Merry Christmas!

Most people out here in this part of the jungle don´t celebrate Christmas. This is because they are Quichua which if you follow their ancestory back far enough they started with the Mongols of China. The language is extremely different than spanish and few non-quichuans speak it. For Christmas eve all the volunteers who were at the reserve, that´d be seven, went into the nearest town called Tena. By bus or pickup its about an hour drive west. Catching a ride here is pretty fun. If you don´t see a bus while you are waiting you can flag down the first pickup that goes by and jump in the back. The other day when the staff and the volunteers and a few extras went to Misahualli for a little part and if you don´t count the baby someone had there were 21 of us in a truck the size of a ford ranger. 5 in the cab ant 16 in the bed of the truck. This was great until the rain started. SO the 7 of us caught a pickup to Tena and went to a little bar and then out dancing for a Christmas eve celebration. The stars out here are amazing adn because we are on the equator, to the north you see your friendly neighborhood constellations like the big dipper, corona borealus, etc, but to the south they are all new. The highway we were on is just two lanes across so the swath of starts visible through the jungle was limited but after an hour on the road I saw about 5 shooting stars. The ride to Tena was 1 dollar a person, on teh way back at 3 AM it was just 2 bucks.

Christmas breaksfast was this really tasty fried dough with cheese inside. Lunch was the standard scalding hot soup served with a plate of rice, beens, and thinly chopped cucumber. After lunch I walked down a 30 minute path to the Napo River. on teh way i learned about army ants. these succkers can latch on to your feet even if your in a dead sprint. The first encounter happened while i was standing and looking for anything of interest through the leaves, as usual i didn't see jack, but all of a sudden one of my feet was on fire. an odd sensation when you are not expecting it. i looked down and one of the little buggers was on the knuckle of my big toe whith is head jambed down at about mid jay and his little army arms pumping away. I got a good look at him to know what to watch for and the next time i saw their line in the trail i started running and trying to dodge it. this didnt work at all. one guy found the same spot as the first and then three others were on my ankle. After a stroll on the beach i got back and another volunteer and I headed to an observation tower for the sunset.
This tower is made of three 100 foot long pieces of rebar that are reinforced by 8 inch peices creating a small triangle. there are not handles so you just grab hold, say a prayer, and start climbing. wow. at about 80 feet up you break through the canopy and things aren´t so bad because you can´t see the ground any more. at the top is a disc of metal about 6 feet in diameter with the triangular spire sticking through about 4 feet for you to hold onto and a 10 inch high lip has been welded on for security. even with the guide wires this thing wobbles tremendously with any movement. I, for one sat quite still with my left hand melted to the center of the spire while the crazy swiss guy just sat on the 1/4 inch railing enjoying the veiw. it was a great view.

we are going to head back for a sunrise at some point.

Well I'm off to bed, and someone just found a trantula outside so i need to get my camera.

Merry Chirstmas!

Sam

Quito day...no se´

One of the best parts of traveling is you get to loose track of the time: the time of day, the day of the week, when a big project is due, and best(?) of all, what you do in your normal life. Sometime during the work camp in Italy one of my friends asked me, "...so what kind of music do you like?¨. I drew a complete blank. All that came to mind was "the police" since we had been listening to that twice a day, everyday, as we traveled to and from the work site and our home. After a few minutes it hit me, that I did in fact listen to music and that I used to drive this car to and from work with some Cd's in the player.

Remembering my life back in Colorado seemed like recalling a very vivid dream where once you remembered one fact six others jumped along then 36 others and so on. So similarly, now that I'm down here in Quito, I have no idea how many days I've actually been here. However, being connected online has kept most of my memories in place, perhaps its the fact that I am in contact somewhat with people back home on facebook and I read the news and since memory is very associative I haven't forgotten what it is like to live outside of Quito like I did in Campsirago.

moving on.

The fall into the hole has turned out to be a great blessing in disguise. For one, i get to learn more Spanish, which has not come as quickly as i thought it might. I actually did not become fluent after 3 days. weird. Plus the other students here at the school are a blast to hang out with. Making plans goes like this, first, walk into the room with the computers and the INTERNET are and, second, say to who ever is in there "hey do you have plans?", "yes, come with us" or "no, what should we do" orrrr "hey, we're (insert activity here) do you want to come?" "yes". its that easy. I don't think its too much harder back home, but many times i have to use the phone or drive somewhere or other really complicated logistical items which take an extra effort that sometimes turns into me watching old episodes of Seinfeld or family guy.

The leg is healing really well. the stitches come out thursday and i plan to catch the bus to the jungle Saturday morning. Thursday night we are having a little going away partay for a few of us that are leaving the school soon. should be a grand time. Someone has found a chocolate flavored liquor at the supermarket.


Here we have Sigi, Bliss, I'm sorry I forgot a name here, Dom, Kristine, me, and Gillian (the glow here may or may not have been due to either my finger covering the flash or the angelic personality of Gillian) and the Chocolate Liquor (tasty)

And finally, some Ecuadorian pizza. its pretty good too.

Quito day 2

hola muchachos. Today we had a field trip to the small run down town of Saquisili which has a huge market. Market; that sounds fun i thought to my self. It was fun, different, but fun.

THere were four markets in town this day. The large animal market with cows, pigs, lammas, sheep, lambs, goats all for sale. If the pigs were small enough they were kept in grain sacks waiting for someone to buy them and take them away. To herd the larger pigs around the farmers usually just kicked them in the face. The next market was the small animal market plus furniture and some fruits. you could get a guinne pig, chicken, rabbit, small new puppy (for $0.25 or a older puppy for $2.00), cats, dead fish, and in one cage was a cat and a pigeon just hanging out.

THe next market... well i never got to the next market because while walking on the side walk and gazing at all the sites i fell in a giant hole. It was similar to when Ian was walking accross the bridge to camp from teh parking lot and caught himself with his arms. I think he even scraped his leg. It turned out that i gashed my shin on something and started bleeding all over my shoe. So now i have 2 internal stitches, 5 external stitches, a sore ass from the antibiotic shot and a slight limp. Welcome to Ecuador my instructors said. they have a great sense of humor down here.

Unfortunately I didnt think to get a picture of the hole but here are a few after the fall.

Check out the sweet square knot.

gettin sewed up

Antibiotic! Definately felt that one.

Quito day 1

Note to self, always carry your sun glass. At almost twice the elevation of denver the sun is really really bright, my eyes are actually throbbing about a 1.5 hour walkabout. I arrived at my host familys house about 2am last night, local time (which is eastern time) after staying up till 3am the night before getting my packing finished, then awoke at 5:30am to catch the bus for my 10am flight. I was asleep by 2:30 after preparing a water bottle to purify over night. I was too excited to really sleep anyway so i didn't mind my procrastinating nature this time around. If it hadn't snowed 7 inches that evening i could probably have slept in a little for my flight but thats what you got to do. UP at 7:00 am then off to school at 7:30. spanish on jet lag is a hard combination and as i re+read this blog so is writing. By 10:30 my brain was ful but we continued anyway till 1pm. The school is about a 20 minute walk from the host family where i return for all my meals and then back again for more orientation, cooking classes (tonight is cold shrimp), salsa dances, birthday parties. THe place is also crawling with germans. I met two very nice fraulines and we will meet at 10pm to go to a local club called the bungalo. sweet. Bungalo is spanish. See i knew this because of my lessons.
Tomorrow we go on a field trip to a market, my spanish teacher is coming with and we will do our lesson on the bus. I have a load of verbs and vocab to memorize tonight. This will happen sometime between cold shrimp, my siesta, and the club. First day back as a student and i'm already slacken! booya.

Elsa, the mother of the family i'm staying with, is the only one who speaks a little english. Luckily she speaks more english than i do spanish. it can be very disorienting not being able to unerstand any words (written or spoken). I Hope my brain will open up a little and let some of this language in or it will be a very rough 40 days. Learning my lesson from Italy i bought a nice pocket spanish/english dictionary so when hand gestures fail i can use the key word or two of what i am trying to say. FOr example, trying to explain that the family did not need to cook dinner for me tonight because i was taking a seafood cooking class i said. "today, I go school, seafood class" well in spanish of course but i don't remember what those words are at the moment.

Overall i think today was great success! I'm off to find some bread. I have a feeling cold shrimp will not extinguish the hunger that is starting to spread in my tummy.

Milan Nov 11 - Nov 16

My first few days in Italy brought me to the wonderous city of the north. As you can see I was literally in shock

Look at the fricken airport walk way. Woah, its like the inside of a thorax!

I had a few hours to kill be for my hostess Virginia would be home so I headed to the city center to check out a few sites. I was amazed at the size of the “Duomo”

And then the gallaria…

Inside there were really fashionable stores like
and and

And finally

Super swanky. Ok that was a lot s space and the punch line a bit lame.On with the tour. Next was the famous bull of Milan. As with tradition I stomped on his balls and spun in a happy circle. Weeeeeee.


Well things finally got interesting when I got to the Borsa’s. First thing first when you arrive at the Borsa’s… Food! My first home cooked Italian meal; Spaghetti, pesto, and parmesan. She then took me back into the city and gave me the low down on everything I had walked and gawked at before heading to her house, then to her old university and to the Sforza Castle (it has a moat).

Once again I was in awe of the Italian engineering

After the tour she and her Mom went to yoga and Peatro and I watched The Simpsons and The Griffins (aka Family Guy) back at the homestead. When they go back we went to dinner at a great little restaurant called Osteria “da Francesca” where I had the aforementioned gnocchi and of course a bottle of wine. By the way, Family Guy in Italian is still hilarious. That Peter, what a character!



Ok this pretty much gives you the pictures that correlate with my second blog entry. Over the next three days I would be a tourist while Virginia was at school then we would go around Milan to various museums, parks, or other sites and I would ask questions to my hearts desire and she would be very patient and answer them all. At night we usually got together with her girl friends (awesome) and go to get some drink or dinner. It was really fun to just sit back and listen to them talk. I had no idea what they said but when it turned to politics the hands started flyin. I think half the Italian language is in the hands. The two gestures most commonly used are making the ‘praying hands’ and waggin them at the wrist infront of your chest and then with one or both hands pressing your fingers together and kinda shaking the weird fist that it makes kiddy corner from your chin and shoulder. For those from Grizzly, it’s like the “puuuuate” gesture before you throw your hand up in the air.


The last night I was in Milan we had risotto at Leila’s house and then headed to the Disco. Itialian disco’s go something like this; you have to have a special pass to get in, I had to fill out a form and get a temporary identification card. If you are already a member you get a token for a drink. They had 3 colors of tokens which gave you various drink ranges from the cheap beer, well drinks, and mixed drinks. This reminds me, earlier in the week I had “the Godfather” which is Disaronno and Whiskey. This drink will cause me problems in about 1.2 from now. I’ll tell you about it later. So once you get your drink you head to the dance floor. This place had a 80s and a 90s dance floor. Lots of Madonna flyin around the airwaves. It was jam packed. So you squeeze in somewhere and kinda bob. Most of your drink will be spilled and you’ll wonder where the dancing is. Not that I’m a huge fan of the American dance clubs and the bumb n grind, but this was odd to see everyone in there own little silo bobbing up and down. When in Rome: bob. We had much fun.

.



The next day I had my last café and brioche and headed to the train station to start the work camp. I know I’m leaving out a lot of things in Milan… Here’s a list
1) Old are museum with New age art exhibition --- This was awesome. Virgi and her Mom and I went to this great museum in downtown Milan where there were amazing sculptures and paintings and to contrast the stuffy art was a german born contemporary art show of live performers in each room. Room 1: a group of 3 who would repeat “This is so contemporary” while clapping and dancing around the room. Room 2: a woman doing an interpretive dance on the floor. One spectator didn’t realize it was all part of the show and thought she was having a seizure and tried to help her. Room 3: a woman facing the corner who repeated the phrase “this is propaganda” every 10 seconds or so. Room 4: a couple moving in slow motion whilst making out on the floor (there was also someone keeping guard that silly people wouldn’t take this as an invitation to create their own art). Room 5: a male stripper. He just took his close off to the non-existent music, redressed, and did it again. Room 6: a man would make a noise he felt emanated from the people walking through it (my favorite). Room 7: the art critic of the human exhibits. Which he didn’t like me calling it a performance and tried to explain that it was just a repeated action yadda yadda yadda artsy artsy artsy, I couldn’t quite follow, but it was very deep.
2) Gelato! Yum. I got in trouble by the owner for taking this picture and she made me delete it, here it is for your view pleasure: Gelato contraband. I had one scoop of chocolate with cinnamon and one scoop of pistachio. Poor combination choice.

3) Milan Happy Hour. This is great if you are hungry. For 6 euros you get a drink and all you can eat of buffet food. Its not the best food but its hot and available (heh heh) if you get there early enough. I was late this day because I had taken the day to go to Venice because Virgi had classes all morning and afternoon so met up after I got back. At this time the food was look warm and scraven but I was really really hungry and filled up on what she had saved me (what a great hostess!) The only down side to the Milan Happy hour is if you want two drinks, its another 6 euros. This is where I had the first “Godfather”.
4) The Duomo: It is huge. You feel like a tiny little person walking inside this church. If it weren’t for the flood lights pointing towards the sky you couldn’t have seen the top of the church. The columns holding up roof were like redwoods. Nothing in this building was small. My house would have fit through the doors. Maybe. Ok, maybe my room. The point is this place is Gothic. Inside there are a number of amazing sculptures and carvings and paintings. The one that stands out in my mind is the sculpture of Mr….i have to look it up, but apparently he had become a martyr and had been flayed. The sculpture is the guy standing there holding his skin over his shoulder and his face is kinda swinging by his legs. Amen.

Ciao!

oh boy the internet!

This wonderful tool is a little more hard to come by than I expected here in Italy. Its now Nov. 30th and I am finished with my 2 weeks of work and find my self in Bologna, Italy for 2 days before heading further south and hopefully to some dry sunny weather to Florance. I have 15 minutes remaining on an hour internet card (sorry the first 45 were spent getting funds transfered, credit cards paid, and highly important emails regarding school and my next trip replied to). at 3.5 euros an hour I'll have to spare my remaining funds and wait until i find free access for more typing. Its impossible to sum up the two weeks in Campsirago and the swamp in 15 minutes. Not because of the amazing work we did or the sites we saw but because of the group of people I was with. Its hard to imagine that in 13.5 days a group of strangers can become as close as we did. It snowed about 7 inches on our last full day and another 2 or 3 the day of our departure so we could not take our van that could hold all 13 of us to the train station so we had to take the journey in groups of 3. As one of my old friends Kelly put it, it was like waiting for the excecutioner to be called for the next trip down the mountain that would ultimately finish our time as a group. Our group consisted of 3 leaders ( an italian, german, and frenchman: Simone', Nadja, and Marsial) and 10 volunteers: 3 koreans, 1 frenchman, 2 Americans (me begin one of them), a Grecian?, Russian, Mexican, and an Isreali. I was second oldest at 27, the marjority of the group was around 20 or 21. Hmmm, were am I going with this. No were i suppose but we got along marvelously and I am sad to say that the only violent outburst was from me when my french friend Arrrno was shaking me and slapping my chest while riding in the van on the day I had acquired a very very bad case of uhhhhh the hersey squirts and he would take my pleas to stop seriously ( I was definatley going to puke if he didn't) and a mis calculates gentle slap to the face became a whopper and stunned the poor guy. oooops. But I think our friendship recovered. Well I am down to 1.5 minutes before I'm kicked off. I have 4 movies and 1000 picutures thus far and will get a few of them uploaded when i get a cable that works. Bologna was nice.

Sam

How President Bush almost ruined Milan

I've been quietly snickering to myself that I would be 'jumping' into Italy from Denver on Nov. 11 at approximately 11 o'clock. The fates seemed to feel that is was necessary to let me know how absurd this comparison was. As we landed in JFK all ground traffic was stopped for unknown reasons and our plane taxied to the back side of the airport and began to wait. We had been making some great time in the air with a 30mph tail wind from Denver so I was quite confident that my 30 minute layover between landing and departure was not going to be an issue. 40 minutes later we were still in queue behind the airport. we learned that Bush and Airforce1 had just started their engines and were in the process of taking off when we landed which caused the airport to freeze. Once he left and the long line of ambulances, fire engines, police vehicles, shiny black cars, police jeeps, and police cars made their way off the runway traffic resumed and we headed back to our gate. Like any good process industrial engineer would tell you, hitting the go button on everything at once in a complicated system can cause a failure; which it did. another 20 minutes passed before the traffic cleared and we were at our gate. What I like about New Yorkers is that they are completely comfortable with letting you push past them. I guess it makes them feel at home. With a few cheers I sprinted off the plane and down the concourse to gate 26 were the door was thankfully waiting and closed directly behind me. It was smooth sailing from there. It was perfect. How often do you actually get to run like hell, through a crowded new york airport dodging kids and the elderly on your way to your gate? They didn't even check my passport. In the end all the rush was useless because the traffic jam was still in progress and we became 12th in line for departure.
Pictures to come. So far its rained the entire time so they are a bit gloomy.
List of day 1 and 2:
1) enjoyed the Milan public transit system of trains, busses, trams, and subways.
...1a) subway rides: 5, bus rides:4, trains:2 Trams: 2
...1b) became lost: 0 (booya). however, on my way from the bus to where I am staying I took a wrong turn and walked about 2km in the wrong direction back toward the city center before asking for help. I stopped at local meat market and got help. He knew of colorado springs and sylvester stalone.

2) A approached by street vendors with free merchandise: 2
...2a) declined: 2
...2b) gave it to my anyway: 2
...2c) asked for donations after tying the bracelet on my wrist: 2
...2d) moneys they received: 0
...2e) souvenirs from Milan: 2

3) Sites seen:
...Duomo square
...Duomo Cathedral inside and out. its like the death star but made of marble and its square.
...The famous Gallery (one of the first malls) filled with pradda...and ummm...and other designers
...Leonardo Di Vinci’s statue
...Sforza Castle
...2 of Milan’s universities, the names are too long and Italian to remember
...The outside of a really famous opera house, the name escapes me.

4) Traditions taken part of:
...Spun my heal on the bull's balls (see picture later)
...Rubbed the calf of a bronze statue of one of the apostles on the door of Duomo Cathedral
...Cafe' and Brioche (i had a cappuccino instead of plain coffee and a crème filled croissant)

5) Other
...2 amazing pasta meals. 1 was a home made spaghetti and tomato sauce with parmesan cheese, the other was a tiny local restaurant where I had gnocchi with Prego sauce (tomato sauce with meat) and parmesan cheese, with wine. brochette for an appetizer and fried veggies and an after snack, then a very dark sipping liqueur called mezzo? (not sure how that is spelled) I’ll find out.
...watched CSI and the Simpsons at the Borsa's
...went to the bar with 5 lovely italian ladies and enjoyed not understanding a word.


Ciao!

Pictures!

I took picture after packing each item but I think this gets the point across. As you can see, or should I say, I want to point out, there is a sweet brown wool suit jacket with elbow patches behind my backpack. That is for woo-ing the Italian ladies. oh yes.

Be prepared

Like a good scout one must perform a pre-pack before his trip to test for pack weight, packing sequence, and add or throw out missing/adjunct items. This is also a pre-trip blog trial to see if I can add pictures to my blog.

Results of the pre-pack:

1) I need a rucksack for carry-on items which include A book, some pills, snacks/water, camera, cell phone

2) Eliminated: 2 shirts, 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of socks

3) Added: shower shoes, long sleeve shirt, head lamp

4) Missing: travel clock, insurance documents, plug converter for camera battery charger. My 'awesome' cell phone came with plug converters for 3 countries but the bastards at motorala designed it with a fancy triangular piece of plastic so it only fits the phone charger and no other devices on the planet.

Results of pre-blog:

1) Can't figure out the picture thing. The Picture adding icon is nowhere to be seen.
2) I think this blog will ultimately become a series of lists
3) This makes sense because every journal I have attemped in the past has turned into itemized and categorized have-done and to-do lists. Yay for an analytic brain. why can't I just draw an f-ing flower?
.....3a) learn to draw flowers

In the Beginning

For me there was fear. Lots of it. Fortunately I was sitting in a pretty comfortable space so it didn't really bother me. In the performing world I would call my last 9 months 'the tilt'. No its not because someone was pregnant, but its funny (ironic or coincidence Josh?) that it took that long for me to get on with my new life. Those who know me know what the old life was so I won't go into that here. Too much self indulgence is bad for the soul. But I will journalize my new beginning because it will be fun. And because I hope to write about my adventures into uncertainty and, as Mikey and I discovered, I will no doubt forget most of what I have done in a few years so it will be nice to look back and remember from time to time the names of the towns I went through in Italy and Ecuador between the time after I quit my secure job and ran away to a better life in grad school.

Thanks to God. Thanks to Family and Friends. All three are blessings that I don't know how I fell into and to each I will be eternally grateful. Kevin Kirby titled a sermon series Ready Fire Aim a few months ago and much like Bob and his baby steps the title was all I needed.

Three years ago I came across this quote. It is the type of attitude I wanted for myself even if I knew it wasn't exactly how I lived. To anyone reading this who has a twinge in their heart for something different than their status quo I encourage you to read on. After, that just get ready, fire, then aim; it will work out.

"...We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes. ...If death ends all, we cannot meet death better."
--Fitz James Stephen. As quoted in "The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy" by William James.



Booya.



I have 5 days to figure this blog thing out so I can effectively make updates while I'm out and about. Be prepared for random pictures