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January 2, 2010, Cabarete, Dominican Republic - It's nice to be back in the Caribbean. Haven't seen the likes of 82 degree water and heat rash for a long time. As if I needed to, I have reaffirmed my love for the tropics, even if it means mosquito bites and sweaty nights. It's been a sweet trip with the family, consisting of great seafood meals in the hot sun, tropical beach walking, and, seemingly, tearing my shoulder to shreads. All the surf-practice I have done in the last year was rendered immediately moot on my first day of surfing when the heavy, hollow waves poured me onto a reef and bent my arm into an impossible position. For a brief second I felt as if Jean Claude Van Damme was attempting to extract secret information from me as he pulled my arm behind my back into a precarious position that produced pops and tears. Tearing that is, not tearing. Well, both. It hurt like hell. And I haven't been able to move my right arm properly since. I haven't been injured since 1995 so it is refreshing to realize that innate sense of survivalism that penetrates your very soul when one sustains an injury, but all I want to do is get better. It's funny how a part of you being mutilated actually increases your will to go on. Anyway, enough about bad luck. The good of this trip was seeing family, canyoning down waterfalls in the mountainous jungles, playing in the warm surf, enjoying NOT working, lazy river trips, and idleness. A picture:
October 28, 2009 - Writer's Blech. I have almost nothing to say. Change happens slow and when I am not traveling there is even less change. I am still uploading pictures to dreamstime.com . Yup, I have 4$ in my coffers and counting. Click here
to see the images they have selected. Upcoming trips will provide me more inspiration I reckon. Dominican Republic, South Afica, Dubai, UK are all on the horizon of possibility. It's almost time....
September 32nd, 2009 - Okay, so maybe it's October. But I really wanted to try to keep my posting every month streak intact so let's just humor me and say it's September. Nothing much to report this month other than I've reserved airfare and accomodation in SA for the World Cup of soccer so I am pretty excited about that. Also, I have begun selling some of my photos online at a stock photography website called dreamstime.com. I implore you to check out said website if you are interested in any of my available photos. There is a link at the top of my photo page and the photos are for sale on their site for fairly cheap. Surprisingly, I have already made a couple of sales. Just watching the nickels roll in at this point. Otherwise, extremely busy with school and work. So I will get back to that now.--
August 11, 2009, - Hi, friends. Time has been slipping away from me, the way it tends to do when I occupy myself with financially sustaining employment and other such business instead of seeking only leisure. I have been writing a lot, but the only thing I have been writing is scientific papers. So travel writing has taken a back seat. And with my first semester of school looming on the horizon I only perceive myself getting more busy for the next several months. In the past this is the kind of dark hallway that would make me cringe, but I do see light at the end of the tunnel. In December I have a trip to the Dominican Republic scheduled and I am still all systems go for South Africa for the FIFA World Cup next June. So I take heart in the fact that some adventures do loom in the near future. In the mean time I probably won't be posting a whole lot, although I am planning on marketing some of my writing to some online journals. I will update here if/when this happens. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of summmer. It is,as always, beautiful here in SD.
June 26, 2009, Sun Diego - It was the vacation to end all vacations. Literally. in mid-May I headed North to Washington, via northern California and Oregon, to visit the family and celebrate the lives of a couple of great men - my grandfathers. I knew ahead of time that the forthcoming 30 days were my last days of utter freedom for the foreseeable future. After many, many months of wandering (about 7 of which were international) the impending date of June 15th - my first day of work - loomed on the horizon. So I enjoyed my time, visiting with family and friends in the North as much as possible, then meandering down Highway 1 all the way from Washington to San Francisco. It took about 4 times the amount of driving that taking I-5 would have, but these were uncharted roads for me and I'd always wanted to blaze a trail on the same roads my grandparents used to drive to college in the 1930s. On the way I stopped in Crater Lake NP, Redwood NP, Yosemite NP, Sequoia NP, Kings Canyon NP, and several state parks. By the time I was finished I had a fairly sore back from sleeping upright in my car for 3 nights (car was full of all my belongings that I was lugging from WA to CA) and one of my steel belted radials was so worn down that it was mostly just steel. The trip was awe-inspiring and because I treated it as if I were a tourist I have lots of photos from my adventure, from the WA coast to Central California. You can find my new pictures on the top of the photo page. Enjoy.
May 15, 2009, Washington State Bound - In early 2005 I purchased my first, only, and still current digital camera. It'a a Konica Minolta (who are no longer in business) Dimage A2 4.0 MP camera - fairly quality for it's time, when it comes to digital long-range point-and-shoots. Just to remind you of the state of infancy of digital photography at the time, I also purchased a 512 MB SD card (they were fairly new on the market) at same time. The SD card cost me 75 dollars - almost 25% of what the camera cost. In digital memory, things have changed. It's easy to find a 4GB SD card now (almost ten times as powerful as my 512 MB card) for about 10 dollars. Based on those numbers we are getting about 70 times more memory for our dollar than we were just four years ago. It's wonderful, truly. But all this extra capacity is leaving all the old digital products in the dust. This includes my camera, whose prehistoric bones are about to be retired. My camera takes pictures that fill up only about 1mb on a disc, which was fine when 512mb cards cost 75 dollars. But with cheaper memory has come HUGE megapixel cameras. These are now standards in the industry and to try to sell a photo the size that my camera takes is to get laughed out of the room. Most of my photos are now too small to market, even though they print out into good-sized 12x18 photographs. Anyway, It looks like I will have to upgrade to stay competitive. On the other hand, I've never sold a photograph in my life, nor tried to, and I love my camera. So instead of bowing to the market and spending 500 dollars that I don't have on a new camera, this digital grandfather has instead collected all his favorite photos from his outdated camera, taken over the last two years or so, and made them into a new album. Please find them at the top of my Photo page. Oh, the joy of having your own website: no being laughed out of the room - and very little action whatsoever these days. Enjoy. There are also older albums of my favorites on the same page farther down (favorite 250 pics of 2005).
April 22, 2009, San Diego, California - I've been taking my share of pictures for the last couple months. Most of them have been in my very own neighborhood - Ocean Beach. But I have a few new ones from San Onofre and from the desert so feel free to have a glance at them. They are at the beginning of the San Diego photo album on the photo page (2nd album down).
April 10, 2009, San Diego, California - Wow, has it been a year since I've written any significant piece for my website? Why am I asking you? And why am I asking so many questions? Anyway, for those of you familiar with my pessimistic view of the fate of humanity and the world, you will do yourself either a disfavor or a boon by reading my most recent piece of writing, depending on what you think of my stances on those topics. Read it, if ye dare. Just a reminder, since it's been such a long time: to access my writing click on the writing tab on the upper left part of any page. You know, the tab that says writing. On the writing page you will find my newest, called 'Caring for Capacity'. May it find you well.
March 26, 2009, San Diego, California - I've got the San Diego sickness. And I've got it bad. It's spring here, which has been the case for a month or more. And every conceivable flowering plant is in bloom – as well as the cacti and succulents. It's a whirlwind of color, hosted by calm, warm breezes and the refreshing smell of the ocean-blown spring fragrances. Cliché or not, the climate is such. The January rains turned the entire state of California a vibrant green, which will only last a few more months before the drought and water rationing kick back in. But I am loving' every minute of it.
This morning I woke up to surf and, quizzically, there was a six-foot-long green iguana chilling outside my door on a fence. I fed him some fresh strawberries but he seemed none happier or hurried after eating them. This spoiled lizard must be someone’s pet, I thought to myself.
Like every other country, Colombia possesses a unique mixture of atmosphere, culture, pace of life and geography, which blend to create an ambience that sets it apart from any other place on earth. But unlike many other countries, the Colombian aesthetic is, to me, nearly perfect. I had almost forgotten about the Colombian vibe, my memory recalling an amazing time when I visited in 2005, but not the specific feeling of being in such a diverse, happy and colorful place. This is a place where someone can close their eyes and still know exactly where they are by the feeling of peace and tranquility. I had forgotten about some of the 20 kinds of tropical fruits freshly blended by vendors on every street corner. I'd forgotten the way the rocky mountain ledges dive resolutely into the ocean, while their peaks reach for the top of the atmosphere, where they are shrouded in jungle greenery and ethereal clouds - all while the white-sand beaches stay bright and sunny. I'd even forgotten how the pace of life is nearly at a halt, when compared to western standards - especially in the small villages. It's almost as if locals are swimming through the thick humidity and stifling heat, causing inertia on all quick movements.
It always takes a few days for me to adjust to the pace of life in any country, and often times I find myself making hasty comparisons to other countries I have traveled to, until I finally feel the unique vibe that is exclusive to the country. In this case, I only had a mere 9 days to travel and Colombia, and it took almost a third of my time to become re-entranced and once again enamored with Colombia. But of all the things I had forgotten, the most important is the people. There are a million words to describe the Colombians, but all adjectives - no matter how specific or esoteric - can probably be boiled down to one simple word: happy. Colombians are friendly...because they are happy. They are generous, possibly because they are happy. They are peaceful, due to their happiness, I believe. I rarely heard a Colombian raise their voice to another person. Conflict is rare and mutual respect is common amongst these people. Their joy is pervasive and despite difficult times for many, their happiness abounds. Ryan, my travel companion, and I met many outgoing Colombians who were generous in either resources, time, information. or sometimes all three. All of them wanted to get to know us and wanted only good conversation and companionship in return. And maybe an ice-cold Aguila, their national beer.
On hot Santa Marta nights we had many good conversations with an older guy named German, who had enough swagger, hair grease and loosely-fitting, half-unbuttoned cotton print shirts to rival Al Pacino in Scarface. Plus he was extremely patient with our novice Spanish. If, during one of our nightly, rum-fueled conversations that tended toward Colombian culture or international relations, one of us made a point that German agreed with, he would crisply spout the word ‘Exxxxacto!’ drawing out the 'x' sound and emphasizing the 'act,' which made us feel rather important. There was an unspoken competition between Ryan and I to see who could extract the most 'exactos' from German throughout the course of the long nights. During one such conversation, German told us something that truly resonated with me, inspiring a traveler moment-of-truth. He said, "You know, things have really changed in Colombia amongst the travelers, just in the last few months. Especially with Americans [US citizens], there used to be an element of fear, along with a sense of embarrassment. US citizens would come to Colombia and walk around the streets in shame, with a Canadian flag sewn on their backpack."
I looked down and blushed at this comment, because just three years previously I had been one of those shamed travelers, humbly scurrying around many countries with the mighty maple leaf enabling my sense of dignity and protecting me from scorn. While I was never worried about the US reputation in Colombia, in many countries, such as Panama - where pockets of severe hatred still exist due to the US military invasion in 1989 - I was constantly on guard and ready to wax Canuck at a moment's notice.
German continued, "Now Americans visit Colombia and the rest of the world with their head held high. They are proud that they have done the right thing. And they should be proud."
Of course what German was talking about was the recent election of Barack Obama, which was viewed across the globe as a positive and progressive development due to Obama’s international policies and platform of multinational cooperation rather than bullying. Overnight, as witnessed by German and many millions throughout the world, the status of the US had changed for the better. And that will help positively affect any traveler, American aboard and even citizens at home, who will begin to reap more of the good graces of the citizens of the world. I have only been world-traveling since 2001, which was the beginning of a tumultuous time for US reputation. Just a month after 9/11, during a time when I thought western solidarity was at its highest point, I was shaken in my traveling boots by an anti-American protest in Athens. This was the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, which I thought had almost unconditional support. But the forward-thinking, peaceful Greeks were resolute in their anti-war stance, and the demonstration ran tens of thousands strong in the streets as the US invaded Afghanistan through Uzbekistan. This dark but enlightening moment of anti-Americanism produced my resolve to hand-sew a Canadian flag to my backpack before my trip to the Middle East, which loomed on my travel horizon just a few months ahead.
Throughout the last couple elections, foreign policy was my major election issue. Regardless of what an administration is actually doing, its perception in the world is probably the single-handed most important factor in creating positive diplomacy, preventing terror, and, to borrow a phrase from the previous administration, 'winning the hearts and minds.' While this is a good catch phrase, bombs, torture and invasion does nothing to win hearts and minds, as we have seen. A better way to win them is to treat world citizens with liberty, equality, and respect. This is the first step that America can take to make the world a better place. And, at least in the perception of 90% world, we have taken that first step. I am proud of the 49 percent or so of the country who believed that America's perception in the world was a very important election consideration. But whether or not you agree with this philosophy, next time you are walking the streets in a foreign country, you can take advantage of our new found status. Whether in Colombia or any other, hold your head high like an Iguana and bask in the bright new day of international mutual respect.
One of our many Colombian friends (and his sister)
February 22, 2009, San Francisco, California - Wow, there went another month. But I'd say it was semi-productive. At least I left the country; so that's something. Pictures of Colombia are posted on the photo page so check them out. I have a lot to say about this quick trip but I will leave it for a longer piece. Meanwhile, back in reality-ville, I am still a jobless wonder. But all that is about to change. I was accepted into the PhD program I applied for so I guess I am locked and loaded for the next few years. As for the future of tysontrips, we will have to see.......
January 30, 2009, San Diego, California - Hola, amigos. I know it’s been a while since I rapped at ya. But let it be known that I’ve been highly productive – depending on what your definition of productive is. I spent the month of December studying for and taking the GREs. During that time I also applied for a PhD program at San Diego State University. You know what? I am just going to cut this boring rant off before it gets out of hand. It’s starting to read like a diary entry. Cutting to the chase, during a recent stint in San Diego, I took a grip of pictures. Even though it is still the US, I consider areas of San Diego so sacred that I am going to put the pictures up on my website as if I were traveling in a foreign country. So go to my photo page and click on the San Diego link to see my newest stuff. There are some quite cliché photos of the beach areas, if I do say so myself.
In other news, I am making a brief foray into Colombia. I don’t usually make short trips to specific countries – I prefer long trips to multiple countries – but I am just itching to feel the tropical sun on me and be outside the US. Besides, the Caribbean coast of Colombia is one of my all-time fave places. I am once again meeting my buddy Ryan Fitzsimmons for the adventure. I will be trodding on old ground but I can safely say that travel to this area of the world is so pleasant and rewarding that I could visit 100 times and not become bored. So pictures will follow in mid-February, if all goes as planned. In the mean time please check out my San Diego photos. Thanks. -tv
November 30, 2008, Olympia, Washington - Throughout the last decade, without exception, I've unflinchingly acted on my insatiable urge to travel. Without questioning my motives or the origination of my yearning for journeying, I’ve trotted the globe shamelessly, as if guided by some profound cause. Traveling has been my lifestyle – my life. I’ve spent all my time preparing for it and saved all my money to pay for it. For a good half of this decade I have been outside of my country of birth. And through these actions I have honed and defined my character. For me, traveling doesn’t necessarily mean 'getting away.’ That isn’t what I find so appealing. It’s not about escaping the mundane or normal that I treasure. It's the idea of seeking the unknown; of exploring the unseen. When driving on life’s windy road, I always wonder what’s around the next curve. And up to this point, since I graduated from college and entered the phase of life where I call all my own shots, I have always accelerated into the turn in order to see what lies around the bend. Travel has been the liquid that quenches my thirst for the unknown.
However, lately I've wondered why the travel bug hasn't been biting as hard as it once did. I wonder if I, in my thirties, have finally scratched my formerly unreachable itch to grab my backpack and hit the road for undisclosed periods of time. Am I satisfied with all that I've seen and done? Do I long for a more predictable, regimented lifestyle? Or is it that I have had such a long streak without a steady routine that I no longer crave the freedom of travel - that I've become desensitized or spoiled to the whole process? Who knows, but I’d be willing to bet the answer to my question can be found an airplane ride away, on another continent. Perhaps it’s time to go find out.
Every once in a while, I think everyone, should they be fortunate enough to have the time to do so, reflects on how they got to where they are in their life. They contemplate the decisions they have made – even question them – but inevitably arrive at the conclusion that what’s done is done. In my case, however, accepting the past as inevitable doesn’t satisfy me. It doesn’t get at the root of the question: just how did I end up as a 31-year-old, seasoned traveler? And why? Was my propensity to travel predetermined or did I mold myself into the person I am today via millions of small decisions? What made me lace up my hiking boots for the first time and backpack around Europe in 1999?
It may have been my parents. They taught me from a young age to explore intrepidly; to fill a pack to the brim with survival gear and climb up mountain passes to reach freezing alpine lakes. They dragged me around the silver mining towns of central Mexico when I was 12. They took me to uncharted beaches on deserted tropical islands; drove our family in rental cars down impossibly muddy hills in Costa Rica to find remote jungles. They taught me to always travel by public transportation, just like the locals do.
Their messages and life lessons stuck. The experiences stayed with me. Something was awoken within me that at certain points in my life seemed that it may never go back to sleep: my constant craving for adventure and exploration. Seeing new places and meeting new people became a cornerstone in my global socialization. In fact, the urges to travel have been so strong that since I left home after high school I have been unable to stay in one place for more than a year, plus or minus a few months. I’ve lived in all four corners of the US, a couple spots in Europe and traveled extensively, for over a year at a time. Throughout most of this decade I considered any sort of routine a lifestyle wrought with stagnancy. My constant migration is proof of this belief.
Whatever the reason for my nomadic lifestyle, I have no laments. Not because I believe in living a life absent of regret (I do), but because I feel that my wanderlust has provided me with an insight to the world that I could have never developed without having walked upon these itchy feet. The experiences I’ve put myself through are invaluable and will travel with me, wherever I may roam, as part of my existence forever. Will my desire for meandering the globe return again? I have a strong feeling it might. But, in the mean time, the most important thing I can do is use the lessons I have learned wisely, allowing the wisdom of a million unknown faces and a million never-to-be-seen-again places guide me in my quest to live a fulfilling and passionate existence.
How long will it be until I feel the urge to become diseased and decrepit again? If god wills, it shan’t be long
October 8, 2008, Bali, Indonesia - Pssha, I wish! I'm still in stormy, cold Washington State. Sometimes I honestly believe this place is suffering from continental drift at an accelerated pace, and is just a few miles south of Alaska, the way the seasons manifest. So? So, nothing. But reminiscing about tropical locales reminds me that I have uploaded even more video to my website. This is a Video file that takes all of my best pictures from the last six months, puts them to music and they appear as a slide show right in front of your face. This means no clicking, moving or even thinking for you. If you didn't follow along at the time, or even if you did, now you can view all of my best shots in one video clip. The way to do it is two-fold. Go to my photo page and scroll down to videos and under 2008 you will see Picture DVD presentation. You can right click and save the file to downlaod it (better quality) and then play it on the media player of your choice, OR you can click the video clips to watch the segments on youtube (lower quality). Either way, enjoy viewing the culmination of my journey around the world.
October 2, 2008, Olympia, Washington - Technology has gotten the better of me. I have uploaded even more stunningly awesome videos to the bottom of the photo page. This one is a two-part movie of all the video I took while on my most recent trip. Two problems: the files are enormous and even so they appear small when you click the links. There is no way to make them smaller-sized without comprimising the quality so they will stay how there are. However, the way to battle against the small appearance of the videos is to right-click them and save them to your computer rather than click them directly. That way you can watch them on any player that plays MPEG files - the player can be resized. I know this is all really exciting so I promise not to bore you with any more technical jargon on this site. Enjoy the videos, if you can figure out how.
September 30, 2008, Olympia, Washington - Website update: It's videos aplenty.I've uploaded three videos from my past travel experiences that I think are worth watching. The first is a video project I made from the best pictures I took when in Brazil in 2005. It's set to music and good family fun. Takes about 18 mintues. To watch it, go to my photos page and scroll down to the bottom to the video section. Under 2006 you will find the Brazil Video Presentation. You can watch either the small verion or the high-quality. Either will take a little time to download. While there you will notice another presentation just below it: the South and Central American Video Presentation. That is the second half of my best pictures from my trip to Latin America in 2005-2006. So check it out. Finally, I uploaded the full, high-quality version of my Alaska video from last time. It's much nicer in hi-def so that is another addition to the site. Enjoy.
September 15, 2008, Olympia, Washington - Recently, I have gone back to find some of my old travel pictures, ahhh, to relive the fine memories and to digitize the thousands of prints I have gathering dust in my closet. I found quite a few new pictures from an around-the-world trip I took back in 2001-2002. I scanned these 35mm prints and added them to such albums as Turkey, India and Europe Summer 2001. Even more obsessively, I found pictures I took about a decade ago, from my first trip to Europe, a couple of visits to Morocco and a volunteer trip I took to Ecuador in 1998, and made albums out of those. You read that right: three new albums. You may notice that, back in this period, I suffered from a very young traveler's eye and deplorable photgraphy equipment, but I still think these pictures are site-worthy. You can find them near the bottom of my photo page under the years 1999 and 1998. Enjoy.
September 9, 2008 - More from the archives:
Way back in May I was making my way through Eastern Europe at breakneck speed, unaware of anything other than that I wanted to make it to a wedding in Bucharest, Romania a few short weeks after departing from Russia via Finland. Along the way I did my best to educate myself on such topics as the eternal Latvian struggle for independence, contemporary Slavic language, post-WWII history and the name for 'sausages' in every Eastern European country (so I could avoid them). However, my speed and fatigue soon intermingled, producing a glossy, almost irreverent coating over my corneas - cultural cataracts, if you will. There was only so much I could take in on minimal sleep on night buses and spending only one or two days in a city. This is a conundrum for nearly every traveler: whether to see and experience as much as possible, while only getting a brief view of everything, or to fixate on only a few places to know them well, thereby missing out on everything else. I tend to opt for the former, yearning for a small taste of as much as possible and stopping for longer only if I am undeniably intrigued.
In Eastern Europe I practiced this travel creed unapologetically as I headed to my destination in Romania. Consequently, I missed out on a few opportunities I wish I could have again. And someday I may. One of my regrets was not spending enough time in the former states of the Yugoslav republic. I did visit Serbia and I was massively fascinated. However, I regrettably missed up-and-coming Sarajevo in Bosnia. Serbia quickly grew on me for several reasons - none of which are worth mentioning here. But what really began to catch my interest in the former socialist republic was the incredible ethnic and geographical history. The more I read the more shocked I became at the contemporary political situation in Yugoslavia that led to its breakup, ethnic cleansing and massive civil war. Not having been in Europe in the early 90s nor interested in international politics at that stage in my life, I couldn't grasp precisely which conditions had played the major role in the disintigraion of this formerly successful state.
One day the point was driven home clearly to me, as a walked in a park overlooking the Danube River and the city of Belgrade. Minding my own business my eyes wandered to a cart that was selling old Yugoslavian bills (dinars). These bills were long since outdated but were now collectors items because Yugoslavia ceased to exist in 1992. The lady at the stand was selling bills in incredibly large denominations and this sunny day she did not seem to be seeing much business. I decided to go over and have a look. In broken English she told me about the breakup of the republic and how she came across the money. I was learning. Apparently, many times just before a country splinters or disintegrates their economy goes down in flames, just as everything else does. Inflation then runs rampant and many citizens are unable to support themselves or even buy the food they need to survive. It's not easy to cure hyperinflation, It takes decades sometimes. Some countries have gone as far as to save resources by not painting the back of their newly produced, larger denomination bills. Another quick fix government solution is to simply print more money. If the value of the currency is dropping then putting more money into the hands of the everyday consumer is the obvious choice, right? Wrong. The hyperinflation is exacerbated by an influx in currency, which in turn devalues the currency more. This continuously perpetuating inflation situation is exactly what was faced in Yugoslavia as it was apparent that its states were breaking away from Serbia. Currency devalued to such an extent that Milosovic and his cronies began to print ridiculously high denomination notes to appease the situation.
Well, just as prescribed, the currency devalued further. So even larger bills were produced. That is where we get the bill that you see below, the 50 billion dinar bill, worth nothing at the time and even less now. Fifty billion: that is nine zeros.
The lady at the stand in the park alerted me, in her raspy, almost unintelligible accent that she was selling such a bill for about 2 dollars - although she had a 500 billion dinar bill for only a few dollars more. As a novice money collector I felt that I could not pass this opportunity up. I purchased the bill and made a little chit chat with her.
She seemed nice enough but quite old and weathered - an obvious product of the tough and lean transitional years the country had faced during the endless decades of war in the 20th century. I wondered what she thought of me, a rich consumer, able to toss around hard currency on a whim. I felt a little guilty and decided to leave.
As I walked out of the park I heard the old vendor screech one final sentence to me: "Goodbye, r-r-rich man." At first I did not turn, but rather kept walking, paranoid that her comment was a mocking reference to my frivolous westernized spending habits and seemingly unlimited capital. But suddenly I realized her comment was a perfect humorous satire of her own country's financial downfall. She had facetiously called me rich as I walked away with a bill worth 50 billion nothings. I found her sense of humor refreshing and inspiring, considering the difficulties she had faced in her lifetime.
Money in my bank
August 15, 2008 - A little tidbit from the archives:
June 18, 2008, Santarcangelo, Italy - This is a breakfast fit for a king.
Indeed, I felt like royalty. Indeed. After an evening of drinking spumante with a man called Conte (count) Guidi, who invited us into his hand-restored castle from the 1100s, I awoke to this spread. In the tiny hilltop settlement of Petrella Guidi, capped by a 12th century medeival castle and named after the family of this count and nobleman, who were the town?s founders and have been the area?s benefactors for 900 years, I spent the night in a nearby stone home dating from the same era.
The spread was provided by the home?s caretaker and just scratches the surface of some of the Italian delicacies I was introduced to during my 5 days in the Italian region of Romagna.
The meal began with a crostatina, a type of cake with a delicate consistancy and a rich cream base, called crema della nonna (grandma?s cream). In a circular pan on the table sat a simple but filling dish, similar to a souffle, called bustrengo, which was made with a mixture of egg, flour and sugar. This dish, native to the region, is old fare typical in a working class breakfast. Its taste was enlivened by a sweet, homemade fig jam. In another pan sat a dish similar to an omelette, made with eggs and cheese, with a medley of vegetables cooked in: tomatoes, peppers, onions, zuchini. Tasty. A plate of various-shaped stuffed pastries, called tigella sacotini, also native to the region, sat temptingly close to my plate. The thin, flaky crusts were filled with several different savory delights. Some had a creamy mixture of a cheese similar to ricotta; others were stuffed with proscuitto, herbs, and cheese. The exciting flavors of the tigella were enhanced further by a sampling of local homemade jams and dipped in Romagna produced honey. At this point, not normally a breakfast eater, I was already well-full. But there was more. A cream-based cake, torta della nonna, loomed large on the table and I felt it was my duty to consume it. The cascade of sweet and savory continued with slices of rock melon (cantaloupe) and proscuitto. All was finished off with a flowery-scented tea. This ends my report on just one belt-busting meal in one day in Italy. But rest assured this was by no means an isolated culinary experience. I was showered with gourmet local liquors, wines, beers, food - from sinfully creamy gelatto to homemade pastas - and kind hospitality throughout my time in Italy. Any weight I may have lost riding across Siberia on a diet of water and instant noodles has been gained back - and then some. And I don?t regret a morsel of it.
August 13, 2008 - Olympia, Washington - Imagine that. It only took me 5 weeks to post the rest of my photos and video from the remainder of my trip, once I arrived back in Washington State. They are all up now - the pictures, the video, the photojournalism. Revisit the past or enjoy some of the new stuff. Anything to tide you over until I can get some more writing up on the site. Mark my word, it will happen. What I've added today are an album of pictures from my time in Italy, along with all my videos from Western Europe. All the videos have to do with Bavarian dancing or soccer celebrating. But what is wrong with that anyway? Not much I say. Enjoy if ye dare.
August 5, 2008 - Olympia, Washington - Pictures from Germany are now available for your eyeballs.
August 3, 2008 - Olympia, Washington - Wow, sorry about the lull. My brother got married so I was busy acting like I had a purpose in life. In the mean time I am finally catching up with some of my photography. Pictures of Serbia and Romania have been posted. Pictures from almost two months ago but new pictures as far as the interweb is concerned. Enjoy. More soon.
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