The Quebec odyssey is beginning. In 13 minutes I get on a ferry which will take me to Seattle. After that it’s a flight to Minneapolis, a flight to Cleveland, and finally a flight to the beautiful castle-wall enclosed city of Quebec. But that’s not all. Upon arriving in Quebec City the next stop is Gare du Palais aka the local bus station, where I will board an Intercar that will (hopefully) take me to Chicoutimi at 6:30pm. At 9:00 Quebecois Standard Time, I will (hopefully) arrive in Chicoutimi, where I will be ferried (figuratively) to my host family’s house. That is, assuming I have a host family. As of now I still haven’t heard whether or not I have a host family, or who it is. I’m not even entirely sure I’m in the program. I paid $200 bucks (Canadian), and all they sent me was an email to the Program’s blog where there’s a video in French of a guy telling you what to wear in case it rains.
Anyway.
The adventure is beginning. French immersion. A part of North America I have never been to before. No cell phone. No computer. Lots and lots of…I have no idea.
T minus nine minutes.
This entry was written by , posted on July 4, 2010 at 12:02 am, filed under Ravenna, Travels, Uncategorized, the boot. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Disclaimer: Cooped up in my hotel room all day with total darkness outside I’m sort of starting to go out of my mind, and it’s affecting my ability to write in an engaging manner. If you don’t want to slog through a bunch of mediocre anecdotes about me not being able to buy a tooth brush I suggest you just skip to the last paragraph, which contains all I really wanted to say in the first place.
I’ve done a lot today. I started by forcing myself out of bed just before 9am despite the fact that it was still dark outside and I felt like I could’ve slept for another three years. It’s always dark in Barrow (Side note: I’m actually sort of lying here: from about 12pm to 2pm today it was sort of bright outside, kind of what it’s like just after sunset in Seattle, and I was fucking ecstatic), and I’m just going to have to accept this. Then I ate a standard continental breakfast of poppy-seed muffin bread and Raisin Bran, and got ready to seize the day.
Seizing the day in Barrow requires, if you don’t have a car, putting on about 15-20 layers. After donning my down jacket and a complimentary layer of chain mail just in case I ran into a polar bear or a dragon, I made my way over to the Alaska Airlines terminal where I asked if I might be able to get off this desolate stretch of snowy rock a day earlier than scheduled and not have to stop in Fairbanks on the way home (the only other time I’ve been to Fairbanks my friends from my summer job in Cooper Landing and I spent a good portion of the time drinking lukewarm beers in a Fred Meyer parking lot and talking about which of our mildly attractive coworkers we wanted to bang). But it wasn’t happening; I’m not getting out of here any earlier, and I WILL have to go through Fairbanks. After the airport, determined to make the best of my time here (I did come here by choice, after all) I danced for five minutes to the song “Mundian to Bach Ke” in my hotel room by myself. Then I tried to watch another episode of Dexter, cooked a Banquet chicken nugget and macaroni dinner, and went for another walk.
On this second walk I was much more determined to get to an actual destination, and this actual destination was Arctic Grocery, which was closed. At Arctic grocery I hoped to purchase a tooth brush (which I forget 75 percent of the time I travel) and some accompanying tooth paste. On the way back I was picked up by an elderly man who was born in Barrow and has more or less lived here his whole life. He was seemed somewhat perplexed by the fact that I was walking. Since I arrived here I’ve seen very few people walking the streets. It’s almost like the people of Barrow don’t want anyone to walk, but as I have no car and no snowmobile, there’s not much choice.
(Side paragraph: Speaking of walking, yesterday I spent 15 dollars yesterday on a jug of orange juice. I thought it cost seven dollars but didn’t notice I was wrong until after I had already walked the mile-and-a-half back to my hotel room in -15 degree weather. I should have realized that something was off when the cashier rang me up and my order [which consisted of almost nothing apart from the OJ] cost just under 30 dollars. However, I rarely question the price a cashier quotes me, and this time was no different. When I later told my friend Jasmine about the mistake she said, “That’s going to be the best orange juice you’ve ever had in your life.” And you know what? She was fucking right).
But how IS Barrow? you may wonder. Barrow is exotic. Along with Cuba and Morocco, it’s probably in the top three most exotic places I’ve ever been in my life. This is because it’s different. It’s isolated. It’s dark. It’s cold. When you walk the streets you get the feeling that no one else lives in this town, save the occasional whine of a snowmobile in the distance. Then all of the sudden you walk through a door, and you’re sitting in a restaurant just like anywhere else in America, except for the fact that you feel like you don’t really belong there and most of all, like the restaurant itself somehow doesn’t belong there. It’s like Barrow exists in some sort of parallel universe where people come when they want to get away from the real version of the universe, and what they have constructed here to resemble the real version of the universe is almost convincing, but there’s something not quite right that you just can’t put your finger on. At first this, along with the fact that I got chased by a dog on the walk to my hotel from the airport, was kind of freaking me out. More than anything it was the lack of people in the streets, and the fact that everything here is literally frozen, caked with a kind of snow that looks like the frosting traditionally put on ginger snaps. But now that I’ve been here a little bit, and had some (semi) actual conversations with actual people, I’m a little less freaked out. It is a different place, but it’s 330 miles north of the Arctic Circle, so it’s bound to be a different place. And, after all, I came here looking for something different. Something unique. So if I need to get bit by a dog or wrestle a polar bear or pay 15 dollars for some juice, so be it.
This entry was written by , posted on December 20, 2009 at 10:09 pm, filed under Alaska, Travels and tagged airport inn, Alaska, alaska airlines, barrow, north slope, pepe's north of the border, things to do in barrow. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
When I have a layover in a airport, I almost never leave the terminal due to the hassle of having to go through security again and a sinking fear that for some insane reason they won’t let me back in. “Excuse me, Sir, but you already went through security back in Seattle. You can’t go through it again. You’re going to have to stay here in Anchorage for the rest of your life and get married to a moose.”
But today I left the terminal, and it was glorious. Zero degrees Fahrenheit glorious. I haven’t felt this kind of cold since I lived in Minnesota, when after swimming at the local pool my hair would freeze before even getting back to the car. Here I blew my nose and a few seconds later felt the snot was frozen in my beard. If it wasn’t for the down Holden jacket my friend Pete so generously loaned me I would most surely be dead in the parking lot right now. This is not a joke. Tomorrow the front page of the Anchorage Daily News would read, “Stupid-ass tourist dead in parking lot for being an idiot.” It’s fucking cold here.
Snow nipple
Well, one more flight and I’m in Barrow. I have already braved the zero degree weather here in Anchorage, so I’m now more confident I’ll survive the two block walk from the airport to my hotel. I’m not sure about the darkness, though. I’m really not sure about the darkness. I’m surprised by how light it is in Anchorage right now. Except for all the snow on the ground this could easily be Seattle. I assumed after working this summer in Cooper Landing that it would get as dark during the winter as it was light in the summer, i.e, perpetually hover between darkness and a sort of penumbral gloom. This, I am glad to note, is not the case. Things are happy here in Anchorage. Cold, but happy. The light is stronger than the dark.
Puffy Wetzler
This entry was written by , posted on December 19, 2009 at 5:20 pm, filed under Alaska, Travels and tagged anchorage, barrow, freezing, holden outerwear, party, ted stevens. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
It’s good to be humbled when you travel. Unless you’re a complete asshole, it’s hard not to be. Wherever you go, not matter how remote, no matter how exotic, no matter how “oh my God, we were totally, like, the only white people there” “crazy”, these are places where people have lived their entire lives, and in most cases, where people have lived their entire lives for thousands of years. Unless you’re huddled amongst a troupe of emperor penguins in Antarctica or dining on mollusks at the bottom of Lake Baikal, you’re really not that special. People have done what you’re doing before, and people will do what you’re doing after you.
A few minutes ago here in the Seattle airport a husband and wife walked by wearing “Ukpeagvik Wrestling” and “Barrow Whalers” sweatshirts. This instantly humbled me and infuriated me. Firstly, I thought I was the only one going to Barrow. I thought I was special. Secondly, I thought this was a big deal. I thought this was a desolate, foreboding place where only the strongest of the strong survive. A place where you need to be able to kill a polar bear with a jackknife in order to keep yourself from becoming lunch. A place where the sure footing to dodge a deranged musk ox might be the only thing between you and death.
Now I feel sort of like I’m going to a girls U-12 soccer tournament in Issaquah.
HOWEVER, there is something that will always remain special no matter how many people have gone to a place before you. Unless you’re taking body shots off the stomach of an emaciated sorority girl in Cabo San Lucas (and hell, EVEN if you’re taking body shots of the stomach of an emaciated sorority girl in Cabo San Lucas) the way you experience any given destination will always be special. Sure, people have seen what you’ve seen and done what you’ve done before, but no one has seen it exactly the way you saw it, or felt exactly the way you felt. And no one will feel exactly the way you felt ever again.
So, as I sit here and try to figure out how the hell I can conclude this little reflection with some kind of profound summary statement, I’m struck by the reality that my flight to Anchorage leaves in less than 20 minutes, and I really need to get moving.
Barrow!!!
This entry was written by , posted on at 10:43 am, filed under Alaska, Travels and tagged Alaska, barrow, north slope, prudhoe bay, traveling. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Photos: Seviglius and his G10
This entry was written by , posted on at 4:02 am, filed under Travels and tagged barry, eastlake, mark, pike's place, seviglius, snot rockets, wetzler. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
I have long longed to photograph the stairs by my apartment that lead up to Capitol Hill. These are symbolic stairs; they symbolize the transition between the normal world and the hipster world, two worlds I sometimes find myself caught between. You see: I wear flannel. I wear Vans. I ride my bike places. I sometimes smoke cigarettes.
But I fucking hate hipsters.
This entry was written by , posted on December 15, 2009 at 9:41 pm, filed under Capitol Hill, Travels, alcohol, the boot and tagged Capitol Hill, eastlake, hipster, howe. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
On the way to surf in Oregon, cerca September 2009.
Photo: Seviglius
This entry was written by , posted on November 29, 2009 at 2:15 am, filed under Travels and tagged cannon beach, short sands, surf. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
It is freeeeeezing. Freeeeezing. That’s the problem with Seattle: When it’s cloudy, it’s warm; when it’s sunny, it’s cold as balls.
Right now I’m sitting on my couch wrapped in a fleece listening to Mozart’s “Requiem” and looking out the window towards the curve on I-5 at about mile 165. The traffic is flowing at a steady pace to the south but crawling towards the north. Apparently God has decided to punish people heading towards Marysville. I don’t blame him.
I have reached Week 7 in Fall Quarter at the University of Washington. It has been a great quarter in many ways, but I am excited for it to be over. I want to go to Barrow. I want to do the things that I dream of. Do you know what I dream of? The other day I told my students all my dream: That one day I want to have a travel show on the Discovery Show. I also told my friend Kevin and his wife Melissa. “Aren’t there a lot of people that want to have travel shows on the Discovery Channel?” they responded. Assholes.
It’s cold, but at least it’s sunny. I can’t stand the rain. When it rains I turn into a zombie, wandering between class muttering epithets and consuming vast quantitites of dairy in hopes of making up for the vitamin D deficiency I know I surely must be exeperiencing. But today the sun is just starting to peak over Capitol HIll and shine into the sleepy neighborhood of Eastlake. I have just listened to Travis Tritt’s “It’s a Great Day to be Alive,” and for the most part I completely agree with him. Even though with school right now I feel slightly overwhelmed pretty much all of the time and just wish it was Friday afternoon (though I have no social life and if it WAS Friday afternoon I would be bitching about how I have nothing to do), I do think it is a great day to be alive. I am not hungover. I have warm clothes to wear. I just ate Cheerios with banana and milk. I have not brushed my teeth.
Another thing I am really excited about is what I am going to do this summer. I think I am going to do a 5-week intensive French course in Quebec City, Quebec. I am so excited about this possibility. I need to speak French better. I also need to speak Spanish better, but I NEED to speak French better. I also need to speak Korean better, but I NEED to speak French better. French is so fucking cool, and I’ve decided that Quebecois French, though it sounds like a duck getting throttled, is even cooler. Everyone goes to study French in France. But no one goes to Quebec. But Quebec is beautiful. And Quebecoise girls…..
I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life. I haven’t the faintest fucking clue. That’s about all I do know right now. But I’m completely OK with that. I’m not in a hurry. I’m having a good time. I’m learning. I’m being nice to people. And I’m pretty sure that’s the most important part (all of it, not just being nice). One day I’ll figure it out. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but MAY-BE tomorrow.
This entry was written by , posted on November 12, 2009 at 11:28 am, filed under Stream of Consciousness Thursdays, Travels. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Back from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and the rainy season has begun. It is not a downpour, but is not a drizzle either. It is the kind of rain that seems to soak you both from the top down and the bottom up.
As many of you know, I frequently experience what might be called “mini breakdowns.” These usually consist of me drinking too much and slipping into a period of self-loathing in which I vow to change my life permanently for the better. I vow to become more healthy, more responsible, and to unlock the “hidden potential” I’m convinced I’d “have” if I wasn’t such a “loser.” Which was what happened yesterday.
Interestingly enough, the highlight of this weekend in Mexico did not actually have to do with the wedding (I was in Puerto Vallarta because one of my best friends from high school was getting married), though it was glorious and the champagne free-flowing. The highlight of the trip came Friday morning, when my friend Steve and I “borrowed” the Four Seasons’ hobie cat and sailed three miles into the open ocean.
Never had I been so far out into the ocean without the supervision of some kind of “captain.” It was just me, Steve, and warm, blue water as far as we could see. Once we got past the furthest fishing boat we decided to stop and swim. We dove into water of indeterminable depth, opening our eyes to only see blue.
Eventually a lancha came towards us at high speeds and we knew we had been found out. “Did you guys ge here on purpose,” they asked. “Yes,” we said. “The whole hotel is worried for you.” “Oh,” we said. And then we sailed back in.
What’s the point of all this? The point is that one of the most magical experiences of the trip came with no alcohol and pretty much no decadence. It was just two dudes sailing in the open ocean, trying to get as far away from the mainland as possible without accidentally going to French Polynesia. Which reinforces in my mind how awful drinking is, and how I need to stop it forever. You know those guys who say, “I’m never drinking again” after they black out — even though you know they’re just going to get hammered the next weekend? I hate those guys too, mostly because I’ve always been one of those guys. But yesterday it stopped. Yesterday I turned over a new leaf. And for those of you who don’t believe me (aka everyone): Well….whatever.
This entry was written by , posted on October 27, 2009 at 10:58 am, filed under Central America, Travels and tagged four seasons punta mita, mexico, nayarit, nuevo vallarta, puerto vallarta, surfing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
It pays to have talented friends. Greg Miller is an extremely talented photographer. He takes pictures of goats licking up pee and warms up his battery using his belly so he can take 30-minute exposures of the stars in the Enchantments near Leavenworth. That’s called dedication. I had never had the honor of getting my portrait taken by Greg until a week ago — the very last night he had his studio in downtown Seattle. The whole thing was so easy. I stood for about two seconds on a piece of white paper while Greg snapped photos for what seemed like 1.5 seconds. A few days later he sent me the results, and I was stoked out of my mind.
Thanks Greg — shit’s sick! Check out more of Greg’s photos at frostlinephotography.com
This entry was written by , posted on October 6, 2009 at 10:19 pm, filed under Ravenna, Travels, Uncategorized, the boot. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.