My Time in Ghana

Hi family and friends!

My year of traveling has kept me very busy. I am only now processing what happened to me over the summer.

As most of you know I spent 3 weeks in Ghana, Africa during August. I attended a University of Massachusetts abroad class to study Ewe dancing and drumming. My whole trip was spent exploring Ghana's coastline, traveling from its boarder point with Togo all the way to its border with Cote-d'Ivoire. On the first day, we flew in Accra, Ghana's capital city. We recovered at a hotel next to the ocean and near Accra's famous Arts District, which is really a HUGE open area market where you can buy any craft, art piece or trinket you could imagine.

We as a group started to try all the Ghanaian food we could. Ghanaians like a large starch portion and an equally large sauce/stew portion as a meal. The starches ranged from steamed cassava to fried plantains to banku. Banku is not for the American faint of heart. It looks and feels like flour-colored play-dough and tastes like library paste. Banku is served with fish (like tilapia) or stew (like okra stew). Okra stew is also not for the faint of heart. It is goo-y and the liquid strings off your spoon after each bite. GROSS! My favorite meal was fried plantains (called kelewele) and curried black-eyed peas. I also loved fresh pineapple, which was usually white, not yellow. The group's favorite food was ice cream in a bag. Many things are bagged (in order to save space, since trash is just thrown on the ground), like water and ice cream. You just bite the corner off and suck out the contents.

After a few days in Accra, we were picked up in a huge van and carted off to Kopeyia, the village where we would be studying. Accra is the the center of Ghana's coastline; Kopeyia is all the way to the right, on the Togo boarder. At the village we spent hours practicing and "experiencing village life". We studied at the Dagbe Cultural Center. We spent 2 hours dancing in the morning, had a 2 hour break, then went into a 2 hour drum class. I also took Djembe lessons with a few other UMass students and our teacher's name was Odarte. We had no running water (the showers and outdoor toilets ran off of rain water and we washed our hands in a bucket). You cannot drink the water and it's a tropical climate so I was drinking close to 5 liters per day. The whole trip I had to take malaria medication. At the end of it we had a final performance of the 2 Ewe dances we had learned (Gahu and Achabecor). Because dancing and playing are not separated things to Africans, we performed both parts.

After the Dagbe center, we went to the other side of the country and stayed at the Green Turtle Lodge on the Cote-d'Ivoire boarder. Eco lodges are great ideas but in practice are really awful! Once again, no running water. But this time there was no electricity (beyond the 4 hours your solar panel gave you), and no RAID to keep the bugs away. Let's just say I've seen a lifetime's worth of cockroaches. On the drive we visited the Cape Coast (slave) Castle and Kakum National Park (a rainforest). We finished our trip going back to Accra, hanging out with the National Dance Ensemble, going to a highlife club, Bywell, and getting our handmade drums back home with us. The whole last week I was sick, first food poisoning and then I got my roommate's cold. The saving grace of the last week was the flight home. I got bumped to first class and had the stewardesses get me refills of peppermint tea the whole flight. I flew from Accra to JFK but because of a hurricane my flight to DC was canceled. So I rushed to the La Guardia airport. After 22 hours of traveling, I was picked up by my mom and dad.

I think my favorite parts of the trip were the performances. I drummed with the National Dance Ensemble. Luckily the piece we played was the same one I was learning when I was taught the Djembe at the Dagbe Center. I danced to "Take the A Train" in an Accra highlife outdoor club. I danced at a funeral near Kopeyia. I tried to dance (but mostly watched in awe) at a Ewe Vodoun shrine festival, where people had costumes and face paint on and were falling into trance. I drummed and danced 2 Ewe pieces (Gahu and Achebecor) with a bunch of other white Americans for an audience of our Ewe teachers and community members. Ghana is very different than America but enjoyable too!

Love, Ray

P.S. to Maggie: All the Coke (and the rest of the sodas) were served in glass bottles.

My Photos from Ghana!

I spent the month of August (2009) in Ghana. Check it out!

Dance-OFFS in Ghana

Coastal Ghana Before Kopeyia

Kopeyia, Ghana...or the village where I studied Ewe drum and dance at the Dagbe Cultural Center

Cow Sacrifice and Shrine Festival...this shrine festival happened in Kopeyia

Coastal Ghana After Kopeyia

Goodbye and Good Riddance

Today the American group, to whom all my kitchemates belong, leaves. WHOOT!

Now that may sound callous. But wait until you here what happened this morning. I go into the kitchen for cereal. My soy milk has my name on every side of the carton, a name I do not share with anyone in the kitchen. A soy milk container I bought last night and had not opened yet.

This morning finds it opened and half gone. Plus all the dirty dishes are stacked on the counters presumably because leaving gives you an exemption from cleaning up your own mess.

I will get no revenge or retribution. No apology, certainly no confession. Why do we treat other people like that?

All I can think of at all this is "you b*tch, you b*tch."

So long Americans. May we never meet again.

And They Say the Portions Are Smaller Here

I just had a fry-up, otherwise known as an English Breakfast. Since I'm at a pub, the full English has a special name: Matt's Breakfast, named after Ellie's husband. Served on a ceramic piece that should be used as a platter, not a single serving plate, it has:
2 sausages
2 rations of bacon
2 pieces of Lancaister Black pudding
2 eggs (once over easy...always)
baked beans
mushrooms
2 grilled tomatoes
2 pieces of toast
orange juice and tea

Bank Holidays are for everyone...

As I found out, just because this is not a very religious country, does not mean that people do not do loads of traveling around Easter. This weekend is a four day weekend for the whole country: bank holiday. Everyone gets Good Friday and Easter Monday off. Pretty sweet deal, right?

Except for travel however. Everyone was at Euston station this past friday morning I was trying to get to Wigan. What should have been a 2 hour direct train ending up being a 5 hour journey on 3 different trains. Unfortunetly there had been a worker who died on the track near enough to Euston station so no trains were allowed to leave from Euston. So I went across London to Marylbone to start my crazy journey, no doubt zig-zaging accross England. But eventually I made it and have had a relaxing time ever since.

Right now I am not to be found in London: I am visiting another former au pair of mine, Ellie, at her home/pub a 15 minute drive from Wigan.


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She lives above the White Lion Pub which she (basically...it's complicated) owns with her husband. The White Lion is on the side of the road with a tiny smattering of houses around it. Other than that there are farms and rolling hills with the occasional patch of houses and a local pub or two. Yet even without much of a town center many people come to the White Lion. Spending all your time in a country pub does lead to some interesting experiences. Like being praised for your accent. Or meeting all the locals and then preceeding to get many bad jokes and history lessons of the local town. And then getting included in the locals' rounds because you decided to listen. Keeping up with the rounds can be quite a challenge. I don't know how people do that more than 1 night a week. Being able to order anything you want off a menu and not worry about the price. I got a pudding sunday (warmed up cake covered in syrup, ice cream and whipped cream). There was so much whipped cream that most of it fell off the sunday before I could eat it. It was tasty though.

Today Ellie and I went to Southport and tried to see the sea. The tide goes so far out that even with a pier that is so long there is a tram ride from one end to the other you must squint to see it. But it was a nice walk.

Germany... AGAIN

Hello all!

I have just gotten back from Harsewinkle. It is going along as good as ever. Lots of eating and playing with deb's 2 yr old kid and her dog. It was really adorable: both the kid and the dog remembered me from staying a year ago. We went out of sausage, ice cream and then the next day had a roast (which basically is the best meal ever). A sunday roast consists of a huge plate topped with more food than should be possible that is then covered in gravy. Yorkshire pudding, sausage wrapped in bacon, mashed potatoes, vegetables, chicken....the list goes on. And to think that some people have these every sunday.


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Germany itself was great. It was much warmer than London. Everyone was biking around. Their bikes are a tad different: everyone has baskets on the front and back of their bikes and hold groceries or wicker baskets with flowers. Also unicycles are really popular to ride. We went to a toy shop for the kiddy and I was pleased to see that it has a whole section on circus toys! The only problem was getting home. I didnt realize how important it is to take a break between traveling and daily life.

Getting to class the next day was horrible (my travel card had expired, I hadnt brought any money with me and class was at a museum in the middle of nowhere london). But I am glad I went. I just wish I could stop being so tired.

Next weekend: WIGAN!

Museums I've Seen

Exhibits I've seen in London in no particular order.

"Kuniyoshi"	Royal Academy of Arts
"Material Gestures" & "Poetry and Dream"	Tate Modern
"Passports: Great Early Buys from the British Council Collection" & "The Bloomberg Commission: Goshka Macuga: The Nature of the Beast (Picassso's Guernica)"	Whitechapel Gallery
"Isa Genzken: Open Sesame!" & "The Whitechapel Boys" & "Archive Adventures"	Whitechapel Gallery
"Living and Dying" and the Africa Collection	British Museum
"Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!": An Exhibit on Margaret Thatcher	The Cartoon Museum
Britain Rooms and Contemporary Rooms (i.e. Rothko/Turner Match-up)	Tate Britain
"Gerhard Richter Portraits"	National Portrait Gallery
"Picasso: Challenging the Past"	National Gallery
Kettles Yard	House and Museum (Cambridge, UK)
Backstage Tour	Royal National Theatre
General Exhibit	Dulwich Picture Gallery
(loads)	National Portrait Gallery
(loads)	National Gallery
"African Worlds"	Horniman Museum
"Atlantic Worlds" + "Nelson's Navy"	National Maritime Museum
"British Galleries: 1760-1900" + Albert Memorial	Victoria and Albert Museum
"Altermodern"	Tate Britain
"Unveiled"	Saatchi Gallery
Royal Observatory	National Maritime Museum
"Sculpture" & "Fashion" & "Jewelry Exhibit" & "Cast Courts" & "Ironwork"	Victoria and Albert Museum
"Korea" & "Southeast Asian and Himalayan Art" & "China" & "Japan"	Victoria and Albert Museum
"The Tomb-chapel of Nebamun: Ancient Egyptian Life and Death" (Room 61) & "Assyrian Sculptures and Gates" (and tablets -- Rooms 6-9 and 10a-10c)	British Museum
"Greece: Parthenon" (or otherwise known as "The Elgin Marbles" Rooms 18, 18a, 18b)	British Museum
"Taking Liberties"	British Library
"Shah 'Abbas: The Remaking of Iran"	British Museum
"Enlightenment" (Room 1)	British Museum
"First World War Galleries" & "Experience: A Trench" & "Second World War Galleries" & "Experience: The Blitz" & "Conflicts since 1945"	Imperial War Museum
"Bird Room" (Right next to famous early-found fossils) & "Human Body"	Natural History Museum
"Genetically Engineered Food"	Science Museum
"Sir John Soane's House"	Sir John Soane's House Museum
"Freud's House"	Freud's House Museum
"War and Medicine"	Wellcome Collection

Photos of London

Here for you to enjoy!

My Neighborhood

Sights and Sounds of "my London" (part I)
Sights and Sounds of "my London" (part II)
Sights and Sounds of "my London" (part III)

Stratford-upon-Avon (part I)
Stratford-upon-Avon (part II)

Pancake Day (complete with a Pancake Race at the Houses of Parliament)
St. Patrick's Festival (in Trafalgar Square)
The Folks and Mag's Visit to London

Kew Gardens (part I)
Kew Gardens (part II)

A Country Walk
Cambridge

Winchester (part I)
Winchester (part II)

Recently

Have I mentioned that I have a jam group now?

Only For Now...

Wow have I been busy! This past weekend was non-stop going out for me. On Friday, I got half price tickets to Avenue Q, got lunch in Camdentown (where I was hustled for weed...awkward), found a circus store (goodbye bank account, hello fire poi), and went to high tea at the British Museum. We were evacuated out of the building an hour into our tea. Still don't know what happened but it was quite exciting. Ben ended up getting the ticket to the seat next to mine (despite a 6 hour difference in buying times) and together in the back row we had a ball watching the show. They did not make too many changes to the show (the George Bush line is still in) but the ones they did make were startling. In "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist", Polocks change to the French. Gary goes from a superintendent to a handyman -- bit of a downgrade don't you think?

Saturday was an awesome day indeed. Went to Portobello Market where I got german sausage, mexican churros, and some world music cds (some better than others:) ). Next we (dana and I of course) went to the Tate Britain. I saw the Altramodern exhibit. So awesome... especially the amounts of bean bag chairs from which to view art! Next we had our first Irish Coffee at O'Neills...I mean Bailey's Latte. My legs hurt a lot after all that walking.

The next day was spent at Brick Lane. Went to the famous Beigal Shop on Brick Lane (open 24 hours a day they're that good). I experienced my first famous people sighting -- Gilbert and George. The shorter one (I've never seen them apart for all I know they answer to either name) was wearing a ridiculous fur hat. I have a picture of part of the back of one of them. I will treasure it always. I wanted to do a tribute so see above for a work of theirs.

This week is crazy because it might as well be finals week. On top of that, I have this one teacher who thinks that he is not constrained to any sort of time frame. I used to think 5 minutes more of class was bad. Now I wish for those good old days. This teacher normally lets us out of class 30 to 45 minutes late every class. That means I have almost 3 hours of class with him. It is painful! People cannot concentrate that long. It is interesting but does he know that the whole class is pissed at him for his lack of time management skills? I really hate this practice because of the social norm of NOT BEING ABLE TO WALK OUT OF A CLASSROOM. So I'm stuck as this prisoner thinking -- wow laundry, the show I have tonight, dinner, homework for this teacher's very class...which one will I have to skip so I can go to bed at a reasonable time. Sigh.

I saw 12th night last night. Great except for Viola. Maybe she was sick because her body was so ridged and unnatural?

The night before I saw a show that everyone should see: This Isn't Romance. It's about 2 siblings from Korea separated when only one is adopted to a family from London. The show takes place in Korea 25 years after the adoption. WOW.

Hope winter is good in the States. It just won't stop raining here. On the bright side, a bunch of horses just walked past my window.

London Shows

Shows I've seen in London from last seen to first seen.

Kronos Quartet/ Wu Man/ Tan Dun: Ghost Opera	Barbican
The Frontline	Globe Theatre
Waiting for Godot	Theatre Royal Haymarket
Barack Obama: 100 Days with Ziauddin Sardar, Lionel Shriver, Amina Adewusi and Shirley Thompson**	Southbank Centre
Time and the Conways	National Theatre, Lylleton
Romeo and Juliet	Globe Theatre
Dancing at Lughnesa	Old Vic Theatre
Death and King's Horseman	National Theatre, Olivier
NoFit State Circus present Tabu	Roundhouse
Stovepipe	Basement of West 12 Shopping Centre, Sheperd's Bush (site-specific theatre)
Nocturnal	Gate Theatre
Madame de Sade	Don Mar, Wyndham Theatre
3 Days of Rain	Apollo Theatre
The Pitmen Painters	National Theatre, Lylleton
Orchestra Baobab + Kasse Mady Diabate*	Barbican
A Little Night Music	Garrick Theatre
Spring Awakening	Novello Theatre
The 39 Steps	Criterion Theatre
Watchmen+	BFI IMAX
Q & A with Kathryn Hunter and Walter Meierjohann	Young Vic Theatre
Kafka's Monkey	Young Vic Theatre
Waltz with Bashir+	Prince Charles Cinema
Lion King	Lyceum Theatre
Woman in Mind	Vaudeville Theatre
The Tempest	Courtyard Theatre (Stratford-upon-Avon, UK)
Greenwash	Orange Tree Theatre
Duet for One	Almeida Theatre
STOMP*	Ambassadors Theatre
Los Van Van + DJs Dr Jim and Javier La Rose*	Roundhouse
Twelfth Night	Don Mar, Wyndham Theatre
This Isn't Romance	Soho Theatre
Avenue Q	Noël Coward Theatre
Every Good Boy Deserves Favor	National Theatre, Olivier
Wrecks	Bush Theatre
Truncated	Blue Elephant Theatre
War Horse	National Theatre, Olivier
Unbroken	Gate Theatre
Platform Performance: Tom Stoppard	National Theatre, Olivier
England People Very Nice	National Theatre, Olivier

*Indicates a music show.
+Indicates a film.
**Indicates a lecture.

HAPPY PANCAKE DAY!

Today is tuesday/Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday. In Britain today is pancake day!!!! So naturally I went down to the House of Parliament and saw some of the Lords and Ladies and press corp have a pancake race. A pancake race is actually the most amazing event ever. Everyone has a frying pan and a cooked pancake. Each player must flip the pancake 3 times to a height of at least 3 feet while racing around a track. If you drop a pancake you start over. You play with relays. The first team to finish gets to go home with all the glory!!!!!!!

Like I said the most amazing thing ever. What could top that race? Well their outfits. Most of them were in suits with dress shoes running over drizzle-covered cobblestones with chef hats.

Also I used my fiddle for good. I came home and found a group of guys playing in the lobby. Next thing I know I find myself asking if I could play with them -- "my violin is upstairs...". I was tired and nervous, etc, etc but I still got it. And preceded to play for the next hour. Fun! And made all these neat friends because of it. I'm a newb when it comes to jamming but I guess it's all about sticking your neck out there and going for it.

Goodbye sleep and free time!

Basics

So apparently exactly what I'm doing in London is still a mystery to this blog. Just keeping you on the edge of your seats, I am. (That sentence makes much more sense in a cockney accent.) I am studying with Oberlin professors in Bloomsbury, London. My school is actually on the same street and a block down from the British Museum. It is also around the corner from the Cartoon Museum, which has Chairman Mao residing there.

I am taking 3 class: Colonialism and British Identity (everyone takes this -- taught by Anu Needham and Steve Volk) Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (Volk) Theatre of London (Donna Vinter, a teacher at the center)

All I want is food and creative love

Brown rice with a bit of crunch to its fluff. A stir fry of carrots, green pepper and tomato. The tomato is slightly overcooked so it blends into the sauce -- vegetable oil, light soy sauce and a hint of dark soy sauce -- and into the rice. Couple this with some loose-leaf green tea I brought all the way from San Fransisco. God I love cooking. It really makes the days sing, even if they have no reason to.

My week has not been the best.

Someone stole a week's worth of bread (so a week of lunches) from a marked container of mine that was in the communal freezer. I actually knocked on all the doors of my kitchen-mates. All sympathetic, all claimed their stuff had been taken by mysterious (potentially drunk) people. Right. Revenge? Who knows.

Also my time management skills went kaput this week! That's because I went to 2 theatre productions and a party. In my defense I did not go out Sunday night. The British government worries about theatre attendance in young adults. So "A Night Less Ordinary" program gives money to theatres so they can give free tickets to me and anyone else under 26 who has enough patience to wait 10 minutes on the box office phone queue. I probably have about 7 shows lined up. Plus I see a show every week with my theatre class.

My free show, called Unbroken, was a theatrical dance piece about sexuality. It was at the Gate Theatre which in the words of my theatre teacher is the size of a postage stamp. I'd say 2, maybe 3 stamps.

The tech design was brilliant. There was a scrim right in front of the stage during the whole show. The space was set up proscenium style (it's a black box) and there was a row of ungeled (i think) ERSs pointing at the audience. The ERSs go out. The opening scene was a monologue with a light directly above the actor who is speaking to a voice over. Suddenly the stage is fully lit with 2 people -- the original man and a woman. All the stage lighting was done dancy (haha no face lighting for YOU!). Shin kickers, backlighting, and "sidelighting" (from florencents). Usually only one source was used at a time. The stage was 20'-0" long and 3'-0" deep it seemed. There was music playing almost the whole time.

It consisted of scenes between the 2 dance-actors who played different characters in relationship with each other who all knew each other. EX scene A: the married couple, scene B: husband and his secretary, etc. And every scene they had sex. Or I should say dance sex. They only kissed once in the whole show and they used the fluidity, intimacy, physicality of dance routines... speeding them up, breathing heavy, to have sex. And some dialogue. It was so personal in that theatre of a 70 person audience. But this was NOT porn. So don't get any ideas. It was about fucking and making love. What people want and what they get and feel. Period.

My theatre class show was War Horse. I cannot even begin to explain the epic show that was this production. It was about a horse who gets sent to WWI, who he meets there, who he leaves behind. Look it up and see the epic designs. It's playing at the National. They used puppets for the horses. Actually, amazing. I want to make puppets and be a puppeteer when I grow up! P.S. this show had 3 years of production time. Wow.

The party was excellent. It was 2 girls' (in my group) birthdays and we had a Old Ladies in Las Vegas party. So drinking. And before that my museum class went out for drinks to loosen our tongues from the inhibitions brought on by seeing Freud's house museum. And then Mag and I checked out a pub that was neat in the neighborhood near the party. What can I say, we like alternative kids and Camden Town is the place to find them. I will make sure to never have a hangover in class again. (Then again everyone in class had the potential for a hangover as well.)

Last weekend I went to the Victoria and Albert museum (so much stuff), and visited Paul and Dana in Cambridge. I had high tea and had 2 leather belt made for me there. The scone and Assam tea were excellent. The belts look quite smart.


Hope you all are well, ray
(Thank you Rusted Root for my title.)

Pictures of Mexico and Germany

Check out these links to see my pictures of Mexico and Germany!

Winter Term 2009
Barra de Navidad
Lake Chapala
Eating
Guadalajara
Mexican Art
Mexican Art 2
Nature
Pyramids
Tonala


Winter Term 2008
Amsterdam
Berlin
Bielefeld
Brussels
Hameln
Hannover
Munich
Soll and Kufstein
Vienna

The Tube is your best friend...a best friend that will betray you.

Where’s the measuring cups? Something smaller than a pint glass? Teaspoons? Tablespoons? Oh, here’s a shotglass.

I think that is best way I can describe the excellent adventure that is eating here. Tonight I am trying my first ambitious meal – brown rice and vegetable tikka masala. I have never cooked any kind of rice without a rice cooker before (p.s. The rice turned out wonderfully!). But I cannot take all the credit for the masala: they sell the sauce bottled in all major grocery stores.

Yet there are other adventures to be had in the kitchen. I am currently battling for space in the shared fridge. Apparently diet coke is more important to the 4 other American girl students (whom I have yet to all meet) than allowing me to store any amount of food. Also the constant tirade against people stealing my food. It’s an army of two in kitchen 407 – Ray Gergen and a blue permanent marker.

Enough about food. Why haven’t I written recently? I have been up to my eyeballs in sleep deprivation and orientation, so SORRY. The first day (6.2) was not much to write home about – paperwork, paperwork, paperwork! We oriented at the center, which is in the backyard of the British Museum (AH!). Anu, Steve (from Oberlin), Donna and the librarian all seem like incredibly knowledgeable and quirky people. So I am very satisfied to have them in my hair for the next few months. Donna, the in-house head staffmember (I cannot say “administrator” because they are very proud to be managed solely by the teachers themselves), is friends with a hilarious police officer who came in to tell us about safety in London. Apparently there is a lot. But obvious problems did arise during the talk, namely that the sergeant would not admit to there being any bad parts of London because that would be saying is brothers/sisters in arms were not doing their jobs. Also I can play anywhere on the street as long as I’m not so bad that the neighbors call in a noise complaint. (Did you know that they made fake cans you can store valuables in?) Later on they gave us money to eat out and make friends. I think the friends groups may already be set, but at least the food was good. (Did I mention there’s an Asian place near me called New Culture Revolution. They make their own noodles!)

Day 2 (7.2) : Visit to St Paul’s Cathedral. What a beautiful place. It was very interesting visiting there after seeing so many cathedrals in Mexico. Wow catholic cathedrals whether it be through flashing Christmas lights or a person’s weight in gold leaf are quite overdecorated! England, being a protestant country when the cathedral was in its final rebuilt (4th), unfortunately there was a Catholic sympathist phase. Aka the cathedral (like most) is very psychizophrenic in design. Plain white limestone to gold leaf and huge, glittering mosaics. I climbed to the whispering room. Too many people to hear a whisper on the other side of the dome. Climbed to the top to see the views. I love looking at the Thames and seeing the reconstruction of the Globe next to so many office buildings. London is a mixed up place indeed.

When I got back to my tube stop there were all these people in costumes ranging from sheep to gangsters to people in New Zealand flags and flip flops (in the 40 degree Fahrenheit weather) screaming KIWI KIWI KIWI and drinking. The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi is on 7 February. It’s not an official independence day and it’s only celebrated in England by Kiwi’s (not really in NZ) but it was sooooo awesome!

Day 3 (8.2/Today): Market day! We visited the East End/Tower Hamlets where we went to Petticoat Lane Market, Old Spitalfields Market, Brick Lane Market and Columbia Road Flower Market. Bought cheap vegetables and ogled at the various food stands (ethnic and raw vegetable ones). Wow. Did you know that Brick Lane (I just finished a book by the same name set there.) has a CURRY FESTIVAL??? It’s also known as the Benglatown of London. We saw this amazing street artist who played guitar, sang, played a harmonica, and a little tiny drum set. AND he was good. Wow.



To close…. I’m doing much and yet I’ve only gotten here. The socialization aspect is pretty okay with the Oberlin kids (there are some really solid people on this trip) but the socialization aspect at the dorm frankly sucks. I’m stuck on a floor with only kids from one program and they all go to Bucknell and have been here for a month. So I don’t really have a chance. Sigh. I bombard them as they walk to their doors. I don’t think it will lead to meaningful relationships but I guess I now have someone to talk to over the roar of the microwave.


p.s. So far I've had okay luck with my public transportation. I have a monthly pass for all underground, overground and buses in zones 1-2. Yet the first day I rode the tube, it would not read my pound coins and the train stopped between the first and second stop for 15 minutes because of signal failure. (Donna believes "signal failure" is really a blown out light bulb that is only allowed to be replaced by a specific worker. It is the most common explanation for late trains.) I am supposed to expect much more blown light bulbs, along with the "wrong kind" of wind, rain, snow and sunshine to delay the trains (wrong kind coming off of a news paper article claiming "if only the snow were the right kind...there would be no delay").

Finally London

Row upon row of townhouses line the streets on my way from the tube stop to my room on Manresa Road. I have a tiny little single, with a very thin bed, petite dresser, and a bathroom that gives new meaning to the phrase spacial management. Somehow when I unpacked everything, it all fits (even though I am a big, bumbling American). It snowed a few days ago so it is rather cold. Yet I find it hard to mind, it is so beautiful here. The mixture of architecture -- I have never been more excited to breath in the different shades of rust, brick and glass that this intensely urban place provides. My walk anywhere is windy, every turn bringing on another little pub or wedding shop or hospital or tiny house.

Certainly just coming from Mexico does distort my vision. Everything is so clean here. I have never obsessed over infrastructure yet the fact that it is maintained here and trash is picked up and sidewalks are not death traps, is wonderful. It took me most of the month to see the diamond in the rough in Mexico. It has taken me 32 hours to find it here.

Background is needed. Why is this friend/niece/daughter/girl I sort of know writing about London? I am attending Oberlin's Danenberg-Oberlin-In-London Program (you can't make these sorts of acronyms up). I am living in Chelsea in an international dorm. For the next 4 months, I will be an explorer of London, England, Europe and life in general. This blog is your window onto my journey.

I can only hope it will be an entertaining (if not exhilarating) view.

-Ray

Mexico 2009: Finale

Hi again,

As my time here draws to a close, I feel like an update is in order. My spanish is definitely improving. My thought process has moved from very broken span-glish to a fully spanish mindset. I still do not know many words but at least I am able to think in spanish (albeit in short sentences). Class still take up most of my day. Occasionally, I have some time to wander around the city. Some of my recent haunts have been to the local ripley´s believe-it-or-not museum, a market that is 3 stories tall and full or approximately 1,000,000,000 vendors and the audio district. I do not know if Audio District is at all the proper name but after seeing 30-50 stores all selling audio equipment (one store right next to another, etc), I do not know how it could be called anything else.

Since I last wrote, I´ve also been to beach! A group of 14 of us went to Barra de Navidad, a small beach town on the Pacific Ocean. The 5 hour bus ride was full of picturesque views of the changing altitudes with ranches, cactus trees and beautiful mountain drop-offs. The bus we took was nicer than any plane I´ve ever been on. Large seats, drinks and food, amazing foot rests and hilariously bad movies (i.e. Blue Smoke). We did not get there until late. Once we finally moved into our exactly-what-we-paid-for hotel ($6 per person per night) we were all itching to go swiming, so most of us went skinny diping! Most of my time at the beach was spent sleeping, eating the most amazing guacamole and sea kayaking and jetskiing. I drove a jet ski for the first time (without glasses or contacts). Naturally I wanted to go as far out as possible. The man working there drove out to us to say "did you guys know sharks could tip your jetski in this part of the ocean?" I still wonder why he did not mention this before we got on.

(In case you´re feeling jealous, my good time came with a price. I got food poisoning from tamales bought on the bus ride home (which was bumpy and made everyone nauseous). Luckily I have just recovered.)

Obama´s inauguration was very fun with 30 obies! We were allowed to skip class for the speech and following musical/vocal interludes. We got our own room to watch it in. There were so many wise cracks at Bush´s sad face, so many ooos and awws at Obama´s speech. We all cheered the loudest when Bush finally got on the helicopter and left the capital. To celebrate we went to a cuban restaurant (irony?) after class (about 15 of us). Cuban food is amazing!



I just got back from a vegetarian restaurant where I got a huge bowl of soup and tostadas for 15 pesos, approximately $1.10. I am really going to miss the cheapness of this place. Ray

Mexico 2009: Part 1

Hello all!

I hope everyone´s finals, winter breaks, and winter terms (and for some spring semesters) have been going great! I am here to report from Mexico and let me tell you, there is a lot to say.

It´s a balmly 50 degrees here in Guadalajara, Mexico in the mornings (which is rather a bummer once you get used to the weather... 75-80 during most of the day). The program I am doing is an intensive spanish immersion. We are trying to do a semester´s worth of spanish in 15ish days. To put that into perspective, in Oberlin it took us 4 months to cover 6 chapters. Here we covered 2 chapters in half of a week. That´s what 4 hours of lecture and 1 hour of conversation a day does to you I guess. In addition to classroom time, I live in a home with a family who only knows spanish. As in the grandkids know colors in english and everyone seems to listen to terrible american top 100 hits here.... and that´s where english ends.

Mexico is a very different place than the States. In some ways it is a lot more friendly (by american standards). I´ve seen jam-packed buses pass bus fare from the person who is squished against the back door to the bus driver in the front. Thank you, excuse me and hello and expected of everyone by everyone. Yet, it is not uncommon to see people chilling with semi-automatics, or open-air trucks with military personnel with guns and camo. I have yet to feel unsafe, threatened or stolen from in any way.

Since my host family can only speak spanish, my entire relationship with them is based around food. My host mom makes the best everything. I have not had anything like it matched in any of the restaurants here. Also everything has a spicy edge (even the hot chocolate) with extra hot sauce on the side. I must say though I had no idea how disheartening it is to not be able to communicate your thoughts, opinions, or expressions to others around you. At this point my spanish is only good enough to cover my immediate needs and describing literal actions I did or wanted to do. That does not leave you with much to say at the dinner table, let me tell you!

The center has taken us on many trips -- around the city, to huge open air markets. Tomorrow (my birthday) we go to the lake outside town and hot springs! And hopefully afterwards I will be found salsa dancing with some of the other obies on the trip.

Hoping to find you all well, Ray p.s. Since I wrote this, my birthday has happened. It was a great day! Very relaxing during the hot springs. At night a few friends of mine went out for cuban food (some of the best food I´ve had here) and then went to a discotec for dancing. Can you believe that obies started the dance floor at the discotec?!?! Yes we started the party and got the locals to join in. Here's a video from one of the CDs I picked up in Mexico:

Germany 2008: Finale

Hello,

It is the end of my last day in Germany. It's been a trip, certainly. This will obviously be my last email. Well I'll stop rambling, here is the ending to this story:

I got on my first sleeper train, which took me to Wien (Vienna). Couchettes or cheap sleepers consist of 2 columns of 3 beds (more like upholstered benches) with a rickety ladder inbetween. Even in the cramped quarters (where does your luggage go?), everybody was very nice. I was always offered food, poor to excellent attempts at English and a smile or a hello. Which Germans tend not to do in the street. So while Americans smile at everyone, our natural reaction is to close off and alienate ourselves while in cramped quarters. But Germans, you sleep with them, you're family.

Vienna is so jampacked with music and was gorgeous. The first day I got terribly lost (I was in Vienna for 2 days) and ended up in the Viennan equivalent of Wheaton (a suburb of DC that is thought of for its shootings and for its really cheap, good ethnic food ... which maybe makes it safer?). Was I in safe Wheaton or sketchy Wheaton? I got out of the place as fast as I could. I went to Mozart's apartment and the Haus der Musik (House of Music) which was full of crazy "ears"-on experiments showing the quirks of the human ear. As you can imagine I was entranced for a good, long time. I spent most of my time in Stephensplatz -- where luckily all the places I wanted to go were located, along with many street musicians and posh restaurants. I went to a Jewish museum for a change of pace. Their permanent exhibit consisted of holy Jewish objects that were donated by the community. Some of them were blackened because of Nazis trying to burn them or the temple they existed in. Very moving. But the exhibit I spent to most time in was on Erich Korngold -- a Hollywood film composer and Viennan Jew. So I spent a few hours listening to his music.

Then I went to Munich but was so tired I didn't start seeing the city until dark. I went to Olympic Park -- which was a trip because of the horrifying events that happened there (and the lack of any obvious acknowledgment of those events) and the absolutely amazing architecture that was completely gravity-defying, massive and curvy. I also ended up going to a German bier haus in Munich -- which according to my German hostel-roomate was completely full of tourists. The glasses of bier must have been 2 or 3 pint cups -- a glass having the mass of a full growth human skull at least. We ended up splitting one. We also got hit on by men from Holland my dad's age... who also reminded us how they had wives and kids (but they mostly told us that to deflect the "you're so gay" jokes they were passing around... wow). I got her to leave pretty early on.

The next day I left for Soll... the skiing town in the Austrian Alps. I spent the first day reading and taking in the views. The second day I went snowboarding. You took a gondola to GET to the lifts. It was crazy. There was a second gonola, picking up where the first one left off, that went to the top of the mountain. I took it just to see the views. I got there and saw I was standing above cloud level. Next to me, coming up the side of the mountain was a huge, puffy cloud. I starred face to face with a cloud. It was so scary and wonderful.

I somehow got back to Harsewinkel. Everything seemed to go wrong on the trip back -- the bus to to train station didn't come, my sleeper train's number didn't match my ticket but was still the right train (luckily I asked), on it goes. But I got back 2 days ago. I've been catching up on sleep since then and in less than 24 hours I will be on a plane back to the States. Hope you are all well.

Love, Ray

Germany 2008: Part 2

Hi,

Yes I am still alive. Germany has not eaten me yet, although there were some close calls. So I havent written in awhile first because nothing noteworthy was happening (ex. "so today I lounged around and read, again. Just like yesterday. Just like tomorrow...") and then when things did happen I just was too lazy to sit down and document them. But once again here is a brief recap of my adventures so far:

So never go to Europe without your travel plans booked. I figured I could do everything in Europe which is NOT A GOOD IDEA. I decided to get a railpass for the whole of the Europe's train systems that was good for 15 consecutive days. Getting any sort of rail pass (as opposed to individual tickets) is the way to go if you want to see Europe: it cuts down on price significantly and you have the flexibility to see what you want, when you want. BUT because I wasn't a European but wanted to buy the pass in Europe, I was going to have to pay almost double (as opposed to a European or if I had bought it in America). End of story my family had to buy it and have the company send it to Germany. That was the first crazy thing.

Finally with a way to leave the small town I live in I hit the rails, seeing Berlin and Hanover. Berlin is really just a huge shopping district at this point with a lot of gardens -- an interesting twist considering the dark history of the place. Hanover is just beautiful and has the mecca of modern art museums the Sprengel museum. (That is one of the projects I've been pursuing -- reading about modern art and going around and seeing modern art museums in Germany -- along with reading about my family history, and getting to know Germany via traveling around.)

My most recent news is this: I just came back from a two day trip to Brussels and Amsterdam -- staying in a hostel in Brussels along the way where I met some great people from Argentina. Brussels, famous for their naked peeing statue, is such a university town with guitar and east asian trinket shops everywhere you look. Very trendy. In fact all of Europe is "trendy" -- as in people seem to only own designer clothes. It's really strange because I feel so poor and untrendy here. Amsterdam was interesting. I went to a sex museum (which was like 3 floors of photographic porn at 3 Euros a person) and the Anne Frank House (where she hid with her family when she wrote her diary. I SAW her diary. Pretty moving and sad. Amsterdam did have a strange feeling to it -- lots of groups of men wandering around. I was glad to leave before it got dark as I am doing these trips alone.

Tonight I leave for my second major trip -- Vienna, Munich and Soll (for snowboarding yay). I hope your Januarys' are going superbly, Ray

Germany 2008: Part 1

Hello All,

I hope everyones' dreams came true on their respective winter holidays -- if not there is always drinking tonight to forget about all that and to begin to think about winter term!!!!(for the 90% of you on this list who go to Oberlin and know what I'm talking about)!!! My winter term started a tad early as I am already in Germany and have been for the last week. I brought all you guys' emails together (and no doubt I forgot many good peoples) because I know that I can send emails about my life to you guys and not feel like a totally sketchball. This list can be used as a way to keep in touch, just to email me, to email me that you don't want to be on this list (no hurt feelings:)), or not. My plan is to use it to tell you about my adventures and for you to tell me about yours during this wintery month of January (in a few hours that is).

I flew into Frankfurt on the 26th and landed very jetlagged. Germany is 6 hours ahead of EST so right now it is 4:30 pm (10:30 am EST). After we got our rental we (my family came over with me) drove to Harsewinkel, the town were I am living for the month. It took awhile to do this however because for some reason the GSP thought we were driving from Paris to Harsewinkel (as opposed to where we really were which was frankfurt). So it kept telling us we were 600 miles away and wouldnt reset. Eventually it decided to reset itself and all was fine. Germany is quite a pretty place. It is very similar to Wisconsin. It is easy to see why so many German settlers (like my family) settled in WIS because the land is identical. It is sort of similar to Ohio -- Harsewinkel is completely flat, surrounded by farms and is a very small town -- but much prettier. There are lots of trees and farms and winding roads. Germany seems to have a lot of beer, wurst (sausage), wind energy and circuses. I've seen spinning towers and ads for circuses in every town I've driven through so far and a few day ago a saw a bunch of unicyclists.

I took advantage of my parents being here with a car to see some of the country. I went to kz (german acronym for concentration camp) Bergen-Belson -- where Anne Frank died. Wow what a powerful place. All the buildings were burned down when the camp was liberated because of the rampant typhoid in the place. You walk around these huge empty fields surrounded by beautiful, thick forest and see no birds and hear nothing but the wind whipping through the trees. A very heartbreaking place to visit.

On a brighter note, I made it to a German Christmas market. Yes it is true -- Germany does make better sausage. They also make this hot, spiced red wine called Gluvine which is very tasty. My parents left today so finally FREEDOM.

Well I hope everyone New Year's is excellent, Ray p.s. - American History X is a wonderful movie and everyone should see it :)