The natural thing to do the week after you get married is to honeymoon. Interesting enough, this concept is borrowed from the Indian elite who would take their upperclass brides on a tour to visit relatives who had not been able to attend the wedding... glad that's not still the tradition! Historically known as the the hony moone by the British, the honeymoon was a term used to describe the period just after the wedding when things are at their sweetest.. (this all is predicted to wane after a month... this might still be true :) ) Today, we know...
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in the past 2 months, i've slept in 20 different places... (trust me, i counted). i've crashed on airplanes and airport floors. i've slept on the roof of a house and on the sand of the arabia. i've shared rooms with 6 others, beds with friends, and even slept in the rooms of stranger artists. i've stayed with new zealanders, texans, and i even bedded down with the little mermaid in her island home (no, i'm not joking... if you know lisa, you know what i'm talking about). i've seen the arabian sky, snow skied in the desert, and baked...
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it’s been five years since i was in europe last. five years? really? how could it have taken me so long to indulge in this beautiful european way of life? i can hardly believe my first time here was my first time outside my american boundaries. how much i have seen and explored since then. how much more of the world has been opened and since altered my perspective. ah. it’s good to go back to where it all started. …………………. i recently spent a month in africa and am catching up my blog with stories from my journey. to hear more about...
Read Morei thought they could tell of their indian impressions better than i could. the following words come from my mom… It’s almost 5 am CDT, USA. I’m wide awake. My clock is out of whack and a full week later, my battery is still trying to re-charge. We’re not on India time anymore, but not back to normal yet, either. Eleven and a half time zones, 20 plus hours of traveling, and nearly 48 hours without sleep have taken a greater toll than I would have imagined. India. What an incredible adventure. Our trip wasn’t a vacation, but it was the most...
Read Morecan i even begin to explain to you how amazing it was to have my family visit me here in india? are words even enough to TELL the experience? it was like two separate worlds collided, but in a good way. i felt more like me with them here. somehow, when you’re in a foreign place with people who you have such a short history with, it’s easy to adapt yourself to fit the place and the people. this is good to an extent, but often, you let go of parts of ‘you’ in the process. them being here, in...
Read Morecross it off of my list of things to do in life. been there, done that; i’ve seen the taj mahal. what did i think? you may ask. overrated. i would reply. i know that sounds arrogant, it’s one of the world’s seven wonders. yes, it’s beautiful. it’s a brilliant white marble tomb. the finest example of mughal architecture, combining elements of persian, turkish, indian, and islamic architctural styles. it’s carefully crafted details, standing majestically in front of the blue sky. but still overrated. one of the earth’s modern wonders? come on now. maybe i was tainted by the city of agra… 45% of the city involved in tourism. money can corrupt a...
Read Morebecause i’m way behind… 16 february i wrapped up the guntur project today [november project trip]. drawings are printed, report is complete. it’s good to see one from beginning to end and this one with my fingerprints all over it. design here must be so much simpler in order for it to be built by day laborers and i am challenged to find beauty in such simplicity. the school was my main focus; there were a few things i had to fight for, but they all made their way through the refining to the final drawings. i’m working on developing a basic...
Read Moreit was on a bus to bangkok i realized i didn’t want to go back to india. if my plane decided to make a detour to the plains of kansas instead of to the smelly streets of delhi, i would have been okay with that. the two weeks i had been able to spend in thailand reminded me of what life was like outside of india and i forgot how much i liked it. i forgot the freedom my skin feels uncovered by layers of material and what life free of stares feels like. i remembered travel on highways and...
Read Moresome of my thoughts and ramblings from my two weeks in thailand as the rest remain between me, the pages, and the waves… …my jaw dropped as i stepped into the terminal. i had never seen this much steel and glass in india…er america…uh ever! is this real? does life like this outside of the third world really exist. i’m definitely not in india any more and i’ve forgotten what this life looks like. …so clean and fashionable, so modern and technological, so thin and small! i feel like an overweight giant in this thai world. if there is one...
Read Morejournaled 3 january i should be lifting off in my flight to bangkok and instead i’m sitting in a hotel room in delhi. seems there are fog problems and indian airlines aren’t exactly equipped to handle fog. all the other flights are going out…american, british airways, thai…but air india? grounded. the rumor is we’ll leave after lunch today, but somehow i doubt it. i’ve probably lucked out with traveling in this crazy country far too many times. i was due for some kind of delay. last night, my sleep was restless. we arrived at the hotel at 2am and i think my...
Read More[finally…the last entry from my whirlwind three weeks of travel] india itself is a paradox of the very wealthy and the very poor…nothing here seems middle class. to every city, there are two sides and most of my time has been spent within the slums or at least on the falling apart side. i had expected to see the same in kolkata as eric, joel and i traveled by our shoelaces, so to speak. however, we were all pleasantly surprised. as traveling has become one of my favorite hobbies, i have learned the best way to see a place is through...
Read Moresome events become famous for good reasons you never want to forget. others become infamous for bad reasons that you wish you could forget but you know you never will. my train ride from varanasi to kolkata was one of those infamous kind of events. it began, as a normal, sleeper class train ride… ahhh.. wait. let me first explain what this should entail so you understand why this one deviated so far from the norm. just like the caste’s of indian culture, the train is divided into multiple classes. it begins with first a/c which i must state for the record,...
Read Morevaranasi, home of shiva, the most sacred shores of the ganges, and ideal place for a Hindu to expire. that’s right, i said expire. that’s what they call it here. only one day spent there? yes and that was more than enough for me. this is not the india i have begun to love. people everywhere…buy this, come here, follow me, hey baby. argh. these people are not here to help, they are here to cheat, to make a deal, to get what they want for me. you may have fooled me a couple months ago, but not now. go ahead,...
Read Morewe’re surrounded by people in life for more reasons than i can name…companionship, collaboration, friendship, sympathy…etc… sharpening. yeah. sharpening. you know, the kind of thing that makes you stronger, that refines you, that grows you more into the person you are to be. i don’t really like the sharpening reason so much. i always like the end result, i like what i become. but it’s the process of getting there, the exposure of weaknesses and the vulnerability of being wrong, the process of changing that i could do without. hmm. let me explain. in your own bubble, a world all your own,...
Read Morejournaled 4 november, 2006 someday, when my hair has turned a silvery gray and my knees don’t bend like they used to… when i spend my tuesday nights playing bridge and i can’t remember the last time i stayed up past nine o’clock… when i repeat phrases like ‘kids these days’ and talk about what life was like before the internet… even then i’ll remember this day. it started out as quite the day of travel. we were seven, our bags were twenty-one. living in india, i hadn’t realized how much i had learned to do without. i brought my three changes...
Read Morefor the next three weeks, i will most definitely be ‘out of the office.’ another project trip to the south of india calls. a 48 hr. train ride will take me there. gretchen, joel, and i will be spending a couple of days in chennai meeting up with the rest of our team of architects and engineers from the states. together, we will travel [yes, another train] to the city of guntur where we will spend the next week working on johanna’s children’s home [read more here]. after another train back to the hill station city we call home here in...
Read Moreheidi woke me up at 2am. ‘do you hear that thudding?’ she asked. i slowly came out of my disorientation. we hadn’t seen a living thing in literally two days…she must be hearing things. [insert ‘thud’ sound] hmm…maybe she’s right. my eyes cleared and i sat up only to brush my head across the wet, caved in tent. we peeked through the door…snow! a winter wonderland outside of our nylon abode. the ground was covered, our shoes hidden under a blanket of white. sheets of the white stuff had been falling off the roof our tent and making a ‘thud’ as...
Read Moreon this, my first backpacking trip, i quickly learned two lessons. one] natives aren’t trail experts two] ‘it’s kind of a path’ is a dangerous phrase about 5:30pm we realized we couldn’t go any further. a seemingly impenetrable rock ledge above our heads, a most defined steep cliff but a step away and darkness just around the corner left us with little choice. where did we go wrong? when did we miss the more traveled path? we didn’t have time to retrace our steps in our minds; night was upon us and our torches were now required. thankfully, just 20min before we had...
Read Moreon our way back ‘home’ from machilipatnam, we stopped in secunderabad & hyperabad. one: to drop off sashi kiran, our civil engineer, two: to rest before our marathon journey home, and three: to see the area. secunderabad & hyperabad are india’s twin cities and the capital of the state andhra pradesh. in a place where ancient lanes meet vehicle-choked highways, it is also the fastest growing metropolis in the world. you know when you call a 1-800 number to get help with your computer, you probably call here. all the big names have offices here in an area called ‘hitec city.’...
Read Morethe week was wearing on us and come friday morning, we were ready for a break from the drawing board. it was time to see the area. rajesh and charles loaded us in the van and we headed to the local wharf to watch the fisherman brining in the morning’s catch and then to the bay of bengal…what a sight. what an experience. the boats were neatly lined up along the coast, some colorfully painted, others badly need of repair, but all still in operation. if you had any doubt of their ocean use, the strong fishy smell in the air...
Read Moreanother night on the train, though this one not as bad as the last. maybe i’m getting used to this indian travel or maybe the ear plugs are really just that good. the scenery has changed since my eyes were last open. the rain has stopped and the cities have been replaced with small villages, the rolling hills are now flattened plains. back at home, in plains of my own, i would often find myself driving. i loved rolling down the windows and turning up the music. with my hand out the window enjoying the ever-present kansas ‘breeze,’ i would...
Read Morea twenty six hour train ride wouldn’t be so bad if that were all we had. but on either side of the day long adventure, existed another six hour train and hour and a half taxi…all in all 6 days of strictly traveling. let’s just say we are anxious to get to this place i am just now learning to pronounce, machilipatnam. each sleeper train car is filled with many compartments. there are six beds, two sets of three bunk beds, perpendicular to the long of the train. each set its own window and a small space from which one climbs...
Read Moreplanes. ‘indian time,’ they call it. for two and a half hours we waited on the plane as an instrument was being checked. then, refueling compensating for the extra fuel we used up waiting on the instrument. a fifteen hour flight leaves the tank pretty empty with not much wiggle room for gas or in the plane. two, five, two is how the seats were laid out; we were part of the five. we made good conversation with the ticket lady who put us behind the cabin divider. with no seats in front of us, lots of extra room at our...
Read Morehere is no one else i've shared a room with longer than ally. first, it was 315 petticoat lane, boyd hall, then a semester in prague, only to finish out our academic career with a spacious one bedroom on hunting. fall of 2000, we entered k-state together, she in interior architecture and i in architecture. our room was the best in the hall and if you ever came to visit, she would entertain you with quite a thorough tour. she stayed up with me at night as i finished up projects for she felt guilty sleeping as i worked. funny...
Read Morewritten may 29, 2006 i sit in the airport once again, this time unaware of the people sitting besides me or walking in front of me. sometimes you forget how much a person means to you until you say goodbye. my mind is still at the front of the airport where i just left holly. it was the kind of goodbye where you don't say much for your watery eyes say it all. i let the tears fall unashamed. some people, we don't feel deserving of, and we find ourselves blessed to call them 'friend.' she's one of those. my dad...
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i have a couple hours, so here i sit, enjoying one of my favorite pastimes, people watching. the airport is a great place to practice such a hobby. even if for only a moment, thousands of paths collide at one, single terminal. they walk by in a hurry, rushed to get to the gate, to get to the plane, to get to the city, to get to wherever it is they are supposed to be. all these next steps in their journey are unknown to me as they walk by my seat against the window. but i enjoy watching them...
Read Morethe news came today. if you need me after august, i will be found here... mussoorie, india more words to come. i'm too excited right now to try to find them. [www.emiusa.org]
another video is in the works. this one requires me to look through pictures of my own. along with my journals, i record life pictorially in the seven photo albums at my feet. [perhaps this is an unaddressed obsession] i rarely take the time those images deserve to reminisce. pictures capture an instant, an event, regardless of their worth. but hindsight tells us they always are. i laugh at some of my outfits/hair styles from high school already [i didn't think that was supposed to happen for at least five more years] soccer games and sleep-overs, trips and birthdays; all...
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