FYI: Things Are Going to Be Okay; XOXOXO Teddy Bear

It's been a while, I know.

Perhaps this post is an indication of a shift in paradigms. A change in mindset. A heralding of a new age.

Or perhaps I'm just bored and you won't see me for another eleven months.

===

Day One

For no particular reason whatsoever, Shane and I decided to make a break for it and split for the Badlands.

We took his car because mine is in dire need of coolant, a new timing belt, and a smattering of other repairs that require more effort than I'm willing to devote at this point in time. Plus: his is faster.

Our eight hour drive started at oh-seven-hundred hours, Friday morning. Being that we are both such great planners, we had all of the gear necessary for a weekend foray into the arid landscape of South Dakota consolidated, packed, and ready for departure, and we didn't forget a single item.*

*note: this is a complete fabrication and we** ended up leaving behind a camera, phone, hiking shoes, and more.

**also note: by "we" I mean Shane.

Along the way we stopped a few times, most notably to replenish our and the car's nourishment, and to pose with oversized ceramic buffalo.

Oh, and oversized ceramic jackalopes.

Oh, and also undersized ceramic Mount Rushmores.

Upon reaching our destination we sought out the cheaper (read: free) 'primitive' camping area and set up our tent. As you may have noticed in the previous photos, Shane's right hand was mangled in a fist fight, and he was basically useless when it came to clipping tent poles in their place, attaching the tarp fasteners to their requisite loop, and essentially just being an altogether self-sufficient contributer; thusly I ended up being his go-to guy for anything involving effort of any kind.

The views were spectacular along the windy roads upon which we traversed, searching for adventure and excitement.

As we sat atop a butte (pronounced: bee-yuuute), watching the sun go down, I couldn't help but wonder... did I bring clean underwear?!

The rest of the evening was spent watching the Night Sky program put on by the park rangers and driving very fast* down back-country dirt roads.

* though, without full use of his shifting hand, Shane claims it was not fast enough

Day the Second

The whipping wind of the prairie left Shane to toss and turn most of the night. Thankfully I was not so unfortunate (requiring at the minimum a few hours of mediocre sleep to fully recharge each day), so, at dawn, I went for a four mile run before jostling my cranky compatriot out of his sleeping back for our daily activity: Mount Rushmore.

We drove the one hundred or so mile trip in good time, making it to our destination before the crowds had really showed up. We wandered about the grounds and took the required tourist-y pictures:

I beat a bunch of kids at the limbo and got Thomas Jefferson's autograph. We ate ice cream and speculated as to the species of visiting rodent. Shane said funny things about people who wore star-spangled banner clothing.

We discovered that Crazy Horse was only seventeen miles away, so we figured we might as well see how things were going there. Turns out that not only was the admission twice as much as our previous stop, the so-called 'memorial' was also half as finished. We watched* the documentary video on the mountain sculpture's conception and construction, and then figured we'd seen enough and went on our way.

* I slept

Shane was kind enough to stop on the side of the road so I could go swimming in a nice, cold lake. At the recommendation of a local girl wading about at the time, I climbed up the rock face and stared down fifty feet into the water below. Eventually, the cat-calls of a few of her friends enticed me to launch myself off.

Due to the fact that I was watching the water approach with my head pulled a bit too far forward, when I hit the surface I blacked out for a second and surfaced with a massive headache. Once I reached the shore, Shane diagnosed me with a mild concussion, on account of my non-dilating pupils. We decided I should not nap for a few hours, just in case.

Additionally, as I was getting dressed, I discovered that I had accidentally crushed my glasses while getting into the swimsuit, leaving me mostly blind for the rest of our trip.

After a long drive back to the Badlands (during which I successfully didn't die while sleeping), we made a quick stop at the Prairie Dog Village to feed the gophers. We soon learned that by charging 50¢ a bag for unsalted prairie dog food (shelled peanuts) the proprietor has ensured that no prairie dog in the vicinity would ever want for peanuts, nor would they react with anything other than quiet incredulity when two saps--like Shane and me--try in vain to get them to accept our humble offerings.

After failing time and time again, we hung our heads and trudged back into the Badlands proper for our final night of holiday.

After a short rain shower, we hiked a bit into the wild and set up the tent out of sight of the roads and trails. The rest of the evening was spent stomping about barefoot, reading, meditating, unraveling the mysteries of the feminine species, and drinking whiskey.

No real progress was made.

Day Tres

We woke up at dawn, jumped in the STI, and drove home. Tremendously uneventfully.

Texas? Texas! Texas.

time	mile	update
7:30?	22.3	Gas up in the exotic, foreign land called "Lakeville". I move on before I can be savaged by the natives.
7:41?	33.0	Exit 69: haha!
07:57	45.0	Heavy downpour. Losing reception of The Current.
08:00	50.5	Dark sky ahead. Lots of rain. I have no windshield wipers. Road construction.
08:07	57.1	The Current ends. Semis and dump trucks trying to kill me.
08:22	70.1	Exit 32: Hope.
08:44	99.2	No more rain! 8 miles to Iowa. Car in limp mode.
08:52	108.7	Iowa!
09:53	169.0	Be Aware (Careful?) of Crosswinds. Energy drink fading.
10:12	205.2	Lubbock is West Texas? Getting directions via text. Need a nap [map?].
10:19	213.5	Steering column starts smoking. Cruise control? Stops, eventually.
10:23	218.4	I don't like the noises that the highway makes.
13:19	322.4	Back on the road after short nap at rest stop.
13:24	328.0	Missouri! Also, $10,000 fine if I hit a worker.
15:43	469.4	Kansas turnpike.
16:10	???	After a little scare, decide I'm on the right track. No turnpike ticket?
18:03	???	Still on 35. Paved with new asphalt.
19:51	749.5	Gas, no nap. Push on!
20:33	799.0	Took the wrong exit, but it turned out to be the right one.
21:01	830.7	Still more road construction.
22:52	954.8	Screamed for eight minutes. It went well.
23:51	1006.9	Bathroom break at nicest rest stop evAR! Car sounds terrible.
?0:0?	1??8.0	Voices...?!
0?:??	?1?e.e	Road turns into a river.
??:0*	1?q9.@	Shadowy blob sitting on overpasses keeps trying to kill me.
?1:*?	11?!.9	Someone is in the back seat.
*2:?!	1207.6	Exit 3 is closed!
?2:0r	1208.3	Find my way to the address. Sit outside for a bit wondering if it's the right house.
0?:2!	1208.3	Lizzy doesn't answer my text.
02:3*	1208.3	She does answer her phone though! I'm here! Alive! Thank Jebus!

Students in Solidarity with Gaza: About Us

We are a group of students organizing a delegation to Gaza. We aim to show our support for the people of Gaza by: meeting and building community with other students, working with grassroots organizations, delivering aid, and representing the face of the international community that does want to help and actively participate in lifting the siege. We are committed to enhancing our own perspectives about the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to bringing real, human stories back to our communities.

Many of this trip’s organizers are students who participated in a March aid delegation to Gaza. We witnessed destruction and listened to stories which serve as evidence that political alliances and goals have become more important than respect for international law and human life. We are motivated by these personal experiences to organize this delegation of students in solidarity with Gaza. We are part of a bigger movement, Code Pink’s 22 day campaign to lift the siege, in which delegations from around the world will be coming to Rafah in May and June, bringing international attention and putting pressure on Egypt to open the border.

We welcome anyone to our delegation who is excited to share in these goals and interested in learning more. Flexibility is also key. Our plans may change. The Egypt-Gaza border is officially closed, and while we will do what we can to ensure our safe crossing at Rafah, crossing the border can never be guaranteed.

[taken from the trip literature, not written by me]

Pre-Dated, Post-Written, Pre-Prologue

I'd like to elaborate a bit on just what I meant when I said "doing the Gaza volunteering thing" a few entries back.

Essentially, for the week of 25 May - 1 June I was a member of a student-organized delegation to the Gaza Strip called Students in Solidarity with Gaza. It was composed of 35 students (or student-ish people), as well as countless individuals who lent their support in time, money, contact-using, etc. so as to facilitate our envoy's success. Additionally, there were more than 100 other concerned citizens of the world who, as members of other associations, crossed [or attempted to cross] the border within about the same time frame. Each of these groups, for organizational and credence-lending purposes, fell under the umbrella of Code Pink, who also led a successful excursion in March of this year (where our organizers got the idea).

We did not rely solely on Code Pink to secure us access to the Gaza Strip. Invitations were obtained from the UN, NGOs, and other humanitarian institutions on the ground in Gaza, so that we could further prove to any parties interested in blocking our progress (of which there were a few) that our presence was requested. We brought with us medical supplies, sports equipment, and monetary donations, all of which were to be given as aid to hospitals or people in need once we'd gotten in. Our stated goals were simple: deliver our goods and engage in dialogue with individuals and organizations in the area in order to find out more about a region plagued by ongoing conflict.

Once we were in Gaza, we took part in an amazingly diverse itinerary that was put together by five Gazan girls who wished to share their and their country's stories with us. While we were there, we: stayed with host families, all of whose hospitality was beyond measure; met with NGOs and humanitarian organizations who work with and provide services to refugees and Gazans alike; visited areas that had been affected (read: destroyed) in the most recent incursion, Operation Cast Lead; talked about the issues at hand (and more mundane things as well) with Palestinians of a variety of backgrounds, from governmental representatives to the people on the street; and, basically, had a pretty amazing and unforgettable week.

What follows is a [relatively] short rundown of what we saw and did during our trip. I greatly encourage comments and questions of any kind regarding my experiences or about what exactly is going on in Gaza. Part of what I hope to accomplish by putting this on my blog is to instigate discussion about a topic that is too often ignored and misunderstood by the Western world, to the detriment of the peace process. If by spurring conversations about such a controvertial subject we promote voters to make more informed decisions on election days, perhaps this needless conflict doesn't need to be a permanent fixture of the Middle Eastern landscape.

Note: لن نصمت

Originally I had intended my entry on Gaza to be a one-time, unified entity, filled with grandeur and profoundness previously unheard of here or anywhere else. It was to be magnificently compact and potent, concise and direct, not to mention short and easy to read. However, as I began contemplating and preliminarily scribing the tales I had to tell, I realized that our week in Palestine was of a scope too great to be constrained within the boundaries of one, lone dispatch; the epic endeavour attempted forthwith, if forced to be molded in such a manner, would have its story cheapened and its capability for change damaged irreparably.

For this reason, I have decided to split the reports up in a circadian fashion, pre-dated to around the times when I would have posted them had I not crashed from exhaustion at the end of each chocked-full, information-saturated day (or if I had had access to the Intarwebs, which wasn't at all a consistent feature of the trip). Hopefully this will embody everything I hoped to do with the narrative in a manner consistent with the quality I'm sure you've all grown accustomed to through your years of reading this blog, as well as that which you should expect in any adventures with which I may choose to privilege you in the near [or far] future.

Enjoy!

Perfectly Perilous Pirate Party Presented By Persons Preaching Peace

United We Stand on a Solid Ground to Instigate Unprecedented Prospects with Experience

Greece, the final chapter: Our Santorini to Athens ferry was canceled without anyone informing us, but luckily some friends of ours tried to buy passage on the same boat and discovered this unfortunate news. Sam and I scrambled to get our refunds so that we could afford to buy new tickets for a different ferry (we were down to about €7.25 at that point) and then played cards all night with three Canadians. In Athens we avoided the cold by sitting in the entryway to the hostel we had previously stayed at, then went and got breakfast with the previously mentioned Canucks, then went to the airport using the previously mentioned last bits of money we had. A hop, skip, and jump away and we were back in the suffocating smog and heat of Cairo. I love it!

Back in Egypt: School's oppressive oppressiveness has returned with a vengence. I still haven't written my midterm (and I'm beginning to think I never will). Nobody does their homework in my Arabic class and our teacher keeps threatening to get someone else to teach it. I've got a presentation next week on my volunteering and it's relation to development theory, two three 15 page papers to write on topics I have yet to decide or research, an Arabic final that covers material from a book I don't own, etc. I'm not worried!

A Scottish guy I met in Greece, Graeme, is currently sleeping on my couch because I invited him down for the Pirate Party (which hasn't happened yet, but the next entry should have pictures and a rundown of the awesomeness) and he actually booked a plane and showed up. Nathaniel's aunt and cousin are also staying at the houseboat for a short while during their visit. Also, another friend, Jon, who had to vacate his apartment a bit earlier than the end of the semester has joined the club. That makes seven people in a two bedroom place. No big deal!

Wait a minute? Didn't I already do something like this back in 2005? Who'd have thought I'd be reliving that period in my life all over again?!

Anywho, last night we had a wonderful dinner where our old neighbor Khaldun, plus our new neighbors Jean and Clements, plus all the people staying at our houseboat, plus a few extras cooked vegetables and pasta and beer (well, we didn't cook the beer, but it was there). My pasta sauce was a hit, which is nice. I'm getting better at cooking, mumkin?!

The night before last was the opening performance of Dido and Æneas, an opera that AUC is putting on (the first ever, apparently), featuring my friend David and Kim as Æneas and a seriously wacky witch-lady respectively. It was my first opera, though probably not the last. I kind of liked it!

One of my English students gave me a liter of full cream milk as a present. Thanks?!

Jennifer is coming on 17 May. She'll be here for about three weeks, during which we plan on touring various places in Egypt, doing the Gaza volunteering thing, and visiting Jordan. After she leaves I'm going to be completely out of money, so I'll probably become a couch surfer again and see what I can see with what I can squeeze out of family and friends, killing time until my flight to Munich at the end of June, where I will then do the same until my final flight home on the 19 August. Two days short of a year abroad!

Time sure flies by fast, eh? or was it time's fun when you're having flies? I don't remember!

That's all I've got for now. Bye!