Guest Post: Running Down a Dream

Posted on October 5, 2010 by lisafindley

I warned today’s guest poster, Ms. Sara OD, that if she did not give me a title for her post, I would make one up for her. As you can see, she did not give me a title, so we’re going with a Tom Petty song that does relate to the post but in a kind of cheesy way. Ah well!

I am pleased to introduce you to Ms. Sara OD, a veteran traveler and academic. She has lived in Germany and driven around Australia, and one time we hung out with some swans in Ontario. She holds a Bachelor’s in Philosophy and Psychology, with a Master’s in Religious Studies, and she is working on a Master’s in Library Science. So if you feel the urge to travel, she can find you reference books on where to go, while pondering the larger questions of why you might pursue such a quest and how that relates to your childhood, all with a delightfully understated sense of humor. Obviously, she comes highly recommended. Please enjoy her first post with us here at Stowaway, and be sure to show your affection/ask your questions/request wallaby pictures in the comments.

Running Down a Dream by Ms. Sara OD

The other day I was talking to a coworker about travel and he said something along the following lines: “A lot of people travel to find themselves, but it always seems to me more like running away.” At the time I think I nodded and let this comment slide, intent on going back to making lattes and omelets. But it didn’t sit well with me throughout the day (the comment, not the omelet).

As an avid believer in the transformative power of travel it shook me to think that maybe it was all a sham. It was like being told there was no Santa Claus by Janelle Morris in 1^st grade the week before Christmas (this may or may not have actually happened… and Janelle Morris may or may not be a jerkface). I began to ponder the possibility that all the hype about “expanding one’s horizons” and “absorbing new cultures” and “eating stinky foreign cheeses” was actually a cover-up for our inability to tolerate a humdrum existence. Is travel really just a form of escapism? Are we using geographic variation and cultural discontinuity as an unguent for our overworked, understimulated souls? After looking up the word “unguent” I came to a conclusion: My coworker is an idiot.

Although no one would deny that part of the appeal of travel is “getting away from it all,” it also allows for some serious self-discovery. I’m not saying that every time you visit your cousin in Toledo you’re going to re-envision your place in the universe. Nor am I saying that, ala Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love, we ought to romanticize the unfamiliar to the point of saccharine-induced nausea. What I am saying is that when we open ourselves up to certain experiences, certain fears even, we reveal bits of ourselves that would otherwise remain dormant. For me, fear is essential to travel. When we travel, we intentionally displace ourselves, both spatially and culturally. I imagine the thrill of travel is closely related to the thrill of watching horror movies. How much discomfort can I handle? How far can I push myself? How many more stinky foreign cheeses can I eat?

the stinkiest of cheeses this side of France -- Stilton (photo from http://www.recipetips.com)

The semester I spent in Germany during a study abroad my senior year of college was one of the loneliest and most revealing times of my life. Although my language skills were advanced enough to allow me to competently order a sandwich, this surprisingly did not facilitate an effortless transition into German society. There was always a tangible otherness about me as I fumbled through the different arenas of German life. Everyday tasks became streaked with uncertainty. And to this day I don’t know why it’s necessary that German laundry machines have so many options.

About two weeks into the program there was a day that, like any other day, I was watching dubbed episodes of The Cosby Show. (Until you’ve heard Bill Cosby speak German, you don’t know the meaning of the word “disconnect.”) I decided I’d had enough of Huxtable family values and determined that this particular day was a day of significance. There was an unidentifiable weight to it. Although still not adept at public transportation, I stuffed my German dictionary into my backpack and headed off toward the train station with no idea of where I intended to end up. I don’t distinctly remember that walk to the station, but I do remember the overwhelming buzz of freedom. I remember embracing my solitude. I remember the abandonment of fear. I remember that I should have worn more supportive shoes. Our story ends rather lamely with our heroine going to see a movie in Hamburg (a mere 30-minute train ride away). This is a particularly lame ending given that the movie was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But poor adaptations of awesome books aside, the point is not that I wasted twelve perfectly good Euros, but that I reached deep down inside to waste those Euros. Going to see a movie stateside would in no way have tested me in the same way that going to see a movie in Germany did. Eventually I ventured beyond the movie theaters of Hamburg, but that experience will always stick out in my mind as the day I recognized something in myself that, until that point, had been obscured. Only once I experienced that sense of displacement was I able to find the requisite verve to see a truly terrible movie.

University of Hamburg campus from the river

Hamburg, Germany -- not a bad place to see a bad movie (photo from http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de)

I know our dear Lisa has discussed many of these themes before much more eloquently than I have done here. I know she has talked about the fear, the solitude, and the sense of self that travel instills in the serious traveler. And what it comes down to is not a cliché about “overcoming fear” or “becoming who you were meant to be,” but a real moment of the self confronting the self. So travelers, know that you are not running away — or at least not only running away — you are also running toward. Toward what is up to you.

The Least Stinky Fish: The Top 5 Ways to Be a Great Guest

Posted on August 31, 2010 by lisafindley

Benjamin Franklin, founding father, scientist, author, diplomat, and turkey advocate, once said, “Fish and visitors stink after three days.” As usual, he gets it exactly right with this pithy pull quote. Whether you’re visiting friends or family, after three days of living in close quarters, sharing every meal, waiting impatiently for the bathroom, staying up later than usual, and all while trying to maintain your friendship, it’s very easy for the visit to feel less like a welcome break and more of a drag on both of you.

I’m stretching this principle to its breaking point this weekend, as I’m staying three full days and four nights with my friend Mike in Boston. So how can I make sure that when I get on the airplane to head back home, both of us will be planning our next get together and not crossing each other’s names out of our address books? I’m sure you will not be surprised to find that I have a list, dearest fellow travelers, and I’m sharing it with you!

The Least Stinky Fish: The Top 5 Ways to Be a Great Guest

1. Set expectations ahead of time. This hearkens back to my advice on hosting couch surfers; if you both know what you’re getting into, you’ll both have a lot more fun. Don’t think that just because you’re family or friends with your hosts, you don’t need to set expectations — sometimes they’re the ones you most need to have these conversations with, to make sure you’re all on the same page and feelings don’t get hurt. For example, I wrote Mike last week to say how excited I was to visit, and to warn him that my knee and ankle injuries have resurfaced, with two unfortunate results: 1) I am now the least fashionable person ever, as I dress in bright white walking shoes no matter my outfit, and 2) I walk slower than a sloth on a lazy summer day. Mike was sorry to hear about my injury, of course, and no doubt he will regret being seen with me and the Great White Sneakers, but he was happy to know this vital piece of information enough ahead of time to reconsider how we should get to the various places we’re going.

2. No matter how short the trip, set aside some down time. Don’t wait until you’re halfway through your second marathon day of museums, hikes, street food, wacky local mode of transportation, tourist attractions, and shopping to realize you need to sitdownrighthisinstantoryouwillpassout — plan for it. Sure, your schedule will be different than when you’re at home, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need time to rest when you’re away, same as you do at home. (Younger folks than I, I promise this is not an old person talking, just someone who knows what traveling while exhausted feels like — not good.) You don’t always have to crash back at the house, either; find a nice park and take a nap or stake out a corner of a local café to re-energize.

3. Pick up the tab. Not on everything, mind you, but it’s a great reciprocal gesture to pick up the tab somewhere along the way. Don’t bankrupt yourself, but do what you can, whether that’s a whole meal, or a round of drinks, or even an ice cream cone. Of course your loved one is happy to see you, but they are putting aside their normal life and opening up their home in order to do that, so show them your appreciation by paying for some food or drink during your visit.

4. Research where you’re going, even just a little. Trips based on visiting friends or family are inherently different from trips based on visiting new places; your purpose is different, so the way you prepare and the way you spend your time while there is different. I’m not going to be doing a Great Sites of Boston tour this weekend — I’ll be doing a Hang Out in Parks and Have Drinks tour with Mike. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see some of this city. So I’m checking out a guidebook from the library, I’ve poked around on some websites, and I’ve asked Mike what he might want to sightsee. So far we are going to the Mapparium and taking a swan boat ride.

5. Plan for some solo time. This is sort of similar to #2, but it’s specifically designed to separate you from your host for at least a couple hours. One of the stinkiest things about visitors, I suspect Mr. Franklin would agree, is their tendency to stick to your side for the duration of their visit. Nothing smells good when it’s been that close to you for that long. You’ll both enjoy your visit a lot more if you set aside some time to do your own thing — write some postcards, buy some souvenirs, go to that one tourist attraction your host can’t bear to visit one more time. This gives your host time to tend to their daily lives and needs as well, and the end result is that you appreciate each other all the more when you are hanging out.

So voila! Those are the top five ways to plan a trip to a friend’s or family member’s house so that not only do you have a great time, but your host does too — and best of all, you get invited back.

ACAM: Indonesia

Posted on August 19, 2010 by lisafindley

I’ve been reading The Indonesia Reader: History, Culture, Politics; ed. Tineke Hellwig and Eric Tagliacozzo, and so far what’s really standing out is neither deep nor original, but here it is: Indonesia is a collection of islands that has been inhabited for thousands of years. And in those thousands of years, never once has Christianity been the dominant religion. Hinduism, Buddhism, and for the last several centuries, Islam, yes, but not Christianity. This is true of most of the world, of course, but that’s easy to forget here in the United States. Here, in a country founded by Christians (not the land, which was inhabited by tens of thousands of people who were doing fine without Christianity, but the country the United States), we think of a mostly Christian nation as the norm.

There’s a giant, stupid political fight going on right now because some non-Christians want to build a community center and some Christians are really upset about it. While it’s natural to center your own experiences at the expense of taking others’ experiences and needs into account, it doesn’t make for good policy. There’s a whole lot more about this fight that I’m not going to get into, but I wanted to bring it up to point out just how ridiculously narrow this point of view is. There’s so much more to the world than those people are willing to admit, or if they do, it’s only because it scares them.

Indonesia is especially interesting to me in this respect, because so much of the spread of religion there was peaceful. Considering the violence religious groups perpetrate against one another, and the force with which many people are made to convert to various religions, this is rather remarkable. Hinduism and Buddhism arrived with Indian traders early on, and Islam spread mostly through Arab traders visiting the spice islands of Java, Sumatra, etc. Sadly, in the twentieth century, religion played a major role in some terrible, deadly conflicts in the country, and tensions remain high.

Okay, I realize both posts this week seem a bit preachy, but sometimes that’s how it goes. Stay tuned tomorrow for The Good, The Bad, and The Silly, which always includes a bit of preaching but then a good dose of fun or bizarre as well — that spoonful of sugar always helps.

Goodbye, “Wild Beasts and Dangerous Lunatics.” Hello, “Stowaway.”

Posted on August 17, 2010 by lisafindley

Dearest fellow travelers! It’s time for a change in these here parts. Nothing too upsetting, I hope. But it’s time for a bit of rebranding, both political and aesthetic — a new name.

Political

I chose the name for this blog on a whim, picking a phrase uttered by a funny character in a beloved book (Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede). I was certain no one else would choose “Wild Beasts and Dangerous Lunatics” as a moniker, and more importantly, it met my strict requirement of not being sentimental or cutesy. It’s served its purpose quite well for the past several months.

But then I read this post on Feministe about how damaging it is to casually use “crazy” or “insane” or the like, and I decided it was no longer a good name. (Go ahead, read it, it’s real short and real good.)

Actually, I read that article once, said, “good grief, stop being so sensitive,” and carried on with my life. I figured, what’s wrong with saying those words? Everyone says it and no one means anything by it. You say “he’s insane” when the cute bartender doesn’t want to date your friend; you don’t mean that he is literally chemically unbalanced. It’s just an expression. If you start policing all your expressions, soon enough you’ll have none left. You can’t censor yourself into a box just because someone, somewhere — not even the person you’re talking to! — might be offended by it. This is a free country, for crying out loud.

Wait. Hold up. JUMP BACK. That sounds like… dear lord, I was sounding like people who tell me to shut up already about using “fag” or “slut” or any number of epithets. When you’re making that many excuses to simply not use a word that others find horribly upsetting, it’s time to take a closer look. What was going on here?

When I talk with people about calling some inanimate object “gay,” or making cracks about women being gossips/shoehounds/overly emotional, etc., I talk about the long-lasting harm done. You’ve probably noticed that gay people can’t get married in this country, and women get paid less than men for doing the same work, to use two examples out of a lot of possible examples. That’s not unrelated to the way we talk about gay people and women; it’s actually intrinsically linked. All of these little comments are part of a larger understanding that gays and women are less than. Of course we protest that we don’t believe that, we believe in equality; and of course we do, consciously. But subconsciously we see it as a known fact that gay men are effeminate, and that’s laughable, because who wants to less like a man and more like a woman? Gay men are lacking, our collective subconscious says, so our collective subconscious finds ways to treat them as less than. (We’re not talking about bigots and outright hostility here, because that’s a whole other thing.)

So even though you’re not talking to a gay person when you call your friend a fag, you’re making it okay to say that, to use people’s identity as an insult. This contributes to a culture that sees that particular identity as an insult and treats it as such, with legal, psychic, and all too often, physical punishment. (While we’re at it, using someone’s identity as an insult is the lazy way out, and it’s much more satisfying to pick on someone’s Backstreet Boys fandom or tendency to put their foot in their mouth anyway.)

What that is all leading to is this: I don’t understand how it feels to have a mental disorder and hear people casually talk about “lunatics,” but I bet it feels shitty. What’s more, someone’s written a piece telling me just how shitty it feels. In general, I don’t want to make people shitty, so I’m going to stop doing that. It might just be a quote from a YA book, but it says specifically “dangerous lunatics.” There’s plenty of cultural understanding of mentally disordered people as dangerous, unstable, volatile, literally “out of their minds,” rather than as human beings dealing with one more layer of living than non-disordered people live with. Stereotypes of “dangerous lunatics” just make it easier to stigmatize people, dehumanize them, shut them away in institutions and forget about them. I didn’t mean anything by it, but that doesn’t matter. Once you know the damage, fix it. For any readers I’ve upset with the title of my blog, I apologize.

I’ve basically tried to make the same points here that Cara’s Feministe post made, although hers is more succinct and coherent, so I strongly recommend you read it. She says at the end that you can continue using phrases you know others find harmful, but be aware that you’re choosing to cause others harm. If that’s a choice you can live with, carry on, but if it’s not, cut it out. Also, each and every one of the links in her post is worth reading, especially this and this.

Aesthetic

Once I knew I had to change the name, I had some trouble coming up with a non-“journey,” non-“life traveler” type name. But inspiration was right under my nose — the quote on the blog’s masthead, from the poet Roselle Mercier Montgomery. “Never a ship sails out of bay but carries my heart as a stowaway.”

Stowaway. It’s about travel, but with a sense of real adventure to it. Sneaking away from the life plan of career, domesticity, etc. Smuggling rough-edged politics into the stately ships of traditional travelogues. Finding the unknown corners of the usual modes of travel, approaching it from another angle. A stowaway is so eager to go someplace that they do whatever they can to get there. A stowaway doesn’t just yearn, she acts. I take that as inspiration and mission statement both.

So now I have a name much more in keeping with what I do here and what I hope to do all around the world. Join me!

Top 5 Ways to Be a Great CouchSurfing Host

Posted on August 3, 2010 by lisafindley

So you’ve read on this blog or heard from friends about the marvels of couch surfing, and you’ve gone to www.couchsurfing.org and made yourself a profile. It’s a few months yet til you have the vacation time to travel anywhere yourself, so in the meantime you’re going to take the big step of opening up your home to others as a host. Congrats! Now maybe you’re a little anxious, wondering how you’re going to fit hosting into your schedule, or what you’re going to do with your surfers once they arrive. Never fear, dearest fellow travelers, for I have assembled here a list of unbeatable tips in being a great host.

Top 5 Ways to Be a Great CouchSurfing Host

This guy knows what he's talking about

1) Start out with a cheerful attitude and keep it up for their whole stay. I hosted on a Monday night recently, and as my work day was drawing to a close, I berated myself for agreeing to invite two strangers into my home on a weeknight, and the first night of a long week, at that. But there’s nothing more unwelcoming than talking about how tired you are, or how much work you have to do, so I found some energy and greeted my surfers with a big smile. They matched me smile for smile, and we were off to a good start, already feeling friendly toward one another. (Of course, if you know that a particular day might not work for you, don’t agree to host on that day, and confine yourself to hosting on weekends only.)

No need to make a sign, but point the bathroom out right away

2) Take care of their needs right away. It’s easy to forget that your surfers have just traveled, often quite far, to get to your home, and they’re totally disoriented. To you, this is home, and everything is self-evident, but to them, everything is foreign. As soon as you’ve greeted your surfers with a smile, show them the couch and invite them to put down their (heavy!) bags. Then give them a tour of your place so they know the general set-up, including where the bathroom is, where towels are, whether they need to make their own bed or if it’s already made up, etc. Offer them a glass of water and ask if they have any particular requests that you should know about right away.

Setting boundaries doesn't have to be quite this frightening

3) Set all boundaries up front and center. This flows from the previous point; it’s important to have all parties aware of all boundaries right away, so there’s no room for misunderstanding. Sure, you might misinterpret their French and think they requested strawberries when they really wanted raspberries, but that’s no big deal; it is a big deal if they think 2 am is a good bedtime but you hoped to hit the sack by 10. Maybe you have no boundaries and anything goes, but usually that’s not the case. Don’t feel shy about bringing them up; just think if it were you on the other end, and how you’d rather know what was unacceptable behavior before, rather than after, you did it. Everyone is more comfortable knowing what’s what, so while you’re having that glass of water or first beer of the night, lay it all out — how long you can spend with them or if you have other obligations, when you have to go to bed and when the house as a whole hits quiet time, which rooms are off-limits (like your roommate’s), whether the cat is an indoor or outdoor one, if you have a spare house key for them to use or if they need to wait til you’re home to get in, if food is for the taking or if they need to ask first, if the house is smoking or not, etc. Some of this you will have covered in your CouchSurfing profile or in your email exchanges with the surfers, but it never hurts to go over it all again.

Enjoying French cuisine in a Chicago restaurant with Brazilian couchsurfers

4) Start with a meal. Nothing brings people together like a shared meal, so no matter what time of day your surfers arrive, suggest some type of food. I often meet my surfers after work, so we have dinner and get to know each other over that. Be sure to present several options, but only a few or they’ll be overwhelmed; always have a vegetarian-friendly place on hand in case they’re non-carnivorous; and keep in mind where they’re from so you can introduce them to a type of food that might be unfamiliar to them (eg, I always suggest Mexican food for European surfers). If you’ve just had a payday or the meal was cheap enough, consider buying their meal and watch yourself rocket to the top of their list of favorite hosts. If I have surfers for a few nights in a row, I usually suggest we cook something at home on the second night, when we might have more time to pick out ingredients and put something together, but of course you can do that your first night if it works for you.

This is from the UK's NHS site, encouraging people to talk about sex. I recommend waiting til you know them a bit better before bringing this up with your surfers.

5) Keep the conversation going. Ideally, you’ve had a few message exchanges with your surfers so you know a little bit about one another, and you can use that as a springboard into more conversation. You always have your mutual love of travel to fall back on, and of course, since they’re currently traveling, you can ask them for stories about their adventures. But don’t forget to be just as willing to talk about yourself and your city; you don’t want your surfers to feel like they’re getting quizzed by you. When you do ask questions, mix up the “cultural exchange” questions with the types of questions you’d ask anyone you met at a party, such as the latest movie they saw or your new favorite book. CouchSurfing is a wonderful opportunity to exchange ideas and observations about different parts of the world, but you’re doing that by interacting with people, so don’t forget that part of the equation or you’ll run the risk of using your surfers as your own personal information booth instead of people with their own interests, idiosyncrasies, and opinions.

And that’s it! Of course, if they’re staying for more than one night, and if you don’t have to work for one of the days, your opportunities for getting to know them and showing them your favorite parts of your town are wide open. In the past, I’ve taken my couch surfers to a concert at Schubas, the Didier Farms pumpkin patch, and the Chicago Latin Music Festival in Grant Park, to name a few. I’m still in touch with several of my surfers, and I have plans to stay with them on my trip in a couple of years. So if you have the time, definitely spend more time with your surfers.

But even if you’re on a tight schedule, follow the five steps above and I guarantee you’ll get a glowing review on the CouchSurfing site and a warm, fuzzy feeling in the general area of your heart when you wave your surfers goodbye.

Top 5 Ways to Be a Great Couchsurfing Host

The Music Don’t Lie, Part 2

Posted on July 26, 2010 by lisafindley

This time, it was a message of quityerbitchin. I was driving my it-probably-cost-more-to-fix-this-than-the-car-is-actually-worth-but-I-fixed-it-anyway car back to Chicago from Michigan, and I was late for a concert that I most definitely did not want to be late for. I’d had a wonderful, relaxing weekend, but the car costs and coming work week were creeping back into my consciousness. I’d run into two bouts of seriously bad traffic already and was coming up on another one, and I was shouting in frustration.

And then two in a row, courtesy of 97.1 The Drive: “Long Way Home” and “Take It Easy.” Okay, fine.

Turns out I was even early for the concert, and I sang along to the radio the whole way there.

Tourist Traps That Don’t Suck

Posted on July 13, 2010 by lisafindley

Ah, the tourist trap. A danger well-known to the savvy traveler, and one best avoided. It’s usually a cesspool of gaudy, overpriced trinkets, loud fellow tourists and shopkeepers, and somewhere in there, a pretty pitiful excuse for a landmark. Whether it’s a pit stop on a cross-country tour or a planned part of the itinerary, a tourist trap is, to those of us saving pennies and looking for more than plastic souvenirs, a hellish place.

Except when it’s not.

Hear me out, dearest fellow travelers! I’m certainly not saying that I’m planning my next vacation around a day at Wall Drug or an afternoon in Times Square, but the fact is that this is a pretty fantastic world we live in, and in even the most commercialized of places, there’s usually something of real value. Most of the time, this is because the people working the place have some interesting facts to share about it or a friendly perspective on the local culture. As we know, it’s the people who make the difference in where we go and what we see when we get there.

But sometimes it’s the place itself that’s worth seeing, honestly. My best example is Navy Pier. This is a giant pier originally built in 1916 to dock cargo boats and the like, as well as some pleasure boats. It has since grown into Chicago’s #1 tourist attraction, with a giant Ferris wheel (modeled after the first one ever, which debuted at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893), several theaters, restaurants, bars, and docking for many pleasure boats. It is generally considered by most Chicagoans to be a hideous place, only visited when clueless relatives are in town. It has an indoor arcade of shop after cheap shop, a nasty little fast food court, and low ceilings lit by glaring fluorescence. In the summer especially, the entire pier is overrun with screaming children careening all over, drunk parents yelling after them, and slouching teenagers forming impassable knots on the throughways. Everything costs three times what it does in the rest of the city, the lines go on for miles, and it’s not like it’s even a famous or historical site.

Navy Pier: Not So Bad! (photo via americanrail.com)

But! There’s a lot of good stuff going on at Navy Pier, underneath that hokey exterior. In the past few months alone, I’ve gone on a delightful brunch cruise, seen Taming of the Shrew at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and watched the acrobats of Cirque Shanghai tumble across the stage at sunset. Granted, these were all made considerably more enjoyable because they were free or nearly free (thank you, friends involved in theater). But the fact that they were there at all is impressive. Sure, the cruise had a cheesy DJ, but the brunch was tasty, and you can’t argue against a turn around the harbor on a bright summer day. The CST does some fantastic shows (even Shakespeare’s most blatantly misogynistic number was acted and costumed well), and the acrobatics of Cirque Shanghai are quite literally breathtaking. Each time I met up with friends to attend these events, I grumbled about getting all the way over there (it’s a two-bus destination) and dealing with the crowds, but once I got there, the crowds weren’t so bad, and the shows and rides were totally worth it.

There’s a lot of neat stuff packed onto that pier, and I’m now less likely to dismiss it as a whole. Some people might call that personal growth. I just call it application of advanced travel skills. You too can learn these skills of finding the fun and interesting wherever you go, and apply them to your own tourist traps.

So tell me, what tourist traps do you know of that don’t suck? Which ones have hidden gems and specific times to go? Which ones would you recommend (even with qualifications) to friends and visitors? Let everyone know in the comments!

Share the World: The Suggestions Page

Posted on July 6, 2010 by lisafindley

Hello, dearest fellow travelers, and welcome to a short post that is INTERACTIVE. Exciting! In the 6+ years I’ve been planning this trip, I’ve received numerous suggestions from many people on specific places I should visit, restaurants I should eat at (or at least food to try), and bedbug-ridden hostels I should absolutely avoid. I welcome all of this advice; I’m fortunate to know so many people who’ve traveled and lived abroad and who have insight into what to do and where to go in places as diverse as Tibet and Cape Town. But it’d sure be helpful to have all that advice in one centralized spot.

Lucky for you and me both, I’m brilliant, so I’ve put together a couple tools to aid in this venture: the Suggestion Box and the Google Map. Head on over to the Suggestion Box (which is now the first tab at the top of the page, on any page on the blog) and leave a comment with tips on what to see, where to stay, etc., and then go to the Google Map and mark the spot. Now I can keep track of all these great suggestions, and when I actually go on my trip, I’m going to mark out my route on the map too, so you’ll be able to see where I go and how I get there in just about real time.

Here’s an example of what the map looks like so far:

See? It’s all bare and sad, with just a few sights and sites, and not a single eatery to be found. Don’t let this map continue in this way — adopt it today and shower it with love and helpful icons.

Suggestion Box: https://lisafindley.wordpress.com/suggestion-box/

Google Map: Lisa’s World Trip 2012-2014: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=110828102940815708391.00048a592ae072ccc0b8e

ACAM: Indonesia

Posted on July 2, 2010 by lisafindley

The A Country a Month project continues apace. You may have noticed that we’ve stopped off in both Australia and New Zealand in various posts. Next up is Indonesia, a country I know nothing about. The lovely Sessily has helped me out by putting together a list of resources on Indonesia, which is below.

I’ve checked out two books from the library to get me started on my research: The Indonesia Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by Tineke Hellwig and Eric Tagliacozzo and A History of Modern Indonesia Since c.1200 by M.C. Ricklefs. Feel free to read along if you so desire. I’ll keep you updated on what I learn!

Indonesia

Nonfiction:

A History of Modern Indonesia, Adrian Vickers
The Indonesia Reader: History, Culture, Politics; ed. Tineke Hellwig and Eric Tagliacozzo
In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos, Richard Lloyd Parry
The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali, Geoffrey Robinson
A History of Modern Indonesia Since c.1200, M.C. Ricklefs
Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, S Ann Dunham (grad thesis of Obama’s mother)
Gifts of Unknown Things, Lyall Watson (might be really new age-y)
Art in Indonesia: Continuities and Change, Claire Holt
Made in Indonesia: Indonesian Workers Since Suharto, Dan La Botz
Indonesia: Peoples and Histories, Jean Gelman Taylor
Eat Smart in Indonesia: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure, Joan and David Peterson
One dollar a day: Poverty in Indonesia, Yong Ho Bang
Allah’s Torch: A Report From Behind the Scenes in Asia’s War on Terror, Tracy Dahlby

Fiction:

Pramoedya Ananta Toer:
The Girl from the Coast
Footsteps
The Fugitive
Child of all Nations
House of Glass
All That Is Gone
This Earth of Mankind
It’s Not An All Night Fair
The Mute’s Soliloquy: A Memoir
And the War is Over, Ismail Marahimin

Movies:

Eliana, Eliana (2002) (netflix)
Opera Jawa (2006) (retelling of “The Abduction of Sita” from the Ramayana, uses Javanese song, puppet theater, sacred court dance, gamelan music, and Mozart) (netflix)
Year of Living Dangerously (1982) (Australian movie about Indonesia) (not shot in Indonesia, according to wikipedia)

Music:

Indonesia (World Music Network)
Discover Indonesia: Music of Indonesia (Folkway Records)
Indonesia: Music from the Nonesuch Explorer Series (Nonesuch Records)

Guest Post: 3 Easy Steps to Becoming a World-Class Postcard Correspondent

Posted on June 28, 2010 by lisafindley

Dearest fellow travelers, please join me in welcoming to these pages one of the great comic writers of our time, a dear friend of mine and world traveler in her own right, Mlle. O’Leary. She has lived in Venice, New York, Seoul, and northern Ohio, and she’s traveled all over, from Dublin to Tibet. She’s a skilled postcard writer and the perfect person to guide you all in that dying art. Here we go!

Postcards: mini works of art

You’ve set the itinerary, you’ve broken in the backpack, you’ve burned any necessary bridges and left for adventures in greener pastures. You’re doing amazing, interesting things every day. Or maybe you’re doing the same old shit only now you’re doing it abroad! There is one thing you should seriously do when you travel and rarely does anyone think to do it. You should send postcards. You don’t, do you. But you buy them right? Ask yourself this: do you hand your written postcards over to your friends after coming back home, maybe with their first name written in the address column? If you answered yes, you are a terrible person. Yes, you are. Your friends hate this and they just put up with three weeks of your mass-emails. Stop it.

This post is part appeal, part advice on the plight of the postcard. It is easier and easier to send an email out to everyone at once telling them that you are still alive, now broke and loving life. So with the internet in a growing stage of ubiquity, postcards seem more and more like an afterthought. A hassle. But they aren’t. Postcards are fun. They are timeless. More to the point: they are quick, or at least they should be. There are five things you need to write and to send a postcard: a postcard, a stamp, a pen, an address, and a message. Of these five things, three hinder sending the most. Here is some troubleshooting advice:

1. I don’t have stamps/didn’t get them/don’t know where the post office is (and similar iterations)

Get your stamps immediately. Even if you’re going on a huge hike or a crazy long train ride you will be in a major city before and after. Yes, this will take a little effort on your part but that’s part of the fun (see below). Many airports have post offices within or just outside customs (I believe this is the case with Greece’s airport). Other countries have dual Bank & Post Offices, making it a great catch-all: grab some currency, buy some stamps, spend the rest on beer. Kiosks are a great place to inquire for stamps, if you really have an aversion to post offices after your cousin was shot by a mail carrier. By picking up stamps ASAP you can write and send your postcards out at whim, which is the whole essence of the postcard.

2. I forgot your address

You planned the trip, right? Make ‘addresses’ part of that to-do list. Get the ones you need and keep them handy at all times. Some write them all in the back of a travel journal. Others fold up loose-leaf paper and stash it in pockets or carry-on. Tattoo street names and zip codes on your partner’s arm (always ask first). I used the Contacts feature on my iPod while traveling. Find a method that works best for you. If this falls through, depending on your country of choice, you are bound to have internet access at some point. Send an email to your desired recipient. I would much rather receive that email than another link to your Flickr account (a photo’s worth a thousand words but that don’t mean I can cash in on it).

3. I don’t know what to write

It’s the size of an index card. What did you eat today? Cobb Salad? Was it good? Did you find it weird they serve Cobb Salad in Bangkok? There, you’ve used up all of the space without even remarking that maybe you should have ordered Pad Thai. Focus on one cool/weird thing and you’ll send your friends postcards without sentences like “the weather’s really great!” or “I’m really enjoying seeing everything.” Which means you’ll be sending your friends really wonderful postcards! See? Easy.

It all boils down to accessibility. Keep everything in reach, always: stamps, postcards, addresses, pens. This makes it easier, which makes it stress free, which makes it fun, which makes you do it more frequently, which makes it easier. And then your friends won’t think you’re a dick. They will know you’re a good person.

The fact is that postcards – and sending postcards from their place of origin – are invaluable to the travel experience. Postcards can be your MacGuffin to hilarious antics. They can force you to learn more than “Hello!” and “Bathroom?” They can push you off the major tourist circuits: rather than stopping by the souvenir stores around major sites, seek postcards out in old bookstores, quirky shops, even grocery stores. And then look around. Chat up the proprietor. You might make a friend. You might find your newest favorite place in the world. You might even walk out with better postcards. If you’re taking any excuse to seek out undiscovered places, why not the excuse to write to your friends?

Maybe you’re somewhere without a recognizable writing system. Or maybe you’re in a land that missed out on the Indo-European fad (Magyar, I’m looking at you!). “How much are stamps?” isn’t the first thing you’re going to learn in a new country, which will make you seem that much more impressive. Ask a local to teach you some phrases. Hell, go all out:

“Are those the most interesting stamps you have?”

“Who is that man? Why are you honoring him? Oh that isn’t an honor?”

Sure, you’re bound to screw up but you only stared learning the language at the airport. Give yourself a break and keep at it. Remember: English is becoming the dominant language across the world. These exchanges might be a dying breed if you don’t make the effort. Take advantage of every opportunity. Even by asking for postcards.

You will also LOOK COOL writing postcards. There is only so long you can spend looking pensive in front of your Moleskine and that’s twenty minutes. This is a great way to unwind, take some deserved downtime. If you’re traveling alone, bring them to dinner. And yes, you will look cooler with a stack of postcards in front of your meal than your diary. Come on.

There used to be a tactile sense to our correspondence. Now, hardly anyone writes letters. People write postcards if they write at all and as more people forget to write postcards, the intimacy that comes with physical mail becomes more endangered. But the postcard comes with its own type of intimacy: with its limited space, the postcard asks for a snapshot of the writer’s feelings and for that moment, that second, the writer thinks only of the recipient, with no expectation of receiving anything in return. Unlike a letter, a postcard is not expected to have a return address. There’s no room for it. There’s no immediate way to respond in kind. The postcard exists solely for the recipient’s pleasure. That is what makes postcard sending so beautiful. Go send a few today.

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Keen to start writing postcards? Not going anywhere for a while? Maxed out your friends’ patience? Try www.postcrossing.com. Get mail from strangers, but not like that.