Ri-ster

 Riga Easter.

 Look, I'm trying, okay? 😆

Last Sunday was Easter.  I had heard from an online acquaintance that a tradition in Lithuania is some kind of whipping each other with switches...thing.  I don't recall the details and it was hearsay anyway, but I was curious if Latvia, as a neighbor, had anything similar.

I put out a post on Facebook asking about it, to which I got a very broad mix of responses.  Some people saying they'd never heard of it, one person I think said it wasn't even a tradition in Lithuania, and some people saying oh, yeah, they do that here too, and in other countries as well.  So it's hard to be sure.  But I figured if nothing else, I should find out what was going on around the city.  And sure enough, there were two cultural events on Sunday that were easy to get to and free.

So off I went.  As usual, the album link.

Demonstrating their continued public transit superiority over most of America, my trip began on a lightrail tram or whatever you'd call this.  The route went by the river, and then over it, past the library that I still plan to visit eventually, and over to the Imanta Cultural Center for the first event.  Some kind of storytelling was going on in front of this swing, which was then opened for the public to line up and take turns.  The swing is a pretty substantial Easter tradition, and the story goes that if you swing during the spring, you won't get mosquito bites during the summer.

Hearing this and reflecting on the casual kind of superstition that undergirds many traditions, I'm struck by English's *lack* of a good word that sits between superstition, belief, and custom.  After all, we blow out birthday candles and "make a wish," but I don't think most people lose faith in blowing out candles if their wishes don't come true.  Nor do most people make a wish, blow out the candles, and then fight to keep believing in the power of candles to grant wishes.  It's a softer, almost self-aware joke of sorts, not one that's truly believed (like some people do with walking under ladders or breaking mirrors) but not one that's fallen out of our culture either.  I similarly doubt that anyone in Latvia truly believes that swings affect mosquitoes, but they'll still bring it up as the origin of the tradition and still make sure to swing each year.  

Whatever the case, swings weren't the only Easter tradition on display.  While I have no clue what any of the stories or characters were, due to them all reasonably being presented in Latvian, these two people had a whole impressive children's theatre performance complete with audience participation.  This busy table had people preparing eggs for boiling, and some traditional foods for sale (yes, that's almost a whole pig's face).  The sign was rather cute and graciously provided English translations.  I got pork on a stick and a potato pancake, which were quite tasty.  I can't speak to how traditional building birdhouses is, but the hammering was nearly constant throughout the time I was there.  

 After some time watching and looking around, I got back on the tram and headed to Victory Park, where in addition to showing off their top-tier playground game, a rather large event including more swings, a choir/band, and several interesting kinds of table games was in full swing.  The band also lead a traditional dance or three, and in the biggest culture shock I've felt since leaving last year, one of the stages of the dance was to run around tickling people.  I feel like that would never fly in the US outside of very small "everyone knows everyone" towns where all the kids are wise to how Old Man McGillicudy *really* doesn't like to be touched.

There was something really interesting to me about the music, both here and at the prior place.  The two presenters at the swing at Imanta had done some songs without accompaniment, but in addition to the a cappella songs the choir performed, they also had instruments (dulcimers or something like it, hand drums, violins, etc) for some songs.  But I was struck by how almost all of them were in minor keys, and many ranged only between the root and the fifth or so of the scale. 

EDIT: I've had a chance to show the clip to a far more musically inclined person than I.  Apparently what I was hearing wasn't a minor key at all.  It is what's called a mixolydian mode, which uses a lowered 7th.  So most of what follows is technically accurate, but specific to this, I'm just...wrong. haha.

 
For those without musical background, I'll try to explain a little bit.  Imagine a piano.  Typically the 'main' key of the piano is called Middle C.  This starts the C Major scale, the traditional "do re mi fa so la ti do" sequence most people can at least recognize from The Sound of Music.  The notes on a scale are broken into steps, with half steps being the immediately adjacent keys on the keyboard, and whole steps being a key apart.  So from middle C to D, there's one of the black keys between - thus, it's a whole step.
A major scale is two whole steps, a half step, three whole steps, and then a half step to get back to the C (but an octave above).  C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
But these aren't the only options.  Between C and D, that black key is called either C Sharp or D Flat.  From C to C Sharp is a half step that is outside the major scale.  Different kinds of scales exist, but the most prominent two are the simple major and minor.  I'll leave it to this video to explain it more and provide an example, because this has already been way too many words and not enough notes.  Or travel experiences.

So imagine now the minor scale, C-D-E flat-F-G-A-B flat-C.  Many of the songs I heard being performed only used notes from C to G.  This creates a sort of...tense, unresolved feeling to a lot of the music, especially when the last note of a phrase is one of the notes that makes it a minor key.  Usually, in my mind, Easter and spring music is lively, upbeat, energetic to match the emerging vitality of the season.  I'm curious why these songs have relatively little of that.  And I can't say I know who to ask.

Mostly-wrong section over 

More fairly traditional food was available here: bbq ribs, chicken, pickled onions and cucumbers, and boiled potatoes with a garlic sauce.  I watched and looked around for a bit longer, but by then I'd been out and mostly on my feet for some 4 hours and I was ready to go home.  Along the way, crucially, I saw the second-floofiest Corgi I've ever seen.  I grieve that I never got a picture of the floofiest.

By far the most thorough answer to my Easter Facebook post was this:

"Yes, we "hit" each other with pussywillows and say basically something like "Sickness come out, health go in"

Other pretty common Easter traditions

Competition for the strongest egg: each take one colored egg (usually we color them in onion skins, cabagge, hibiscus tea, rice, red wine etc day before) and hit another egg. The one who has no damage done (or at least the less damage done) wins

You need to eat hard boiled eggs with salt on Easter so you dont lie for the rest of the year

You need to get on swings on Easter so mosqitos dont bite during summertime"

I'm surprised that America hasn't adopted the egg competition.  Seems so in line with our culture. 

Ongoing cooking adventures

I feel like I should have some kind of opening sentence before I get into this but nothing brilliant comes to mind.

I've dealt with depression in various forms for pretty much my entire life, certainly entire adult life.  I've talked about this at length before so I won't rehash it too much.  I'll just highlight that almost everything I've done to try to combat it has failed for one reason or another...many of them just the self-fulfilling prophecy that is living with any affected ability.

One ray of hope that has remained for some time is ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, or KAP.  Psychedelics showing promise in the treatment of mental illness isn't new, but it's gaining increasing access as the studies and research and science actually back it up with something resembling hard evidence rather than anecdotes and experiences.  And I say something resembling because when it comes to psychiatry and psychology and mental illness, there isn't a *ton* of hard evidence to be had as everything is kinda twisty.

I'd looked into KAP a handful of years ago, but at the time it was cost-prohibitive.  Being still rather experimental, and of course involving a highly restricted substance, it's rare to get insurance to pay for KAP.  Some providers navigate this by getting insurance to pay for the therapy itself as normal, and direct bill for the drug.  Others just don't bother trying so as to save the time and hassle.  Most, from my admittedly small research, are the latter.

My depression has continued to ramp up over the time I've been out here in the world, quite contrary to my hopes and goals for the life I was striding into.  It's been the right decision and I wouldn't change it (well, most of it), but it does mean that the longer I've been going, the worse I'm doing.  So I decided that I'm going to return to the US, move back home for a while, and try KAP to see if it unlocks something that lets me move forward again.  Every intention is to pick back up in late December.  Assuming the world hasn't burned itself to the ground by then.

In the meantime, however, my limited exploration of Riga continues with this park not far from my apartment featuring a simple but cute sculpture and a dog park.  On the walk back home, I passed this church, one of many in Riga.  It strikes me that when the foliage is in full force, much of it would actually be obscured from the road.  I also saw this in a grocery store and somehow resonate with its difficulty in defining itself.  Also at the store is this different way of packaging ice cream.

The cooking adventures continue.  Last week I attempted to be inspired by Cornish pasties (pronounces with the short a, like past - eez).  Taking the flatbread I've been working with and adding a cooked filling of minced pork, cabbage, and potato, and wrapping it up to fry in a pan.  The result was quite good and is something I'll absolutely continue experimenting with, though no single pastry can hold much filling the way I'm currently making them.  I also tried making the fried chicken I learned in Vietnam, and cooked some flatbread in the same pan afterwards.  Good taste, mixed results otherwise.  And finally, I got some cinnamon and vanilla sugar (which I'd never heard of before, but I couldn't find actual vanilla extract) and attempted to make something akin to cinnamon rolls.  Didn't turn out too well.  But worth the experiment.

Speaking of experiments, my laptop stand arrived and while a little wobbly, it is so far proving to be exactly what I was looking for - namely something that can replace the full big desk that I've always had to either find, or find space for.  As I may have mentioned, this also telescopes up to a height that allows me to use it as a standing desk, which might help some with my core strength and posture and so on.  So far it's still an adjustment, and I've had some jobs this past week where I felt I had to play it safe and stay in my normal desk...but it's extremely promising.

 I leave Latvia in mid May, as originally planned, but with a different destination.  I don't know whether to expect more than one post before then, and definitely can't guess how actively I'll keep this up while in Colorado.  Time will tell.  Until then, I wish you all the best, dear reader. 

Adulting is hard

 When I went to South Africa, where I knew the language barrier wouldn't be a major obstacle, I determined that I'd use the extra spoons to expand my cooking repertoire.

It didn't really work.  Sure, I discovered that mac n cheese could be made with just pasta, milk, and cheese (and anything I was adding to it, broccoli or chicken or what have you) but that recipe didn't work in Vietnam and I haven't tried it since.  I learned that you could do pasta dishes with no sauce whatsoever, just seasonings and oil, and I relied on that for a while.

But in terms of learning actual new things, that didn't happen there.  Certainly nothing foundational.

In Vietnam, I picked up a couple things - spring rolls (which I haven't tried to make on my own), expanded stir fry approaches, and fried chicken wings with fish sauce.  Also a few soups, which I've overthought for most of my life.

So now I'm in Riga and I'm trying to continue to expand.  And this has apparently begun with flatbread.  It's kind of a dream recipe really: three or four ingredients, a quick time in the frying pan, and I have a base or a side for whatever I'm doing.  Best of all, I'll be able to find flour basically anywhere I go, so it's a reliable thing (unlike rice dishes which I haven't been able to make here because rice cookers are exceedingly rare and I only have stainless steel pots that I'm afraid to cook rice in).

Today's experiment didn't exactly go to plan, but it was still educational - I was just taking some store-bought kebab chicken, sauce, and green leaf lettuce, much like this wrap I'd made a few days prior, and trying to make a pocket out of the flatbread.  The other two just became little pizza-like things with the sauce/lettuce/chicken piled on top.  It worked fine.  The biggest success today was frying them in butter instead of oil and adding some minced garlic to the pan.

I'm still learning the ratios, and spending a good 15 minutes just kneading, adding flour, kneading more, adding more flour, over and over.  The general thing I saw online was 2 parts flour, 1 part water, but that's been quite inaccurate so far.  Maybe I'm doing something else wrong.  As I continue practicing, I'll get better at the starting ratios, and the time tweaking it will drop considerably.

I've gone to a shopping center several times in the past couple weeks that's a short bus ride from where I live, and have always been struck by this rather large skate park that I only now got pictures of.  It's an impressive scale given what feels like a relatively low population density, but clearly it's a successful build for how busy it's been every time.  These were all taken on a Monday mid-day or morning, for reference.

I found this long bubble gum stick the other day.  I'm amused that the sour-o-meter that is supposedly the main marketing design takes up most of the box, but the actual dial at the bottom is still only in the middle.  This was accurate, because while the box advertises it as sour (or at least being coated with sour powder), it was barely bitter/tart to me.  Wasn't especially great bubble gum either.  Always good to try new things.

 While my goal in Gqeberha was to expand my cooking, my goal here is to redefine my workstation.  I'm rather tired of being limited only to places with adequate space for a full desk and chair setup.  I've done some experiments with my VR headset essentially serving as a replacement monitor, and those have been quite successful.  It's a little tiring on my neck and the screen clone's size is a touch too large (so that I have to turn my head to see things on the far edges), but I have strong enough muscle memory on my hands that I can type essentially at normal speed, and even use hotkeys and F-keys, without looking.  The important part is that I maintain good ergonomics in my head and neck without needing a desk that sits at a certain height.  It also nudges me to take more breaks, which I'd benefit from anyway.

The next step will be finding a way to have my keyboard and mouse accessible.  For that, I've ordered a tripod stand (not affiliated, just demonstrative), and along with some kind of shelf or board, that will enable me to work both standing and sitting without needing my laptop to be in any particular place.  The monitor will be cloned to my headset, and my keyboard and mouse will be at about the right height (adjustable).  It brings me down to only needing a chair, and even that might be negotiable since I can adjust to standing.

 The tripod is still en route, expected about a week from now.  I'll probably need at least a few weeks, possibly more, to really get used to it, so my next stay is a place that has enough room for a chair and desk just in case.  I'll update once it arrives and I have some time to figure out how it feels.

Speaking of next stay, from Riga I'll be going to Nairobi, Kenya for a couple months before returning to Gqeberha.  From there, I'll be heading to Budva, Montenegro (on the Mediterranean between Italy and Greece), then back to Hanoi in late December.  I don't recall if I've laid that out before, but there it is.

Between cooking experiments, workstation redesigns, and just general continuing to live, I feel consistently torn between pride that I'm making progress, frustration that I didn't learn any of these things before, and fatigue that is just a standard part of my life.  But this is the life I chose, out here in the world, and I'm doing my best.  That counts for a lot.

Cheers! 

Snowy Seashore

Now that I'm settling in more, establishing patterns, and figuring out how to feed myself here, my life has begun to grow outside my apartment walls.  It's something I'm working on doing more often; Plovdiv and Batumi only really did it once each, and I don't know that Gqeberha ever did (at least, not in the same sense; Gqeberha was more of social reaches/excursions than scenic ones).

Admittedly, the first such outing was still a shopping trip, but a trip about 40 minutes away by bus to a mall where I met someone I'd encountered through a Facebook where I'd asked about board game meetups.  I had a short list of things the nearby grocery store wouldn't provide, and while there's a mall closer to me, meeting him still had value.  So I rode out across the town, getting a good chance to see more of the city (at least the more suburban-esque side of it).  The mall was relatively unremarkable (as was the IKEA), but I did find a small stand selling bread, including this traditional style of dark bread baked with a whole bulb of garlic in it.  I got a sample and it was kinda good, though in my cultural background it needed something.  Butter, maybe.

Yesterday, however, I went on a trip purely for the purpose of exploration and seeing something new; in this case, that was the beach of the Gulf of Riga during winter.  As often, the album link so you can look through it all, as I'll just be putting a few in here.

The trip began with a walk to the bus stop, seeing more of the architecture that dominates the city, particularly in the older parts of town.  The bus system in Riga, like many in Europe, puts the US generally to shame by having frequent routes with expansive reach.  In this case, buses from Riga run all the way out to the shore, as well as to several neighboring towns.  Northern Colorado has something like this in Bustang, which operates mostly on the highways between Fort Collins and...I think further south, like Colorado Springs maybe.  I haven't looked in a while.  But it's sort of a separate entity, whereas this is all under the same Rigas Satiksme operation.

The windows on the bus go round and round were unfortunately dirty as a result of road grime and splash, so I don't really have any pictures from the trip itself.  But after about an hour, I reached the trailhead (for lack of better word) to the beach.  An attempted snowman sorta-stood just off the path, which went by a farm and through a lagoon featuring a viewing platform and some informational signs that I couldn't read.  There was also this poster showing an experience I was quite sure I wouldn't have on this day (I believe it's an educational thing about trash and recycling).

The path then went through some forest that looked stark stripped of leaves.  I plan to come back in the spring before I depart and see how different it looks.  I was intrigued by some bird feeders hung here with some kind of fibrous stuff nailed to the trees.  I'm not sure what it is - if you know, do please comment.

Finally, the ocean came into view.  I walked up a ways, where the flat frozen sea was broken up (literally) by these large slabs of ice.  In a few places were ice stacks made by someone far braver than me.  I also found this boat beached, and couldn't tell if it was still in service or some kind of relic or display.

I've long loved cold, and this was no different.  The sea has a strange kind of beauty to me in this state, though that might in part be because I'm not miserable in the heat that most beaches tend to have.

By the time I started back, it had begun snowing, and when I reached the bus stop, my glasses were essentially covered in water and melting snow.  On the bus ride back, I passed the Latvian National Library which is just so extra that it demands I return to check it out sometime.  After I left the bus and began walking home, I was charmed by this gym's simple name.  Simple, but somehow loud at the same time.

There's still a few things I want to go see and do while I'm here, of course, but this large of an outing only two weeks into my stay does kind of indicate how my attitude towards exploration and living in the places I go is shifting.  Or, rather, demonstrates that my stability is increasing, and that means I have more spoons to get out of my apartment and exist in the worlds I'm choosing to occupy.

Hanoi-via

 The vaunted travel post begins!

And it's going to be shorter than these typically are.  Truth is, I left my apt at about 9:30pm when it was too dark to see anything of interest, bounced through three airports over 22-ish hours with less than 5 cumulative hours of layover, and then arrived in Riga, Latvia around 6pm when it was too dark to see anything of interest.  So the actual travel portion is basically nonexistent.  But I'll go in order.

When I left, Vietnam was gearing up for Tet, the lunar new year.  It's a huge event, on the order of Christmas in the US, and flowers are a huge part of the decorative styling.  As usual, Vietnamese people are rather adept at loading motorbikes.  I saw one that had a full freaking tree sapling, but failed to get a picture (mostly because I was on a bike myself at the time and did not entirely build up the confidence to be on my phone during bike rides).  The owner of the pole studio also had a cute gift for me before I left - flamingos being kind of the mascot/branding of the studio.  It's adorable, but I can now say from experience it isn't very *practical* - the plushie head and neck just kind of get in the way of use and I sorta worry about them getting soaked and moldy or something.  Still a kind gesture and an appreciated gift.

My Vietnamese partner also remarked that the humid spring season seemed to start early.  I didn't know that the spring was typically humid, but I did know that Hanoi had been frustratingly humid recently, a fact I can assert by how impossible it was to get my clothes actually dry after laundry.  I had to resort to inventive solutions to get the final load dry in time to pack.

With that, I was off.  From Hanoi to Dubai, where the airport is so sprawling that you have to take an actual bus to get between some terminals.  From Dubai to Amsterdam, I did take my first double-decker plane (or at least the first one I remember taking), which also had a wide gap between the windows and the seats.  Finally, Amsterdam to Riga.  I made my transfer; my suitcase did not.  Fortunately, another flight from Amsterdam was later that night, and my bag was back in my hands just the next afternoon.  It was one of those times where you think "Well, that was efficient."  And then you realize that the efficiency is so practiced and slick that it's only really possible after enough failures to train on.

Oh well.

I waited until the next day to take any pictures of the area around my new home.  There's a majesty to some of it, despite the age and general construction quality that comes with a developing nation that suffered Soviet occupation.  Despite looking a bit slummy with graffiti and a lot of shuttered doors and dead windows, the area actually feels fairly safe.  Maybe it's just that it's too cold (-10C today) for anyone to want to stand around watching for opportunities to mug each other.  But I've just heard generally good things about the safety in this country.

My apartment is a rather charming space, generally more roomy than I expected (with the exception of the shower which is definitely not comfortable for my frame). I have popcorn again, something I didn't really have in Hanoi due to the cultural approach of popcorn mostly being sweet (think kettle corn) or caramel corn.  The buttery salty goodness I grew up on, the delicious snack that served as one of my first three words (true story)...I was deprived in Vietnam, so it was one of the first things I bought here.

Latvia is in the Eurozone, so unlike Bulgaria there wasn't a new currency to acquire.  The Euro and the Dollar are almost 1:1 right now, which makes my financial navigating far easier.  It also means that I don't much need to explain how psychotically expensive Ben & Jerry's is here.  Food in general is on par with a lower COL part of America; loaf of bread is about $1, pasta and rice are similar, chicken and beef are a touch cheaper...well, all of this is relative to when I left, and I know things have changed since then.  It's not Hanoi cheap, but it's not Amsterdam expensive.  The shopping center with my new primary grocery store also has an indoor karting track which I found interesting.

My explorations will begin more in earnest in the coming week.  There's a small theatre nearby that does a pretty aggressive repertory of plays, predominantly in Russian, with a $15 ticket price.  So I'll be checking out at least one show there.  I've found a few restaurants in walking distance to try.  And of course old town Riga is well-known for its interesting mix of architecture and history; Riga's story is actually pretty interesting.

So as usual, you can look forward to more pictures and stories in the week or three after a new move, followed by a drop off to 1/month or so as I settle into the daily routines and stop tourist-ing. 

Assorted Explorations in Vietnam

 For the past month and change, I've been dating a Vietnamese woman I met on an app.  I haven't mentioned it because it wasn't really important at the time - it was part of my life, but rather a personal part and didn't directly impact my travels or produce general interest stories.

Well, that's not entirely true.  She was my company at Thang Long, providing some context and translation and also learning a bit from me.  But I'd likely have gone to Thang Long anyway so I didn't count it. Haha.

Whatever the case, she's become more of an active part of my explorations.

A couple weeks ago, we tried to visit a pagoda/temple. I say "tried" because for reasons we didn't understand (that weren't posted anywhere or commonly known to anything she could find online), it was closed.  Still, there was a neat sculpture near the entrance.  She told me there was a particular food popular near the pagoda that we should try, so we walked to a nearby shop famous for it.  Our route taking us along the lake, I happened to see this picturesque place and fail to capture it well on my little phone camera.

The dish in question is in the bottom center here: banh tom, or fried shrimp pancake.  Like many Vietnamese dishes, it's eaten by dipping into a sauce that's largely fish sauce-based with customization options at the table such as chilis and kumquat or lime.  The cups of sauce were placed on the table for us to tinker with well before the food arrived.  My date added a few things and then used a spoon to taste it.  I failed to fully understand what she was doing and thought this was a slightly thick soup, so after making some additions of my own, I just started spooning it down, even sipping straight from the cup at one point.  This drew a very confused look from her, and lead to a good laugh for both of us after she explained what it was.  Exploring new foods is sometimes an interesting adventure indeed.

I also learned that pho, which has become quite common in the US, actually refers not to the soup in general but to the kind of noodles it uses (sort of both, I suppose, in the way that a hamburger refers both to the sandwich and to the meat itself).  But this was drilled home by the other two dishes we ordered, rolled pho and fried pho (top left and top right, respectively).  Both were good in their own way.  It all made me think about Domino's and how they've elevated repackaging pizza to an art form.  "Here," the company says, "have pizza, and as a side, have pizza rolls.  As an appetizer, here's cheesy breadsticks that you dip in pizza sauce but definitely isn't just pizza again!"

Our visit to the pagoda wasn't successful insofar as we actually got to see the pagoda itself, but at least I discovered more foods.

Last weekend, my date and I planned a little getaway to Tam Dao, which is named for its elevation and the way it is often in the clouds.  Despite being only about an hour away, it didn't take long for the urban density of Hanoi to give way to more open spaces and rural lands.

Tam Dao is a mountain town, sort of a small resort - high tourism, lots of hotels and similar places, fairly small permanent population.  Our stay had a very cozy room, a swimming pool (we didn't use because it was cold and a little dirty), some really pretty landscaping and general integration with the terrain, and downright excellent food.  And, as always, I'm tall.

We stayed for two nights, but happened to both get sick in the day or two leading up to the trip.  We opted to go anyway as we have very limited time together, but it meant we didn't really go anywhere or see anything in the area.  Yesterday we returned, though we found this neat cafe with this huge, cool statue thing.  The whole town really leverages the views by building onto the hillsides.  It makes me think about Estes Park, where I've lived many years of my life, and how most of the shops and restaurants in town are in the valley of it, sort of squeezed together, and actually most of the mountainside space is residential.  So while Estes does have great scenery, it isn't really...*utilized* the same way.  And in some ways I think that is to its detriment...a missed opportunity of sorts.  

 I have less than two weeks left in Hanoi.  In many ways, it has felt, inexplicably, like the longest stay of my brief nomad life thus far.  The perception of time is a funny thing.  I've started dipping into Latvian.  The app I've used has a lot of phrases and words and such and it's a little overwhelming, and because I struggle with self-motivated learning, it can be hard to get a lot of the value that it has.  However, it did have one phrase I've decided I need to learn everywhere I go: "What do you recommend?"
For Latvian, this is "ko jus varetu ieteikt?"  I'm missing some accent markers but that's close enough.  It's a really cool sounding language to me for some reason, kind of a mix between Russian or Polish and Italian.
The thing is, when living in a new place with no real food familiarity, I often wind up not going anywhere or trying anything due largely to choice paralysis.  It's daunting to look at a menu of unfamiliar words, particularly if there are no or few pictures, and just...choose something.  Even running it through translation doesn't always help.  But now, I can learn a phrase that just requests specific assistance in making that choice, and maybe lets someone feel like they're doing a good thing or introducing someone to a thing they like.  And most people, I've found, will appreciate that opportunity.

And maybe some will use it to screw with me and order me something horrible.  And then I'll know not to go back and not to get that thing again.  I'll be a little hungry but I'll try to laugh at being "gotten."  Laugh at yourself before anyone else can.

I assume I won't post again until I've left Hanoi.  I expect my last two weeks to be relatively mundane, largely preparing for the move and such.  But I reserve the right to change my mind 😉 

Thang Long

 I've made more of an effort in Hanoi to get out and see things.  Part of this has been making an effort to meet people and interact with humans, something I really didn't do in Bulgaria or Georgia.

As a result, I actually have things to say sometimes because I'm going places and doing things.  

Last Saturday, I went to Thang Long Citadel.  As a quick note, in Vietnamese, the "th" is closer to a T sound than an English "th," so it's closer to pronounce this as Tang Long.  Not perfect, but closer.
A historical site, world heritage since 2010, Thang Long is kind of an epicenter of ancient and modern Vietnamese governance, having been (as I understand it) the seat of several dynasties stretching back through the Ly Dynasty in the 11th century.  The Ly Dynasty, among other things, actually codified some of the earliest laws in Vietnamese history.  Artifacts at the site date back even further, some all the way to the 7th-9th centuries.

 The album link, as usual - I will only be calling out a small portion of the things I saw, and I have some 58 pictures from the day.

There are various depictions around the site of how the area may have looked during its prime.  Work is still ongoing to excavate the area and find more; archaeology is an interesting field in that sometimes, active sites will actually be left 'unfinished' because as technology advances, relics and information that could be lost with current methods might be found with future ones.  (This tidbit brought to you by Milo Rossi.  For those interested in entertaining and informative archaeology, his is a youtube channel I can't recommend enough.)

Even with some of the smaller and more temporal buildings lost to time, the scale of the area is impressive in itself.  That picture was taken from atop this gate which itself is only about halfway across the complex.  The gate is accessible, and for whatever reason I found the water runoff management to be interesting enough to deserve a picture...but not much else up here.  The topmost tier that you can see is also accessible, but by some of the steepest stairs I think I'd ever seen.  

Also on the grounds, constructed in 1967, was Bunker D67, a military command post with an underground bunker nearby to protect from the several, and severe, bombing raids during the American War (for obvious reasons, they don't call it the Vietnam War here like we do in the USA).  Within this underground space, artifacts of the war are displayed in much the way they would have been set up at the time, or are displayed on shelves and in cases.  As a mild computerphile, I was particularly intrigued by the typewriter layout and how similar it is to the familiar QWERTY.  The development of that layout would be its own interesting rabbit hole were I so inclined.

I am currently not so inclined.

A few of the structures around the complex were repurposed for museums, displaying printing blocks, clay artifacts, roof tiles, pottery/ceramics, as a copper cannon, and other decorative elements that once adorned the larger structures in the area - structures that are either no longer standing or have been remodeled in one way or another over the years.  After all, we're talking about political occupation across five or six major dynasties spanning a full millennium.  Changes definitely took place.

Speaking of a full millennium, Hanoi had recently celebrated its 1000 year anniversary as the political center of Vietnam (having largely been chosen as the capital in 1010).  A few ancient-styled creations, including a bell and an enormous drum had been crafted and dedicated for the event, and were on display here.

Further into the complex was Hau Lau, or the Ladies' Pavilion, another sizable structure flanked by a lovely courtyard (including this well).  Here again were incredibly steep stairs, which were necessary for vertical scaling when the rooms are so tall.  I found it very intriguing, and it's another rabbit hole I could probably plumb.  Honestly, the consistent takeaway from this area was have I mentioned that I am just such a tall human?
Within this topmost tier is a temple/shrine where photography wasn't allowed, so obviously I don't have any pictures of that. 

Vietnam is an interesting place for someone of my height, as I've shown more here than anywhere else I've been.  Heck, my companion for this trip (visible in a couple pictures) is about 4'10, and while that's short even for a Vietnamese person, it's still closer to the scale for which this country is built than my towering giant frame.

But it's also just generally an interesting place.  Their ability to fit things on their motorbikes is, of course, legendary. 

Ha Long Birth-bay

 Special treat for y'all today:  Not one, not two, but three bulk album links for the pictures.  Because there's about 134 of them.

Told you in the last post that I'd be updating again soon and it'd be a big one.

For my birthday, I went to Ha Long Bay, designated as a UNESCO heritage site in 1984 (from what the tour guide told me).  Now, I say I did this for my birthday.  The whole truth is that I planned to do this soon, and when people learned that my birthday was fast approaching and started pestering me about how I was going to celebrate it, I decided to do my trip this day and shut them up 😆

 I think if I had it to do again, I'd have gone on a Tuesday or something.  But more on that later.

I was up at 6:30 am or so to get an Uber over to the Old Quarter of Hanoi to meet the bus that would take us out to the Bay.  The city's urban density passed pretty quickly, with some curious sculptures and unexpected high density housing perhaps 25 minutes outside of the city limits.  I found this odd because it was not really...near anything.  I hope they have some kind of high-speed transit planned to get people from these buildings into the city where jobs and resources are, because otherwise these won't be particularly good for the area.

Crossing a few rivers, we were soon out into the countryside, which was (not surprisingly) mostly farming communities.  Two things intrigued me here.  First, the architecture.  I had assumed that the tall, narrow buildings were largely a response to urban density and the need for increased housing without taking up more horizontal space.  These houses have the same kind of build, but with some space beside them for gardens/lawns or something.  Suggests that a preference for those tall, narrow buildings might just be cultural in Vietnam.

The second is the cemeteries.  I knew from my prior visit to Vietnam back in 2019 that Vietnamese cemeteries (or whatever the appropriate term would be) tend to be pretty ornate, but was really surprised to see just how large and how ornate they can be, even in relatively low-income areas like these.  It speaks to the cultural priorities, the value of family and ancestry.

Another river we crossed showed far more economic activity.  Clearly these are major shipping routes, which is probably obvious to anyone who isn't a weird landlocked kid like I am - our rivers were tourist destinations in Colorado, far too rough and narrow to be useful for transportation.  This guy stood out a little bit, though I think this was a dry dock of some kind and it was perhaps there for repairs.  Not far from there was this thing.  Yeah, no idea.

 The terrain change from flat farmlands to more rocky, mountainous landscape was pretty swift and dramatic.  We made a quick stop at a pearl farm and saw the seeding process, learning a bit about the process.  Cultured pearls are actually defined by the fact that they are "planted" in oysters like this using a small, rounded piece of shell that then has the layers added over 2-6 years (depending on variety/species) before being harvested.  Natural pearls are often irregular shapes, but most cultured pearls are more reliably spherical.  Not sure what this shell belonged to exactly but it was neat-looking.  Sort of conch-like but with tentacles.

Soon after, we got to the marina and boarded the boat.  Some musicians were playing along the way there, and while I couldn't tell what of their music was recorded and what was mic-amplified, I was sad that we couldn't pause to listen.  We had lunch aboard the boat.  I love buffets because I get to have so many different things.  Of particular interest is the small thing in the upper left, which was jellyfish salad.  I wonder if it was actually squid because the texture was more rubbery (and I've never heard of jellyfish being eaten), but the whole area is well-enough traveled internationally that their translations and such are pretty reliable.  In order to protect the environment as much as possible, plastic bottles are banned in Ha Long Bay, leading to the only source of potable water being cans.

 The marina was quite close to the formation the Bay is famous for, and we were in the midst of them quite soon.

The whole block above pretty well covers the album, but there's the full album link.

Our first stop was Sung sot cave, the largest cave system in Ha Long Bay.  Our route lead up the cliffside, then through the caverns and back around to another marina to get picked up.  I really can't say much specific about this except maybe for the monkey formation.  This is where I get grumpy at my image host: the upload process didn't keep any kind of order for my pictures, so the album is in total disarray.  I'd taken five or six pictures in almost panorama to show the sheer size of these caverns and now they're just...all over.  But still.  Quite impressive.

From there we went to Titop Island, where we had the option of swimming or lounging on the beach or ascending this terrifying staircase up to the summit, where a small pavilion allowed for some truly spectacular views.  If you could enjoy them while panting.  I'm honestly glad I did this when I did, at the end of December, because trying this in the summer heat would probably have lead to my untimely demise.

Our final stop was Hang Luon, a kind of grotto/sheltered bay kept somewhat serene by being only accessible via "bamboo boats" (so named, I assume, for the design/layout/operation, not the actual material of their modern versions) or kayaks.  Because I was traveling alone and didn't bring swimming gear, I opted for the bamboo boat.  Hang Luon is accessed through a low cave and is apparently home to monkeys.  One of the boat operators got into an argument with some of them, splashing them with the oars and even throwing water at them with a jug he had.  I have no idea what the story was there, they seemed to me to be mostly minding their own business.  Impressive to watch them navigate sheer cliff faces pretty easily - not something I could easily get a picture of.  This album is much smaller, as I spent more attention just enjoying the moment than anything.

By then, it was getting a bit dark, so we began the trek back to the marina.  I took the obvious photo opportunity at this light-up moon they had on the top deck, and tried to capture the ominous but beautiful silhouettes the islands can make against the dusky sky.  The bus ride back was in the dark, so I just dozed.

 I was dropped off near where we'd picked up...to find that for some reason, I had no data service.  This was a problem because I needed data to order my Uber back home.  I wandered for a while looking for signal, running across a pedestrian area blocked off for what I assume was some kind of event.  Eventually I found some, got a car home, and collapsed.

Cosplaying as a tourist was an interesting experience.  My bus was about two Canadians, one other American, a man from the UK, a couple from Romania, and several Indians.  Aboard the boat were some Germans and a couple from France, a few from Cambodia, and others.  But really, the US was highly underrepresented.  I wonder if it's largely because the holiday season has most US travel being closer to home.  What I knew, though, was that I was among very few people there who lived in Hanoi, even temporarily.  Kind of made me feel a bit apart from them - not in any kind of haughty or superior way, just in the sense that I'm different.  I didn't really talk to anyone during this trip, in keeping with my common tendency towards introversion, and it's debatable whether that was the "right" choice.  I just didn't want to explain my lifestyle to more people than I already do in a typical week.

Absolutely recommend, though, if you happen to find yourself in northern Vietnam. 

Little overdue

 I've said before and I'll doubtless say again, one of the issues with keeping a travel blog in my current execution of this lifestyle is that I don't really do much on my own.  And because I'm on my own most of the time, I really don't do much in general.

I'm trying to change that here in Hanoi, and moving forward, though I'm not always sure exactly how.  Today, however, one such effort came to fruition.  I'd posted in a "Make friends in Hanoi" Facebook group looking for people who would be willing to teach me how to cook something Vietnamese.  It was a goal some time ago to learn a dish at each place I went, and while that's only worked for South Africa so far, it's a start.  Now I have a few things from Vietnam through an early, brief dating relationship.

One person in particular who responded is an English teacher and saw this as a good opportunity to give her students some practice in conversation, teach some cooking/food vocab, and teach me something all at once.  So I joined her and her students to make fried spring rolls, as well as hot pot (which I didn't really learn how to make, but that's fine, one thing was enough for one day).  I was surprised when a couple of them remarked how good my technique is for slicing things and how quickly I picked up rolling the...well, rolls.  A few asked me if I was a chef or enjoyed cooking, because clearly I do it often.  This was so odd to me because most of the time, I feel like I'm pretty clueless.  I've heard people use the phrase "I would burn water," and I know I'm not that bad, but I tend to think my overall skill is average at best, certainly not worth remark, let alone praise.  Felt kinda good.

Not a lot more to say about that.  My walk there and back went along a river or canal or something, which was nice.

I'd commented before about Vietnamese 'everyday' architecture and the way it all feels kind of impromptu, thrown together.  I finally got a decent picture to demonstrate that.  It's also been interesting being in a fairly big city again - Plovdiv, Batumi, and Port Elizabeth were all mid-sized at most, and with the exception of Batumi, I really wasn't in the center in any way, so I got used to most things being closed in the evening.  I took this at about 2, 2:30 am, showing a little food shop that's still open.  It's not even the only one in eyesight from my front gate.  I've ordered delivery of entire Indian food meals at 3:30am (yeah my sleep patterns are a dumpster fire and have been for most of the month).  It's a different style for sure.

 Short update beats no update.  Expect another one in the next couple days, as I have something coming up tomorrow that will actually be picture-worthy. 

Hanoi - progress

A quick note before the actual post.  I changed image hosting sites recently because Imgur, who hosted my pictures before, blocked access to the UK which also blocked access to some providers in South Africa.  As I have a few friends following me from there, I thought it'd help to change over.  If there are issues with it (I know one person has expressed such already), let me know and I can try another. 

Settling in here has been going well.  I'm still sort of figuring out how to feed myself, which isn't helped by delivery running anywhere from $4-7 and tasty food available just across the street for $2.50 or so.  A new favorite has been discovered: Cháo thịt quay, essentially rice porridge with minced meat (pork or beef, I'm not sure) and fried crispy dough of some kind.  Imagine taking an egg roll, hollowing out all the filling, and just eating the crunchy outside bit.  That's quay (apparently).  It's surprisingly good...and runs about $1.50 or $1.75 or so for a good-sized bowl.  That, incidentally is what I was laughed at - the thit is pronounced like tit, short i, but I'd done teet because...well, I don't have a reason really.

Cooking for myself is back to having its special international challenge of learning what things need and what to have on hand, stumbling my way through instructions in other languages, and sometimes just plain doing things wrong. 

While we're on the topic of food, though, it turns out that beef jerky is also surprisingly inexpensive here, running about $1 for an amount that would be at least $3 back in the US.  And not only that, it's differently packaged and 'served.'  That plastic tray underneath it was in the pouch, and the thing I'm holding is a packet of lime juice.  The jerky is far sweeter than most beef jerky found elsewhere (and WAY sweeter than biltong, for my South African readers), so it comes with a sour flavor to balance it out.  It's quite good...though it's much more messy than I'm used to because the sauce/marinade is stronger (and of course, it's now sprinkled with lime juice).

The topic of food continues, though.  Because it just so happened that last weekend was Vietnam's International Food Festival, with booths providing examples of local dishes from several countries around the world.  The furthest ones from here were France, Argentina, and Chile, but I also saw Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Albania, and yes, South Africa.  The US and Canada did not make a showing here, but that's okay.  Who needs a booth of American food when you can find KFC, McDonald's, and several others around.

It was pretty busy, so I didn't stay long, but I'm glad I went by.  I tried some crepes and sausage from France, some kind of dessert pastry from Armenia, some boerewors (essentially bratwurst but more gamey) from South Africa (partly to share with the person I went there with), and some chicken skewers from the Philippines.  The Mongolia booth was set up, but didn't seem to have anything - even cookware or plates.  So I'm not sure if they just ran out or if they set up later or what.  I'm curious about Mongolian cuisine, and this seemed like it might be a good chance to try it.  No such luck.

Finally breaking away from talking about food...tonight I found myself on the lakefront at night, providing a fairly dazzling view of the city.  And I also confirmed yet again that I am tall.   

GqeberHanoi

 Air travel is a funny thing.

When selecting my flights from PE to Hanoi, I had a few options (as one usually does, especially with multi-step travel).  One I found amusing is that I could leave at 7am and arrive at 1230 or something, or I could leave at...8am and arrive at 1230.  Turned out there was just an hour later flight for the first leg, from the Port Elizabeth Airport to Johannesburg, but the next flights were exactly the same.  I wonder if it was a commuter flight or similar.  Whatever the case,  as often, I didn't fit in the first plane.  Indeed, I barely fit in the other two, but I didn't photograph them.  They were slightly less egregious, but for an 8 hour and a 6 hour flight, almost nothing is going to be *comfortable* - just less uncomfortable.  When I took my flight from China back to the US, it wound up being a 13-hour flight from LA to Beijing.  I upgraded to premium economy for that, which resulted in having enough leg room to almost stretch out.  It was glorious, and for that kind of trip, worth the $600 or whatever extra that I paid.

 Anyway.  Given the friends I'd made and the easier time I'd had with life overall, leaving PE was a bit sad.  It's part of the lifestyle, of course, and there's a reason I'm planning to return next year.  But still.  After a lunch of champions at the Johannesburg airport, it was off to Doha (which I repeatedly mistitled Hoda in previous posts, I think).  Because I took several pictures of it in a previous post, I'll just say that, yes, it's still excessive, it's still a shopping mall with airplane gates, and it still advertises itself more aggressively than I can possibly find reason for.  From Doha to Hanoi offered some lovely views in the morning.

Landing in Hanoi, the immigration process was almost effortless.  This stood in stark contrast to my entry to Saigon some 6 years ago while I was living in China, where I handed over my documents and sat for a good hour, hour and a half before getting the visa applied.  This was almost as quick as anywhere else - hand the passport over, get it scanned for validity and whatever else, stamped, and done.  Almost anticlimactic.  Applying for a tourist visa in Vietnam, as in a growing number of countries, requires an e-Visa, an application online to provide details about you, your stay, and so on.  It did back in 2019 as well, so I'm not sure what about the process changed.  Maybe it just got modernized to the point that the e-Visa is displayed for the passport agents at the gate and no further checking needs be done.  Maybe coming from China lead to some increased suspicion or security.  Who knows.

I was offered a taxi by no fewer than 5 people in the literal one minute it took me to get from the arrivals door to the passenger pickup area.  I was trying to order a ride on the local Uber equivalent, Grab.  Someone saw me with the app open, approached me with theirs to imply that they worked for Grab, and then just called a normal taxi anyway.  Which was annoying because I didn't have any cash yet and they didn't accept cards, so they stood by my luggage once they dropped me off while I ran across the street to an ATM and got some.  Another tourist tax, like Georgia - just arrange your ride and ignore people pushing to "help" you.

 Whatever the case, I got there eventually...only to be told by the management that there was a problem with my room, some kind of power issue or water heater break (I'm still not sure).  They put me up in a motel for the night, which was kind of the least they could do, and it was...fine, I guess.  Definitely smaller than the apartment, but that's to be expected.  As usual, I'm very tall.  I spent the night there, and got word in the morning that the apartment was ready.

Honestly, I'm pretty happy with my temporary new home in Vietnam.  It's a tad more spacious than my place in PE, with a smaller and less-equipped kitchen admittedly.  But I'm back to having a large bed instead of the single or twin or whatever I had before.

There's an amusing quirk of it though.  My assumption is that this building was expanded before any of the ones around it.  So those windows all originally were...well, windows.  But then, later, the buildings nearby expanded as well.  So now, despite being on the third floor, my windows look into just the wall of the next building.  And I don't mean they're looking across a way - I mean the wall is built against the window itself, and the windows don't even open.  There's even a balcony in this unit, but it just buts up against a wall.  It's kind of funny to me.  There is one window that actually sees outside...to a degree, at least.

For those of you who haven't been to many Asian countries, a note on the bathrooms.  You might have noticed that in the first one, there was just a little glass divider between the toilet and the shower.  In the apartment, there's no divider at all.  I later learned that this is a design called "wet room," and while it's seen some presence in the West, the space efficiency means it's pretty much ubiquitous in the East.  The whole room just has a single drain, in this case hidden under the sink.  And really, why not?  Aside from cases where one part of a couple might use the toilet while the other showers, it's rare to have more than one person using the room for anything.  May as well save the space.
And yes, I'm still tall, but fortunately the shower here is a bit more accommodating. 

I took a walk the next day to explore the nearby lake.  As often, I won't link every picture I took, but rather just provide the full album link.  Most of it is the lake, along with a few pictures of the walk there and of some kind of temple.  I was particularly amused that I'm apparently supposed to boogie when using a crosswalk.

The day after that, it was past time to get my desk and chair sorted.  So I went on a grand quest.  And I say grand quest because this was a whole freaking thing.  I went to one place, they were closed (despite being a pretty reasonable time of day).  Went to a second place, they were just a consultancy and not an actual shop (I think, I never actually talked to anyone there, but it was an office building).  Finally the third place, sort of an alternate-universe IKEA chain called JYSK, had what I was looking for.  It was a familiar brand, as one that I'd used back in Georgia, so when I saw it on Google Maps I knew it'd be a reliable choice.   And since Google Maps had failed me twice already, I just needed *something* to go right.
Treated myself to a simple, low-interaction McDonald's after all that.  Sometimes you just need ice cream.  Particularly when the candy you're familiar with   is so expensive (for reference, that's about $4 US).

I'm settling in, slowly but surely.  Learning what food places nearby are accessible, figuring out what I like, navigating the grocery stores, and missing some of the all-in-one type places that the West is known for anymore.  They may still exist and I just haven't gone to the effort of finding them, but for day to day stuff, you don't need much more than just a food shop.

I also got laughed at for a mispronunciation of a word today.  I think it was good-natured, and even if it wasn't, I'm adept at laughing at myself.  It's a crucial skill in life. 

Life and Long COVID

 Occasionally people tell me that they check this blog every so often, and sometimes ask me when I'll update it again.  My typical response is, "I'll update it when I have something to say."  I've talked before on here about how, aside from the periodic location changes, my life is still fairly mundane - I work, I eat, I sleep, I hang out, I go to pole class and maybe other things if I've found them.  But I don't get out much on my own aside from the things I need to live day to day (groceries, primarily).

Now, in part this is a financial thing.  I am still living somewhat close to subsistence, in part due to a generally low income (by American standards), and in part due to a couple bad months of work availability and not quite having my savings goals when I left.  Pair that with the unexpected surgery that my insurance didn't cover and the two unexpected flights (one from Istanbul to Batumi, one from Batumi to Gqeberha), and it's a financially strained life.  I'm used to it, having never been what I'd call financially comfortable, but that doesn't mean it's easy.

Still, the occasional "so what have you done, where have you gone, have you been to x y z" questions, not just from friends and family but from acquaintances who learn about my lifestyle, I rarely have a satisfying answer.  I don't go places or see things.

There are two reasons for this.

One.  I don't generally have anyone to go with and to an extent, I've grown a little tired of my own company.  Not that I don't like myself, don't get me wrong.  I make me laugh more than almost anyone in my life (though some of that is just quantity of time spent).  I have interesting observations and ask interesting questions.
But I have no one to answer them.  I have no one to make laugh.  When it's just me going somewhere, the best I can hope for is to take pictures to share with people, like here.  To remark in this blog about the interesting geology of the Sacramento shoreline, or to expound on the differences between Wendy's in Georgia vs the USA.  And just as importantly, I have no one to point out the things I miss, to ask their own interesting questions, to make me laugh, or to disagree with me that actually KFC in Qatar is better than the US.  And no one to suggest things that I wouldn't do on my own.
A lack of shared experience leads to a lower...quality of experience, in a way.  It doesn't mean I shy away from exploring, just that I'm not as directly motivated, intrinsically or extrinsically.

Two.  I got COVID back in Spring of 2022.  How it hit for me was less the upper respiratory stuff (though I had some of that) and more a persistent fatigue.  I was out of work for a full month, and when I came back for two weeks before relocating to my parents' place to start saving up for my lifestyle transition, I could make it maybe 3-4 hours before being too exhausted to continue.

Long COVID is a condition identified, though not well-understood, as being persistent effects, ranging from days to years, where some symptoms of the disease are felt after the disease itself has run its course.  As the link says, theories generally say that COVID has affected the way the body works, be it through immune system alterations or gut biome effects, but there's really no concrete knowledge on it.

My experience, however, is that my general stamina for life as a whole is just...lower since then.  Even the things I enjoy, for the most part, will drain me pretty quickly.  As long as I manage what I do and how much, I'm generally fine. 

But being a nomad adds a few layers to it all.  Navigating the world without language familiarity, having somewhat inconsistent friendships and social support, adjusting to new places and climates...I chose all of this, and wouldn't choose otherwise, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have challenges, it doesn't tax my limited energy reserves.

This month, I tried stepping up my pole class schedule to four/week.  That on top of the D&D group and the normal demands of day-to-day life proved to be too much, and while there wasn't any major negative result, I've been struggling to make headway on work, floundering somewhat in my pole progress, and spending a lot of time at home just...sitting, lying down, or pacing in dull rumination.  I've had even less motivation than usual to go anywhere or do anything, and as such even less than usual to talk about here (and since that was already minimal, the result is just the long silence that we've had).  I dropped to just two classes last week and I'm still not back to my 'normal' energy levels.

I'm not writing all this as "oh poor me aren't I pitiful."  It's the hand I've been dealt, and it's the hand I'm playing.  I'm learning more and more each month about the best ways to move forward, the best strategies to make this life work for me.  This past week, I came up with a workflow adjustment that has some promising effects on my engagement and productivity, not just in work but in the other things I want to do (be it flute practice, strength or flexibility training, or whatever else).  Testing is still ongoing, but initial results look optimistic.  But it's coming at a time when I'm overall just...far less vibrant than usual.  

I imagine my posting rate on this blog will remain around once per month, on average, for the foreseeable future.  Until something substantial changes and I do more exploring and such from week to week, there just isn't anything worth saying.  I'm okay with that.  But if you're checking this more than maybe once a week, once every two weeks, feel free to put it further in the back of your mind 😆 

In closing, please enjoy this picture of me in a weird sun visor that I intentionally put on wrong. 

Baby's First Braai

 One of the blessed bonuses of being somewhere that language barriers aren't an issue is the ability to make friends easily, particularly around my D&D hobby (which I tragically can't pursue while out and about, being strongly averse to online play).  As such, I've found myself with friends here that I'm hanging out with beyond just the basic-level activity.  I gave them this link so I need to make sure I say nice things about them.  Which is easy, because they're lovely people.  Case in point, they were all too eager to be the first to introduce me to a braai.

 A braai is a South African tradition combining a bbq and a potluck.  It's a common and important enough event that many middle-class-and-up houses have an entire space dedicated to it - this is the bedroom, this is the lounge (living room), and this is the braai room.  Attendees typically bring the meat or similar things that they want to have, everything gets grilled up, and you eat until you feel a little unwell.  Or at least I did.

And how could I not?  I'm a carnivore at heart, which is tricky because said heart would probably stop if I ate like it wanted me to.  And a braai is so much meat.  Potato salad is also a common side, though we didn't have any at this particular one.  The sandwich things on the left there are braai broodjie.  There was also lamb chops, ostrich sausage, kudu (a kind of antelope), beef, and probably other things that I forgot to take notes on.  One of the more interesting creations were oopsies, bacon-wrapped glazed cherries on little skewers.  Then for dessert, milk tart (served in slices like pie) and malva pudding with custard.  Somewhat like bread pudding from the UK, I find myself encountering what is called pudding but is almost entirely unrecognizable for what Americans call it.  Ask a typical American which part of that last picture is the pudding and they might say the yellow creamy semiliquid goop.  Somehow the US drifted in definition away from the baked kind of thing.  Maybe one day I'll research how and why.  Maybe.

My new friends also presented me with a giant overflowing treasure box of South African snacks, candies, etc.  Of particular note are Fizzers, a kind of taffy-coated Pop Rocks; tomato-flavoured maize chips (softer than corn chips, e.g. Fritos, but similar base); Pin Pops, essentially Blow Pops; bacon flavored cheddar crackers; and creme soda flavored milk (yes, really).  I haven't tried all of it yet but so far it's mostly been quite nice.

These friends didn't introduce me to the other South African food I discovered this past week; I found a Gatsby all by myself.  I was ordering UberEats and the picture on the restaurant's page looked roughly like a sub sandwich.  I already had gotten a chicken sandwich and fries (chips, locally), so I thought, better just do a half.

Apparently this is a half gatsby from that particular restaurant.  As long as my head and 2/3 as wide, layered with sauce and thick-cut chips, and this variety having a hearty hot dog-style roll in the middle.  This would probably be enough food for an entire day.  It was great, don't get me wrong, I'll probably get another one someday...but certainly not along with anything else.

As a closing, this is not food but just a family that visited the pole studio I'm training at.  They were cautiously curious, but I don't think they'll come back for classes. 

"Check your privilege"

 This is going to be a very different kind of post than most of mine.  If you're here for the travel stories and the pictures and the sights, or even the surface-level observations about the world around me, maybe go ahead and skip this one.

This one is going to talk more about my personal life, my experience in starting to look at dating while out here, and the particular things I'm finding...and what they're showing me.  It's going to be political, even if I try to find a somewhat moderate way to express it.

So, for context:  South Africa is in a pretty rough place.  It's advanced, Westernized, capitalist, all of that, and as of the mid '80s or so, the legal systems in place that enforced racial discrimination have been removed.  Anyone in the US knows that's not a magic bullet to fix racism, nor does it solve the issues that arise from a particular group being disadvantaged for centuries.  The government is currently headed by a black South African, and a major push that they have on a policy level is to even the playing field through what are called BEE laws, similar to the US's Affirmative Action and similar things.  Essentially the demographics of an area determine the ethnic hiring balance of those companies; if the area is 70% black, then 70% of the employees have to be black.  I can't speak to the exact wording or policies, as I haven't researched them myself, but this is the description I've gotten from multiple people here.

The thing is, there are plenty of loopholes in that as written.  So it's easy for a company to hire only white people for management and corporate positions as long as they have (or create) enough positions at other levels.  There is a minimum wage here that equates to about ~$1.70 US per hour.  At least in the area I'm in, the cost of food/groceries is lower than what I left in the US, but not substantially.  Housing is much less expensive, relatively, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily affordable.  All that to say, even with higher position creation at many companies, the jobs themselves don't pay all that much.

And that's if you can get a job.  The current unemployment rate, according to a quick Google, is about 35% in PE.  Compare that to Colorado's approximate 4%.

My point, in case it's eluding anyone, is that economically, South Africa is not in a great place.  And because there's a very well-studied, direct correlation between poverty and crime, it makes sense that SA is pretty well-known as a high crime country.  It's so normalized here that almost everyone I talk to comments on it, and many people even joke about it.  Whistling in the dark.

All of that is just context.  So put that somewhere in the middle of your mind.

I haven't dated since roughly 2022, 2023.  I decided to pursue this nomad life around that time, and began living in a sort of limbo.  I knew that I would be moving any day now(tm) so forming a serious connection with a non-nomad just seemed doomed to either fail, or tie me down and deny me my goals.  The latter wasn't an option to me (and still isn't), so I just decided to forego it entirely.
In Bulgaria and Georgia, I lacked any functional language ability, and thus didn't pursue dating either.
Now I'm in South Africa where the language is once again shared.  While I'm still nomadic and still quite dedicated to that choice, I determined that I should also take advantage of the lack of language barrier and maybe see what's out there, being very upfront about my life situation and all that.

I got very few responses.  Which is not surprising.  If I found someone on a dating site or similar who was saying they'd be around a paltry couple months, I probably wouldn't invest much either.  Everyone in digital nomad circles knows how lonely this life can be since your mobility usually comes at the cost of serious ties and long-term relationships. 

But I digress.
Of the three responses I've gotten so far, two are unemployed.  One has been a good conversational partner, and we're planning an in-person meeting for later this week.  I may or may not report back on that, but it's not really important.  What IS important, to me at least, is the journey it's been learning about them, their lives, and looking in the mirror along the way.

There's a phrase in more liberal circles: "Check your privilege."  It refers to the way that one's upbringing can shape their view of the world to such a deep, almost subconscious level that they don't recognize that the world works totally differently for other people.  This has mostly come up in reference to systemic racism, especially police profiling and violence against Black people in America.  "Check your privilege" means to acknowledge that as a white person, especially a middle-class white person, something like being pulled over for speeding may be a casual, harmless interaction for you as they run your license plate, check for warrants, and send you on your way; for a Black person, it may mean a search of the vehicle on the assumption that there are drugs, detainment for crimes that might be overlooked, and so on.  It changes the entire experience.

In stepping out and putting myself in a place to talk to people I wouldn't just "stumble across" in day to day life or in pursuit of my (white middle class) hobbies, I'm encountering lives and experiences that remind me of my privilege.  
Someone works in a bakery, and it occurs to me that my normal follow-up question of "do you like it" is silly because whether they like it or not, they have to hold onto it because finding another job may just not be possible.  Meanwhile, I come from a world where if I don't like my job, I could probably find another one.  I may not like it either, but I undeniably have options.
Someone messages me and I ask what they do in their free time.  They say that they mostly just sit around.  While I don't think this is literally accurate, sit and stare at the walls and do nothing, it's expressive enough that I kind of understand.  After all, if they're unemployed, what holds their day together?  And if they're unemployed, what hobbies can they have that don't require some kind of investment?  You can't knit without buying yarn.  You can't read without having books (including a way to get to the library to borrow them).  You can't learn an instrument without buying one.  And so on.

I should be clear on something: I don't feel guilty or ashamed of my place in the world.  I don't resent my job, my freedom, my opportunities because some people don't have them.  The point of "check your privilege" is not to make you feel bad about yourself; it's to remind you that not everyone has the same experience.  It's to encourage you to step outside yourself, see the world through different eyes.  In the process of intentionally meeting people I wouldn't normally and thinking critically about how I'm interacting with them, their experiences, their perspectives, I'm learning about myself and the ways that I think without thinking.

And hopefully not making an ass of myself in the process 🤣🤣 

This Port in a Storm

 So the title may be a bit misleading.  Kind of sounds like I've been through this terrible circumstance and was desperate for anything that would shelter me, as the "Any port in a storm" saying describes.

This hasn't been that.  As I've likely described, I chose South Africa as a kind of respite from being as complete a foreigner as I am in many places, with neither the language skills nor the social skills to form and sustain interactions with the people around me.  But that doesn't mean South Africa felt like my only choice, or that I felt that if I didn't find an English-speaking country or region quickly I'd be in some dangerous dark place or something.  South Africa has been a point of interest to me since learning about apartheid in middle school, and climbed the list after meeting a remarkably diverse set of people while teaching in China.  One country contained multitudes, and I've been curious to explore that further, particularly as someone from a country that used to proudly title itself "the melting pot."

Used to.  *ahem*

 In my typical somewhat lackadaisical approach to choosing new places, though, I'd done little advance research on the actual culture of this country, the history beyond just the '80s, and so on.  What I didn't know or expect was that I'd find what has been by far the friendliest people I've encountered.

Now, I should define that further.  Many people in America are friendly.  I often felt at least tentatively accepted and appreciated by the local teachers in China.  I wouldn't even go so far as to characterize Bulgaria or even Georgia as unfriendly, just...more selective.  But from almost the moment I landed, I felt the difference here, and the more I've gotten out and talked to people, the more that's been confirmed.  Basically all the South Africans I've met, which has admittedly and unfortunately been almost exclusively the white South Africans, have been genuinely interested, open, welcoming, and helpful, often proactively so.  Offering rides, suggesting things to see and do, asking more probing questions and interacting meaningfully with the answers.  For a country as beset by crime as this one is, it hasn't seemed to jade the people that much, and that's just remarkable to me.

As an example of this, my AirBnB hosts volunteered (almost pushed, honestly) to take me out to the shoreline nearby, specifically the area near the Sacramento trail.  As I've done before, I've lumped all this into a single photo album for free perusal (or not).  I would like to highlight how crazy dense the coastline/"beach" was with shells, including some that got fairly large.  This section of the coast is very rocky, but with formations and erosion patterns that made me wish I'd studied more geology so I could understand how they formed.  I mean, look at this.  It's so vastly different to anything I've seen in the US, even along the coasts.  Parts of South Africa are also popular surfing destinations, and with these waves I could see why, though the Sacramento trail area is far too dangerous (obviously).

Beyond that, I've been making a pretty dedicated effort to find D&D players and games.  It's something that was a primary hobby back in the US, and for a slew of reasons that aren't important, playing online just isn't something I can get into and enjoy.  So while I'm back where English is dominant, it seemed like a good idea to enjoy that some more.  I've returned to pole classes after over a month off for the cyst removal, and found that I lost some strength and conditioning over the gap that's coming back pretty quickly.   I'm likely to be taking four classes a week by the time I'm ready to leave here.  
Well, rephrase: by the time I have to leave because my visa has run out.  I'm getting a sense that I won't be *ready to leave* at that point.

At the moment, I don't know that I have much more to say.  Got another picture of the cursed Ibises that are loud and obnoxious, a picture of a couple little lizard friends, and a mediocre picture of the red moon that resulted from the lunar eclipse that occurred here.  There's also this very bold store claim.

Now for a sight on what's coming next.
I'd initially leaned towards Nairobi, Kenya as my next destination.  Relatively close, a place of interest for some time, and with fairly common English, it seemed like a good transition of sorts.  However, in looking at Kenyan visa processes, I found that like many countries, I need to have onward travel booked in order to apply for the visa.  This meant figuring out before I left where I'd be going afterwards.  Given I'm still sort of stumbling around out here, this level of planning was somewhat new.  Sure, I'd had my whole path laid out and planned, but that was all in service of a particular goal or process; this is just living.

So off I set to figure out where I'd go next.  It was in that process that I realized that of the southeast Asian countries, Vietnam is among the only ones where there's any time of the year I'd actually enjoy it, and even that's only northern Vietnam and only during the winter.  If I stayed in Kenya for a month or two, I'd be leaving in December or January.  Having been to Vietnam before, I'm fairly confident I'd be content there for a longer stay (tourist visa caps at 90 days there); I also need to work on more stable, consistent travel because each relocation costs nearly a week of productivity and that is crippling if you move once a month or so.  
That put me in Vietnam from January to March, maybe early April...by which time it's already getting back towards the high 70s, 80s.  However, I realized that if I went to Vietnam *first*, I'd be there during the thick of winter when the temperatures would be most amenable to me.  So that's next.

Vietnam also has an onward travel requirement, though, so I had to look at what came after that.  Nairobi is entering one of their hotter times of the year in March/April, but cools down a bit by June/July; so I needed to find something more winter/spring until then.  I was first drawn to Eastern Europe, then specifically to Riga, Latvia.  So that'll follow Vietnam, then Nairobi, and honestly after that I expect to return here to Gqeberha, South Africa.  It's early yet, of course, having only been three weeks, but a large part of me could see making this a regular part of my rotation even as far away from everything as it is.

So that's the next year sketched out.  At the very least, Vietnam > Latvia is semi-solid (though not booked yet, waiting on a couple of larger jobs to pay out).  I wouldn't want to return to South Africa until May or so to avoid their summer, but Nairobi fits nicely in there both climate-wise and geographically.

 It's all quite the adventure.