Lost Girls Winner and a Lazy Labor Day

I am finally getting around to posting the winner of my copy of The Lost Girls (read my review here). It has been a crazy week, causing me to miss my customary Monday posting.  Life happens.

So without further ado.......Kalyan over at Heaven's Garden is the lucky recipient of some girls.
 Hope he enjoys ;)

Woohoo! And thanks to all for stopping by and making my first little giveaway a success. I loved all of the book suggestions and will need to get started on them. Winter is coming and I will need some good reading.


On to other things:
We just celebrated Labor Day here in the US of A and our was a pretty lazy weekend. But I did venture out on a kayak, which requires a tiny backstory.

The number one question (or some variation of this) I was asked before and after my trip to Nicaragua was "How will/did your husband do without you for so long?"

Let me assure one and all, here and now. He did just FINE. To sum up, I arrived home to a refrigerator that still had the dinner I cooked the night before I left, and a new boat. Ok, a kayak.

But still.  Gross to the dinner and ???? to..... a kayak? He doesn't even like water sports.

I had an inkling of the boat, but was under the apparently wrong impression that he was going to wait until my return to purchase. I received a nice little surprise when checking the back account from an internet cafe in Granada that the boat had indeed made its arrival pre-wife's return.

I was completely miffed and stomped out of the internet cafe to find the nearest international phone so that I could place an irate  call to my husband. He of course did not answer, as he was probably out enjoying said kayak. By the time I finally reached him, I had had all sorts of time in which to fume, and rant, and rave, and vow things. One of those things I vowed was that I would NEVER, under ANY circumstances, EVER, go out on the kayak with him, or be remotely involved in any kayaking type activities. When I found out it was a one seater, this heaped coals upon the flames of ire (despite my vow to never use it, I still wanted to be asked, of course) and I made a new vow to refuse to even look at it.

Anyway, guess what I did on Labor Day?

Borrowed a friend's kayak, is what I did

The offending kayak and a pretty happy husband

A Sunny Tuesday in September a Decade Ago

I don't normally post on a Sunday, but today is special. I am putting aside my customary humor and travel adventures to give you something else.

 The frivolity of summer and the anticipation of fall came to a halt today as Americans reflected, prayed, worshiped, wept, remembered, and celebrated. We all know what happened on September 11, 2001. It is nearly impossible to be unaffected by it, whether positively or negatively, or whether or not you knew someone in the planes, in the towers, or in the Pentagon.

I was a newly-minted college senior and living the dream. That sunny Tuesday morning, I was puttering around my apartment just outside of Philadelphia, attempting to get ready for my first class.

My phone rang. It was my mother. Not unusual.

What was unusual was her first question, fired at me without even the briefest of hellos.

"Do you have the TV on?" 

I did not, but that would soon be remedied.

She insisted that I turn on the television immediately and what greeted me was confusing, horrifying, and bizarre. All at the same time.

The rest of the day is a blur. I honestly don't remember much of it except trying valiantly to contact my best friend who had just moved to DC for a semester internship. For hours I got busy signals and automated messages from the phone company.  By the end of the day, I had word that he was fine. One sweet relief in the midst of an ever growing national tragedy. I remember thinking on September 12th, that it was weird it wasn't September 11th anymore.

Life crept back into normal.  The events of that day impacted me, sure. But at 21 years old,, the world was mine for the taking. I had nothing holding me back, nothing to lose.

Ten years later, I am not that same person. Ten years later, this tragic drama holds more meaning and value to me than it ever did on that bright Tuesday morning in 2001.

The other night I was watching a program in which the events of that morning and the aftermath were told from survivor's perspectives. One story in particular made my gut wrench.

There was a woman whose husband worked in the South Tower, the second one to be hit. He called her after the North Tower was hit and before the second plane crashed and assured her that he was fine, but wasn't sure of what he should do. A few minutes later, his range of options became significantly limited.  He called her again, from the 105th floor, twenty floors UP from his office. She was instantly panicked-why was he above his office? Why was he still in the building? How was he going to get down? He told her he tried to get out onto the roof, but the door was locked. She begged him to try again. He promised her he would and put the phone down. He came back on and told her it was a no-go. He was by himself. There was nothing left to do.

He couldn't go down  and he couldn't go up. The realization that this would be their final conversation in life was suddenly present between them.

She said goodbye forever to her husband on the phone, watching his certain fate play out on the television before her.  Knowing that when she put the phone down,  the father of her children and her partner in life would be gone.

Can you imagine? I cannot.

Since that fateful day in September, I too, am now somebody's wife. Watching her story the other night was heartbreaking. I watched and cried, and then cried some more.

Since that fateful day in September, I now play the role of teacher. I do this in fairly conservative and largely homogenous West Virginia. There are certain pockets of anathema towards the ethnicity and religion that perpetrated this deed. But I cannot allow that in my classroom. Hate already finalized the events of that day, I cannot allow it to perpetuate. It is my job to encourage my students to consider the humanity of it all.

Life has changed in the last decade. I have changed.

Hold your loved ones a little tighter today.....and every day.

I Am Giving Away Some Lost Girls. Do You Want Them?

This is my first giveaway, so please keep reading. And comment.
But we'll get to that in a second. First things first:

I love to read.  I love to read while traveling, and I especially love to read books about  traveling. So that is why I was pretty excited when I came across The Lost Girls, and determined to hold off reading it until my next big trip.  It took me a few years to arrange that (getting married and becoming a teacher kind of took precedence over really long trips) but when I booked my ticket to Nicargua, my next thought was Yes!! I get to read the book! Finally. (Did you actually think I was giving away humans today?)
Here is my very unprofessional (and slightly miffed at the end) book review.

First the synopsis. Three New York City girls quit their jobs with 30th birthdays looming and decide to step way out of the box and do something crazy and take a 'round the world trip.  Leaving jobs and boyfriends behind, they book their first ticket to Peru.

What follows is 500 pages of all three girls taking turns telling their story. The 500 pages is partly why I wanted to wait until I was traveling to read it-I knew that is when I would have long stretches of time where there would be nothing much to do.  Several hundred pages is a long story to tell, unless you are War and Peace. As a result, I feel that at times, the dialogue was a bit overwritten.  Since I am no literary genius/critic/expert, I was trying to think how I could describe these parts of the book and "overwritten" was the only word I could come up with. It was as if they were trying too hard to replicate their experience for us, trying to force the feeling of the reader being right there in the moment.  Ehhh.

My other major issue is that they each came home at least once during their year of travel. One of them came home twice.  Is it just me or is that cheating the definition of RTW if you come home? Twice even?!  Because to me, that's just going on three really long trips, back to back.


 And that is where my criticisms end. Here is why: Have I ever set out to travel the whole entire world in one specific amount of time? No.  Have I ever written a book about that, or anything else? No.

Enough said.

It was an entertaining read, easily accomplished in about a week.

However, I might have been just a teeny bit more gushing in my review if I had not received the following reply when I posted a comment on their blog right before I left on my trip. (please note that it does say the message may not have been sent by them, so who actually knows?)


The Lost Girls lostgirlsworld@gmail.com to me
show details Jun 15
This message may not have been sent by: lostgirlsworld@gmail.com  Learn more  Report phishing
Hi Claire
Thank you for your comment at The Lost Girls (http://www.lostgirlsworld.com/). Be sure to come back soon.
Thank you,
The Lost Girls
You posted the following comment:
---------------------------------
Hi ladies,
I just got my copy, via Amazon, in the mail today. I am taking it with me on my month long jaunt to Nicaragua. Heard great things about it. Gave it a plug on my latest post ;)


*gasp* *clutching hands to heart*
A FORM REPLY?
Maybe I have high expectations in the blogging community, because we all have started somewhere, and that's usually at or near the bottom. Or are still at the bottom. But I am pretty sure this is the first form reply I have ever gotten. I think I would have rather just have gotten no reply at all.

Moving on.

Would you like to read this book? Because I am giving my copy away! All you have to do is leave me a comment with a recommendation on your favorite book that has to with a traveler, a journey, or anything travel-related, by September 12 at noon EST! I will choose the winner at random (i.e. my husband will choose your name out of a Ziploc bag) and announce it here next week. I will mail it anywhere, so if you live in a mansion in Massachusetts, that's cool. Or  if you live in a hut in the Himalayas, that's cool too.

For two books that I absolutely love, go here.