Well, I made it to day thirty.  It has been a challenge.  It was a lot more difficult than I imagined considering I was given topics to write about.  I love to write.  Somedays the words flow and on others, I sit and stare at a blank screen for an hour lost in my thoughts.  The difficulty of this challenge wasn’t so much writing every day, but having to complete something every day that I would publish on my website. Not counting today’s blog, in the twenty-nine previous days, I have written 31,471 words and had 519 visitors to “Down the Rabbit Hole”.  Going in with zero expectations, I am happy with those statistics.  But, what’s next?

I started “Down the Rabbit Hole” in 2014 when I moved to Paris so my family and friends could follow my day-to-day life and experiences.  When I returned to the USA from Paris, I neglected to maintain my domain and I also didn’t consider writing anything from Warren, Ohio.  Therefore, all was lost.  I didn’t start writing seriously again until I moved to Dong’e in 2017, and “Down the Rabbit Hole – My Adventures in the Middle Kingdom” was reborn.  I later changed it to “…the Middle Kingdom and Beyond” when I left China.

What started as simply a way to share my experiences with family and friends has grown into something more for me.  It is a record of my life.  Through writing about the people I have met, I hope I can show that our differences aren’t so different.  Maybe we speak a different language or practice a different religion, but I have met some of the most interesting, kind, smart, and amazing people that I want to introduce my readers to and share their lives.  When I write about the places I have been, the big cities, the remote villages, and places some people only dream of seeing, I want my readers to see the colors and imagine the sights, sounds, and smells.  When I share my experiences I hope you feel you are right there with me sharing the excitement, the chaos, the peace, the whatever.  I hope you take something away, a feeling or a thought.  I hope you learn something because my experiences have taught me so much.  I hope seeing the world through my eyes inspires someone to follow their dreams.

Throughout my travels, I have been blessed with family and friends who give me so much support.  My dear friend Lucy has made copies of seven years’ worth of my blogs and put them in binders.  She and many others know of my dream to put my blogs, my words, my thoughts, and my life into print.  This thirty-day challenge has opened my eyes to what it means to be a writer.  The dedication and time involved. What I accomplished in the last thirty days, I couldn’t keep up with…yet.  I do believe it will encourage me to write something every day even if it is just a few sentences.  I will continue writing my blog and thanks to Lucy, one day when I get back to the States, I will have the outline for my book.  Yes, my book…the ultimate hope for my blog.

For those who have followed my thirty-day challenge, thank you!  For those who have followed my blog from the get-go, thank you!  I couldn’t do it without you.  You inspire me, you give me ideas to write about, you encourage me.  As Ernest Hemingway said, “My aim is to put on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”

If I get asked one question more than any other since I have lived in Warsaw, it is, “Why Poland?”.  My original plan was to stay in Asia or more specifically SE Asia, but circumstances brought me here, to Warsaw.  I thought I would probably stay in Poland for a year or a year and a half, but thanks to the pandemic I have been in Poland for over four years with plans to leave at the end of this year.  During this time I have discovered more and more reasons as to, “Why Poland?”.

I have probably mentioned that Warsaw is a great city. Poland’s capital is home to about 1.8 million people.  Called the “Phoenix City”, 85% of Warsaw was destroyed by the end of WWII. Most of Old Town Warsaw, including the Royal Castle, was destroyed. It was meticulously rebuilt using as many original bricks as possible and studying original architectural plans, photos, and postcards. The rubble was even sifted through to gather reusable decorative items which were returned to their original places. Warsaw is home to over 50 museums and 71 universities offering 983 study programs. It’s no wonder it attracts a large number of international students. Warsaw ranks in Europe’s top ten greenest and most eco-friendly cities. One of my favorite things about Warsaw is the fabulous public transportation system.

The rest of Poland boasts 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites with the Historic Center of Krakow being the first recognized in 1978 and in July 2021 the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians were added to the list.

The first time I came to Warsaw was October 31, 2014.  I was living in Paris and a friend from the States was in Poland.  We were to meet up in Warsaw, this friend will remain unnamed as the meet-up didn’t take place…what can I say…shit happens.  I arrived in Warsaw and he ended up somewhere in the mountainous region of Poland training for a fight.  I didn’t let this little hiccup spoil my trip.  I have no idea where I stayed, other than it was on the outskirts of the city.  I took a bus from near my hotel and remember getting off and seeing the Palace of Culture and Nature.  It was cold, grey, and gloomy…the city looked as I expected an Eastern European city to look.  Now that I look back on that, and I remember thinking that exact phrase about Eastern Europe, it sounds pretty, I don’t know, prejudiced.  So, I ask you, do you have a preconceived idea of an Eastern European country/city?  If you do, as I did, let me tell you my first impressions of Warsaw were wrong.  Also, Poland considers itself Central Europe, not Eastern.

Warsaw is a vibrant, cosmopolitan, ever-expanding city.  Warsaw has so much more to offer than Old Town, the Chopin Museum, the Palace of Culture and Nature, the Uprising Museum, and the Polin.  During the spring and summer, Sunday afternoons offer free Chopin concerts in the beautiful Lazienki Park.  In the Praga district, you will find quirky urban art, trendy cafes and restaurants, and pre-war buildings.

Warsaw is becoming known for its food scene.  The December 2023 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK) said, “Reshaping its culinary identity with a blend of heritage recipes, classic flavours, and fresh techniques, the Polish capital is ready to shed its reputation for dumplings and vodka.”  The author visited Warsaw’s only Michelin Star Restaurant, NUTA, whose, Chef Andrea Camastra, comes from Bari in Italy originally, but moved to Poland 12 years ago.  When asked about Warsaw’s food scene, Camastra pointed out how Warsaw’s dining scene has changed in the years he’s lived here. “It’s much more cosmopolitan than I remember.  There are some extraordinary restaurants in Warsaw — we have all different kinds of cuisine here.”  Camastra continued his praise, saying that Warsaw is a great place to live and that it has an exciting, creative buzz.  He speaks of sentiments of loss through war and communism. “That’s probably why everybody cares so much about the city,” he says.  I have to agree and I have a few favorites of my own.

I can’t believe how many buildings have gone up in the four years I have lived in the city center.  My neighborhood was somewhat quiet in February of 2020.  Now it is a bustling area and one of the most popular places to live and work.  With the award-winning Fabryka Norblina, a short three-minute walk down my street, and the Browary Warszawskie a five-minute walk in the opposite direction, I am never at a loss for places to go.

As you can probably tell, I could go on and on about all the great things about Warsaw and Poland.  Most people don’t have Poland on their travel radar.  If someone tells me they are going to Europe, that most likely means Italy, France, Spain, or the UK, not Poland.  Poland does have it all.  We have historic cities, beautiful mountains, and the Polish seaside on the Baltic.  I have had family and friends visit me in Poland and I think they would all tell you they were pleasantly surprised and it was more than they expected.  So back to my original musing…..Why Poland?  When I moved here in February 2020, I would have said, “I don’t know, it’s Europe…I can run off to Paris for a weekend…I like Europe… I had a job offer.”

Poland is a beautiful and amazing country and I immersed myself in its culture.  Now I can say, “I like it here, I feel at home….why Poland? Why not Poland?”

There you have it, Part Three and the conclusion of Places I Have Lived.  In closing, I had to decide to make a plan to leave Poland.  I love living here, but it was never my intention to stay. It is a very easy place to get comfortable which makes leaving all the more difficult.  I plan to spend the summer on the Black Sea in Bulgaria and then start to eliminate almost everything I have accumulated over the last four years.  Some things I will ship back to the USA and much I will give away.   Hopefully, I will be left with only what I can carry as I embark on extended travel to parts of the world that will be new to me.  Also maybe visiting some of my old stomping grounds.  As Hans Christian Anderson said,  “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote, To travel is to live.”

August 3, 2016, phase three of my China life found me back in Shandong Province in a large by American standards, not so large by Chinese standards, city of 9 million on the Yellow Sea called Qingdao.

Woohooo, I would be at a kindergarten located right at the seaside.  I was very excited to be moving on to life in Qingdao, China.  Teaching kindergarten, the principal was from the States, the kindergarten was right on the sea, the city had many Western restaurants and supermarkets, and life would be good.  I arrived in Qingdao and the school put me up at a hotel until they found accommodations for me. It took six weeks and I ended up living with the principal and his wife for one month which was awesome.  I started at the school the day after I arrived as the other foreign teacher had gone on holiday.  They had brought in a second teacher (me) because enrollment at the school had increased.  Imagine my surprise when I was informed after 2 weeks that the other teacher had decided not to return.

Thankfully, Erwin arrived at the beginning of October and we became besties.  The kindergarten was great, I had no more than eight students at a time.  It was also a bit posh as one little girl came in a Bentley with a chauffeur and another little boy’s mom or dad dropped him off in a McLaren. You get the idea.  My flat was near a tattoo studio and 3 of my tats are from my life in Qingdao.  Qingdao had a good-sized airport and I would take off for weekends in Seoul about once a month.  Life in Qingdao was good, but I missed rural China.  I finished out the semester and my agent found me my last home in China.

Dong’e County, Shandong Province a countywide population of about 400,000 and is located on the left or northern bank of the Yellow River.  The city of Dong’e had about 80,000. The county is regionally and nationally renowned for Ejiao, donkey-hide gelatin used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The city of Dong’e is surrounded by many small villages and farmland.  The closest train station is about an hour away in Liaocheng but doesn’t have high-speed or bullet trains.  For high-speed trains and an airport, I had to travel two to two and a half hours to Jinan, the capital of the Province.  I arrived in Dong’e in February 2017.  Again, I stayed in a hotel while Peter (the person who brought me to Dong’e) and I looked for an apartment.  After about a week or ten days, I had a room with a view. I was on the 24th floor overlooking a river, which I later found out was actually a lake.  Economic development in the area had cut off a branch of the river and turned it into a lake.  I don’t think Peter expected to have a teacher come to this small community so quickly.  For the first month to six weeks, I didn’t have a job.  Thankfully, I was still paid.

Eventually, I started teaching 4 days a week in three different kindergartens, one in the city and two in the countryside.  Life in Donge was great. I had a motor scooter, I had my favorite noodle shop, and got massages 3 or 4 times a week.  At $5.00, I was addicted.  Then I had my accident on September 7, 2018.  I ended up in the hospital with a broken back that required surgery.  During and after my recuperation, I only did tutoring at my home.  As I was coming up on two years in Dong’e I was starting to think about moving on.  My initial plan was to move to Vietnam at the beginning of 2020.  However, that didn’t happen.

I decided to leave Dong’e in July 2019 at the end of the semester. While researching my upcoming trip to Paris, I realized I missed Europe and decided along with SE Asia, to look at opportunities in Europe. After putting in my criteria, a company called English Wizards based in Krakow kept popping up.  It looked interesting, a young company with hopes to expand outside of Poland, so I contacted them and committed to relocating to Poland end of January 2020.   But first, a trip to Vietnam for pure pleasure since now I didn’t need to job hunt then on to the place that took my soul, Peliatan, Bali Indonesia.  I would call Bali home for about five months before heading home to Warren for the holidays and the grand re-opening of the Robins Theatre.

 

Bali…Island of the Gods…Island of a Thousand Temples…The Last Paradise…whatever name you choose to call it. Bali is a feast for the senses…vivid colors, temple music, fragrant flowers, and incense await you at every turn.  Stepping off a plane in Denpasar, day or night, the first thing you notice is the warm, humid air almost immediately turning to moisture on your skin. Yes, it is the same in all tropical destinations but in Bali, it is just the beginning.  Since I am talking about “feeling” Bali on your skin, I often had a Balinese massage. Balinese massage is a full-body holistic treatment. It uses a combination of gentle stretches, acupressure, reflexology, and aromatherapy to stimulate the flow of blood, oxygen, and “qi” or energy to bring a sense of well-being, calm, and relaxation.

One of the next things you notice is small baskets with various flowers placed everywhere. They are on statues, bridges, steps, and doorways. They are canang sari or daily offerings.  Canang is a small woven basket from palm leaves and sari means essence.  Broken down further can = beauty (like you feel the view) nang = purpose and sari = source.  Typically, a family places about 15 offerings per day, more on special ceremony days. With over 25,000 species of plants in this tropical climate, you may also notice the flora. The vivid colors of bougainvillea and lotus flowers then the sweet scent of my favorite the frangipani are everywhere you turn. Outside of the roar of motorbikes, you will also hear the entrancing sound of gamelan music.

The gamelan is the traditional ensemble music of Javanese, Sudanese, and Balinese in Indonesia, made up of mostly percussive instruments. The predominant instrument is the metallophone which is played using a mallet. On Sundays, I would attend gamelan lessons and Balinese dance lessons with the Kirana and Kiara from my homestay. I said earlier, that Bali is a feast for the senses. I have covered sight, smell, hearing, and touch. That leaves taste, the taste of Bali. Ketut, from my homestay family, was a chef before they opened their homestay. That means I learned a lot about Balinese foods and traditional spices during my stay. I love the spiciness of the food in Bali and the sambal that comes as a condiment with most dishes is a blend of chilis and spices.  Oh, and I must mention the avocados (sometimes as big as my head, well, almost). You haven’t tasted avocado until you eat one plucked right off the tree. The same holds to eating the fruits….mango, papaya, dragon, guava….there is nothing like it!  In case you can’t tell, I loved #mybalilife.  I spent my days doing nothing but enjoying the Balinese lifestyle.

I also should mention there are strict immigration rules for Bali and I won’t get into them here.  For me to stay for an extended period, there were many hoops to jump through, documents to fill out, and a couple of trips to Denpesar to the foreigner’s office.  While I was in Bali, I also wanted to find a “purpose” for part of my time on the island.  Yayasan Widya Guna School for Special Needs Children is an Indonesian non-profit organization whose focus is its children’s learning center.  It serves Balinese children who come from unfortunate situations.  They have taken in orphans and provided them with food, shelter, and an education.  They support children with all ranges of physical and/or mental disabilities, including but not limited to; downs, autism, and cerebral palsy. They also offer English lessons to the village children after their regular school day is over, free of charge.  Their mission is to: Educate the underprivileged Balinese children to be independent and bring them a better future with their knowledge, culture, and skills.  I decided I had found my “something”.   I contacted the Yayasan, they welcomed me to volunteer and I spent six amazing weeks with them. I took a quick trip to Singapore one weekend before returning to Kenari House to spend my last five weeks in Bali before I would take off to Warren, Ohio.

Stay tuned for Part Three

I was born in Kimbrough Army Hospital, Fort Meade, Maryland in 1962.  A mere three days later, I was in Warren, Ohio the place I call my hometown.  Warren, Ohio is about the midpoint between Chicago, Illinois, and New York City. This is probably the reason you may hear a couple of stories about organized crime in the area.

There was a popular book called “Welcome to the Jungle Inn” and a movie starring Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer, “Kill the Irishman” that maybe mentioned Warren, Ohio, and the Mahoning Valley.  Because of its manufacturing history, Warren’s population peaked in 1970 at about 63, 500 and trending downward since the industrial decline of the 80s, it is now at around 39,000. I am proud to say I am from Warren, Ohio, and consider myself a “small-town girl”.

I grew up on a dead-end street in the same house my dad grew up in along with my mom, brother, and Aunt.  Life was good on Cottage Court.   Living on a dead end, we pretty much roamed the neighborhood from sun-up to sundown.  In the summer months, darkness didn’t mean we were in the house.  The concrete back of a business was the dead-end of the street.  The neighbors would bring out a movie projector and we would watch movies shown on the building’s wall.  Our house was a “safe zone” and friends from the neighborhood or from across town knew they were welcome and that my parents would try to help in any way they could.  I walked to Laird Avenue, my elementary school where my mom also worked part-time as an aide.  After Laird, it was East Junior High and then Warren G. Harding Senior High.  Friday nights were football games and weekends were carefree.  Between my junior and senior years in high school, I received a scholarship to attend a summer semester in Athens, Ohio at Ohio University.  My dad wasn’t keen on dropping my sixteen-year-old self off in coed Biddle Hall for the summer, but he survived and so did I.  Imagine this…our high school had a smoking area for students.  We also had teen night clubs where we partied on the weekends.  After we outgrew the Red Caboose, we were ready for the V.I.P. Lounge.  The years were flying, I was off to Kent State and working part-time at the YMCA.  Part-time turned into full-time and I never worked a day in my field of study.

 

Warren seriously had the best restaurants…Alberinis, the 422, the El Rio, the Living Room, Golden Gate, the Sunrise Inn, and the Buena Vista to name a few.  Back in the day, they were known far and wide. Only the BV, famous for Uncle Nick’s Greek Fried Chicken, and the Sunrise Inn, best known for the Old World Pizza, are left from the aforementioned.  Most everyone pays the BV and Sunrise a visit whenever they are back in Warren.  I’ve even been known to have a Sunrise pie delivered to Paris, France.   There have even been a few famous people from Warren.  Earl Derr Biggers of Charlie Chan fame, Catherine Back of the “Dukes of Hazzard”, Roger Ailes, Paul Warfield NFL Football Hall of Fame, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, and professional golfer Jason Kokrak.   Warren has its share of problems but it was a great place to grow up.  It will be my home base when my traveling slows down.

In August 2014, I moved to Paris, France.  It was the first place I have lived outside of Warren, Ohio.  A big change from Warren, Ohio.  Paris had a population of just over 11,000,000 in 2014, roughly the same population as the entire state of Ohio.  I had been to Paris a half dozen times before I moved there.  It’s true when you first arrive all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, you have an overwhelming urge to be a tourist. Running out every morning to see what you can see and collapsing into bed every night exhausted. Until that day you tell yourself, stop, this is my life right now. It’s okay to, God forbid, stay home one day and not see if you can catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. Soon, you fall into a routine, and living in Paris is really not that much different than living in Warren, Ohio…..haha, okay, that’s a lie.  Living in Paris is amazing.  Once you learn the secret to the arrondissements, Paris is a very walkable city.  The arrondissements are numbered 1-20 and start in the center near the Louvre with 1.  They then go in a clockwise direction and resemble a snail.  Another secret, well it’s not a secret but it does help you navigate, Paris zip codes tell you what arrondissement you are in.

If you look up the address of my favorite café, Café Chappe, it is 8 Rue Tardieu, 75018 Paris.  You then know you are in the 18^th, also known as Montmartre.  I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about life in Paris because many of you already know Paris is my heart.  Life in Paris was magical…from walking the cobblestone streets to wandering aimlessly in the Louvre because you could go on a whim.   Attending a Christmas service at Notre Dame to just sitting at a café for hours with a book… indescribable.   And just like Adriana said in “Midnight in Paris”, “Actually, Paris is the most beautiful in the rain.”

After a short stint back in Warren, I was off to China for what I thought would be 6 months.  Not skilled in the use of chopsticks and certainly not prepared for squatty potties, I landed in a rural village that wasn’t even named on a map in Shandong Province…Xiashan.  Xiashan is considered part of the city of Weifang which is a 1.5-hour bus ride away.  The rural village was the epitome of “build it and they will come”.  While the 4-5000 residents of the village lived in simple homes, it was surrounded by 100’s of high-rise “ghost” apartments, one of which I lived in.  Since the newly built school was a boarding school and when school was in session, the population of the community more than doubled because of the student population, I guess they were hoping that the families that traveled (some over 4 hours) to Xiashan would invest in the real estate.

It was this small village that made me fall in love with China.  It was about as far from Warren, Ohio, and I don’t mean distance, that I could get.  Very few people spoke any English and most people in the village and surrounding villages had never seen a Westerner.  Having light hair I definitely stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.  Because I was also taking Mandarin lessons, I arrived with a student Visa that was only good for six months.  Before that six months ended I knew I wasn’t ready to leave China, but I had to return to the USA to apply for a new Visa.  Because of the timing of the semesters, as much as I wanted to return to Xiashan, they had to replace me before I could return.  Life in that rural village was simple.  I bought my fruits and vegetables in the local street market.

I bought meat hanging from hooks or once even waited while they slaughtered a sheep so I could buy meat. So, I went back to Warren sent my passport off, and waited for a new visa.  I was so sure I would get the Visa and go back to China, I asked the school if I could leave my things until I returned which they graciously allowed.

After about two and a half weeks, I had a 10-year multiple-entry visa in my passport.   I returned to Xiashan to celebrate Chinese New Year with one of my co-workers and her family before heading nine and a half hours by train to Hunan Province in South Central China and the city of Changning.  Changning means eternal peace and is home to about 810,000 residents, a small city by Chinese standards.  Life in Changning……my roommate Yulia was from Moscow and we got along famously.

The biggest change here is I went from teaching grades 1 and 2 to teaching grades 5, 6, and 7 with sometimes as many as 85 students in a class.  A slight adjustment in lesson plans and I survived.  I also survived the rainy season in Hunan.  From the time I arrived in February until leaving in mid-June, I think we were lucky if we had 3 straight days without rain.  Living in Changning, I would occasionally take a weekend trip to Hong Kong.  I also visited Guilin, Yangshuo, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Shamian Island.  I did love the spicy food in Hunan Province, but at the end of the school term,  I was ready to move on to a new part of China and hopefully back to primary students.

Next up – Part Two -Qingdao, Dong’e, Bali and Warsaw

As I sit here on the Ides of March wondering how to start this post, I am reflecting on things I have been excited about in my life.  There are the small things, like being excited about finding money in your pants pocket when swapping out your clothes between seasons.  If it is a significant amount, then I usually get mad at myself because how could I not know I was missing that much money…unless of course alcohol or gambling was involved.  I get excited when I get tickets to an event I want to attend.  I also get excited over a new pack of colored pencils or brush markers.

I get excited when I discover the perfect writing pen which for me right now is the Papermate Inkjoy Gel 0.7 in every color of the rainbow.  Excitement is an understatement when I talk about boarding the plane when I moved to Paris.  I felt excitement shooting an AK-47 for the first time.  I always get excited when I am watching a movie and one of the scenes takes place somewhere I have been.

It reminds me of my dad’s excitement when we were young and would drive by a house he had built and he had to point it out to us.  I am excited when I meet family or friends in places around the world that I have been to and can show them around.  Excitement is planning a trip.  Who hasn’t gotten excited over finding a pair of perfectly fitting jeans?  I know many people find her underwhelming, but my heart skipped a beat seeing Mona Lisa for the first time.  I remember the excitement of my first trip to Europe.  Sometimes I get excited waking up and seeing the sun shining.

I have a photo on my phone that says, “Excitement is a mixture of enthusiasm, motivation, intuition, and a hint of creativity.” I am definitely enthusiastic about and motivated to accomplish what I am currently most excited about.  I may have to trust my intuition and it could at times take some creativity to pull off.  I am currently most excited to be preparing to close the current chapter of my life and open the next into lands unknown.

I have enjoyed every minute of my life in Poland, but it is time for me to start to close that chapter.  I am excited to say that I am finishing out this semester of the school year.  After that, I will most likely head to Bulgaria for the summer.  When I return to Warsaw, I will start to eliminate all the stuff I have accumulated over the last four years.  Then the excitement will start to build.

I am excited to learn about cultures I know very little about.  Although I have been to Romania, I am considering leaving Poland for Romania and then into and across Türkiye and hitting the “Silk Road”.   The Silk Road was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BC until the mid-15th century.  Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and West. The name “Silk Road”, first coined in the late 19th century, has fallen into disuse among some modern historians in favor of Silk Routes, because it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia as well as East Africa and Southern Europe.  Some modern-day cities on the Silk Route are Istanbul, Turkey; Tbilisi, Georgia; Sheki, Azerbaijan; Samarkand, Uzbekistan; Shiraz, Iran; Dunhuang, China; Karimabad, Pakistan; Baku, Azerbaijan; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Bhaktapur, Nepal; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Xi’an, China; Bukhara, Uzbekistan; Nara, Japan; Gyeongju, South Korea; Jaisalmer, India; Leh, India; Yazd, Iran; and Yerevan, Armenia.

 

Istanbul, which I visited last year, is considered the end of the Silk Route.  I was excited to learn that two cities in Azerbaijan are on this list because a major part of my plan is to visit this country.  After all, it is the home of my two flatmates.  Other countries I am considering visiting are Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and India. I know it will be challenging at times between language barriers (Thank God for Google Translate), transportation across borders, and Visa restrictions, but that’s all part of the excitement.

 

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  You will probably get a thousand words because I must tell the back story of the photo I have chosen.  The photo I have chosen is simply a picture of 3 young girls.  It will be joined by two others as the story progresses.  Some of you have heard the back, back story which is where I will start, so you will have to hear it again or skip on by.

In August 2014, I packed up my life and moved to Paris, France.  For the first two months, I lived on Square Bolivar in the 19^th arrondissement.  I knew I would eventually need to move and from there I went to Montmartre on Rue Durantin.  This was a short walk from what had become my favorite café, Café Chappe.  It was my go-to place for un café or un verre de vin. I had become friends with Julie who worked there during my many visits to Café Chappe between 2013 and February 2015. She told me her dream was to move to Bali, Indonesia.  At some point, I promised that if she moved to Bali, I would visit her there.  I happened to return to Paris for a two-week holiday in July of 2015 and of course one of my first stops was Café Chappe.  Lo and behold, Julie was there.  She had indeed gone to Bali, but had returned to Paris because of her youngest son, they planned to go back to Bali at the end of the summer and suggested I should visit. She did and I did!

In February 2018, I made plans to visit Julie.  Travel to Bali is quite convenient and relatively inexpensive from the Middle Kingdom where I was living at the time. Julie was living in Seminyak which is a seaside community and was teaching yoga.  For the first part of my holiday I planned to stay in Ubud, which is more north and inland, as there were several things I wanted to experience in that area.  At the end of my holiday, I would go to Canggu and finally meet up with my friend from Paris.  That my friends is how I ended up going to Bali for the first time.

Now for the rest of the story… I had a homestay about a 20-30-minute walk from Central Ubud.  During my homestay, I had a room with a private bathroom in a family compound.  I say compound, because in Bali families usually live together.  Together, this means there are several free-standing homes often with a central kitchen in what is called a compound.  There is also always a family temple shared by all the households.  These compounds make up a tight-knit community.  The communities, in turn, make up a village.  Kenari House, my homestay was in the community of Banjar, Teges Yangloni the village of Peliatan.  My hosts, Ketut and Koming, and their two young daughters immediately made me feel like part of the family.

Finding them so open, I always seemed to have a dozen questions about Bali and Hinduism whenever I was with them.  As my time at Kenari House was nearing the end, I wasn’t quite ready to leave.  I extended my stay by one day before heading south to Canggu.  Staying this extra day turned into my first experience with a Balinese Ceremony.  There was a wedding in the community.  Koming invited me to attend with her family.  What a privilege to have this opportunity.  Koming loaned me a Kamen (sarong/skirt) so I would be appropriately dressed.  It seemed the entire community was there, and they welcomed me with open arms.  I didn’t get to learn much about the wedding ceremony as I was leaving that afternoon.  As I was saying my goodbyes to Ketut and Koming, she told me since I enjoyed the wedding so much, I should return in August.  She explained that Ketut’s mother had died in 2016 and every 3 years the community held a Ngaben or Cremation Ceremony.  She would be part of the ceremony this August.  Would I like to come back for the ceremony?  I told her I would be honored to return and would do my best to make it happen.

Indeed, I made my way back to Bali and the Ngaben Ceremony.  I always thought my experience camping at EBC (Everest Base Camp) and watching the sun set and rise on the mighty mountain couldn’t be topped.  My experience with this beautiful Balinese ritual, the emotion of first-hand exhuming a corpse, washing it and preparing it for cremation, witnessing the burning, understanding each step of the ceremony, and returning the ashes to the sea was truly overwhelming and something I will never forget.  I was included like family every step of the way. During this visit, I spent almost two weeks with my Balinese family.  I also knew I would return and it would be for an extended period of time.

I left China in July 2019, made a stop in Vietnam, and then straight to Bali and Kenari House which I would call my home until I headed back to the States at the end of November. I can’t begin to tell you what Ketut, Koming, Kirana, and Kiara and their extended family came to mean to me over the time I spent with them.  They included me in every aspect of their life and Balinese culture.  I celebrated important events, went to temple events, had my own Kebaya and Kamen made for the ceremonies, I learned to make canang sari (daily offering) and what the ritual stood for, I learned to prepare Balinese food with Ketut (he is a chef), and they welcomed my friends from the USA with open arms when they came to visit for two weeks.   I could go on and on, but they are truly like my family.

In May 2021, there was to be a special ceremony at the community temple.  When I left in 2019, I said I would return for the ceremony.  As we all know, the world stopped turning in early 2020.  Even by early 2021, it was becoming obvious that I would not be able to go to Bali in May of 2021.

On April 23, 2021, I received a photo in a message.  I saw Ketut looking like a young Jackie Chan and a small baby.  That photo I don’t have, but it was soon followed by Kirana and Kirara with baby Komang as seen above.  She was born on April 2^nd, but they wouldn’t be posting pictures publicly until after the three-month celebration or 105 days by the Balinese calendar.  There is a special ceremony called nyabutan or nyambutin.

You may be wondering why I consider this photo special.  They knew I was planning to visit for the temple ceremony in May and were keeping the baby a secret.  They didn’t tell me because they wanted to surprise me when they picked me up from the airport and introduce me to the newest member of “my family”.

I know that was a long story for a simple explanation, but Bai is my soul and my Balinese family will forever hold a special place in my heart.  I still have plans to return to Bali, maybe next year! That is why that photo means a lot to me.

This will be an easy topic because as I mentioned yesterday, I do Speaking Clubs as part of language learning.  Not long ago, the topic was “Guilty Pleasures – What Are Yours?”.  Of course, I’m going to borrow from my PowerPoint.  What is a guilty pleasure?  They’re activities, products, or habits that a person participates in because it brings them joy, yet it also makes them feel slight shame or embarrassment.  While the term feels a little contradictory, almost everyone has guilty pleasures that they occasionally enjoy.  These types of little indulgences make life more fun and bearable when you’re bogged down by a stressful work week or want to get out of your head for a while. It’s all about appreciating these guilty pleasures and not worrying about other people’s perceptions of them.  For my speaking group, I broke them down into food, beverage, habits, and quirky or unusual.

Let’s start with food.  Noodles bring me pleasure, but they aren’t my guilty pleasure since I have them several times per week.  I’m more of a savory food eater and I don’t like chocolate, however, I have discovered these yummy coconut crème filled “rurki” or tubes.  I almost have a pack of these around for whenever I do get a sweet tooth.

Sometimes when I make pickle pizza, I have leftover “sauce”.  My sauce is half sour cream, and half mayonnaise with pickle juice, salt, pepper, and dill weed.  Whenever I have leftover sauce, I like to get a bag of chips and eat them with the sauce.  I would say that is my food guilty pleasure.

Martini – icy cold, extra dry, slightly dirty with bleu cheese stuffed olives – I could drink one every day, but I don’t. I usually have wine when I drink.  Let me tell you when I do make that Beefeater’s martini, it tastes like perfection.

Other guilty pleasures when it comes to food and beverage would be eating popcorn in bed (I embarrass myself when I wake up and see I have been sleeping with kernels), having cold spaghetti for breakfast, and 30% full-fat cream in my coffee.  I do on occasion like to have Starbucks delivered on a Sunday morning.  And I am guilty of drinking beverages right out of the container and skipping the glass.  I did drink champagne directly from the bottle on New Year’s.

During my speaking club, I had Guilty Pleasures – Habits.  This segment included music, films, books, conveniences, and relaxation.  I don’t often have music playing ( I like silence) and I rarely watch movies but I was able to come up with a few things here.  Music-wise I would say it is playing songs like “Dancing Queen” (most Abba songs actually), “Chevy Van”, “Brandy”, “Windy”, “Seasons in the Sun”, and all those other cheezy songs.

The best I can come up with for movies are, “Dirty Dancing”, Pretty Woman”, and “Flashdance”.  When it comes to books, once in a while I will read a Nancy Drew book or even a Dr. Seuss.  What can I say, I’m a kid at heart and I don’t like romance novels.  Now, conveniences and relaxation are where I shine.  Living in a shared flat, having a cleaning person is a given.  Now in China, it felt like a guilty pleasure.  Even more so in Warren, Ohio when I would have someone come over and clean my house.  Having my hair washed – I love having someone wash my hair, every so often, I go to a salon just to get my hair washed – heavenly!  Taking an Uber instead of public transportation can feel like a guilty pleasure.  When it comes to relaxation, I am a master…sleeping until noon, pajamas all day, naps, and not leaving the house or talking to anyone for two days.

No matter where I am on the planet, I search out massage.  Be it foot, chair, or full body, the ultimate relaxation guilty pleasure is a massage.  And my quirky guilty pleasure is having way too many colored pencils, pens and markers.

There you have it.  My so-called guilty pleasures.  But, I am going to now tell you the truth.  I don’t have any guilty pleasures, because if something brings me pleasure, I don’t ever feel guilty about it!

So now I’m going to put pajamas on, eat popcorn in bed while sipping a martini, and read something mindless.  Peace Out!

Monday, March 11, 2024 – Timeline of my day.

I like to stay up late and also sleep late.  Staying up late to me is going to bed anytime between 24:00 and 02:00.  Sleeping late is getting up between 09:00 and 11:00.  This is only a problem on Monday and Wednesday mornings.  I get up at 06:00 because I have early classes at 07:00. Of course, working from home, I really don’t need to get up this early.  I get up this early because I like to linger with a hot cup of coffee, do the Wordle, do a couple of other word puzzles, and mentally prepare myself for the day/week ahead. I get my coffee pot and my day’s lessons ready the night before.  Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I try to go to bed by midnight.  On Sundays, I never make it before 01:00 because Thursdays start my downhill cycle and it is almost always between 01:00 and 02:00. Which means I only get between four and five hours of sleep before my 06:00 wake-up on Monday.  Why I am telling you this? You probably don’t even care, but, today’s timeline isn’t my usual Monday schedule.

We have a client of my language school, Eklektika, for whom we offer additional language practice.  These are called Speaking Clubs and they allow a maximum of four participants to have an hour-long conversation on a given topic.  I sign up each month to lead some of these groups.  I enjoy them because my topics almost always deal with travel or food. I’ll get back to why these are important in a minute.

Usually, on Mondays, I have three classes in a row starting at 07:00 and finishing at 09:45.  Because I don’t get the seven to nine hours of sleep that I like, when these classes finish, I take a morning nap for an hour or two to catch up.  When I get up from my nap I make a late breakfast or an early lunch.  I also have a few hours to run and do errands and go to the market before my 15:30 afternoon class.

That is my usual Monday morning/afternoon timeline.  Today, no nap for me.  I went to bed at 01:30, woke up at 06:00, and went through my morning ritual of coffee and word games.  I had my three regular morning classes, finishing at 09:45. I filled in my online documentation for these classes (attendance and material covered). These classes were followed by four Speaking Clubs at 10:00, 11:00, 13:00, and 14:00.  I opened my email for my Zoom links for the Speaking Clubs.  I then noticed there had been a change in the original schedule, the 11:00 group had been canceled.  To be honest, I was happy because I wasn’t looking forward to eight classes today.  After the first Speaking Club, whose topic was “All Inclusive Holidays” ended at 11:00, I heated up leftover spaghetti for lunch.  That left me an hour but I dared not take a nap, you know how I love my sleep.

I answered a couple of emails and then reviewed my PowerPoint presentations for the next two Speaking Clubs which were, “Airports – A Blessing or a Nuisance?“ and “Historical Sights around the Mediterranean”. Those two groups went great and we had a lot of interesting conversations and finished at 15:00.  I took the next half an hour to complete my online documentation for those and prepared for my 15:30 lesson.  After that lesson ended, I made baked broccoli and rice casserole with kielbasa and topped with cheddar for dinner.  Chatted with my flatmate while it baked, then we both took bowlfuls and had dinner.

Here it is 18:30 and I’m working on day twenty-two of the writing challenge. What does the rest of my timeline look like?  When I finish writing, I will shower and put on pajamas.  Then I will get my coffee set up for the morning, and make sure all my lessons are prepared.  I’ll pack away any leftovers the guys didn’t eat and tidy the kitchen.  I can’t go to bed without doing two things…getting my coffee set up and making sure the kitchen is clean.  The rest of the night is hit or miss, I’ll scroll Facebook, read a little, work on memorizing country flags and capitals (I do this every night in bed), and maybe have a snack.

There you have it, my timeline for Monday, March 11, 2024. Nothing too exciting today, we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

The dictionary tells us that if you miss something, you feel sad because you no longer have it or are no longer doing or experiencing it.  During my travels a lot of “do you miss” questions come up in conversation.  Do you miss your family and friends?  Do you miss the United States?  Do you miss any food from home?  Then there is the “I miss you” comment,  or the “we miss you, don’t you wish you were here with us?” question.

I moved to Poland in February 2020 after being home in Warren, Ohio for a couple of months.  During that time I had been going to trivia night with a bunch of girlfriends. One night I stayed up late so I could “join” trivia one night via video chat.  This scenario ended the night:  The phone got passed around and all the I love you; I miss you’s were said. Near the end of the video chat, someone asked, “Don’t you miss us and wish you were here”?  Well, a couple of seconds passed, I didn’t answer, and my friend Teri said, “Look at that face, that tells it all”.  All I could do was shrug my shoulders and give a half of a smile.  I thought about my response or should I say non-response for a couple of days.  Was it snobbish?  Does it seem like I don’t like life in Warren/America and the rest of the world is much better?  Should I have just given the normal, expected response of, “I miss you too”?  No…I know my friends know me better than that. They know I love to travel and it is what I want to do currently.  I am living my dream.

The first time I left for an extended period, I went to Paris, France. Honestly, I didn’t miss anything while I was there.  I didn’t miss any food from home, I didn’t miss my stuff, I didn’t miss my family or friends.  When I arrived back in Warren, Ohio, I discovered more than anything I missed the adventure of living abroad.  I seriously missed being gone and soon made plans to move to China. During those first six months and the three and a half years that followed, I thought I missed things, especially cheese. Seriously, more than anything, I missed cheese.  This, by the way, is what made me come up with a possible title when I write my book…” No Cheese in China”. I quickly learned that I could live without these things.  The things I was seeing, doing, eating, and experiencing far outweighed what I thought I was missing.  I also realized that some of my feelings were really FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.  Missing out on family and friend’s life events.  Missing that wedding, that “special” birthday, that funeral, that birth…but the more I thought about those things the more I knew that my family and friends understood that I could still love them without being geographically near.  They know I share in their joys and sorrows. They know I am a text, a Facebook post, an Instagram picture, or a video chat away.

I am getting good at not answering the question at hand.  Although, I did once write a blog post, which I did call “No Cheese in China”, about what I would and wouldn’t miss about China.  Two things I do miss about China are the food and $6.00 per hour massages.  I’m not sure I will be able to eat Chinese food back in the USA, it is nothing like what you eat there.  And well, who wouldn’t miss $6.00 massages, unless, of course, you don’t like a massage?

 

What do I miss?  Do I miss my parents?  I would be lying if I said yes.  Now before you judge, let me explain.  I loved my parents dearly, but you always know they won’t be around forever.  Yes, in my opinion, mine were gone too soon.  In the beginning, you find yourself going to pick up the phone because you want to tell them something, but you can’t.  There is always something you wish you would have asked them and now it’s too late.  As time goes on, if I’m honest, no I don’t think about them every day.  I think about them at random moments…something they would have liked or something reminds me of one of them.  For instance, a whiff of Old Spice after-shave worn by a man who passes me in the market can bring a tear to my eye.  It can be something unexpected that sparks a memory.  So while I have gotten used to them being gone, what I miss is not being able to share an event, a thought, or something funny that happened.

I am sitting here thinking about all the ways I should answer this question, “I miss my parents”, “I miss my brother and Lori”, “I miss my condo”, “I miss my stuff”, “I miss my friends”, “I miss my city”, “I miss my country”, or “I miss my bed”.  None of them seem to work for me.  Then, I thought about saying that I miss my youth, but I don’t.  I wouldn’t want to be twenty-something again.  I’m happy where I am right now in my life, although, I do say I think 40ish was a good age.

Now for my final answer…what do I miss?  I miss the days when my body didn’t ache when I got out of bed.  Or it didn’t take me a few minutes to get my “sea legs” after sitting for a long time. I miss the time when my back didn’t ache after standing at the kitchen counter fixing a meal or washing dishes.

You’ve probably seen the meme that says, “One minute you’re twenty-one, staying up all night drinking beer, eating pizza, and doing sketchy stuff just for fun.  THEN in the blink of an eye, you’re fifty (or sixty-one) drinking water, eating salad and you can’t do any sketchy stuff because you pulled a muscle putting on your socks.”

So, lame as it may be…I don’t miss being twenty-one, but I miss how my body looked, felt, and rebounded at twenty-one.

 

This sounds like one of those trendy interview questions.  I’m not sure where I will be in five months let alone five years.

The best way to tackle this is to first look where I was five years ago –  March 2019.  It’s a good thing I am a Facebook whore because I only had to go back and look at my profile to know where I was and what I was doing.

It’s a bit interesting that five years ago I was preparing to exit China.  Not so different from what I am doing right now except I am leaving Poland.  I can’t explain what it is, but I get to a point where I just wake up one day and decide it’s time to move on. Not that I make any decisions at that exact moment, but I have questions I ask myself.

In late 2018 and early 2019,  I started asking myself, “Do you want to be in Dong’e this time next year?”.   That answer came fairly easy, “as much as I love my life here, no, this time next year I can’t picture myself in Dong’e”.  Next question, “Do you want to be in China?”.  That was a little more difficult to answer, I didn’t know. Then, if I decided to answer the “Do you want to be in China?” question with no.  The next question was, “Do you want to be in Asia?”.  For the next several weeks I thought a lot about those questions.  I made the decision that I would leave Dong’e at the end of the school year which is July 2019.  I did know I had to be in Warren, Ohio on January 9, 2020, for the grand re-opening of the Robins Theatre and that the last time I was in the USA for Christmas was 2012.  I also decided I would go home for the holidays.  After the Robins opening, I would be free to make a long-term commitment to teaching somewhere and I was leaning toward SE Asia and Vietnam.

Over the first few months of 2019, I started to devise a plan.  The last time I was in Saigon, I met a young University student (Le Minh).  She has often asked me to come to Vietnam and teach English.  So, upon leaving China, I decided my first stop would be Vietnam and investigate job opportunities.  From Vietnam, Bali is just a hop, skip, and a jump.  I had friends in the States who had mentioned joining me in Bali in August.  So, I then decided to head to Bali after Vietnam.  Also, having friends in Bali, I decided to investigate an extended stay, meaning teaching/volunteer opportunities.  I would have about a month of R&R, then my friends would come for a couple of weeks.  After that, I found a School for Special Needs students, Yayasan Widya Guna, in Bedulu, Bali where I could volunteer for 6-8 weeks.  After a few more weeks of doing nothing but enjoying life at Kenari House, I would head back to Vietnam before returning to the States.

That sounded like a perfect plan to me.  Of course, you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men.  Thinking I would return to SE Asia, I browsed opportunities on several ESL teaching websites.  At the time, I was also researching my upcoming trip to Paris in May.  So even though I had my sights set on Vietnam,  just for shits and giggles, along with SE Asia, I browsed opportunities in Paris and Europe in general.  After putting in my criteria, a company called English Wizards based in Warsaw kept popping up.  It looked interesting, a young company with hopes to expand outside of Poland, so I contacted them.  We talked back and forth for a couple of months, and I explained it would be almost a year before I would be available.  Long story short, on April 16, 2019, I committed to relocating to Poland end of January 2020.

As I sit here in Warsaw, Poland where I have lived for over 4 years, I started asking myself similar questions last year.  Do I want to be in Poland this time next year?  Do I want to go back to Asia?  Do I want to look for another ESL position and settle somewhere else?  When I say I don’t know where I will be in 5 months (other than hopefully finishing up camp in Bulgaria), it’s hard to even think 5 years down the road as I still don’t have all the answers to my questions.  Not that I don’t love my life in Poland, but no, I don’t want to be living and working in Poland this time next year.  Yes, I want to go back to Asia, but not to work.  I would like to visit Xiashan and see if it is still a small village not on the map.  I would love to see Marlon and his mom in Qingdao and visit my littles in Dong’e.  Will it happen?  Maybe!  I don’t want to look for another ESL position or settle anywhere next year.  When I do leave Poland, the only definite place in my itinerary is Azerbaijan.  I’m not sure where the road will lead from there, but as David Bowie said, “I promise it won’t be boring.”

I just wrote nine hundred words and haven’t answered the question.  These last four years in Warsaw have gone by in a flash.  The vision of myself I see in five years is this… My condo in Warren, Ohio will be embellished with mementos of my travels.  My hammock will be slung in the corner next to my floor-to-ceiling window so I can sip my coffee or wine while reading.  My Tibetan Prayer Flags will be hung between the windows over my fireplace.  Under the glass on my coffee table will be currency from all the countries I have visited.  The walls will be adorned with canvases of photos I have taken and there will be a story to go with each one.  At night I will fall asleep under the quilt I brought back from Bali.

In the morning maybe I will make Turkish coffee in my cezve or ibrik that I brought back from Istanbul.  Then I will sit at my desk and write.  Or I will be getting ready to head off to tell my story to young people or anyone who wants to listen.  I will meet friends for drinks or have small dinner parties at my home with my favorite dishes from around the world.  Then I will start to get the itch for Paris or to visit Warsaw or take off for some far-off place I haven’t been.  The travel bug will kick in and I will have to go, knowing when I return, I will pick back up right where I left off.

“Why do you go away?  So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors.  And the people see you differently, too.  Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” From “A Hat Full of Sky” by Terry Pratchett