Volunteering

I knew I needed a new activity in my new town, and I wanted that activity to be a volunteer activity. I specifically looked for opportunities at a nature or wildlife center, so that I could have a volunteer experience that is the exact opposite of the desk job that I have. 

I found a place about a 45 minute drive from home, where I could greet visitors and help with the exhibit room in the welcome center, plus assist at the touch tank, handling horseshoe crabs and clams. Perfect!

Today was my first shift. I wasn't sure what to think at first. I was worried I would feel a little bored. Then, I met two volunteers doing some gardening out front. They are a husband and wife team and are recently retired. The wife, Sue, was my new best friend right away and invited me to join the adult kayak tours she leads on the Bay during the summer. Yay!

Inside, I was allowed to be fairly autonomous. I shadowed an experienced volunteer who was just a delightful lady. She's a retired nurse, and has been volunteering there for 20+ years. She was as nice and as welcoming as can be. 

Once guests started coming in, I knew I would really have a good time, because they were just all so friendly, in true New Hampshire style. I can certainly see volunteering once or twice a month for the season and then next spring going back or picking someplace new. 

Getting out of my comfort zone and finding this opportunity really helped me to see a bit more of my new new home state, to put me in a position to learn about the natural areas of my new home state, and hopefully might lead to meeting some more nice people and maybe, one day, making a friend outside of work. 

Repost from IndependentTraveler.com: Trip to Dallas and Houston

I recently submitted a short write-up of my trip to Dallas and Houston to IndependentTraveler.com. Here is the link to the post:

http://www.independenttraveler.com/trip-reviews/combo-trip-to-texas


And here is the full text:

I recently spent a week in Texas, and while I have certainly had more exciting and exotic trips to such far flung places as Australia, Japan, and Iceland, this particular trip reminded me of the importance of taking every opportunity to enjoy travel and connect with others. 

I had a business trip in Houston coming up, and my employer allowed me to combine that with a trip to Dallas the weekend before. The Dallas leg was the family leg. I stayed with my sister and her family to enjoy the weekend, work remotely for a few days, and then take a short flight to Houston for the professional conference.

While in Dallas, we did not do Dallas-y things. Rather, we did family things. I was able to attend my ten-year-old niece's dance recital and we all went out for celebratory sushi afterwards. We had a lazy Sunday reading, cooking on the barbecue, and playing bocce in the backyard, a particular luxury since I was getting reports of snow at home in New England. In Texas, I was wearing shorts. God bless Texas. 

After enjoying some good family time and a little Dallas sun, I tried to make the most of Houston. This was tough, because I still had to work remotely part of the time, I tried to fit in some good conference sessions, and I tried to enjoy at least a little bit of Houston while I was there. I found a great little Italian bistro, discovered how hard it can be to find good restaurant service when dining along (grr) and did manage to visit the local aquarium where I saw, inexplicably, white tigers. I was treated to a beautiful view of the skyline while waiting for my ride back to the hotel.

I realize this may not sound like the most group-breaking vacation in the history of vacations, but the truth is that I loved the time away from the routine and from my otherwise quiet life. I spent time with friends and family, I ate good food, I met some new colleagues, I learned a few things, and I returned home refreshed. 

Guest Post: Warsaw

Welcome to my first guest post! My dear friend, T., shared an email written by her beloved nephew, Z., about his travels in Warsaw. Z is a college student, and his account of his Polish experience left me breathless. I read this and thought, "THIS is why I travel. This is why you see the world." The joy in his experience comes through with every word, every syllable. Z graciously gave permission for me to share this post, absent his contact/identifying information. Here it is:
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Since I have a little more time, I will expand upon my trip to Poland:

Sunday evening, I fly from Moscow to Warsaw, where I arrive around 10pm.  Take a city bus to my hostel. Check in, get my key, take my stuff to my room, make the bed, all that jazz.  I was told that there is a bar in the basement, and that it is open tonight, as it is Easter (which in Poland calls for a 4 day weekend).  I head down, and walk up to the bar.  The bartender is maybe late 20s.

"You want beer?"
"Sure"

There is a fridge of different bottled beers, and one tap.  The place where you can usually find the label or name of the beer, instead of either of those, has a picture of the bartender's face.  Thats it.  Without asking what kind of beer I would like, he poured me one from the tap.  It was actually very good.  

The next day, I wake up fairly early, probably from excitement.  I grab breakfast from one of the few cafes open (Monday was a day off, after all), and walk across the downtown to the Warsaw Uprising Museum.  What a museum. It is by all means an incredible museum: Well done, well maintained, interactive, informative; but Lord was it rough to get through.  They didn't try to soften anything.  It is really better to describe in person.  Anyway, I ended up buying a DVD of a documentary (which I had already seen, but the DVD had English subtitles, which I hadn't seen).  It is entirely footage from the Uprising, and the historical preservation work, from coloration, to getting deaf Poles to read lips, and then cross referencing that with eye witnesses, is simply outstanding, and worth every złoty.  

After that, it was about time for lunch, so I head back towards my hostel, and the Old Town.  They closed down this one road (Nowy Świat) to cars, and it was peacefully and calmly bustling.  There were people everywhere, but no one was in a rush, no one was in a bad mood.  It was a cool day, but very much spring.  The sun was shining, and didn't really need a jacket.  I stopped by a small Polish restaurant, and sat down at a table on the sidewalk.  The staff were incredibly friendly.  And I can remember that moment like a picture in my mind:

The quietly bustling street
Families walking
Couples strolling
Laughter
Birds singing
The clear blue sky
Warm sun on my back
A cold glass of beer
Delicious food

And I just felt so.... happy. So.... whole.  And in this moment, I realized: this is living, this is being alive.  In a place that has seen so much suffering, so much struggle, so much death and sadness, I had never seen such happiness.  This moment really set the tone for the whole trip. 

I went walking around the Old City, which is simply breathtaking.  I had gotten used to Petersburg, which, while equally breathtaking, is differently so.  Petersburg is a city of scale, of grandeur: massive squares, towering cathedrals, monolithic palaces, grand visages.  Old City Warsaw is, well, cute: winding narrow stone streets, smaller, enclosed squares, cozy.

There I ran into two of my roommates at the hostel: two Americans studying in England, on spring break.  We ended up talking, and I ended up showing them the joys of Georgian food.  

The next day, I wandered around a little more, before heading to the train station in the early afternoon.  My train ride from Warsaw to Krakow was about two and a half hours long, and every moment I spent glued to the window.  Warsaw, being in central Poland, is fairly flat.  We passed a decent number of vineyards on our way into the countryside.  As we traveled further south, we started to encounter rolling fields, freshly green in the setting spring sun, punctuated by hedgerows and streams.  Then we passed through a small tunnel, and encountered a series of larger hills and valleys.  Gorgeous fields were layered, almost, to help counter the slope of the hills, which made them look like waves.  Small villages in valleys, green fields, streams surrounded by trees, forests.  It felt like falling in love.  

By the time I arrived in Krakow, it was around 7:30 or so.  I walked to my hostel (which was Lenin themed), did the basic settling down stuff, and then asked the front desk where the best place to get Polish food nearby was.  I was directed to a very small cafe a short walk away.  Some of the best pierogi I have ever had.  The room I was in was a four person room, but since I was the only person to book the four person room, it was just a one person room.  

It seems I have written quite a lot, and it is getting quite late.  I will follow up soon with the rest of my trip (which involved adventures in the Baltic states!).  

Love, Z.

Musings about France

I have spent the last four days decompressing from my recent trip to France. While on the trip, I had blog posts swirling through my head. I wanted to write about all of the differences I saw between France and home (such as how it is apparently common in Europe not to use a top sheet. I guess the rationale is that after guests leave, housekeeping washes the duvet cover and the fitted sheet. But – what if you get hot and just need a sheet but not the actual

comforter? There’s no in between!), and I still may write about those. But mostly I have been trying to figure out exactly what I want to say, in terms of the big picture. 

And here it is: Europe is better. I know that may sound blasphemous. I don’t mean it to be. I love my home. I love being American. I was homesick just today for things that are quintessentially Maryland (my home state), such as cornfields and the beach and the rich (and not always pretty) history of the state. Annapolis was a wonderful town in which to grow up. Small enough to feel familiar, but big enough to have a lot to offer. Plus, Annapolis is close to so much. There is a lot of choice in that part of the country, choice that I took for granted until I moved to New England. I’m in one of the bigger towns in New England, and still I feel the lack of choice acutely. 

In Maryland, if you need a doctor, you have endless options. That may sound like hyperbole, but it’s not. We have some of the best medical systems in the world in the DC/Baltimore/NoVa metro area. There are world class specialists in just about every specialty, right there. 

When I moved to my current town, I had three choices when I needed to find a doctor. Three. And of those three, not every practice was accepting new

patients. All I wanted was a female physician to be my primary care practitioner and those were apparently too restrictive as criteria. There were actually zero options in my little suburb. I finally called AND emailed a local practice and somehow got someone to decide that I’m nice and let me in to the practice. 

I did not understand this. How is it possible for it to be so difficult to find a medical practice in a relatively populated area? Yet, where I live now, that is the case. There are fewer grocery stores, fewer retail stores, and the stores that do exist are smaller, with fewer options. If I want to shop at a higher end store, I have to drive an hour into the nearest big city. And, this is the real kicker: I grew up with the Smithsonian in my backyard. I went to the National Air and Space Museum so many times I began to find it boring. In my new town? There is one museum. One. It took me all of two hours to look at everything, and that was with me being slow. It has some nice pieces, but the space itself feels like a converted high school. In other words, my art options are a little bit different here. 

There are pluses to my new locale. People seem very friendly and open in a way I have not experienced before. Drivers will kindly let you in if you have your blinker on. I have lots of new places to explore in the nearby states. But the level of choice is different. The distance is what makes that difference. I have to drive half an hour to get to any decent shopping, and an hour to get to any of those small towns or to the big city. And drive I must: there are no buses, no trains, to connect any of it together. 

In Europe, everything is different. Even going from Paris to towns in Provence – a distance that takes several hours to cover by train – is accessible. I know people always say that public transportation is so great in Europe because everything is close together, but if that were true, there would be no trains or buses with many departures a day, cheaply and comfortably getting you anywhere you wish to go. 

I really believe that the reason that public transportation is so clean, cheap, comfortable, and convenient in Europe is because, quite simply, it is something that Europeans value. There is a cultural value on integrated transport, and it shows. I spent a week and a half in France – three days in the city, six days in the country – and I never had to think twice about going anywhere or getting anything, ever. Apartments are small in Paris, but who cares? You don’t need to stock up on three months’ worth of packaged food because it’s so darn inconvenient to get in your car and go to the store every day; instead, you simply pop out to the grocery store that’s right around the corner, or to the little bakery, or the pharmacy (where they have actual pharmacists who proactively help each and every customer who walks in the door). 

We walked 5-7 miles a day, and went up countless flights of spiral, uneven, narrow stairs, and it was wonderful. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to live this way.