The road is my middle name

Winter break was a whirlwind - I spent a few days in Chicago, then packed up my friend's car and headed southwest. After some less-than-ideal weather in the Ozarks, dullness in Oklahoma and the terrible traffic in Dallas, we pulled into Austin for a few days with another old friend. She showed us a grand ol' time, which mostly involved extensive amounts of eating. Austin has crazy good food, dudes. Like, ridiculously good. Like, I've-been-dreaming-about-it good. The tacos alone were reason enough to move there. And don't even get me started on the gourmet doughnut truck! And the cupcake truck... even me, hater of the frou-frou cupcake trend, was charmed!


And the shopping - I have never so badly wanted a pair of cowboy boots as I did during the thirty minutes we spent perusing the shelves of Allen's Boots.


Obviously, these shoes and I are meant to be - I just have to dig up a spare six hundred bucks somewhere. Easy-peasy, right?


Even the store signage was amazing!


My love of tacos and cowboy boots aside, Austin was phenomenal. After a weekend, though, the road started calling us, so we piled back into the car and drove west across the gorgeous sandy emptiness of west Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The sunset outside of El Paso was particularly stunning, even with all the traffic:


Soon, though, we were dying to return home, and even the rain in Southern California couldn't dampen our excitement about being back in the Golden State. We celebrated with date shakes in Palm Springs:


After a near-disastrous break-pad experience, we pulled into Los Angeles for a night with Isaac and Lizz who wined and dined in the glamorous manner to which we would love to have become accustomed. Revived with a delicious dinner at Good Girl Dinette and a deep night's sleep, we decided to take on the torrential downpour and headed for the Grapevine. Six hours and eight chapters of Stephen Fry's autobiographical audiobook later, we were pulling into the 'rents home in friendly old Berkeley.

And so, after a week and a half on the road, three weeks in the warm embrace of my family, and two weddings, I returned to the great state of Delaware for winter term. Not for long, though - this weekend I take off for two weeks in London with my graduate cohort for a trip the Winterthur program refers to as "History of English Design" but that I prefer to think of as The "So, You Think You Like Museums? THINK AGAIN" Tour of 2011. Ah, the life of the international jet-setter.

Return to the Second City

Essays are finished, my sketchbook filled with drawings of questionable quality has been turned in, and I've worked very hard to stop thinking about the rococo armchair I misidentified on an exam. I woke up this morning in a tiny bedroom under a flight of stairs, looking out on a snow-covered street and thinking, "thank goodness I have my snowboots," and that can only mean one thing: I'm back in Chicago, baby!

My plans for the next few days are simple: visit friends at the Chicago History Museum, relish in the presence of public transportation, and eat everything, everywhere. And then I hop in the car with one of my oldest friends and we drive south for an epic roadtrip that will eventually take us home to California! All in all, I think this is shaping up to be a remarkable winter break.

out and about

So, things have been crazy-awesome lately, and while I don't have time to go into details right now (I'm supposed to be on the train to work at this moment), I will say this: Hawaii is so freaking beautiful and the week my roommates and I spent there at the end of February probably saved me from committing ritual suicide over Chicago's winter.


More to come, eventually.

Tweet the past

So I just joined Twitter, right? I figured, why not... all the cool kids are doing it, and I'm nothing if not a follower. But probably the best part of it? The National Museum of American History (Smithsonian represent!) has a twitter account that they use to disseminate fun facts about history. Just this morning I learned that today is Utah's birthday and that it is called "The Beehive State."

Oh, and today in 1847 Samuel Colt sold his first revolver to the U.S. government.

Oh, Twitter. Nerding it up, left and right.

P.S. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport... I still sort of hate you, but I hate you much less now that you're providing me (accidentally) with free internet. Keep up the good work.

San Diego, I love you

Any shit I have ever talked about San Diego, it's airport in particular, is now invalidated. San Diego International Airport, you have free wireless*. OMG I LOVE YOU.

*Unlike the world's most ridiculous Spanish Renaissance/Gothic Torture Chamber McMansion, where I have just spent the last five days of my life. Coats of arms embedded into the tiled floor of every room? Yes. Fountains in every room? Yes. Windows with no curtains? Yes. Internet? NO. Also, strangely, no showers. A correlation, perhaps?

Next stop: Monticello

This* makes me think that I should be planning a trip to Thomas Jefferson's epic mansion, Monticello. In fact, I think every American Studies department should have a required course called "Long Road Running: A road trip through America's history." Or something equally enticing yet vague. I mean, c'mon, think about it: we'd start at Plymouth Rock and then hit a mixture of famous and underappreciated spots. It'd be awesome! Who's with me?!

*Thanks, Ben, for the link.

Like two ships passing in the night

I was home in California last week celebrating the time-honored holiday of "No Bread For You, Jews", and while in transit on the way back I had some time to kill in the Oakland airport. Figuring "hey, a bit of food-torture wouldn't go amiss," I wandered over to an airport bookstore/newsstand/thing and meandered around all the candy bars and Cokes that I couldn't buy (because they have corn syrup, which is made from corn, which can be used like flour, which makes it an ersatz bread product, which makes it a banned substance on Passover, and sometimes I think my religion is actively trying to make me a neurotic mess).

But anyway, I'm lurking around the magazines when suddenly a guy walks into my range of vision who I vaguely recognize. But from where? I'm scouring my mind, trying to think of everyone I went to high school with. Maybe he was the guy with the locker next to mine? Or copied off me in Calculus? (Which was a stupid idea, Guy who Copied off Me in Calculus... after the C you got on the first test it should have become clear that despite my nerdy glasses and general know-it-all attitude, numbers and I obviously do not get along.) And suddenly it hit me - I'm pretty sure I'd seen him on TV!



My first brush with fame: the guy who plays Morgan Grimes on Chuck! A show that very few people watch. And the character is a lame slacker who works at a Best Buy-esque electronics store. But I refuse to let the details of this encounter ruin it for me!

There is also the possibility that this person wasn't the guy who plays Morgan, but rather a regular Joe who just happens to look a lot like him. I'm also choosing to ignore that potential situation. I suppose I could have asked, but a) if it wasn't him, that would have ruined the experience for me, and b) I was at that very moment salivating over cheetos and clutching an US Weekly in my hand, so it might have been an awkward encounter.

Flight 86 to Chicago

has arrived, with me in it!

I've actually already settled in to my new room, which is a charming little bedroom in my awesome friend Zoe's apartment. She and her equally awesome roommate (now my roommate as well!) Megan had extra space and generously offered it to me, so not only do I have an unpaid job, but I have a place to live to boot!

Enough with the exclamation points... time for bed. Peace out, crazies!

I attempt to keep up with technology, even amidst the panic of packing

See Shoshi move. See Shoshi freak out about packing. Pack, Shoshi, pack! See Shoshi worry about packing too much, and then panic at the thought of only bringing one pair of boots. See Shoshi start an internship in the glorious backcountry of Pennsylvania. Cling to your guns and your religion, Shoshi!

See Shoshi video-blog:

Drive by Post

I love travelling. I do. And Thailand has been absolutely amazing. But I'm coming to the end of my trip here and I'm looking forward to going home to Melbourne, and then really home to home.

Why am I so ready to come back? Because, to be honest, I'm a little overwhelmed. My feelings of whelmedness stems both from the frenetic nature of Bangkok and also the fact that MY BEST AT THE GUESTHOUSE WAS COVERED IN BUGS OMG AND WHEN I SWITCHED ROOMS AFTER POINTING OUT THE BUGS THEY PUT ME IN ONE WITH NO A/C. So I'm going to spend the rest of the night trying to sleep in the very loud but also wonderfully cold common room.

The thing is, I've been fine with all the crouch-toilets and bad water and pollution and fans instead of A/C and all those other things that come from travelling on a budget in a non-Western country, but after a week I'm ready for my clean bed and A/C, especially because I paid extra baht for it.

Moral of the story: as much as I love travelling, I would not make a good long-term backpacker.

Dispatches From the Road

For future reference, the international terminal at LAX is a wasteland. No crappy magazines to buy, no food (crappy or otherwise) to consume, no interesting people to watch... seriously, a wasteland. In the security line, however, there was this awesome German business man with shoulder-length Fabio hair and a harried expression. He was wearing loafers with no socks and it was highly amusing to watch him try to finagle his place in line so that he was standing barefoot for as little time as possible. He even hopped once or twice.
The upside to LAX's horrible no-good very bad terminal? Free internet. I'm not sure that they know that they are offering such a stellar service, however - on my wireless menu, the official t-mobil wireless that you have to pay for appears right above this free network.
So far I haven't seen much of the famed Australian friendliness - the lady at the Qantas check-in counter did have a lovely accent, but she used it to berate me for my slowness and lack of travel-savvy. Perhaps they export all their unfriendly people to staff the foreign Qantas outposts?