Catching Up....Borderline alcoholics and desert yuppies

I have fallen behind in my blogging duties. My apologies to all, I will try to make the next few posts concise and digestible, as there is much to discuss. I shall begin where I left off, taking in the rays in Terlingua. My last night in town, it was just me and Cynta chillin at her place, so we decided to watch a movie. After first deciding to watch the Motorcycle Diaries but failing to find the DVD (Cynta assumed she lent it to someone and forgot... same thing that happened to my copy of that movie!), we decided to watch a film that was made right in the area we were living, titled Los Trés Entierros de Melquiades Estrada, or the Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. The story of the film is about a Texan cowboy (Tommy Lee Jones) who befriends an illegal immigrant, who is killed by a novice Border Patrol guard (boo hiss) after he discharged his rifle trying to kill a fox or something. After the local authorities decide not to investigate, the cowboy, Pete Perkins, decides to take the law into his own hands, abducting the perpetrating border patrol guard and taking him on an epic journey along with Estrada's body to the place where Estrada was from to bury his body.

Aside from the obvious connotations regarding Texan cowboys' lack of confiedence for local law enforcement, I also took away a keen sense of how strong the cross-border camaraderie was (and still is) between rural Americans and rural Mexicans (we're all just people trying to get by, after all). There is a sense of understanding and comfortability that arises when a white man walks into a Mexican bar and begins conversing with the bartender in fluent spanish, without prejudice or preconception. It is as if they have been living next to each other for centuries, the only thing separating them being their skin color. The conflict only arises with stupid border patrol guards who don't know the lay of the land and don't bother trying to learn it before swooping in and imposing their own rules.

Speaking of border patrol, did you know that the officers in that specific branch of law enforcement are only there because they failed ALL of the other tests to get into other, more significant positions? Yes, border patrol guards are the cream of the crap, the top of the bottom, the worst of the best. It's sad to think that that's how much we value our relationship with our neighbors to the south.

Anyways, moving right along, the next day I drove to El Paso. The first part of the drive was awesome, heading up right along the Rio Grande through more national parkland and beautiful rocky passes. I passed through Marfa (again) and continued northwest, into the mountain time zone and into a whole new world, one really unlike any I have encountered so far.

El Paso sent my head in a spin upon first arriving. Highway signs to Juárez all had "no firearms" images attached to them. I would look north, towards New Mexico, and see mountains and occasional glimmers of fancy mansions and mercedez benzes surrounded by rocks and trees. Then I'd turn my head south and see vast and endless ghettos of shacks and one-story pueblos, probably only getting electricity a few hours each day. I heard stories of journalists in Juárez being massacred and strung up in the trees of this one park to warn others of what would happen to them if they went investigating about the drug problems in the area. I saw cars all over the place with pieces of paper saying "untitled" in the place of a license plate. Cars obviously boosted in Juárez, stripped of their plates and serial numbers and resold on the cheap to needy mexicans only to be driven back over the border again, possibly even smuggling more drugs in. Did you know that 2/3rds of the metropolitain population lives in Juárez, crossing the border every day to come work in El Paso? There's also a 40 mile radius around the city in which the mexican workers are allowed pretty much unfettered access to, provided they don't bring any guns and go back to mexico when the work day is over. The cops are all corrupt and the drug cartels run the show. The level of danger here was much higher than it was in New Orleans, but, interestingly enough, this time I felt much safer, if not more comfortable.

The reason for this lies in my company. I was staying with my friend Monica, who I met through the computer lab at Michigan. Last Fall Monica moved out to El Paso to teach elementary school (don't ask me why she chose El Paso). She lives in a house with three other people, of which I only really met one. Shane (the guy I met) was the nicest guy. He's had a troubled past, spent some time in the marines, had it all and lost it all, and now he's getting back on his feet, getting ready to go back to school and trying to find work where he can. As I saw him, Shane was like the big papa bear; kind eyes and loving care for his flock, but pick a fight with him and he will fuck your shit up.

The day before I arrived, Shane had fallen off the roof of a carport he was working on for this guy up the street and torn the tenden in his achilles heel. Even so, despite all the pain and agony that came with attempting to walk around in his cast, even with the crutches, Shane went way out of his way to show me a good time. We drove around town in the convertible, checking out the sights and learning some interesting cultural facts about the town (did you know mexican drivers are terrible, and none of them have insurance, so if one runs into you they just drive off?). After that we went to the grocery store, picked up some hot sauce and orange juice, and went back to their place to cook up some of the bombinest wings I've ever had. Having satisfied our hunger, around 3:30pm we headed out to check out the bar scene around town. We hit up all Shane's favorites, from dingy dives with dollar beer grab bags to a tequila lounge housed in an old auto shop garage.

By 5:30 or so, when Monica met up with us, we had probably had around 4 beers each already, so I was feelin pretty good. We went back to the house for a minute, gussied up and headed out again to meet up with Monica's friends at a tasty mexican restaurant. Having drank all those beers already and ate those wings not too long ago, I refrained from ordering anything aside from sangría and eating chips and salsa while everyone else stuffed themselves.

By the way, Monica's friends are hilarious. Pretty much all of them are beautiful gay men, an artist, a teacher, a spokesperson for a Texas congressman. And they were fabulous! Post-dinner we briefly stopped at a starbucks to utilize their internet and buy some plane tickets, then we headed over to the local gay bar for more drinks and partytime. As the night wore on and the alcohol built up, I got jollier and jollier, as I do, and before long I was having the time of my life. We ordered a round of upside-down pineapple cake shots (which we had to explain to the bartender how to make), ordered a vodka martini for Shane (the first time they forgot to add the vermouth so it was just vodka and olive juice.....yuck), and I switched from beers to liquors. And you know how that goes.....

By the end of the night we had stopped at two more bars, one with a college feel (and way too many people for my tastes), and the back to the local watering hole by their house, where I ended up purging some of the last drinks I ordered and almost lost my glasses in the bush (good thing Monica was paying attention...). We stopped at Whataburger and I threw some grease in my stomach and then we headed back to the casa and promptly passed out.

The next morning, as you can imagine, was a hard one to wake up to. I had a six hour drive and a national monument ahead of me, and I had woken up late and had the worst hangover ever. The plan to leave by 10 turned into 11:30, and due to spending so much on drinks the night before I didn't feel wealthy enough to go out and buy a real breakfast. Gas station coffee and muffins, 3 dollars. Could've been better.

Nevertheless, I arrived at White Sands national monument still with a bit of a headache, but what I found pretty much erased any lingering hangover that I still had. The crisp, dry desert air, the steady breeze flowing across the tops of the dunes, the blazing sun, and above all, the beautiful scenery all around me. It was truly an amazing experience that made me completely forget about the night before.


Magnificent! If I had more time I would've tried dune-sledding, there were a lot of people out doing that. But alas, it was time to get a move on, gotta make it to Santa Fe by dinner!

I arrived in the Adobe City around 7:30 or so, only to find myself lost and confused. I drove around for 20 minutes or so trying to find the house of my couchsurfing host, Annie, but to no avail (it turns out I had mis-written the address as 1605 instead of 1065... I blame the hangover). To boot, Annie wasn't answering her phone when I called, so I felt like a stranger in a strange world, totally lost and amiss as to what to do.

I drove around for a while until I found a gas station. After gassing up I went inside and asked at the counter if it were possible there were two streets with the same name. The guy showed me a map of the city, but no further progress. Luckily I had the phone number of another couchsurfer, Jess, who was unable to host me but had expressed interest in meeting up for a beer or two. So I called up Jess and what do you know, he answers! "Oh yeah!" he says, "we're down here at this pub drinking beers and getting dinner, come meet up with us!" So I find the place on the map and head on down, walk in the bar and out back to the patio, and find Jess and his friend visiting from Houston sitting there drinking beer and eating chips and salsa. Yay! Friends!

Shortly after sitting down, Annie calls me back and we get the directions sorted out. I invite her out to the bar, but she's only 20 and they're super strict about who they let in (under 21 only with parental supervision), so we agree to just meet up at her place after dinner. Soon after getting off the phone, several more of Jess's friends join us at the table. Things get lively, I meet a struggling artist (who I recommended to start an artists' co-op) and a woman who's joining the peace corps in Morocco (whoa, she's actually leaving tomorrow! It has been a while since my last post....), along with a slew of other interesting characters. I ordered a tasty and satisfying burger and had a dandy time. We left the bar around 9pm and I headed over to Annie's house, this time with accurate directions.

When I arrived at the casa, I found one lone guy sitting at the dining room table working on his laptop. After brief introductions I find out that he is one of Annie's housemates and Annie and her boyfriend were currently out at Outback getting ribs with a gift certificate. We hung for a while and talked about St. John's University (which, it turns out, Cynta from Terlingua went to back in the 70s) and their academic style (all primary sources, like following the discoveries as they're discovered). A bit later, Annie and Cooper return from their outback/beer excursion and we sit around and have intellectual discussions over beer until bedtime. I get to sleep in the makeout nook and there are some interesting stains on the cushion, so I put a blanket down to sleep on top of, with an awesome down comforter to complete the Travis sandwich. I slept very well that night.

Ok, I've written enough for one post. Stay tuned.... adventures in Santa Fe, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, and more of Central Arizona! Next time, on Midwestern Cooperation!

¡Viva Terlingua! Mi corazón del desierto (oh yeah, and Austin too)

So yeah, I spent over a week in Austin. It was pretty great, I got to hang with old friends, meet some new ones, spend some quality time with my relatives, and see the old sights so familiar to my heart. Austin is my home away from home, and so everything I did there, even the stuff I've never done before, felt familiar and comfortable. This was not part of my adventure across the States. It was more just a waypoint in between the real purpose of this trip.

I did get a chance to go to a pretty unique Lesbian Drag King show one night, followed by hours of dancing at a gay dance club, which was certainly fun. It was basically just a lip-synching, choreographed series of performances from mostly women dressed up as men (most of which probably used male pronouns on a regular basis). There were a couple of "femme" women, one of which did quite the burlesque telephone operator strip-tease, complete with spinning tassles. We left after the first couple of songs of the second half. The one that gave us that urge for going was a pretty sad Dubya spoof where someone came out in a suit with a Bush mask on and proceeded to prance around the stage, at one point pulling out a bag of white powder and shoving it in his face, at another pulling out a banana and pretending to shoot himself in the head. It was pretty lame, so we decided to bounce.

The next morning, after maybe 3 hours of sleep on Black Star Stephen's futon, he woke me up and we headed about an hour out of town to Lexington, TX, home of Snow's BBQ, for some early morning cooked meat. The place opened at 8am, and according to several news articles (including one from the New Yorker), it was highly advised to arrive at opening and expect about an hour wait to get your food. Snow's website said "open from 8 am until we run out of bbq!" We took all this advice to heart and decided to wake up at the crack of dawn and hit the road by 7:15 or so, to ensure that our trip would not be in vain.

Arriving at Snow's, we were pleasantly surprised to find a line that took no more than 10 minutes to wind our way through. And to boot, by the time it was my turn to make my order, Snow himself was behind the counter! This was a truly, uniquely Texan endeavor, I felt, waking up so early for a BBQ breakfast served by a guy who would have looked very comfortable in a cowboy hat and chaps, so I was happy. The food was amazing too! Sweet tea, beans baked in loads of grease and fat, cole slaw and potato salad to go along with the loads of moist brisket, succulent ribs and some amazing pork, all smothered with bbq sauce served from water bottles on the table. It topped off my experience of central Texas very nicely indeed, and I was home by 12:30 to take a 3 hour nap and get some laundry done before going to see Slumdog Millionaire with my aunt to celebrate the Valentine's holiday. The only thing I didn't get around to doing while in Austin was to go down to San Antonio for a rodeo. Maybe next time, I suppose. I did watch a bit of bull-riding on TV though, so I guess that counts....

By Monday morning I definitely felt the road calling me once again, and so I packed my bags and headed west. As I drove I became progressively more and more excited as the landscape around me became drier and less vegetated. Rolling hills turned to craggy rocks. Woods and forests gave way to arid arrays of bushes and occasional trees. By the time I hit I-10, the roads were flat and straight, the speed limits increased, and I could safely say I was in West Texas proper. I could feel my heart growing larger as I could see farther and farther into the distance. It was quite the amazing experience.

I decided to stop on Marfa on the way to Terlingua, since I had heard that it was a pretty neat place with a vibrant artist community and some interesting sights, including Marfa's Lights, strange lights on the horizon that can be seen at night. Unfortunately, when I got there I found out that most restaurants were closed on Mondays, and the fact that it was President's Day pretty much cemented that bet. After asking at the tourist info center and talking on the phone with my host in Terlingua, I decided to just head over to the local laundromat, which had a relatively new, completely unmarked ice cream/coffee shop attached to the side for some Bluebell Ice Cream and Big Bend Coffee. I then headed out to Terlingua at a quick pace, since Cynta (my host) and the other couchsurfers staying at her place were meeting for dinner at the local Starlight Theater, 2-for-1 burgers!

Driving into Terlingua was a trip. Being a "ghost town," I expected very little in the way of modern establishments such as restaurants, hotels, gas stations and the like. I was quite surprised, then, to find, after a 2 hour drive through arid desert and maybe one farmhouse every 10 miles, a very vibrant culture stretching from Study Butte all the way to the Terlingua ghost town. Many eclectic eating establishments, a new "camping hostel" with tents and a school bus on the side, possibly converted into restrooms or something, and a diverse array of housing accomodations ranging from trailers and RVs, to reconstructed ruins. It became clear to me very quickly that this ghost town was ghostly no longer. Many aging hippies and flower children had discovered this beautiful spot and decided to come out here and live on the land. Cynta was one of these.

Back in the day, Cynta was a serious athlete. River guide, surfer, hiker, the real outdoorsy type. Tough as nails, strong as a bull, skinny as a rail, she was at the top of her game. But maybe 15 years ago, it all came crashing down when her joints started seizing up and she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Needless to say, her career was ruined. You cant exactly be a hiking or boating guide when you can't do any sort of heavy lifting, let alone walk far without dealing with serious pain. But that didn't stop Cynta. She packed her bags, sold her stuff, came out here to Terlingua and bought an old ruin and the land surrounding it. Following that, she set to work restoring the building using her bare hands and the help of some illegal mexicans from across the river. It took 10 long years of hard work, but it has really paid off. She retained the original layout of the house, but added many modern additions, such as a composting toilet, a rain barrel collection system, even high-speed internet. Meanwhile, she cemented her place in the community and got to know her neighbors, to the point that now when I meet anyone in the area and mention that I'm staying with Cynta, they immediately respond with warm messages and hugs for me to deliver to her. Despite her disability, Cynta's heart has only grown larger while she has lived down here. She loves everyone and everyone loves her.

Over the past year or two, Cynta was recently turned on to Couchsurfing, and boy am I grateful! Her house is absolutely perfect for surfers, with no less than 7 sleeping areas aside from her own, a beautiful front patio to watch the sunrise every morning, a fire pit to hang around and make smores on at night, and the most gorgeous view of the Park (which I am staring at as I write this). On top of this great house, Cynta already had 5 other couchsurfers staying here when I arrived, so it just turned into one great big party! So awesome!

Just being here makes me want to buy a ruin myself and just stay forever. It's too bad so many people have gotten here already, there's very little land left for sale, and when there is it's like a fire sale at salvation army. I don't think people around here have really noticed any of this economic crisis that everyone else is freaking out about. They're just too far off the grid, they've created their own little cosmos very much independent from the rest of the world. Even the border patrol guys around here are chill! Now how hard is that to imagine?

Yesterday (Tuesday) was my first full day in the area, and I milked it like no other. In the morning, after our sunrise maté and coconut rice breakfast, we all went on a nice little trek around the ghost town with the dogs, checking out fossils, taking pictures and throwing the frisbee around. After that, Cynta, Taylor, Julietta and I went geo-caching (something I've been wanting to do since I first heard about it), and managed to find 4 caches on top of the 3 they found the other day, all within 4 miles of Cynta's house. It was awesome! I gotta get myself one of those GPS thingies so I can do some geo-caching of my own. 21-st century treasure hunt ftw!!

After geo-caching we went to lunch and I got a tasty Reuben. Then we headed back to la casa and I got myself together and headed off to the Park. Big Bend National Park is some of the most gorgeous land I have ever seen. I think I stopped at almost every turnoff on the road to take pictures of the scenery around me (being in a convertible made that really easy). I hiked around the Chisos basin for a while, all the time half-fearing half-hoping that a mountain lion was close on my tail, ready to pounce when I least expected it. It made the hike more exciting. :P

After the hike I was pooped, so I drove all the way down to the other end of the park and then 1.8 miles down a very rocky dirt road to the Hot Springs to get some healthy soaking in. At one time there was a bathhouse built around the spring, but today all that remains is the foundation. The spring is right on the Rio Grande, and I was advised by Cynta to get in the hot spring for a while, then jump into the Rio Grande and let the current take you down a little ways to some rocks where you can climb out and walk back. At first I was a little apprehensive, but after the initial hot-to-cold shock I was hooked, and did it not once but twice more before heading back. This morning I woke up and all my aches and pains from traveling disappeared, my body feels totally rejuvenated. It's so great, I just might have to do it again!

While I was down at the Hot Springs I ran into a couple my age (a rare sight 'round these parts). After talking for a few minutes I soon found out that they were couchsurfers as well, who were camping out in the park while they were here. Jeremy was from Chicago and Kathrine was from England. On top of this, I found out that we were both going to El Paso on Thursday for a night, so I thought to myself what a strange and fortuitous meeting! I told them about Cynta and how she was going to have some beds available the following night if they wanted to come surf here instead of camping again, and then maybe we could either travel to El Paso together and/or meet up while there for drinks or whatever. How crazy to finally find some fellow travelers who were more-or-less on the same path as me at the same time! We exchanged phone numbers and parted ways for the night, but I hope they end up staying here tonight, it would make for a much more interesting evening. Taylor and Julietta left today to return to Austin and the other three kids (Chirstopher, Andrew and Lauri) all went on an overnight hike in the Park, so it's just Cynta, her dogs and I. And while traveling alone is all fun and games, it does get a bit lonely at times. It would be awesome to have some companions, if only for a day or two.

So now I am here, just chilling out and basking in the dry desert air and the warm desert sun. I'm staying a day longer than originally planned because this place is just so much more beautiful, open and comfortable than what awaits in El Paso. Who knows what really awaits there, but I am not ready to leave yet.

I've swam the Rio Grande, climbed the Chisos mountains, almost ran over some Mexican warthogs (apparently half-rat-half-pigs that eat prickly pears), met many awesome desert people, and I haven't even gotten sunburned yet! This is the life. I am in love.

South by Southwest

Ok no, this post is not about the music festival, it's just such a convenient title! What I really want to talk about is my first days in Austin and my plan for the coming weeks.

I arrived here in the Live Music Capital yesterday and had an absolutely wonderful evening my first night in town! First I went out to a Black Star meetup at the Drungo Ice House and had a great time hanging out with them. I even made plans for next Saturday, we're gonna go out into "real" texas to get some "real" texas barbeque, then we're gonna head over to College Station for a day of binge drinking and partying! Woohoo! After that I met up with my aunt and we headed out for dinner downtown. I got this massive 1 pound burger complete with fried pickles, cheese, the works. It was really tasty, I was only able to eat half of it.

Unfortunately, that's when things started to take a turn for the worse... I was supposed to catch a plane to Chicago for a nasco board meeting that left at 8:30am the next morning, but we didn't get home until 1:30. So I set my alarm for 5:30 and hoped for the best. To my great misfortune, I woke up with a horrible feeling in my stomach. Gasses, nausea, dizziness, it was really bad. There was no way I was going to get on a plane feeling that way, so I made the tough decision to call it off. Looks like I won't be going to that board meeting after all... which especially sucks because I'm going into the peace corps, this was pretty much my last chance to see all my nasco board friends before leaving for the next 2 years! Oh well, c'est la vie I suppose. At least the weather is nice down here.

So now I'm in Austin for the next while, and I've already started thinking about where I'm going next. My cousin Tara grew up in Phoenix, and she gave me a great itenerary to check out the southwest, and since this is really one of my most anticipated parts of the trip I think I'm going to take her up on it. SO, as it stands now, I'm thinking I'll go from here to El Paso, maybe stop in Las Cruces, head up to Santa Fe, west to Flagstaff, back south again to Phoenix and Tuscon, and finally over to San Diego to begin leg 3 of the trip (the western seaboard). Sure, it's a roundabout trip through the desert, but I want to see it all! There's so many national parks and national monuments out there, I can't wait to take it all in. This part of the trip will probably take at least 2 weeks, maybe more. Also, I really don't know very many people in that area so it's probably going to be mostly couchsurfing, but that's great, I can't wait to couchsurf more! It's definitely been one of the most rewarding parts of this trip so far, so the more sleeping on random couches the better!

But for now I'm in Austin for the next week or so. I've got lots of people to visit and lots of stuff to do, so it's going to be great. Hooray for warm, hooray for the south, and hooray for more traveling!

Georgia on my mind

Two parts to this post: Atlanta and Athens, both in Georgia (in case you were unaware). We'll start with Atlanta, since that's where I was for most of the past 6 days or so. First, let me say that Atlanta is HUGE. It also has a very poor public transportation system (unreliable buses), virtually no bike lanes, and some very sketchy neighborhoods that white people without bulging muscles and pit-bulls would do best to avoid. So it's a driving city, like a lot of big cities, I suppose. On top of this, city planners for Atlanta seemed to be schizophrenic and anti-collaborative at best, so the roads make no sense, with one-way signs and traffic circles all over. I got so turned around the couple of times I had to drive, it took at least 15 minutes longer than it should have to get anywhere.

And then there was Eric (the friend I stayed with)'s house. One of his housemates had an xbox 360 and a huge widescreen tv, and he had GTA 4, which I'd been dying to play for ages. Placed in this situation of daunting prospects at braving the roads, cold weather, and a fair amount of exhaustion from the past two cities visited, it made it pretty easy to just spend a lot of time during the days sitting in front of the tube playing video games. And it was glorious. I really didn't feel like I was missing much, maybe there were things to do around town, but they all cost money and I'm trying to conserve, so whatever. It'd been a while since I'd been a couch potato, so what the hell, I thought, let's take a break.

Friday night, Eric and I went out on the town. Little 5 Points, The Clermont Lounge, and the Majestic Diner. Little 5 Points was interesting, certainly a very eclectic mix of people, but all the bars were packed and we didn't feel like standing, so we walked around for a bit and then headed off to another bar down the road that was less crowded to play Battleship and drink beer.

The Clermont Lounge was a trip, to say the least. Apparently a mainstay of seedy Atlanta culture, this was definitely the fugliest strip club I've ever seen. Now, I would certainly say the girls were all attractive in their own ways, but they were definitely all over the age of 30, most of them were.....rotund, and I spent more time laughing at their antics than feeling at all aroused. It was great! The most interesting thing I saw was the surprising number of women in the crowd. Most strip clubs I've been to (okay, the one) have been pretty much entirely populated by men. Not so with The Clermont. I'd say there was probably 1 female for every 3 males in the crowd, it was quite impressive! Granted most of them were there with a guy, but the fact that they would even agree to step inside is a testament to the Clermont's draw. It's more than a strip club, it's a real experience.

Then there was the Majestic. Reminded me very much of Ann Arbor's Fleetwood, only a bit bigger with more cooks behind the counter and waitresses in front. And they served grits with pretty much everything. It made me happy.

We also went over to a friend of Eric's' house for the Superbowl on Sunday, which was quite the fun time, I must say. The condo building he lived in was a ridiculous fortress, with requirements to phone the desk once at the gate to the parking lot and once to get into the building. Considering its location smack dab in the middle of downtown, I suppose I can understand the security precautions, but it was wild nonetheless. During the game we pulled out the poker table and played an epic series of poker rounds. It started with 8 players and ended with 1, and I'd say the game took about 4 and a half hours total. I actually made it to the final four, and if I had stayed in for one more elimination I would have actually won money (something that I've never accomplished in a poker game before), but alas it was not to be. Eric took me out on an extremely close hand (he had king-queen I had king-jack, the first card to come up in the flop was a jack, but then the queen came out on the river. It was intense!). I also found out that evening that Georgia still has a no-alcohol on Sundays rule, which I found surprising. Thankfully the guys had thought ahead and there was plenty of booze to keep us satisfied.

So that was pretty much my experience of Atlanta. Didn't get a chance to meet up with my aunt Sue, as they were super busy preparing for lectures and whatnot, so that was sad. But other than that, I think I had as good a time as was possible, so I'm happy.

Onto Athens. I enjoyed Athens much more than I did Atlanta, even though I was only there for one night. One thing this trip has made clear to me is that I am not a big city boy. I could probably survive in a city with descent public transportation, but growing up in the college town of Ann Arbor has definitely given me a preference for mid-sized cities that are walkable/bikeable. College atmospheres also help make me feel at home, which is interesting. Athens was both. And on top of that, it's warm and the people are beautiful, the food is tasty and the bars are hoppin, so what more can you ask for?

My couchsurfing host got a tummy ache after our curry-dinner-cooking extravaganza, and the guys we were going to go out with ended up going to a bar on the outskirts of town with a $5 cover, so I ended up roaming the streets of Athens stag for the evening, wandering in and out of bars as I saw fit. I tended to gravitate towards bars that were emanating the booming sounds of live music or had enough people in them to look entertaining but not so many that you couldn't even get to the bar. The best part of the evening was conversing with all the drunk girls. They're so entertaining!

The next day Cristal (my host) and I went on what turned into a 6 mile hike through a nature area nearby. It was quite the excursion, my feet were so tired by the end! But it was definitely fun just walking and talking and enjoying the sun and nature. Yay for uv-rays and d-vitamins!

So now I am in New Orleans, and it is yet another new and unique experience. I'm hoping tonight will give me a better impression of the town than last night, but that remains to be seen. I am now going to take a nap, since this town never sleeps and I have a feeling I'm going to be up late once again... Let's all meditate on me not getting mugged! Hooray!

New Orleans.....

I've got lots to say about the rest of Georgia, but I'm going to save it until I'm in a better mood. Right now I need to talk about my first impressions of New Orleans, because they have made a very strong impression on me and I need to get it out there.

I don't like it here. Sure, the people in the hostel are cool. Sure, there are some aspects of the city that may be cool. Sure, I had fun on Bourbon Street tonight. The bars were cool, the bands were fun, I met some nice girls (who, it turns out, were married), but there is this one fundamental aspect to this city (and to Atlanta, for that matter) that really turns me off. It is SO fucking segregated, I can't handle it. The first I noticed was in the bands. There were black bands and there were white bands. The black bands played soul, funk, blues, etc, the white bands played rock, country, pop, etc (I preferred the black bands, fyi). There was one white band with a hispanic female singer, but that was the extent of integration I noticed. It pissed me off like you can't imagine. But whatever, I'm in the South, I shouldn't be surprised.

What really got my goat was when I left Bourbon Street to head back to the hostel. To avoid spending 10 bucks on a cab, I decided to wait for the trolley. At the stop closest to Bourbon Street there was this black guy chillin at the stop drinkin his beer and smokin his cig. It's all good, I thought, we're both just waiting for the trolley, I don't bother him, he doesn't bother me. Boy was I mistaken...

Bum-dude was sitting on the bench. To avoid confrontation I decided to remain standing. Well, after about 10 minutes my legs started to get tired, so I sat down at the other end of the bench. After sitting down, I glanced over at bum-dude and apparently that just set him off. "Why you keep lookin' at me?" "What's your problem?" "Why you even sitting here?"

**sigh** here we go, I thought. I try to diffuse the situation "chill out man, I'm just waiting for the trolley, just like you" Well that didn't work. "Waiting for the trolley? It ain't even running! You better get on goin where you're goin, bitch. Shit." Pretty much a direct quote.

So I walk down to the next stop, a couple of black dudes talking. One asks me for a cigarette. More racial tension, I thought, so fuck it, head on to the next stop. Thankfully at this one there was a punky-lookin white girl focused on her cell phone. The first thing she says to me is "10 minutes". Thank god, someone who isn't trying to start shit or get something from me. She's just informing me how long I'm going to have to wait for the next trolley.

Then, as I'm sitting there at the stop, I think to myself, what the fuck? Why did I have to walk all the way down here? Are we still this racist that we can't sit at the same fucking trolley stop? Sure, maybe the same thing could happen in Detroit, but I think it'd be more likely that I'd get in to at least some sort of superficial conversation with said bum-dude about the weather or something, rather than him immediately harrasing me for looking at him.

And then I thought well, at least he didn't mug me. What the fuck? What kind of society do we live in when we see someone of a different skin color and immediately worry that they will try to take your money? Once I got on the trolley I noticed another black dude staring at me. He was wearing glasses, so by default I found him less threatening, but still, he was staring at me, and he was black, so I assumed he was thinking how to take my money. In reality, he was probably staring at me because I had put my sunglasses on and my hood up to avoid confrontation. Sunglasses at night will attract attention from anyone.

It's this fucking culture. It breeds racial prejudice. White people assume black people are against them, and so black people assume white people are against them, and vice versa. It's a viscious cycle that, from my one night here, feels impossible to break. White people elected a black President, for christ sakes. When are we going to get over this fucking segregation and move on with ourselves? Being here really sharpens that issue for me. It makes me feel so much less optimistic about this country. Maybe things are getting better up north and out east. But down here in the south we still have a LONG way to go. God it's depressing. Maybe when I get back from peace corps in 2 years things will get better. I'm not getting my hopes up.