Life As A Theater Groupie

There's so much to write. . . I don't know where to start. I wanted to start with the line: "Everything you've ever heard about Tuscany, it's true." But now I didn't want to start with it, because there's a lot of other things that happened BEFORE Tuscany. So... I guess I'll back up. Luckily, I pre-write stuff in my head (even this part that you're reading right now, yep, this part in the parenthesis), so I'm going to write what I would have written on various days, and then catch up to today. Okay? Okay.

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June 4, 2012: Udine, Italy
Let's make a list of things I did and didn't know:

List of things I knew:
1) Toms are the worst shoes for rain.

List of things I didn't know:
1) It rains a lot in Italy.

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June 5, 2012. Bologna, Italy

You know you're in Italy when you find a PIZZA vending machine!!!

That's me with standing in the corner. I'm not on time out or anything. Those are "talking walls." Two people stand on opposite sides, and they can talk to each other. I don't really understand it, but it was awesome. One of Bologna's 7 secrets. The other people in the picture are students from Teatro Dimitri (David's school). David would be in the picture, but he's taking it.

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June 6, 2012. Somewhere in Tuscany, Italy.

Everything you've ever heard about Tuscany, believe it. I don't know if "Under the Tuscan Sun" is a song or a book or a movie or a saying or something else, but it should carry a lot of wonderfulness with it. On the bus ride here, I dreamt I was in Disneyland and when I woke up because my foot fell of the seat, the scenery outside was WAY better than my dream. I woke up right when we were passing by some arches (which I later learned was an acient aquaduct. . . I learned that when we were illegally climbing across it. It was grand). They're beautiful. Just like how they're supposed to be. Old, pretty, magestic. And really . . . cool.  A little piece of history that made it through.

Traveling with this group is really an awesome privilege. I feel so lucky that I've had this opportunity. I've learned a little (not much!) Italian, and I'm loving getting to know the people in David's class. They're all pretty similar to David, so you can imagine how aweosme they are. Super talented and hard working and friendly, which is a pretty unique combination. So I get to go everywhere they go, and it's the first time that I've traveled in a group that HASN'T been whole bunch of Americans. It's like coming in the back door. And I'm tagging along with them, I get some cool opportunities too. For example, right now I'm staying at a villa overlooking Tuscany that has been converted into a theater school. The theater school is hosting us for the next two nights, which is awesome! I would never have this opportunity otherwise.

We watched the sunset today, which was absolutley beautiful.

Hmm...I'm wondering what else I can tell you. I had so much stuff that I wanted to write, and now I'm stuck. It's cool being places where everything is so old. Like actually old, not like "100 years!" old like we have in America.

I've realized tha American tourists (and Americans in general) can be REALLY loud and obnoxious, so I think I'm going to consciously be quieter and softer. The theater school we're at now is full of American exchange students, and being around them after being around just Europeans for awhile is a real shock. I'd much rather be like the kids at Teatro Dimitri.

Sunset:

Some Teatro Dimitri people:

 

Climbed A Mountain

Please don't get too attached to me writing everyday, because I promis it's not going to happen throughout the entierty of my trip. Couple things to update everyone on: I'm taking a lot of solace in the idea that this is "round one" of Europe. So if you say, "Are you going to ____?" or "Did you ____?" and I say "nope" there's no need to say, "Awww, bummer." A better response would be, "What did you do instead?" and I will tell you of some great adventure. Or some horrible tragedy. But, hey, tragedy plus time equals humor, so there's no loss there either. This is round one, and I'll catch some more stuff on the next round, whenever that ends up being. So, ya. There's that.

Next: This really is the perfect little village. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming. It's kind of like Pleasantville, if you've ever seen that movie. Except not, because in that movie there's a negative connotation to the perfection of the town, and here's there's not. Today David and I picked cherries. I've never done that before, it was grand.

Also today, David and I went on a hike up a large hill/mountain where you could see the whole valley. That's where the top picture came from. And the bottom one, actually. I'm wondering how many pictures I should put on here. Do you guys want more pictures? Does anyone even read this? When I write these, I feel like I'm just writing them for my mom. Hi Mom! I'll add a cherry tree picture. Here it is:

Let me know if you guys (or you, Mom) like photos. I can try  to be more consistent with them. Hmm...what else do I want to say. The cheese is delecious here. The chocolate too. I'm (slowly) learning Italian, but I apparently have a Spanish accent. But everyone else has a German accent, so it's not like they're perfect either. But they're still much better than me (super duh). All of David's friends are wonderful. David lives in this really cute three story house thing. First floor is the kitchen and dining nook, floor 1.5 is the bathroom, 2nd floor is living room/Maria's room, and there's more, but David just got out of dance, so I'm going to go. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Marathon To Perfection

Hmm. . . my blog site is in German. That's weird.
Just wanted to let everyone know I made it safely! It was a bit of a marathon, but worth it. Here was my route:

Car from Stuart's house to the Oakland airport
Plane from Oakland to Seattle
Mini train thing within Seattle airport
Plane from Seattle to London
Plane from London to Zurich airport
Train from Zurich airport to Zurich city
Different train from Zurich city to Bellizona
Small BART-ish (but much cleaner) train from Bellizona to Locarno
Fart Trains that go to Verscio were closed
Bus from Locardo to Ponte Brolla
Used bus driver's phone to call David
Started walking towards Verscio from Ponte Brolla
David met me part way
Walked through a couple towns to get to Verscio
Slept soundly

Woke up in the most perfect little town.

Also, David says hi.

World Traveler

I just picked up my boarding pass to London, and, needless to say, it made me smile. I couldn't help but take a picture: WORLD TRAVELER. My young-aspiring-traveler-former-self-me would be so proud. I know the title has to do more with the ticket and destination than the holder of the ticket, but a girl can dream.

Anyways, we're off. The new adventure has begun. I'm quite excited, as Stuart can attest to. I couldn't stop tapping/hitting him in the car ride to the airport (sorry Stuart). It feels good to be leaving. I don't have to worry about any loose ends that I forgot to tie. It's all out of my hands...for the most part. I don't have to think about what more I can be doing or what I let slip through the cracks. It feels good.

I feel free. And tired. Ready to sleep for 9 hours on this upcoming flight.

But in the meantime, I'm sitting here in the airport. I met a nice couple from New Zeland, and they say things like "loo," so that's fun. The boy next to me just came out to a friend via skype, and then took it back. Or something. So that was weird. I ate some gross Chinese food, which was not at all like the non-existent Mexican food I wanted, but whatever. And now I'm having flashbacks to Costa Rica, the last time I used this computer. The mouse kind of has a mind of it's own and jumps all over, causing me to have to reposition it so I don't write sentences inside of sentences. That probably doesn't make sense, but that's okay.

I get into London at noon tomorrow (or "half day" as the Kiwi said). Then a 4pm flight to Zurich, where will find a train to take me to David.

Let the games begin!!

Full Circle

Wow, I just saw that I haven't posted since September. Woops. Quick update: I'm a senior, I had a semester, I went to Thailand, and now I'm in the middle of having another semester.

But what I really want to talk about is tonight. And then I want to go to sleep, because I'm a complete grandma.

But tonight was the weirdest experience. I really feel like I've come full circle. . .

Tonight I went to the Perspectives showcase. It's a HUGE production on campus geared towards showing the different "perspectives" of students on campus. There are clubs that dance, act, sing, do spoken word, show videos, etc. Most the pieces are collaborative, so at least two clubs work together.

The weird part, though, was that the last time I went to that annual show, I was a senior. In high school. I remember sitting there with a friend's girlfriend who agreed to let me visit so I could check out the school. I remember watching, thinking of all the cool things I could get involved in here. I remember being impressed by the students, and overwhelmed by the HUGE auditorium that was part of campus.

This time, though, it was so different.

(crap, I'm more of a grandma then I thought. I'm going to go to sleep and finish this in the morning. Before 11 on a Friday night! . . . I'm a horrid college student).

(wow, here I am a couple days later, finishing up only because I want to be able to close this open window. . .and because it's still important to me.)

Like I said, this time, it was different. This time, instead of watching the type of people I could potentially meet, I was watching people I knew. Instead of sitting next to the one person I kind of knew out of 25,000 on the campus, I was sitting next to friends and bumping into lots of other people I knew. It was different.

But the coolest part is that there was a new addition to the line up this year. It had many of the same great performances that I remember from my high school experience - Bollywood, jerico!, Dil Se, Cal Slam - but this year there was a new one: Human Journal.

Human Journal is something I started in hopes of giving students a venue to share their stories. I wanted a place where we could put aside the debates that academics cling to so strongly. Holding up won arguments like a trophy kind of made me want to throw up. People can be so obsessed with their own opinion they forget to learn about the other side.

So I started the journal. And it grew. And people submitted stories about their experiences and why they thought they way they did. They wrote stories about what it was like to be fat, or a virgin by choice, or come out to an un-accepting family, or an illegal immigrant, or an exchange student. People wrote.

And at Perspectives, people performed. Human Journal partnered with Bear Stage (a theater group). Bear Stage chose 5 pieces and performed them as monologues.

Oh. my. gosh.

They did such a great job. I could NOT have been more proud. The audience laughed at the funny parts, snapped at the parts they agreed with, and cheered at the spots where the authors/actores found their strength.

2,000 people heard the true stories of individuals who had the courage to write them down on paper.

We were able to pass out our remaining journals from years past. Everyone was excited to grab one. Or two.

Walking home, I passed hoards of people with their noses between the pages that I began the creation of.

The night really was like coming full circle. Not about coming back to where I had been for years ago, but more about closure.

The Perspectives show 4 short/long years ago was one of the major reasons I chose Cal. Four years ago, it represented what Cal meant to me. Today it does the same thing.

And I changed the Perspectives show. I added something valuable and important to it. Obviously not by myself, but I was part of it.

I can leave Cal knowing that it's different, better even, because I was here.

And that's a good feeling.

Bad Reviews

I found where the bad reviews come from. You know how sometimes you'll be online reading reviews about a place or product, and there's always one that's way more negative than all the others? Yep, I found the source.

Today I was (well, still am) at my favorite cafe in Berkeley. Cafe Milano. It's great. They play classical music, the workers are super friendly and greet me by name, they reset to internet when it's not working with my computer, they talk to me in Spanish because they know that I spent my summer in Costa Rica and that I'm trying to practice, their food & coffee are both delicious and reasonably priced, and if something costs $2.68 and you give them $3.00, they'll give you $0.50 back instead of weighing you down with change. They're great. Period.

But today I saw where the bad reviews come from. There were some women here, maybe 50-something, who spent a long time waiting at the "pick-up." When I saw they were holding money, I asked if they were waiting in line to order (they were), and I said, mentioned that they could order at the cashier's counter (I pointed). They reminded me of an older version of the wicked step sisters . . . I can understand their frustration, because they had been waiting a long time at the wrong counter, but that's not an excuse to be rude. So then they were rude to me in their response to my suggestion, and then rude to the guy working at the counter. They all ordered at once, all thrusting money at him at once. One of them speaking loudly, as if the cashier didn't speak English (he does) and speaking louder would somehow help the language barrier, one of them saying, "NO MUSTARD AT ALL!" (what's wrong with, "without mustard, please."?), another was mad that they were out of the kind of soup she wanted, and the other forgetting her change, so the cashier gave it to her friend, who got flustered with the responsibility fo $3.75 and somehow wasn't able to give her friend the $0.75 part, so her friend who the change belonged to came back asking for her seventy-five cents, to which the cashier said her friend had it, who was eventually able to find the $0.75 that she had forgotten to give to her friend. Confusing? I agree.

I was glad I was after them, so I could give the cashier a little encouragement and help to pick of the pieces in the wake of their storm.

I can't image those women would have written a good review about Milano. But I also don't think that their view of Milano through their bitter, demanding glasses is a fair one.

And for me that was really an eye-opening moment of how the lens through which we look at the world really does impact our perception of reality (duh). I'm not saying that bad things never happen to good people, because that's obviously not true. But I think that if you find that everything bad always happens to you, and everyone you meet is an incompetent idiot, and everywhere you go has something wrong with it, the problem may be with the glasses you're wearing (. . . or the glasses I'M wearing), and not with the world outside them.

Cliff Notes

I keep thinking that I'll have time to catch up on everything extensively, but whenever I feel up to catching up, that means I feel up to going out and doing other fun things. And when I don't feel up to going out, well, I don't feel up to catching up.

But I'm leaving tomorrow morning, so I figured I better catch up before I leave and forget the whole thing ever happened. (Which is what tends to happen, odly). SO, I'm giving you the cliff notes version of this past week, except for what I did today. THAT will be in more detail, only because I'm copy and pasting it from an e-mail. So here we go:

Saturday 7/16
Finished my final paper in the morning in a cafe in Ciudad Colon. Then I bussed into San Jose, bought bus tickets for the next mroning, and I chose a hostel that I suspected my best-Upeace friend would pick for her overnight in San Jose. Then I went to a museum. When I got back, my UPeace friend Natalie was at the hostel (I was right!). We at dinner. Then I met up with a friend that I had met in Costa Rica, and we went "Jazz Club," which is a bar/show place that in no way reflects jazz. The singer of the band reminded me of Stuart. It was a super fun night. Slept at the hostel.

Sunday 7/17
Early (6:00am) bus to the Carribean side of Costa Rica. The bus let me out at the SLOTH SANCUTARY! Saw grown up sloths and baby sloths, took a small boat tour, bought a corny t-shirt, and I was very happy. Then waved down another bus and it stopped on the side of the road to pick me up. Super awkward because I had my backpack, which usually isn't a big deal for busses because you just throw it in the under-compartment, but I couldn't do that because I wasn't a real stop, so I brought it on with me, and then I was that obnoxious tourist with their huge back pack on a crowded bus. So that was embarrassing. I got off at the next stop: Chauita, population 600.

Wandered around Chautia, chose a hostel, and went to the beach for what I thought was like 3 hours, but in ended up only being a little over an hour and a half. Then I came home and went to sleep (at about 4:15pm) and slept 'till morning.

Monday 7/18
Woke up, went to the beach all day, almost got attacked by crabs (seriously!!!), got sunburnt out of my mind despite my (albeit hastily applied) sunblock, rented a bike and rode it all around for an hour, $2.00 hamburger for din-din, Sleep.

Tuesday 7/19
Woke up, bus to Sixatola, walked across the bridge to Panama, weird visa nonsense, bus to random town I can't remember the name of, water taxi to Las Bocas Islands, found a hostel, rented a bike, rode a lot, jumped in the water (in my clothes), rode back to town, met friends, explored, went to dinner with new friends, drinks with friends, sleep.

Wednesday 7/20
Woke up, packed, stored my stuff, bought boat/bus ticket for later, water taxi to Isla Bastilmientos (I don't think that's really the name. . . but I'm forgetting it), hiked a giant hill, went to this really cool organic coffee & chocolate shop/cafe on top of the hill, played go-fish and uno with a 6 year old and a traveler from South Carolina for an hour (the 6 year old won every game), hiked down to Wizzard beach, went swimming, discovered riptides, ate a pb&j, hiked back over the hill/mountain (why do I keep hiking??!!), water taxi back, ate some food, bought a hat, picked up my stuff, water taxi, real taxi, and then got on a night bus.

Thursday 7/21
Night bus dropped me off in Panama City at 4:00, which is exactly the time I didn't want. Taxi to Luna's Castle (hostel), they squeezed me in (even though there was a loooooooong wait list. Hurray for taking pity on me!!), and I went to sleep. Then I woke up. Then I did the stuff that I wrote to Stuart about in the below e-mail:

This morning I wandered around Panama city for a looooooong time, feeling increasingly more uncomfortable. I dunno why. But I think it was a combination of me being tired, taking a night bus last night and not sleeping well, feeling done with stupid small talk, and being SO SICK of men/guys/boys/whatever yelling at me and whisteling at me. And I didn't want to talk to anyone or do anything. Super exciting, I know. But I was (am!) tired.

So I went to the Panama Canal, which was incredibly boring. EXCEPT that there were TWO football (football = soccer) teams there! TWO! One from Nigeria, and I didn't know where the other one was from because they were all super stuck up and had their own room and ice tea and such. (A guy just walked by with a tattoo that I'm sure would be cool if he lifted up his arm, but right now just makes it look like he has exceptionally hairy pits. Don't do that). Anyways, OBVIOUSLY I wasn't going to miss my chance to meet Nigerian football players, so when they were doing that awkward camera trade off where someone is taking the picture and then they all shuffle around so someone else is taking the picture with someone else's camera stuff, trying to make it so they all got pictures with themselves in it, I walked up and asked if they wanted me to take a picture of all of them. They said yes, and then they all wanted pictures with ME! I was like a celebertity! I don't even CARE if it's the blonde hair and blue(ish) eyes, it was awesome! So we parted ways, but then a little later there was the movie thing about the dumb canal, and I was sitting by myself, and then they all came and sat with me! So that was fun. And they all wanted my facebook and for me to come to Nigeria, and when we were talking things came up like, "Oh ya, my sister got married in the states last year, but I couldn't go because I was in South Africa." And I was like, "oh" but in my head I was like, "FOR THE WORLD CUP!!!" Needless to say, it was pretty cool. But at the end, I was glad to leave because they were still guys and I have lots all my tolerance for guys hitting on me. Even if it's a entire soccer team of very beautiful people.

Then I went to the mall and watched Harry Potter. . . twice.

I would call today a SUCCESS! And I'm tired and taking it easy for the rest of the night. (You: But it's your last night! You should go out! Me: No, I don't want to.) I'm very happy chilling here on the couch. Maybe I'll go grab a beer. But that would require me getting up. . .so maybe not.

Conclusion
So, that's it. I'm tired. It's 8:30, is that too early to go to sleep? Maybe I'll shower. Either way, my computer is going to die, so I have to stop writing this. NIGHT! See you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooon.

(Future Plans: Sleep in Luna's Castle, tomorrow flight to texas to los angeles to fresno, conference in fresno, drive to sc, chill/sleep in sc, drive to berkeley.)

Coming Up For Air

I just realized that my last post was my 100th post. I should have done something special. . . oh well.

Anyways, this is me coming up for air and letting you all know that I'm alive!

I can't write much, because I have to go catch my boat.

Paradise

I can't believe I'm leaving tomorrow. I feel like I just got here. . . Probably because I DID just get here. It's only been, what?, ten days?

I have so much I want to write, but I don't have the time. Every second that I spend here at the computer, I'm not spending with the grandkids & family at the house.

I almost started crying yesterday because they keep giving me things. (Okay, that's a lie. I DID start crying. But not 'till I was in my room by myself). The whole family does it. The grandma bought me jammies, the kids are giving me their stuffed animals, the parents gave me a mini mug and some old indeginous statues. The things that have practical uses (they try and give me jackets, etc.) I can refuse by saying that I don't need it, and they understand. But all other protests ("no, it's yours, I couldn't take it from you." "No really, you should keep it." "I couldn't possibly take that. It's beautiful, but it belongs here.") are futile. They won't accept my excuses, and they look increasingly more hurt with all of my refusals. But when I accept their gift, their faces light up!

But I feel so bad, because I don't have anything to give back!!!!!!!!!!!! I've told them this, too, and they instantly point to the post cards from Berkeley that I've given them (that they have all FRAMED and hung in their respective houses) and then they say that I gave them the gift of me and my heart.

BUT THAT'S NOT ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (that's what I'm yelling in my head).

I've exhausted the rest of my duct tape (1/2 a role, maybe more) making crowns and bracelets and jewelry for the kids. I've bought out the town of art supplies (a total of $7, if that), but everything that the kids make THEY GIVE TO ME! Today I made a rule that they could only make things for their parents and grandparents, which proved to be effective.

But I just feel so bad, because I don't have anything to give. All the clothes that I have with me are dirty & gross, and it's not like I'm carrying around lots of "trinkets" when all I have is a backpack. All my nice stuff were gifts from other people down here. The only thing that I might be able to give is a t-shirt from UPeace, but how to do give a t-shirt to a family of 10ish people that live in different houses without causing problems? Especially when the kids already fight over . . . everything? And can't go buy them something because a) the only money I have left I need for my bus ride home & they don't take cards here, b) I feel like buying them some little piece of crap would de-value everything they've given me, & c) I wouldn't know what to get.

So I guess my only option is to accept their more than generous gifts with as much gratitude as I can translate, keep loving on and playing with thier kids, and promise myself that someday I'll come back and spoil them all rotton. They deserve so much more than what I am able to give.

I just feel so blessed that I've been able to be a part of this family for the past 10 days. They've really made my experience here incredible. They've been more than generous with their love, patience with my spanish, drawings, time, food, etc.

EVERYONE.

Not just the family (my family, I mean grandparents that I live with and MULTIPLE sets of cousins/aunts/uncles). But everyone in the community.

Oh ya, now I remember what I was supposed to write about here. I wanted to write about those "life doesn't get any better than this" moments. And how I've had more than my fair share of them, whether it's with new friends in a foreign country or with my family Christmas morning when were all sitting contently in the same room and not fighting about Catan. I've had so many. And I was going to write about how on Sunday I had one, standing in the back of a pick-up truck holding onto the bar thing that goes over the cab as we drove through the Costa Rican high lands. And this was with a family that I didn't even know 11 days ago, and it's was an entirely different family than the one I'm living with.

A whole other set of people that I'm so grateful for. They brought me to this little place that you have to drive through this dirt road to for a long time that was apparently "the place to be" on a Sunday afternoon, because practically everyone I've met here was there. Just the drive alone was enough to satisfy me (probably my least favorite thing about the states it the illegality of truck-bed riding). But this little place was a paradise. I got to go FISHING and I caught 3 FISH! (Fishing may be a bit of an overstatement. It was a stocked pond). But I caught the fish on my stick with string! The son Brando, who is 11, caught two also, and then we ATE them. It was awesome!!

And there was a rope swing and nice people and a waterfal. In the middle of the Costa Rican highlands.

I'm in paradise with some of the most generous people you'll ever meet!!!!!!!!!! I really can't believe how lucky I am.

I know I've mentioned this before (a long time ago), but one time when I was in Yosemitie with my family, my unlce mentioned something that's stuck with me. He said, "It may get different-beautiful than this, but it doesn't get more beautifult than this."

I may have different-amazing experiences than this, but life doesn't get any better.

(But I still wish I had more to give back. . .)

Fantasy World

(7/7/11 @ 19:46)

I really just can’t get over how magical this place is. I couldn’t figure out the adjective for awhile, nothing seemed to fit quite right. But then I got it: magical.

It’s like it came right out of a fantasy book. Lord of the Rings or something (ha, ya, like I’ve ever read that). But it’s the kind of place that I can picture heroes of a book stumbling through in the middle of their quest.

The town of Llano Bonito really is right at cloud level, so there’s a 33.33% chance the clouds will be overhead and you can see the lush, green coffee valleys below. And there’s a 33.33% chance the clouds will be BELOW you, so that your mountain and all the other mountains poke out as if islands in a sea of clouds. And there’s a 33.33% chance that the clouds will be exactly on you, so that you will see – nothing. Literally living in the clouds.

Time and distance mean nothing here. I asked someone where the school was, and they pointed to a tiny blue roof way in the distance on a different mountain. Then we walked there.

All of the houses are bright and colorful. My house is bright green – inside and out. I feel like I’ve been shrunk down and am living inside of a bowl full of lime jell-o. Other houses are orange, purple, blue . . . A common get to know you question is “what color is your house?”

When I went on a walk today with my host-family, I had an “ah-hah!” moment about how Costa Rica (“Rich Coast”) got its name. Although I’m not actually on the coast, I did see the richness of the country, so I’m saying that it counted. We walked (hiked!) for maybe an hour, and we ate so much fruit. On every bend was a new tree, and in a heart-beat the kids were up there throwing fruit down. So much fruit that I’ve never even heard of before. There was this one fruit that looked & felt like a green egg, and when you break open the hard peel there are a whole bunch of pomegranate-like seeds inside. You have to suck out the seeds, because you can’t eat the shell/peel. I kept asking myself: how is this real?

I think I get kind of annoyed when people wish different worlds existed (except Harry Potter. That one is an acceptable wish . . . and Narnia). But when people just watch movies and wish for the world to be like those in the fantasy movies, I want to tell them to get off their butt, go outside, and open their eyes.

If we had fairies, would we appreciate them any more than we do humming birds? If we had Avatar’s tree-network, would it get any more attention than the already existing networks of red woods? If we had plants that light up, would we care about them any more than the plants that close when you touch them? If we had dragons, would they mater more than fatty, 10m long crocodiles? Would we care about mermaids any more than we care about fish & whales & sharks & dolphins? Is Atlantis somehow more majestic than Machu Picchu or Angkor Watt? The whomping-willow compared to giant carnivorous plants?

Anything you want,* we have a version of.

I wasn’t planning on this being a “save the trees” kind of blog, but I do wish that people realized that their actions have consequences. And while they’re spending their time day dreaming of a different, somehow better or “cooler” world, they’re chipping away at the already amazing one we all have right under our feet. It doesn’t make sense to long a different world while simultaneously destroying one that is pretty close to fantastical.

Sometimes I just want to shake people and buy them a plane ticket.

*Except for a) talking plants/animals, & b) flying animals that you can ride on, which I think is our greatest short coming.