a bit of south korea

angela with new friends jesse and samantha.


my classroom!


classic korea.


re: this is why you're fat: double dipped corn-dog with more distinct layering than the cross section of a doug fir with french fry batter. ah, yes, traditional korean fare. (thisiswhyyourefat)


downtown on a slow night.


gogo with ted and ang!

-e pics n' things!

williams mine

as my departure date for korea draws inevitably closer, something i will miss, very definitely miss, will be the road riding here in the trout lake valley. it's not often that i get out on the road bike when i have the option to head to the mountains but since i'm without a mountain bike of my own it's what i have to work with.

i waited until yesterday evening around 6.30, when the air at home at 1200' was a nice 80 degrees. the ride into trout lake takes about 15 easy minutes. you wind up highway 141 and reach trout lake school, where i spent 2nd grade through senior year. about 160 kids still go here, K-12.

just past monte pearson's farm there is a fork in the road. to the left is the grocery store, the post office, the mt. adams ranger station/gifford pinchot national forest headquarters and, eventually, the 88 Road that can take you out to the gorgeous lewis river.

to the right is the south climb road, various snow parks and the 23 Road. my original plan was to take the 88 as far out as my desperately knacked legs wanted to and then, bravely, turn around and get back to town before dark. but, knowing that my brain is substantially less intelligent than my legs and lungs and wouldn't know a good stopping point from a hole in the wall, i decided to drift right and head for the 23 Road, directly north, staring up at the 12,226 foot summit of Mt Adams. williams mine, the first major summit of the 23 Road, would give me a definite stopping point and a place to rest my lung-twang before giving it the beans back down into the valley.

uphill, turn, uphill turn, uphill, uphill, 100' reprieve, uphill turn, etc., etc., etc. it didn't take long to begin hitting inversion layers and the full length zipper on my discover bicycles jersey was going up and down faster than wonka's great glass elevator. patches of deep, dark forest road were punctuated by little hot spots where sunlight was able to penetrate the canopy and it was here that i would end up regretting to wear even my Risky Business sunglasses: gnats only like to end up in cyclists faces, crammed into the corners of your eyes.

about 45 wheezing minutes later i was sitting at 4000 feet hacking up post-wisdom-tooth-removal-blood-clot and wishing i had not tried to fit in with the rest of the sophomores at evergreen by smoking that one cigarette about 5 years ago. the air was noticeably thinner and cooler here and i was urged by the arguably more sinister side of mt adams, the landslide/sulfur mine side, to get down the twisty 23 before the earth decided to rotate us any farther away from the sun.

i dipped into my pockets for a sweaty pack of little chocolate donuts that i had forgotten to pack and realized that i could probably make it to the country store in town before closing time.

so down i turned. on the way up i had come down what was then in my mind a pretty quick decent into a valley before climbing back out of it. i was taken around a hairpin left and into a long straight decent. as it was getting dark this decent troubled me: my leg-gah was much more apparent now that i had just stopped and started and a climb out sounded, well, really miserable. in fact each little reprieve i had on the way up was seeming like yet another climb out. but as soon as i turned down, all these concerns evaporated in a whiff of carbon. my TCR Alliance made quick work of the twists so was able to save my legs for the climbs that lay ahead. about two minutes later i came to the downhill hairpin left, now an uphill hairpin right. this signaled the end of the section i was concerned about - i hadn't even noticed it. so on and on the decent went: each turn dipping and leading me past the mileposts telling me i was getting indeed close back into the valley. but i didn't need those. my jersey that was zipped to my neck at the top was now plunging to my navel.

i saluted the "Leaving Gifford Pinchot National Forest" sign, knowing it very well could be the last time i would see this particular one for quite some time. to my right the trees opened up and a valley spread before me. the sun, just tucking itself behind the ridge, lit the area in an amber only these skies can produce. i smiled to myself, i laughed out loud and told the trout lake valley i loved her.

so from williams mine, 10 or 12 or 53 miles later and with more bugs in my grille than a long-haul trucker i rolled up to the store and grabbed only the essentials for the quick ride home south on the 141: hostess mini donuts, fig bars and a pound of spaghetti. less than 10 minutes home, all downhill. hands off the bars eating donuts and fig newtons.

next i'm going to head out the 88 Road to the lewis river.


View Larger Map

-e pics n' things!

one year ago today.

it has been a very long time since posting. as a result my brain deems it necessary to just think about where i was a year ago today.


dan and jimmy, 3 euro red wine in a park, montmartre, paris.


view to the south from the eiffel tower.


a shine on the cobbled streets near the seine after a dounpour.


metropol hotel in "beautiful" calais. staying the night, waiting for the first ferry to dover in the morning.

happy travels.

new in life:
- exactly one month from today i will graduate from college.
- angela and i have begun the application process for teaching english in south korea!
- my intramural soccer club, Sherburne United F.C., has made it to the playoffs.

-e pics n' things!

tides

angela and i just returned to bellingham after a three day vacation to the oregon coast. the nature of our trip was two fold: 1) it was angela's birthday on the 17th and 2) it's a yearly thing, our coastal haunt. we camped for two nights and traveled a total of just over 1000 miles. on our journey we discussed teaching in korea, the nature of a car's exhaust pipe and its relation to human anatomy, met up with jill for dutch tacos and decided that it would be best to own a small bookstore. here are a few photos from our lovely roadtrip...


angela being radiant at nehalem bay beach


rockaway beach


le chateau du dignity at nehalem bay state park





incidentally, i saw a number of special vehicles that i will post en homage to man on the move.

-e pics n' things!

undergrounds

it seems that a city is only a City® when it has a fully functioning below-surface transportation system. london has the tube. paris and tokyo have their metros. new york has the subway. there are few exceptions that immediately spring to mind save the L in chicago and perhaps the rickshaw/pedicab system in shanghai. here are massive urban centres that function as cultural, political and societal hubs of their surrounding regions. they are the largest metropolitan areas that embody all of the traits of their country or state and they represent this polity to the outside world - these are the figurehead cities, the shining examples of an area.

some of my favourite cities want to be Cities® but don't know how to be. portland has been battling Light Rail implementation for as long as i can remember. the MAX is available downtown and, to some extent, in some major attractions outside of the city centre. seattle will never get a monorail capable of anything practical because, apparently, everybody there has seen that episode of the simpsons. the latter city, however, does have a leg up on the former.

of the two major metropolitan centres of the northwest, seattle appears to be pursuing Cityship® with the growing usage of a widely unknown tube system. the system is not terribly expansive. yet. it is not terribly easy to use. yet. it is not terribly easy to find. yet. however the tracks are growing and the buses that use the tunnels travel at reliable intervals. i am reading an article in the Seattle Times, "A light-rail wonder", and it shows new tracks being laid as another passenger platform for a stop in Beacon Hill is completed.

seattle, with its so-far-successful incarnation of "the world's game" via the Sounders FC, wishes to become a City®. they are getting closer with the installation of a reliable, practical, culturally, politically, and socially friendly transportation network. the seattle underground is a secret weapon. my own experience with it is limited but it was the tool that enabled me to get from north seattle, near fremont, to the airport in just less than 30 minutes (with a change, btw) with a ski bag. there will undoubtedly be teething problems but, i guarantee you they won't be as severe as Springfield's monorail.

-e pics n' things!

home (usa)

i have been back in bellingham for three days now. my room is starting to take shape and the apartment is lovely. joel, i must say, has done a fabulous job with the little place. we have a great view of south bellingham and the bay. the weather has been classic pacific northwest with rain and clouds today. i can hear the train down by the bay that is so familiar to town.

it is difficult to construct a summary of my experiences in england so i should probably not even attempt to. rather i can just say that, beyond the shadow of a doubt, i learned more there than i have in the last four years here. a little laundry list:
-i learned what type of people i want to surround myself with
-i learned that you can communicate with people and not speak the same language
-i learned the card game trumps
-i learned that the bigger the dinners the better
-i learned that staying up until 5am every night weeks before departing severely reduces jet lag
-i learned the underground to the best of my abilities
-i learned how to cope with travel hiccups, both small and large.

major discoveries:
-i discovered that truly amazing hospitality comes not with money but hugs and family
-i discovered i could live in london
-i discovered who i truly love (and i would not have been able to had i not gone)
-i discovered that nothing is permanent (doubly true with the unfortunate news regarding siggy)

it has stopped raining outside. the clouds are starting to burn off, i think.


lovely mrs. banerjee


la familia

-e

[edit] for those of you overseas here are some fotos of my new room:









pics n' things!

pulling up sticks, pt. ii

i now know what to do when you're getting ready to leave a country. a while ago i made a post asking the question of what a person is to do when they have to leave something they have only recently become accustomed to. in this case, what am i to do now that i'm leaving england in three weeks and i have just started to feel like i'm living here. i have a solution and it depends on the individual's denial-level. if you're, say, a novice and usually find yourself admitting defeat before you're given the chance to succeed at something, this may not be the route for you.

if you're like me and have become rather accustomed to pretending you'll never have to return to the real world then do i have the whet for your whistle. leave where you are and go home, just like you're supposed to. unpack your bags. take a hot shower. check your mail. doddle around the kitchen aimlessly for a day or two. pretend everything is normal.

and then pull up sticks and go on vacation.

in my case, plan a ski trip to bozeman with your chums and neglect to really think much farther beyond that. i know that, especially these days, we all need to be a little more careful and plan ahead. we don't know what's around the corner anymore so we have to choose our steps and be aware of over-zealous behavior. or not. or we deal with what may come with the awareness that we will be okay, even if things will get hard for a time. but there will always be something to be said about spurs of the moment. i.e. i can go without living what i think of as, oh, decently and respectfully for a few weeks if it means a couple days skiing with two of my favourite people in the world.

being overseas has taught me many things. don't get in a cab drunk and forget your address. don't tell a northerner he sounds like a southerner. don't miss your flights. but most importantly, don't pass it up. whatever it is. don't.

so, take a vacation. the economic crisis will still be here when you get back.

-e


ben, aubrey, bobby, than, myself pics n' things!

pulling up sticks

how do you begin wrapping something up which you have only just become accustomed to?

-e

[edit] and on that very poignant note, i just finished fallout 3 and have simply no clue what to do with the rest of my life. except for write that paper that's due on the 22nd. but god, i won't stop thinking about that game. too bad there's a massive consequence at the end. bethesda keeps you from just wandering aimlessly about the wastes... pics n' things!

nantes & beyond: days 2, 3 & 4

day 2:

i just had to make sure i was at john lennon airport in liverpool for my flight at 7:05am. had i not slept until 6:30, i probably would have made it. to the cabbie's credit he had me there in 15 minutes but, despite his best attempts, it was still 30 minutes too late. they were no longer taking check-ins at 6:50 and from the parking area outside i watched my flight, and for just a short moment my dignity, leave without me. after catching my breath and getting past the idea of "just not going and grabbing the first bus back to hull" i rearranged my flight to beauvais and alamo was able to comply and adjust my car rental from nantes to the new location. this, however, resulted in me not getting the citroen c1 like i was originally promised but instead the citroen berlingo. this frumpy little thing with a rattler of a 1.6 HDI diesel engine would take me across 700km in less than 48 hours with zero complaints. the five speed only required a half-tank of diesel for the trip and that included getting hopelessly lost on the peripherique exterieur in paris. (i was initially distraught at the sights of the vehicle but by the time i was dropping it off at the ferry port in calais today i found myself wondering what the tariffs were for importing one to the US.)

so after much difficulty i made it to jimmy's flat in paris and, i have to say, the most nervewracking experience i've ever encountered was the massive roundabout at the north end of avenue de la place d'italie. there are no markings and it's wider than two city streets. the french, apparently, would rather just play super mario kart than drive real cars like real people. but the cars weren't the most frightening aspect of the ordeal - the scooter drivers have less respect for their wellbeing than most unwitting junebugs that get caught in the grills of semi trucks on desert roads. i almost hit three in my four passes around the roundabout. i felt precisely like clark griswold in national lampoon's european vacation when he can't turn right.

jimmy and his friend dan welcomed me at 3:30 and straightaway i was heading off towards the notre-dame with dan. we caught the metro to the cathedral and then attempted a walk to the eiffel tower before we were caught in a vengeful downpour - even the seine seemed to pull at its seams before the rain was finished. we ducked into a totally parisian cafe and had little espressos and french onion soup before trekking back out, in between torrents, and grabbing the metro to the tower. the eiffel tower is fucking cool, i don't care how much of a tourist/non-parisian object it is. unfortunately i can't post any photos (i have a shitload) but since my new laptop is on the way i will be able to veryvery soon.

jimmy met up with us at 9:30 and we drank two bottles of wine in great little park in montmartre, a real version of the better parts of disneyland. a note on the wine: surprise! even the cheap wine in paris is good!

day 3:

we met up with ciara at jimmy's boss's for a great parisian lunch repleat with beautiful leg of lamb, breads, cheese, rose, butter-like beans and soup. afterwards i left for calais (but not before receiving a parisian parking ticket! super good use of €35!!!!!!11). this day was pretty uneventful really. lots of driving across the french countryside north to the port city.

day 4: (today)

today has been fast. after catching the ferry across to dover i have been on the go, stopping only for 30 minutes in camden town to unpack my bag at the smart camden hostel. i have walked through the camden markets and all around piccadilly circus and leicester square. tomorrow i plan on visiting some of the more classic tourist spots such as the london eye, big ben, harrods and...

shit my internet time is up.

-e pics n' things!

nantes & beyond: day 1

today was, in a sense, kind of a wreck. all i had to do was get from hull to liverpool and it took all day. which is weak. but, again, in a sense, totally okay. here's why:

my train out of hull departed on time and all was going along swimmingly until 30 minutes into the trip. before we were half way to manchester, where i had a connection bus to liverpool, the train encountered mysterious "technical difficulties amounting to a major mechanical issue". you know, not to make any of the passengers too uncomfortable. we were hustled off the train at some godforsaken rock in the middle of the hedgerows and we're told that our connector train to Leeds is on platform 3. i only see one platform. there is more oxygen on mars than there were platforms at Kingston upon Whereverthefuck. but we get on this tiny two-car shuttle thingy that takes us to leeds where we're to wait for a connection to manchester. in leeds we switch trains again and i get to man city at 4:00, 15 minutes after my connection bus left.

(upon a brief but american complaint i get a train ticket to liverpool for the price of my missed bus connection. which is nice. i didn't even raise my voice - just mention that you've been vaguely inconvenienced to the english and they're cut to ribbons.)

so i am now in liverpool at the nightingale lodge, a very cool old building outside of the city center. i have three other roommates, one of whom i have met: julie from belgium. we are probably going to a pub downtown for food and a couple pints.

tomorrow morning i fly out of John Lennon Airport at 7am for nantes. in nantes i will pick up a rental car and drive to paris where i am meeting up with jimmy and ciara from western. jimmy has, graciously enough, offered his couch/floor/bathtub for me to sleep on/in tomorrow night. the morning of the 12th i am heading north to basse normandie.

i'm taking many pictures and collecting many postcards.

forward ho!

-e pics n' things!

the coming weeks

a few brief things and then on to business:

-school is going well. reading week is next week and it will be time for me to start constructing the papers that i have due for three classes. i am looking forward to working on them and getting them out of the way because it's taken all of my will power to keep my brain in hull when europe is so close.
-looks like mom is going to visit at the end of december. the plan so far is that she'll be here for a week and we'll get to spend the new year in denmark with a family friend.
-my computer is still broken (like it's getting any better on its own) and i haven't come up with a solution. the ideal situation is the one where i bite the bullet and take some of my educational loan monies and apply them towards the new macbook. i really do need to get this fixed because it has seriously disrupted my lines of direct communication with some very important people.
-still haven't seen quantum of solace.
-hsbc still hasn't given me my money. thx.

but in more immediate news, the next two weeks are going to be very eventful.

this week i will be travelling nearly non-stop taking time to sleep in assorted hostels in england, france and possibly belgium. my five day trip will take me through manchester, liverpool (exotic, i know), nantes, paris, carentan, caen, rouen, calais, bruges, dover and london. it's nearly not enough time to go all of these places and it's certainly not enough time to acutally absorb paris or london. truly absorbing these larger cities, however, isn't necessarily the point. it's the smaller cities, countrysides and coastlines i'm really trying to focus on and lodging, as usual, will take a backseat. i have two nights in france where i have no hostels reserved so far and i am considering just sleeping in the car-for-hire that i have reserved at nantes airport. my trip will end with an overnight in london and a train back to hull late on the 14th. i'm kicking myself for not having a decent camera. d'oh.

when i get home i'll have to do laundry quickly (because we don't have a dryer, just an iron. fucking student housing) as i will be heading back out on another three day trip exclusively to london. this is the one that i'm absolutely quaking with excitement over because here i will be seeing sigur ros on the 20th. i have paid a little more attention to the accomodations for this trip and i booked a hostel in piccadilly circus, 30 seconds from the piccadilly tube stop. it will be noisy and i'm not anticipating a great deal of sleep. this doesn't bother me due to my frighteningly skimpy hours of rest during the last week.

after the london trip i leave for edinburgh. actually, i will go straight from my arrival back in hull via train to a coach on campus departing for the scottish city. good thing i'm used to wearing the same clothes for a week at a time.

the winter is settling in nicely here and the leaves have all turned to a sticky paste on the sidewalks. nothing on the ground isn't coated with tree detritus and my runny nose insists that i'd rather be spending my time sick than healthy.

-e pics n' things!

revised trip

View Larger Map

or.


View Larger Map pics n' things!

change

so i have officially changed my return flight from 25 december to 3 february. i have the same flight times but it's a month later. i approached the international office coordinator here again and she gave me the same answer, under no circumstances am i going to be able to take my exams early in order to return to the states in time to apply for winter quarter at western. if this wasn't going to work for me i should not have applied for study abroad.

*shudders with something resembling but not exactly quite like rage*

i'm not upset about being in europe for an extended period of time. i'm upset that the people who were to be helping me here at hull have been, well, not. i have heard conflicting reports from several sources, including my professors here who have told me that students have taken their exams early, on whether or not i would be able to return home before the official examination period. i need to be less upset about these things. and i am. three months ago this would've sent me through the roof with panic and a white hot fit of anger. in fact, it did send me through the roof. but now, after all the shit that it has taken to get here, i just don't have the energy to hassle with them. instead i have to approach the situation with the most positive manner i can.

it's a pretty fortunate deal, if you were to think about it. other than hemorrhaging massive amounts of money and losing school time in bellingham, i will end up with a free month from school. in europe. that's cool. plus i will be able to be in either paris, london or munich for christmas and the new year, one of my original ideas for the holidays. also, mom will be able to have time to fly out during her christmas break to visit and see some of the country.

so really, i need to stop pissing and moaning because it's not often one gets the opportunity to take a rescheduled flight and apply the situation to the rest of their life. this is one of those adult moments where you have make the choice between a life constantly unsatisfied and a life where flexibility becomes a quality, not a chore. it's time to make the choice and just, i don't know, be happy for fuck's sake. necessity is the mother of invention and it is necessary for me to stop being so hard to please.

months ago i wrote up some pages on problems i have with perspective and my internal debate which argues that people, in a sense, don't have it and how that really pisses me off. so, here is a perfect example of my hypocrisy. treat this like a smaller event, a rescheduling and a remarking of the calender, and step away from it. step away from the preconception that this is turning the whole journey on its head because it isn't. my flight home is the last thing i do so why would it ruin this?

pretty slapdash but i don't feel like i should explain it. people wouldn't read this anymore if i did.

here are some pictures if you just scrolled past my monologue:


a mexican and an american play backup for "hotel california". rock the fuck out.


york, old town.

-e pics n' things!

nuts & bolts (in progress)

nantes to calais.
kings cross to camden inn.

still in progress and for my own reference.

-e
pics n' things!

scarborough

on sunday a group of us took a little trip out to scarborough, about 70k north of hull. yes, i believe it is scarborough as in scarborough fair. as in simon and garfunkle. or some shit.

fotos.


stairs and gardens.


scarborough southern beach, village & marina. their waterfront really reminded me of beaches from the northwest (think seaside, for those of you who know).


busted ass cribs.


northern coast.


pretty ass building & regina victoria statue.

-e
pics n' things!

first day

classes officially decided to start today. after two weeks of slouching about and generally making a poor example of myself it appeared that it was actually time to do something productive. here's my schedule:

monday.
War & Memory in 20th Century Australia. 2:15pm to 3:05pm.
America: From Colonies to Republic. 3:15 to 4:05.

tuesday.
America. 10:15 to 11:05.

thursday.
America. 9:15 to 10:05.
Medival Yorkshire: From the Norman Conquests to the Wars of the Roses. 1:15 to 3:05.
War & Memory. 3:15 to 4:05.

yeah, i know it looks slack but damn do i love having finished with my thesis work last spring. i'm taking a full load, despite the apparent thinness of the timetable, but just barely. i had all of these modules today and they all seem interesting with the only possible exception being Colonial History. it may be a rehash of a course i had taken at WWU but i'm still going to try and get credit for it. but it could be redeemed by a possibly fresh view on our colonial history - to hear a UK professor's take might be interesting.

two trips around england and europa planned so far:
-sigur ros in london during 19, 20 & 21 nov. (!!!!)
-three days in nantes and the normandy coast during 11, 12 & 13 nov. (no classes)


funny bad translation of the day! an italian to me, asking after bad words, "cunt! is not that the lady of the cock?" i'm sorry, i couldn't resist posting that.



-e
pics n' things!

ryanair

fuck. let's hear it for £5 flights from liverpool to nantes! i'll pay ten US dollars to fly anywhere (with the strong exceptions being anywhere in the midwest, deep south, and the south eastern seaboard - erm, most of the States, i guess), let alone a destination i've been waiting to visit for quite sometime.

dear faa/corporate demigods/america,

get your shit together or go to jail.

love,
elliott
pics n' things!