Sometimes, Travel Rears Back and Slaps you in the Face

Today's title is a little dramatic I suppose. But it's kinda how I felt last weekend. 

Theme parks close for the season. Christmas tree farms close for the season. Pools close for the season.
Apparently the southern half of my state also closes for the season.

Hmmmmpfffff.

Last weekend, a good friend and I set off for Part II of the Best of West Virginia Road Trip. The friend in question was the "I"m so stressed about turning 30 that I will take all of my friends to Istanbul, Turkey to drown my sorrows celebrate" and Part I was a journey I never wrote about.  (For some reason, I was too snobby to write about anything other than foreign countries when I first started writing this blog. I hadn't yet accepted the idea of adventures in my own backyard).

As I mentioned before, I grew up here, but did my best to ensure that I never saw much of the state, preferring the big cities and exotic locales of places like.........Philadelphia. But the first time I journeyed around the state, I immediately fell in love with my home and became a true fan of the Wild and Wonderful-the good, the bad, and the ugly. Anyway, this post is not about that trip. This post is about the sequel trip.

We set a weekend to go, made a loose itinerary, and then promptly made no plans, made no phone calls, nor did any research until the morning of departure.

And by morning of departure, I mean, we did not start researching vital details until approximately 30 minutes after pulling out of the driveway and headed in a westerly direction. I live in the far extreme eastern part of the state, just under an hour from Washington D.C. We were headed to the far western part of the state, clear over to the blasted Ohio River and Blennerhasset Island State Park.

The very same Blennerhasset Island State Park that had just closed for the season a mere four days earlier.

Since when do state parks close? Since Halloween, apparently. But that wasn't the only place that calls it quits post scary holidays.

It was at that moment that my friend tossed the Crackberry to me, accompanied by a gasp of dismay that did not make me feel particularly hopeful that Blennerhasset was to be our only bump in the road. On the contrary.  Our next stop-the exhibition coal mine-the ONE THING I had my heart and soul set on?

Closed for the season, a mere four days earlier.

I could feel a fit, as in hissy, coming on.

And so this is how the entire weekend went. Plan C, D, and E materialized, and then, just as quickly, vaporized.
The TransAllegheny Lunatic Asylum? You guessed it. Closed for the season, a mere four days earlier.
The glass-blowing demonstration in Weston, WV? Last one in  30 minutes, when we were still an hour away.
The Blenko Glass factory in Milton, WV? No tours on Sundays. We were there on a Sunday.
The Tex-Mex restaurant that my friend promised was well worth a stop? Not just closed for the season......noooooo..... closed permanently. FOREVER.

Various power and water outages at both overnight locations merely added insult to injury. 

Hawk's Nest State Park

SERIOUSLY?!!!

After the third travel slap in the face, all I could do was laugh. And find Plan F, G, and H.

We managed to salvage the weekend. Sulking is acceptable for only five minutes. Then it's time to buck up, and find the adventure in the misadventure. Enjoy a few pics of what we did manage to find to keep ourselves occupied.

It seems like I only have issues when traveling in my own state. Remember when I came home without any of my luggage? 

Pt. Pleasant Mothman pose. Creepiest little town in all of WV. Ever seen "The Mothman Prophecies?"

In case I wasn't sure where to pose in the glass museum

Our beautiful state capitol-Charleston, WV

Dressed and ready to kill.......something.

Hillbilly Hot Dogs. As featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network. The bus is the dining room.

Oh, the People You'll Meet!

Ok, so I wrote this yesterday, while it was actually October

I am livin' the dream today. Today, while it is still October, on a Monday, I am relaxing at home when I should be at school. That is because an unexpected pre-Halloween snowstorm has knocked out my school's power and therefore, the children cannot learn. There has not been an October snowstorm since 1979, before I was even born. Thank you gods of snow and electricity for waiting 32 more years.  Now, let me assure you, I truly love my job. Love it. But after spending six years as a substitute teacher and agonizing over every snow day or holiday because it meant less money to cover my bills, I feel I have earned the right to be gleeful, joyous, even ecstatic, about days off.

Besides, it gives me time to catch up on your blogs, as well as my own. I know you've missed me. Don't deny it.

I have been thinking for a while now about the people I have "met" while blogging whose stories, while different from my own, are so very similar. We all love to see the world and simply can't get enough of the adventure that is travel.  So this post is dedicated to all of you reading this (insert mushy air hug here), but I want to highlight one of you in particular. And I am giving something away so let's move on past the mushiness and get down to business. Oh, and the book from my first giveaway actually made it to Kalyan  in India, thereby restoring my faith in the United States Postal Service. My faith was previously lost when a random postal worker STOLE some books out of a package sent to me from Arizona. Yes, I said STOLE.

So since I started blogging three years ago, I have encountered people who have traveled to Antarctica, or have settled down in Moldova, and  still others who recount their adventures from Washington D.C. There have been regular commenters, and there have been random commenters. I love them all.  I thoroughly enjoy the glimpses of your life on the other side of the world, or just down the road from me. Shivya from A Shooting Star keeps me informed and wanting more from India, while Kristina seems to never have a dull Vagablond moment wherever she is (Turkey right now). I am waiting for Scott to take the Shirt off his Backpack and depart on a RTW in a few months, and I found a book I must buy from Fearful Adventurer. Pretty cool huh? I have never even met any of you people.

Love these!

But there is one fellow blogger whose been a constant here and you can find her comment on nearly every one of my posts. She just might get the award for Most Faithful Reader Whom I Have Never Met (Yet!). She has been there since just a few posts after my First Post Ever and has been around ever since. We started emailing after I bought some jewelry from her new shop and I feel like our "blendship" (blog friendship!) was settled. If I am ever in Italy, Reese will be the first person I contact.  Anyway, if you have never stumbled over Rambles with Reese or her pretty cool new shop on Etsy, you should. If fact, I am giving you the chance today. For my birthday, she sent me an online gift certificate worth $15 USD to her shop.  Since I already own some of her goodness, I am passing it on to one of you. (She said this was ok-and no, I don't normally give away people's gifts to me) All you need to do is leave me a comment and share a link to another blogger you like/appreciate/love/follow and you will be entered. I am always looking to read new material, plus it always helps when you spread the love. Guys, don't be afraid to enter this. Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Diwali is just around the corner.

Reese makes everything herself and she does a pretty darn good job. I ordered a bracelet and earrings, and I love them. She ships it fast and her prices are extremely reasonable. If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I like to......spend as little money as possible. There. We will just leave that at that. If she was doing this when I got married, my entire bridal party would have been outfitted in a sweet, sweet style. The pieces are simple, classy, colorful.  Plus, it's also really fun to get packages from other countries that have lots of stamps on them. I can't deny it.

So what are you waiting for? Go and browse. Send Reese some love-she's a pretty nice person.  If you don't win, dry those tears and click "purchase" anyway. Reese will thank you, and so will I.

You have until Monday 11/7 at 5 p.m  EST to enter. The winner will be chosen via the trusty "husband picking your name out of a Ziploc bag" method. 

PS-Apparently Diwali just passed. Must brush up on my cultural holidays. Thanks to Payal for mentioning this.

Philadelphia, I Love You

As I proclaimed in a recent Facebook status update, I have country roots, and I have urban roots. If you have been hanging out here for any length of time, you know my country roots lie square in the Wild and Wonderful beauty of West Virginia. (Although to be fair, it's not that reeeeally that country where I live. Wait, never mind. Yes it is). It took me a while, but I grew to love it here and here is where I shall remain for the foreseeable future.

My urban roots on the other hand, were not established until the ripe age of 17 when I went off to college, fresh-faced and clueless about most of life. I chose to attend Eastern University, just outside of Philadelphia. Nice suburban campus, twenty minutes to downtown. By the time I went to college, I had spent more time in foreign countries than I had in big cities, so count me in as a wide-eyed wanderer. My very first memory of a big city still leaves me amused and confused to this day. See if you can explain this one:

First Saturday morning on campus. I was piled into a van with a bunch of other freshmen, headed to begin our semester of required community service. It was my first venture out in my new city and I was craning my neck out with window when I happened to spot THIS scene on the sidewalk:  It was early morning. There was a very handsome young man walking down the street. Head held high, shoulders back, walking with a purpose. He had no shirt on, nor was he clad in pants. He did have a very nice briefcase, very nice dress shoes (wingtip perhaps?) dress socks, and boxers.  He was also carrying a briefcase. He did not look to his right or his left, he was on a mission. This man was definitely very secure in his near-nakedness. I was instantly mystified. Who on earth does this?  Nobody else in the van seemed to really care or notice, but I needed this to make sense.  I came up with two scenarios.

1) His clothes has been stolen after a one night stand. He was on his way home and had no money for cab/bus fare. 
2) He had just been robbed, was really embarrassed about it, and was attempting to pass his outfit off as the new normal. I am telling you, there was no shame in his game. That man was confident,  head held high and no clothes on to speak of, and a briefcase. 

Wooowwwwww. This place was wild. I was HOOKED!
And that is the moment where I threw off my country roots and embraced the city life. I quickly declared my major as urban development and began attending classes on EU's downtown campus.

Philadelphia is where I learned to:
A) Love all things food.  From Pat's Cheesesteaks on the gritty south side, to Penang in Chinatown, to the pretzel factory at midnight, my love affair with food was cemented here.
B) Drive like a woman on fire. Philly traffic is where my hatred of gridlock reached epic and fiery proportions, and I learned to weave, cut people off, honk my horn, and slam on my brakes with the best of them
C) where I learned that white girls can actually dance if they just follow the beat of the music.  18 to party, 21 to drink nights at various clubs were in abundance, and I made sure to frequent them as often as possible. Especially on school nights, so that I could ensure academic success.

Ahhh Philly, I love you.

I love to return as often as possible and last weekend was one of those opportunities. We had a wedding to attend and it was very nearly like old times. I ate cheesesteak, thoroughly enjoyed Malaysian curry and roti canai at  Penang, and my husband was white-knuckled in the passenger seat beside me as I determined to beat everybody else on I-76 to where ever they happened to be going.

I have lived in Washington D.C and Atlanta since college, and while I love both of these cities, neither holds quite the pull that Philly does for me.  I embraced it all- from the 'hood to the grit to the glam, I had found a place I loved.

And still do. 

What about you? Where do you love to go back to, and why?

A few random pictures for you

Occupy protest. Don't see this in WV.

City hall with William PENN at the top. Thanks Jonathan Hobbs for the correction to my glaring oversight.

The beautiful bride and crew at Bartram's Garden

A Little Shame and Embarrassment Abroad

We have all been there. Embarrassment happens and we find ourselves scarlet-colored and shame-faced. The moments that happen abroad though, can find us with an extra deep hue of red and sense of mortification.

"What if they think all __________(insert nationality) act like this?
"What if they think I am THAT tourist?"
"Why is there toilet paper coming out of my pants in the middle of this bus station?"

I bring you three of my most embarrassing moments, all experienced on foreign soil.

1. The "I don't care if you're kosher!" incident.
This one occurred at the ripe age of 14, a time when not many of us know very much about life or love, or about the kosher diet of  Jews. The location was Israel and I was on a tour with my mom, best friend, and some members of our church. It was the second time out of the country for both me and my best friend and we were living the life. We thought we were pretty hot stuff and we took that hot attitude wherever we went. Including to lunch one day, where my friend attempted to order butter to go with his bread. Acting appropriately as only teenagers can,  it was our assumption that our every wish would be granted, in life and especially in restaurants. Imagine our shock then, when the nice lady serving our lunch denied the request for butter in an incredulous tone-"But we don't serve butter. We are kosher!" This little piece of information was digested by both of us with confusion and a sense of  indignation. But..... but....WE are not kosher, therefore our need for butter should be fulfilled!  Right? Of course not. We were in their country, eating their food, abiding by their customs. Ahhh, fourteen year olds are clueless, aren't they? My friend decided to voice his outrage by informing anyone within earshot....(brace yourselves)....
"I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE KOSHER!"
Oh. No.He. Didn't
Did he just announce that for the whole kosher restaurant to hear?
Affirmative.
Odd looks ensued. The nice lady huffed. It seemed like all conversation within a two mile radius stopped.
I wanted to crawl under the table.
She probably spit in our food.
 I may have been just 14, but I did know that  telling someone that their religious dietary restrictions mean nothing to you was ummmmm....crossing the line.
Shame face.


2. The "Lost in Translation" incident.
I actually devoted a whole post to this one-my second post ever on this blog. It was my first time in Myanmar. I was living the life, thinking I was pretty hot stuff and generally behaving as without a care in the world. If that sounds similar to Embarrassing Moment #1, it is, except now I was 24, not 14. Burmese is not a language I ever intend on learning, let's be honest. There are way too many circlely looking letters and tonal sounds. But I thought I should at least master a few phrases. I happily learned "Let's go!" and used it quite liberally-on public transportation, amongst the group I was with, and towards the Burmese friends I made. I did this for approximately eight days before one of the aforementioned friends kindly and finally informed me that the way I was pronouncing it actuallllllly meant something else.
What, pray tell, did it mean then?
With a giggle, Mii Mii whispered to me on the crowded bus "I have black teeth!"

Well isn't that just fantastic?

3. The "Inappropriately Dressed" Incident.
A few years ago, I spent two months in southeast Asia. I hung out in Thailand, Myanmar, and hopped over to India, but most of my time was spent in Bangladesh. It was my first time on that side of the world and each experience was wilder than the last. I attended quite a few weddings while there and was happy to do so-I loved dressing up in a sari, watching the dancing, and eating the food. Loved it. Imagine my surprise one evening when I out for a little neighborhood stroll with a friend and we heard a commotion coming from a nearby home. Of course, we just had to find out what was going on and craned our necks to peek over the wall. We quickly realized it was a wedding and tried to scoot on past.

Too late.
We were spotted and exuberantly invited in. I was wearing sort-of clean sweatpants and a green hoodie with a rainbow on it. My hair was a hot mess, as it usually is when I am in foreign countries. My friend wasn't looking much better. Going into the wedding was absolutely unthinkable and we thanked them and pointed to our clothes and attempted to continue on our merry way.
They wouldn't hear of it and after approximately 15 minutes of polite arguing, we realized that we would need to attend the stranger's wedding reception or risk offending said stranger and possibly an entire country.
Siiiiiigh.
Our reluctant acquiescence was met with exultation and we were led into the reception where everybody, and I do mean everybody, was dressed to the 9's and looking beautiful and magical.
Everybody except us. I tried to slink past the guests of honor, never making eye contact, looking wildly around for the first corner in which I could hide. It's bad enough crashing a wedding, but crashing one in SWEATPANTS?!
Not gonna lie, we did get a few looks that night. Ones that I read as "Oh look at those poor ratty Americans. Don't they have any better clothes?" But mostly, the wedding guests were thrilled to have us join them. We stayed as long as was possibly polite and then hightailed it out of there.

I sent telepathic apologies to the bride on the way out.

What about you? What are your most embarrassing travel moments? 

The hair and sweatshirt. Same trip, but on a more appropriate occasion.

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.