Not sure how it got to be that time of year where I stare at a blank screen and rewind the past year.  I’m not one who makes New Year’s Resolutions, and there is a saying about never looking back because you aren’t going that way.  Never one for following convention, I love to reflect on the passing year.  Am I looking back to see what I’ve learned?  Oh, hell, no.  Looking back makes me happy…occasionally sad, maybe even angry, and sure, I’ve probably learned a few things along the way (you know all that “life-long” learner stuff), but there’s nothing wrong with glancing in the rearview mirror.  I don’t want to forget all those beautiful moments, people, and places that are behind me.  As selfish as this may sound, I write my stories for me.  It brings me joy and maybe, just maybe down the road an outline for a book.  The fact that you choose to join me on my journey and listen to my stories, well, the proverbial “icing on the cake”.  Since the page is no longer blank…a look back!

I rolled into January with my 2 flatmates/partners in crime from Azerbaijan…Tarlan and Zaka.  I say partners in crime because after attending a birthday party, we hopped on a bus and headed to Warsaw Old Town, our arms laden with bottle rockets, sparklers, firecrackers, and whatnot.  Side note: I’m fairly certain these are not exactly legal in the city center. Although, I have heard that it’s “okay” on New Year’s Eve, haha.   Thankfully, we weren’t the only hooligans on the streets.  It might not have been the best idea to stop and knock back a shot of whiskey from a street vendor or duck into Pijana Wisnia for some hot cherry liquor, but we did.  We shot off our arsenal, rang in the new year, and eventually headed home.  Welcome to 2023!

In January, I enjoy celebrating The Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, or Little Christmas as my mom called it.  January 6^th is a big deal in Poland.  It is a bank holiday so most everything is closed, and people don’t work.  Three Kings Day is celebrated with colorful and grand processions in most major cities in Poland.  The parade honors the three wise men – Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar…complete with the kings riding on live camels.  In Warsaw, the annual holiday procession usually begins at noon with the Angelus prayer near Sigismund’s Column on Plac Zamkowy, before winding its way through the Old Town to the live nativity scene on Plac Piłsudskiego.  It is quite enjoyable to walk with the processions, people (adults and kids alike) donning crowns and singing Christmas carols as they walk.

The rest of January and all of February were pretty quiet.  I celebrated Tłusty Czwartek (Fat Thursday) on February 16^th by buying pączki, rose filled of course.  Although this year I didn’t spend 3 hours waiting in line in the rain.  I went to a different shop, and I went a day early.

I have always had an interest in King Tut and even more after traveling to see the pyramids in Giza in 2022.  When I saw Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures, an exhibition touring around the globe was in Warsaw, it was a must-visit for me.

March also found me at Jeff’s American Restaurant-Home of Happy People sharing typical American fare and a lovely evening with some of my co-workers from Eklektika (the language school I work for).  An evening that turned into 4 am when I decided to hit Nowy Swiat (New World Street) and party it up with a co-worker from South Africa but living in Krakow.  This is where I discovered wściekły pies shots.  Wściekły pies translates to mad dog and is made by pouring chilled raspberry syrup into a shot glass (the official recipe says ½ of the shot glass, but I prefer ¼ haha), topped with chilled vodka and then 3 or 4 drops of Tabasco.  I still can’t pronounce wściekły pies so for me they are whiskey pies.

Near my flat is Fabryka Norblina.  It is the site of a silver-plating factory in which 10 historic buildings have been restored/renovated into offices, shops, restaurants, cafes, Food Town, an eco-bazaar, a boutique cinema, and an open-air museum commemorating the history of one of the largest industrial enterprises of the former Kingdom of Poland!  Being a fan of Monet and after seeing the Van Gogh Immersive twice, I noticed an ad for Art Box.  Art Box is a multifunctional space for immersive experiences, where unique multisensory exhibitions, performances, concerts, and events are created at the intersection of art, science, digital technology, and entertainment. Fabryka Norblina is a five-minute walk from my flat, so,  I was quickly online buying a ticket when I saw Immersive Monet and the Impressionists being advertised.

The artistic experience consisted of almost one and a half million video frames and over 3,000 images featuring artists such as Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Eduard Manet, and Eugene Boudin.  I know I spent at least 2 hours on the experience.

April arrived with the young’uns I live/hang with convincing me to go for a late-night billiards session.  I didn’t do bad considering I haven’t shot pool in a long time.

Easter found me in Budapest, Hungary which ticked a new country.  I knew little about Budapest other than it is the capital city.  I also realized I could not name one other city in Hungary.  Even after googling cities in Hungary, I still didn’t know any.  I arrived in Budapest with little to no plan other than meeting up with friends who would be embarking on a Viking River Cruise from there.

I did have my sight set on the Ruin Bars, which ended up being around the corner from my Airbnb.  Ruin Bars popped up in Budapest around 2001.  They are found in once-abandoned, derelict buildings and unused outdoor spaces.  They have been transformed into friendly, chaotic, lively, colorful bars laden with graffiti and eclectic décor.

Near Budapest’s parliament is a memorial called Cipők a Duna-parton or Shoes on the Danube Bank.  It is a memorial erected on 16 April 2005.  Conceived by film director Can Togay, he created it on the east bank of the Danube River with sculptor Gyula Pauer to honor the Jews who were massacred by fascist Hungarian militia belonging to the Arrow Cross Party in Budapest during the Second World War.  They were ordered to take off their shoes (shoes were valuable and could be stolen and resold by the militia after the massacre) and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away.

Another highlight was Easter Lunch at the New York Café.  Now Instagram famous it is dubbed as the most beautiful café in the world.  I ended my trip to Budapest enjoying dinner with the brother and sister-in-law of friends from the States who live in Budapest.  That’s all I’m going to say about Budapest but if you are interested in more you can read about it at this link in my blog https://wendyjmarvin.com/2023/04/23/reflections-on-friends-goodbyes-and-budapest/.  It is a fascinating city.

The last day of April and the 1^st of May should probably have their own blog post, but I will try to summarize it here, haha.  There once was a box…it left Warren, Ohio in December of 2021 and was from my friend Teri.  After months of tracking, it was supposedly somewhere in Poland, but no one could tell me where or when I might get it.  End of June 2022 I left for Bulgaria and wouldn’t return to Warsaw until late September.  Sometime in August 2022, I received a message that I had a package (it was THE BOX) to pick up at the post office.  Not being in Poland, I asked my friend Valeria to see if they would let her pick it up (they wouldn’t) or if they could hold it until I returned (they couldn’t).  The box would be shipped back to the US of A. Fast forward to sometime in January 2023.  The box arrived back to Teri.  She was going to re-send it, but FedEx wanted around $400.

Not long after that, I received a message from a classmate of Teri’s husband, Michael.   Anne would be coming to Poland to research her ancestry and asked if there was anything she could bring me.  Anne came to Warsaw, we planned to meet on April 30th for lunch.  Teri had sent her the contents of THE BOX (not all as it would have been too much stuff).  We met, she handed off the merchandise and we went for a lovely al fresco lunch in Plac Konesera in the Praga district.  After lunch, we headed to Old Town to sit, and we watched people while sipping a beverage.  Then we decided to go back to Praga and visit the Vodka Museum.  Well, we had just gotten off the tram and we were walking toward the Museum, and I dropped the “F” bomb.  I left the package sitting next to the outside table at the restaurant in Old Town.  Anne asked if I wanted to go back.  I said no, this is Poland, someone will turn it in, and I will get it on my way home.  I’ll call from the museum.  No one answered the phone, but I was able to send a message through Google and I got a reply.  They said, “We have your package.”  I told them I would be there later to get it.  Well, we left the vodka museum and decided on a nightcap.  The little Polish-French bartender was 20 and kept us entertained until we finally decided to call it a night.  I said goodbye to Anne and headed to the tram stop, not realizing it was so late the tram I needed had stopped running.  No problem, I called an Uber who dropped me as close to Old Town as possible as there is no vehicle traffic on the weekends.  Long story not short, a wee bit tipsy and sometime nearing midnight in Warsaw I picked up the package.  Another Uber to get me home with my treasures.  I had asked Teri for a (note the word “a” meaning one) packet of ranch dressing mix (no one knows what ranch is here) she of course sent me 12.  She also sent a Christmas shirt and “Home” hoodie from Sunrise Inn of Warren, an MTS painting company shirt from Michael and Anne tossed in a bag of candy.  That my friends is the saga of the box from 2021.

May had started exciting with the delivery of “THE BOX”.  Then, I received a notification informing me that I had been selected for the 2023 class of the Warren City Schools Foundation Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame.  My brother had been inducted a few years earlier, so joining him was an honor.  Of course, living in Poland, it wasn’t convenient for me to attend the induction ceremony and my brother would not be in Warren at the time to accept my award.  Thankfully, my dear friend, Teri, attended and accepted it on my behalf.

I rounded out May with a trip to the shooting gallery with friends.  I shot a sports pistol, a Glock 17 (my least favorite), a Colt 1911 pistol, an AK-47 Kalashnikov machine gun (my favorite), a shotgun, and a Glaubeyrt sub-machine gun.

It was my first time shooting most of these guns, but I have to say I liked shooting the AK-47. The shooting range, PM Shooter, was well run and our instructor was extremely patient and knowledgeable.  It was also very crowded (it was a weekend) and I was surprised by the interest in shooting in Poland.  More trips to the range in the future.  After shooting, what could be better than heading out for pizza?

In May, I also got to meet one of my students face-to-face (my classes are online).  He knew I had a love of Vietnam, especially Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City.  We also had talked about the time I shot a jeep-mounted machine gun when visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels which are about an hour and a half outside of Saigon.  Anyway, he returned from a tour of the country and told me he had something for me.  It was a Starbucks mug (he knew I collected them) from HCMC.  It was great meeting him, receiving the mug, and most of all seeing his bright red Camaro.

Halfway through the year, it was time to start thinking about getting ready for summer on the Black Sea in Bulgaria at Zenira Camp.  I like to travel a bit after Camp ends but this year I had no set plan.  Other than if I went somewhere, I needed to be back in Warsaw before Teri arrived on September 6^th. I arrived in Kiten, Bulgaria on June 22^nd, 4 days before the kids.  Time to relax, regroup, and plan before we hit the ground running.   Even though I have had my share of time off, “days” at camp don’t really matter or even seem to exist.  I often don’t know if it is a Tuesday or a Saturday.  A single day can drag by and at the same time they all run together, and another week is starting.  In the evening, sitting having a cold beverage with my co-workers, maybe after a “tough” (tough as camp can get, LOL), we may have grumbled, “OMG, it’s only week 3, we have 5 more to go.”  Next thing you know, we are sharing a beverage and saying, “How is tomorrow the last day of camp?”

After 5 weeks of camp routine, the only plan I had was to go to Veliko Tarnovo to visit long-time friends when camp finished.  At some point, there had been a plan to meet my flatmates in Azerbaijan, but that wasn’t going to work out.  The flight to Azerbaijan would have been through Istanbul, Türkiye.  If that had worked out I was also planning to stay over a few days in Istanbul.  Sometime that first week of August I said to myself, “Even if you can’t go to Azerbaijan, why not Istanbul after camp?” and booked a ticket.  Camp ended on August 19^th.  I headed by train to Veliko Tarnovo on the 21^st, followed by a bus to Sofia on the 24^th and a shuttle to the airport for my flight to Istanbul.

I arrived in Istanbul with little knowledge of the city and no plan.  As I started researching Istanbul I had to ask myself why it wasn’t on my travel radar.  I also decided I needed to extend my stay so I could make a side trip somewhere in the country.  Did you know that Istanbul only became Istanbul in 1930?  Before that, it was known as Constantinople, named after Constantine the Great.  Not only that, but it is the world’s only transcontinental city.  The western side of the Bosphorus Strait is in Europe and when you cross to the other side you are on the Asian continent.  The morning after I arrived I set out to explore the area, Balat, in which I was staying and to have a traditional Turkish breakfast.

The breakfast at the Velvet Café did not disappoint.  I am not going to get into my escapades in Istanbul or my side trip to Göreme in Cappadocia (Instagram famous for hot air balloons), but you can read more about it here.  Since returning, I have read a great book by Elif Shafak called “10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in This Strange World”. Much of the book takes place in Istanbul and I wish I had read it before I went, so I’m just throwing it out there if anyone is interested.  The bottom line is I am glad I decided to go to Istanbul and take a side trip to Göreme.  Even extending my trip by 3 days, I was back in Warsaw with time to rest before a whirlwind visit with my friend Teri.

Since she was going to be in Dublin for a wedding and I was not sure how much longer I would be in Warsaw, we decided it was the perfect opportunity for me to show her the city I currently call home.  I snagged her from the airport on Wednesday around noonish and didn’t give her time to breathe.  We dropped her stuff off at the Airbnb which happened to be in the building next to mine and headed to Fabryka Norblina, which I mentioned earlier, for lunch.  Then it was off across the river to the Praga District and Koneser Bar ¾ at the Vodka Museum for some cocktails, then back to Old Town for Dinner.  I needed tartare in my life.  A stroll through Old Town, a walk along the Royal Route a stop at Pijana Wisnia for cherry liquor before heading to Nowy Swiat and “whiskey pies”, haha.  Remember those shots?  Wow, all that just since noon.  The rest of her trip was definitely a whirlwind of eating, drinking, and meeting my friends/tribe.  It was over in a flash, and she was heading to the airport on Sunday.

September in Warsaw for me means the start of a new school year.  Thankfully most of my classes didn’t start until October because 2 weeks after Teri left, I was heading to Paris to meet up with my friend Cathy.  We were going to be on a 3-week adventure starting in Paris, France, then on to Casablanca, Essaouira, and Marrakech, Morocco, then back to Paris and on to Krakow, Gdansk, and Warsaw Poland.  I’m just going to touch on a few highlights because this is already turning into a small novel.  I started off thinking I had a relatively calm 2023 until I started writing, so if you’re still with me congratulations because I must keep taking breaks from writing so I wouldn’t blame you if you had moved on…September 20^th off to the city of my heart…Paris!

Paris is always a good idea…it was a rainy morning when I left Warsaw.  Paris, of course, is beautiful no matter the weather, but happily, it was partly cloudy and mid-70s Fahrenheit.  Cathy was already at our Airbnb when I arrived and we didn’t have much time because we were meeting other friends from Warren, Ohio at Harry’s New York Bar…a must-visit when in Paris.  That took up most of the afternoon and after a short rest we were off to meet them on the steps of Sacre Coeur for sunset with wine and pizza from “home”, the Sunrise Inn of Warren.

A few other highlights of the week were a visit to the Ice Kube Bar, and the Chagall Immersive Experience at Atelier des Lumières followed by lunch at Balls.  We took a day trip to Auvers sur Oise, the place where Vincent Van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life producing 74 paintings and 30 drawings before dying on 29 July 1890.  No visit to Auvers is complete without a visit to the Absinthe Museum and a hike to the cemetery where Vincent and his brother Theo are buried.  Back to Paris with no itinerary except wandering and café hopping before heading to Morocco.

As busy as Paris is, landing in Marrakech is a 180° labyrinth of colorful, chaotic activity.  Riads are traditional Moroccan houses or palaces with an indoor garden and courtyard.  They are located within the old city “Medina” walls, and many are used as guesthouses.  We located ours, got settled in, and headed out to explore the medina.  That evening we enjoyed a lovely tajine meal on our rooftop.  The next day, I had a mission.  The last time I was in Marrakech was during the pandemic times and the Café Clock was closed.  Why did I want to visit Café Clock?  Simple…I wanted to eat a camel burger.  It was necessary to take a tuk-tuk to the restaurant, which is an experience in itself.  Mission accomplished…yummy camel burger consumed…our tuk-tuk driver retrieved us and dropped us back in the center of the medina.

The next day we were off to Casablanca.  The first destination was Rick’s Café, inspired by the 1942 film “Casablanca”, where I enjoyed a classic gin martini.

Casablanca sits on the North Atlantic in Northwest Africa and is the largest city in Morocco.  After leaving Rick’s Café we walked along the sea to the Hassan II Mosque.  It is the largest functioning mosque in Africa and is one of the largest in the world.  Its minaret is the world’s tallest minaret at 210 meters (689 ft).  A maximum of 105,000 worshippers can gather for prayer: 25,000 inside the mosque hall and another 80,000 on the mosque’s outside ground.  Then it was back to Marrakech because we had a day trip to Essaouira planned.

Located about 200 km west of Marrakech is the seaside town of Essaouira.  We walked around the port and then chose lobster, prawns, and fish to be grilled for lunch.  Essaouira, known until the 1960s as Mogador, is a port city in the western Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast.  In the Berber language, which is spoken by a sizeable proportion of the city’s inhabitants, it is called Taṣṣort, meaning “the small fortress”.  Archaeological research shows that Essaouira has been occupied since prehistoric times.  It was a lovely day on the North Atlantic.

We spent the last couple of days in Marrakech wandering around the medina before heading back to Paris on the first of October.

Back in Paris for a few days just enjoying the city.  We did get tickets for the opening of a special Van Gogh Exhibit at the Musee d’Orsay.  The exhibition was the devoted to the works produced by Vincent Van Gogh during the last two months of his life, in Auvers-sur-Oise.  From Paris, we made our way to Warsaw, but first, a stop in Krakow and a visit to Auschwitz followed by a late train to Warsaw.

My semester had begun so I was also working. I managed to show Cathy a good bit of Warsaw and we even took a weekend day trip to Gdansk before she headed back to the States.

For me, the rest of October was mainly teaching my classes.  November 1^st is an important holiday in Poland, All Saints Day (Wszystkich Swietych).  On the 1st of November, millions of Poles come to cemeteries to light special candles, leave flowers, and pray for the dead.  I love visiting cemeteries but on the evening of All Saints Day, it is a sight to behold.  I belong to a Facebook group for female travelers.

One of the women in this group reached out to me because she would be in Warsaw on this day.  We met and wandered the cemetery together and then went for a glass of wine followed by dinner at a favorite restaurant near the cemetery, Maghreb, which just happens to have Moroccan cuisine.

I have another friend, Lenore… Yeah, I have a couple of friends.  Well, she was guiding a tour around Italy at the beginning of November.  One of the beauties of living in Warsaw is the ease and cost of flights in and around Europe.  I can be anywhere in 3 hours or less.  I knew when she was going to be in Rome.  I booked a last-minute ticket to the Eternal City.  I didn’t tell her I was coming because I had their itinerary and figured I would just pop in and surprise her.  Great idea in theory but little did I know the itinerary had been adjusted since the one I had.  Just off of Piazza Navona is a bar called La Botticella opened in 1991 by Giovanni Poggi.  It has since taken on a Pittsburgh Steelers theme, even selling Italian “terrible towels”.  Lenore being from the Pittsburgh area, was supposed to bring the group to this bar Wednesday night….NOT!  This is the itinerary change.  For the record, I am not a Pittsburgh fan, but I love Lenore so decided this was the place to surprise her.  Sitting at the bar chatting with Giovanni, sipping a martini, an hour goes by, and then 2.  Hmmm, maybe I better give Dave (her hubby) a call.  Somehow, my timing was perfect, and he had gotten separated from her so she still wouldn’t know I was in Rome.  They were on an evening tour of the Colosseum and then were heading back to their hotel.  Damn, what now?  Dave said he would convince her to go for a nightcap and would message me when they were on the way and where.  Well, with Dave’s help, I later found out he can’t keep secrets but kept this one (only from her as he told some others), I walked up to Lenore as she got off the bus and she was surprised!!!  Needless to say, one nightcap turned into several, and we made plans to meet up the next day for lunch and then back to the Steelers Bar before I had to fly back to Warsaw.  It was a 36-hour whirlwind and worth every minute.

The year was quickly coming to a close.  I prepared Thanksgiving dinner for a myriad of friends from Poland,  Azerbaijan, Jordan, and Ukraine.  December in Warsaw is beautiful.  The city is decorated to the nines.  I love going to Old Town for some mulled wine and a stroll to view the lights and decorations.  My former flatmates, Anu and Anil from Nepal, welcomed a new baby boy before year-end.  I celebrated Christmas with my current flatmates and friends, and we planned New Year’s Eve.  New Year’s Eve picks up where this blog started, with my partners in crime Tarlan and Zaka.  We started with a video call to Tarlan’s family in Azerbaijan.  We had a couple of shots with them and soon our party of three had grown to ten.

New flatmate Zoia from Italy via Ukraine and her mom, who was visiting, had spent much of the day preparing typical Ukrainian salads for the New Year.  More friends came over and we had some cocktails before hitting the streets with bottles of bubbly to ring in the New Year!  At midnight on the streets of Old Town with a group of 20-somethings, I welcomed 2024.

I am not sure what 2024 has in store for me.  As much as I love my life in Poland, it is easy to get too comfortable.  Although I don’t have a solid plan, it is likely 2024 will be my last in Poland.  Before you ask, no, I don’t plan to return to the USA, at least not right away.  I want to experience places that aren’t Paris, Rome, London, or Warsaw.  I want to drink Georgian wine in Georgia and visit the place Tarlan and Zaka call home Azerbaijan.  I want to see those countries you can’t pronounce, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.  I want to visit friends in South Korea, China, Bali and more.  I want to do a WorkAway in India, visit Jordan, see my friend Omar’s home country, and visit Albania before it becomes too touristic.  I want to do it all without a plan other than knowing all the visa requirements for countries.  Who knows how much I can accomplish, and a lot can change in a year, but I leave you with a quote, author unknown, I keep in a folder called Notes to Self on my phone:  “There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may seem crazy to others.  When that happens, you do it.  Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else.  Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just go for it.”

It’s 2024…make the best of it!  Life is short and the world is wide.

In the 1960s, Robert Ornstein, through a series of experiments, verified that the speed of time seems to be largely determined by how much information our minds absorb and process — the more information there is, the slower time goes. So how does this apply to us as adults? Does time seem to pass more quickly? Is there less newness in our lives? Are we slowly using up our quota of potential new experiences or as we become older, are the experiences just becoming more familiar to us?

I’m not going to try to wrap my head around the psychology of it all, but as I sit here at Zenira Camp counting down the last days of 8 weeks at camp, I feel like I just arrived and at the same time it feels like a lifetime. As I have discussed with my co-workers, time moves differently at summer camp. I’ve also realized, it is not just at summer camp. This month it has been 9 years since I packed up my life and moved abroad. How is that possible? It seems like yesterday but when I look back on all that I have experienced, I wonder how I have done so much in 9 years, more than most people in a lifetime. Maybe I have lived a lifetime at Zenira Camp.

Let’s start with “camp time”. Even though I have had my share of time off, “days” at camp don’t really matter or even seem to exist. I often don’t know if it is a Tuesday or a Saturday. A single day can drag by and at the same time they all run together, and another week is starting. It may seem like there is a lot of routine during a summer camp. In theory, there is, but shit happens. The kids go to the beach after breakfast. That’s great…until it is pouring rain. This means that as a teacher, English lessons (Zenira is an English Language and Sports Camp) are moved to beach time…so much for planning time. Excursions are usually on Wednesday afternoon…until the bus company reschedules, and the excursion gets changed to Thursday. So now, an afternoon off is now English lessons, and the afternoon off is bumped back a day. Or the temperature on a sports afternoon decides to jump to 104°F/40°C so sports get changed to clubs so the kids can be in air conditioning. I have been at camp for just over 6 weeks now and we haven’t had one “normal” week as the schedule reads. Always some anomaly changing the schedule…so much for routine. It’s no wonder I occasionally had no idea what day it was let alone how much time has gone by. Summer camp has its own clock. Somedays it runs fast while others it runs slow.

Is time an illusion….I’m in the here and now in Kiten Bulgaria. Soon, I will be visiting Velika Tarnova, Bulgaria and my past will coincide with my present when I meet up with friends I met 20 years ago in the USA. Yet at the same time I am planning a visit to Turkey, country number 42 or 43 (honestly, I have lost track) in a few weeks, and thinking about the future visit of my friend Teri to Warsaw and further into the near future a trip to Paris, Morocco, and Poland with Cathy. No wonder time is fleeting, I am living the past the present, and the future simultaneously…time IS an illusion.

What’s all this have to do with anything? I guess as I sit here on my 61^st birthday, time is on my mind. My mother never reached this age, and my father had no idea when he was 61 that he had a mere 2 years left on this rotating sphere of opportunities. For me, they are forever young. I just don’t understand how 23 and 26 years have passed since they left this amazing life. I know I will never have time to do everything I want to do, see, and experience. So I want to make the most out of the time I do have. In the words of Steven Taylor, “Time doesn’t necessarily have to speed up as we get older though. To a certain extent, it depends on how we live our lives, and how we relate to our experience.” I plan to live my life to the fullest and be mindful of my experiences.

I mentioned above that I can’t believe I have lived abroad for 9 years. Even though I have mostly had a home base, I have lived in 4 different countries during this time. Each one has a very different lifestyle. I traveled quite a bit before moving to Paris, traveling to a place is very different than living in a new culture and country. It was here that I realized that your ordinary can be someone else’s extraordinary. Even though it is mostly “Western”, it is a far cry from life in the small town of Warren, Ohio. After living nearly 6 months in Paris, I returned to Warren, Ohio already knowing I wanted to follow my wanderlust and lead a nomadic life in new and radically different places. I had traveled to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, prior to living abroad and the Far East was pulling me. I signed up for a 6-month stint in China. That 6 months quickly came to an end, and I knew life in China was not over, it had just begun. But…in what seemed a blink of an eye, that 6 months turned into 4 years.

I feel like I lived a lifetime in those 4 years. I visited so much of China; living in 4 different cities/towns, saw 3 different parts of the Great Wall, Xi’an, and the Terracotta Army, Inner Mongolia where I was the only guest of a nomadic settlement. I rode a camel in the Gobi Desert and made a half dozen trips to Hong Kong…not to mention Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin, Guangzhou, and a few Ancient Towns. I spent 8 days in Tibet and even though it is considered part of China, it felt like another world…the land that time forgot. In Tibet, I camped at Mount Everest Base Camp. Living in China made it easy to visit South Korea, where I am sure I went 6+ times. From China, I also visited Moscow, Tokyo, Thailand, Nepal, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and made my first visit to Bali. I also made several trips to Paris via Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Qatar. Sometimes it doesn’t seem possible that after China, I lived nearly 6 months in Bali and am coming up on 4 years in Poland. In the past two years, I have added Egypt, Morocco, Tanzania, and Hungary to my list with Turkey in the near future.

Spending the summer with these kids at camp, remembering when I was one of those kids makes me realize, time is my most precious commodity. Not that I need to race around and always be doing something, because downtime is important too…you know…balance. I could put all kinds of quotes about time here, but what I want to say after all of this is…find the time to do what makes you happy, what makes your soul feel alive, because no matter how many times we think we will have the time to do those things, the planets never quite align for that perfect moment…do it now! I think the popular soap opera of my childhood said it best….”Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

Peace Out!

Occasionally, looking back at my travel photos tends to make me melancholy.  Then I start looking forward and contemplating my dreams, the destinations I haven’t yet visited and those I want to return to.  There’s a quote (author unknown) that says, “It’s better to look back on life and say, I can’t believe I did that…than to look back and say I wish I did”.  When I look back, sometimes I can’t believe it’s my life I am looking at.  Did I really do all those things, go all those places, and meet all those people?  Occasionally, a few tears are shed.  Not necessarily in sadness, although I will probably never see most of these faces again, I am happy that they crossed my path and left something on my heart and in my soul.  Here are a few faces and their stories:

I moved to China in August 2015.  Not really knowing what to expect.  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.   I soon discovered I would be teaching grades 1, 2, and 4 at Wiefang-Xiashan Bilingual School.   The students arrived staggered by grades as the small community couldn’t handle the huge influx all at once.  Soon all had arrived, and it was time for the school year to kick off.  We had a huge outdoor opening ceremony.

It was here that I first met Li Zi Han, aka “fish lips” because she was prone to making fish lips whenever her photo was taken.  She made up to me that day and I soon found out I would be her English teacher as she was in grade one.  She looked for me every day at the start of school and anytime in between.  Whenever I taught in her classroom, she always tried to be my helper.  She loved music and was always dancing.  She told me, with the help of a Chinese teacher interpreting, that she wanted to be a dancer when she grew up.  Her parents were physicians and I’m not sure her dream would be accepted by them.

I visited the school a couple years after I left and met up with her again.  She still had dreams of dancing, but what has become of her since?  Will she follow her dream?  Questions I will probably never have answers to.  Her face will forever be the one that I think about when I reminisce about my days in Xiashan.

The “Roof of the World”, the “Land of Snows”, “Bod”, or Tibet, the highest region on earth with an average elevation of 4,380 m (14,000 ft) has always fascinated me.  While Tibet is governed by China and it is known as Tibet Autonomous Region, there is tension regarding its political status.  There are dissident groups that are active in exile, along with the current or 14^th Dalai Lama who went into exile in 1959 and currently resides in Dharamshala, India.  Living in Hunan Provence at the time, I knew it was the perfect opportunity for me to visit Tibet.  I also discovered as a foreigner I could not enter Tibet as an individual but must enter as part of a group with an authorized guide.  In July 2016, after securing a Tibet Travel Permit and finding a guide and tour group that fit my agenda, I took a 53-hour train ride from Guangzhou, China to Lhasa, Tibet.  I was met by an armed guard exiting the train and escorted to an area where my passport and travel permit were checked.  It was here I was met by my group’s guide and was taken to my hotel in Lhasa.  I arrived a couple of days before the tour started so I could have some free time in Lhasa.

One of the must-do items when choosing my itinerary was an overnight at Mount Everest Base Camp.  Everest Base Camp is either of two base camps on opposite sides of Mount Everest.  South Base Camp is in Nepal at an altitude of 5,364 meters (17,598 ft) (28°0′26″N 86°51′34″E), and North Base Camp is in Tibet at 5,150 metres (16,900 ft)  (28°8′29″N 86°51′5″E).  These camps are rudimentary campsites on Mount Everest that are used by mountain climbers during their ascent and descent.  Supplies are shipped to the South Base Camp by sherpas or porters, and with the help of animals, usually yaks.  The North Base Camp has vehicle access (at least in the summer months).  Climbers typically rest at base camp for several days for acclimatization to reduce the risks and severity of altitude sickness.  Being in Tibet, we had vehicle access to base camp.  The road to Everest Base Camp from Lhasa covers 613 kilometers and passes through Gyantse, Shigatse, Lhatse and Tingri.  It was on this road in the village of Mêmo in the Qomolangma (Tibetan name for Everest) Nature Preserve, I had my first glimpse of the mighty Mount Everest.  Qomolangma National Nature Preserve houses two of the poorest counties in China.  Local livelihoods depend predominantly on nomadic herding. It was also here that I stepped behind a concrete slab and put on my best OMG face as I pointed to the mountain.

I then looked down and saw a pair of black eyes looking up at me.  The eyes belonged to a small Nomad girl.  She was dressed in just a t-shirt and smiled at me with chapped cheeks.  She reached for me, and I picked her up and one of my travel mates snapped a photo of us.  I ended up buying Tibetan prayer flags from her mother.  Cathy, these are the ones hanging on your porch.

“Nomad children today hold the key to future wise use of the rangelands and continuance of the nomadic way of life.  Their education and health is critical.  They must learn new skills for handling animals and acquire the knowledge and expertise that will allow them to continue to use the rangelands with dignity.   As long as nomads, imbued with a sense of the sacredness of the landscape, are allowed to move in harmony with their animals across the grazing lands of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya, there is hope for the future. If we help enable this to happen, young nomads will have heroes they can identify with, and the world will be a better place for all of us.” (Daniel J. Miller, The World of Tibetan Nomads)

I often think of those chapped cheeks and black eyes and wonder what the last 6 years have brought her.  A face I will never forget.

It was Qingming Festival in China (April 2018).  I decided to take the time and check a bucket list item, to see Laolongtou (老龙头) or the ‘Old Dragon Head’.  This is where the Great Wall of China begins\ends at the Bohai Sea.

The Qingming or Ching Ming festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English, is a traditional Chinese festival that falls on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar.  This makes it the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either 4 or 5 April each year.  Laolongtou (Old Dragon’s Head), so named because the Great Wall here resembles a dragon drinking water from the sea is located three miles (five kilometers) south of Shanhaiguan and about 190 miles (305 km) away from Beijing.

The Laolongtou Great Wall was built in 1381 under the supervision of Qi Jiguang, a general of the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644).  It was an important line of defense against enemies coming from both the land and the sea.  After the founding of the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911), its military function faded, and it turned into a great tourist destination, attracting numerous visitors to enjoy the seascape and surrounding constructions.

My teaching assistant Alice accompanied me on this trip.  After visiting Laolongtou, we decided to travel about 15 km and see the Jiumenkou section of the Great Wall of China.  The Jiumenkou Great Wall was built in 1382 by the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) in this strategic area of a valley that that was an important pass allowing access inland.  It was built during the reign of Emperor Hongwu (1368-1398).  This portion of wall is the only part of the Great Wall that crosses a river.  So it is a unique section of the 8,850-km (5,500-mile) Ming Great Wall that stretched from Hushan on the North Korean border almost to Xinjiang far in the west. It also has a troop tunnel 1,027 meters long carved out under the wall perhaps to house troops or for use to hide troops in the event of an attack . It is thought 1000 soldiers could stay in it.

While walking around this area we stopped in a temple, and we met an 83-year-old monk.  She invited us to her simple home to share some fruit.  Since I had Alice with me to translate, I thought it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.   We spent about an hour with her, eating fruit and listening to her stories.  Another face, another soul that has crossed my path that I often think about and wonder.

After living 4 years in China, I made the decision to leave in 2019 and move to Poland in 2020.  Before moving to Poland and before spending the holidays in the states for the first time in 8 years, I decided to return to the island that stole my soul…Bali.  This time the plan was to live there for 4-6 months.  I also wanted to spend some time volunteering at a Balinese school for special needs children.  I ended up spending 6 weeks living and working at Yayasan Widya Guna in Bedulu, Bali, Indonesia.  Yayasan Widya Guna 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.  Its mission is to: Educate the underprivileged Balinese children to be independent and bring them a better future with their own knowledge, culture, and skills.  Ketut Sadia is the founder of the school.  He encourages volunteers to use his homestay.  Just like at Kenari House, I paid for a room in the homestay.  By using the homestay of the school, the monies you pay for accommodation directly support the school.  Also, in exchange for your volunteer time, the homestay provides 3 meals a day at no additional cost.

On day 1 arriving at the school, noticing a new face, I was bombarded by kids wanting a hug, asking “what’s your name?” … you get the picture.  I soon learned that each morning, the day is started with meditation.  The meditation is guided by a teacher at the school and consists of 30 minutes of music to which the children have learned simple movements such as tapping the head lightly with their fingers and progressing down their body.  I was amazed how the children followed the guidance and were quite calm at the end of the 30 minutes which concluded with a lively dance routine.  It was during this time I also noticed many adults who seemed to be parents of some of the children.  Indeed they were and I learned they spend part of the school day on-site and help with things such as cleaning, maintenance, food preparation, and preparation of the canang sari or daily offerings.  I was assigned to my classroom which as it turns out, was the “active” group…think herding kittens.

One of my students was a smallish boy named Juna.  Mostly non-verbal and had a physical disability that affected his mobility.  Although he managed to walk and run, I was always waiting for him to topple over.  His father spent most of the day at the school and was always concerned with Juna’s welfare and assisting the teachers with Juna as much as possible.

They came and went from school on a motorcycle.  Each day as they were leaving they would pass me on the road and stop.  I would stop and Juna would give me a crooked smile and a high five.  Sadly, on April 5^th I awoke to the news that Juna had passed away…fly high sweet boy!

So many beautiful faces have crossed my path during my journey “Down the Rabbit Hole”.   As I look back on my travel photos, I want to tell their story.  I wonder where they are now.  What are they doing?  Are they happy?  Have they followed their dreams?  Are they still alive?  Some are nameless, some I still have contact with, most I will never see again, and some I never formally met, but they have all touched me in some way.   I want to remember how I felt, where I was and what I was doing when our paths crossed.  My life has been blessed with these beautiful people.