Fresh Air for Christmas

One part of growing up I always looked forward to, and still now, of course, were vacations or holidays, time away from my everyday environment to experience something new.

I was one of the lucky ones who went away nearly every year - sometimes across the country, sometimes across the ocean, sometimes just camping a few hours away. But what was important about it was the time to discover something about the world and about myself. These were, and continue to be, times of growth.

There are many people who grow up not so lucky. Maybe they don't have the money or the right situations in their lives to be able to go away. Going away from the place you were born and where you spend your days, especially as a child, is an essential experience.

And there is actually a group who help make that a possibility for kids who can't put together a trip for themselves. It's called the Fresh Air Fund, a group based in New York City which has been around for more than 230 years. They send kids on camping trips or to stay with host families.
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The kids are from New York City. They range in age from 6-18. This sort of thing lets them forget about the chaos of the city for a while. One of them said: "In the city, you have to think about what is going to happen around the next street corner. In the woods, you walk with a group of friends and counselors. You don't even think about city problems."
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Need a feel-good project for the new year? They're looking for hosts, and of course, donations. Though, hosting sounds quite interesting if you ask me. If I lived stateside and had my own place, I would probably do it. I think you can take a lot away from an experience like that - maybe even as much as the kids do.
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Morning London Photos

One of the best (and free) things to do in London is walk around the city in the early hours of the morning and watch it unfold. It takes some motivation to get out of bed at 6am on a weekend, but when I do, it is always worth it.
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My favourite place to go that early is Brick Lane. There is nothing like sitting in Coffee @ Brick Lane with a cup of tea and a notebook, watching the market come to life the vendors pulling boxes from vans to set up the markets and the pavements and streets slowly filling with people.

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Besides Brick Lane, I love to wander around the near-deserted South Bank in the early morning light. So when I found myself on the train pulling into Charing Cross at 9am yesterday morning, I decided to go for a walk instead of jumping straight onto the tube. The air was so cold that the only hands visible were the pink ones shaking cameras at the London Eye and Parliament. The Christmas Market stalls had yet to open. And I was grateful for my Starbucks caramel macchiato to warm me up.

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Here's a few photos:
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The Homicides of a Marine and his Wife

There are a host of issues that come into play in the recent homicides of Marine Sergeant Jan Pawel Pietrzak and his wife of only two months, Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak, an interracial couple. They were shot in their own home after Quiana was raped.

Speculation says race was a major contributor to the case as Jan Pawel was white, married to a beautiful black woman and all four men involved in their deaths were black. Though authorities say robbery was the motive, the facts suggest otherwise.

I was asked to write an article this week for Seven Magazine about the story so if you're interested in reading, you can find it here. Please feel free to start a discussion as it is an important issue.

Other than that and a lot of editing, I've been Christmas shopping, spending a bit of time with Dr. K and having a very annoying cold. On the plus side, I also bought an ultrasonic mouse repeller and, despite having about 15 other snap or glue traps lining my walls, I think it may finally have gotten rid of the evil rodent - *fingers crossed* anyway.

LaVena Johnson Article

Tons of amusing things have happened lately, but I think I will just post this for now. On Wednesday night, I was asked to write an article for Seven Magazine on LaVena Johnson. It went out in the mailout for the magazine Friday morning as the lead story. Thought I would share - not because it is my article, but because it is an important issue that everyone should be aware of...

It starts:

November 11 was Veterans Day in the United States, a day to honour and respect those who risked their lives for American freedom, and those who died for it. As in many other cemeteries where veterans are buried, endless rows of white gravestones line the grass of Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. Among them, with the simple black outline of a cross and an American flag waving at its side, there is one that reads: LaVena Lynn Johnson, PFC US Army.
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LaVena, an honours student from Missouri, died on 27 July, 2005 - just ten weeks after she was deployed to Balad, Iraq, as a weapons supply manager for the 129 Corp Support Battalion. She was just 19-years-old when a shift supervisor from a nearby military cafeteria heard a bang and found her mutilated body inside a contractor’s tent. Though many remembered her bravery on Veterans Day, her death has not been given the respect and honour that this day commands.
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A broken nose, loose teeth, acid burns on her genitals which were presumably to eliminate DNA evidence of rape, a dislocated shoulder, abrasions on her body, a long burn from her shoulder to thigh, torn vaginal area and a bullet wound through her head, LaVena was lying on the stony earth with gashes on the sides of her mouth, her hair tangled in the dirt, a bench turned upside down on top of her.

“Suicide,” the US Army Criminal Investigation Command claimed, despite nine months of investigation. Case closed.
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To read the whole article and help LaVena's family, go to the Seven Magazine page.

Now This is America....

For the first time in quite a while,
when I woke up this morning
(after very few hours of sleep),
I woke up
proud
to be an American.

Paris

Paris, je t’aime. It’s a good thing too because I have a free return ticket to go back. A cigarette butt started a small fire in the carriage nine toilets so we had to pull into the emergency tunnel. In the end it took longer to get from London to Paris than it usually takes me to get from London to New York. So they gave everyone free return tickets.

The best thing about Paris was the language barrier. The French protect their culture by not speaking English even though you know most of them are fluent. Though it was occasionally a challenge to form the correct sentences, they appreciate the effort to communicate in their language.

I had quite a bit of time to myself while D was at work. I wandered along the Seine checking out all the old books and bric-a-brac in the green wooden stands that line the river. Walked across Pont Neuf bridge, which is the oldest one, and down to Notre Dame through a flower market, into some random little boutiques along the way and saw a rollerblade dance team and a few street artists. Some police are also on rollerblades. Discovered the Pompidou Centre which is the modern art building with Crayola-coloured piping on one side and a set of escalators scaling the other.

Went to Place de Clignoncourt to investigate a small part of the market. The beginning is all hip hop culture selling "designer" bags, shoes, tee shirts, bling, etc. Lots of rap blaring from speakers. Then I cut through a small alley and it was like a completely different market. Old guys were sitting in front of antique displays whistling Then I found myself in a huge lot with blankets spread out and garage sale type of stuff everywhere.

Saw Edward Scissorhands, or Edward aux Mains d'Argent, for free in the sound box on night and Jamie Cullum for free in box seats the next. Both were absolutely excellent.

Ate tons of crepes, spent one day with a French girl who took me around the Jardin des Tuileries, Musee d’Orsay, Angelina’s for delicious hot chocolate and on a river cruise to see Paris la nuit. The Eiffel Tower glittering which it does every hour for 5 minutes at night. In between, it was blue and lit up with the stars from the EU flag on front to mark France's term as EU president. Hung out near the weeping willows on the Ile de la Cite.

Spent some time in Montmartre, walked through the small market area of artists who were drawing portraits in all styles, went into the Sacre Coeur, into some cool little shops and down to Pigalle where we saw the Moulin Rouge and walked around the sex shops.

We went to the Cimetiere de Montparnesse where Simone de Beauvoir and Paul Sartre are buried and to Cimetiere de Pere Lachaise to see the graves of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.

All in all, a fantastic time. I just put a massive four-entry write up in my other blog so this is short and sweet, but here’s a couple of the 400 photos I took while I was there:
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26 Hours

L and I met just outside Camden station late Saturday afternoon to walk through the markets. Not planning to buy anything, she ended up with two pairs of shoes, a ring and a lip ring and I bought a new winter coat. But I have been saying I wanted another one that wasn’t black. So I justified it in my head.

It was L’s first Camden experience so I took her round the entire market, past the steaming aisles of Indian, Japanese, Moroccan, Chinese, etc., ooohing and ahhhing at all of the dresses, bags, shoes and even to Cyberdog, the crazy shop on the corner with pounding techno, glow-in-the-dark space age clothes and occasional dancers. We went to Proud Galleries and looked at photos of Janis Joplin while a band was going through a sound check.

Then I found the first mulled wine I’ve seen this season. It was quite possibly the best mulled wine I’ve ever tasted as well. Perfect warm temperature when I wrapped my cold hands around the white Styrofoam cup, perfect amount of spice and sufficiently strong enough to make me slightly giddy when I finished.

Just before the sun set, we sat down to dig into £2 trays of Chinese food.
N, the Australian guy I met on the N52 the night before called then from the station. The three of us walked through the side streets to Dublin Castle. We found a place to perch ourselves on a wide window sill open to the night sky, people drinking on either side of us.

After a drink, we walked down to The Monarch, formerly Misty Moon, formerly The Man in the Moon. There was an open corner full of couches and we made ourselves comfortable pouring over the travel section of the paper someone left behind and planning imaginary trips around the world.

Then it was on to Barfly for some live music. Live music must be my favourite thing in the world besides travelling. L left halfway through and N and I stayed for all four bands.
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I took him to Marathon next which is quite possibly my absolute favourite little hideaway in London. It’s one of those places you know about through word of mouth. On the outside, it is a kebab shop. On the inside, once you walk through the kebab shop, it is a jazz café. Inside, there are benches and tables with Jack Daniel’s bottles dripping with candle wax. It fills to the brim, shoulder to shoulder with people from ages 18 – 80 just mingling together, squashed, laughing, dancing, singing along as the same man and women who are always there work their magic on the sax and a variety of other instruments.

Another amusing thing about this place is that it has unisex toilets so the guys have to wait in the queue with us. Sweet revenge.
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Anyway, N and I had an absolute blast - relaxed with the jazz and smiling faces and people standing up in the crowd eating kebabs over the shoulder of the person next to them.

By the last song, New York, New York by Frank Sinatra, we were all singing loudly and standing up kicking feet simultaneously everyone with their arms around a bunch of strangers. We giggled over silly things and fell into the stream of bodies flowing out of the small door and into the cool night.

I don’t know why we couldn’t stop laughing, but everything was funny. We ran halfway across the street and stopped in the middle bit. We stood there forever trying to take pictures of ourselves while cars zoomed past us on both sides.

It was probably after 5am when I walked in the door. A day later, and N is already back in Melbourne. When he was hugging me goodbye earlier, I said, “It’s so strange to know we might never see each other again, isn’t it?” He said, “Well, that would be a sad ending to the past 26 hours.” It’s incredible actually, to think I met him on the bus the night before, and only by chance – but he was absolutely lovely and for what it matters, we each brought about 26 hours of smiles to each other’s lives. That has to count for something.

When Strangers Collide: A Tale of Borders and the N52

Peppermint tea from Sacred Café sat on the floor next to a pile of design magazines and books on Mongolia near my legs. It was Friday night and I was stretched out in a quiet corner of Borders on Oxford Street near some empty shelves in the history section. Engrossed in a magazine featuring bizarre advertisements from around the world, I didn’t take any notice of the stranger browsing the history books next to me.
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That is until I looked up to take a sip of tea and caught his eye. We ended up in a discussion about teaching English abroad, how he lived in Japan, China and Korea over a period of a year doing just that. He said, “Hey, want to come with me to get a drink upstairs?” It was a good conversation and I had no plans so I shrugged, abandoned my stack of magazines, and followed him toward the escalator. After sitting in a corner near the Learn-French-in-15-Minutes-a Day books, he read my palm and he taught me how to read his. Then there I was sitting on the floor in the language section in a giant bookshop with a stranger, his hand wrapped warmly around the back of mine, his index finger tracing the tiny lines in my palm.
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We went to an awesome little Korean restaurant called Arirang on Poland Street. The interior was lovely with massive mirrors lining the walls of the basement area where we were seated at a shiny red table. I ordered the beef bulgogi that came with a bowl of sticky rice and a bowl of egg soup which was the most unusual soup I’ve ever seen – basically a thin broth with little flaky bits of egg whites floating around. It sounds horrible but it was actually quite tasty. A small Korean woman served us jasmine tea in handle-less mugs with Chinese writing on the sides. Around us, mainly Asian languages floated through the air and we picked away at our meals with chopsticks actually made out of silverware material rather than the typical disposable wooden ones.
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Our conversation over dinner was all about cultures, traditions of people living in other countries, places we want to go, what the world is coming to, and so on. It was nice to have a conversation like that with a stranger. It was gone 11, but the Tattershall Castle – the boat pub across from the London Eye – was calling. The upper deck was absolutely abandoned, and down the dock away from the street and crowds, floating gently on the water under a bright white moon was bliss. We could even pick out a few stars. The Eye was lit up in green. Muted music from the club below us sounded like it floated along the river from a distant party. We sat there chatting, watching the small waves of passing ships rock up against the side of the boat. It was chilly, but a refreshing, crisp Autumn kind of chilly. Clocks ticked slowly past last train times.
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I hate the night bus – full of drunken people, screeching people, puking people, violent people, smelly people, etc. I usually take a different one, but decided to wait for the N52 for a change. Around Hyde Park just before Knightsbridge, I watched a drunk guy cycling in the street steer himself into the curb and fly off his bike into a lamp post. He sat on the ground, his bike still lying in the street with wheels spinning, and he cracked open a can of beer that was in his pocket - playing it cool.
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Around my stop, I met two Australian guys looking for directions. After a bit of conversation, we ended up at Paradise down the road. That’s Paradise in Kensal Green, the pub. Later, N walked me home. We walked slowly, even stopping to admire the way the clouds broke into a grid like pattern in the nearly blue night time sky, stars peaking through the cracks, twinkling. Not a soul passed by once we turned off of Chamberlayne Road.
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We exchanged numbers and decided to catch a gig in Camden Saturday night. I went inside at 4am thinking about how, when I left work, my plan was to wander around Oxford Circus and then take a sandwich and some tea down to the river to write on the docks for a while and have an early night home. I love this city when strangers collide like this.