ch-ch-ch changes

This is so not in keeping with the theme of this blog, but look! I was totally depressed about this yesterday - how am I going to keep up with the Twins when I'm traveling the far corners of the world??

Joe calmed me down by wisely pointing out that everyone goes through big changes, and its actually kind of cool that Bat-Girl and I are sharing some similar sentiments right now.

Sigh... she's so great.

cold feet, warm heart

I am starting to feel wistful and nostalgic, just sad to go I suppose. And a bit scared. Suddenly I see all these reasons to stay in Chicago. I have a great job with fun and interesting co-workers. The writing studio is offering some new cool classes and even a certificate program this session. And I love my guitar - how could I possibly sell it now that I am having such a good time learning songs on it?

The week before graduation from college, I felt the same way. Anything could bring on sentimental feelings - passing a good friend on the path up to campus, sorting through my used textbooks and deciding which ones to keep, picking an outfit for my last "school dance". I spent the entire week wishing I could just push off the "real world" for one more semester.

So today I have been giving myself little pep-talks - much like the commencement speech at graduation. There are so many experiences I have had here that warm my heart, that will stay with me as memories - both in mind and material (those sweet mix CDs, an awesome hand-made scarf, a beautiful new journal...)

I'll let that be all for now, because I could get so much more cheesy if I don't stop myself. Just wanted to make it known how much I am going to miss Chicago and my fun life at the music school, the girls from the pub, and my unforgettable foray into "the world of consulting". It has all been... perfect.

update from aliaga

Joe just sent a couple of pictures. He's having fun by the sea.

yee-haw!

Um, I just bought cowboy boots. Wait... I should rephrase: I just bought hunter green cowboy boots. I have been working on finding a good pair of boots for my Paraguay adventures, and apparently these are it. I don't understand.

When I asked myself "why, self, would you buy cowboy boots?" the only answers I could come up with were:
a) they were inexpensive, good quality, versatile boots
b) my alter-ego is a teenager who thinks its still 2004
c) this is some manner of pre-culture shock, where I want to consume the most American of things

Ha, I actually think all of the above are pretty much true. In addition to the boots I also bought a few vintage polyester shirts in colorful prints and a wool jacket. All should coordinate well with my khaki pants, which I have brought out of storage - now that I'm going to be 'supervising' people, I realized I can't wear just jeans and t-shirts every day.

Thus, the wardrobe overhaul. And thus, the cowboy boots... giddyup.

for sale, my life

I spent this week sifting through closets and drawers in the apartment, trashing old unusable things, and sorting out the nice stuff suitable for sale. Then Friday and Saturday I joined Diane, one of the other front desk folks at the music school, at her garage sale; she offered to let me sell the housewares I'd been purging in exchange for a bit of company over the two days. We had a lot of fun chatting, drinking coffee, and eating chocolate with another one of her friends who joined the fun, Jan.

I sold lots of things: the TV with the built-in VCR, my shoe-rack, lots of place-mats, all my baskets, and on and on. Diane had a bunch of kids' stuff for sale and she was happy to give most of it away for free to the kids that came through. We negotiated on a lot of the prices because all three of us just wanted to get rid of our clutter, and we were all quite successful - I took home less than half the items I started with, plus a new giant suitcase (an old one of Diane's which I traded for the TV) and some cold cash.

Diane's neighborhood reminded me a lot of the neighborhood where my brother and his wife now own a house, on the south side of Minneapolis. There were lots of families that came through, many Spanish speakers, cute little kids, and hilarious empty-nesters. There was one family, in particular, that came back several times and ultimately purchased almost half of the things I was selling - including my oldest and most utilized backpack.

The family moved to Chicago from the Philippines within the last year, and seem to be adjusting well. Mom has a job at a Dunkin' Donuts on the southwest side (although their home is on the north side), and they have two adorable girls who got incredibly lucky with all the free stuffed animals they took home. They are just starting to get things together in their new home, so they needed a lot of the things we were selling - they bought shelves, baskets, holiday decorations, etc. It was super cool to think of them - getting their life together in a new place - and myself - trying to pack up my life here and readying myself for the next several months in an unknown place - and how we criss-crossed paths just at the right moment.

They are the new owners of my iconic one-strap Jansport backpack, which has carried my college thesis research texts, my laptop while I was making trips to-and-from the coffee shop conducting my job-search last year, and my groceries on bike-rides from Trader Joe's. I hope it serves them as well as it served me.

In the next few weeks, I have to continue the job of cleaning house. Namely, my furniture will have to go, including my little tan recliner that I have lounged in since age 9. More on the emotional turmoil of parting with "the Erica seat" to come...

joe's new home

I spent some time yesterday reading up on the area of Turkey where Joe now lives and works. Its a pretty incredible place. Less than an hour north of Izmir, Turkey's 3rd largest city, is Aliaga (which is not really written with a 'g', nor is it pronounced how you see it here, but that's as close as English comes to deciphering the town's name), situated right on the Aegean coast.

(That's Joe's work in the distance)
The refinery is the town's main industry, but the coastal province where it is situated is also popular for their archeological and cultural sites. Izmir is just across the Aegean Sea from Athens, Greece and several of the main tourist sites are ancient Greek cities.

Aigai is one of these sites, just inland from Aliaga atop Mount Gun. Here is a picture I found of some of the ruins there:
A bit more information was available on another site, Bergama, where the ancient ruins of Pergamon are located. Hopefully Joe will be able to make it to see this site; it looks like there are some pretty impressive old structures, an archeological museum, and even some Ottoman historical attractions. Here's one of the photos I found from Pergamon:

last days in chicago

The weather has been beautiful, although slightly chilly - perfect for seeing my city at its best during my last few weeks here. On Saturday, Jen invited me along on the Chicago Architecture boat tour. Here is a shot of a condo building designed by Bertrand Goldberg (the same guy who designed and built Marina City, a.k.a. the honeycombs towers). He really liked circles, and I admire his funky style.

In the distance, my beloved 9-tower open-box-of-cigarettes Sears building. Gosh, isn't it just the coolest? Can't really say I feel that same way about 311 South Wacker right in front of it... but that's purely personal preference.
Here's another Chicago site not to be missed. We took Joe's friends John and Kelly to a game when they were in town a few weekends ago. Amazingly, we made it through 7.5 innings before nearly freezing. I was proud of us.
One last photo here. I took this one about a year ago, in May when the city starts to be love-able again. This one reminds me of the first time I saw Chicago as a child. Driving in on the Kennedy Expressway, I was awestruck by the expanse of the skyline. The height of the city extended entirely across the visible horizon; it wasn't just an isolated cluster the way Minneapolis is when you come over the crest on northbound 35-W at Lake Street. Have a look (that's the Diversey Harbor in the foreground - just east of my apartment!):
All right, that's all for my Chicago ode at this time.

in a moment

Joe is leaving for Turkey in the morning.

He was supposed to be starting a project in southern Spain in mid-June, but things can change quickly in his business I guess. We were emailing back-and-forth at work today - I had written a one-liner "are you having turkey and cheese for lunch?" An hour later he called, saying it was funny I asked about Turkey because... he would be heading there in less than 24 hours.

Right now I am waiting for him to come home so we can pack all his stuff up and hopefully get some sleep before tomorrow. I was headed downstairs just now to do his little bit of laundry, but found myself staring at the wall in shock. This helped.

things come together

It felt almost like this trip planned itself.

Back in college, I was convinced that if I returned to do Amigos again, I most certainly wanted to be in the Dominican Republic. Yet, when I applied last year, I selected Paraguay as my first choice - the most southern country of all. Having never crossed over the Equator and not knowing when I might ever return to the Southern hemisphere, it suddenly made sense to plan some additional travel after the program.

Realizing that the volunteer gig and my subsequent travels would keep me out of the U.S. for upwards of three months, it occurred to me that I might need to resign entirely from my job at the music school. With Joe departing for his traveling work assignments around the same time that I would be leaving for South America, it made perfect sense that I would meet up with him after my program and we would travel together for a while.

And thus, the near-term future was all laid out and completely, wonderfully, un-planned. The more I think about it, the more it seems like the most perfect possible way to spend the next year(s) of my life.

To start with, I get to spend an awesome summer with some cool teenagers - probably learning as much about myself as they will about their selves. (I'm really excited for them!) Then for a couple of weeks in late August, I will finally get to travel around the Southern continent to see some of the places I have read so much about - Buenos Aires, Brazil, Iguazzu... and we'll see if I can squeeze in a jaunt to Punta del Este, Uruguay.

Come September, Joe and I will be sharing our adventures - professionally, culturally, and personally. While he is honing the skills it takes to engineer a refinery, I will be writing, volunteering, possibly taking some classes. On weekends we will try to do some more in-depth exploring, he'll have to entertain my attempts at preparing local cuisines, and we will live the traveling life together. I think we are both going to learn a lot.

I hope all of you keep in touch - with recommendations on places to see, books to read, people to meet, or simply questions we should think about and discuss. I look forward to sharing this adventure with all of you.

genesis

I thought I'd provide a bit of background for anyone who happens upon this site over the next few months (years?) and wonders how I got here, how this was possible, and all that.

In the fall of 2003 I entered my senior year of college at Haverford, which is just outside of Philadelphia, PA. I was an Economics major with a concentration in Latin American studies. (Aside: a 'Concentration' at Haverford was basically the equivalent of a Minor, except for the addition of a "long paper" project during the penultimate semester. Alongside the requisite major thesis this essentially gave me license to complain about my work-load all year long.) According to my professors in the two disciplines Economics and Latin American studies was a rare combination, although the two seemed quite marriable to me. Allow me to explain...

Between high school and college, I had spent two months in rural Costa Rica working on a sanitation project with the Costa Rican Ministry of Health in cooperation with a US-based organization called Amigos de las Americas. Later, as a junior in college, I spent a semester at la Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico. The primary cultural shock I experienced in both cases was that of economic disparity. (Incidentally, I don't care for the word disparity because it sounds too much like "despair" and in neither case was what I experienced necessarily sad.)

I was fascinated by what we take for granted in the United States: when I returned from Costa Rica, I spent several hours wandering the fully-stocked aisles of a brightly-lit, excessively air-conditioned supermarket in Minneapolis, unable even to blink my eyes.

Yet, when I traveled to Mexico - a country that allows free trade with more than 20 other nations - I found the abundance of US- and European-made hair products (in particular) even more astounding, considering the small percentage of the population that can actually afford these luxury goods. When I begun to realize that the likely source of money spent on luxury products in Mexico was actually earned "illegally" in the United States, I felt compelled to find out why.

So there I was, a senior in college, just back from a summer research assistantship with a think tank in Washington DC. My head was full of plans to pursue a Masters in Latin American studies, I spent hours scouring the library for books and articles on Mexican-US trade and labor economics, and I saw myself becoming the premier economic expert on trade globalization and free market labor issues.

And then the corporate recruiters came knocking...

Six months later I had a polished resume, a new black suit, and smart-glasses to match. I was flown hither and thither to be interviewed by rich and powerful people in tall buildings, and I caught the fever. When an offer was extended for a two year consulting program in Chicago, with opportunities to travel all over the world on projects and an entry-level salary that was more than I had ever imagined, I said "yes" to the corporate world.

Suffice it to say, I didn't last long.

(I fully intend to disclose all the juicy details of that experience in a sort of memoir-slash-guidebook for young women; I'll be working on that project on the side over the course of my travels this year. Details to come...)

In May of 2006 I quit my first job - quite the occasion - and started working part time at a folk music school in Chicago. I knew I wanted to be learning, working toward some sort of graduate education, helping others get educated or find their calling, and just generally "figuring things out". I considered several career directions: applying for PhD programs in economics, attending the Unitarian seminary at U of Chicago, becoming the lead singer in a blues-soul outfit, obtaining a degree in ethnic dance, becoming a high school teacher/coach, and so on. Everything sounded great, but still I wasn't ready. Something about committing so fully to that first job only to find near-complete dissatisfaction - well, it'll make you a bit more hesitant the next time around.

There was one nagging thing that had been in the back of my mind ever since that summer after high school: I knew I wanted to do another project with Amigos de las Americas - this time as a supervisor. In December of 2006, I was accepted and the adventure began to take shape...