Random Travel Review

Current Location: Washington,DC
Arrival Date: August 25, 2009
Departure Date: undetermined

Thanks for all of the excellent questions! There were enough that I didn’t include any of my own. Hope you enjoy!

In which location did you learn the most? How/why?
• I wouldn’t know how to quantify my education abroad in order to select only one place. But Korea, India, Costa Rica, and Israel/Palestine definitely make the top of the list:
• Korea for a million reasons of friendship, art, language, food, and randomness. But most notably because I had the unique opportunity to immerse myself in their culture of business and to experience a very different perspective on work.
• Half of what I learned in India I learned within an hour of getting off the plane. It is otherworldly poor and this fact is reflected in everything about the country. But there is a magic there, and hidden in all of the smog and dirt are some of the most spectacular scenes I have seen or will ever see in my life. What I learned in indescribable, some places you just have to visit on your own.
• Costa Rica because it is where I first started to pick up Spanish and to really understand Salsa. Also, visiting the rainforest is like taking an ecology seminar.
• Israel and Palestine are at the forefront of world politics at the moment and visiting really helped me to make sense of that fact. There is a dichotomy between the two nations whereby one possesses a strip of land that they have beautified and maintained richly and another possesses a generous and welcoming, but modest, culture that rivals others in the region. Neither posses what the other has. Witnessing this illuminated the conflict for me.
• I should also give some credit to Mexico, my first third world destination as a child where I learned that there are other places much less wealthy than the US. And France, my first independent international experience when I was 17, where I learned that there are likely few other countries as wealthy as the US.

Which was the most beautiful beach?
• Samara, Costa Rica.

What foreign event/attitude/idea should Americans be more aware of?
• Globalization. Our country is a leader on this front, but our citizenry’s understanding of it varies. The world is very interconnected now, people all over the globe have grown up listening to the same music as I have, seen most of the same movies, and are up on many of the same fashions. When the American markets faltered, so did most of the rest of the world’s. As we rebuild our economy, we should keep in mind the structure of the global economy and consider to what extent we want to focus on ourselves and to what extent we want to participate globally. I believe that there is a lot to be gained, financially, in global markets and that the United States already has a huge leg up on competition. Investments in education will be key to keeping us on par with rapidly advancing Asian countries.

We'd love to follow in your footsteps so how did you pay for all that? I know, none of my business, but gee whiz!
• If you had asked that question a year ago, I would say minimize or eliminate your monthly payments (cars, mortgages, debt, cable, etc.), live simply, and use the few hundred/thousand dollars you save each month to plan a big trip at the end of the year. To make it a big trip, pick a cheap country, find cheap airfare at kayak.com or STA Travel (works for teachers now too!), and stay with friends or find new friends to stay with on couchsurfing.com. That of course assumes that you have a job, which you may have to quit in order to take your big trip. (Unless you just happen to have one of the only US jobs that grants you three months of vacation a year.) I saved money for my travels initially by minimizing my living expenses for a year and continuing to work when I could as a teacher in both Salt Lake and Seoul. I have not had a job now for long enough that it is apparent that I could in no way continue to finance my travels on my own. But Jon has. Which is why I owe him a really big trip after I pay off my law school debt.

How much did you spend?
• About $12,000USD. But I relied a lot on the hospitality of friends. If you want to include what Jon spent it would be significantly more.

What prompted you to do so much traveling at this point in your life?
• Some of you may have already heard this story. I was preparing to apply to law school and the first piece of advice I got from any lawyer I talked to was, “Don’t go.” Legal careers have one of the lowest job satisfaction rates in the country. So I started asking around to find out what lawyers felt like they were missing and I heard a lot regret for not having been able to travel more when they were young. A career after law school tends to start fast and may require an 80-hour workweek with no time for vacation. Serious lawyers get sucked in to their work, and may not emerge for decades. So, with my usual enthusiasm for getting things out of the way, I thought I would take a career-worth of vacation in advance.

How was traveling with a significant other?
• Traveling with Jon was great. We have everything important in common, the same philosophies regarding food, culture, adventure and travel. But spending 24/7 with anyone for six months at a time can get drab. Mostly because when you spend that much time with someone, you stop growing independently of each other and have less to share with and learn from one another. I treasure also my time apart from him and my travels with old friends and new friends who I met along the way.

Did you ever have to handle illness or injury while abroad? How'd that go? I seem to remember something about a concussion.
• Plenty! Planters fasciitis, multiple ankle sprains, that mini-concussion I got skiing in Park City, poison ivy, a few colds, other respertory problems caused by air pollution, rashes, food poisoning, anemia (years ago in France), and a few cases of traveler’s diarrhea. I bring along Imodium AD, antibiotics and pain medication in case of emergencies and it has really been a blessing at times. Jon too, is a blessing, because he carries me around when my ankle is messed up. I try to slow everything down a bit when I get sick or injured, but it isn’t always possible. Luckily, the doctors that I have encountered abroad in China, Korea, Australia, and India have been worlds more helpful and efficient than any I've seen in the US.

Did you ever eat non-vegan? If so, when and why?
• Yes. I am fairly lenient on my diet when I am abroad. Language and cultural barriers sometimes make it difficult to make certain that every dish I consume is animal-product free, especially from a purist’s standard. But I am not a purist, and certainly don’t recommend that people drive themselves crazy with it when they travel. It is far better from an ethical (and sanity) perspective to support the most vegan food options in each country than to boycott the local cuisine in totality. Potato chips and beer are safe vegan staples but do not constitute an acceptable diet and will not help to promote vegetarian cuisine abroad. It is better to work with local restaurants to develop vegan or near-vegan options. If enough people request it, they are likely to add it to their regular menu. You can see this happening already throughout heavily touristed parts of the world such as South America. I have a blog in the works about eating vegan abroad, check it out at http://veganamerican.blogspot.com/.

What was your favorite airport?
• Cool question. Having taken over 50 flights in the last two years, I have definitely come to value good airports. Minneapolis is huge and has tons of dining and shopping options, also seemingly friendlier staff. The Incheon airport outside of Seoul, Korea deserves major credit for being big, beautiful, and having a built-in Jimjilbong. It wins the prize structurally, but I have to go with SLC for character because they have a Squatters Pub, which sells not only a world-class veggie burger and other great vegan eats, but also 8% beer. That, and the airport is equipped with free wi-fi. Invaluable.

In all your journey's and visiting far off lands and meeting all the different people groups with their own beautiful and unique traits and customs, what have you learned about "people" and how will that impact your future, especially as it relates to law?
• Beautifully worded question. Yes, I have definitely learned a lot about people. But most of what I’ve learned is the kind of stuff that you just come to understand. I can’t imagine trying to explain it short of writing a book. One of the deeper things I have observed is that there is a trend of respect for the United States abroad. Not necessarily for our international political ambitions, but very much so for our accomplishments in business and entertainment. And also, I like to think, for our constitutional freedoms. Our justice system needs to live up our global role model status. I hope to contribute to this throughout my career.

And finally, do you find that all people, regardless of their environment, level of development, degree of dependency or any other factory such as race, color or religion have intrinsic value and are worthy of life, or have you found that you believe there are some, maybe because of the above reasons or maybe because of particular views that they hold do not have intrinsic value or are not worthy of life?
• One of my favorite moments while traveling came while watching a legless Indian “kick” a soccer ball to his teammates across the beach in Goa with his fist. I smiled at him and he smiled back. We were different in almost every way imaginable, but I remember feeling more respect for that person in that moment than I have had for many of the people I grew up with. I believe, and have believed since long before I started to travel, that all sentient beings regardless of religion, race or species are intrinsically deserving of respect for that sentience. That includes a respect for life, particularly an individual’s right to autonomy of life. However, that isn’t to say that there aren’t bad individuals. If someone causes others enough suffering, they could presumably outweigh their intrinsic worth and it might be in a society’s interest to destroy them. Or if an individual threatens another directly, I believe that gives the individual being attacked a right to defense. As for environment, level of development, degree of dependency and factors such as race, color and religion, these things may affect a person’s worth in terms of lifetime earning potential but are unlikely to alter their degree of sentience.

Which group of people that you encountered while traveling seemed the most uniquely and consistently happy, and what do you think is the source of their happiness?
• This question delves at one of the greatest points of education throughout my travel. Having stayed in few countries much longer than a month, I can’t say with authority who the happiest were, though I do have my guesses. What I can say with confidence, however, is that wealth and happiness are not necessarily interconnected. Being able to feed yourself and your family, however, is important. Some of the least happy populations I have encountered are in the United States, South Korea, and India. The most uniquely and consistently happy? Costa Rica definitely makes the list, along with Bolivia, and perhaps The Netherlands. I think a cultural value for good health is a key factor, as are strong family connections and an illusion of equality, such that people feel like they aren’t so much worse off than everyone around them.

What country had the best food? The worst?
• Best: India and USA
• Worst: Taiwan and France

Where were the people friendliest? Meanest/rudest?
• Friendliest: Costa Rica, Bolivia and parts of the US
• Least friendly: Israel, France and parts of the US

Which country would you most like to live (permanently) if you were to leave the U.S?
• Permanently? Never! The United States is hands down my favorite country in the world. Though I could see myself living for a small while in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Costa Rica and The Netherlands.

Love,

Melissa

Random Travel Update 49

Last Location: Petrolia, Barrie, Toronto and Niagra Falls, Ontario
Arrival Date: August 20, 2009
Departure Date: August 24, 2009

Current location: Croswell, MI
Arrival Date: August 24, 2009
Departure Date: August 25, 2009

Next Locations: Washington, DC
Arrival Date: August 25, 2009
Departure Date: undetermined

I met Adam in Michigan and together we drove across the border to Canada to unite with Meghan in her small hometown of Petrolia, which is named after the black gold that the area is known for drilling. The US-Canada border crossing was one of the most difficult of my travels complete with attitude and a thorough search of Adam’s car and our personal belongings.

We decided on a road trip east to visit Meghan’s brother and school friend in the city of Barrie, an hour north of Toronto. We spent the first day there relaxing, building a deck, playing a game of zombies, shopping for patio furniture and barbequing on the newly made deck.

The following day we set off for Toronto to play with farm animals, stroll along the beach at Lake Ontario and eat some veg food next to a dead squirrel in Chinatown. In the afternoon we took an impromptu journey to Niagara Falls, which was both incredibly touristed and incredibly magnificent.

On the way home, Meghan was craving sushi, so we stopped at a small Japanese Korean restaurant in Hamilton, which to our glee and amazement had my favorite Korean dish, tteokpoki. If you haven’t been following me into every Korean restaurant I’ve passed around the world inquiring as to whether they have tteokpoki, than you may not understand the significance of this find. It was truly a great moment.

Today, we drove back across Ontario to Adam’s home in Croswell. Tomorrow I fly to DC.

Love,

Melissa

Random Travel Update 48

Last Location: Farmington, Utah
Arrival Date: August 7, 2009
Departure Date: August 14, 2009

Current location: San Francisco, CA
Arrival Date: August 14, 2009
Departure Date: August 19, 2009

Next Locations: Flint, MI
Arrival Date: August 19, 2009
Departure Date: August 25, 2009

Last week marked the two-year anniversary since I originally moved out of DC. In ten days, I will move back. In the meantime, I am spending time with some of the most important people in my life: my family and friends in Arizona, Jon’s family and friends in Utah, Ben and Haiete in California and, soon, Adam and Meghan in Michigan and Ontario.

Jon and I kept ourselves busy in Utah rock climbing in Big Cottonwood Canyon; running a charity 5k for the local farm animal sanctuary, Ching Farm; working at Ching Farm; visiting with friends and driving down to the Bonneville Salt Flats to watch world automobile speed records being broken at the annual Speed Week. Photos to come.

Yesterday, Jon and I drove up to San Francisco to spend time with Ben and Haiete, and for me to attend a weekend law seminar. I have one more stop before I reach DC, but I can’t help but feel a sense of closure coming back to the city that I essentially began my travels in. From here, I will fly straight to Michigan to visit Adam and Meghan, who were my first and most beloved friends in Korea. My travels have come full circle.

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions for the Random Travel Review. They are quite excellent questions and I am still working on the answers, coming soon.

New photos from Hawaii are up on Picasa, as are renovated Peru and Uruguay albums complete with captions. I plan to add captions to the rest of the South America photo albums eventually.

Love,

Melissa

Random Travel Review: Call for Questions

So I was thinking that, as my travels are starting to wind down and my Random Travel Updates may flow to a trickle in the months proceeding my entry into law school, I ought to write a mini random travel review answering questions that I have received up till now along with questions that you may have now along with a few questions that I have made up for myself randomly. Then I became worried that the idea may be too corny, and then I thought that I don't care if it is a little corny, I already have random questions to ask myself. That said, I actually do care some about it being corny and may scrap the whole idea if it gets too out of hand on my end. You, however, should feel free, in fact pressured, to send me any questions you may have about anything and everything that hasn't been covered in the last 47 RTUs. Ask as many questions as you like, I think more short questions will work better than fewer long ones. I will be compiling them and their answers over the course of the next week.

To view past RTUs, visit: http://randomtravelupdates.blogspot.com
For photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/a.melissa.meyer
And for Jon's travel blog: http://elfanoos.blogspot.com

Love,

Melissa

Random Travel Update 47

Last locations: Kauai, Hawaii

Arrival Date: July 15, 2009
Departure Date: July 29, 2009

Current location: SLC, Utah (layover)
Arrival Date: July 30, 2009
Departure Date: July 30, 2009

Next Locations: Tucson, Arizona

Arrival Date: July 30, 2009
Departure Date: unknown

If you do one thing in Kauai, make it the Napali Coast Trail. Conflicting interests made the total 22 mile round trip a no go for me this time around but I did succeed in getting Jon and my mom to accompany me on an 8 mile round trip section of the trail on our final day. It was, in my opinion, absolutely magical with dramatic terrain and even more dramatic views. I saw the rest of the trail looking inland from a catamaran, and I am confident that it is impressive in its entirety.

Every other worthwhile activity on the US island, with the exception of trail and beach activities, will cost you. The activities I enjoyed, but am not necessarily advocating because of the price, included a one hour helicopter ride over the island, a five hour catamaran trip down the Napali Coast in good weather (dolphins!), a four hour kayak and hike to a waterfall that was very much overrun with tourists, and a luau.

Equally good and free or next to free activities include, hiking to one (or several) of the many waterfalls on the island, boogie boarding ($6 per day or $20 per week rental fee), picking through smooth glass and chasing crabs on the glass beach on the southern coast, and snorkeling with sea turtles, eels, sting rays and fish at one of the many reefs.

We did some diving on the North and South shores which was quite enjoyable, but I saw near as much diversity of wildlife snorkeling the shallower reefs, and the price of diving on Kauai is very high. Sea turtles and eels are plentiful but visibility is mediocre. Unless this is your only opportunity to dive for awhile, I recommend saving it for another vacation.

As for vegan food. The world renowned vegan restaurant Blossoming Lotus, one of my expected trip highlights, closed its doors shortly before our arrival and moved to Portland. Tragic. Now the options include a multitude of Thai restaurants, some Mexican, a few good health food stores, a bakery with vegan cheese pizza, and Taco Bell.

I am not sure whether I've mentioned it before, but if you have any say in the matter, never ever fly Delta. The whole operation is a joke and an embarrassment to The United States. They keep their prices low by cutting everything including legroom, personal entertainment, air-conditioning, meals, windows on window seats(!), and most noticeably customer service. We have yet to have a positive experience with them. American Airlines is also pretty awful.

Salt Lake City is fantastic. Even the airport.

Love,

Melissa

Random Travel Update 46

Last locations: Amman, Jordan; Petra, Jordan
Arrival Date: June 30, 2009
Departure Date: July 2, 2009

Current location: Tucson, Arizona
Arrival Date: July 2, 2009
Departure Date: July 15, 2009

Next Locations: Kauai, Hawaii
Arrival Date: July 15, 2009
Departure Date: July 30, 2009

This update is mostly to inform you that I have three newly edited and fully captioned photo albums up on Picasa from the Middle East, that we are currently in Tucson, and that we are leaving today for Hawaii.

Our short stay in Jordan was really fantastic. Petra was spectacular and very deserving of its spot on the New Seven Wonders of the World list. We stayed late our first day and arrived early on our second to enjoy the whole site to ourselves. Having a site as grand as Petra to ourselves was an experience unmatched by any other, and the absence of other tourists was a welcome change from what we had come to expect in South America.

Amman, too, was more than worth the short time we spent there. My favorite thing about the city is prayer. Muslim prayer is a regular occurrence, happening five times a day in every populated area in the Middle East (with the exception of Israel). But it is particularly wonderful in Amman, where the prayer, always spoken in song, reverberates off Amman’s many hills creating the echo effect similar to that of an organ in a Cathedral. Except that in this case, the whole city is the Cathedral. The effect is magical.

You can find my photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/a.melissa.meyer
Visit old and new blogs at: http://randomtravelupdates.blogspot.com
Or check out Jon’s take on things at: http://elfanoos.blogspot.com

Love,

Melissa

Random Travel Update 45

Last locations: Eilat, Israel; Jerusalem, Israel; Bethlehem, Palestine; Tel Aviv, Israel; Jericho, Palestine; Siesta Beach, The Dead Sea
Arrival Date: June 21, 2009
Departure Date: June 29, 2009

Current location: Amman, Jordan
Arrival Date: June 29, 2009
Departure Date: June 30, 2009

Next Locations: Petra, Jordan
Arrival Date: June 30, 2009
Departure Date: July 2, 2009

Our goal was to avoid the incredibly expensive ferry directly from Nuweiba, Egypt to Aqaba, Jordan by crossing into Jordan by land via Israel. We were going to head north through Jordan and cross back into Israel via the Allenby/King Hussein crossing through the West Bank. Upon arriving at the Israeli border of Jordan however, we were informed that there is an incredibly high departure tax when leaving Israel. So, we quickly changed plans and got a bus out of Eilat the next day to Jerusalem where we enjoyed the hospitality of one of Jon's old friends, Dan, from their days in The Sierra Club.

It's hard to write about Israel and Palestine without getting into politics and religion. It is easy to want to pick sides in the matter. On one hand you have an elite class of wealthy occupiers severely oppressing the less prosperous former land tenants, on the other, you have a nation of individuals whose land has, since the beginning of time, been disputed. As our cab driver in Bethlehem put it, "All I wonder is, after the Israelis, who's next?"

It is impossible to deny that the Israelis have done amazing things with their little strip of the Mediterranean desert, turning it into a no-holds-barred first world resort destination. There is air conditioning, well-serviced public bathrooms and superior infrastructure. For this, you pay about five times as much for everything and have to put up with the Israelis. I am not convinced that it is worth it.

Despite being multitudes richer per capita than their neighbors to the South and East, the Israelis won't hesitate to add a little extra to your bill, whether it be for going three minutes over time at the internet cafe to adding "too much" salad at a salad bar. Transgressions that wouldn't even garner a baksheesh request in one of Israel's poorer Arab neighbors. Racism, as in most countries, is alive and well here, which isn't so much surprising as it is ironic.

On a suspicion that I would like it more, we planned two mini-trips to the WestBank. We spent the first day touring Bethlehem and reminiscing over all of the sitesthat made for the basis of much of my Christian education growing up. We saw the places where Jesus was born, cradled, crucified and buried. And I did like it. The people who we met, from a group of little girls to a convoy of soldiers, were all marvelously friendly, warm and welcoming.

The second trip, on our way from Jerusalem to the Israeli-Palestinian border with Jordan was to Jericho where we spent the evening floating on the Dead Sea and coating ourselves in the mineral rich and addictively squishy Dead Sea mud. We spent the night in the city and woke up the next morning to see Hashim's Palace, a gorgeous ruin where we were the only visitors. In fact, we didn't run into a single other tourist in Jericho. Despite it's vast share of Holy Land sites and historical religious significance, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has near annihilated tourism in the West Bank. The only trouble we ran into was when we befriended a local youth living next door to us in our budget hotel. He turned out to be crazy, and spent the better part of the late night banging on our hotel room door and picking at the lock pleading for us to hide him from the Israeli Police.

The border crossing the next day was a disaster. After spending two hours and our last 100 shekels to get to the Jordanian border, we were told, for the first time, that we were at the only border crossing with Israel that could not issue a foreign visa. Two more hours of waiting confirmed that we would have to go back to Israel and re-enter from the northernmost crossing, 60 kilometers away.

Getting back into Israel was a whole new nightmare which required passing through an infinite number of checkpoints all bottle-necked with Palestinians impatient to get home. Another two hours got us through this mess and to a pull-off where we waited patiently for a bus that would take us north an hour later. We hitched the final few kilometers from the bus drop off to the required border crossing and eight hours from our departure from Jericho, we arrived in time to watch the sun set on the beautiful northern Israeli countryside and passed effortlessly through the deserted checkpoint.

And that is how we arrived in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Love,

Melissa