a story and an afterthought

approximately two weeks ago myself and L.U.K.E (which stands for Logarithmic Ululating Knight-Errant, but we call luke for short) were wandering through some magical woods in search of an old war bunker on joseph whidbey island when we found a wooden and moss-covered crate filled with old 16mm films in their cannisters. we were intrigued by the find and wondered aloud if we knew anyone with an old projector. we concluded that we should take a few of the films just because they look cool and we could use the cannisters as some sort of nifty container for something - perhaps tobacco or night crawlers, or gun powder. we ventured further in search of the war bunker perched atop some magnificent cliffs with a stunning view of the ocean and coast line. sadly, after maneuvering through briers and weeds and a couple of back yards we found the large hole where the bunker used to sit. apparently enemies finally attacked over sixty years after the actual war and destroyed the bunker. thankfully the bunker had not been in use since august of 1945.

so we circled back around to grab some film cannisters when my flashlight’s beam caught glimpse of a mysterious box. "wait what is this" it said..."let’s take a closer look." so we did and it turned out to be an EIKI RT-0 16mm projector. L.U.K.E and i were quite pleased. we snatched up the projector and films and headed to fort isaac ebey to meet up with JUSTEN (whose name signifies his being his mother’s tenth child...when she discovered her pregnancy she exclaimed "please god, jus ten - i can’t afford no more"). we took EIKI into the men’s room at the camp ground and cleaned it up as best we could. of course we wanted to know if EIKI worked - we would have asked him, but he is japanese. EIKI did and does in fact work...he just needed and new bulb. so i ordered two bulbs and we have been gloriously viewing old 16mm educational school films. oh it is wonderful. we also have "the bride of frankenstein" in spanish and a savage jacques custeau film. EIKI is pretty much our new best robot friend; he is quite likeable and quickly becomes the center of attention in any social setting. i posted some pictures of EIKI on here, so you can check ’em out. with all this old film watching, i wonder...

if my life were a 16mm movie currently being projected through the window of my apartment and onto the building next door, would i invite some friends over to sit out on my miniature balcony, puff on a pipe, and all enjoy the film together? or would i find it hopelessly boring and find something better to do? sometimes i think it would be quite dull, lacking most of the available colors of life and living and instead would merely be shaded here and there. but the thing is, i have great desire for colorful life, full and overflowing with most of the combinations the primary colors can produce, i just frequently fail to act on these desires. instead, i often settle for the mundane. for the day to day work, home, eat, t.v., sleep, repeat. like a john prine cd with a scratch, repeating one of his terribly sad lyrics...such as "there’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes; jesus christ died for nothing i suppose."

i want life. i want beauty. i want adventure and purpose. i want to find myself in situations where i can say "bring me the horizon" and be filled with excitement as to what that may entail. i want love and community. and i want the commitment and energy to be a creator of these things. a builder of the kind of life that makes my wee little heart flutter. there is good news: God is love and love is real (so says a beautiful mewithoutyou lyric - and i believe it). this gives me hope. hope that on that magical day when i load a reel onto our EIKI to play for a small to medium-sized group of friends and my life is what is somehow being projected, that love and life and purpose will ooze down the wall. and we will laugh and sing and dance and celebrate. we will collectively go create some beauty of our own, perhaps. there is beauty in life.

P.S. 1. if you have or know anyone who has old 16mm films that they don’t need, then let me know, because i would love to give them a home.
2. i embellished a little on the story of how we found the projector...all the major parts are real, but luke’s name is not actually an acronym, nor is justin’s.
3. the projector’s name, EIKI, literally means "projector" in japanese. so i guess we have a projector named projector. but EIKI sounds cooler, so we’ll stick with that for now.

"yes, of course it is a great idea to leave the hiking trail and climb up to that mountain peak way up there to get a beautiful view of the bay and of the rest of monkey island." i thought, confidently. so myself, three australians, and a canadian began the ascent. the view was like liquid pretty eyedrops, inspiring a sense of WOW. "oh look there are some cute monkeys, wow they are so close. let's take some pictures." snap, snap, giggle, giggle..."what a good time we are having." (due to being chased by monkeys in india, jody thinks in his head that we should head down the mountain because monkeys can be bad news, but says nothing out loud to his friends). "oh crap, the monkeys have descended upon the backpacks of two of the australians (they left the bags about twenty feet down from where we were.) hey, monkeys, get away from those bags!" but the monkeys in vietnam do not speak english, apparently. they looked at us and snarled, so we decided to go ahead and let the devil-monkey continue to go through the backpack. the australian girl just looks on in two parts horror and one part humor. "there go my underwear, oh and he has my camera now...that's gone. and there is my pouch with all my money in it, please don't take it and run." she is apparently trying to communicate with devilmonkey telepathically, but the monkeys in vietnam do not speak telepathish either. the australian dude wonders aloud if it be a good idea to throw a rock over behind devilmonkey to try to distract it and cause it to run away. maybe we say. so he tries it - devilmonkey did not see him throw it, but when it hears the rock land, it immediately charges us with a look of satan on his face. all of us at the same time seem to whisper "shit, we're gonna die." to complicate things, there is a 2 to 300 foot drop directly behind us - seeing as we climbed to the very peak of this rock. we back up as much as possible while devilmonkey is about an inch from the three australians' feet, still with the satan look and making biting motions like he is going to have a toe sandwich for lunch. luckily, devilmonkey turns and heads back down to the bag to continue looking for the pack of oreos that he is after. a friend of ours is coming up to try to help us, but devilmonkey charges him, slaps him in the head and bites him on the arm (bringing a small amount of blood). he eventually finds and eats the oreos - which makes him thirsty and he bites open the girl's water bottle and drinks his fill.

we were trapped on the mountain peak for about 20 minutes until we were saved by the oreos - providing devilmonkey with a sugary snack and apparently appeasing his hunger for flesh. the monkeys left and we scurried down the mountain as quickly as possible, all of us shaking a little with fear. we meet our guide back on the hiking trail and he goes up to get the rest of the girl's stuff that was strewn about. i ask if he wants a stick or something, and he says no, he doesn't need one...the monkeys aren't dangerous. i guess he was fluent in the devil-monkey dialect, or something, because they surely seemed dangerous to us. afterwards, we were all very relieved and learned a valuable lesson...don't hike up to mountain peaks in places that have monkey in the title.

this all took place in the majestic ha long bay which is about 4 hours from hanoi and boasts a smackyouintheface 2,000 islands. they are all pretty small and rocky and mountainous and being on a boat sailing among them is quite lovely. we were on a three day, two night tour of ha long bay where we got to stay the night on a boat, go kayaking through a water cave, eat some good food, sing karaoke, visit cat ba island, jump from the top of the boat into the water and swim and visit the ominous monkey island which from now on will include the word "devil" at the beginning in my mind. we had a really nice time and had some really cool folks from australia, canada, ireland, and one girl from roanoke, virginia (about 1.5 hours from where i'm from) with us. it was beautiful and we got some savory photos while there.

it was nice to go back to hanoi, i haven't been there in about 3 years, and the girls had never been there. hanoi continues to grow and have more stores and restaurants and shops catering to tourists/travelers. and KFC continues to be the only western restaurant i saw there, but in the last 3 years the number of them throughout vietnam have at least doubled if not more. we got to meet up with a good friend of mine and courtney's that lives in hanoi - it was very nice to see her again after a year or so of her absence. she is enjoying hanoi very much and is currently learning language and making friends.

after 3 days in hanoi, we flew to saigon - in the south. saigon was quite warm with temperatures in the mid 80's...we wanted to go to a beach one of the days we were there, but never got around to it. we mostly just hung out in saigon and walked around and bought a few more gifts for people and i visited some of the temples in the cholon district (which is pronounced cho-lon by the vietnamese, but of course we call it colon...you really have no choice in a situation such as that. who can resist calling a place colon? nobody.) the girls got their nails done in preparation to come back to the states. a couple of the girls got some more spa/girl stuff done to them - things that i don't know or understand, but things that girls enjoy for whatever reason. and then our time drew to a close. we went out to have a couple of drinks at a bar for our last night together on the trip and then i came back to bed to get 3 hours of sleep before the taxi would come steal us from our world tour and deposit us at the airport. the girls elected to stay up all night to try to get their sleep schedules lined up with what it would be like in the states, i hope it worked for them.

now we are in maryland visiting courtney's aunt, there is snow on the ground and there is freezing in the air - it's only in the 30's here and much colder at night. so we spent the summer in seattle (about three months), then had 3 more months of summer for our trip, and now we are on the east coast in the freezing cold. it is kind of wierd. we will head down to virginia tomorrow to visit with my family. courtney will head back to whidbey island on the 15th and i will fly back on the 23rd to spend christmas with her family and new years back in seattle. look forward to seeing as many of you as possible as soon as possible. love you all, and thanks for journeying with us around the world. perhaps you can join us next time? we would like that very much!

peace of christ be with you all,
jody
and the rapturous returning renegade raptors

and as an update since i forgot to post this blog on here, we are now back in seattle after a lovely holiday with family. we are looking for jobs and are in the process of unpacking everything back into our apartment. hope you are all well.

the thai person says: sawasdii krup (and that means hello)

thailand, wonderful thailand. the name means land of the free - thailand has never been occupied by another country and is apparently (and rightly so) happy about this fact. (in actuality the name thai refers to a people group that lived in the area formerly known as Siam, but the word thai if pronounced differently means "free" so people are happy to claim it). bangkok, the capital of thailand, has the worlds longest place name at 163 letters...its full name is: Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilok- phopnopparatrajatha niburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphi- marnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit. which means: "The great city of angels, the supreme unconqueralble land of the great immortal divinity, the royal capital of nine noble gems, the pleasant city, with plenty of grand royal palaces, and divine paradises for the reincarnated deity, given by Indra and created by the god of crafting."

we stayed just outside of bangkok proper at the same place that i stayed with teams every year that i have been to thailand before, across the street from ramkamhaeng song - one of the campuses of the world's largest universities with over 500,000 students enrolled. we were also staying near my friends ben and kayte musselman (and their new bundle of chub called darci). it had been almost 2 years since we had seen them, so it was very nice to spend some time reuniting and having one continuous 10-day-long party with small hiatuses where we would sleep and regroup and prepare for the next day. day one saw us making our way downtown to look around and hang out. we had dinner at the biyoke sky hotel which is bangkok's tallest building at 85 stories, we also got to go out on the rotating observation deck to get a 360 degree look at bankok's skyline at night. after this we went down to kho san road to get a hotel for the night so we could get up the next morning to brave the waters of the pirhana-infested JJ market, which is so big that it is quite possible for one to get lost for weeks in its interiors. day two was market meandering followed by dinner and a return back to our home neighborhood. day three was the day we embarked on a journey to kho chang island which is about 5 hours south of bangkok.

the island was beautiful, of course, as are all the islands in thailand. we stayed in a bungalo on the white sands beach where we could walk out our front door, down the steps and literally be in the ocean - we had to walk through water to get to the steps the led up to our bungalo...it was fabulous. we did beach/ocean stuff for the 2.68 days that we were there - we played frisbee, layed in the sun, swam, fought some sharks (and won), got thai massages, ate, and us of the dude gender competed at various coconut-throwing competitions or feats of strength as we called it. it was a blast. ben befriended a dog named ralphie who hung around us sporadically throughout our time on the island - and we were all sad to see ralphie chasing after the taxi when we were leaving, leaving, leaving him behind. back to bangkok for a good night's sleep and resting for the next day which was thanksgiving. kayte fixed a delicious thanksgiving meal and we all had a wonderful day together celebrating friendship and community and all that we were thankful for (we did not celebrate the pilgrims making friends with the native americans when they were hungry and needed food only to kill them in the following months and years). the theme of thanksgiving was "classy" so we all dressed up - me and ben complete with tuxedo shirts and steps shaved into the sides of our heads..it was beautiful and so classy - and afterwards we took prom pictures.

the next day we had to go get visas for vietnam - this was friday which was the last day the embassy was open before we left for hanoi. we dropped our passports off and then went to see some of Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopno- pparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathitsak- kattiyavisanukamprasit's famous temples which are beautiful. i had to hop on a tuk tuk to head back to the embassy to pick up our passports before 4:30, so i left at 3:45ish while the girls headed to one last temple. this was friday so there was much traffic, lots of it, everywhere we turned there was more. about half way through the trip i began to worry franticall that we were not going to make it to the embassy before its 4:30 closing time. i kept showing the tuk tuk driver my watch so he knew how long we had...he kept apologizing for all the traffic and reassuring me that he would go as fast as he could. 10 minutes left before closing...then 5 minutes...then 2 minutes...and then it was 4:30 and we still weren't at the embassy, i felt like i was gonna throw up...we would have to wait till monday to pick up our visa-laden passports which means we would miss our flight on sunday to hanoi and have to buy another ticket. we finally got to the embassy and i lept out of the tuk tuk, ran across traffic, bounded through the first door of the embassy and then pushed open the mirrored interior door, not knowing if the embassy was closed yet. word to your mother, it was still open. i walked up to the window, asked for the passports and then asked the clock what time it was, to which he replied "4:35 you lucky, procrastinating fool" - they say clocks don't lie and time proves things or something like that...boy ain't it the truth. so i got 'em and headed down to the tattoo parlor to meet the girls. everyone got tattoos. and by everyone i mean three of the five of us...but i won't tell you which three just yet.

saturday was a holiday in thailand where everyone thanks God for the rice harves by floating little lilly-pad-like bundles of flowers with a lit candle out into a lake. we went to ram song campus to mingle with thousands of thai folks taking part in the festivities. it was really beautiful and we all had a great time. we went back to the musselman't house afterwards to hang out one last time before we flew out the next day at 8am. courtney and i stayed until 3am or so and then caught a taxi back to where we were staying. of course, being the procrastinators that we are, we still had to pack everything up. we did so, set our alarm and then layed down to sleep at 4:05am. the alarm yelled at us "wake up, it is 5am and you have to go catch a taxi to the airport, besides, you have already slept a whole 50 minutes." so we woke up and caught a taxi to the airport and flew to hanoi. we are now in hanoi and it is wonderful. although it was really sad to leave thailand...we weren't there nearly long enough, and it is always really sad to leave good friends. the girls all got to know my friends ben and kayte and their little baby, and there were two other people from jersey staying with ben and kayte that we all got to know and love and subsequently miss now that we have left - diane and lou. so good morning vietnam, thank you for having us for the next 10 days before we fly back to the usa. i guess there will be one last update after our time in vietnam, and then we will be home in the flesh to tell you all about our trip in person, complete with photographs (thousands of them) to go along with our multimedia descriptions of our trip! love you all and look forward to seeing you soon (some of you sooner than others, but all hopefully relatively soon).

peace of christ be with you,
lovejody
and the pagoda princesses of pork (and in the case of rose and courtney - tofu-based fake pork)

fare thee well india, we will miss you dearly

seeing as benares was our favorite city in india, it was sad to trudge down to the main road from the ganga to catch a rickshaw to the train station and board the vehicle that would carry us out, out, out through the night to arrive not much after the pink sunrise in the pink city of jaipur. so called the pink city due to the pinkness of the buildings in the old city...in the early 19th century (i think) the prince of whales was visiting the city of jaipur and in preparation, jaipur's leaders had the city painted completely pink. and now building owners are required to maintain the pinkness of every facade in the old quarter.

the pinkness of the city was stunning, i think that every major urban center in the world should have its own color...san francisco already has the GG bridge that is red, so maybe the rest of the city could be red. seattle is called the emerald city, so maybe it could be green. all colors of the spectrum could be utilized to bring a little more color to the world. we arrived in jaipur during diwali (india and nepal's festival of lights) so almost everything in jaipur was closed in observance of teh holiday. diwali signifies the victory of light over darkness in each individual and is one of india and nepal's most dinosaur-like holidays (and by dinosaur-like, i mean major). the first night we hired a rickshaw to take us around to see everyone out and about in their new clothes walking around looking at the light decorations everywhere, setting off fireworks and having a good time of celebration. all this activity along with the city's pinkness was quite nice.

the next day we went and saw some more of jaipur's beauty in the form of the hawa majal, which was a big pink structure with lattice over the windows so wealthy veiled women could look down on the street without being seen. then we saw the water fort which is a fort out in the middle of a lake...only accessible by boat, but we just viewed it from land. and lastly we saw the amazing amber fort with beautiful decorative architecture and design; we probably spent 3-4 hours looking around and taking pictures there (can't wait to show you). on the way up to the amber fort i was carrying some samosa's that i had purchased for a little snack when a lanky black monkey with white fur and a four foot long prehensile tail made it clear that he wanted some of my snack as well. i tried to communicate to him politely that i did not want to give him any samosa but he would have none of it...i continued to try to walk away from her, but she continued to follow at my heals - staring intently at the samosas i was carrying. finally an indian man came to my rescue and gently drove the monkey away, i was very grateful...luckily for about fifty onlookers, this whole ordeal took place in a large courtyard area, so they all got a good laugh at the whole thing.

after two and a half days in jaipur we boarded a 6am train for agra so we could go see mrs. majal. that is why people go to agra...there are a couple of other "attractions" which i feel bad for, because it must be hard living in the same city as mrs. majal. she is a jealous woman and commands international attention with her stunning beauty. stunning. just like all the pictures you've seen of the taj, but way better. we stayed on the compound of the taj for a few hours and took about jillion pictures, and our camera smiled at each one (as did mrs. majal...she is maybe the most photogenic thing my camera has ever seen). it was funny to see that the entrance fee for indians to the taj majal was 20 rupees which is about fifty cents u.s. while the entrance fee for foreigners was 750 rupees which is almost 20 usd. as a conselation, though, we did get a free twenty ounce bottle of water with our ticket.

then we were back in delhi to do some last minute shopping for souvenirs and such. luck or fate would have it that we were spotted by lijo, our friend and fiancee of sarah, so we were able to spend a few hours with them and sarah's mom, sister, and a friend of theirs. so great to see them once more. we said our goodbye's and then the next day trudged out to the taxi that carried us to the airport so we could board the vehicle that would take us from india. what a marvelous place and how she will be missed...and how we must certainly return again! we are now in thailand which is so great...i like it here so much. we will be here til sunday and then we are off to vietnam!

hope you are all well and i will write again sooner than last time to let you all know about our time in thailand. oh the joys that await you!

lovejody,
and the juggernauts

juggernaut- any literal or metaphorical force regarded as unstoppable that will crush all in its path.

the latest in hair fashion...the kathman do!

i can't help but think that there should be a new hairstyle that becomes a worldwide craze called the kathman do. perhaps in the front it could be mountainous like the himilayas and it's foothills that surround the katmandu valley...the ones we had to spend ten miserable hours traversing in a cramped bus. the ones with roads that are so full of bumps and potholes that in a reversal of roles, pavement has become the minority and the leprous lack of pavement has run rampant. (these roads are what made the bus-ride so unsavory and painful...just when we would be dozing off to sleep - boom - we are wakened by a huge thud and startled as we have been thrown into the little nepali man beside us...having to apologize for just head-butting him.) i do believe i physically heard the weeping of shock-absorbers throughout our time in nepal...they are beaten and abused regularly and cry out in resistance to their torturous journeys.

perhaps the rear of the kathman do could be a rushing of waves of hair down the back of the head, slamming into the shoulders creating the wonderful rapids that are perfect for rafting. much like the rivers rushing down from the snow-capped himilayas that provides nepal with hydroelectric power...even though electricity is kind of hit and miss in nepal with frequent black-outs and a large market for candles. like the white water about three hours outside of kathmandu that we rafted down on monday...all five of us plus a guide plus a river guide. it was quite fun, even though the gnarliest rapid still wasn't that gnarly. we rafted for about an hour and a half, got good and soaked, stopped and had lunch on the river bank, and then rafted for about an hour and a half more and then headed home (yes it was on the same bumpy roads, but this time we were in a van rather than a bus, so we could maneuver around most of the bumps with ease and agility).

the sides of the kathman do could be kind of messy and crowded with peaks here and there in the shapes of pagoda-temples...just like the city of kathmandu itself. it was really crowded with bad traffic everywhere you try to go. the sad thing with that is there seems to be no emission regulation, so along with the weeping of shock absorbers we could hear the desperate screams coming from the ozone directly above kmd..."i'm dying, someone help me please! i can't breathe, i am most certainly being choked by the emphyzema-ridden vehicles with their black, cancerous breath. i can't make it much longer." anytime we went anywhere by road, we had to cover our mouths and nose with our scarves in order to breathe (we got the idea from the nepali people who do the same when anywhere near the roads). there were tons of people everywhere and the city is full of shops, street vendors, and temples - mostly in the pagoda style. these pagodas were beautiful with an ancient mystique that made them quite appealing to stare at for good amounts of time.

while we were in kathmandu we were reading in the newspapers about the government meetings going on daily trying to come to an agreement on the ruling of the country. sadly, according to several of the people we talked with, the government in nepal isn't really interested in helping the people of nepal, but is only interested in procuring power and wealth for itself. there were many recognizable problems in the country that could be remedied if the government would just take the time and money to fix them. and much like the people of the nepali government and all other humans on earth - i, too am often selfish and self-serving at the expense of others. i often look out for myself and fail to serve others or look out for their well-being. jehovah, help us in our times of greed and selfishness, help us to be generous and concerned with the welfare of others.

we are now back in india...we opted to fly instead of facing the miserable, neck damaging, bus ride of death and doom and all things bad. our necks thanked us when we arrived safely back in varanasi, my neck just thanked me again even as i write this. we leave varanasi tonight by sleeper train to go to jaipur (the pink city) for a few days, then back to delhi (after a quick visit to mr. mahal, first name taj) and then we fly over to bangkok, thairannasaurusrexland, to boogey down with the musselmans and the thai people. can't wait. i love you very much, tonight before you sleep, try to think of me so i can visit you in your dreams. maybe i'll be a jodysaur, or a beavercorn or something even more magical. write me and let me know how it works out.peace be with and in you,

lovejodyand the badgerettes

namaste from kathmandu

oh indiana, you are such an un-noteworthy sate, yet if you merely remove your last two letters you become a marvelous and enchanting land full of wonders and beauty half way around the world. mother india, thank you for gracing us with permission to enter your home and rome about. even though we are now in nepal for a week.
we arrived in delhi a while ago (time kind of bends together into one un-differentiating blob, so i cannot tell you exactly how long ago it was) and spent three delhicious days in the main bazaar which is a large market full of shops that carry the brightest, most beautiful goods you can picture. it was a little bit of a trial to get a taxi from the airport to a hotel - the taximan wasn't completely forthcoming in the information he offered us, and eventually dropped us off 30 min or so from the place we wanted to be. we just got a room for that night and went to the main bazaar the next day and got a room...for 2 bucks a night per person. the hotel was filled with lovely nepali men that were so nice and helpful with all our needs.

after three days we hopped a train for varanasi which was long (about 15 hours) but it was a sleeper so we all had beds. varanasi! i believe should undergo a spelling change so as to include an exclaimation point at the end of the city's name, you know, to give people a better idea of the magnificence of this city. located along the ganges river, which is literally worshiped, varanasi! is great place full of people that make you want to halt any plans to leave the area. we stayed in an area that was full of silk shops, clothes-makers, temples, monkeys, chai shops, stray cows, the ganges, goats, and more. we saw an area where people are cremated at the bank of the ganges and then have their ashes scattered into its innards - this is in order to secure direct passage to nirvana. those who cannot afford to be cremated, and those who ritually cannot be burned (holy men, children, pregnant women, the leprous, and those who died from a cobra bite) are blessed and tied to a stone and buried in the stomach of mama ganga. we saw many funeral pyres, and the huge house that the owner of the cremation area lives in, seeing as he makes tons of money because of the high price of cremating a loved one in his area. we took a boat ride at dawn which will be a memory frequently retrieved and reveled in. cavan, rose, and kathryn met an indian woman who took them into her home and served them meals and taught them about india (and india's vibrant culture) and adopted them into her family for three days or so - it was so cool for them! they had a blast.

courtney and i were able to meet up with our friend sarah (who worked with us in san francisco) who lives in varanasi, and meet her fiance who was a wonderful man named lijo. sarah is marvelous and was so hospitable while we were there, it is sad that we may not see her again for a while, but it is happy that we know she will be a friend forever and we will get to see her again. she will be getting married later this month.
after banaras (alternate name of varanasi (varanasi is the brittish name)) we took a 10 hour bus ride across bumpy terrain through the north indian countryside to the nepal border and then another 10 hour bus ride to kathmandu. that bus trip may have been the most uncomfortable thing i have ever done in my entire life, but it was worth it to see this magnificent city. i can't wait to show you picture, they will be on here when we get back to the states. i won't write much about kathmandu yet, because we've only been here 3 days. i will write more in a week or two.

love and miss you all, and we hope you are well and loving life. we are...

lovejody
and the beardless brood of bearded bohemians

peace from egypt

as salaam alaikum or "peace be unto you" is the way egyptians and most all arabic speakers worldwide greet one another and i think it is beautiful. as you notice i almost always end emails and letters with "peace be with you", which is also the way arabic speakers say goodbye to one another. a convesation is began by wishing peace unto each other and when the conversation ends, you again wish peace unto the person - so beautiful and important to keep in mind. i often get so concerned with the unimportant things and forget to try to be at peace in all things. if we can all aim to be full of peace then maybe the result could be whirrled peas. mmmm....whirrled peas.

egypt was marvelous, and was definitely my favorite part of the trip so far. a friend of mine who lives in amstedam has a friend who has lived in cairo for 6 years or so, and we were very blessed to be able to be in contact with her. she helped us in so many ways...we had a taxi waiting for us at the airport, a hotel arranged for us and a tour guide at our service! it was perfect.

ahmed (our tour guide/friend/most pleasant, friendly, helpful guy ever) greeted us at the airport and took us straight to the hotel in downtown cairo. we arrived at around 4:45 or so which is significant because we arived during the holy month of ramadan. during ramadan, all practicing muslims fast from dawn to dusk - which means no food or water from 5am to 5pm...then form 5pm til 7pm there is a huge feast of celebration in homes, in the streets, in restaurants, in cars. then at 7pm everyone hits the streets and walk around and window shop and hang out on the streets...dining together and smoking shisha at the coffee shops. we definitely visited a few coffee shops and had some shay (tea) and smoked some shisha (tobacco out of a water pipe). there was such an excitement and energy in the air the whole time we were there. then a week after we arrived, ramadan ended and there followed a three day holiday celebration which was like the daily celebrations but tenfold. stores closed, families got together to feast and celebrate each other, people went on holiday to other parts of egypt, etc. it was so special to be in egypt during ramadan and during the celebration afterwards.

the egyptian people were very nice and kind and friendly and helpful, they were great and many of them befriended us right away. our tour guide ahmed treated us like family right away from the airport and every time we saw him afterwards. on the last night we took him, kerie (our egyptian contact) and our friend natalie (who also lives in cairo and is fiends with kerrie) out for dinner and to a coffee shop afterwards. during coffee, ahmed shared with me his desire for people to know that egyptians are good people and the problem in their country right now is that the president who has been in power for 25 years or so, and the government isn't distributing wealth very well at all. there has been huge inflation, but income has remained the same. basically the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, and there is an ever-widening gap in between. it is becoming harder for people to make a living, which then robs them of hope a lot of times. please pray for egypt and the people living there and especially the president and government, that change could happen and people could live well.

we saw the pyramids in giza - they were pyramidish. i guess it was cool to see such ancient structures that are so omnipresent in history books. they were pretty awesome when you consider what it would have taken to build them....you know with each block weighing somewhere around more than a ton and they didn't have cranes or any wussy crap like that. the highlight, though, as far as things we saw, was camping in the desert! it was phenomenal. we will show you pictures when we get back. it was something like being in god's lungs. close your eyes and think about it. sand dunes, barren land, complete silence except for the wind, no traffic, no other people, no houses...just you, you friends, the tour guides, your campsite, and the stars. it was fabulous...and the sunset was magnificent. so great!

anyway, i'll close now even though i would love to write more. we are in delhi, india right now. we made it safely and have a hotel in the middle of the main bazaar - it's really cool. we'll update soon. write back, it is nice to have correspondence while we travel. love you all, and once again:

peace be with you,
lovejody
(and the nomadic caravan of cavewomen)

yassu from the greek island of aegina

hello again,

i am sitting now at our hotel on a greek island that is about an hour from athens by boat, if i look out the window to my left, there is a beautiful panorama of this island's rocky coast and a sea filled with sail boats and fishing boats, it is stunning.

i last wrote you from paris which was wonderful. courtney and i trained down to avignon in southern france for a little time to ourselves. we began the journey by going to the wrong train station in paris, thus missing our scheduled train and were told all the other trains were full for the day. that was at 11am, lucky for us a train opened up at 4pm, so we waited in the station for a while and then headed to the southern city of marseilles, which was not avignon. so at 9pm we had to wait for another train to avignon (about 45 min from marseilles). we finally arrived at our hotel and relaxed. avignon was a nice little city with a palace thing where the popes used to live until they moved to italy (or wherever they moved to after avignon). the downtown area was protected by a castle-looking wall and there was a river on the other side of downtown. we had a great time all except for courtney coming down with the flu or something similar. we then met up with rest of our troup in barcelona.

i have been to spain before, but not to barcelona. the hostel we stayed at was about an hour from the train station we first arrived at, but we eventually found it. barcelona is full of rad architecture from a guy named antonio gaudi (you can see some of his work here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudi). it was all really pretty. there was also a big festival going on in barcelona while we were there, so we walked around the center area of the city to many different booths and such. sadly, some of us were pretty sick in barcelona so we did a lot of resting and early sleeping. it was a really cool city, though, and the people were very nice. we were then off to the airport to fly to italy. due to the metro schedule, we had to go to the airport the night before we flew and spend the night in the airport to fly out the next morning at 6am.

we arrived safely in rome and boarded a train bound for napoli. two days were spent in napoli where we explored the city of pompeii (you know, the city that was destroyed by the volcano - mr. vesuvius) it was expensive to enter the city, so we just walked around the outside of it for a little while. then we trained into downtown napoli to try to find some castles. there were two we were aiming for, we got totally lost but eventually found one of the glorious castles after dark (with much help from the very friendly napolians which may or may not be what people from napoli are actually called). we walked around some more and then headed back to the hostel to check on the sick and resting courtney who had pretty much slept all day. she was still sick and sleeping when we arrived at 10ish. pizza in napoli was 3 euro for a medium/large sized pizza, it was grand. we got some meds for courtney and headed to roma the next day.

rome was rome. i have been there twice before...courtney once, and the other girls never. we saw the sights which were the same and ate some really good food! the pizza in rome is marvelous. it was kind of fun to stay in a hostel that i had stayed in 5 years ago and eat at some of the same places. we also had lots of gelatto - molto bene (very good).

we flew to athens and made our way to the hostel we were to spend two nights in. greek food is good, lots of meat, but we were able to find some veggie dishes to suit us. 40% of greece's population lives in athens...it is large and in charge. we saw the acropolis and the agora. the view from the acropolis was wonderful...not only were you standing on ancient ruins that are so known, but we could see for miles in every direction. lots of photos were captured and are now being held hostage digitally on our digital machine guncameras. they are all safe luckily...you will see them alive and well when we return to home base.

and now we are relaxing on a beautiful island that is so nice and full of great people. the staff here at the hotel are all family, and we totally feel like we are there family guests...they are great. we went snorkeling this morning which was rad. no exotic coral and stuff, but it was still beautiful. i did not venture far because i am scared of the ocean. i was sure that at any moment jaws him or herself was going to come and rip me to pieces. i am safe for now, but we are going again after while. the water is blue from afar and clear up close. we are staying near a little beach town with restaurants right on the beach and stunning views hither and thither.

tomorrow we fly to cairo! wow. we are in egypt for 10 days and then off to india for a whole month of craziness. we will update again soon. love you all, and you should certainly drop everything and come join us for a portion of our trip.

peace be with you,
lovejody
(and the traveling circus monkeys)

update of our trip around the world

hello everyone,
i hope you are well and loving life.   i write to you
now from an amazing flat in paris that the sister in
law of one of the girls traveling with us has let us
stay in for free and have the whole thing to
ourselves!  paris is wonderful. 

the trip thus far has been amazing as we have been
spoiled everwhere we have been.  we got to stay for
almost free in amsterdam with our really good friends
melissa and moses.  they were wonderful hosts and were
so hospitable.  they showed us around the city, shared
meals with us in their apartment, and were generally
wonderful and loving.  amsterdam was very nice...lots
of people from many different countries, canals
winding through the city (which we got to travel
through on a friend's boat), good food and dance music
resonating in every nook and cranny throughout the
city.  we learned that the electronic music there is
some of the best in the world.  mel and moses were
perfect and really got our trip off to a great start.

next was a trip down to southern germany to stay with
a friend of mine from dts in san fran...samy's family
opened up there home to us and treated us like family,
complete with home-cooked german meals and delightful
conversation.  samy and his brother took us around
their village, the nearest city, and to a couple of
old towns complete with castles and other rad
architecture.  we tried vegan german sausage, good
german beer, and some german brandy.  samy then came
with us to paris which has been a blast. 

paris is so nice, the french language and architecture
so beautiful, the french people so pleasant and
helpful.  notre dame was great, the louvre was
magnificent, and the eiffel tower stunning.  courtney
and i leave tomorrow for avignon which is in southern
france on the way to barcelona.  it should be really
nice.

we love and miss you all, and we'll update again
before too long. 

peace of christ be with you all!
lovejody