While on my #ChasingSummer roadtrip through the South I got a chance to talk with my German friends about various Germany VS. USA differences. Our ideas of “Freedom” is one concept I found interesting.
Freedom to me (Team USA) is having my own car. With my own card I am totally independent; I can go where I want when I want. Continue reading
httpv://youtu.be/WxfZkMm3wcg
When I was in NZ in 2010 I some crazy adventures sports like bungee jumping and canyon swinging. Here’s a gif of my canyon swing. It’s actually fairly terrifying to jump/fall backwards into thin air.
Made in Gimp.
2011 was a crazy year.
I graduated from college and had many crazy adventures in the US with international friends!
In 2011 I visited 23 states
In my entire life I have been to 32 out 50 states in the US
Most importantly, I took DS106 in my final school semester. DS106 has changed my life. I say this not because all of the internet skills I learned through this class, but because of my 365 photo a day project I started. I’ve been working on this project since Jan 31,2011 and only have a month left to go.
Out of all my resolutions for 2011, taking a photo everyday has been the only one I have kept. The key here was determination and so far I’ve done an amazing job of sticking with it.
Now it’s 2012. What’s the plan for the new year you might ask? I have a lot of things up in the air right now, but two things are certain:
1) I want to travel as many new places/countries as possible this year
2) I am starting a new year long project based on the book “365: A Daily Creativity journal” by Noah Scalin.** Every day for a year I will be creating something new based on the daily prompts from the book. I’ve already kickstarted the year with by making this:
Two of my friends are supposed to be doing this project alongside with me as well (Katherine and Marieke) so I am excited that I am not going into this year long project alone.
As for other “resolutions” I ideally want to try blogging at least once a week. Once DS106 was over I’ve definitely slacked on the blogging and I’ve come to realize that I miss it. Also, I think I might want to keep up with a photo a day for a year. Now of course I am going to be taking a photo everyday of my 366 (because of leap year) creativity journal project, but it would be nice to continue taking photos of things outside of this.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2012, but I do know it’s going to be an creatively interesting year!
**SIDE NOTE: Noah Scalin’s 365 day project involved creating a skull a day. He did an amazing job on this project and if the things that I can create this year are a quarter as good as his, then I will be happy!
This is one of my favorites from his project :
Normally death is an abstract concept to a young person such as myself. Thinking about burial plots, funeral costs and things of this nature is something that I would never even consider.
However, while on my #ChasingSummer roadtrip through the South I got a chance to talk with my two German friends about the various Germany VS. USA differences. One difference I found fascinating was about German grave sites.
Now the reason this subject came up in conversation was because of our stop in Charleston, SC. I was informed by my Aunt that my Great-Great-Great Grandpa was a prominent member of the community back in the day and even had a wharf named after him (Adger’s Wharf). My mom had asked me to go to his gravesite and take photos since she is interested in geneaology. So off I went to the cemetery dragging my two German friends along.
A relative from long ago
Here’s where it gets interesting. When we got to the site, my friends were astonished that although he had passed away in the late 1800’s his grave was still present. They asked me who was paying the rent on the space.
Hold on: Renting a grave site? What?!
They explained that Christian graves in Germany are rented out to the family for a period of say, 20 years. After that, the family has to pay more money for the space otherwise their stone will be removed and someone else is put in the spot. After many years (let’s say 60 +) the members of the family (if there are any left) might stop paying, thus allowing a new person from a different family to be placed in their stead.
Now I can understand this because the country of Germany is many years older and is a lot smaller than the US. But seeing as how people here generally stay in the place they are originally buried, this seems a little odd to me. I told my friends that you can find graves here dating back to the 1600’s and that keeping the graves makes it a lot easier to trace family history.
We can trace our family back to settlers on the Mayflower
However, I can definitely understand why families might stop paying for the gravesite of the deceased after a certain time. For instance, take my Great-Great-Great Grandpa’s grave. If we followed the German system and it came time for renewing his rental “lease” I probably wouldn’t do it. I know nothing about him, I don’t live in South Carolina and besides he’s been dead for over a century. Now if it came time for the rental “lease” on my Grandpa’s grave to be renewed, I would definitely do it since I grew up with him and it’s nice to “visit” him once in a while.
According to article I read renting a burial plot in Germany ranges from $900 to $5,000 (EU) for 20 years. Comparatively, in the US burial plots can be bought anywhere from a range of $1,000 USD upwards to $10,000 USD as shown by this website. It’s all about location, location, location!
I find all of this sort of funny because this is something I would probably never have known about if it hadn’t been for being at this place, at this time with some Germans.
It’s definitely something interesting to think about, especially if I ever set a story in Germany!
For more information about Germany’s burial practices check out this informative article.
For the past two months I’ve been off adventuring with one of the best travel buddies ever, my friend Marieke.
This is how I met her:
Feb 2010- I had just arrived to Townsville, Australia to study abroad for the semester and was worrying about where I was going to live. I couldn’t find on-campus housing and was instead placed in a hostel near the Uni until I could find my own place. I had never been to Australia before, never lived off campus before either, and in general was feeling kind of anxious about meeting people and finding my way around a foreign country.
Lo and behold, my hostel roommate turns out to be a German girl named Marieke who was also studying abroad at James Cook University just like me. She needed to find a place to live as well, and so we began our life in Australia by room hunting together. We ended up in a house near campus and from there we traveled a lot around Australia during our school vacations.
I don’t know if it was luck or fate that brought us together but whichever it was, it’s been awesome having a friend who likes to travel as much as I do and who I get along crazy-well with.
When Marieke decided that she wanted to come to America for her first time ever and travel, I was totally on board. Marieke started her trip in September in New York City with Sabine, her friend from Germany. From there, they came down to DC and spent some time touring the city with me. After about a week we hit the road heading south and chasing summer.
I have travelled to many amazing places and seen amazing things, but this really the first time I’ve gone on a massive road trip with friends. Over the course of 39 days, Marieke and I travelled to 11 different states and drove over 6,058 miles (9,749 km)!
Sabine was in the USA for exactly a month and together we all travelled for three weeks on the road, hitting up five states. Marieke and I were sad to see her go back to Germany from Miami since she also was an amazing travel buddy! Still, the fact that she was able to get a month off from work was awesome! (Germany: better working conditions that America!).
First time at Ihop for Sabine!
I had never travelled through the South before, so let me tell you, it was an experience. There really are idiotic white people who wear/carry confederate flags… >.<
However, for the most part, we had a great time. Almost everywhere we went we met so many kind and generous people who helped us with our travels. It was great because we also got to meet people with such a wide variety of careers ranging from things like being a dolphin trainer, to an Engineer for the Marines, to a cruise ship bartender, and a writer for Apple, among others.
Besides meeting people, it was fun to explore new cities and try activities I’ve never done before, like Parasailing, along with trying new foods, like Alligator sausage.
Alligator Sausage in Gumbo
That tiny dot... that's Marieke and me 😉
It was also interesting hearing Marieke and Sabine talk about the subtle and very distinct differences between the US and Germany. Expect a forthcoming blog post on this!
After all these travels, it was hard to go back home to join real life and fall weather, especially since Marieke flew over to the West Coast to spend a few weeks in California before heading back to Germany. Now I will just have to start planning my next big vacation with Marieke & Sabine! We’re thinking Eastern Europe : )
If you want to see more pictures from our trip check out my flickr
Our #1 roadtrip song
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TilW9kN2E0c
Below I’ve included a list of my favorite/least favorite cities and also must-do activities if you are venturing in the South!
Favorite Cities:
Sobe
Quapaw Baths in Hot Springs
Least Favorite:
Must dos for people traveling in the South:
North/South Carolina
Pedro from South of the Border
Georgia
Savannah
Florida
at Wakulla State Park
Texas
Me & Marieke at the summit of Enchanted Rock
Arkansas
exhibit @ the Clinton Presidential library
Tennessee:
Great Smokey Mts. National Park in Oct
I was talking Colleen about all the adventures I was planning for this summer and she has decided to dub it “Tour of Wanderlust 2011.”
The “Wanderlust” part of the name is a joke from when we were trying to decide on the name for our literary magazine last fall. Someone suggested “Wanderlust” which we quickly rejected as a magazine name, but Wanderlust remained as an inside joke.
In regards to keeping up with the daily shoot while traveling, it was actually kind of difficult. I had lot less internet access than expected. Also, didn’t have that much free time as we were constantly hopping from place to place!
I’m definitely exhausted from all that traveling around and looking forward for a short break before I join my ozzie friend Rose in NYC.
However, despite the chaos of my travels, I managed to snap some pretty good daily shoot photos. Out of the photos I’ve managed to post so far (still have about 9 to go), the only photo I don’t like is the toothbrush one. That photo was really scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of “I just really needed to snap a photo, asap!”
I might be posting more photos up from my trip, but depends on how much time I have. After I catch up to all the rest of my daily shoot, I still have to post the final Rainbow Brite Shoot up from a month ago (wait, has it really been that long?)
Also hoping to catch up with my postcard project and hoping to blog some more about my trip.
So much to do, so little time!
Until my Australian friend Rose arrives in the States!
I was planning on doing a longer blog post about how we met (pretty crazy story), but it’s 3am and I want to catch some sort of sleep before I have to finish packing.
I have to leave for the airport at 6ish which is roughly around the time that Rose is arriving at LAX.
Besides the excitement of seeing a close friend I haven’t seen since last July, I am also excited to go back to the homeland! We are going to be staying in Santa Monica for a few days which means I get the chance to show Rose where I would go as kid when my family lived here.
However, here is our most important places to go while we are here.
#1 Stop:In-N-Out Burger: I’ve been dreaming about this place since I was in CA last July. I’ve bonded with many people over the amazingness of In and out!
#2 Disneyland: Been a while since I’ve been here, and of course, Rose has never been here. Hope it lives up to her expectations!! 😀
So for now I will leave you with a photo I took today while in Toy-R-Us which I think pretty much sums up Rose and Me. 😛
I would have totally bought these if they didn't cost $40 per doll D:
After eight semesters of hard work, plus a couple of summer classes here and there, I’ve graduated from the University of Mary Washington!
I’ve graduated with departmental honors and a BA in English: Creative Writing, summa cum laude.
Me & Meghan E --> Both of us received honors in English 😉
So now that I’ve graduated I’ve faced an exponential increase of family and/or random people asking me:
“So what are you going to do with your life now that you’ve graduated? Are you going into journalism? Are you going to teach?…”
Then they stare at me, unblinking, until I say something.
Like many of my fellow peers, I don’t really have a plan for my career yet (most of them fell through for various reasons), and thus, these questions get really old, really fast.
If I was smart I would say something random, like “I’m going to become a scuba diving instructor in Hawaii.” (I’m an actual Scuba diver but no-where near experienced enough to be an instructor! Although I would love to move to Hawaii for a few years!)
But really this is what I tell people I have planned for the next few months:
1) Figure out how to fit everything I brought back from my apartment into my room at home. My room here is the size of a cardboard box, no joke, so this is going to be tricky!
2) In 11 days I am flying to California to meet up with my Australian friend Rose who I met in New Zealand last year.
postcard I bought last year. love it!!
Then we are going to travel together around California, Arizona and Nevada for a little over two weeks. After that we are headed over to the East coast to do more traveling until she leaves in mid-July.
I am super excited because Rose is one of my closest friends and I haven’t seen her in almost a year. Also, while I’m from California, I’ve never been to Arizona or Nevada, so I am looking forward to traveling there.
Vegas, anyone?
I’m also looking forward to showing off the best of America to Rose because she has never been to the U.S. before.
So definitely be on the lookout for more blog posts about her and our trip in the upcoming future!
3) Once Rose leaves its all going to be about applying for jobs or internships or seeing if I have any money left over to do more traveling. I got the travelin’ bug and I want to see as much of the world as possible before I’m 25.
Goal in life: Visit all the countries in the world plus Antartica. This can happen I just need to invent/write something that I can make bank on!
I am so there!
Then try this lingo!
Petrol= instead of Gasoline because “Cars don’t run on Gas!”
AirCon= Air Conditioning
Bogen= for trashy, loud people aka rednecks
Singlet= Tank Top
Thongs= Flip Flops
Budgie Smuggler =Male Speedo
The Budgie Smuggler is way HOt
Rangers =Red Haired people- short for orangutan. Calling them this can be a joke or an insult
Spotto= When you see a red head and punch someone -like punch buggy
Ute= short for a sports utility vehicle
Hey and Eh= like the Canadians
Roo Bar= Bar on Car to prevent Kangaroos from busting through the window when they get run over
Bloke= Guys
Fair Enough=Okay, Good
True= similar to Fair Enough above
Heaps = A lot, really: i.e. my hair is heaps wet
Chips= French Fries
Derro =Short for Derelict – is those wannabe gangstas, the hobos
Gimp = Someone (Guy) with a limp
Rubbish Bin= Trash Can
Adidas= said like Add-e-das than A-did-das
Brekky=breakfast
Hungry Jack= Burger King (why they changed the name is a mystery)
H = pronounced like hach
Z = pronounce like zed. So its a Zeb-bra and not a Zee-bra.
Push bike or treadly = bicycle
Stingers= jelly fish
Mozzies= Mosquitoes
Good on you= great job!
Op shop= opportunity/secondhand shop
Full on= intense/ hardcore i.e. “This class is going to be FULL ON!”
Footy Show= Australian Football show/ comedy show.
Grey Nomads= Older people who come over to OZ and travel around the country.
Hen/ Buck Nights= Bachelorette/ Bachelor party
Fairy Bread= for little kids parties. White bread with butter on both sides and covered in Sprinkles.
Chemist = Pharmacy
Off their trolley= completely drunk
Sunnies= Sunglasses
“How you going?” more popular than G’day among the younger generations. Is their version of “What’s up/ How’s it going?”
Megan is pronounced like (Mee-gan not, Meg-gan) and they would never shorten that name to “Meg”
Shire Skank= A loose woman from the Shire, a Suburb of Sydney, well known throughout Australia.
And just in case you wanted to know some Kiwi lingo:
Say “Shape” if you want to talk about Sheep.
Sheep Shagger= someone who has sex with sheep.
Choice Bro= good idea.
Sweet As= Sweet as anything or sounds great!