the US; Liesl and I weren't very familiar with them--and giving candy to fellow tube riders. The ride was really long, from one end of the northern line to the other and back again, and for some reason I've been getting a little motion sick on the tube lately, but it was a lot of fun.

London is a great place to be during Christmastime. While I feel that there could be more decorations around, there are quite a few, and people just generally seem very into Christmas here. It's proper to say "Merry Christmas" in shops here, I noted; in the USA "Happy Holidays" would be politically correct, though it's pretty clear that America is a heavily Christian country, and that it really doesn't respect any non-Christian holidays, such as, say, Hanukkah, which as far as I know is the only other major December holiday that one could be referring to when saying "Happy Holidays."

The house that we're staying at is in a beautiful part of London called Clapham. Clapham is the embodiment of classic modern London to me: the huge grassy, tree filled common, neat, row houses made of red bricks and wood painted white, elegant little shops lining the busy streets...it's just lovely, London, Clapham, England...I love it. I breathe a sigh of happiness every time I look out my fourth floor window at the perfect balance of buildings and nature coexisting in this city.

Yeah, the houses are four stories. That's quite a few stairs to climb! Our house is wonderful though, I like it a lot. We're basically borrowing someone's house while they're out of town.

I awoke at the unreasonable hour of 7 a.m. on Christmas, to the lovely sounds of rain falling on the house, and thunder rumbling. A Christmas storm. Well, if a white Christmas is out of the question, one can at least hope for a stormy Christmas. It's was very windy, and it lightninged (?) once. Liesl's family arrived around 9 a.m., once I'd fallen back asleep, and I went to let them in since Liesl--in her excitement to see them--accidentally closed the door, which locked, with the keys inside.

We had a present opening session by the Christmas tree, which was very nice. I got a bunch of nice stuff, including two books, which made me very happy, as I haven't really had a book to read in a while.We made Christmas dinner too, which was delicious. Christmas is just so wonderful, there's really no reason not to like it. Obviously the religious element has no appeal for me, but come on, a holiday where you get to give and receive a bunch of gifts? That's so awesome! Also, it just has such an absolutely wonderful mood, the Christmas season. It's full of joy, lights, decorations, food, good-smelling pine trees...what's not to love?


It's great seeing the Oestreichers, though it's kind of odd for Liesl and I being with people other than just each other, and seeing people in London that we only ever see in San Diego. But we're very excited to get to hang out with them for the next week, we're going to do a lot of fun things, including going to Wales tomorrow. The original purpose of that trip was to retrieve Liesl's guitar, but we're making a trip out of it, and we're borrowing someone's house that's right by the sea...it should be lovely.

I went for a run in the park today in the rain. My first run in London! Ah, I just love it here...I didn't mind a bit that the sounds of the city drowned out the sound of my music, it was just so good to be back in civilization, and in my favorite city.

Cheers!

Stephanie

Belfast

You never know when a certain day is going to be of particular significance in your life. September the 7th, 2011, was such a day for Liesl, and possibly more potently for yours truly.

It was the first day of our senior year of high school. We were driving in my mom's car, myself at the wheel and Liesl in the passenger seat, on the way to a Rancid concert in Anaheim. I'd seen them twice already, but this would be Liesl's first time.

While, technically speaking, Liesl and I knew each other fairly well, having gone to school together for five years at this point, we weren't particularly close friends. We were friendly, had a mutual interest in punk music, and I had a driver's license and car to use.

I remember specifically that we were driving through that long stretch of coast that is Camp Pendleton: ocean on the left, chaparral on the right. We hadn't yet come to that funny structure that looks like a giant golf ball when we entered into a conversation about plans for next year.

This was quickly becoming a depressing subject for me, having little to no aspirations in my life other than getting the hell out of that hell-hole under the innocuous name of high school. When Liesl asked what I was planning on doing next year, my heart sank, and I replied dejectedly that I had no idea. I may have mentioned some feeble hopes of having a job, and getting my own place, more for the sake of something to say than because of any real convictions I had about this. I knew that I was absolutely not going to college, but I didn't know what I was going to do.

I asked what her plans were, she began talking about how she was going to apply to some colleges that she was interested in, but that she really wanted to take a gap year before going to school. But she said that in order for her to get deferred enrollment, she would need to be doing something that a university would think was a good use of her time, like doing volunteer work, rather than just sitting around for a year.

She said that she wanted to travel abroad and volunteer. It would probably be way better to go with another person though, she said, rather than travelling alone. I asked about her best friend and our fellow classmate Emily, and Liesl said that Emily couldn't abandon dance for that long, and even if she wanted to do that, as her friend, Liesl wouldn't let her throw all of her hard work away.

On sudden inspiration it seemed, Liesl said that maybe we could go together, since she wanted a travel partner and I didn't have any plans. That sounded good to me, and I accepted right away; it sounded a lot better than freaking out about potentially having a dead-end life, plus travelling would be fun, and Liesl and I got on well.

So there you have it. That was the inception of our trip. What followed was a totally sick Rancid concert at the House of Blues in Anaheim, which was, funnily enough, basically part of Disneyland. It was in Downtown Disney I think, outside the park. Odd place for a punk show, eh?.

Fast forward one year, two months, twenty-one days and 5,157 miles to Mandela Hall, Belfast, on the 28th of November, 2012, where our trip came full circle.

Liesl had spiked my hair with some expert backcombing and three rounds of hair spray for the show. Little did I realize that not only would I not be washing the hair spray out of my hair for four more days, but that I would actually be adding more every day up until that point. (We had again forgotten to brings towels on this small trip, just like in Dublin).

This was our first experience seeing an American band--a band from California, actually--in a foreign country. It was a great show, and one of the two vocalist/guitarists, Tim Armstrong, had an awesome beard that immediately reminded Liesl and I of Mark's beard. (We think that we may be developing a sort of telepathy).

It was odd, I thought to myself, hearing the crowd singing along to songs--such as one of my personal favorites, Journey to the End of the East Bay--with lyrics paying homage to places that most of them had probably never been before. I've been to the San Francisco Bay area recently, so I had some firsthand conception of what the East Bay was like. It was sort of a backwards experience, actually, because I'm used to listening to songs by British bands that mention places I've never been. Well, actually I've been to London now, which is a common reference.

Liesl was really excited because she found two hats during a show. However, neither of us can really wear hats...

...So we didn't keep them.

We spent most of our time in the city walking around and shopping. Belfast is nice city, and like Dublin, it was decorated for Christmas. We'd written down a list of things to do in the city but it was left at home, and somehow we just sort of edged away from doing the prescribed tourist things. I guess after travelling for a while you just kind of get tired of the famous this, and the renowned that. We just wanted to be in a city, with people, and lots of Christmas decorations and walk around. So that's what we did.

We did see Queens University though--the concert venue was an extension of it I think--and it was lovely. It looked sort of similar to Parliament in London. We also took a quick spin through the Ulster museum, seeing an Egyptian mummy that still had hair.

Look, it's Liesl next to a mural of the characters of The Big Lebowski!:

I got some CDs, and both of us got Christmas sweaters, thought we were severely disappointed to find that ugly/tacky/overly-Christmasy sweaters, ties, and boxers are not a thing here. It was appalling, really, coming from a place where thrift stores put up large signs to advertise their ugly Christmas sweaters. But we both found more subtle Christmas sweaters that we liked:

Our plans for staying with someone in Belfast for free had fallen through not far from the last minute, so we ended up staying in a hostel. Again. Our hostel, Paddy's Palace, had very mixed reviews when we checked it out online, but it was cheap, and we're both on a tight budget, so we stayed there. It was definitely sketchy. One of the two front doors had a strange, tape covered handle in the middle of it on the back side, and all of the bathrooms had broken doors, locks, or toilets. It was also just about as cold in the common areas as it was outside, and it was freezing outside. When we left, we asked for some tape to close a box of rice that we'd bought, and they couldn't find tape, so they put a couple of bandaids on it. That should give you a feel for the place. But the beds were comfortable, and it was in a decent location.

The bus rides to get from Athboy to Belfast and back were very long. I noticed, looking out the window of the bus to Dublin, where we would get a connection to Belfast, that this country has an astounding number of low, grey stone walls. Really, they're everywhere. I think they generally divide fields. These definitely contribute to the ancient vibe this country gives off. Maybe some of these walls are modern, but I tend to associate them with, say, Medieval times, or earlier.

I had my three year vegan anniversary during this short trip to Northern Ireland, and we'd tried to go to a vegan restaurant but it didn't exist. It was the only vegetarian restaurant in Belfast too, so that was a fail. Ireland is beautiful, but I have to say, I'm very excited to go back to England where vegetarians are not alien beings. We're hoping that Christmas ties and Christmas boxers might be more common there as well.

The night after we got back from our trip, we found out that there was a sort of riot in Belfast, at city hall. The Union Flag--the flag of the whole United Kingdom--used to be hanging from the building 365 days a year. But a new measure was just passed that limited the number of days that this flag could be flown to only fifteen days per year. The Loyalists--those loyal to the Crown, also known as Protestants--were enraged by this decision, and forced entry into city hall. A few people were hurt, and there was some property damage. We saw a short news report of this, and it looked really intense. Both of us sort of wished that we were there for this; it's just such a novel thing to us, being in a country where these sort of riots aren't uncommon. I don't think that stuff really happens in the Republic though, just in the North.

So here we are, back at home in our flat. It rained last night, and all day yesterday. Something that Liesl and I have noticed is that people in this part of the world are constantly complaining about the weather, and emphasizing how much it rains. It honestly hasn't rained that much during our trip. Sure, more than it ever does in Southern California, but still not that much. It's usually just a drizzle, too. It actually rained for real yesterday. It even hailed a bit. It was evening, and Liesl looked up at the pitch black sky through our skylight--we have three; I guess they compensate for our other windows being near the floor--and said, "It's hailing!" There was a slight pause, then we both jumped up, grabbed our coats, hurriedly stepped into our shoes and dashed outside. It was so great, I love weather.

When we were in Belfast, we looked for Advent Calendars, but none of them had vegan chocolate. So I came up with an idea for an unconventional Advent Calendar. We wrote down one activity to do each day for the rest of our stay in Ireland, and we cut them into strips and put them in a mug. We draw one everyday, and execute whatever activity it says to do. We have: played hide and seek in the forest, had a picnic, hung out in the Big House, and procrastinated and doing gymnastics, since it was too wet outside. This is a great way to make December more fun. It's perfect, because you can tailor it to your life. Here, we don't have as many Christmas-related activities that we can do--sadly, both of the pianos in the Big House are broken, so we can't even have a Christmas song jam-a-thon, though we do listen to Christmas music pretty much everyday. However, we have a great facility to use, so most of our things are outdoorsy. Today Liesl and I will be: climbing a tree. Sweet.

Cheers,

Stephanie

Thanksgiving

Greetings,

Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances sometimes arise, and I was not able to blog about Thanksgiving as soon as I'd planned too, so I'm doing it now, a little after the fact.

Liesl and I had already invited John and Robin, our hosts and distant neighbors, and Jill and Martin, our across-the-courtyard neighbors, to Thanksgiving a while before we'd gone to Dublin. When we returned, we went shopping for ingredients, found the recipes that we needed, and cleaned and rearranged our house. We spent a few hours cooking on Thanksgiving, and it was actually kind of stressful, though I think this was exacerbated by the fact that our lives here are so strangely free of the stresses of everyday life. But, for the most part, everything worked out in the end.

I think that Thanksgiving is great. A holiday based on gratitude and food? Um, yes. Now I know that if we look at it historically we see a union between the settlers and the immigrants that seems laughably pathetic in lieu of the fact that the colonists soon proceeded to massacre Native Americans after this. I'm a little fuzzy on American history--I was bored to death by it during school, for the most part--but I do know for sure that at some point after Thanksgiving, the relationship between the settlers and the natives was distinctly less than harmonious. But anyway, it's still nice to have a holiday about thankfulness.

Everything we made was vegan, except one dish that was just vegetarian. We could see that our neighbors were a bit apprehensive about eating a vegetarian Thanksgiving meal, but they sportingly tried our paradoxically unusual and traditional food. We had pumpkin pie, apple pie, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, etc.

It was interesting celebrating an American holiday in another country with people that are not Americans. Well, actually Robin is orginially from the US, and she's had Thanksgiving here before, but she wasn't planning on doing it this year.

This is all of us except for John, who is taking the picture.

The meal was very delicious and our guests seemed to enjoy it too. But possibly the highlight of Thanksgiving for Liesl and I was the social aspect. Our neighbors are very nice, and it was so thoroughly enjoyable just to converse with other human beings. Martin told us of some very interesting and bizarre pagan celebrations that take place in various small towns in England, most of which seemed to be of unknown origin and which included dressing up in strange attire and spending most of the day dancing.

We primarily ate Thanksgiving leftovers for the next few days.

One morning, shortly after Thanksgiving, I awoke and went out into our living room and glanced out the window. Everything was covered in white. Amazed, I looked more closely to see that it was actually frost and not snow. However, this was still very exciting for me, so I quickly went outside to check it out.

Everything was coated in frost. The grass crunched under my shoes, and I left distinct green tracks across the lawns.

 On a sudden inspiration, I trudged over to the side of the lake to find that the body of water was in fact, somewhat frozen. Sheets of ice covered it, making it look white in the places where it was thickest. I'm not sure if the whole thing had ice on it or not, but sadly, it definitely would have held the weight of a person.

There are two swans that live in the lake. Have I mentioned that before?

Per my recommendation, Liesl went out to look at the frost when she woke up as well. She found some puddles that were frozen, where you could break off a chunk of ice and throw it onto a larger frozen puddle and watch it shatter spectacularly.

From this point on--and actually long before this for me--we have wanted it to snow here, and the lake to freeze properly, with a burning passion. Unfortunately, it normally doesn't snow here or in England until January, so in all likeliness we will miss out on the snow. Which makes me very, very upset. I hope that England has snow in April.

This brings us to an important point, an announcement really, which is that Liesl will be returning to the US in April, and I will be continuing on to England for the months of April and May. My friend Melody may join me in May. The reasons for Liesl's early departure are mostly financial, though she is also excited to go back to San Diego and see her friends and family sooner than May. India is the part of this trip that she is most excited about, so she'll be leaving right after our stay in India. I'm actually kind of excited to have a short solo trip, I think it'll be fun.

Also, thanks to Mark, Liesl not only has her flight back to the US booked, but we both have a flight to London for December 19th and our India visas! It's going to be so exciting spending Christmas in London.

This is what many of the trees in Ireland look like without leaves.

Liesl thinks they look like lungs; they do, they look like the bronchioles. A very fitting metaphor for a tree, really, a lung. They do look animate, the trees. I think they look as though they were thrashing around like the Whomping Willow in Harry Potter, but got frozen into place.

Up next: our recent trip to Belfast.

Cheers,

Stephanie