1

Hopes and Dreams In the Craziest Place on Earth

Hi Blogosphere!

I am SO SORRY I have been the lamest blogger on the planet. I have had so many exciting adventures in Cape Town since my last post and they pretty much occur in rapid succession so I haven't had the energy to gather my thoughts and blog about them yet.

During program orientation here in Cape Town I met a girl from USC who is a film studies major and we talked for a while about photography as we explored campus. Since then we have developed a photography project that is becoming the coolest and most exciting part of my Cape Town experience. Every Monday and Friday we teach a photography class to 14 eighth graders in Masiyle High School in Khayelitsha (the biggest township in the Cape Town area). Khayelitsha is GIGANTIC, as in hundreds of thousands of people live there. The development level varies but on average is very low. Children that make it to high school are extremely dedicated and incredible people.

We had Kodak disposable cameras shipped over from the US with someone's parents when they came to visit and have just developed the first round of prints that the kids shot over a weeklong period. We only had one lesson before they were set loose with the cameras and we talked about composition and color mostly. The results are FASCINATING. Already the students have done incredible work. Teaching them is my favorite part of the week.

This Saturday I am leaving for a safari through Bostwana and Zambia during Easter break. Expect a full report on those adventures. Don't worry I am buying a bird book before, Grandma.

South Africa

I have no energy to blog. Africa is so engaging and fantastic that every second of every day I am out doing something or spending time with people. In the last four nights I haven’t gotten more than 6 hours of sleep. Poor planning on my part. Some beach naps have helped though, but have increased the level of pinkness in my tan.

Cape Town is exceptionally gorgeous. I’ve done Cape Point, climbed Table Mountain, spent two days at Muizenberg psyching myself up to surf on my upcoming trip along the garden route (while watching my friends Duncan and James wipe out pretty regularly haha). I am beginning to understand the meaning of the different color shark alert flags and am not at all freaked out by the fact that there is currently a gecko hanging out on my crown molding.

My house is a French revival with five what I think are hibiscus trees in the yard. I live in the Mowbray neighborhood, which is about a ten-minute walk from lower UCT campus. There are quite a few of us in the house but it’s so big that it’s hard to see at any time but dinner. My housemates are all very cool people from all over the US, most are from the East Coast so I’ve been learning a lot of phrases.

I will try to write more that’s specific soon when I’m not exhausted.

New York City, Day 2 (Fri/Jan 20)

On my second day in NYC time flew by a little bit quicker. Uncle David and I took the train into Penn and then got on the 1, straight up to Morningside Heights and Columbia University. Columbia is a beautiful campus, almost majestic. Low library is an incredibly beautiful and historically relevant testament to scholarly pursuits. The entire interior is comprised of different kinds of marble. We snuck into the Trustees Room (the door was open…) and got to see the teal leather chairs lined up around a grand wooden table. From there I got a pass and took a tour of Columbia Law School (it has very little front door security unlike NYU, character of the neighborhood I suppose).

Columbia Law has a very modern interior and some beautiful rooms but overall felt very snooty. I think I expected the school to feel hallowed and magical because people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg are alumni, but I came away with a weird feeling. It most likely had to do with Morningside Heights in general, the whole neighborhood is very posh and clean (for New York City anyway), and no one on the campus even noticed that I was there. To be fair, as an employee of a law school I have very high expectations about the visitation experience, but something didn’t quite click for me.

After my walking tour I met David at St. Johns Cathedral and spent a good time wondering at how massive and beautiful it is. There is a Columbia University art installation inside called The Value of Water that is very beautiful, but poorly explained (with the exception of the Terry Tempest Williams & Co. Pronghorn piece).

We had pizza with fresh tomato at a restaurant near campus and then took the subway down to 72^nd and walked through Central Park. I think it was 25 degrees at that point so our walk was very brisk but I got to see the boathouse and walk over that one famous bridge (cannot remember the name for the life of me…). Eventually, we got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and into the warmth.

As we were drinking some afternoon coffee in the cafeteria courtyard, recharging for the museum, a group called The Asphalt Orchestra started playing a surprise concert with musicians of all kinds coming out of the woodwork. I think their set was to celebrate the new American Wing, regardless it was very entertaining and beautiful. Whenever you start to get tired in New York something exciting like surprise music happens. On the subway earlier in the day two Mexican guys got on our car shouted “Good Morning!” and started playing Mariachi music until the next stop when they ran off and got into another car.

I spent most of my time at the Met in the new American Wing (with side visits to other adjacent displays, more later). The American Wing contains period revival decorated rooms, paintings, furniture, sculpture, Louis Comfort Tiffany glass and more. One of my favorite parts of the wing was in the visible storage half of the second floor. There are a huge section of tall clocks and desk clocks, all completely ornate of course. My favorite is a tall Tiffany clock that had a hand for the month, day of the month, day of the week, astrological sign, and the time too.

On the third floor I stumbled into the Music Room, a beautiful collection of harpsichords, violas, bagpipes and cellos. My favorite piece was an ancient pianoforte that is literally the oldest in existence. When I come back to New York in June and September I have to come back to the Met to see more. By the time we made it back to Hamilton station I was exhausted.

This morning (Saturday), I woke up to two inches of snow on the ground and decided to save my Wall St/Ground Zero/Trinity Church/Battery Park visit for June when it is less frigid and I am less nervous about flying across the world. My flight leaves tomorrow at 7:30 pm out of JFK and arrives at Heathrow at 7:30 am, because of the 7 hour time difference the flight is really only 5 hours, not too bad but I will be very tired.

New York City, Day 1 (Thurs/Jan 19)

After waking up with my head in a fog for the second day in a row, I decided that it was time to start drinking coffee again. And man, was it delicious. Margaret, David and I took the New Jersey Transit from Hamilton station to New York Penn Station in Manhattan. The train ride is a little over an hour and takes you through some interesting towns in New Jersey. Something that I’ve noticed about New Jersey that has sort of perplexed me are these abandoned old stately brick buildings. They are out in a field or in the middle of a town and have these beautiful windows that are busted out and the exterior is covered in graffiti tags. They are little bits of history, slipping out of recognition.

I didn’t really know what to expect from New York City. I have heard so many different accounts, seen so many television shows based there and looked at picture after picture, but you can’t understand a city until you’ve been there.

We got off the train at Penn Station and wound our way up to the sidewalk (Side note for my dad: Penn Station is underneath Madison Square Garden, Go Knicks!) to see moderate traffic and what seemed at the time a heavy flow of pedestrian traffic (I changed that perspective later in Times Square). My #1 New York City goal of this trip was to see The High Line (will explain later) so we set off West to 28^th. Once we left 34th the city seemed almost empty, a couple of people passed us on the street but even the street traffic was minimal (mind you, it WAS 30 degrees w/a wind chill). We stopped at a deli to get Margaret a bagel and headed up the stairs onto The High Line.

The High Line is an old elevated railway that has been converted into a city park. The railway was built in the 1930’s to keep trains separate from street traffic; the last train ran on The High Line in 1980. In 1999, when the city was prepared to demolish the line, two men created a group called Friends of the High Line and moved to convert the old tracks (which now had wildflowers sprouting between slats) into a park. The city got on board in 2002 and in 2009 the first section of the park opened, the remainder opened in 2011. The High Line is a getaway from urban life for people all over the city, during the summer the park is especially crowded, but when we were there it was relatively empty. I first heard about The High Line from the April, 2011 issue of National Geographic. It was then that I made up my mind to go to the High Line. A week before I left for this trip I went to see a film called Urbanized at Northwest Film Forum in Seattle with my friends Laura and Sara from Seattle U. Urbanized is a documentary about modern cities, and the future of cities but has a special segment on The High Line, which rejuvenated my resolve to get there. If you are in New York City I recommend that you go to the High Line, the wooden reclining chairs are exceptionally comfortable and the view of the city and the Hudson is remarkable.

We left the High Line and walked down into Greenwich Village. The sun made the winter bite not nearly as gruesome and we traversed quite a bit of cobblestones before finding a corner Starbucks to get some warmth. There are more Starbucks in NYC than I expected, but compared to Seattle I guess it’s pretty tame. From there we walked to Washington Square Park and admired Washington’s arch and the large volume of plump squirrels roaming around before I went to take a tour of NYU: LAW. NYU is comprised of these unique and beautiful buildings clumped together loosely bordering WSP. The law school itself is made up of two buildings and an underground library. The first building I went into was very old, but in a worn down and loved sort of way. It was when I walked down into the law library that I realized how much I like NYU. The library has varying levels with study nooks everywhere, as I was walking across several students smiled at me and I got to look into the center for International Economic Justice (SO MANY INTERESTING BOOKS). The second building was much more modern and I got to see a breakdown of the 2L and 3L elective classes (lots of IP and Business law, just what I like to see). Overall, I felt very comfortable at NYU and could see myself studying like a crazy person there.

I met back up with David and Margaret in SOHO at a deli called Gourmet Goods; it was then that I got to eat my first New York bagel, which was delicious. SOHO, and New York in general is filled with very fashionable people. I had to resist some serious shopping urges as we passed by Kate Spade and Rag & Bone, but I am holding out for shopping in Cape Town. It was well below freezing at that point so I did go on a short mission to find a down coat. We ended up at the two month old REI: SOHO, which we all thought was a comic place for an REI, and I found an Outdoor Research jacket on sale that was light enough to wear on cold days in CPT but warm enough to layer in the Atlantic frost.

We took the subway uptown to 42^nd Street (Times Square) and I almost started crying when I saw The New York Times headquarters (I was a little bit tired at that point). Times Square, I’ve decided, is not my cup of tea. There are lights flashing everywhere, billboard after billboard trying to sell you things, and SO MANY PEOPLE. I much prefer the quieter SOHO, WSP and Chelsea.

Our last mission for the day was to go into the flagship Macy’s to see the old wooden escalators. Altogether, the store has 9 floors, from 5 to 9 the escalators are wooden and very beautiful.

My first day in NYC was very full and very interesting. Overall, the city is so beautiful and intriguing that I completely understand why Frank Sinatra, Ryan Adams, Jay-Z, and countless others have dedicated songs to it.

Princeton

Trenton & Princeton

Woke up late today in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and have been nursing a pretty serious Dramamine hangover since. Yesterday, my flight left SeaTac at 6:25AM PST and I arrived at Chicago’s Midway airport around 12:30 GMT to a fairly crowded Southwest Airlines terminal. To my pleasurable surprise, the food court included a salad restaurant, whose name included the word “sprigs” but that’s all I can remember. A chatty pilot told me all about his favorite salad as I stood in line and multiple people after in my gate were extremely friendly and personable. Maybe it’s a Chicago thing? Or maybe, as I have always guessed, Seattle is just a quiet keep-to-yourself kind of place.

The flight to Philadelphia was only two hours with slight turbulence and a beautiful sunset. I sat next to a guy who worked in the consulting industry and graduated from University of Rochester in 2009, he was pretty intent on a job application and the elderly woman sitting on the aisle to his right was also intent on her novel. I fell in and out of a Dramamine induced sleep and managed AGAIN to miss the drinks/peanuts/snacks portion of the flight. Luckily I had dried mangoes stashed in my messenger bag.

After we touched down in Philly, I had a little bit of trouble finding my luggage carousel (I walked the wrong way) but found it just in time and met Margaret out on the curb. We drove north, through the city, and passed some beautiful bridges and the stadiums where the 76’ers play and the Philadelphia Eagles. Someday I’ll have to go back and visit Independence Hall and Valley Forge, but not on this trip.

Today, after eating breakfast, Margaret took me to see Trenton. Trenton used to be one of the industrial capitols of the country but is now much less prosperous. We drove by a several blocks of “row houses” which are basically like duplexes that have flat sides and concrete steps that extend from the porch squarely onto the sidewalk. We don’t really have anything equal in the PNW, but the tallness of the buildings reminds me of the houses in San Francisco that are very thin but have an elevation to them. The neighborhood of North Trenton is comprised mostly of working class Americans and also a fairly large Polish neighborhood. There is something very distinct about the East Coast that I haven’t been able to quite put my finger on. I did notice that all of the houses here are much older than houses in Seattle, the bricks and wood are weathered and seem like they carry this aged wisdom, but it’s not just that.

We stopped at a low building which hosts a Farmers Market but it was closed on Wednesdays so we headed over to Halo Farms. Halo Farms is a dairy, I think. The building itself has working packaging machinery that is churning along in the front window. On the right side of the store there is a long rectangular cooling section with every kind of milk you can imagine (cows milk) and several different kinds of fruity drinks like Lemonade and Orange Aide. In the center of the store they offer probably 30 different kinds of Ice Cream with flavors like Toasted Almond, and Peanut M&M. The funny thing about the building is that the walls from floor to ceiling are painted black. It obviously was an old farm building, but has been modified into this convenience type of store with gold framed oil paintings of bowls of fruit mounted on the slope of the ceiling. It also sells crackers and bread. I have never seen anything like it.

After leaving Trenton/South Lawrenceville we drove up to Princeton so that I could see the campus. I was expecting to see something similar to University of Washington or maybe UCLA in terms of the mixture of old and new buildings. Princeton is very old, and very beautiful. The wind picked up as we were walking around campus, which made things very cold, but we persevered and walked through numerous archways and down grand steps onto quad after quad. Most of the buildings are made of grey stone with high windows and castle like turrets. The campus cathedral is a giant stone and glass structure across from a statue of John Witherspoon (more later). Inside on both ends of the church are huge dark glass windows arranged in columns. And the side windows housed all of the saints, immortalized in stained glass. There was a very holy feel to the place, more so than I feel when I walk into the Seattle U Chapel of St. Ignatius, probably because of the size and realization that the cathedral is over two hundred years old.

The rusty-teal iron statue of John Witherspoon stands mightily across the courtyard from the cathedral, he stands with his left hand resting on a book that’s resting on the back of what looks like an Eagle. John Witherspoon was a clergyman in Scotland before he immigrated with his family to New Jersey after he was offered the position of President of what was then called the “College of New Jersey” in Princeton. He was inaugurated as the sixth president in 1768 and taught students like James Madison and Aaron Burr about the philosophical freedoms of Christian men. He was the only clergyman and university president at the continental congress and the only one to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He was also present at the ratification of the United States Constitution. All in all, very interesting man.

We walked into a brown building with high windows next to the cathedral that had a “center for the humanities” sign in the entrance, after veering off down a side passage we found the most beautiful library that I have ever seen. There were little overstuffed leather chairs in the center of the domed room perched upon a hardwood floor that had a dark and light wood stripe pattern. There were about six alcoves with floor to ceiling bookshelves and velvet cushioned window seats, high stained glass windows that you could look through from the second level. The eaves were ornate and the domed ceiling was a stained glass star. If I had gone to Princeton I don’t think that I would have ever left that room.

The Boro of Princeton itself is very “posh” as Margaret called it. The homes are all upscale mansions (even the Governor’s mansion is in Princeton! Well in the Princeton Township) nothing like the row houses in Trenton. Princeton is very much a college town, all the shops downtown are in the first floor of these beautiful colonial stone mansions. All of the shops are upscale like Ann Taylor or Ralph Lauren, no funny little cheap stores like we have in Seattle. Overall, Princeton is fascinating and a little bit snooty; very much the Ivy school town I thought that it would be.

Going into New York City tomorrow morning, more later.

Adios PNW

Last day in Washington...

Spent the day packing and hanging out with family at 4011. Ending time in the Northwest watching the Celtics v. OKC game with Avery and Kara in UP.

Left 7 inches of snow in Snohomish County, 2 inches in Tacoma. Tomorrow I have to be at SeaTac at 5AM, brutal.

Pictures take forever to load on blogspot, so in the spirit of spending as little time on the internet as possible I will be posting most of my pictures on Facebook and then writing about adventures here.

I hope you all survive snowmaggedon!

My favorite little guys

Emmett is just too sophisticated for kindergarten.

Snow in the PNW

The end of a beginning

Exactly one week from now I'll be sitting bored in Chicago's Midway airport, kicking off a series of brutal layovers. Unlike most other travelers, I am in love with airports. Next time you're in an airport take the time to wander terminal to terminal to observe people and you'll see why. Count the number of old men in Hawaiian shirts that are flying to Honolulu, the leather jackets flying to L.A., and think about how much time in your life that you've spent waiting for things to happen (like flights, getting something at the DMV, finding the perfect pair of jeans).

One of the best things about airports is that each one is different. SeaTac has the gurgly water fountains, Denver has an amazing canopy ceiling that represents the Colorado Rockies and Plains Indians (OH and the bathrooms are also tornado shelters), and LAX is annoyingly massive and completely screws you over if you have to transfer airlines. Airports are beautiful because of what they represent, look past the jet fuel fumes sometime and realize the adventure.

This week is my last in Washington for awhile, I'm finishing up my job at SU: LAW and spending time with college friends who I won't get to see for 6-8 months. Next Tuesday I fly out of SeaTac at an ungodly hour and will eventually end up in Philadelphia / New Jersey / New York. My main goals for New York are to visit NYU and Columbia Law Schools but also to absorb the city through trips to The High Line and visits to NYT HQ and The Met. An East Coast visit will be a nice transition and I am excited to spend time with my aunt and uncle.

Because there are six days left I have yet to pack anything. I've never had to store my life in suitcases before so letting go of useless things is going to be a project. But as a serial vagabond this past year I feel confident that strategic packing is attainable. My downfall is going to be books, IE I NEED to bring LSAT prep books or I NEED to bring this copy of Dead Aid with me in case I meet Dambisa Moyo at Heathrow etc...

I promise to keep you all updated on my adventures across the pond but for now, goodbye.