silent attacking blue jays

the week in pictures

2012-01-26T04:44:00.000-08:00

of 83 photos i discreetly snapped from the back of a motorcycle while speeding down a dirt road at 85kph, this is the one that kind of turned out.

the start of my herb garden.

this is my new sigiri, the coal stove the locals cook on. sitting outside, cooking with my neighbors has become my new favorite evening pastime.

my first lesson on the sigiri with a girl named kevin.

rwanda in 80 seconds

2012-01-26T03:26:00.000-08:00

a small post on a small jaunt in kigali. after a week in this beautiful and refreshing city, somehow the vast majority of footage i left with was shot in transit: on a bus or from the back of a motorbike taxi. so here you have the rwanda drive-by.

buy some beads

2011-12-17T05:54:00.000-08:00

africanpromisefoundation.org

papertopearls.org

first harvest

2011-12-13T05:24:00.000-08:00

fruit trees in my yard: mango, avocado, passion fruit, and three orange trees. you can't see them so well in the photo, but there are neighbor kids in the tops of those trees snagging the high fruit for me because i refused to get up there myself. if you saw the monster spiders that hang out up there, you'd hire some 7-yr-olds too.

rocks

2011-11-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

weekend trip to the site of an old arab fort.

be cool

2011-10-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

first pictures

2011-10-20T04:33:00.000-07:00

with my FIRST EVER digital camera. thanks, padres.

C6H12O6--in a can.

Pretty sure I've seen that slogan on a Utah plastic surgeon's billboard.

Matted, framed, hung on the wall in the restaurant foyer.
Ate here nevertheless.

Because Africa was so much fun the first time...

2011-10-17T04:18:00.000-07:00

...but mostly because I already had all the necessary shots, I decided to move back.

"say hi to your mother for me"

2011-10-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

Austin City Limits '09

2009-10-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

For my birthday this year, Jeff Clark, a.k.a. “Lev the Lion,” bought me a three-day pass to this year’s Austin City Limits. This wildly fantastic music extravaganza has been an annual production of the weird and spectacular city of Austin for 30+ years. I flew into Wichita from LA, and Jeff and I road-tripped it from there. We joined thousands upon thousands of fellow peace-loving music worshippers in a celebration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of rock ‘n’ roll. The concert lineup included headliners Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band, as well as phenomenal festival rockers such as Flogging Molly, Ben Harper, DeVotchka, Blitzen Trapper, !!!, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and State Radio, among many many others.

Turns out though, in spite of our excitement for this event, Jeff and I are terrible concertgoers. Austin weather pulled a fast one on us and, needless to say, we were completely unprepared. The first day, we both got completely burned from standing out in the sun all day. The next morning, as we were lining up to board the shuttle, we laughed at the pansies buying ponchos from vendors. An hour later it was pouring, and it didn’t stop till late in the evening. We seemed to be the only ones without some kind of rain gear and after spending most of the day soaking wet and cold, we eventually begged a trash collector for some extra bags. Still, Flogging Molly in the rain and mud (pre-trash bags) was awesome.

I have to say, ‘though the fish tacos were amazing, as far as number one highlight of the weekend, Dave Matthews Band takes the cake. Their performance absolutely blew my mind. I heard one guy say he’d seen DMB play 17 times and this was hands down the best set he’d seen them do. Jeff’s also seen them play a couple times and he said the same. As a first time witness to the live brilliance of a truly incredible jam band, I can’t imagine it any better than it was. They played plenty of their good old material and threw in a cover of “Burnin’ Down the House” (someone told us afterwards that David Byrne is from Austin, but our sources tell us that's a lie and that Dave just played the song 'cause he wanted to). It was the final show of a long tour and they were just so on. Tim Reynolds tore it up, Dave was in a super dancey mood, and Carter wowed the crowd with a five-minute drum solo as they wrapped up their set with a twenty-minute version of “Two Step.”

The Month of June, Part V: Yerevan

2009-09-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

Emilie and I spent our first day in Yerevan exploring the city, which really just meant boarding random city buses and finding ourselves lost over and over again. Mostly, we spent the day reveling in the fact that we were finally in Armenia. Just by chance, we ran into some LDS missionaries on the street and were invited to attend the 10-year anniversary celebration of LDS missionaries in Armenia and Georgia, which was taking place that afternoon. It turned out to be a very spiritual experience. We met some amazing local people, watched a few presentations on the history of the country and the Church, and ate lots of cake.

Almost every morning in Yerevan, I took a walk across the aging Victory Bridge over the Hrazdan River in the shadow of the city’s renowned Ararat cognac factory. Aside from a few rainy moments, the weather was awesome, and the bridge offered an unobstructed view of Mount Ararat on the horizon. The city of Yerevan has been rebuilt nicely over recent years and can be very charming in certain areas. But, of course, it was out in the countryside where we experienced the stunning beauty of Armenia.

The purpose of the Armenia trip was to do a story for LDS news outlets on LDS Charities’ clean water project in the region. The current project, once completed, will provide clean water to about 40,000 people in 14 villages. (I’ll post the article I wrote here as well.) During the week that Emilie and I spent in the country, I was able to spend three days with the Blotters (the LDS humanitarian missionaries overseeing the project) and Nshan (the chief engineer involved in the project, a local Armenian) out in the countryside visiting the various villages involved in the project, and meeting the mayors and people of the villages. It was such a fantastic experience, and to be able to interact in that way with these people living in the remote parts of the country made my stay in Armenia one of the definite highlights of the entire summer.

Plus, never, till this summer, did I know that I had never tasted a real apricot before. The difference between an Armenian apricot and the imposter fruit we get here in the States is like the difference between tiramisu and a twinkie.

One of the highlights of the Yerevan stay was our visit to the Armenian Genocide memorial. I had never learned much about the Armenian Genocide until I read Samantha Power’s A Problem From Hell a couple years ago. Between 1914 and 1918 at least 500,000, and possibly as many as 1.5 million, Armenians were killed by the Turks. The museum was very informative and the reverence of the memorial grounds was moving. The beautiful monument stands on a hill overlooking the city, a giant spike piercing the sky. In my mind it stood as an ominous warning of man’s inhumanity to man, a somber reminder that this vicious tendency towards malice and barbarity has played itself out on such a large scale time and time again, even in recent history.

The Month of June, Part IV: Akhaltsikhe to Yerevan

2009-09-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

We awoke in Akhaltsikhe to find that the majority of the buildings in the town had electricity again. I ran across town to a bank with an ATM and was able to withdraw some local currency to pay for our hotel and the bus ride to Yerevan. We called the old cab driver from the day before and made our way to the bus station, where we boarded an 18-passenger van for the four-hour drive to Tbilisi.

Forty minutes into the ride, in the middle of the Georgian countryside, the driver began to yell loudly at no one in particular and we pulled quickly to the side of the road. Most of the passengers filed out to stand on the curb and light a cigarette. Emilie and I sat and watched as our driver pulled out the spare tire from under our bags in the back.

We didn’t have too much time to explore Tbilisi, as our main objective was to get to Yerevan by the following day. But we did see quite a bit of the big, bustling city through bus windows, although Emilie and I quickly found that getting around on buses is more difficult than it should be. The ticket machines on the buses cost 40 tetri (the equivalent of cents) and only take exact change. We had a really hard time trying to find anyone who would give us change for the big bills the ATM gave us, and ended up mostly riding around town without paying.

We finally found a van at the train station that was making the trip to Yerevan in a couple hours, left our bags on our seats and ran to find some food. It was then that I remembered that I didn’t yet have the required visa for Armenia.

At that point a little bit of panic set in. Emilie was better prepared and had purchased her visa online before she left the States. The electronic version of the Armenian visa can be printed and stapled into the passport. We ran down the streets of downtown Tbilisi, stopping anyone willing to speak either Russian or English, to ask for the nearest internet café.

After growing more and more frantic, as our time was growing short and no one seemed to know where we could access the internet, we stumbled upon a small sign no bigger than a single sheet of paper, that said “Internet” with an arrow pointing to the building’s entrance. We climbed the stairs of the seemingly abandoned building with some trepidation, doubtful that an internet café was hidden somewhere in its concrete rooms. But sure enough, behind an old wooden door, rows of preadolescent kids sat playing violent video games while yelling across the room at each other. We asked the woman in charge if we could print something from the internet and she agreed to let us use her personal computer.

Our next wave of panic came when we realized that the visa was not issued for five days after the application was submitted. I had paid the $60 fee, but would have no visa until four days after I had agreed to meet the Blotters in Yerevan. I decided to print the receipt anyway and try my luck with the Armenian border guards.

The six-hour bus ride from Tbilisi was hands down the worst bus ride I have ever been on (that is, the worst comfort-wise. The 36-hour bus ride from Chisinau to Prague takes the cake as far as length of misery). That includes a ride through a jungle in Ghana, cruising at 70 mph down a road riddled with potholes. That drive, which left every passenger covered in a thick layer of red dirt, was the equivalent of a pleasure cruise compared to this route. And Emilie and I did it twice, to Yerevan and then back to Tbilisi a week later. The roads are so bumpy that there is never a moment when you are not bouncing several inches off your seat. And there are moments when you unavoidably hit your head on the roof of the van. There is no way to hold yourself down, take a nap, or do much of anything besides stare out the window and try not to become carsick as the vehicle winds its way up the perilous mountain paths that seem all too precariously built into the side of the cliffs. That aside, the scenery is gorgeous.

Emilie and I decided that our best chance at my technically illegal entry into Armenia was to claim ignorance. We would pretend like we didn’t know each other (really an absurd trick given that we were the only two foreigners on the bus) and I would go through the customs line well before she did to have a chance to plea my case and claim the website to be unclear and ambiguous. It was neither, but the electronic version of the visa was new enough that it caused some confusion among the border guards. They liked that I had the $60 receipt and that I spoke Russian, and after 30 minutes of debating amongst themselves and sending me to different booth windows, they finally let Emilie and me both through.

The driver of our van agreed to take us to a cheap motel he knew of on the outskirts of Yerevan. We pulled down a dark alley at about 1 a.m. and the driver pounded loudly on the door until the motel owner woke from his sleep and led us to our concrete room. The facilities were Spartan, but sufficient. We adjusted the rabbit ears on the black and white television in the corner until we could hear CNN broadcast through the static, and fell asleep happy to feel connected to the outside world, yet excited for the adventures of Yerevan.

The Month of June, Part III: Istanbul to Akhaltsikhe

2009-09-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon, Emilie and I boarded a bus to Kars, a small city in the East of Turkey. We were somewhat apprehensive about the twenty-something hour-long bus ride along the northern half of the country after we realized that outside the touristy area of old downtown Istanbul almost no one speaks any English. But after being served cookies and Cokes and being doused repeatedly with what we came to refer to as “holy oil,” we decided this was probably the best bus ride we’d ever been on. And the scenery was breathtaking.

We arrived in Kars the next day and began our search for a bus to Posof, a town near the Georgian border. Our destination was Armenia, but given the on-going and current strain in the relationship between Turkey and Armenia, the border between the two is closed. So we had to go around. After several frustrating attempts at overcoming the language barrier and then wandering aimlessly around Kars, we somehow managed to secure ourselves seats on a passing bus on its way to Posof. It was the beginning of a string of amazingly lucky events that got us all the way to Yerevan.

Passing into the mountains and into the tiny border town of Posof was one of the most picturesque legs of our journey. Then, after chugging slowly up a steep incline and pulling into the driveway of a small shop, we exited the bus into the pouring rain. A middle-aged man with his young son agreed to drive us to the Georgian border for a few dollars. We raced along the narrow hillside road higher and higher up the mountain, occasionally stopping for a picture moment or a slowly moving herd of cows.

We reached the border checkpoint in the early evening to find the place completely empty and seemingly deserted. We wandered from booth to building searching for an idea of where to get our passports stamped. We might have just walked straight through without talking to anyone if not for our fear of being shot in the back of the head by an invisible sniper. Finally someone spotted us through a window and called for us to approach the building for inspection. The rain continued to pour and our clothes were completely soaked through as we stood outside waiting for the border guards to finish with our passports. At last we were given the go-ahead and made our way to the Georgian side.

The Georgian side of the border was equally deserted and we felt even more lost and confused as to where we were supposed to go. Shivering from the rain, our desperate search for shelter led us to a large barn at the end of a gravel road. As we shook dry and started to think this might be a decent place to hide for the night, we noticed a shed with a window lit at the edge of the inside of the barn. We wandered closer and a gruff border patrol guard emerged. He began muttering something in Georgian, then switched to broken English, and finally I interjected a quick, “Do you speak Russian?” “Of course!” he said. And then we were best friends. We filled out a couple forms, got our passports stamped, and then were quickly ushered into a warm room where we joined three other border patrol guards to watch soccer on soft couches and chat about Georgian politics. They called a taxi for us from the nearest village, but we spent nearly an hour hanging out with the border patrol till our ride arrived. As we loaded our bags into the cab, one of the border guards asked if it was a guitar I was carrying around in my big bag. I said it was, and he said, “Aw, I wish I’d noticed it earlier. We could have played some tunes!”

We bounced along the muddy road to Akhaltsikhe and received a history lesson on the region from our 76-yr old cab driver who spoke in a strange Georgian-Russian gibberish. As we entered the town, it became apparent that none of the shops or buildings had any electricity running. The power had been shut off to the town for the day. Our driver took us to the one guesthouse that had a generator running so that we could have a working light bulb and a warm meal. The host that greeted us at the door led us to our room and told us dinner would be ready downstairs in two hours. The bare walls of our room were eerily marked with droopy pale crosses and the shower water was cold, but other than that, we were just thrilled to have a place to eat and fall asleep.

The Month of June, Part II: Istanbul

2009-09-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

Emilie and I arrived in Istanbul on the morning of the 10^th of June. We had no idea where we were going to stay, but were able to find an information desk and receive directions to the “touristy” part of town. We climbed the hill from the train station completely enthralled just by the fact that we were actually in Turkey and really had absolutely no idea what to expect from this place. Besides the hairs that Emilie found on her hostel bed sheets, I don’t think there was a single thing we didn’t like about our stay in Istanbul. And we have at least 115 new Turkish friends, as the host of each restaurant we passed was quick to call out, “My friends, my friends. I have some good food for you.” Of course, you had to pay, but the food was definitely there for us if we had the resources. We quickly came up with clever strategies for politely denying the host’s offers, but eventually had to use distraction tactics to get ourselves away from the over-friendly recruiters. As we politely said no to one such man and continued to walk down the street, he called after us in a pleading tone but with a harsh Turkish accent, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey.”

I could not get over the beauty of the many mosques spread throughout Istanbul. If you are not used to the architectural style and the colossal size of so many of these structures, the mosques are endlessly impressive and thrilling. The reverent spirit of devotion, humility, and faith that we witnessed in the prayer rooms was striking and unique. The museums were great, the parks were great, the people were great, the food was great, the markets were okay, the Turkish syrupy doughnuts were great, but the mosques—the mosques were awesome.

On our last day, we took an afternoon ferry ride out to Princes Islands. The scenery and view of the city was gorgeous as we crossed the water, sitting with our feet up at the front of the boat, staring at the mosques silhouetted on the hill, and watching the ferry staff carry platters of Turkish tea around to all the passengers. The island we decided to explore only allows horses or bicycles for transportation, and the resulting contrast in atmosphere with that of the big city was stunning. But after Emilie was attacked by bugs and, inadvertently, a man with knives, we decided to head back to the familiarity of our Istanbul hostel and “friends.”

[Our day's supply of Coca Cola rolling by.]

The Month of June, Part I: Chisinau to Istanbul

2009-09-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

Shortly after last November’s Mason Jennings show, Emilie and I went our lonely separate ways and ended up not talking for more than five months. Then, at the end of April as I was getting ready to leave for Russia, to the astonishment of some and the “I-told-you-sos” of others, we reconnected. We stayed in touch as I trekked across the Trans-Siberian and throughout the month of May, and then, as her plans to be a nurse for the summer among Australian Aborigines were slowly dispelled, we decided she should come for an Eastern European adventure. She flew into Chisinau at midnight on the last day of May and I made it there in time to find her wandering through the train station in the morning.

The original plan had been to meet in Moscow, take a train down to Sochi, and then on to the Georgian coast, and eventually Armenia. I had scheduled to visit certain villages of Armenia in the middle of June to see the LDS Charities Clean Water projects and do a story on the Church’s humanitarian efforts in the region. But as Emilie unexpectedly ended up in Budapest and amazingly managed to make her way to Chisinau, we decided we’d skip the Sochi trip and stay in Moldova for a week before heading the long way around the Black Sea to Armenia.

The real adventure began when we boarded an overnight bus to Bucharest. We didn’t really know what we were doing except that we wanted to get to Istanbul. The bus ride across Romania wasn’t unlike other bus trips I’d been on, but Emilie ended up sleeping most of the way with her head in the aisle and feet up on the window. Our bus must have been the luxury cruiser because it featured a small TV in the front (that played an Eddie Murphy movie in Romanian) and got us to Bucharest two hours ahead of schedule. After wandering the streets desperate for some breakfast, we found the train station and immediately bought tickets for an Istanbul train in the early afternoon.

The scenery of the Bulgarian countryside was stunning and it felt horrible to be merely passing through without the time to stop and explore for a week or two. I’ve promised myself a return trip to Bulgaria sometime in the near future. Our one Bulgarian experience involved a creepy train stop in the late evening, three scrappy-looking dudes repeatedly peering into our train compartment, an enthusiastically helpful transvestite named Evelyn, and an angry Turkish train conductor that emphatically insisted that if we wander by ourselves in these parts, we would surely end up dead. Definitely a place I need to revisit.

Since this account is more of a summary of what we did, I’ve left out most details and little stories of things that happened. But the story of how Emilie and I crossed the border into Turkey is worth telling. When we boarded the train to Istanbul, we made an assumption, based on previous train experiences, that there would be a dinner car or onboard vendors or some means of getting something to eat on the way to Turkey. No such luck. Not only were we super hungry, we desperately needed water. Luckily, the car attendant was a friendly man and by agreeing to read the Turkish tourist brochures he gave us, we quickly got in on his good side.

As we continued to gripe to him about absence of food and lack of stops long enough to jump off and find something to eat, he casually invited into his coupe. From his own stash of goods, our car attendant had prepared plates of carefully cut pieces of tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and bread with two tall glasses of mango juice. We were, in turn, shocked, delighted, overwhelmed, and endlessly grateful. An hour later came the return favor. The attendant, a middle-aged Turkish man with a bushy moustache, came into our compartment and closed the door behind him. He refused to sit, but instead guarded the window to the hallway with his back. He explained slowly and in a hushed tone how Emilie and I were going to buy him whisky (he was very specific about brand, proof, and size) at the Duty Free shop on the Turkish border. Turkish law only allows each person to bring a certain number of liters of alcohol across the border, so Emilie and I were to aid him in his smuggling. He thrust the money into my hand and left as Emilie and I sat staring, debating whether this was such a good idea.

We got to the border at about two in the morning and immediately realized that neither of us had enough money to buy the $20 visa to enter Turkey. We scrambled, dug through bags, pockets, bunk mattresses, and came up about three Euros short each. While others were standing in line at customs, we ran around the train station looking for an ATM, but everything was closed and we were told the closest ATM was in the city, however many miles away. Finally, after intense deliberation, we reached the point of completely justifying using the whiskey money. Our smuggling friend was nowhere to be found, but we decided to go for it anyway. Miraculously, he had given us just enough money to buy all the whisky he wanted from the Duty Free shop and to have change enough left over to get our vises—three extra Euros apiece. At about 3:15 a.m., Emilie and I happily boarded the train into Turkey with our new Turkish visas and two liters of J & B whisky in each hand.

my new friend...

2009-07-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Domo, you crazy orc-killing warlord, for being the best thing that happened to me that last week of July.

Kitezh: a legendary village becomes a real-life dream

2009-07-15T03:19:00.000-07:00

My first week back in Moscow after the Trans-Siberian trip, was spent mostly trying to track down a mysterious and elusive NGO that had previously agreed to participate in my research, but now was seemingly playing hard-to-get or was possibly no longer in existence. When my fruitless detective work became too frustrating, I escaped the city to explore a couple of the ancient towns that make up the “Golden Ring” to the East of Moscow. The fresh air, 800-yr old churches, and home-cooked borsch felt refreshing after a week in the monstrous capital of Russia.

The following week, I decided to head out to Kitezh where my friend Elisa’s older sister, Cory, has been living for the summer. I caught a ride with an 18-yr old kid who was making money off bussing people out to Kaluga in his dad’s minivan. He made the three-hour drive in two and dropped me off at the bus station where I waited for a minibus to take me another two hours to Baryatino. From there it was a taxi ride out to the tiny, isolated village of Kitezh.

In a word, it was surreal; a tiny communal group created specifically to foster orphaned children. They are almost entirely self-sustaining and are raising these children in a very healthy, familial environment. The entire village is involved in the education and social development of the children, they eat all their meals together, are involved in building, farming, etc. They put me to work as soon as I got there and I loved every minute of it. It turned out to be a very educational and eye-opening experience for me on alternative solutions to the issue of orphans in Russia.

For more on Kitezh, check out these two articles [one and two] and their website.

(Kitezh is the name of a magical town in Russian folklore.)

a few from Vladimir/Suzdal

2009-07-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

hello chinese-russian shoes, i love you

2009-07-15T03:06:00.000-07:00

My fav $3 shoes from the Chinese market in Vladivostok. I bought a few pair of these as I was leaving the mission five years ago. Then, when Jeff Parker returned from Vlad a year later, he brought me four pair. I finally retired the last of these as I returned this May to the same Chinese market to buy another batch. (No worries, Craghead ol’ boy, I grabbed you a pair too!)

a big happy euro-vision

2009-06-15T02:43:00.000-07:00

Last summer I had the privilege of being introduced to one of Europe’s most spectacular on-going traditions, Eurovision. In the middle of an otherwise uneventful night, Jeff and I were pulled out of our cozy (yes, cozy despite what Jeff might say…and despite the cockroaches…and despite the gypsies living on our balcony) room at the Buddhist Meditation Center and onto the streets of Chisinau to watch the popular competition broadcast to a giant screen on the city’s central square.

The masses turned out, completely enchanted by the flashing lights, sequins, spandex, and techno beats of their favorite pop artists. Every country sent the best of the best, but only one would emerge victorious: Dima Bilan, who, since his debut on the European pop scene, has inspired a hair style that, although strictly associated with trailer trash and NASCAR in the US, has taken all of Eastern Europe by storm. Yes, if your 3-yr old son does not yet have a mullet, you will soon be kindly referred to a proper hairdresser. If your 8-yr old doesn’t have a mullet, you can bet he’s a hopeless outcast on the playground. And as for you, 26-yr old single dude, no mullet definitely equals no ladies for you. The point is Diman Bilan. In the eyes of Eastern Europeans the world over, he is the male equivalent of Mariah Carey: man-diva to the max.

And what’s more, Jeff and I got to see him live in concert at Sheriff’s (Transnistria’s monopolistic super-company) birthday bash in Tiraspol. Until that moment, never had I wanted anything so badly without knowing it (roll that around in your head for a minute).

And now…the follow-up. The Dima Bilan team conquered Eurovision in Serbia last summer and in jubilation Russia bombed Belgrade (and, as Jeff wisely noted, pawned it off as a fireworks celebration). As a result, Moscow was granted Eurovision hosting privileges for 2009. I know you all thought I was coming to Moscow to do research with the ORCA grant. Actually, I came for the party of the century.

BUT, if not for a few average-sized billboards and a few chance sightings of Eurovision buses parked outside the Red Square Ritz-Carlton, I would never have known that Moldova’s favorite international television event was taking place in the recently resurgent powerhouse capital of the CIS. I had to beg my host family to turn it on and endure the idiotic melodies and loud, unvarying rhythms. I had to ask passersby on the street the following day which of the talented lip-synchers won. I had to write a Eurovision blog post in desperate attempt to fill the void of nonparticipation in this year’s Eurovision festivities…. The end.

Ps. Norway won. Dude looks like DB. Slightly different hairstyle. More updates soon on the effect that may have on the surrounding population.

Trans-Siberia: RR: A Summary

2009-06-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

Five years ago, after a brutal 14-hour train ride from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk in Russia's Far East, and still enchanted by the surreal nature of being in a country that for the great majority of his life had been locked behind the politics of the Cold War, Boyd I. Hoggan turned to his traveling compadre and said, "Eldest grandson, before I die, I wish to journey by train all the way across Russia." Grandson numero uno knew not whether this was a flippant request in a moment of excitement, or a heartfelt realization that one should not die completely satisfied with his life if he had not experienced the Trans-Siberian in its entirety, but, knowing his grandfather's adventurous tendencies, he guessed it was closer to the latter. From this moment, grandson began planning the epic journey with grandpa. This Spring, it finally happened.

Let me note first and foremost that preparations for this trip were not at all easy. Turns out, this trip is in no way for the half-hearted traveller. It takes absolute dedication, from the minute you begin your visa application to the moment you realize you're stuck in a 6x6 cell for seven days. I had never had such a hassle trying to get a visa to any other country, and that includes Ghana (Ghanaian visa: 5 years, multiple-entry = $80; Russian visa: 1 month, single-entry = $200 + invitation) and Transnistria, a country that won't allow anyone with a US diplomatic passport through the border and still waves hammers and sickles over entry points. Several Russians have kindly explained to me that the US makes it extremely difficult for Russians to get visas and, therefore, Russia responds with like treatment. Hey, fair is fair, but maybe not so smart economically for a country that could still benefit from an increase in tourism, business, and investment. But what do I know. I still think a free press is healthy and that a single-party system is awfully reminiscent of autocratic rule. And apparently I've been proven wrong. Nonetheless, we made it to customs and immigration control in the Moscow airport with snazzy visas crudely stapled into our passports. And I still think a $200 visa should come with a personal Russian tour guide that appears like Obi-Wan Kenobi in a 3D hologram beamed from the passport page.

Upon our arrival in Moscow, grampa and I slept for a day and wandered the streets for two days before boarding the plane to Vladivostok. In Vlad it was more of the same, and before we knew it, it was time to board the train. We showed up eight hours early for our train, not realizing that all train schedules are according to Moscow time (seven time zones away). But when we were finally allowed inside to explore our car, marvel at the narrow size of our quarters, and admire the makeshift Russian drapes in our first class coupe, we could not have been more excited. And when we realized that it was not possible to open the windows to allow fresh air into our hot, stuffy compartment, and, in the process of trying, the Russian drapes fell on on our beds and refused to stay up again, we were not discouraged.

Needless to say, grampa and I were the first to board the train (and ten days later we were sure to be the first off the train as well) and, aside from a couple of staff, the car was completely empty for the first half hour. Then, suddenly, from out of nowhere, a very large, puffy-faced Russian woman in a dirty tank-top and over-sized trench coat appeared in our doorway. She stood above us as she chatted about nothing in particular for five minutes, her slurred speech rolling out in bursts of emphatic Russian, her eyes droopy, and her movements spontaneous. She was obviously very drunk and it wasn't long until she had removed her coat and was sitting on grampa's bed. And it was only a bit longer till I realized she was soliciting sex, and grampa's polite, friendly smiles, which I interpreted as "yes, I think you're psycho, but I can't understand what you're saying so I don't have proof," were only encouraging her. She became almost violent at one point as I tried to dismiss her, but finally, after repeating several times that "my grampa loves my gramma," that "no, he doesn't need comforting," "no, he doesn't have anything to say to you," and "no, I will not leave the two of you alone," she disappeared. This event has been catalogued in my mind as "Train, Day 1, Adventure 1." Adventure 2 followed shortly after as a boy named Anton described to me for four hours the horrors of being a young soldier in the Russian army, and Adventure 3 was tallied when a fat, pompous, pointy-eared man introduced himself to me as "Baron of the Gypsies" and then tried to sell me a cell phone.

The ladies aboard that train loved grampa. Every time the snack lady rolled her cart through our car, she'd linger a while at our door and, looking at grampa, say, "You're sure you don't want any vodka? You're sure you don't want any cabbage-stuffed rolls? You're sure you don't want any dried fish heads? You're sure you don't want any warm bread water?" And on his 75th birthday every woman in our car came by to congratulate grampa. Several invited themselves over later for cognac and birthday cake, and several more promised to find him a beautiful Russian grandmother to help him celebrate. It took quite a bit of smooth-talking on my part, acting on grampa's behalf, to avoid hurt feelings and broken hearts.

We woke up that first morning in our coupe fairly satisfied with how quickly our sleeping bodies had adjusted to the swaying, bumping, clacking, of the train, but also fairly certain that we would never fully adjust to the complication of peeing standing-up in a tiny, dirty bathroom on a constantly jerking vehicle. We quickly settled into a routine of six or seven rounds of Phase 10 (yes, one round equals ten "phases"), a few hours of reading, a few hours of chatting, including a few minutes of awe and a few minutes of complaints, and a couple hours of intermittent naps. The scenery was at times breathtaking, and at times bleak and monotonous. We had chosen to ride the train in May hoping the weather would be neither too cold nor too hot, which, aside from occasionally being too toasty in our coupe, was exactly what it was. But Spring had not quite arrived in most of Siberia and the Far East, and the trees remained bare and the landscape somewhat grey and dreary in some areas. Still, there is a definite beauty that pervades even those scenes of overcast skies and wasteland, a very Russian-type beauty accentuated by the occasional deteriorating village that could easily be the stage for a Gogol short-story or a Chekhov play.

The train stopped every so often at certain small towns and big cities, sometimes for two minutes and sometimes for 25. At each big stop, grampa and I would unroll the large map of Russia we had purchased in Vladivostok, and track our route across the country. It was also a chance to get off the train and get some fresh air, or, more exactly, to buy some un-carbonated drinking water and hunt down a cold diet coke for grampa.

This is starting to become very lengthy for a blog entry, so I'm going to stop copying from my journal here. The trip was a blast and was made especially interesting by the many people we met along the way and the inevitable obstacles you'll run into on any such journey. It was really an awesome adventure and I loved being able to do it all with my grampa. I'll write more later about our stop at Lake Baikal and the second half of our trek across Russia.

a pilgrimage

2009-04-05T22:34:00.000-07:00

the express

2008-06-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Train ride from Pzszemesl (I don't even know if I'm spelling that right. Crazy Polish) to Krakow (which is pronounced, turns out, "krakuv"!!!)

train blah

2008-06-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

Train ride from Chisinau to Pzszemesl, Poland.

bus blah

2008-06-28T07:06:00.000-07:00

The bus back to Tiraspol from Kiev. 14 hours of fun.

coolest metro

2008-06-28T06:40:00.000-07:00

Kiev subway photo animation.

the kiev trip: paul mcCartney

2008-06-28T05:53:00.000-07:00

We were hanging out in downtown Kiev with Alan for the afternoon and the police cleared everyone out of the area while they ran sound checks on the stage. Everyone was out and about all day just waiting for the show, and everywhere we went, the name "paul mccartney" could be heard whispered among the crowds. Unfortunately we didn't get any video of the actual concert, but there are some great clips posted on youtube from that night. The show was absolutely phenomenal and could not have been better (read about it here). As the Ukrainians say, "molodets Paul."

our new apartment as of June 8th

2008-06-28T05:45:00.000-07:00

2008-06-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

check out the two blogs listed to the right for more Moldovan happenings: Yossarian and Yearn to Learn

carpethead

2008-06-13T01:47:00.000-07:00

sean's love-palace

2008-06-13T00:56:00.000-07:00

amnesty international moldova

2008-06-13T00:43:00.000-07:00

Lev's first day.

first stop--narnia

2008-06-13T00:31:00.000-07:00

the Eightfold Path

2008-05-31T04:13:00.000-07:00

This is where I have lived for the past couple weeks since I moved out of Sean's place. Right in the center of Chisinau. Great views from the balcony. Two roommates. Kitchen. Bathroom. Bedroom. Buddhist Meditation Center.

Soroca

2008-05-31T03:50:00.000-07:00

A beautiful town right on the Dnister River in Northern Moldova. This was an excursion the week before Jeff came and I was glad I decided to tag along despite being packed into a mini-bus for three hours both ways. We got a full tour and history of the fort and then hiked up a hill overlooking the valley and the Ukraine on the far bank of the river. We hiked the "Path of Gratitude" to the tower and lookout at the top. A little man in old military dress sat inside the tower like the old wise man at the top of the mountain. Pay him 1 lei and you could put a wish in the wish box.

2008-05-31T03:48:00.000-07:00

village trip

2008-05-28T02:52:00.000-07:00

Our trip to the monastery in Suruchen. Sean and I met up with Jerad and his wife, Masha, who is from the village. We hiked up to the Monastery overlooking the village and drank holy water from a stream. Inside the orthodox temple they had the hand bones of some saint (in the box in the picture). And I lit a candle. Really beautiful place.

Sean's party pad

2008-05-28T02:42:00.001-07:00

The fourth party with Sean during my first week in Chisinau. We hosted 16 of Sean's university students. Great kids, lots of fun, and lots of dancing. Dancing video coming soon....

date at the ballet

2008-05-28T02:35:00.001-07:00

Sean, my new Fulbright Fellow friend. Cushy seats, a bag of peanuts, a concert hall full of enthusiastic Moldovans, and...Swan Lake. Price = $4.

one more from Kiev....updates from Moldova coming soon

2008-05-26T04:04:00.000-07:00

Alan took this shot. Definitely one of my favorites so far.

2008-05-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

No commentary needed for this one. It just makes me smile.

more additions from Kiev

2008-05-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

Russia has matryoshka dolls. Ukraine has...plastic caviar? It's everywhere on the streets of Kiev. Plastic caviar on a plate, plastic caviar in plastic crepes, plastic caviar with a side of plastic cucumbers and tomatoes. They come with magnets conveniently glued to the back for easy display on your refrigerator. And, for your coffee table, a ceramic pot overflowing with plastic caviar.

2008-05-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

Yes, I shaved. Turns out facial hair is looked down upon in Moldova and I need to make good first impressions. Sad day.

"well the ukraine girls really knock me out..."

2008-05-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

Coming to Independence Square in June to do a free concert. I think Jeff and I will make the trip.

goodbye lenin...

2008-05-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

Last day in Kiev. Alan took the afternoon off and we romped around the city looking for trouble. Two days before Victory Day, one of the most celebrated of Soviet holidays, and we passed by a group of veterans coming out of some memorial celebration. We stopped an obvious war hero (note the medals) and asked if we might take a picture with him. He was elated, to say the least.
Lots of pictures of Independence Square. They had the fountains on and tons of people were out enjoying the sun. A statue of Lenin with flowers around the base. Go figure.
A very popular Kievan snack is the "perepechka," a hot dog buried inside thick, fried dough. I took a picture of the most popular place to get them and you can see the Ukrainians lined up at the window. They go for about 65 cents.
I had to read Bulgakov in one of my Russian lit classes. We visited his house and monument.
Also, some Ukrainian government building next to St. Michael's Orthodox temple. The story goes that a while back the government wanted to build a second parliament building next to and mirroring the current one. So they tore down the original St. Michael's temple which had stood for hundreds of years. In short, they began building the government building, ran out of funds, tore it down, and decided to rebuild the temple. And here it is. Painted blue. (The story reminds me of so many half-finished building projects in Far East Russia. Poor planning? A rapidly fluctuating economy? Or maybe just a persisting Soviet mentality? I don't know. But the situation, as comical as it is, isn't unusual.)

the sun's not yellow, it's chicken

2008-05-06T00:24:00.000-07:00

I really just don't know what to say about this. An outdoor gym by the river and lots of really serious Ukrainian bodybuilders. Alan and I were having a tough time just trying to keep from laughing while walking through this place. Tough guys and old men with their shirts off, and dumbbells rotting to pieces. We saw a guy putting a fresh coat of blue paint on the machines. But hey, who would pay for a gym membership when you could come here? Alan's favorites: the couples swing and the iron elliptical. And just over the bridge, the 65-and-overs playing shirts and skins chess. It really was not very hot outside. I have this video of a guy boxing a stack of tires hung from a tree, but I can't figure out how to post it.

WWII memorial

2008-05-05T01:33:00.000-07:00

This memorial features Soviet war hymns blaring majestically through speakers all around the grounds to remind visitors that this is not DC's National Mall or Normandy, this is the Eastern Front. And...the memorial also features the USSR's psychedelic tanks. Towering over the Dnepro, the large woman-with-the-sword statue still displays the hammer and sickle on her shield and is known among Ukrainians, with some contempt, as "Tin Tits."

slava tebe gospodi slava tebe

2008-05-05T01:20:00.000-07:00

More touristy temple pics. This is our hike around Kiev's Lavra, a massive, walled-in compound of several huge Orthodox temples. Alan and I tried to steal an onion dome (thought it would make a pretty cool souvenir if you could get it past customs), but we didn't get very far because our feet hurt from too much walking.

empty chairs at empty tables

2008-05-05T00:59:00.000-07:00

I've been really impressed with the many beautiful parks all over Kiev. There are secluded spots all around the city where people sit in the grass under a tree with colorful tulips all around and share a liter of vodka and a bag of flavored croutons. In one of these wooded parks is Kruschev's old and abandoned summer home and one of the most popular places for young couples to push babies around in strollers.

a Ukrainian Catholic wedding

2008-05-05T00:56:00.000-07:00

Babi Yar

2008-05-05T00:29:00.000-07:00

If you aren't familiar with the events at Babi Yar (I wasn't), you should look it up. This is the site of the Nazi massacre of 50,000 Russian Jews between 1941 and '43. The Soviet Union didn't publicize the existence of concentration camps here till the early 60s (they didn't even mark the site until much later), which is as if the Polish people weren't told about Auschwitz. Babi Yar was Treblinka on Soviet soil. Victims were lined up along the ravine edge and shot so that their bodies fell into the creek below. The ravine extends much further than you can see in the pics and it was all filled in much later to cover the ashes and remains of the victims. But to this day respectful visitors refuse to step foot on the grassy lawn below the monument. The looming sculpture does a fantastic job of capturing the agony and suffering of the events that took place here. I started reading the book "Babi Yar" by Anatoly Kuznetsov (Alan recommended it) who was a witness and reports the events as he experienced them. Check it out, "Lest we forget man's infinite ability to do harm to his fellow man...."

love is a padlock on an iron rail

2008-05-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

Lovers Bridge. The symbolism is overwhelming. They throw the keys to these locks over the edge into oncoming traffic.

me and alan party like this

2008-05-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

Alan and I took off sightseeing all over the city my first day. Feels nice to play awkward tourist and take it easy for a bit before heading off to the "imaginary Moldova land" where I'll most likely be fending off traffickers who want to sell my body. Our first adventure was a walk through the park along the Dnepro River and a brief visit to the Ukraine-Russia Friendship Arch. We eventually made our way to the "Dom s Khimerami" (house with gargoyles). We're not really sure what it's for, but it has elephant heads. Lots of Orthodox temples. St. Andrew's is one of the best (Alan's fav) and sits at the top of the cobblestone street where I thought about buying duffel bags full of cool Soviet and Ukrainian treasures. (Sorry yosh, I panicked last minute and stole your jacket and now you have to find out this way. Don't be mad.)

so here we are...

2008-05-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

You haven't officially arrived in Kiev (or "Kyiv" the Ukranian patriot would correct you) until you've passed through the Golden Gates, the ancient entry to the city. Unfortunately, they were charging too much, the lines were too long, and I was looking to eat some pizza. So, I went around.

back on the road

2008-05-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

After 17 hours in the London airport. (more of Sword-in-my-head Face to come)