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Oh the Horror That is Moving

In the grand scheme of things, there are, of course, many things much worse than moving, but just let me be dramatic for a moment and say that as I sit here Sunday night after two full days of emptying closets, sorting through belongings, and packing boxes, I can hardly imagine what they are. And to think that we just have a one-bedroom apartment with very little closet space. What in the heck are people thinking when they buy those McMansions with their zillions of rooms and closets large enough to live in? Those things are just waiting to be filled with stuff, and more stuff, and even more stuff. Stuff that you never see again after you put it away. Stuff that you have no idea how it got there or when it arrived. Stuff that you have no use for. Stuff that you paid good money for so that it could collect dust. I hope what they’re thinking is that they’re never moving again, and when they die the house can be razed (because pity the heir that has to go through all that stuff).

Part of my brain is telling me that I could make an excellent post here about our consumer culture, our unseemly attraction to things, the way in which the stuff we owns eventually owns us, but another part of my brain is saying “oh my gosh, I just want to go to bed,” and that part is totally winning. Anyhow, you’ve all heard that lecture before, so just replay it to yourself in your head while you look at pictures of our move in progress.

For me, the hardest part of moving is the mess that you must create in the process. I have to work hard not to let that overwhelm me. I also have to work hard not to run into things, trip over things, bang into things, and in general kill myself as I try to make my way through the mess. I begin to feel better as things again become organized, albeit this time in piles of boxes. I’m also a bit blown away by the sheer volume of it. While looking at the humongous box of clothes Jeff is planning to give away, I was both amazed by how much he was able to part with it, and flabbergasted by how much he had to begin with. But like I said above I’m too damn tired to make any educated comments. At this point, all I know is that I’ll be glad when we get the truck loaded up on Tuesday.

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Flights? What?

I was wondering today, where’s my flying car? We now have all these tiny Star Trek style cell phones, we beam information through those internet tubes all the time, and yet I still can’t get a flying car! All I want is to be able to pack up my things, stick in it my flying car, and head off wherever I need to go. Oh, and since it runs on food scraps a la Back to the Future, it solves all gas issues as well. Now when will someone go ahead and build it? Anyway, it wasn’t just benign musings that got me going on this train of thought, I was trying to arrange our flights.

Taking a short break from my writing today, I called up to Continental’s round the world travel desk to ask them a few questions and maybe talk about possible itineraries. To bring everyone up to speed, we’re doing the absolutely insane thing of trying to use frequent flier miles to accomplish the major legs of our trip. Now what I learned from my friend at the desk was educational but not particularly helpful, if you get my drift. First, I learned there’s no North America to South America to Southeast Asia allowed, as that constitutes a change of direction. You have to start and end in the same city. You’re allowed six flights with only one open jaw. And you can only fly certain airlines, and this does not necessarily match up to who Continental is “partnered” with. The lady at the travel desk was not ready to help me sort through all the options at the time, but instead told me to look up the legs we want to fly on their websites, figure out what days we wanted to go, and then call back and be prepared to be *very* flexible. Oh, and we still have to cover taxes. You getting an idea of why going this route is insane yet? Yeah, it’s supposed to save us money, but (A) I’m not sure it will any more and (B) even if it does I’m not sure its worth it. As it stands now, we’ll be starting from South America (either Buenos Aires, Rio, or Sao Paolo). So we have to get down there on our own … and then we have to get back to the U.S. when we get back. So overall, this is adding a whole lot of hassle to things.

So that’s what I started doing this afternoon, trying to find flights on supported airlines between the cities/continents we wanted (anybody realize I’m a master procrastinator yet?). My good friend Kayak helped me collate everything, and I found some legs that may work. So I’m planning to call them back soon and see if any of these flights and times will actually work or if the whole thing is just a pipe dream. I get more and more skeptical every day.

[Afterword: In the end, we were indeed able to book our trip using Continental miles. Our legs were: Seattle to Managua, Nicaragua (via Houston); Managua, Nicaragua to Santiago, Chile (via Panama City, Panama); Santiago, Chile to Johannesburg, South Africa (via Paris, France); overland to Nairobi, Kenya (our open jaw leg); Nairobi, Kenya to Bangkok, Thailand (via Dubai, UAE); Bangkok, Thailand to Seattle (via Seoul, S. Korea).]

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Travel Take Two: New England Roadtrip

It’s been a long time since we did a Travel Take Two installment, so I thought I’d bring this series back to life with a look at our last summer’s vacation, a road trip from D.C. to Maine and back with stops all along the way.

Destination: Cape Cod, MA; Burlington, VT; Northeast Kingdom, VT; Kancamagus Higway, NH; Bar Harbor & Acadia, ME; Portland, ME; Boston, MA; NYC.

Date: August 10-20, 2007

Travel Partners: Just the two of us

HIGHLIGHTS

1. Vermont. We both loved pretty much everything about Vermont. It was hands-down the prettiest state we traveled to, and just driving across it was a treat. But our stops really made it stand out. Burlington was a nice city to stroll around, ever so walkable and picturesque. Lake Champlain and its islands (more later) were awesome. Who doesn’t love Ben & Jerry’s? The tour of the plant was comical, the flavor graveyard was highly amusing, and the fact that their samples are actually substantial is a real plus. And finally, the Northeast Kingdom. First of all, how can you not love a place with a name like that? And secondly, how much more beautiful can a place be? Honest to God town greens, gorgeous glacial lakes, lovely B&Bs, great homegrown food—I was ready to move there.

2. Baseball in Massachusetts. We practically planned the trip around baseball, so it’s a good thing that at least most of the baseball was well worth it. Our two baseball experiences in Massachusetts were excellent and reminders of the way the game is supposed to be played. On Cape Cod, we were able to watch a playoff game of the Cape Cod League, the league in which the best college baseball players in the country play each summer. In Boston, we made it to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox. In both places, the atmosphere was excellent. Though many of the guys in the Cape Cod League will one day be seeing paychecks with many, many zeros on them, there was no pretension. Fans–large numbers of them–gathered at school fields, setting up lawn chairs and spreading out blankets to cheer on their teams, while the players put on displays on immense talent and then bantered with the crowd, handing out high fives or selling raffle tickets when they weren’t playing. Fenway is classic for good reason. The seats are tiny and the paint is peeling off of them, but no one cares. The stadium has atmosphere, an aura. And the fans are all too busy standing and cheering to worry about the state of their seat. Even though I’m not a Red Sox fan, it was an exhilarating experience.

3. The Great Outdoors. Now I have to admit that even though I’d been to much of the Northeast before, I hadn’t ever really equated it with great natural beauty. I’m not sure why, since it’s in fact, a great place for those who love nature. There’s a reason so many artists flocked to the Cape Cod National Seashore; it’s picture perfect. Vermont, as I mentioned before, is one glorious sight after another. The Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire (probably my least favorite of the states we visited) offers lovely waterfall after lovely waterfall. And how do you even sum up Acadia? It’s a wonderland of peaks and seashore, tidal pools, and evergreens.

LOWLIGHTS

1. Lobster. What trip to Maine would be complete without at least one lobster dinner? Not ours, although maybe it should have been. Our trip to a lobster pound was less than a highlight. It didn’t take long for us both to decide that we didn’t really see what the big deal about lobster was. It was fine, sure, but not great, and it was so much damn work to eat. Then we made the fatal mistake of opening our lobsters all the way up. Seeing the green stuff in the middle was enough to make us both lose our appetites…and almost our dinners. Yuck. I’d rather just have steak, thanks.

2. Yankee Stadium. ESPN’s made Yankee Stadium, a.k.a. “The House the Ruth Built,” into a year-long story, and everyone rates it as a classic, but we both found it to be a yawn. It felt pretty generic to us, and lacked the intimacy and excitement of Fenway. The stands were only about half full, and even though it was an afternoon game, I literally had a hard time staying awake. I guess I’m glad we got to see it before it gets torn down, but eh, I was less than impressed.

3. The L.L. Bean Store. For some reason, every time we told anyone that Portland was one of our stops, they asked if we were going to the L.L. Bean Store. So we added it to the list, figuring it must be a big deal. I have to say we were underwhelmed. Sure it was big and sure I can shop there around the clock, but it didn’t have any great deals or any fancy gear that you can’t find elsewhere. I guess maybe once it was something, but now everything’s big and open all the time, so I guess we’re just jaded. Plus all those outlets around town and the crazed herds of female shoppers had me a little freaked out.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. On that very rare occasion, the too-good-to-be-true deal is actually true. A hotel room in Manhattan for $20? Yeah, right. You can’t get a hotel anywhere for that. But oh yeah, we did. And no, this wasn’t a room in a brothel; it was in fact a room in a nice hotel right next to the United Nations with a huge marble bathroom, super comfy bed, and a light control panel that I had so much fun playing with. The hotel, which had just reopened after a renovation offered a very small number of rooms for $19.17 in honor of the year the hotel first opened. We happened to be one of the lucky few to actually score the deal.

2. Sometimes the best places are the ones the guidebooks barely mention. One of our very favorite stops—the Lake Champlain Islands—was mentioned in the Lonely Planet as a mere afterthought. If I’d been the one writing the guidebook, it would have gotten a couple of pages at least. The island are small, given, but they’re idyllic and oh so fun to explore. We visited an orchard, wine tasted at a vineyard, stopped to photograph hundreds of colorful bird houses that qualified as art in my opinion, bought goat cheese and then petted the goats that produced it, lusted over perfectly situated inns, had a picnic on the lakeshore, shopped at a general store true to its name, and just leisurely explored this tiny parcel of paradise. Along the same lines, other things that stand out on our trip—dinner at a tiny breakfast counter named Tooky’s in some tiny New Hampshire town, buying blueberries from a roadside stand in Maine—are things we stumbled across, not planned for.

3. On a trip where you’re spending a lot of time on the go, you need to add in a day every now and then to just do nothing. If you read the list of places we visited and then the amount of time we were gone, you’ll realize this was a crazy trip. We knew it would be that way; we were looking for a sample platter of everything the region had to offer; not a five-course meal. But as prepared for it as we were, by the time we got to Portland, Maine, we were exhausted. So rather than tour around, we had sushi and called it an early night. I guess on one hand, you could call it a wasted day; I have no real clue what Portland is like. But on the other hand, that one day off revitalized us and we were able to hit Boston and NYC with gusto. We’ll consider it a worthwhile sacrifice. Sorry, Portland.

4. Let yourself like a place that you’re convinced you’ll hate. Jeff was certain he wouldn’t like NYC—too big, too crowded, too everything—and he really had no interest in staying beyond the time it took to see a game at Yankee Stadium. But being the deal lover he is, he couldn’t pass up our fabulous hotel find, so we got to enjoy a day in the city, and by the end of that day he was a convert. Instead of looking for all the things he knew he wouldn’t like, he opened his mind to the city and found that there was a lot to love. I think I’ve even got him on board with my belief that it would be really cool to live in NYC for one year.

5. Don’t forget about your own backyard. Every year that we lived here, we said we’d do this road trip, but we never actually got around to it. Instead we jetted off to the Grand Canyon or Hawaii, Belize or Germany. It was so close and so easy, that we kept putting it off, feeling as if it would always be there. It took a realization that last summer might be our last in D.C. (turned out we were off by one year) to get us out and exploring the part of the country closest to us. Too often while we’re planning great international adventures, we forget that there’s a lot of cool stuff right here in our own country, in our own region.

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I’ve Got Friends in Low (and High, and Near, and Far) Places

This past week I’ve been moving phone numbers from my cell phone into a spreadsheet, so that when it comes time to get rid of the phone I still know how to get in touch with family and friends. Isn’t it amazing how dependent we’ve become on cell phones? Though I’ve only had a cell phone for four years, I think without it, I could call no more than four people.

Anyhow, as I’ve entered the names and numbers into my spreadsheet, I’ve also added in addresses (should I ever find myself wanting to send one of those old-fashioned postcards), and as I’ve done this I’ve been astounded by how much of the globe my friends span. I’ve got people everywhere it seems. On the one hand, I find this extremely cool. On the other hand, I find it so insanely frustrating.

I’m lucky, I know, to have lived in and traveled to so many different places. I’m even more fortunate to have walked away from these experiences with new friendships, especially since I’m not the type of person who makes friends easily. I am often reticent when I meet people. I observe instead of jump in. I dread small talk. I can usually tell quickly whether or not I will get along with someone, and I rarely waste time on someone I don’t think I will connect with. I won’t call you my friend just because we went to the same school, played on the same team, rode the same bus, or came from the same town. I’m the type that would rather have a very small group of close friends than a large group of more nebulous friends. When I walked away from college, from a study abroad year, from teaching in Athens, I added not dozens of phone numbers to my book, but just a small handful. There are no names on my phone list that I can’t place. There are only friends, very, very good friends.

I like it that way.

But I hate it too. Because that means when it’s time to go, I’m not just leaving behind people who were a good time while they were around; I’m leaving behind people I care about. They are people I want to be able to see on a whim, talk to whenever I feel like it. People I want to go with to happy hour, dinner, the movies, pub quiz, the market. People I want to be able to sit on a couch next to and talk to until it’s too late to go home. People I want to have be a part of my every day, regular ol’, plain Jane life.

But when you meet your friends on some random patch of earth that you’re only sharing for a brief blink in each of your lives, it doesn’t work that way. Instead you have to settle for phone calls that are too infrequent, too rushed, too distant; and for visits that are too rare and too short. You don’t get “hey you want to come over for dinner tonight,” but instead must work with “do you have anything on your calendar for the third weekend in August, because I might be able to come see you then.” You measure time since you hung out in years, rather than days, and you spend most of your friendship missing each other.

It sucks. But it’s a fact of life for those of us born with itchy feet, and as far as I can tell, there’s nothing to be done about it. No matter how much I scheme, I’ll never convince all the people I care about to settle in the same place. And though in my mind, nothing sounds more ideal, I know in reality that it would be less so. We’re all marching to our own drummer; we’re all searching for own tomorrow. So I guess instead of lamenting, I’ll just give thanks for that small moment when we heard the same tune…and for email, cell phones, and those third weekends in August every other year.

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A Night at the Ballpark

Remember this list? Back when we were highly motivated and were going to do all of those things around D.C. in our last summer before we left? Yeah, it didn’t quite work out that way. Turns out, when you hike all weekend every weekend in addition to holding regular jobs and writing 100-300 page texts in between, you don’t have much free time to enjoy the D.C. summer (if 100 degree heat with 100 degree humidity can be enjoyed … and I would argue that it can).

Well tonight we finally accomplished one of our goals off of our last D.C. summer list, making it out to Nationals Park to check out the new stadium. The Nationals were solidly defeated by the Phillies, but honestly, that was pretty much expected. We had a great time with some of our friends, it was a great night to be outside and I’m always up for a baseball game (and Theresa, if sometimes less enthused, certainly doesn’t mind …).

Even if it’s a day late, we’re calling this our third anniversary photo. We just have some kind of “glow” about us =).

If you’ll permit me an aside to talk about baseball stadiums, we did thoroughly check out the stadium, taking the time to completely circumnavigate it. It’s a very nice, new stadium, but I couldn’t help but think of all the things it could’ve been but wasn’t. To me, it lacked that iconic unique aspect. It was in the vein of the nice new stadiums, but felt so generic.

I don’t know if you can even see it in the corner, but there’s the national Capitol building. Really feels small and insignificant, right? If there’s anything that should be prominantly featured, it should be the Capitol building and the National Monument. You couldn’t ever see the Monument. And the Capitol building was blocked by the giant bar underneath it in this picture to everyone but the third level seats. Anyway, it just felt like there was so much missed opportunity.

So back on top a bit, we’re trying to fit in a few more of our goals before we leave. We certainly aren’t going to hit all of them between all of the things that are still left to do. I guess we should’ve taken our own advice and seized earlier moments to do the things we wanted in D.C. Ah, that wonderful hindsight.

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Journey of a Lifetime

A lot of people think we’re starting out on the big adventure of our lives in mid-October. But we both know that we actually got started on life’s greatest journey three years ago today (July 30).

It started with laughter that has yet to die down.

And while some like to debate whether it’s better to travel solo or with a partner, we’ve yet to find a road that’s not best when walked together.

Our upcoming trip will be a fabulous adventure, but it’s just one chapter in the journey of a lifetime.

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The Countdown Begins

You know that point where “The departure date for this trip will never arrives” meets “Oh my god, I can’t believe how soon we leave.” Yeah. I’m there.

Think State Farm can help?

No? Me neither. But at this point, I’m certainly feeling like I could stand for someone to jump in and lend a hand (or twelve).

I can’t even count how many days, months, and years this trip has been brewing, so to think that it’s right on the horizon now is both exciting and overwhelming. It’s also a bit unreal. When you dream of something for so long, it can seem as if it will never actually happen. But it is happening. Soon.

For us, the problem of realizing that the dream is about to become reality is the facts of our situation. In our minds—and on paper—we don’t leave for almost three more months. That’s still forever, right? Well, yes. Unless, of course, you’re actually moving out of the country a good six weeks before what you consider to be the start date of your trip.

Jeff leaves for Sweden in three weeks. (Count them–one, two, three. Not many weeks at all.) I then follow two weeks afterwards. We’ll be there for one month. We’ll then be back here for about 2 weeks before departing for Nicaragua, the first stop on the world tour. Perhaps we should have been thinking of the Sweden adventure as part of the trip, but we didn’t. For Jeff, trips to Sweden are a regular occurrence, and for me, well I just haven’t thought about it at all.

So now, I feel like we’re a bit under the gun. Though some things can be done from Sweden, a lot needs to be done before we go (or will at least be much easier to handle while we’re in the U.S.) The biggest job of all, and one we cannot put off, is the packing and moving of our entire apartment. I’ve tried to avoid thinking of this, but I’m not sure I can much longer. While I’m good at packing for trips, and I’m excellent at throwing things away, I’m always completely overwhelmed by large-scale moving endeavors. I still remember trying to pack for college, sitting in the middle of my bedroom surrounded by eighteen years worth of stuff and being practically paralyzed. I had a list. I had boxes and suitcases. Yet still I called my mom at work near tears because I couldn’t figure out where to start. Hopefully I’ve improved in the past decade, but I’m not looking forward to finding out.

And then it’s make sure our finances are in order. Figure out that route and get some airline tickets. Purchase the last remaining supplies. Make a final decision on insurance. Say goodbye to all our DC friends…

Plus there’s that very simple matter of me finishing my book (only two more hikes to go plus a little writing and a lot of editing!) and Jeff finishing his dissertation (experimentation phase now complete!). No big deal, right? Good, I’m glad we agree. Deep breaths all around.

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How to Save Money When You Don’t Have Much to Begin With

It seems like finances—personal, corporate, and government—are big news these days. I can’t click over to CNN without reading some story about the current financial crisis…or the custody battle of some celebrity. Obviously both topics that require careful consideration by the American public.

But I digress, the quality of news on CNN is a topic for another day.

Today I want to talk about finances, and in particular those articles that promise to tell you how to save money and usually offer some tantalizing tidbit about how some family saved $25,000 by just making a few changes to their lifestyle. I always click open these articles and begin reading, looking for a new way to save, only to find out that the family being profiled saved that money by cutting out their $10,000 a year coffee buying habit, only buying 15 couture dresses this year instead of 20, and using their Audi for routine errands instead of taking out their Ferrari when they just need a gallon of milk.

Very wise moves indeed.

But completely irrelevant advice to me.

If I had $10,000 to spend on coffee, then I probably wouldn’t have much need to worry about how to save $25,000. And if I owned a Ferrari would I seriously even blink when gas prices skyrocketed beyond the gas pump’s meager price telling abilities? I think not. But then again, I’m not rich, never have been, and almost certainly never will be, so I don’t have any firsthand experience with how difficult it must be to swim in cash (DuckTales, anyone?).

So since I find these how-to articles so irrelevant to my life, let me share here with you five of my own tips for saving whatever cold, hard cash you can find under your couch cushions or rolling around the floor of your 1996 Nissan.

1. Spend all of your free time deep in the backcountry.
It’s practically impossible to spend money while you’re in a tent in a forest in the middle of nowhere. There aren’t any stores, and there’s no entertainment beyond the annoying people sleeping a few trees down singing loudly about pickles well past midnight. And those bears nosing around outside, they don’t want your dinero. They’d rather just have your hot dogs.

2. Develop your own special form of ADD.
See the preview for the movie. Get excited about the movie. Then remember that movies are long—two plus hours long. And during that whole, long time you’re expected to sit still and be quiet. Realize there is no way that’s going to happen and put your $10 back in your pocket (or better yet, the bank…but not all in one bank if you happen to have more than $100,000 because man, I hear those things are dropping like flies).

3. Convince yourself that coffee tastes like dirt. (Because it does.)
No one likes to consume dirt (unless you have pica, and then, really, you should get that checked out, because consuming dirt is totally not normal). If coffee tastes like dirt to you, you will not buy it. You will not spend any money (no less $10,000) on coffee consumption. When that well-meaning but budget-busting co-worker stops in your office and asks if you want anything from the coffee shop, you can say no and really, honestly mean it. Because heck if you want to consume dirt, there’s plenty of it to be had for free (see backcountry).

4. Become allergic to shopping.
Imagine, for one moment, a mall: the crowds, the racks and racks of clothes none of which contain the right size, those horrific fluorescent lights, that loud music, the perfume stench of department stores, the cookie place that looks like it should be so tasty but really isn’t. Did you not just break out in hives thinking about it? Me, I almost needed an epi-pen. You, not so much? Well then, fine, go ahead and spend your money to look trendy and cool; I’ll just be thankful that I’m still the same size I was ten years ago…and that every now and again fashion comes full circle.

5. Have no real idea how much money you make.
Remember when you were sixteen and worked at the zoo and made $5.75 an hour? Convince yourself that that’s still the case. Remember when you took the time to figure out just how many hours you would have to work to pay for whatever it was you wanted: a new paint job on your rusty old car, a Wendy’s value meal, tickets to the Tori Amos concert? Do that again, but calculate everything as if you still only make $5.75. Decide then how much it’s worth to you. When you turn 100, go ahead and check your bank account. Do a happy dance when you find out you’re a millionaire. Then spend it all like there’s no tomorrow (because, come on, let’s face reality, at 100, there’s a fairly high chance that’s true).

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On Conversation

I’m following both my mom and Theresa’s recommendations and am currently reading Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux. Its a great book, a relatively easy read filled with the adventure, difficulty, and aura of travel. What I keep getting from it though, is the myriad encounters he has with locals. How easily he meets people wherever he is, and manages over the course of a few drinks to pull out a captivating life story. He does this over and over. Now, naturally, a fair amount of this is because he is the storyteller and this is his narrative;  I’m sure there were many very boring stories and uninteresting people he has blessed us not to write about.

But when I think about how I want our trip to go, that is it—seemingly constantly falling into interesting scenarios, going out of our way to meet what turn out to be fascinating people, having a keen eye for who is trustworthy and worth our time. And while our one week in Egypt says all these things are bound to happen in spades, I can’t help but worry about it.

So let’s have a conversation about these conversations. Obviously the discussion depends drastically on who you are and where in the world you are, but tell us what you think. Do you find yourself easily talking to locals? Do they talk to you first/annoyingly barrage you? Where are the friendliest people? The coldest? Do you have to force yourself to make the effort to talk to new people? Are you as outgoing when you are already traveling with people you know? Is your personality different abroad versus at home? Share your thoughts.

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My First Time Abroad

It was 1996; I was 15 and alone. Well, not alone actually, I was traveling with a gaggle of girls, but none of whom I knew before that trip, and I was without any family members. I was, in fact, to be the first of my immediate family to fly overseas. Ireland was the destination, the ancestral home of at least 25% of my family. I’d spend a week camping in Ballyfin in the interior of the Emerald Isle, followed by time spent living with a host family in Dublin and then touring some of the rest of the country.

I’d secured my first passport. I was beyond excited, even if less than thrilled by my photo. I heard the term “ugly American” for the first time, and I was nervous about making the mistakes that could earn me that label.

From the first moment, I was amazed by everything. The plane had upper and lower levels of seating…who had ever heard of such a thing! The Coke cans were tiny, practically no more than a shot, and so fascinating that I kept them instead of throwing them away when the stewardess came around. From my window seat, I stared out the window as we flew in over Ireland and was blown away by how truly, truly green it was. Once in the airport, I read sign after sign about foot-and-mouth disease, which I’d never heard of before.

I learned that July in the northern hemisphere doesn’t always translate to hot weather, as I shivered in a sweater while fair skinned Irish rode bikes in tank tops, turning a bright shade of red. While lugging a huge duffel bag around, I learned that backpacks and wheeled suitcases were the much better option, and I vowed to become a better packer. I learned that though someone might speak the same language as you, it can seem like a foreign tongue, as I tried to translate the heavily accented words flying out of my host father’s mouth.

I was blown away the first morning when my host mother asked me to go outside and collect eggs from the hen house. I hadn’t the first clue how to do such a thing, and all that pecking frightened me. When the milk was delivered fresh to the doorstep, I was charmed. This was Dublin, the nation’s capital, yet there were hens in the backyard and fresh milk at the front door. Wandering around the city, I was taken aback by the dates on cornerstones of buildings, many hundreds and hundreds of years older than my entire nation, and I marveled at how you could have a downtown with nary a skyscraper. And when Sunday rolled around, I could hardly believe that everything, truly, absolutely, everything closed down.

Finally, I was amazed by the intensity of friendships that could develop in such a short period. I knew my host family would always have a place for me (and they did; when I returned in 2001 for a visit the family had grown in number but embraced me just the same.) And the people who I sat next to as strangers on the flight to Ireland were by the time we boarded the plane back home good friends (so much so that in 2003, I would be a bridesmaid in one of their weddings).

The world was, at once, both much smaller and much bigger than I’d ever believed it to be. A door had sprung open, and I couldn’t wait to push through it, to see what else lay beyond my immediate field of vision. I was ready to be shocked and surprised, challenged and charmed. And as I flew back, still stealing soda cans, still pressing my face against the window, I promised myself that that trip was only the beginning.