Germany? Well, that's a long story...

My ridiculous traveling adventures have not ceased thus far. Last Friday morning I caught a train to Cologne, Germany to meet Clff, the only other WU student in my program. The train ride was 11 hours, though not unpleasant. I had a seat the entire way and a great book to read. Soon enough, a very delightful elderly couple took their seats next to me. We started talking about what I was doing in Aalborg and where they were from. They told me all the places I should go in Denmark and even taught me a little Danish. In fact, the husband made me try to read a Danish newspaper out loud--an embarrassing attempt. Every time an announcement was made, he would translate for me. As we crossed into Germany, the train stations got larger and more crowded. Though each time I was confused, there was someone there to drag me along with them and show me the way. Finally I made it to Cologne and as soon as I stepped off the train into a massive station I heard "Megan Buchanan please come to the something or other in the Main Hall" announced over the intercom. Considering I couldn't make out where exactly I was going, I just made my way towards the Main Hall in hopes of running into a familiar face. Luckily I found Cliff and his friend Andrew wandering around the main hall and was immediately relieved. Apparently my train got in 30 minutes later than they expected and were frantic, because there were others waiting for us somewhere else. My tardiness made us miss our train and we had a few minutes before the next one. So I stepped outside for a minute only to find myself face-to-face with an immense Gothic cathedral. It was a sort of black color and lit up by blue spotlights around the base and windows. I cannot express how much more magnificent a work of architecture like that is in person than in it is in a textbook. It was jaw-dropping and mind-boggling. So anyway, we caught our train and met up with Cliff's brother, Craig, and his girlfriend of sorts, Emily. Emily despised me from the beginning. Apparently my late train made her a half an hour late to a club that was serving free beer for 2 hours. So, she would have nothing to do with me. Needless to say, I had a great time at the club dancing and talking with a bunch of Germans who were very interested in discussing American politics..and Burning Man. Well, Emily ended up drinking more free beer than she should have, which made the walk back to the train station a painfully long process. When we got there drama exploded between her drunken self and Craig, leaving Cliff, Andrew and myself to play with my camera. Suddenly, Emily walked by and somehow managed to knock my two week old, $200 camera out of Cliff's hand. I watched it smash onto the ground and could only say, "well, it's definitely broken." Oh yes, I was fed up with this sassy, rude and immature German girl, but I wasn't about to start anything with her. The last thing I wanted to do was become a part of the drunken dramafest. In any case, I didn't need to. The other three took over, trying to convince Emily to at least apologize. She wasn't having it, but the situation became very heated and once again turned into relationship drama. I sat, pretty annoyed, upset, cold and wet with Cliff. We watched train after train go by, missing every one because the others refused to get on and Emily refused to let me stay at her place (the original plan). Around 4 am, compromise was made to a small degree and we were finally going to catch the next train. It ended up pulling up to the other side of the station so we had to run to catch it. Well, Emily and Craig decided it was okay to stroll, not run, to the train that wasn't waiting for anyone..and they missed it. Cliff, Andrew and I didn't know where we were going, had only a couple minutes left on our cell phone and ended up having to wait at another station where we missed more trains. Eventually we made it and the hardwood floor in the warm dry office (where Emily's mom works) sounded very inviting. Cliff and I slept for a few hours, got up and left. I wasn't about to spend more time with Team Drama and Cliff was on the same page as I. So, we wandered around Cologne for awhile and caught a train to Bremen, Germany. We arrived near dusk and headed straight to the cheapest hostel. We were told there were no rooms available, but a very cool Brazilian guy told us he had two spare beds in his room and we could crash if we wanted. Cliff didn't seem too keen on the idea, so we decided to seek out other options. We checked every hostel in the city and each one was booked or unavailable. At one point, we took the tram in the wrong direction. When we realized this we got off at the next stop, which was probably the darkest, most vacant and uncomfortable stop of the whole line. There was a very friendly bystander that asked us questions about Bush until the right tram picked us up. Feeling kind of down on our luck and realizing our train to Aalborg didn't leave until 4pm the next day, Cliff and I decided to get a hotel room (your advice was echoing in my head the whole time dad). Of course, every hotel in a reasonable vicinity was booked. Finally, we found one room that was only free because whoever reserved it never showed up.  I laid down on the overpriced, not so comfortable hotel bed and almost instantly fell asleep. The whole next day, Cliff and I wandered the city of Bremen. It is fairly old-fashioned and delightful city. We ended up stumbling upon a music festival down one of the streets, where we had delicious German ice-cream and listened to a band cover bad American love songs. I did hear some great music, however. On the train ride back to Aalborg, we met a girl from Philly who had been traveling alone for over a month. Actually, she went to school at Reed and knows some WU kids and Senny Siegal (for those of you that know him). I practically interrogated her, asking advice and about her experiences. She had a lot to offer. All in all, the trip was once again a learning experience. At each trying moment we told ourselves how funny this would all be in a couple days, or what a great story it would be to tell. We were right and I really don't regret any of it. 

I am now back in Aalborg and have had so many more adventures and learned so much more in the last week. However, I will save that for the next email, considering how long this one is getting. Here is my address: 

Danmarksgade 49, 2 t.v.

Aalborg, DK-9000

Denmark

I really love snail mail! So, please please send me a letter...or some Mac and Cheese (I told my friend who really likes it I would get him some). Then I can write you back!

I hope all is going splendid. 

Megan

Willamette roll call

In response to Hayley's question, I should be stopping by Willamette on my way south and east around the 16th-18th-ish. Anyone else going to be there, or be along my way home to Maine? I should be sticking pretty close to I-90 or 94 most of the way back.

Thar she goes

Summer really is coming to an end. It's so bizarre because when I define summer in my mind it lasts for so much longer than 3 months and ends in a wave of enthusiasm for a new school year. To be honest, this summer has been boring and I'm happy to see it end. I miss my main posse of friends after having lukewarm conversations with buddies from high school. Where are my friends with weird, silly senses of humor who want to host costume parties and go on adventures?

Well he's about to show up from Utah. Mr. Patrick Leary, Terra resident and former Lausanne neighbor will be in Medford tonight to hang out with me and tour the ever inspiring Rogue Valley. After about 3 or 4 days here, we are on our way to Salem where we shall spread merriment through the land! So if you're in Salem/Portland, I hope we hang out.

After that I'm off to Mexico City (Aug 31) then a bus to Oaxaca (Sep2). Hayley, Katy- I'll see you there. Everyone else, I'll see you in four months with a bitchin' tan and an accent that'll knock your socks off. Well I hope so anyways.

I love you all and please lets keep in touch even though we're going to start having to write posts in between homework, class, work, parties...

DANA KLEINHESSELINK

P.S. This is my first post not as a teenager because I turned 20 on Aug 5! Teenagers are sooooo naive.....

Oops. I really love Dinosaurs.

There was a hula-hoop lodged into one of the trees at camp for most of the summer. One day when I looked up at it I had the most wonderful flashback to a certain evening at Willamette, the night of Wulapalooza, when about 10 bearcartz (or Bintronz, thank you Sarah) gathered inside of a hula-hoop and proceeded to travel all the way from the mill stream, up the stair well in Doney, and eventually collapsing in front of the golden door of 218. Thank you for those of you who participated in this endeavor. 

And thank you to everyone for your wonderful posts. Although I haven't had a chance to write something since the beginning of the summer, I have appreciated hearing about all of your stories and adventures. 

So here mine goes. two acronym's that summarize my experience at camp. KAGAS (kids aren't good at stuff), and AFCO (another fucking growth opporunity.) The latter was used in situations, like say, your camper decides they are going to run away from camp and you have to chase them down the road, or the former, when your camper drops their flashlight down the hole of the composting outhouse. 

Camp really was a great experience though. I met some really amazing people and really enjoyed haveing my jon the same place as my home. The special part about camp was the fact that we were all living in community together, and that everyone gave their 100% best to make camp a fun and safe place to be. The staff were amazing and I was lucky to form some really great relationships over the summer. Camp also rekindled my love of being in the outdoors! I went on a few trips on the Appalachian trail and had a great time. One of my new life goals is to hike the Pacifc Crest trail. But that will come later. 

The next step is Mexico. I leave Sept 12th for Oaxaca. I plan to spend a week or so in the city of Oaxaca, possibly hang out with Bintronzz and take a refresher course in Spanish. Then, I am off to the coast of Oaxaca where I will be staying for the next six months. I will be both living and working with an organization called Pina Palmera, an organization that works with kids and adults with physical/mental dissabilities. The main appeal for me in choosing to work with this organization was their focus on community. The organization strives to empower others to use the tools and resources available to them to accomodate people with special needs. The require that volunteers stay for at least six months so they get a chance to become integrated into the community. I will be living with 15 other volunteers, most of them are from Europe and Mexico. I am nervous and excited. 

The tenative plan after those six months are over is to travel through Central and South America. The goal is to be in Ecuador in May so I can sing and dance and eat oatmeal+peanut butter with Lucia! I encourage you all to do the same. It can be a reunion!

Team - I think you are all wonderful and amazing people and I hope that we can continue sharing stories over this next year.

Best of luck with all of your adventures, 

Cheers to the universe!

Hayley

P.S.

(My address at Pina Palmera. Letters are magical!) 

C.I.A. Pina Palmera A.C.

PO Box 109

CP 70900 Pochutla

Oaxaca, Mexcio

I love Dinosaurs.

Becoming Danish

Hello again,

So, my one night of couchsurfing actually turned into about 5 nights. On Monday, after lugging my ridiculously heavy baggage up about 7 flights of stairs (second floor here really means 3rd), I checked into my apartment only to find it void of roommates and without electricity or a working wireless connection. Fortunately, as I was wandering the streets of Aalborg later that day I ran into Martin (one of my couchsurfing hosts) who invited me to stay as long as I needed until things started to settle for me. Since then I have only spent one night in my apartment. Martin and Rahul have been lifesavers thus far. I haven't been able to navigate very well, considering nothing here is in English. So, the two of them have taken me in, fed me, given me tours of the city and the university and as much information about living here as they can muster AND they have helped me with my apartment troubles. Without them I would be severely overwhelmed. As stoked as I am to be living in a foreign country, stepping completely out of my comfort zone has been more trying than I expected. I've come to realize how much I value the company of familiar faces and environments, what homesickness truly feels like and that I've been a bit naive about the fact that I really haven't ever been on my own before. However, I think doing this alone is going to be very good for me. It has forced me to ask for and accept help even if I feel stupid about it and to be extra-outgoing. I met someone the other day who was shocked when I told them I came to Denmark alone and don't know a soul. He told me I am very brave, which in itself was surprisingly encouraging. Yesterday was a better day. Martin showed me around some more and then I met with my "buddy," Kathrine, who was assigned by the university. She was very nice, closer to my age than Martin and Rahul, and not to mention a girl! It's nice to have some female company. She took me to a few places in Aalborg I haven't seen yet like the street of bars and the Aalborg Castle. The castle looks more like the Danish form of a plantation home than a place of royalty, but it was still beautiful. Kathrine also helped me shop for groceries by translating when I couldn't figure out what an item was. I was a little disappointed when I discovered peanut butter is a rarity in Denmark (Kathrine has only tried it once and didn't like it). Later in the evening I made dinner with Rahul, who gave me a cell phone, and then met Kathrine and her friends at an International Students Night event. I still have no electricity or roommates and don't really want to spend much time at my apartment yet, but tonight Martin is hosting a couchsurfer dinner at which I will have the opportunity to meet more people. Tomorrow morning I am taking an 11 hour train ride to Cologne, Germany where I'm meeting my friend Cliff. We are going to spend a few days skipping about the country and then ride to Aalborg together. By that time more people should have arrived and school will be starting. 

Right now I'm going to go badger the office some more about the issues with my apartment and activate my cell phone. I have to say I truly admire those of you who have traveled around the world alone. You really are brave. If any of you have tips or advice, they would be greatly appreciated.

Take care all!

Megan

If it weren't for aeroplanes and their ports...

I left PDX at about 7:30 am Friday morning, after forcing myself to stay awake all night and saying my goodbyes. I expected to land in New Jersey sometime around 3:40pm and catch a flight to Copenhagen at 5:25pm. Well, if any of you know the stakes of traveling you know things can go wrong. Well things went wrong, terribly wrong. My flight to New Jersey ended up having to circle around above Ohio for an hour or so in hopes of avoiding a storm over Jersey. We ended up circling for so long we had to land in Philadelphia to refuel. Every few minutes the captain would say something like "we will be receiving an update in about 45 minutes" over the intercom. Forty-five minutes eventually became about 5 hours. Yes, almost 200 people sat on a hot, stuffy and STATIONARY airplane for 5 hours. However, I was impressed by how patient everyone was with the crew. Eventually we took off again and braved the lightning and turbulence, which there was a lot of. When we landed in Newark I discovered my flight had left a long time before...without me on it. Well, most of the airport was chaotic due to all the delays and since I've never really traveled alone before I was pretty worked up myself. A very nice lady from Camas, WA helped me re-orient myself and find the long line I had to stand in to figure out the next step to take. I ended up standing in that line for about 3 hours and I was near the beginning. It turned out the next flight to Copenhagen didn't leave until 5:25pm the next day. So, they put me up in a fairly nice hotel room and I spent the night in New Jersey. My flight to Copenhagen ended up being delayed a couple of hours, but after everything else that wait seemed like nothing. After 8 or so hours on the plane I took a 4 and a half hour train ride to Aalborg. Considering it's Sunday, I can't check in with the school until tomorrow. So, I used good old couchsurfing.com and found a couple of people to take me in for one night. One of them actually picked me up from the station and is now fussing over me (cleaning his house and feeding me and what not). It was quite a ridiculous journey, but if it weren't for aeroplanes and their ports, I wouldn't be here! Aalborg is a very cool city; quaint might be a better word.

Anyway, I made it!

Missing and loving you all

Off to Mexico

I am off to Mexico on Saturday morning. I'm kind of nervous figuring out how to get from the airport in Mexico City to the bus station, getting on the right bus to Oaxaca and then grabbing a taxi that will take me to my homestay family. I am excellent at getting lost, but hopefully this won't be one of those times. I can't wait to go though. I don't know who is going to be down in Oaxaca this semester, but once phone and address stuff is worked out we should try and meet up. Happy travels.

Yo Sup!

Sup! I mean sup sup. SUP!!! Been a whilesup! I miss all of you traveling bearcatzzz (or should I say traveling binturongzz)!

Last time I wrote, I had just found my job at the Industrial Cafe and Saloon, so I feel the need to post again as I have just completed my last day of work and thus ended the chapter (for now) of mustard stains and ever-exciting rides on Bus 15. (I think that my most interesting Trimet trip of the summer actually occurred aboard Bus 20 when the woman sitting directly behind me was in labor.)

I had two goals at the beginning of the summer: Really get to know Portland and its public transportation and reconnect with old friends in order to develop some kind of roots.

As for the former, I am confident that I will always be able to return to this city and find new funky neighborhoods and awesome hang outs, but I definitely feel that I have gotten much more comfortable getting around town these last few months. Working at the Industrial Cafe has enabled me to be downtown every day and get pretty well acquainted with cool areas of NW PDX.

In regards to my second goal, I feel that slowly but surely I have (re)developed a family of friends who I know I can count on for late night adventures and general good times whenever it is that I return to this place. The beginning of the summer was difficult for me as I had hoped to reconnect with friends from high school who now seem more like strangers. However, I made a conscious choice not to let their apathy get me down, and I wound up hanging out with a different crowd of friends who have been so warm and welcoming to me. It's hard for me to leave now as I feel so comfortable and happy surrounded by these great people, but I am confident now that these friendships will still be strong whenever it is that we are all in the same place next.

An added bonus of living in the Portland Metropolitan Area has been frequent trips to Salem to see all of the bearcats who are hanging around this summer.

I had a party Saturday night in celebration of summer's glory, and I wish you all could have been here. It was the perfect way to cap off this beautiful season.

Incidentally, I got a call from our fellow Sup Sup blogger Tyler McMonkey today, and he was in Northampton, Massachusetts, which is where I will be in three days! Hearing Tyler describe the town a little and realizing how soon I will be there has gotten me so excited!

I am thinking of you all and hoping to hear from you soon!

Sarscat

I missed summer, but I don't miss summer

Things are starting to wind down at the docks of Kenai Fjords Tours, so I have escaped for two days. That means one for hiking AND one for catching up, which is why I find myself here at a computer at long last. Now that the snow has finally cleared off of the mountains, it's time to hit the trails. Oh, wait- summer's over now. It's cold out at night and the sun sets a whole lot earlier. Well, that was brief- sorry I blinked and missed it!

Well, I've learned up here that I really don't care for hot weather all that much, and that the rain is really neat... but boy, do I miss swimming. I've been jumping into Ressurrection Bay on our tour sometimes when we stop for dinner at Fox Island and all of our 140-odd passengers head up to the lodge for their salmon bake dinner. It is a little brisk, and (perhaps fortunately) I don't have all that much time to wallow around in the waves like an under-buoyant sea otter, so I only kind of get my fix. But at least I have that. I'm glad I didn't apply for a job in a desert!

I've turned into a sea life geek, for those of you who might be wondering how all of this marine sightseeing might be effecting me. Today I was walking down our one main street with Ian and I was identifying sea bird calls as they echoed out of the Sea Life Center across the street. Geek! I also have an affection for humpback whales and orcas that rivals a child's feelings for the family dog. I don't know what I'm going to do when I leave here and can't see them nearly every day anymore... but I am getting orca call recordings from one of the boat captains. Definitely going to be among my top-rated tracks in my iTunes.

In case you're wondering about my life plan... well, I don't have one. Plenty of ideas are percolating in my head, including working in Hawaii (on wildlife tour boats again, or on a farm) or Nova Scotia (on an organic farm) or at a ski resort somewhere out west, but I've decided that it is, after all, pretty sensible to call these ideas rather than plans because that's all that they are and that's ok. I don't need to make any of them into a plan until it's time and I'm ready. I did call this morning and decline my Antarctica position, since the paperwork and physical/dental exams are near-impossible to complete when you're on a boat for 11 hours a day and you don't get internet and have no phone charger (for now), plus you're Julia and forget (usually just accidentally) to do things that feel an awful lot like chores sometimes. Besides, for my year off I am hoping to do something a little more enriching and meaningful than wash dishes for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week for 5 months. Antarctica does sound like a fun adventure, and I'm certainly not done with the thought of going to the Ice, but perhaps some better option than a dining attendant is on my horizon. Anyways, I'm really looking forward to road-tripping with a couple of Alaska friends back south to Willamette for a visit and then back east to Maine, hopefully with my brother in tow from the midwest on, to take time to explore Maine and hang out with my family and relatives. When was the last time I did that... never? I think it's long-overdue. So that is my only plan so far. But I'll keep you posted. Thanks, everyone, for the ideas and encouragement and wisdom you've sent my way.

Love to all, Jules

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

When last we left our heroes... umm... well here are some cool pictures.

From Lenin to Lenin

The remains of past Soviet occupation caught up with me as I was biding my time near an old manor building, now a museum, and wandered around the corner to behind it. What I saw were old Soviet statues, of Lenin, of known and unknown soldiers. The whole encounter, of still seeing larger-than-life stone and metal Lenins side by side was truly surprising. Usually I consider the Soviet Union dead and buried, but any culture has many modes of resiliency, as we were quite vigorously reminded in the Bronze Soldier affair last year.