Exploring Wonderland

Unexpected Surprises

2012-01-30T04:43:00.001-08:00

It happens at a random time, in a random place. You find something that blows you away. A view. A smell. A person.

Tonight it was a taste. Yogurt to be precise. From Long Hoa restaurant in Da Lat. Random? Yes, I know.

To quote Kenny directly "this has a place in Ron Burgundy's pleasure town."

Needless to say, he order another one. Hey, you only live once!

Semi-Sleeper Buses

2012-01-29T21:01:00.001-08:00

From Nha Trang to Da Lat, Kenny and I sat on a bus that had half-sleeper seats.

As you can see from the picture below, the bus has two levels of seats. Kenny and my feet are in the picture and you can see the full seat of the lady in front of us.

The bus was old and the seats were rested into place, which meant you couldn't adjust your position.

The ride from Nha Trang was only four hours and during the day so the poor road conditions and constant honking didn't bother us. We were slightly concerned though because three quarters way through the trip several people had to go to the bathroom. The bus just pulled over to the side and everyone went in the open bushes.

This concerns us because tonight we leave for Saigon. The bus ride is a 10 hour journey and we leave at 10pm. To make matters worse both Kenny and I ate something that didn't agree with us. We are just going to have to cross our fingers that everything goes smoothly. Wish us luck!

Riding Through the Outskirts of Da Lat

2012-01-29T19:23:00.001-08:00

Yesterday Kenny and I went on a tour of the surrounding countryside of Da Lat on the back of a motorbike.

We hired two guides, called Easy Riders, to drive us around on the back of their motorbikes.

The experience was unbelievable. I've never been on a motorcycle so you can imaging that I was a bit nervous at first. However, a couple turns into it, I could not imagine touring Vietnam any other way.

Our first stop was at Loi Cao Bach, the first pagoda in Da Lat city. Then, our tour guides shuttled us off to Lang Bian mountain, the second largest in Vietnam. We hiked up a short trail to see the peaks but they were covered in clouds. We did get a beautiful view of the city though.

Next we stopped at a flower farm. The farmers build structures similar to green houses so that they can grow flowers year round. The flowers, fuchsias, grew in many different colors. Red, pink and orange for love. Yellow for luck and white for funerals. Interesting to hear that there are only two places in Vietnam where flowers will grow. Here and a very small village in Hanoi. Flowers are picked daily (another flower blooms in its place 7 days later) and shipped all over the country.

The drive from the flower farm down the mountain to several surrounding villages was incredible. These winding roads went through pristine hillside forests. I'm unable to post images now however I will make sure to upload a number of images (as well as video of Kenny and I riding) when I get home.

After we visited a few small villages, we stopped on the side of the road where coffee beans were growing. Our guide showed us a few things about the plant then took us to a cafe where they processed coffee and rice wine. We tasted the partially distilled rice wine (potent) and then moved to a room filled with caged weasels.

This was the strangest thing we'd seen and at first we were very confused. Our guide proceeded to tell us that the weasels were known for finding the best coffee beans in the fields. They would eat them and something in their stomach would naturally alter the bean. Humans would then go through the fields and collect the droppings of the weasel to make Weasel Coffee.

Weasel coffee is considered a delicacy and very expensive. A kilo of it would cost $3,000. Hilary Clinton was even presented weasel coffee as a gift from the Vietnamese. Fortunately at this cafe we were able to try it at a fraction of the cost. It was awful. Dense and grainy. Kenny and I could not stop laugh. The guides just laughed at us.

After the Weasel poop coffee, we headed to a silk factory. The silk worms were grown else where but at this factory they sort the cocoons, boiling them and then unravelling the thread with the help of a very loud machine. The thread is then dyed and woven into all sorts of patterns.

While walking through the factory, I felt something on my left leg. I looked down but didn't see anything so I continued on. A couple seconds later I felt it again but still nothing was on my pants. All of a sudden, I realized it was coming from under my pants. As I rolled up the bottom of my workout pants two huge cockroaches fell to the floor. I tried to keep my composure but it was so unexpected that my skin was crawling and I quickly made my way outside while I started shaking and dancing about to make sure no other critters were trying to hitch a ride. The guides started laughing at me for a second time that day.

The Elephant waterfall and the Linh An Pagoda were next, followed by a quick stop at a rice paddy. I never knew how rice was grown. I had always for some reason thought rice actually grew near the root when in fact it grows more like wheat with the little kernels forming at the top. We also ended up seeing an avocado tree and papaya tree, which I had never seen before.

We rode to a few more places before arriving at Tuyen Lam Lake, home to the largest meditation center in Vietnam. The pagoda was beautiful with lovely gardens. The hydrangeas reminded both Kenny and I of my mom and her love of Ina Garden, the Barefoot Contessa, who always uses these flowers in her center pieces.

Our last stop was the Crazy House, described as a free-wheeling architectural exploration of surrealism. Basically, imagine if Antoni Gaudi were to design one of the houses in Disneyland's Toon Town. I would recommend googling images of this place. It was a trip.

Our guides then dropped us off. Safe and sound at our hotel. We enjoyed our trip immensely but were sad to see them go. Both Kenny and I could have done with more time on the back of the bikes. It has us both considering learning how to ride and taking a motorcycle trip across our own countryside.

Da Lat Late Night Market - The Food

2012-01-28T06:30:00.001-08:00

This is just one of the many dishes we tried tonight.

Da Lat Late Night Market

2012-01-28T06:25:00.001-08:00

This is by far the coolest thing we've done so far. It all happened very randomly and both Kenny and my stomach might pay for it later, but we ate dinner tonight with a bunch of Vietnamese at this late night market. Needless to say we were the only Caucasians there.

Drive to Da Lat

2012-01-28T00:55:00.001-08:00

There are few drives that compare to the beauty of the highlands. The views were breathtaking.

It will also go down as one of the crazier drives in my life.

Nha Trang

2012-01-27T03:08:00.001-08:00

Kenny and I are in Nha Trang after somewhat of a taxing few days. We didnt book a hostel and when we got here everything was full. To make matters worse there were no buses leaving Nha Trang for Saigon or Dalat until the 28th. So we were basically stuck.

For reasons I can't explain, we went back to the first hostel we checked and all of a sudden they had two openings!

Nha Trang is not the worst place to get stuck. For one thing it's a beach resort town. Full of tourists but beautiful beachs. Secondly, the weather is ten times better than Hanoi. Hot, hot, hot and sunny.

Today we were going to go snorkeling but we were in for so much more! This is an epic adventure I will never forget.

We booked a one day tour for ourselves of the islands here in Nha Trang. This morning a few of us boarded a bus to go on the tour.

When we arrived at the wharf, it was a mad house. Total tourist trap. But not for caucasians, for vietnamese. We were escorted to a tiny boat filled with Vietnamese tourist. This was one of about 20 boats doing the same thing.

We took off for the first island we were supposed to visit (someday I will post the description of the tour). Needless to say it was chalk full of the same boats and we learned we had to pay to get on each island.

The six people from the hostel looked at the scene and then looked at each other. What have we gotten ourselves into?

Everyone shrugged there shoulders and decided to make the best of it. It was also at that moment the guide came up to us and asked "who wants a beer?" The timing could not have been more perfect.

We ended up having an incredibly random but brilliant day. I will post more pictures later of the crazy floating bar, cluster of Vietnamese tourists and random water sports but I will leave you with one goodie!

The weather was lovely today. Deceptively so...

Mom, I told Kenny to put on more sunscreen! :)

( He only wanted me to cover his tattoo. Can you see the line of where I did that?)

Hanoi Part II

2012-01-24T22:45:00.001-08:00

It is almost laughable that I'm in Vietnam during their new years celebration when everything is closed. A few years ago the same thing happened to me in Morrocco. It was Ramadan, nothing was open and I swore to myself that I wasn't going to do that again...

TIP: When booking travel, do your research on the local holidays where you are headed!

It has actually worked out fine for us though. The ride to the airport and to Ha Long Bay took half as long as they normally do. We were also able to change our flight and will be leaving a day earlier since none of the tours where running to Sapa and the south west regions.

That just left us with today to find something to do. Most of the museums are still closed but we were able to go to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and museum. It was very interesting for both Kenny and I to see the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh and the process we had to go through to see it.

Now we are back at the hostel planning for the next leg of our trip. We leave tomorrow morning at 6:15am.

Good bye North Vietnam! You have been cold but fun!

The Rock Long Rock Hard Tour

2012-01-24T03:55:00.001-08:00

Yesterday brother and I went to Ha Long Bay on a tour put on by our hostel.

We drove four hours outside of Hanoi, through countryside, to get to Ha Long City. We boarded a small boat that took us to a larger boat called the Jolly Rodger.

On board we ate lunch as it left the harbor and head towards the limestone masses enveloped in mist.

It took about an hour to get to out final destination. The weather was overcast and cool but we were assured that the water temperature would still be fine. At this point in the journey we were given the option to jump off the boat. Both Kenny and I took it. The water was not warm. It was actually really cold and salty but how often do you have a chance to go swimming in Ha Long Bay? So I enjoyed it!

After we jumped in, the group went kayaking. We paddled by a couple of islands and went through a little cave. Pretty freaking cool even though the weather wasn't great!

When we got back to our boat we ate dinner and then the drinking games began. I was glad there were two 29 year olds in the room because at that point I started to feel really old.

The rest of the evening stays between Kenny and I but I can assure you that we had a fun evening.

Catching up over coffee in Hanoi

2012-01-21T19:46:00.001-08:00

Nothing is better than sitting on the side of the road. On those little blue stools. Watching people and catching up with my brother.

One thing that is quite cool is how savvy my brother is at negotiating traffic. Calm and steady he walks through the streets. No sudden movements. He crosses streets that locals look concerned about with ease. And no he is not doing it in a dangerous way. It is very apparent that he has picked up a lot from living in Taiwan.

It makes me so proud and actually really comfortable here.

Hanoi

2012-01-21T09:07:00.001-08:00

I'm here. With my brother. At a super popular hostel in the middle of the city.

After an 11 hour flight from Seattle to Seoul, I made my next flight to Hanoi with less than five minutes to spare.

Phew. Now it is time for me to rest.

At the Airport

2012-01-20T12:12:00.001-08:00

Fortunately, the weather here in Seattle decided to settle down and my flight was only delayed by forty minutes.

I'm crossing my fingers that I'm able to catch my second flight in Seoul. I only have an hour layover there. The airlines says I should be alright.

Although I felt really anxious this morning, I think I successfully got everything I need into my traveling backpack. If I forgot anything I'm just going to have to figure it out once I get there!

SeaTac CLOSED

2012-01-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

Here is the Seattle Times report on SeaTac and the snow/ice today:

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport this morning crews are scrambling to de-ice some 70 aircraft to get them ready for take-off.

Runways were completely shut down between 4:30 and 7:30 a.m. because of the icy weather, said airport spokesman Perry Cooper. When one runway reopened at 7:30 a.m., a Boeing 777 cargo plane landed. A second runway remains closed with no estimated time of opening, Cooper said.

Airport officials say that passengers need to check with their airlines before heading to the airport.

Cooper said that nearly 10 planes slated to land at SeaTac were diverted to other cities. The rest of the planes slated for Seattle were grounded at their airports of origin, he said.

Well this should make tomorrow interesting.

Brother Has Landed

2012-01-18T23:05:00.000-08:00

After spending 19 hours in the Taipei airport, my brother finally arrived in Hanoi. Why 19 hours you wonder? I will address that quickly. See my brother is cheap. Very cheap. So cheap in fact that he would do his laundry in his dorm rooms in college in a bucket and hang them on strings in his room instead of paying the dollar to do it in the machines. Therefore, when he got a flight to Vietnam that required him to be at the airport before the buses would pick him up, he decided that he would just take the bus to the airport the night before and sleep in the airport to save money. Great idea. Only problem was that come morning his flight was delayed however many hours. So he sat and sat and sat in the airport. Enough said.

I'm glad he got there safely. He said he took the shuttle to the hostel and warned me that it should only cost me $2 when I take it. In all seriousness, I'm super excited to be traveling with my brother and so appreciative that he is giving me this heads up. Unfortunately, I land at 10pm on Saturday evening after the shuttles stop so I set up to have the hostel send a driver. You would think that this would be the safer option. However, I did have to laugh when I got this email from the hostel:

PLEASE BE AWARE OF THE FOLLOWING SCAMS

Please be aware that taxi drivers and some shuttle buss drivers for that matter, are paid commission to take customers to other budget hotels and these hotels will tell you we are full, close or they are our sister hostel, this is completely untrue. They sometimes even use our flyers or signs - making you believe that you are at the right spot or they are there to pick you up. If this happens to you stay in the car/bus and wait for them to take you to your destination or shuttle stop or find a taxi a different taxi and show them the address on the booking sheet or the download the flyer on our website.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to take back the idea that I don't need to have a clue where my hostel is because I'm getting picked up by a hostel driver. :) Darn.

Kenny says the hostels great and the city is crazy. No rules was how he put it.

He is there scooting out potential day trips for us and trying to get a lay of the land. We came into this trip having some idea of what we wanted to do but knowing that we had to be flexible. And it's a good thing too.

Chinese New Years. The most important of the traditional Chinese holidays begins on Sunday.

All of a sudden I feel like I'm back in Morocco. Kenny tells me that tours are few and filling up quickly. "What should we do?" he emails me.

We shall see.

Prep Work Begins

2012-01-14T18:07:00.001-08:00

My trip is less than a week away and I'm spending most of this weekend preparing what to bring. I still have my huge backpack from previous adventures but I went to REI today for some additional necessities.

A Watch - Not having my cellphone, I will need to know the time and have a functioning alarm. Weird.
Bug Spray - I went to a Travel Medicine clinic. They recommended that I always wear bug spray and take Malaria pills.
Sunscreen - The malaria pills make you more sensitive to sun but the sunscreen counteracts the bug spray. I was told that I needed to put the sunscreen on 30 minutes before the bug spray. Let's see if I can remember to do that.
A Camel Back - My backpack has had a spot for it from the beginning but I decided to buy one specifically because my brother and I are thinking about going into the Cat Tien National Forrest. I'm not sure what type of resources there are but I'd hate to be out of fresh water while hiking around.
Iodine Tablets - Just in case.
First Aid Kit - Do you know my brother?
Travel Towel - It tries quickly and will probably come in handy more often than I anticipated. We'll see.
A Power Adapter - I will be bringing my camera and phone so I will need to be able to charge them.

If I'm missing anything that might be particularly important, please let me know.

For me, personally, this is the most unnerving part of the trip. I'm pretty good when it comes to dealing with situations on the spot but I'm bad at planning. Knowing that and how unpredictable the trip will be makes my stomach flip just a bit (that could also be caused by the Typhoid vaccine that is in my system right now). However, the feeling is temporary and passes quickly.

I'm getting more and more excited for my trip by the day. I cannot wait to see my younger brother, whom I have not seen since the summer and I look forward to exploring a new country.

How To Decide On An Itinerary

2012-01-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

Having traveled a few times, I know what a big mistake it is not to research an area before visiting. I also know that if you plan a trip too specifically you might miss opportunities along the way.

Once my brother and I decided that we were going to Vietnam, the first things I started researching were the geography of the country, the location of the major cities/international airports and then I looked very specifically at transportation. This is key when you are exploring a new country. How are you going to get around? How long will it take to get from point A to point B? What modes of transportation are available? Plane? Train? Bus? Hired car? Mop head?

After familiarizing myself with the layout of the country, I looked at how many days I actually had in the country. 15. Vietnam is an incredibly long country. You don't quite realize it until you have to look at it on a map and 15 days goes by quickly. There is a lot of space to cover between the two major cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We want to see as much as we can while there and I've heard that North and South Vietnam are very different so it's important that we go to both areas. That's why we came to the conclusion of flying into Hanoi and out of Saigon.

SIDE NOTE: You don't have to go through a travel agent to do this. All you need to do is go on Kayak.com and click "Multi-cities" at the top.

That gave us our initial outline. Definite dates. Looking closer at the map, we realize that we will be spending a lot of our time en route from one destination to the next. Time is tight so our next decision is to cut out some of the travel time in between by taking a domestic flight.

My brother and I actually had a lot of trouble booking our original flight to Vietnam. I bought my ticket first. However, after my flight had been purchased, Kenny realized he was going to have to travel to Vietnam from Taiwan during the Chinese New Year, which is very difficult and expensive.

I made the executive decision and bought us plane tickets from Hanoi to Nha Trang. I wasn't originally interested in Nha Trang because it's a big tourist destination due to the beaches but looking at the map I realize that it will save us a lot of travel time and anxiety. Nothing is worse than realizing that you're not going to make your flight out of the country.

That gives us 7 days on both ends of the country. Next, the fun part where Kenny and I get to start putting together options for us for both parts of our journey. I say options because again if you decide everything down to the day, hour, etc. you will not leave a lot of room for flexibility. I'm calling it piecemeal planning. Many different things can change how you want to approach your travels. Weather. Holidays. You realize that a cool festival is happening on a certain day. So you want to be able to take advantage of these opportunities at any point during your trip.

I will explain piecemeal planning in my next post.

NEXT STOP: Vietnam & South Korea

2011-12-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

It looks like my last traveling adventure (I define this as spending a longer than normal period of time in a foreign country that you've never been to) was in 2008 when I went to Sweden, Estonia, Finland, Russia & Latvia with my fantastic travel companions Monna, Sven and Claudio. According to my Facebook timeline.

It has been awhile. Too long in fact. My skin is itching and my body is experiencing symptoms of withdrawal. Fortunately, I have lined up my next adventure.

To Vietnam.

My travel companion this time? My fantastically awesome brother.

The reason? My brother is in Taiwan, studying abroad and learning Mandarin Chinese. He has over a month long break coming up in January so we decided to go on our first sibling adventure.

Our route? Currently all we know is that we will be in Ha Noi -> Nha Trang -> Saigon. We have a number of days in between each of these locations so we're looking for recommendations on where to go during that time period.

So far we've been told to go....

Sa Pa....

And Ha Long Bay.

Any other recommendations?

#WakeUpWed: Holding People Accountable

2011-05-08T21:01:00.001-07:00

I remember two years ago, right before Josh and I started Project Bionic, I'd hear people talking about company Twitter profiles as a nice-to-have. "Just grab your profile username now. You don't need to do anything with it until you figure it out." I'd smile and chuckle. They'll figure it out eventually, I thought to myself.

I was wrong.

And now it's starting to bother me...

I've reached out to a number of aliases in the past week with questions, concerns, etc., who have not responded to me. These alias range from local businesses to artists to medium-size brands, most of which are producing content at least once a week (although a lot of it is just Facebook regurgitation).

Now you might think I sound like a crybaby right now. Which I can completely understand! Who the hell do I think I am? And why do I deserve any acknowledgment whatsoever? All valid point!

First of all and most importantly, I'm trying to spend money with these people.

Secondly, if Mari Smith, who has 103K followers on Twitter, can take the time to respond to me, then these guys have no excuses.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about how the Twitter community can get these profiles to wake up and do what they should be doing on Twitter, engage with their consumers. That is when I thought about doing the opposite of #followfriday, where users call out profiles that they like and are contributing to the space.

I came up with #WakeUpWed. The idea is similar to #followfriday, you list a profile or two that you mentioned (directly not indirectly) that you'd have liked responses from, who have not responded to you in over a week. If other users have experienced similar situations with the alias in question, then they can retweet your post.

This is not meant to be like you are giving the profile the middle finger, it's simply to give that profile a little nudge and motivation to respond to your question and be more active in the community.

What do you think of the idea? I'm seriously interested in feedback.

2011 Women's Leadership Summit

2011-04-03T12:08:00.001-07:00

I hate the color pink so when I received the registration forms for the 2011 Women's Leadership Summit, I became immediately skeptical.

What had I gotten myself into? Was I going to spend a day with a bunch of woman talking about feelings and singing kumbaya in support circles?

Looking back on this reaction, I have to laugh. This conference was one of the most eye-opening experiences I've had and I almost passed it up because of a lack of self-regulation (we will get to that in a minute) and color.

The summit was put on by Shandel Slaten. She is an executive coach "who helps business professionals realize their personal and professional goals" and the Founder of True Life Coaching. Up until now, when I thought of a business/life coach/therapist (yes, they all blended together) the character from the movie First Wives Club immediately popped into mind, "Learn from love. Grow from love." Again another poor stereotype.

Shandel changed my viewpoint on coaches the moment she kicked off the conference. I don't know her personally but her stage presence, confidence, honesty and transparency was definitely far from the First Wives Club character I had just described.

The description of the summit was as follows: The 2011 Seattle Women’s Leadership Summit has the overall objective to teach women to lead confidently with purpose and wisdom. However, the main focus of the day was on understanding your Emotional Quotient (EQ) or "your ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of your emotions and the emotions of others in order to facilitate high levels of collaboration and productivity".

This Emotional Quotient has a number of layers that each speaker addressed throughout the day:

1.) Self-Awareness - The ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others.

2.) Self-Regulation - The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods and the propensity to suspend judgment and think before you act.

3.) Motivation - A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status, and a propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence.

4.) Empathy - The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people.

5.) Social Skills - A proficiency in managing relationships and building networks.

Now, prior to the days events, we were asked to take a survey online to measure our EQ and these specific layers of our EQ. I'm not going to share the specific results of my survey but I will tell you that while I have work to do in all categories, I was particularly surprised by my Empathy score. That will come up later though.

Shandel kicked off the summit at the base level of the Emotional Quotient, Self-Awareness. Using an analogy, she demonstrated how our emotional state is like a glass of water. When calm and rational, the water is "clear". However, as we run into more and more obstacles (red food coloring) throughout the day, our state begins to become "cloudy". When the obstacles overwhelm us, we become "flooded" emotionally and instead of calm and clear, our glass is now "red".

According to Shandel and later, Dr. Leslie Parrot, when we reach this emotionally flooded state, our brain literally shuts down our rationality and we operate in the same way we would if we were in a fight or flight situation. Another interesting insight is that it takes roughly 4 hours for our emotional state to return to clear after becoming flooded, which means you spend 4 hours operating in a suspend state of rationality.

It makes all the sense in the world to me now why I would want to avoid every reaching that state if I could.

This leads us to the topic of Self-Regulation and identifying disablers (those things that take you to "red" or emotionally flooded in an instant) and enablers (those things that bring you back to calm). For me, I identified "waiting on people (which inevitably resulted in being late)" as a disabler and the following video below as an enabler. Particularly moment :35 seconds.

My biggest takeaway though from Shandel's session was something she said about our response to being in an overwhelmed emotional state. Basically, the point was that venting in that state does NOT actually relieve the "flooding" but simply prolongs it. On top of that, you're very likely to pass on your emotional distress to the person you are venting to. Yuck.

During lunch, there were two break out sessions. Melody Biringer, a start-up junkie whom I particularly admire, was hosting a session on Motivation and Melissa Benaroya was hosting a session on Empathy. Since Motivation was my highest score and Empathy my lowest, I decided while I really, really wanted to listen to Melody, that it would be more beneficial for me to spend lunch with Melissa.

The Empathy session had a specific focus on children so it wasn't as relevant as I had hoped but I still had a couple great takeaways. Specifically,that one can reinforce good behavior by acknowledging the effort, instead of praising the outcome. This point was actually driven home that same day when I went to the gym after the summit. Long story short, the gym likes it when you bring your shower towels down from the locker rooms. I realized that the woman at the reception desk understood this idea of "acknowledging effort" when she said to me "Thank you SO much for bringing your towel all the way down here." I smiled and felt good about myself. I had not received a reward for bringing the towel down or been punished for leaving it upstairs, my behavior was simply reinforced by that comment of acknowledgment. Cool.

The last session was lead by Carol Olsby, an amazing woman who has "over 20 years of HR and business experience providing HR leadership, operational, and tactical solutions to her clients." Her session on Social Skills and Servant Leadership, hands down, had the most profound impact on me and was probably to hardest session to listen to. As a leader and manager, my employees are my most important priority. I know from experience that I do better work and work harder when I think that the person I'm working for has a vested interest in my growth. I have always kept my employees and there well-being at the forefront of any decision I've ever made for the company so I initially felt as if Carol was preaching to the choir. However, as the session progressed I realized that my sentiment for my employees was being lost in some of the policies I myself had put into place. What a tough realization. That being said I'm so thankful to have been made aware of this and I have a chance to change it.

Shandel will be sending me the slides from Carol's session in the next couple of weeks and once I have them I will add them here as well as posting them separately so that you can get a better understand of the ideas she discussed.

Beyond the sessions, there were some incredible woman at this event and unfortunately, I think this post is long enough, otherwise I would talk about them as well.

Overall, one of the most important things I learned today about your Emotional Quotient is that you can have an impact on it. You can develop skills to deal with your emotions and those around you. I think this is one of the most encouraging points of the summit and something that I've committed to improving.

So as you can see, I gained a lot more from this conference than I had originally anticipated. Thank you again to Shandel for putting on this incredible event. I really appreciate the insights that you and the other speakers have just given me.

I will leave you all now with a short snippet of the quote Shandel left us with:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness had genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Good night!

Spontaneously planned: A weekend with the girls

2011-03-26T23:41:00.000-07:00

If you lived on a boat (that was docked), with a ridiculously small living space, what would you do all day? The answer is simple. Spend as much time off the boat as possible.

We keep on building bigger and bigger TVs, more comfy furniture and larger refrigerators. We created environments where we would never have to leave for long periods of time if we didn't want to.

No wonder the average waistline is expanding at a rapid rate and we're all sulking in the confines of our lavishly cozy homes contemplating why we're not really "living" our lives.

We are the creators of our own destinies and I'm not suggesting that we all abandon our over-sized sofas entirely. All I'm hinting at is that with a small amount of planning and a bit of on-the-spot decision making, finding things to do outside of the living room is easy.

My girlfriends and I did just that this past weekend.

We decided on Friday that we wanted to do something. So we chose an activity... Riding a ferry. We didn't plan the when, where or why. We just decided on the what.

At noon on Saturday, Kathi, Libby and I hopped into the car and headed down to the Seattle ferry terminal.

Here are just a few pictures from the adventure. Needless to say, we had a fantastic day and even though the pictures are public, the stories will remain between us...

Go to the Woodland Park Zoo. In the Winter.

2010-12-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

As a kid growing up in San Diego, the world-famous zoo and wild animal park were two family staples. I remember going often. When I moved up to Seattle, I think it made my parents and I overlook the Woodland Park Zoo. I went to high school in this area, then college and eventually, lived only a couple blocks away, still without ever going.

On those summer weekends up on Phinney Ridge, I would sit at my local coffee shop and watch the overwhelming number of families, local and tourist alike, stream into the area to go to the zoo. What on earth were they thinking? The streets were packed. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like inside. A concentrated area full of young children, long-distances to walk and sometimes extreme heat (for Seattle that is).

That is what I remember.

But for some reason, yesterday I decided to go.

The weather was wonderful. A perfect winter day in Seattle. Sunny but cold. I wrapped myself in multiple layers, grabbed my gloves and ventured off to the zoo.

I cannot begin to describe what an enjoyable day I had.

The zoo was quite. A few bundled up families here and there. They casually walked instead of stampeding through the grounds as I had imagined. There was no rush.

However, the best part wasn’t the scarce crowd but the fact that on the first sunny day in awhile, all the animals were out. And so were their caretakers.

I met Junior. A fifteen year old Jaguar. He was wondering around apparently trying to find all of the treats hidden around his area. He’s either a very charismatic Jaguar or the sun and lack of people made him less shy because he came right up to the glass and looked at us. Observing us the same way we were observing him

Then there was Mr. Morgan, a 13 year old Colobus monkey. He sat on a tree stump right up against the fence. His caretaker was performing a routine feeding where he would ask Mr. Morgan to do certain “tricks” in order to receive food. “Grab your tail.” “Where’s your ear?” “Put your feet up.” Nonchalantly, the monkey did as he was told. The man placed his hand on the monkey’s feet, shoulder, tail and mouth. Someone asked what he was looking for. The man said he wasn’t looking for anything in particular at the moment. These feeding practices were simply a way to train the monkeys so that they could easily be examined without the need to immobilize them.

I waved good-bye and headed for the savanna. On the eastside of the zoo, I met Chai, a 40 year old Asian elephant. She lived with an African elephant in the same enclosure. I can’t remember her name. I learned that Asian elephants are the calmer breed and are the ones used in film. They would even add paper to an Asian elephants ears to make it appear as an African. Chai was hilarious. Asian elephants prefer to search low for food so she had this very silly movement with her trunk where she almost looked like she was vacuuming. It was feeding time for her but her caretaker was distracted answering our questions. In order to get his attention, Chai made a very fun breathing sound through her trunk that resembled blowing air through your lips. He signed a command to and she begrudgingly did a quick 360, winning a handful of carrots once complete.

I remember at this point trying to think back to a time where I had received such a one-on-one experience with an animal and it’s caretaker. It was the best learning experience ever and made me more cognizant of each animal and it’s unique characteristics.

I know there are a lot of negative issues when it comes to zoos but the number of “Endangered” signs plaster over countless exhibits made me think more about the value of a zoo. It’s because of this zoo and many others like it, along with donors, volunteers, caretakers and scientist that certain species of animals still exist. They work with different organizations around the world to protect endangered species as well as educate the public.

I really appreciated this at that moment.

I continued around the zoo. Laughing at a lion sunbathing with his paws crossed the same way my dog Magic does, getting a rare glimpse of a Hippo out of the pool eating hay and even coming face-to-face with a grey wolf.

After a few hours, the sun sitting low in the sky to the southwest, I exited the Woodland Park Zoo. I was very happy that I finally went to this Seattle landmark and glad that I had picked this day to go. I would recommend to every local, who feels similar about overwhelming crowds but is curious, go to the Woodland Park Zoo. In the winter.

Dear social mediaists, we all have something we can share...

2010-11-08T20:06:00.000-08:00

I stood in front of 1500 high school students this weekend. I spoke, along side of my coworker, Buckley Shaffer, at the Oregon Association for Student Counsels Leadership Conference on Social Media Common Sense and how student leaders can be role models in the space.

It was exciting and overwhelming at the same time.

These are some of Oregon's brightest teens but beyond intelligence, they're driven. Driven to make their schools and communities better. They care and that's why they ride (for some it's across the entire state) to the little coastal town of Seaside for this leadership conference.

Standing onstage, I felt like a phony. Don't get me wrong, I will do this all day if that's what it takes to get the information out, but I enjoy a dialogue more. Where ideas can development and transformation with the brainpower of those in the room. Which is why I enjoyed hosting our two workshops later that evening so much more than standing on the stage (in the picture above) giving a one way presentation.

The best part about each of our sessions was that we started off with a question, watched the discussion develop, directed it as needed, and watched it turn into something uniquely relevant to the students in the room.

After all they've been living Facebook for their entire high school careers, they know the obstacles at their schools, and have interacted with the players on a daily basis, all they needed, as I found out from these workshops, was a little guidance. They wanted reassurance that they were moving in the right direction, that they had chosen the right platform, the right messaging, the right precautions to ensure that their projects were successful.

I just found it interesting because I see so many people in educational institutions who are afraid of social media, especially at the middle school and high school level. But the kids are already using it. They're trying to find success where others are too afraid to and they have little guidance or even support for that matter.

All I'm thinking to say is for those of us in the social media space, our skills are highly valued at this level. And if you have the time, I encourage you to volunteer to be an adviser or role model for one of these students and help them become social media advocates for their schools and communities.

I know I will be doing more in the very near future.

Also, here is our slide show, if you're interested in seeing what we presented:

Social Media Common Sense on Prezi

What's in a name?

2010-10-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

There is one word in social media jargon that really bothers me and that's "voyeur". We use this term often to describe users online who consume others' content but do not generate any of their own.

Frustrated with the negative connotation that I believe unfairly stigmatizes this type of behavior, I decided to go on Twitter today and ask my community, you all, for recommendations on other possible names:

I didn't convey specifically why I was asking the question so I wouldn't skew any answer. The first response I received was from a colleague, who cemented (for me) the fact that when you hear the term "voyeur" your reaction is not warm and fuzzy but more ogling sleazeball:

The next response was even more scathing and really ruffled my brow:

Leech? Are they insinuating that consuming content online is equivalent to bloodsucking?

Timeout.

Let's go back to what I'm trying to rename. Users online who consume others content but don't generate any of their own.

Leech. I hadn't realize people felt so negatively about this type of behavior. Which I kind of feel is a misconception that I'd like to try to disprove quickly with an example.

Example #1:
I want to know more about Leeches. I go to Wikipedia and find their article on Leeches. I click on the link to one of the References listed at the bottom of the article and end up on a site with any kind of users generated content. I read. I smile. Because I now know that the medicinal use of leeches dates as far back as 2,500. Fascinating. And then I repeat this process whenever I desire to gain information about a particular subject and never publish any piece of content myself.

We can take this same example, change the objective - now I want to buy a Ford Explorer - commence said cycle of online exploration and see how the behavior that we are trying to define describes a behavior that is very common these days:

Is this behavior so bad that we'd refer to people who do it as leeches?

I hope you now understand my desire to find a new term. Back to more responses!

@megrnelson what about "recreational users"? ...though that comes with no shortage of baggage, haha.
@megrnelson we used to say "lurker" a lot.
@megrnelson "Consumer" doesn't seem personable enough to me and I try to avoid using it. Reader? Listener? Customer? Participant?

And my personal favorite: @megrnelson Observer, Spectator, Witness, Onlooker or Bystander? From 4-6 creativity is exhausted until the beer kicks in.

Spectator! I liked the sound of that. My initial reaction to that word is in reference to a sporting event. Unlike voyeurism, it's a completely acceptable term and more flexible. For example, you could be a spectator at a soccer game. But then you could move to the fan section, cheering on the people "participating" in the game (speaking of... Can you hear Chivas sing? We can't hear a $%#ing thing! Go Sounders!).
And when I say "cheer", I really mean promote or share other users content. And finally, if you felt so inclined, you could play in the game by publishing your own content.

I know that is cheesier than the Mac & Cheese I had for dinner tonight (it was Kraft Deluxe!) but I really do think there is a need to change out "voyeur" with something more positive and productive, like Spectator.

That's what I've pulled out of the conversation I had with many of you on Twitter so far. I'd love to continue it at anytime, get more of your feedback and find other words that might work. Again, thank you to everyone for taking the time to respond to my post today. It's all very thought provoking.

Last but not least, I'd like to give a little shout out to Andrew for suggesting I turn today's discussion into a blog post. I hope you weren't disappointed! :)

A Year Later...

2010-10-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

In honor of Year 2 of Social Creature Media, I've decided to start a new blog. In WordPress. This blog will continue on but will be more focused on the specific adventures of Meg Nelson. Since I needed an outlet were I could practice my WordPress skills AND do a little more daily blogging, I decided to create my blog Ever Wondered About.

To give you a little sneak peak, here is an overview...

Why do we call them “Quarterbacks”? Do spiders excrete anything else besides their web? How does an airbag work? Who developed the cooking process known as "Sous-vide"?

There are many times in a given day that I wonder where something originated, how something works or ask myself a questions about something I’ve encounter. So I decided to create a blog where I could find the answers out myself and publish them for you.

Also, for those of you who didn't see the companies video, here it is one last time:

Why location-based social networks are still worth using

2010-06-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

Ask my coworkers, I have always been a fan of location-based social networks. While my use of them has waned over the past couple of months, I still think they have incredible potential. Which is why, when I saw Marshall Kirkpatrick's tweet this evening... "I should write a post simply about why location based social networks are worth using"...I decided to take on the challenge myself.

At the moment, most people I know have become discouraged with location-based social media. A compelling reason for divulging such insights is in all honesty lacking. Mayor? Who cares. Badges? I'm not a Girl Scout anymore. Checkins? I am sick of being that [insert appropriate word here] on the phone the second I walk into a bar or restaurant with his or her friends. And for all of you out there who are thinking about loyalty discounts and rewards, just know this: A free drip coffee for me once a week because I'm the mayor of my local Starbucks means nothing when I drink Chai tea!

This is where my, along with many others, frustration currently sits. The Foursquares, Yelps and now New York Times (wtf?) of the world have, in my opinion, lost sight of the prize. I understand that a startup/media organization needs to figure out a way to be profitable and getting in bed with corporate America is the easiest answer but I feel like that is diluting the real value of this product for the end user.

This is turning people off. Pushing people away. At a point when companies like Foursquare need to push mass adoption. And the only way to do that is by providing a perceivable value.

So here is what the perceivable value of these networks is to me:

In the age of content overload, we talk a great deal about the race to relevancy. For Google, providing relevant information is at the core of it's business model. But my question has always been what if we DON'T know we need to search for that information. It may be highly relevant to us but we just don't know it exists.

Many companies are already onto this but I will use Facebook in this example. They present you with information they think you should know, based on your own usage/interaction with their platform. However, at the moment that information is limited. They can't always account for your actions outside of their world. For example, Facebook knows that I have "liked" volleyball but it doesn't know that I play at an open gym every Tuesday night or that after volleyball, our group goes out and socializes over a beer or two.

Now as marketers and advertisers, our eyes light up and we all think... "Here is a great idea! Local bars and restaurants in the area should really make sure that they are offering happy hour specials or food specials to the group via social networks!" Don't get me wrong this is all good but there has to be value to the end users before this moment.

Back to the open gym...

I lived in the area where my open gym is held for OVER a year before knowing of it's existence. I had to physically go on Google and search for "volleyball open gym" to find a random website that actually had outdated information of the open gym night. Why did I have to do that?

If I had already self-ascribed to being a volleyball player and people who lived around me also "liked" volleyball, then why couldn't my location-based social network tell me that people who like volleyball go to Tuesday night open gym here?

This is the type of relevant information that I would have appreciated because I was living by myself, in a new part of town, after a majority of my friends had left the city. I would find this information far more compelling than a discount or a badge. And this is why I think location-based social networks are still worth using because of their potential to capture and utilize behavioral data for the benefit of their end user.

Can you crowdsource a bio?

2010-04-08T00:19:00.000-07:00

I find it extremely difficult to talk about myself. In the first or third person. When it came time to create individual bios for our company profile page, I was the first one to run for the hills screaming.

Since then I have sat around night after night, staring at this word doc full of makeshift paragraphs and sentences. Some thoughts feel creative at the time, however, return the next night, I realize how unoriginal and silly they are. Just to embarrass myself a little a couple examples include highlighting my analytical prowess with a reference to the board game "221 B Baker Street", describing the moment I became aware of the power of discriminating information (an Inspector Gadget episode when Penny saves the day with her computer book) and showcasing my current experience of short-form communication with a bio created entirely out of soundbites. Like I said, not so original the next day.

Given my current trajectory, my bio will never be finished. That is why I am turning to my friends and family. HELP ME!

Here is what I need: An Intro.

I have no problem with the body of the resume, I just have trouble starting it. I can fill in the technical details of how I helped charter more efficient business practices or that I delivered strategic business solutions that increased overall ROI. That part is not my problem.

I just can't start it. "Strategic, proactive and creative, ____ possesses over four years..." "Despite his youthful appearance, ___ is an old hand at new business" "As an individual who has always loved technology, ____has been dabbling"

What do you think? Will you help me? Can I harness the power of my community to get my bio on the fast track? At this point, I am willing to try anything.

My Trip to Northern California Part 1

2010-02-01T19:45:00.001-08:00

Cole and I decided, somewhat last minute, to take a trip to Northern California. We decided that we would check out Napa, swing through San Fransisco, and then hit Sonoma as we headed up the 101 back to Seattle. I don't have many pictures but I am going to do my best to recap the trip.

We left Seattle on Saturday morning and drove down to Portland to have lunch. We stopped at Bunk Sandwiches which had been on The Food Network but I also heard about it from several other people. Here is an image of the sandwich Cole had that day:

It was their Italian Pastrami sandwich, however, I was particularly happy with my Pulled Pork sandwich! The line was long but to me that almost always is a sign of something worth waiting for. After Portland, we drove down to Medford, Oregon. We planned on grabbing a bit to eat and then resting our little heads before the long drive to Napa the next day. Not expecting to find much in Southern Oregon, we were pleasantly surprised by the food and ambiance provided by 38 on Central. I think we would both agree that their Mac & Cheese with Rogue River cheddar was probably one of the food highlights of the week. But just wait, there are more to come!

In Napa, we stayed at a place called Vine Bello Resort. It is not normally the kind of place that Cole and I stay at but we got a great deal and it actually turned out to be the perfect location, even if we would stay somewhere else if we returned to Napa for a second time. This particular location forced us to familiarize ourselves with the entire valley.

The day after driving, we headed up Silverado Roard, apparently the most famous road in Napa. We saw four wineries that day. First, Grgrich Hill, known for it's winemaker, Mike Grgich, who created the Chardonnay for Chateau Montelena that beat the very best wines in France in a famous blind tasting in Paris. The story of this tasting has now been captured by the film Bottle Shock. After that we went to Groth Winery and Vineyard and then we headed over to The Miner Family Vineyard where a special treat waiting for us.

Cole had taken an International Sommelier Guild (ISG) course in Seattle a few years ago. As it turns out, Dianne, one of the woman he had taken the course with, had been working at Miner Family Winery for some time. When we arrived she took us down to her lab and took us on a tour of the caves that housed all of the barrels. We barrel tasted Tempranillo, Grenache and Pinot Noir.

This has got to be one of my favorite parts of the whole wine making process. I think when you taste the grapes directly from the barrel you realize what kind of effort and ultimately, love, goes into making a great wine. You get to see these wines in their preliminary states, which allows you to appreciate them much more once they are sitting in pretty bottles on your dinner table.

Next was Far Niente, a breathtakingly beautiful winery, fully of history, that sits above the fields of grapes just off of highway 29. We toured the facilities and walked through the expansive underground caves. I think the woman that was giving the tour said that the total square footage of the cave was equal to that of a football field! The winery, which was build in 1885, closed for prohibition but was then restored by Gil Nickel sixty years later. The interesting part for me was that Gil Nickel had an obsession with cars and on the property they have a barn full of the most outrageous old cars on the planet from a 1961 Chevrolet Corvette to a 1954 Bentley Continental R and last but not least, a limited addition 1966 Ferrari 500 Superfast.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....................

After Far Niente, Cole and I returned to the hotel to relax before a lovely dinner at Thomas Keller's Bouchon.

The next day, we continued on our journey through Napa wine country. A very cool part about this particular day was that we were visiting wineries that were pretty much owned and operated by women. We started the day off at Spottswoode and then headed over to a very boutique winery called Crocker & Starr, which is run by Pam Starr and Charlie Crocker. Both of these wineries were very impressive and I was very excited to have been privileged to see and taste both of them.

Cole saw one more winery that day. Since wine is his passion and I had a feeling he might want to geek out with his fellow winos for a bit, I thought he might enjoy it more by himself. So I stayed in the car and thus cannot remember the name of the winery.

A quick side note before I continue...wine is tough. It can be pretentious, arrogant and exclusive on one hand but it can also be dirty, down-to-earth and fascinating on the other. I am really happy that Cole and I took this trip because it gave me an opportunity to get closer to what I consider to be the "real" wine. I have a great appreciation for people like Cole and Dianne. They fielded every question I had and patiently explained in more detail when I needed a better explanation. They are the reason that I have begun to love wine. They have a passion that is indescribable. They know so much about wine and the process of making it but beyond that, they desire to spread that passion and knowledge to others. And in all honesty, I appreciate those type of people across all industries and different professions.

That evening, we were able to spend more time with Dianne in St Helena. We went with her to a restaurant that does a family meal for the locals from 5-7pm (I believe). I apologize for not being able to remember the name, I was just more focused on the company. The family meal is served in the cellar which has been converted to a cool bar area underneath the main restaurant. It was a lovely space and we had a great time chatting to Dianne about what she had been up to since being in Seattle and what she was doing in Napa. The night ended at Ana's Cantina with dollar bills and rolls of quarters wrapped in duck tape...

The next day we left for San Fransisco... which is a post for another night. :)

HealthWeis

2010-02-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

My best friend, Debra Weisbarth, started a super fun and simple blog called HealthWeis about how to stay health and still live your life. She offers some great tips that will easily fit into your everyday routine. My favorite tip is about using a deck of cards to exercise.

Add it to your RSS feed and keep that New Year's Resolution!

Saying Anything You Want - The Difference Between Radio & Twitter

2009-12-28T21:50:00.000-08:00

There is an "alternative" radio station in Seattle called 107.7 The End that I have been listening to for years. They introduced me to Nirvana, The Flaming Lips, Kings of Leon and more. They unapologetically brought me Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky. And I am not going to lie, at the time, I loved them for it.

Over the years, this station has gotten away with more outrageous comments on the radio than anyone would have expected in such a PC city and this afternoon, someone at The End tried to take this attitude online.

Below is a picture of what was published publicly on The End's Twitter account this afternoon:

Before I move on I want to clarify that I am not writing this post out of anger. I believe that the online space should be a space for reflection and rationality, not blame and hate.

I think that whoever published this post failed to understand the nature of the online space.

Radio, for a long time, has been a one-way medium. The station controls what you listen to. From music to talk shows, you hear the main content but miss out on the content that is being generated in parallel to the programing. This means that the listener doesn't know what any other listener thinks of the content being played(besides screened commentators). I believe this creates a lack of accountability. Radio is not held responsible for any of its content by its users.

The Internet, however, is a multidimensional space. Something is said and it can be copied, pasted, forwarded, posted, Tweeted, tagged, bookmarked, ranked, etc. Responses can be made to any of these forms and the original commenter has no control over the information as it spreads through out the system. We call this Viral Marketing if it is positive but have started denoting the negative iteration of this with a #fail sign.

Whoever posted the comment above must not have understood this difference between the two mediums and thus could not have foreseen the potential repercussion (psst I am giving this person a bit more credit than I actually think he/she deserves):

Personal opinions are one thing online but as a Brand you have to be aware that in this space you represent more than just a set of attributes you and your team came up with around a table one afternoon. You represent the team that you work for and the customers that buy your products or services.

Tomorrow morning, The End might decide that they did nothing wrong. That they stuck to their brand. That said, I doubt that "alienate" is something that any senior management from a radio station wants associated with their brand.

UPDATE: This morning, The End posted as statement that claimed that their Twitter account had been hacked.
This seems very fishy since someone was responding to the backlash from The End alias (unfortunately, I failed to get a screen shot of this) for about two hours after the original post went up. If the account had been hacked, the hacker would have posted the comment and watched the storm hit. He/she wouldn't sit there and defend whatever was said. As @jonathanlawson put it this morning, The End's "twitter hacking" explanation is disingenuous. They erased original tweets to dodge accountability. At least now we know the person that posted the original comment isn't the only one over there that doesn't really understand how the online space works.

UPDATE #2: Tech Flash and The Stranger comment on the event and Paul Constant makes a better argument for why it was not a hacker (he also has a screen shot of The End posts!).

UPDATE #3: And The End's response to criticism that it wasn't a hacker.

My Favorite Videos 2009

2009-12-08T00:07:00.000-08:00

Long. Short. Humorous. Touching. These are the videos that I would like to share with you as we head into the new year. Enjoy!

#5 Epic 2015 - Especially relevant with the development of Chrome, Chrome OS, Android, Google Goggles,etc

#4 I Feel In Love at the Apple Store - For every mac geek I know!

#3 Horny Turtle Humps Shoe - My wonderful friend Annie discovered this video and has since perfected the Turtle's cry of passion!

#2 Cory dancing to "Single Ladies" - Especially around 36 seconds into the video! Cracks me up EVERY SINGLE time I see this!

#1 Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams - Honestly, one of the most humbling and inspirational videos I have ever seen.

Announcing... Social Creature Media

2009-12-04T17:04:00.000-08:00

My Dear Friends,

My business partner, Josh Dirks and I are very excited to announce our new social media marketing company, Social Creature Media.

Social Media is an emerging medium that has the power to engage consumers before, during and long after they enter the buying funnel. It gives marketers new opportunities to capture attention and build long-term relationships. The possibilities are endless and always changing, which makes this an incredibly fun and exciting space to be apart of.

We have been in sort of a "beta" mode for awhile and still have lots to work on but I am happy to say that the business is moving along. Still we are in desperate need of a website, a logo and an office (we are currently working out of Josh's basement). Any suggestions? :)

If you want to hear more about our business or about how it evolves, follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook!

Thank you for all your love and support!

Cheers,
Meg

It's alright. Just be you.

2009-11-18T22:05:00.000-08:00

It is really easy to get caught up in what type of image you are presenting to the world. Based on X, will people think I am funny? smart? trendy? attractive? etc?

And now with all the public methods of communication online (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn), the feeling is only intensified. Now you have to have cute profile pictures, legions of friends, funny links, witty blog posts, etc. I think it stifles creativity. It makes people over-analyze how people will react to the ideas and information they put forward.

One of the most freeing things though is being able to let all of this go. Yes, it has taken a bit of time but I've realized that the best face for me to put forward is my own.

This might sound obvious but I have done a lot of censoring of myself over the years and it has never done me any good.

I am a goofball. I say things that are not particularly intelligent. I speculate. I am not quite at a point where I try to formulate opinions about content I feel is beyond me but I sure like passing it on if it struck a cord. I cannot spell for beans! I love silly videos of people singing about falling in love at the Apple store. I like my unflattering pictures (to a point) because that is the real me and it is way easier to be me then try to pretend to be something else.

In conclusion, as I would write in Elementary school, stop thinking so hard about what kind of content you put out on the web. Obviously, you might want to limit somethings, like that drunken rant you posted about your employer or the pictures of the rave you went to the night before a big presentation etc. But all-in-all, real-time web is moving so fast and producing so much content that your dumb post on Tuesday afternoon about frogs coming up SPDY will be ancient history by Wednesday evening, 14 texts, 23 emails, 450 RSS feed posts, and 3,421 tweets later.

San Diego

2009-10-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

This past week I went down to San Diego to visit my best friend, Debra. It was kind of a last minute trip. My dad had purchased a non-refundable ticket and ended up not needing it. I asked if I could just use it instead and so I ended up with a free flight to San Diego. Not bad when it was going to be raining in Seattle the whole week. The only catch was that I had to fly into LAX. In my mind, that was alright.

All in all, the trip was a blast. I really enjoyed having my best girlfriend around for the four or five days. We watched the Charger game, went out for a late birthday dinner and sat on the couch at her house, watching movies and catching up. I miss that when I am in Seattle.

Anyway, I didn't want to write about what an amazing time I had on this trip. Debra and I can hold onto those memories ourselves. What I did want to write about though was the revelation that I had while down there. This will probably seem strange to many of you and maybe a bit obvious to most of you.

I have lived in Seattle for over 10 years. I have weathered through 10 long, gloomy winters here. I have come to accept that in fall, you start buckling down and preparing for the winter ahead. You take advantage of every last ounce of sunshine you get, even if it means that your fingers are going to freeze off or you will be blown away by the crisp fall winds. You start bring out the down blankets and the couch throws. You turn on the lights in the middle of the day and you try to accomplish everything you can before four when the sun sets. You also dread daylight savings. Falling back means that dark sets in at three, not four. You dread that you won't see the sun until April and you prepare yourself and your significant other for the inevitable seasonal depression that is going to set in. You start creating contingency plans, strategizing when to take your next vacation (only to sunny locations) so that it will get you through the winter. Have I gotten my point across yet? Either way, the point is that living in Seattle you get used to and anticipate the effects of a long, sunless winter.

Traveling down to San Diego this past week made me remember that the long, depressing winter was not always part of my life and I won't have to be part of my life if I didn't want it to be.

Don't get me wrong, I love living here. There is no place on earth like Seattle in the summer. And I will not be moving anytime soon but I just forgot that the weather/winter isn't like this everywhere (this is the statement that should just be obvious).

If you live in Seattle, I think you will understand my point and appreciate that, for me, this was a revelation. :) Maybe someday, I will relocate to a place that has a few more sunny days than Seattle. But for now, it is just nice remembering that I am choosing to live here and that if I want to I can choose not to live here.

The Jump

2009-10-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

My last day at the restaurant I worked at this summer was Saturday and it is a tradition that on your last day you jump off the cafe balcony into the Puget Sound. I have included an image of the restaurant so you can get a better picture. The balcony in on the second story and if you move your eye along the deck all the way to the right you will see the point from which I jumped. I think the tide was a little bit lower that day but not by much.

It is October here in Seattle so it is not warm anymore and I jumped at 11pm so the water was dark and scary (I hate water I can't see in). Fortunately, the Puget Sound only changes a couple of degrees over the course of the year so it was actually not as cold as I thought it was going to be. That said, it was still cold.

There were about thirty staffers that watched my friend, Ivan and me jump. They waited for us at the bottom with warm blankets! Bless them!

All-in-all it was amazing. A lot higher than I had anticipated. I felt like I was falling for ages. But worth it. I never do anything really crazy or adventurous so I thought this was a good way to start easing into it. Plus I have to get prepared to go Skydiving with my brother when he turns 18. Hopefully, I don't pass out in the plane. :)

Twitter for Restaurants : Real-time Customer Service

2009-10-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

"You need to make sure that you are aware when an experience becomes negative and take immediate steps to start correcting it." - CA

Over the past five months I have been working for a local restaurant here in Seattle. During this time period, I feel like I have learned an enormous amount about customer service, a value that is important to all businesses but crucial in the restaurant industry.

What has been really fun for me, though, is to think about customer service and how it can be improved through the integration of new technologies.

I ask people everyday, "How is everything tasting?" which normally garners the responses "Wonderful", "Delicious", or "Good" and on rare occasions, "over/undercooked" or "lacks flavor". That said, it is my job as a server to assess customer responses and really determine if my customers are satisfied with their experience or not.

Normally, I feel like I do a pretty good job of analyzing my tables. Verbal and physical queues help substantially, however, there are occasions when I simply cannot tell if a customer being upfront about how they feel about their experience.

Personally, I understand why people might hesitate. When I go out to restaurants, I hate complaining or sending things back. I might be intimidated by the server. I might not want to complain in front of the other guests at my table. Or in the worst scenarios, I might just hope that the situation blows over and my party and I can go back to enjoying our evening.

I know, these are all awful ways of dealing with a problem. But I see it everyday. And unfortunately, for the restaurant, if a person has a bad experience that is not address, be it the restaurants fault or the customers, the customer are most likely going to associate that bad experience with the restaurant and in turn make sure that friends, families, online communities, etc know that they have a negative view of the restaurant.

People who deal with issues at restaurant as I have described above don't understand that great restaurants want to hear about any issues their customers have. They don't want you to fester on them because they want the opportunity to resolve them. They want people to leave their restaurants satisfied.

In my opinion, for restaurants at least, communication (surprise, surprise) is where customer service gets tied up.

Enter the mobile web.

With services like Twitter, Facebook and other social feedback sites, customers are able in real-time to give their opinion about something. Although this can be negative at times, giving an opinion online is often less intimidating because there are less personal consequences in doing so. I think while that might change (soon people might expect businesses to be online and listening online), for now people don't expect anyone to be listening.

And that is exactly where the opportunity is. A restaurant that is a little more tech-savvy can follow real-time feedback on a mobile phone or desktop computer. If any of their customers have, mobile phones and twitter accounts and end up commenting on dinner, a manager will be able to see the comment whenever it is posted. If the comment is posted at any point during the dinner, it gives the manager an option to react to that comment.

Taking it a step further, if restaurants made their customers aware of their presence online, then maybe it would entice customers to comment even more. You could even offer up specific hashtags for people to use when commenting on their experience and thus limiting the noise that might not be as relevant to the manager.

I think this could help restaurants address some of the feedback and issues people encounter at their restaurant before that negative review is posted on yelp.com or before a comment is made to another potential customer about how bad their experience was at X restaurant.

Defining the expert

2009-09-28T11:38:00.001-07:00

I read an article awhile ago that described how to tell if someone was a legit social media expert or not and I was disturbed to read that the first qualification the author listed as mandatory for a social media expert was a blog.

First of all, claiming that you can define a social media expert in 10 questions is a load of $%*&. The best part about the interweb is that there is so much information and so many different groups of people that "experts" take on many shapes and sizes. No one shoe fits all scenario here.

Second, a blog does not an expert make. It emphasizes a particular skill, writing. And while writing is incredibly important in the world of the interweb, it should not be the one, lone skill used to pick out "expert" individuals in a field.

Writing is a form of communication but it's very specific form. It is used to export/push information. I write now not taking in any new information. Think of it like this, if writing was my only skill, I would reach the end of my life with the same amount of information I started with and a lot of pen-on-paper.

On the other hand, reading is an import skill; I expand my base of knowledge by taking in new information. And by definition, an "expert" is someone with knowledge derived from training or experience. Therefore, if someone is a great writer but lacked listening/reading/observing skills, then how could they ever be an expert at anything.

Now (full disclosure) I might be getting a bit defensive because my writing skills are somewhat lacking, but that said, to say that someone might lack credibility because they have not been "writing" for over 2 years is a bit absurd. It would be similar if I said that if you don't have 5,000 friends on Facebook then you are not an expert. Yes, the social skills and writing skills are important but they don't create the whole picture when it comes to your knowledge about a particular subject.

Alright. I am done.

Gnomedex '09

2009-08-22T10:35:00.001-07:00

Alright. After a couple days, I have had time to digest what I experienced at Gnomedex 9.

For those of you who don't know, last week I attended a conference here in Seattle called Gnomedex (pronounced like nom-a-decks). It is a tech conference where the latest tech innovations, trends and issues are discussed. There are multiple session over the three days. This year they ranged in topics from 3D printing, life extension, SPAM, crowd sourced protein-folding, social challenges on social media, etc. Overall, a fascinating lineup of speakers that, to be honest, were all over the place.

But for me, that was only half of the actual value of the conference. On the first day, I walked into the auditorium at Bell Harbor Conference Center, sat down and turned on my computer. As the little POS (guess what that means! :) ) loaded I looked around me at the other attendees. There were a bunch of programmers in the back that had taped a "PC's only" sign to their row. And the only reason I knew that they were programmers is because they had shirts with phrases like " Kiss my 0101000111000" and such. The marketing people sat in the middle of the auditorium, dressed in business-casual outfits, greeting one another like long lost friends. And then there were the geeks (yes, Sven, the socially accepted nerds). They were everywhere and since I consider myself one of them it would be biased of me to give you a description... The stunningly beautiful people that were so graceful it appeared as if they were floating in air.... oh wait, that is an excerpt from one of the Twilight books. Darn.

Anyway, what really struck me was how at home I felt amongst this peer group. For me, the atmosphere was intoxicating and it made me realize how passionate I was about the digitial information age, the technology it was producing and the social behavior it was affecting. The dichotomy between the constraints it has placed on us (140 characters of communication) and the freedom it allows (open source platforms) makes my blood boil every time I start to think about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had a chance to chat briefly with a handful of people and I was astonished to find that every single person in that room was not only incredibly intelligent but also had the same interest and passion about the space that was running throw me at that very moment. It was incredible.

There are a few people that I would like to give shout-outs to:

Kathy Gill - Someone who never fails to astonish me, the UW should thank their lucky stars to have someone so intelligent and dedicated to the MCDM program as she is because I assure you she could be doing many other things beside teach (although I am so glad she does teach)

Chris Pirillo - The mastermind behind the conference has more energy and enthusiasm in one little pinky than I do in my whole entire being

Amber Case - She had me at... Prosthetic Culture...... enough said.

Phil Plait - Critical thinking is a must in an age where Twitter disseminates false information at such rapid speeds so it is important to have people like Phil around saying, "Hey, slow down. Think about that for a sec."

Anyway, that was my experience in a nutshell. I cannot wait to go to the 10 year anniversary Gnomedex and hopefully, I will be able to write a little bit more about what was actually discussed at the event. :)

Seattle Eats & Drinks

2009-08-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

One of my closest friends came up to Seattle this week and it got me thinking.

"What are my favorite things in Seattle?"

And so I have decided to make a couple lists of my current favorites!

Here are my favorite foods and beverages in no particular order:

1.) Sherry Mushroom Toast @ Ocho

2.) Gyro Plate @ Mr. Gyro

3.) Phad Thai @ the little blue house in Fremont

4.) The Immortal IPA @ The Elysian Brewery

5.) Tall Latte and blueberry scone @ Cafe Migliore

6.) St Jude Albacore Tuna @ Tilth Restaurant

7.) Penn Cove Mussels in Thai Curry Sauce @ Ray's

8.) Red Mill Deluxe Cheese Burger @ Red Mill Burgers

9.) A Croissant and Jam @ Cafe Besalu

10.) Negroni Superior @ Serafina

11.) Mezza Luna Di Nutella @ Via Tribunali

12.) First Ave Roll @ Umi Sake House

P.S. I will probably update this a couple times because I can't remember all the things I was going to list! :)

Strange, small, social world

2009-07-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended a social media event. Since I didn't know many people there, I just introduced myself to anyone I stood next to. The fourth woman that I introduced myself to responded, "Yes, I know who you are. I follow you on Twitter. My friend told me when I joined that I had to follow you." I was so caught off guard that I am sure I gave her the most incredulous look.

It is funny that you can know someone without having really ever met them in person. Or at least, that is what the dating portals want you to believe. :)

Design Classes

2009-07-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

Someone please sign me up for a design class because I am severely failing on a layout for my blog and Twitter page.

"Just stick with the templates, Meg. Just stick with the templates."

Ugh! But that is so boring!

Twitter

2009-06-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

After a somewhat depressing topic last week, I would like to return to the lighter/everyone-is-talking-about-it-so-I-have-to-talk-about-it-as-well side of life...

Alright. Give me just a second to collect myself. Alright. I think I am ready now:

HI MY NAME IS MEG AND I AM A TWITTER ADDICT.

Yes, it is true. I have been on Twitter for about a year now (@nelson_meg) and I definitely am drinking the Twitter Kool-Aid.

With all the new media buzz about Twitter, I wanted to take the time to explain why I am so excited about it and then to explain why I think that Twitter is not for everyone.

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past two years, Twitter is, well, kind of a big deal. You can find tweets on major news channels like CNN and Fox. Even Oprah has a tweet account, as if that is supposed to mean anything to anyone.

Anyway, Twitter is a micro-blogging community, where users Tweet(post comments) in real-time on their thoughts, news or activities. I am not going to go into the details but the site was first started so that family members and friends could have real-life insight into the activities of the other members. Essentially the site was founded on the question, "What are you doing?".

Well, just for everyone's information, this is not what the site is used for anymore. Yeah, there is still the occasional "I am eating Cheerios for breakfast." but (and this depends on who you follow) more and more Tweets are providing information as opposed to simply taking up space. One of the biggest examples of this and the impact of Twitter is the Iranian election. If you are not sure about Twitter, go read the posts coming up for the hashtag (a kind of calling card) #IranElections. This event and the reaction to it on Twitter is proof that Twitter is a valuable tool for finding real-time information on current events.

So why do I love it? Well, I work in the Social Media industry and that means that most of my collegues are online, participating in these social mediums, i.e. facebook, pathables, twitter, linkedin, etc. These people tweet about events happening in our community, information that pertains to our industry and about the general outlook of social media. They invest a large amount of time in this medium and therefore, I am able to get value from it!

Secondly, the reason on love social media is because I love seeing what kind of connections can be built and maintained online (I think this has a large part to do with that fact that so many of my friends are far, far away). Be that friend to friend. Stranger to stranger. Company to customer. I think it is amazing how the online space allows us to find and form connections with people of similar interest. And even more amazing, is when those connection online become connections in real life! Great examples of this include BarCamp, Match.com, CouchSurfing, etc.

Alright so that is why I love it. But not everyone needs to drink the Twitter Kool-Aid and here is why:

TWITTER USES UP A LOT OF YOUR TIME!

If you find people to follow, have people following you, or feel a need to constantly reorganize your Tweetdeck like I do (I will leave for another discussion), then you will spend a lot of time on Twitter. You know how you vowed that you would never spend as much time on Facebook as you do now.... well multiply facebook by wikipedia hyperlinks and then you will understand the time drain that is Twitter. I get lost for hours going through the articles and information that my peer group is tweeting about, most of the times forgeting why I turned on the computer to begin with!

So that's my somewhat quick overview of Twitter, why I love it and why you might not want to even delve into it (all though there are more reasons than just time but that is all I want to write about for now... lazy). Let me know what you think! Why you choose to be on Twitter or why you would never touch the site in a million years!

A tragic situation talked about online

2009-06-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

My friend from high school recently got married. Within a year or two his wife got pregnant.

He and his wife lost the baby. 26 weeks into the pregnancy. They dealt with their grief in two ways (that I have seen). First, my friend got a tattoo to commemorate his child. Second, and much more shocking to me, the wife blogged about her experiences delivering a stillborn.

Awful. Horrifying. Disturbing. Those were the only words that I had to describe the blog. An account of an event that in my mind should have been personal and private. It made me wonder, was this normal? Should this be online? What was private anymore?

It wasn't until tonight that I got my answer. A close friend of mine, who is currently studying medicine, told me that only 40% of pregnancies result in healthy deliveries. 40%. Even if that number is slightly off (given the place of birth and/or circumstance), the fact is that every healthy birth is a miracle and more woman will have miscarriages than I had originally thought.

This changed my whole entire perception of the blog and how I felt about keeping a situation like that "private". It made me realize that I was more likely to have a miscarriage than popular culture had prepared me to be. Does that make sense? I mean how many TV shows, movies or songs have dealt with miscarriages?

Even though at the time I cringed and cried reading about carrying and delivering a child who's heart no longer beat, I now feel incredibly grateful to the woman who was able to verbalize the event at all. She made me realize how precious pregnancy is and how prevalent miscarriages are. They happen and somehow or another we have to move on and continue living. This was the way she dealt with her pain and I must respect that. Given a similar circumstance, who knows what I would do. I can't even begin to speculate.

Thank you Chelsey for sharing with us. I am so very sorry for your loose and I cannot even begin to imagine the difficulties you are going through at the moment. But I know that there are other women out there who are going through or have gone through similar situations that have found comfort in your accounts of your situation. And as for me, I am just grateful that now I am more aware and able to appreciate the miracle that pregnancy and birth are. So thank you.

If any of you would like to see Chelsey's blog, it is here. Please be warned it is graphic and tragic but that said, I think it is good for us to be reminded of our own and others immortality, as well, as how we, as individuals or as groups, can over come such events and still believe in the beauty that life has to offer us.

And then there was job #2

2009-05-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

I know, Kerri. I know. It has been awhile. But what's new with that one? :)

Alright... so... I have a new job. I know you all might be thinking, "Wait, didn't Meg just start a new job less than a year ago?". And yes, it is true! I had another job. However, fate smiled upon me and the company decided to cut half of my department (and that included me as well). Over the next two months.... oh alright Cole.... over the next three months, I sat around the house, contemplating life, setting up informational interviews (a.k.a coffee and lunch dates) and half-heartedly applying for positions that didn't really excite me.

Finally, I got a lead I was excited about! Ray's Boathouse is a well-known Seattle restaurant that sits on a pier in Shilshole overlooking the Puget Sound. They had openings for their summer staff and lucky for me, decided to hire me! So now I work at Ray's Boathouse in the evening as a server and I could not be happier.

The job is a perfect fit for me! The people at Ray's are warm and welcoming. The atmosphere is supportive and cozy and the guests couldn't be more excited to get a taste of Seattle and the PNW. I am truly blessed to have found such a great team to be apart of and look forward to watching all the beautiful sunsets this summer!

I gave you my 90 minutes!!!

2009-03-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to the inaugural game of the Seattle Sounders F.C.. They played the New York Red Bulls (yeah, I know, damn Americans and their advertising!) and three goals later the Sounders had won their first official MLS match!

Now if you want a recap of the game, there are many other places that will provide more detail for you than I can.

What I want to address is the 32,523 people that came out to see the new MLS team play.

When the MLS initially decided to add a team in Seattle, many debated on the future of the MLS. Would the US ever embrace the sport they way the Europeans did? Could Seattle be the American capital for soccer? How could they create a team and an atmosphere around the Sounders that resembled the European leagues but still be genuine to Seattle with its own American flare?

Tough questions. But the Sounder management moved forward, holding a statewide vote on the team name, creating a Members Association called the Alliance (where the members can vote to fire the general manager), advertising in a typically American fashion (I have never seen commercials or billboards for European teams abroad), creating the Sound Wave (the team's marching band) and placing free scarves all over the city to get people excited about the first game.

Well, the effort worked and the entire lower bowl of Qwest field was packed. Here is a video of what it was like being down at the stadium. Check it out and I will be adding a few of my own pics and videos later on:

Birthdays! Birthdays! All around!

2009-02-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

I celebrated my (gulp) 25th birthday last weekend. Along with Cole's 28th birthday and my dad's... well let's just keep you guessing on that number.... birthday.

On my actual birthday, Friday, February 6th, I was sick. I did go over to my parent's house for a joint birthday dinner with my dad. His birthday is on January 31st. It was really fun and I got to eat good food which always makes me feel better. Thanks mom!

But the best part of the evening ended up being opening the presents. Go figure. But it's not what you think at all! Let me explain....

My mom had a couple clothing size presents for myself and my dad. You know the clothing boxes that are oh so obvious. All of a sudden, my brother gets all worked up.

"No you didn't. Mom, that better not be what I think it is! Because you know that's what I want. I want it. Mom, you know that is what I have been wanting for ages."

I am obviously confused but continued to open the present and this is what I found.... along with my brother's reaction:

Now while I promised my brother I would not put this video on youtube, he never said anything about my blog. :) I heart you, bro!

And to give my bro a little more credit, he thought I was getting a Sounders FC jersey! I would have reacted the same way if I thought he was getting one!

The day after my sickness, Cole and I traveled up to Vancouver for a birthday getaway. We had a lovely time. Relaxing. Walking through Stanley Park. And eating till our hearts content!

If you want to hear more about my trip and the most intense experience I have had in awhile, call me and just ask me about E Hasting Street.

New Year's Resolution

2009-01-06T10:04:00.000-08:00

Not to be so cynical.....

The earth is a beautiful place.

People are genuinely good.

Love and compassion are abundant.

And life is a blessing.

I often forget how lucky I am.

My White Christmas

2008-12-25T09:29:00.000-08:00

My house is covered in snow.

Let me repeat that.... my house is covered in snow!!! For those of you who do not live in the Pacific Northwest, this is extremely unusual! And incredibly cool!!!!

This is my first white christmas... EVER!!! And while I must say that I enjoy it, I am also glad that this is not every year!

Perhaps if our city didn't shut down at the mere thought of snow, and perhaps if they used salt on the roads instead of sand, and maybe if people (including myself) knew how to drive in snow, then maybe maybe maybe that would be alright.

But we don't and because of this I almost got stuck at my little apartment all by myself on Christmas! Thankfully we had a break in the weather on Tuesday and my papa came in his four-wheel drive SUV and rescued me!!

Now I am with my family and we have been working hard! If you look at the picture below you can see how much snow has fallen over here. I also encourage you to notice our driveway and the fact that you can see the pavement. Yes, that is right.... yours truly took part in making that possible.

My driveway is steep. Some of you know this. At the time that my brother and I shoveled it the temperature outside was below freezing. So you can image my brother, in shorts and regular shoes, and myself digging under the snow only to find ourselves standing on a mound of ice!! Needless to say, we both took a couple of good falls!!

And now, to get you further into the Christmas spirit.... here is a video of my brother getting a beat down from his big sis! Enjoy!!! I know I did!!! :)

My Next Adventure

2008-12-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

There is a new idea on the floor.

After reading my blog, Buckles had an interesting proposition for me. He thought that I should also write a bit about places that I would like to travel to in the future. Since I am now back at home and reasons to write become fewer and far between (let’s face it daily life just seems dull when you are stuck in it), he thinks that I should start looking for my next adventure.

And I support him on that idea! So here we go:

PATAGONIA: Los Glaciares National Park & Ushuaia

Ushuaia es una ciudad de Argentina y es la zona mas austral habitada del mundo. Whoops I mean.... situated on the Beagle Strait, Ushuaia is the largest city in Argentine Tierra del Fuego and arguably the southernmost city in the world.

Although it seems to attract many tourists, I think it would be amazing to see how a city that far south functions and what kind of customs have sprung from this factor.

After exploring Ushuaia, I would want to take a plane or a tourist bus (note: there is no public transportation around Tierra Del Fuego) to El Calafate, a town that sits right on Lago Argentina. It is the main attraction of this town, 50 miles away, that is the reason from my curiosity in Patagonia in the first place.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is supposedly one of three glaciers in Patagonia that is still advancing. It is famous because it is dynamically changing which produces a cyclic phenomenon of forward and backward movement, with spectacular ice falls from its front wall.

I think it would be phenomenal to stand on a peak looking over this monstrous glacier carving its way down the mountain, moving with such force that it actually losing pieces of itself along the way!

So what do you think? Anyone interested in a journey south?

Introductions

2008-12-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

This is incredibly nerdy and thanks to facebook almost too easy. It may even be a little bit creepy to some but oh well.

I was thinking that as I progress down the road of bloggerdom, recounting tails of my crazy adventures for friends far away, I am not doing a good job of developing the characters for my audience. That is why I decided that as I go along I will include posts that introduce any new players in the game of Meg's Life. Now who knows how it will work but I am going to test it and go from there. Deal? Deal.

Alright, here is goes.

As you may know, I play volleyball. Although I never appreciated it in high school, it was my saving grace while studying abroad. From that experience, I learned that the best way to meet new people was to hop on a court and start swing away (or I guess I should say "set away"). I returned to Seattle to finish college but upon graduation the majority of my college friends moved out of the area. Alas, I was stuck in the same predicament that I had found myself in two years ago in England. Fortunately, I knew the secret.

I start showing up to the Ballard open gym almost a year ago. Every Tuesday. I was there. I went out afterwards. Stayed up past my bedtime. Often felt hungover the next morning. But in the end, I found myself surrounded by a fine young group of people that I now call friends.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to the Tuesday crew:

Jessica - Now you might not be able to tell it from this particular expression, but this girl is the loveliest girl on the face of the planet. Such a genuinely kind person, she was the first person to approach me on my first day. She greeted me with a cheery smile and is the reason I returned the next Tuesday.

Alicia - Also, incredibly kind and generous, you would never have guessed that this girl has done every job from training monkeys to teaching ESL. She also loves her Apple Martinis! Hehehe

Sarah - My most favorite yoga buddy, who lives right around the corner from where I used to live. She is outgoing, witty and never leaves home without her enormous laugh. She also never lets me leave volleyball without stopping at the bar for at least one drink. :) The sign of a true friend.

Chris - Sarah's fiance, is equally as witty as his lady love. He is a riot, dancing to his own tune... literally! He is the reason that the bartender at the Wingmaster gets off the phone from time to time. "Oh hey Jim the volleyball team just got here. Gotta go."

Kristie - A wild child from the East, this lady has a motorcycle, a dozen tattoos and an adopted great Dane named Rupert (who is my god dog!). She is my partner in crime although now that our schedules are completely opposite I barely ever get to see her. :(

Jon -Hmm what can I say about Jon? Only he is a nut. Don't leave him around a volleyball net alone. And never ever play him and his girlfriend at Shuffleboard!

Libby - An Oregon Duck from Alaska, she can drink me under the table and ironically, reminds me a lot of another certain volleyball lady from the very northern hemisphere. It seems that either time I am out with these ladies, I always end up a little more "happy" than I anticipated.

Buckles - Yes, that is right Buckles. Which is derived from his name, Buckley. I know. Crazy. He is also a Duck, and friend's with Libby from College. Don't let his rugged, mountain man features fool you, really he is just a huge teddy bear of fun and giggles. And yes, I said giggles.

Alright so that is it for now! Those are just a few of the people I play volleyball with on Tuesday evenings. Now whenever I write stories about volleyball evenings (Sarah's bday party is happening this weekend), the hardcore followers of this blog can use this as a reference. Plus when some of you come back to visit me, you will probably be forced to hang out with them. So you can put a name with a face before you even see them in person.

Creepy. :)

My Grandma's Trip to Africa

2008-11-30T17:03:00.000-08:00

My 86 year old Grandma recently returned from a three week trip to Tanzania.

First of all, I just need to say how awesome this is! Go Grandma! I hope that I am still traveling around the world with friends when I am that age!

My Grandma wanted to show the family all 300 of her pictures from the trip. So on a Sunday, Cole and I went over to my family's house for dinner and the slide show.

Grandma had some amazing pictures of the people she met, the places she stayed and or course, of the animals she saw. One particular set of images captured the mating rituals of a group of lions (insert brother's giggle here).

Now this is not exactly her same picture but a similar image proceed all of the mounting images. At which point, my grandma decided to explain to my whole family and Cole that "she [the lioness] is lying like that so the semen doesn't come out of her."

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?! Did my Grandma just say what I think she just said?

Yes she did! Cole and I exchanged glances and then the whole family burst into laughter.

I was a great moment!

I wanted to share this story with everyone because it cracked me up and I hope it made you smile too!

I appreciate my Grandma more than words can say and I am glad she continually surprises me! I would not have it any other way!

Love you Grandma!

My New Apartment

2008-11-24T21:02:00.000-08:00

I live with a boy. A very, very clean boy but still a boy.

For those of you who don't know, Cole and I moved in together this November.

We moved to a neighborhood called Phinney Ridge, which is on a hill in between Greenlake and Ballard.

Thanks to Google (scary), I can offer you a pretty cool tour of our neighborhood. I am starting you off at the Red Mill burger & Starbucks coffee shop where the road turns from Phinney Ave N to Greenwood Ave. Go north and check out the Stumbling Goat Bistro on 67nd and Greenwood Ave N‎ where I like to go to dinner with my friend Darlin. Then, go south to check out Sully's Tavern (on the corner of 62nd and Phinney Ave) where Cole and I play Trivial Pursuit Sports Edition from the 1960s!

View Larger Map

Our apartment used to be a one-story house that was split into a duplex. It is two bedrooms, has hard wood floors and a little area out back for a BBQ. We are still trying to work everything out, like getting a carpet and coffee table for the living room, but all-in-all it is a pretty cool little space. I will put up pictures when I have them.

If you want to see an exact image of the house and where it is on the block (yeah Google has that too!), email me and I will send you the link to check out!

I am really excited about this apartment and making it my own. I hope you all can come visit me sometime and I cannot wait to have my first party here. Yes, you heard that correctly. Meg will be throwing a party! Crazy! I know.

Enjoy the tour!

Oh and for those of you who have never meet Cole, here is a great little picture of him.... feeding a monkey!

Man, is he going to kill me! :)

A New Job

2008-11-19T12:58:00.000-08:00

Many of you know that I was looking for a job for what felt like an eternity. After a month of searching, anything was going to be better than nothing. However, I got lucky. At the end of September, a larger Seattle company decided that they wanted to try me on for size.

I am now working for them as a Web Content Producer. Sounds vague and frankly, it is. But I will attempt to describe what it is I do for all of you curious folk out there.

I work in a division of said company* that manages an ecommerce website. I am part of the Traffic Team for that site. What does that mean you wonder? Just as it sounds, my team’s goal in life is to drive as much traffic as possible to our little site. It sounds kind of silly but it is general enough where I get to deal with multiple facets of the company’s business. Marketing, syndication, strategy, etc.

Obviously, I do a lot of boring stuff. Pull Omniture reports (what an f***ing awful tool compared to G.Analytics!). Update information on the website via HTML. Write copy for promo material (what a joke… have you seen my spelling?). And general administrivia work regarding server organization and our archival process. Fun.

Overall though, it is pretty cool. And definitely a huge change from the 20 person company I used to be at. I am happy that I am here and looking forward to seeing how my time here works out.

*There will be no mention of the company name or of the channel that I work for due to security reasons. I am not planning on slandering the companyr, I just want to be extra cautious and stay off the big brother radar. You know how it goes.

And the blog continues on….

2008-11-18T12:31:00.001-08:00

I know it has been almost two months since my last entry but I can explain:

Finding a new job, finding a new apartment and getting cable set up at said new apartment takes up a lot of time!

But now that the storm is somewhat behind me, I can recount all the crazy events and news for you!

…Oh lucky you!

Coming soon - New posts :

1.) The New Job

2.) The New Apartment

3.) Introductions

Hope you enjoy!

The First Presidential Debate

2008-09-26T19:37:00.001-07:00

Tonight, TV on, Tweeter Feed open, I watched in horror as the presidential debates proceeded and the people of the United States responded. Here are just a couple of the individual response found on Tweeter this night:

joshmoody Seems like Obama was fighting out of the corner tonight. Stayed on defense. He came off rude and dodgy. McCain wins by TKO. #current

bjlayland #joshuaduffy McCain is telling the truth, Obama doesn't know the truth. #current

jguerrero #debate: obama gana puntos en economía, rusia. Pero en el aspecto de seguridad, ambos candidatos ignoraron a América Latina #current

Bonedwarf You know McCain should just stand there and sing "Mr. Self Destruct" by NIN. #current

MediaLizzy McCain: "I know how to heal the wounds of war" Best line of the night. #debate #current

**Resource: Tweeter feed #current

I live in Seattle. Blue, blue, blue, secluded Seattle. Where we pride ourselves on supporting homosexuality, fighting for the environment, being pro-choice, opposing war and pursing positive relationships with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, as the tweeter feeds rolled down the page this evening, it became evident that the Seattle mindset is not entirely the norm and that Mr. Obama has a hard race ahead of him.

This video appeared on YouTube about ten minutes after the debates ended http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec3aC8ZJZTc. Ugh.

Snow in August - Crystal Lake/Peak

2008-09-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

The Sunday before Labor Day, my family and I set out early in the morning to go for a hike. My dad and brother are training to climb Mt. Rainer so they decided it would be a good idea to practice climbing at a bit of elevation. So my parents choose Crystal Lake trail.

The day before the hike, I was told that the trail was 6 miles round trip and received a moderate from the hiking guidebook my mom held so dear to her heart. She told me to bring lots of water and layer my clothing. Here is what I wore the day of the hike:

Hiking shoes
Wool socks
Black Patagonia stretch pants (yes, the one's with the sewn hole in them)
A wife beater (good I hate that word)
T-shirt
Long sleeve hoodie
A Light Blue Sussex Sweatshirt
My Ski Jacket
A Space Needle baseball cap

*** Please note.... IT IS AUGUST!!!!!!!!

It took us about an hour and a half (this is why I love Seattle) to go from Seattle downtown where the temperature was 60 degrees to the beautiful Mt. Rainer National Park and a whopping 35 degrees!

The hike started off strong with switch backs for about twenty minutes. Once we reached the top of this part of the hike there was a fork. One way led to Crystal Lake and the other to Crystal Peak. I believe it was my dad who said that Peak sounded more difficult so lets take that path.

** The Beginning

Well difficult was right! After about two hours we still had not reached the "peak". And as we trekked higher and higher, the weather began to change. Instead of the misty gloom that Seattle is famous for, it began to snow. Perfect white flacks that sat on the ground for a couple of seconds before disappearing into the dark dirt.

Now for some of you, this must sound fantastic but let me remind you what my family was prepared for. My brother had regular trainers on and no real jacket. My mother was the ONLY person who had gloves. My father was wearing shorts (although he did bring his golf cover-ups). And I had these thin yoga-type pants on!!!

** Notice Dad's shorts!!!

WE WERE FREEZING!!!

** Notice how high up we are.... yes it was beautiful but it was also really high up! We had started our journey down by the river in the background!

We finally decided to stop for lunch. Since we were past the tree level, we had to find a spot that sheltered us from the wind. It was still snowing as mom and dad unpacked the backpack and cut up tomatoes and onions for our sandwiches. My blood sugar was so low that I immediately went for the Kettle's baked, not fried, organic, whole wheat, sans-trans fat, organic, green, festive, happy, wholesome potato chips.

As I stuffed the chips into my mouth, I began to fantasize about how delicious they were going to be wedged in between my turkey sandwich. However, the next moment crushed any hope I had of enjoying this dream.

Meg - Mom, where is the turkey meat?
Mom - [Blank stare]
-
-
-
-
-
[Long Pause]
-
-
-
-
-
Mom - I forgot it.
Family - WHAT!?!?!?!?!

Anyway, long story short, we sat on the slope of the mountain eating onion and tomato sandwiches, freezing and still not at the "peak" yet.

There isn't a happy ending to this story. We didn't make it to the top. But actually, it turned out to be a happy ending. No one got hurt and my brother and I sang every single song we could think of all the way down the mountain. Needless to say no bears bothered us that day

P.S. There might even be a YouTube video of the singing incident! Lucky you!

Pig in a box - Orcas Island

2008-08-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Sisson family has a yearly tradition known to outsiders as The Sisson Family Pig Roast but to seasoned vets as "three days of debauchery". Yes. Three days.

This year I was able to experience this event first-hand.

It all started on a Friday morning. Cole and I, along with two of his friends, drove two hours north of Seattle to Anacortes, WA. We caught the ferry there to Orcas Island, Cole's hometown. Upon arrival, the gang immediately set a course straight for Lower Tavern, a bar in East Sound that honestly has the best burgers. And beer... of course! They even have bottles of the Elysian's Immortal IPA (only my most favoritest beer ever!)!!!

Stuffed and ready to rock-n-roll, we picked up supplies from the market and headed towards Doe Bay, where Cole's family house is located.
** In the background: The Sisson Household!

On arrival at the Sisson residence, we learned from Mr. Gary Sisson himself that a boat trip to Lopez Island was necessary in order to retrieve Cole's youngest sibling/brother, Herbie Tucker. He had been camping on Lopez with his mom and let me tell you the "quick" ride across the Puget Sound ended up being a bit more taxing than the boat ride I took with Monna, Sven and Claudio through the lake in Finland. Not only does a sound have more waves that a lake but Henrik's boat went half the speed that Gary's did! I am not sure whether or not that was the fault of the boat or of it's driver. :)

As we traveled between the two islands, we passed another ferry on it's way to Orcas from Anacortes. A quick call on Cole's cellphone and we discovered that his youngest sister, Sophie, and a group of her friends from Western (for you international people that is Western Washington University) were actually traveling on the very boat in front of us. Craziness!

** Sophie is the one on the left! :)

The girls arrived at the house shortly after we returned from our adventures at sea. We hung out, played Rock Band and began preparation for the day to come.

** Herbie and the ladies rockin' out.

As the night went on more people began to arrive, including Molly, Cole's other sister, and her entourage. At one o'clock in the morning, the work began.

A pig, gutted and drained, sat on a piece of plywood in the middle of Gary's workshop.

It was going to be placed in a box, covered with a sheet of metal which was then going to be covered with burning coals and cooked for almost 15 hours. There was only one problem. The pig was too big for the box.

Enter the Japanese hand saw.

Yep. You guessed it. If the shoe doesn't fit, just cut off a couple toes!

No really, bad analogy, but in order to make the pig fit into the box, we had to cut off the head and the legs. Now this may seem grotesque and vile to some of you but in my mind, it is necessary to understand so I actually participated in sawing off one of the legs. I figure whenever we eat any kind of meat, someone somewhere had to butcher the animal for us to enjoy it. So similar to Mike Rowe's philosophy on Dirty Jobs, I wanted to "gain a new understanding and appreciation for all the often-unpleasant functions someone is shouldering to make [my] everyday life easier, safer — and often cleaner."*

Here is a picture of the finished product... in the box!!!!

*** Yummy!!!!

There are two more days to this story but for now I think you have had enough... that and it is early in the morning and I need sleep. So more on this fantastic event to come! Aren't you excited?!?

Set sail

2008-08-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

George Gray - Spoon River Anthology

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me--
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

Thank you Claudio!

Concluding thoughts on my summer trip of 2008

2008-08-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes things happen for a reason. You go with your instincts, leave your comfort zone and find yourself in situations you couldn't possibly dream of. This trip was one of those occasions.

Experiences shape who we become. And this trip definitely had a huge impact on me. I not only was able to learn more about the people I traveled with but also about myself and my relationship to the world around me.

I have been back for only a month and already the world has changed. Russia has invaded Georgia. The 2008 Beijing Olympics are currently underway. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, has resigned. And Obama is announcing his VP candidate via text message.. just to name a few events.

So where does that leave me? What exactly did I learn on this trip?

The answer: Travel. As much as you can. Whenever you can. To places you might be uncomfortable in.

This is not a revelation. Just something I hold particularly close to my heart.

Thank you to Sven, Monna and Claudio for putting up with me for those three weeks. I had an incredible time! You guys are my family now and I love you all very much!

Thank you to Monna's family. Kiitos. Kiitos. Kiitos. For taking in three foreigners with particularly peculiar personalities! Yes, Sven, I am talking about you as well!

Thank you to my family and friends back in the United States who told me I would be a fool to pass up such a wonderful opportunity and who supported me throughout the trip and now support me back at home. I could not do it without you guys.

And thank you to everyone who has lasted this long reading my blog. It really means a lot to me. I have enjoyed writing each post so I have decided to continue posting. Although it will not necessarily be about international travel anymore (or at least for a little while), it will still be about my adventures in the world around me! I am sure you all are waiting with breath that is bated! ;) See you again soon!

Riga and the birthday no one will forget!

2008-08-08T17:09:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Riga and immediately breathed a sigh of relief. The border crossing the night before had been interesting. It began at 2 in the morning and there were two checks. One with the Russian border. And one with the Latvian border. They were an hour apart. Fun. The only thing I really remember was when the Russian border patrol lady asked me a question about my visa in Russian. I stared blankly at her. I turned to Monna and Sven (we were all in the same cabin this time)and Sven immediately tried to tell me what to do. But the words came out of his mouth all wrong. I didn't understand him! It took me a couple minutes to realize that he was speaking to me in German, which he obviously didn't realize himself. Anyway, it was too much for my brain to be processing at 2a.m so I just nodded my head. Not really sure what I nodded about.

Our hostel was really close to the train station and it was another winner! Thanks Monna! It had internet in every single dorm room and leopard everything! From the toilet set cover to the stools in all the rooms to the comforters on the beds. Awesome.

** You can see the bedding... wild!

Riga is a small city. Similar to Tallinn, the city is centered around an old town area. However, unlike Tallinn, Riga surrounds the old town with canals and beautiful gardens!

** Gorgeous!

We walked all over the city and eventually settled down in one of the cute town squares to have a pint of cider and (beer for Sven).

It was sunny and beautiful. And I could feel the ocean air. I always forget how important the sea is to my state of being. It was strange in Moscow because, obviously being inland, the only body of water it had was a river that ran through the center of the city. Unfortunately, a river is not enough for me. I was glad to be by the sea again.

The next day, we traveled to the beaches about 45 minutes outside of Riga. Growing up in San Diego, I had no expectations of what the beach was going to be like. All I have to say about it is... go there. It was amazing. The shoreline stretched for miles and was covered with beach goers. Monna pointed out how it felt like Spain but more green. Crazy.

*** Don't check us out! Check out the beach behind us! :)

Not only was it a great beach day, but this day was a very special day for another reason. It was Monna's 25th birthday! And the last leg of our trip together. Fortunately, and unfortunately, both cameras ran out of batteries. So we have only a few pictures of the events that followed our day on the beach. What I can say of the evening is this(sorry to be so cryptic):
- Champagne with a cherry in the glass?

- The trip: In Review
- "Two for one" at the Cuban Bar
- The Orange Bar and the New Yorkers
- The club (what was the name?) and the South Africans
- The walk home, "What was his name? I think it was Alex." and the poor guys walking behind us, at least they were entertained!

Monna and I woke up the next morning in the worst states I think I have ever seen us! The day was rough. Our flight did not leave until 11:30pm so we had to figure out what to do with ourselves until then. Let's just say Monna wanted to check into another hotel. For the day.

Needless to say, as awful as we felt that morning, our time in Riga was definitely a success. Monna had a wonderful and absolutely unforgettable birthday which was all we could have hoped for! :) Happy birthday honey!!!

Murky Moscow and the "Beautiful" Square

2008-08-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

I know all of these posts are popping up a bit late and in sporadic increments but it is important to me to try and flush out the stories that made up my adventure in Scandinavia and Russia. I only apologize that I could not make all these posts while traveling.

Where did we leave off? Oh yes, we were tired, hung over and sweltering in Moscow's heat.

After disembarking the train, we quickly made our way over to the hostel. We stayed at a place called Godzilla's hostel. Nice place. Friendly staff. It was a delightful change to our dreary St. Petersburg residence, although not quite as cool as Euphoria in Tallinn.

After some much needed showers, we walked from our hostel down to Red Square. And all I could do was stand there. Floored, flabbergasted but mostly just stunned. This was it for me. The reason I had pushed my friends so hard to go to this country. It was all standing in front of me. At that moment, I really wished my dad was there with me. He was the one that got me into history in the first place. He was the reason I enjoy the history channel and documentaries on war. And he was the one who influenced my decision to become a world traveler. If he could only have seen this! One day I will take him back there!

**Can you tell that I was excited???

The Kremlin and Saint Basil's Cathedral were more massive and impressive than I could have ever imagined. I think the layout of the square only enhanced their magnificence! I could not believe that I was standing in a place with so much history. History that I only slightly understood. How would I have felt if I were Monna and I was in the country that had controlled and shed the blood of my ancestors? I am sure it would have been quite a different feeling. Or if I was Sven, who's ancestors had fought and died horrifically during World War II on this countries soil? Again, I couldn't image.

** The walls of the Kremlin

I am really glad my friends came with me though. I could tell that there were many moments in Moscow when we all wished we were back on the island in Finland. But I am grateful that they pulled through and appreciated the experience.

Fortunately, we didn't try to push ourselves in Moscow. It was so hot and completely different from any place we had been in Scandinavia. Instead of being uber tourists and walking every road in the city, we took our time. We would stroll to a local park. There we would sit in the grass, reading books, eating Finnish food that was imported to our local market, listening to music and observing the passersby.

** Monna and I sunbathing in a park in the center of the city. Don't worry we were not the only ones!

We left Russia on a Latvian train to Riga. It was another overnight train but this time it was completely different to our previous experience. The train had bottled water, tea cookies, a cream-colored doily, and a small little vase with a couple fake flowers in it on the center table. We skipped out on the Lonkero and the shots of cognac in favor of sleeping the fifteen hours to Riga. And this time I actually slept!

Interesting fact: Did you know that the "red" in Red Square has nothing to do with the red bricks of the square or even Communism? As it turns out the Russian word for red has a double meaning. It translates as "red" and "beautiful", however, the latter is an archaic meaning.

St. Petersburg to Moscow - Train Journey Part I

2008-07-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

I will never be able to capture the debacle that was our train journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. It began with shots of cognac and ended in a plethora of noises, emotions, and ultimately Moscow's heat!

The duration of the overnight train journey was ten hours. At first, Monna, Sven and I anticipated taking a five hour "express" train early in the morning. As it turns out that train didn't exist so we had to leave the night before, much to Claudio's chagrin (He wasn't scheduled to fly out until the next morning). So we said goodbye to Claudio at the hostel and headed to the train station.

We left St. Petersburg as the thunder clapped, the rain poured and the lightening lit up the heavens. Typical.

We decided to celebrate our first Russian overnight train journey with nothing other than Finnish Lonkero.

It was a good decision given what was in store for us.

We boarded the train and settled into our separate cabins (Sven in one and Monna and I in the other). The other people in Sven's cabin (four per cabin) did not speak any English. Neither did the two Russians in our cabin. Sven was only able to communicate with his group through sign language. And the only sign language they understood was the sign for taking a shot. Four shots of cognac later, I happened to walk in to his cabin. Now I was forced to "engage" in the conversation with them!!!

Needless to say the party ended up in Monna and my cabin. Again typical. :) We hosted about half the train til around 2am.

By three, after Russian folk music and debauchery, we all called it quits.

6:00 AM: A.k.a. not time to get up. Suddenly I am wide awake. Not sure why, I turn over to get out of my bed. Wrong move. Two of the Russians from the evening had decided that they would enjoy fornicating in our cabin. Thus making the noises that inevitably woke me up. Awesome.

We arrived in Moscow with a hangover, not a whole lot of sleep, and 32 degrees Celsius. Ouch.

Now obviously this is only the outlined version. Like I said before , the full version can only be found inside the heads of Sven, Monna and myself. Which is probably a good thing! :)

"Venice of the North" - St. Petersburg

2008-07-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

As was common for most of our trip, we were sent off by Finland and the island with a bout of rain!

Thankfully, Henrik was prepared and gave us all rain gear for the boat ride to shore!

We traveled St. Petersburg directly from Finland via train. Interestingly enough, we had no issues crossing the boarder into Russia. I was prepared though. I had my little piece of paper in hand that explained (in Russian!) my purpose in the country as well as the reason my invitation only list Moscow as the singular destination. Thank you Spoonde!

In the afternoon, we arrived at the train station to this....

Калінінградская вобласць з'яўляецца анклавам, і асноўная тэрыторыя Расіі пачынаецца ўсходней, пад 27°17’ у.д., на мяжы Расіі з Эстоніяй, на беразе ракі Педэдзе. Такім чынам, працягласць тэрыторыі Расіі з поўначы на поўдзень перавышае 4 тыс. км, з захаду на ўсход — набліжаецца да 10 тыс. км. Агульная працягласць межаў Расіі — 60 933 км

.....well not exactly but I think you all get the picture. (Yes, Claudio, I know you can decipher a bit of this and yes, it is the wikipedia entry for Russia in Russian. :) Thanks.)

Russian has a completely different alphabet structure. So all of those times in France and Spain when you can deduce the meaning of a word based on a Latin root become completely irrelevant.

Fortunately, Claudio picked up on the language pretty quickly. He was able to find cafes and read menus. Which in our group are two very important skills. Sven, with Claudio's help, was then able to navigate the subway, which enabled us to reach our hostel and ultimately travel around the city! :)

On our second day in St. Petersburg we had the best luck possible. This fabulous little website called Couchsurfing sent us a welcome gift in the form of Dasha Safronova. She is a native of St. Petersburg and speaks German and English sublimely. She gave us one of the best and most comprehensive tours of a city I have ever had. She told us that due to all the water ways in the city, St. Petersburg was known throughout Europe as the Venice of the North. Pretty cool, huh? We ate traditional Russian food and went with her to watch Zenit FC beat some random team from Moscow. She spent 10 hours with us, culminating in a Russian dance party at a local bar! Now that is a way to get to know a city!

Some pictures of the city, the people and the events that transpired:

** Monna and I in front of the Hermitage Museum

** Dasha and Sven at the bar where we watched the football game

* Monna and I on the dance floor in the bar that evening. Dark? I know. :)

"Ankka, ankka, ankka" - The Finnish Island

2008-07-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in a hostel in Riga right now. It is called the Tiger hostel and compared to all the other hostels I have ever stayed in it is like a hotel. For one, it has Internet in every single dorm room. Meaning that, unlike Russia, I can update my blog. Unfortunately, I am very far behind. I have left Finland, traveled through Russia and now I am in Riga. So now I have the arduous task of recounting previous events.

First up, the Finnish island!

Located an hour and a half north of Kouvola, the island is truly isolated in the middle of a lake. Monna's sister, Sanna, was nice enough to take all four of us down to the lake. There we meet Johan, Monna's cousin, who swiftly put all our stuff in a little boat and drove us out to the island.

**View on the island from the beach

From the water, you can barely see the three cottages that belong to Monna's family. They are all somewhat hidden by the trees. Each has its own sauna and outdoor toilet.

**The sauna, also the sleeping quarters of Sven and Claudio

We stayed there for two nights and needless to say, on the first day, when the weather finally turned sunny, none of us were too keen on leaving for Russia.

Monna's relatives made sure we felt very welcome on their island. The evening we arrived Annika, Monna's Aunt, and her husband Henrik hosted a family dinner for us at their cottage. Johan grilled a delicious leg of something (I believe it was lamb) for us and Annika and Minna, Johan's partner, prepared salmon lox and herring with new potatoes. We were also joined at the table by Patrik, Monna's cousin, his son, Leon, as well as Johan and Minna's son Peik. It was truly a lovely meal!

The next day Henrik took us on a boat tour of the lake. It was massive. I enjoyed riding around in the boat and peering into the lives of the various Finnish households on the lake.

Every evening we went for a sauna. Girls and then boys (they have their saunas quite hot!). The deal was that after the sauna you had to run and jump straight into the lake. Well let me tell you, that lake is COLD! But after a sauna it feels oh so refreshing! Either way it was a great way to end the evenings!

Weirdly enough I have been traveling for awhile now and this was the first place that actually felt like a vacation and not just another backpacking trip. Which was good. It left our spirits high in anticipation for what was to come... Russia!

COMING TOMORROW..... Our trip through Russia!

P.S. "Anka" means duck in Finnish! Sorry for not including that the first time around! :)

In the middle of Finnish nowhere!!! :)

2008-07-09T11:10:00.001-07:00

It has been a couple days since my last post. Let me assure you I am still alive and well, but I am simply out in the Finnish countryside enjoying my very limited access to the internet.

I am currently staying at Monna´s parent´s house in Ristiina.

You can see how remote their house is in the picture above. It is lovely. Quiet. Serene. We have been relaxing all week doing only the things we love. For example....

Fishing

Acrobatics

Sunbathing

Baking

And target practice!!!!

But most importantly, going to the sauna!!!!

Overall, it has been a very enjoyable couple of days!

Next plan on the agenda is to travel further into the countryside and visit the family island before we take a train to St. Petersburg! No more posts until Russia.

Happy Fourth of July... from Helsinki

2008-07-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

I have the best friends on the face of the planet! Honestly. They put up with my rooing and laugh at me when I am silly. But the most amazing thing this trip is that they helped me throw the best Fourth of July party Finland has ever seen! Complete with that stupid cake. You know the one that has the berries and looks like an American flag!

More on that is a sec. First, I must give you a current status report:
Current counrty - Finland
Current residence - La casa de Jatta (Monna´s Aunt, whom I had the pleasure of staying with in Rome the last time I was out this way!!!)
Participants - Monna, Sven , myself and now, newly arrived, Claudio!

We have been in Helsinki for two days. Yesterday, we went on a sight-seeing tour that include the churchs, harbor....

***Sven in Senate Square

and it´s open air market. You can get some unusual things at this market including a necklace made out of reindeer antler. :)

***Me eating weird food from the market

Today, we went to the Suomenlinna fortress, a small island off the coast of Helsinki. We had lunch there and enjoyed watching the tourists mix with the locals (who visit the island often in the summer).

***Claudio and Monna on the boat to the island

Alright now back to my party. Since it was Fourth of July and actually I think the first time I have not been in the states for it, I decided that I was going to bring Fourth of July to Finland. My friends were up for the challange.

I put together the menu (and the grocery list) and then we all braved the grocery store to see what ingredients we could actually get in Finland. Before I walked into the store I was already worried about the ready-made box cake!

I put Sven in charge of the grilling. Claudio and Monna were in charge of the potato salad and the drinks. And I was incharge of the cole slaw and finally and most importantly, the flag cake!

It was brilliant. Sven cooked the meat to perfection and actually ended up helping me with the cole slaw (because I haven´t ever really made it myself!!)… okay, okay and also with the potato salad. But the cake was all me! And it was lovely!
We all gathered outside on Jatta´s terrace and were quite happy with the result. Jatta even provided Looney Toones napkins that were red, white and blue.

COMING SOON – The video of me singing the National Anthem as I brought the cake out to the table. There might have been a bit of Lonkero involved. ;)

Now with pictures!!!

2008-07-05T12:34:00.000-07:00

Sven finally got a couple of the pictures off his camera and so I have uploaded them to my Hatfield post. Check them out!

The Tower of Fat Margaret - Tallinn

2008-07-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

Travelling to Tallin by boat was a very interesting experience. I have been on a Cruise ship before but nothing like this. However, first, I must describe the events that lead up to us leaving Stockholm.

The cruise ship to Tallinn was to leave at six oclock on Tuesday evening. The morning was lovely. Monna and I went over to Skansen, the open-air museum in the center of Stockholm. We saw reindeer, elf and bears, oh my! Later, we went on a boat tour through one of the canals and then met up with Miki for our last coffee at the Museum of Modern Art.

Fortunately, while having coffee with Mikki, we realized that due to bus strikes it was going to be a bit challenging to get to the ferry terminal. Basically involving the metro but more terrifying navigating the streets to find the right dock. So we left Mikki with map in hand and returned to her apartment to pack the rest of our things.

As we turned the final corner before her apartment, the clouds broke and it began to rain. My only thought was "just a little, please, just a little!". Once up at Mikkis apartment it was clear that a little was not going to happen. Now it was dumping, and I mean hard! All of a sudden, I began to flash back to the little town in Morocco, where Cole and I had to run through the streets barefoot because we were literally up to our ankles in water! How was I going to manage that in Stockholm though? I have a fifteen pound backpack and about a 25 minute hike to the ferry terminal! Needless to say, Monna and I prepared the best we could. We put on our lightest clothing and headed out to face the rain.

Apparently, the travel gods like us a little because as we marched up the hill towards the closest metro station the rain began to stop! And we managed to make it all the way to the Tallinn ferry terminal without seeing another drop! Phew.

The Tallinn ferry was huge. 10 floors. And who knows how many feet long but a proper cruise ship. Monna and I had a little cabin to ourselves on the eighth deck. That evening we decided to participate in some of the cruises evening activities. Oh wait, no, I decided to participate. Long story short I ended up sing Madonnas "Material Girl" on stage to a crowd of clueless Estonians (and a couple Swedes) who had, apparently, NEVER heard this song before! What!?! Awesome.

With my new found embarrassment, I decided it could not get any worse so Monna and I went down to one of the "clubs" and danced the night away on a partially empty dance floor. The only other people around us where men who obviously had no interest in us ladies.

So now we are in Tallinn. With Sven. Staying in a pretty awesome hostel called Euphoria. The hostel is far enough from Old Town to be cheap but close enough to Old Town so that we can simply walk in. We will stay here for the night and then leave tomorrow afternoon sometime.

*** Food we ate at Old Hansen!!! Yummy!

*** Monna and I with our favorite accessories!!!!

More to come in a bit.... cheers! Miss you all!

Vasa and the Swedes

2008-06-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I have travelled to Brighton, met up with Monna and flown to Stockholm.

My only comment in regards to my time in between Hatfield and Stockholm is that the English have really done well at creating their own little hell-on-earth in the form of Londons Heathrow airport. I know this is somewhat of a nearsighted comment, however, when you are sitting on the tarmac for an extra hour and a half in the smallest, most uncomfortable seats on the face-of-the-planet and have "missed your window" to fly over Denmark and now need to re-queue for take off, you really dont care much about any of it. All you know is... Heathrow = hell!!!!!

Okay alright. Enough negativity. Its all over. Somehow I got to Sweden and it is wonderful!

For all you Seattleites, Stockholm truly is a home away from home. It is green and clean. The people are friendly and very active. The food is healthy and delicious.

I was very lucky because I got the opportunity to stay with Mikki (pronounced like Mickey), Monnas cousin. Not only is she a lovely woman but she has kindly opened up her home to us and also helped us understand a little about the world of Stockholm (like how to pay for the metro and buses).

Today was a lovely day, although it started out pouring cats and dogs!

This morning we made our way, successfully, on the metro to Gamla Stan, the old city and went on a short self-guilded tour. Then, we headed over to the Vasa Museum, opposite of the the Museum of Modern Art. Vasa has got to be one of the most interesting museums I have ever been to. This museum is dedicated to the Swedish warship, Vasa. Built in only two years, the ship sank twenty minutes into her 1628 maiden voyage! After 333 years at the bottom of Stockholms harbor, she was raised and perserved for all to see! Yippie!

***I will be using stock images until I can replace them with my actual pictures!

Believe it or not by the time we were finished at the museum it was nearly five oclock. We hopped on the metro and headed back to Mikkis. But not before stopping at the grocery store to pick up dinner. What a trip! All I can say is if youre in a foreign country make sure to stop at a place that sells food because it is so weird to see new labels and brands as well as food that you dont even recognize!

After that experience, Monna and I made dinner. And then we sat on the terrace and had dinner until about eleven oclock. Did I mention it was still light out? Gosh, I love Sweden!

In Hatfield, UK

2008-06-26T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I made it to the UK in one piece! It was a long flight but I kept reminding myself that it was not as long as it would be if I had immediately gone on a second plane to South Africa. That would have been a long flight!

I am now at Sven´s house in Hatfield. It is a very nice two bedroom flat, with a very comfy couch that is great for watching Euro cup games.

It is currently 12:56 am. I woke up this morning at nine and have been up ever since. Needless to say, I am pretty impressed with my current state. I visited Sven´s Uni this morning where he is currently working on his PhD. One note, when Sven said he worked with Lego robots, he was not kidding.

After that we took the train into London. Man, it has been a long time since I was in that city. It is fast and full of pollen! I forget how much I react to it. We picked up Sven´s Russian visa, went to Harrod´s and then attended a volleyball training session. By the time I was playing on the court, Sven could tell that I had no energy.

I slept crunched in the fetal position on the train back to Hartford. However, somehow I seemed to tap into the last bit of energy I had left and the night ended in a heated discussion about the supreme courts ruling on individual gun rights. Intense. Difficult. But always fun.

I promise not all my post will be a play-by-play of my day but given it is now 1:08am I don´t think I could have come up with anything better!

Cheers! And good nighiitttttttttttttttttttttttttttsssssssssssssssssssssss... whoops just fell asleep on the keyboard. :) Goodnight!

My Upcoming Trip

2008-06-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

I leave this Tuesday on my next adventure and before I go I thought it might be beneficial for my friends and family to know where I am going and who I will be traveling with.

For those of you who don’t know, I studied abroad my junior year in college at the University of Sussex. The Uni is located in Brighton, an hour south of London. While I was there I ended up playing volleyball for the school team, which is where I meet the three people who will be accompanying me on this trip.

Sven, Claudio and Monna all joined the team at roughly the same time I did.

Sven (above) is from Germany and does something with robots. It is too complicated for me to explain but perhaps he can add a comment at the end of this post to clarify! :) He is currently living a bit north of London and finishing his PhD.

Claudio (on the right) is Italian. (p.s. sorry for your loss today, Claudio!) He is living in Rome and since I have not had a full update yet I can't really say what he is up to.

Monna (the one on the right) is Finnish and she is the reason for this whole trip. See we have all traveled to each others respective homelands. Sven and Monna visited me here is Seattle. Monna and I went to see Claudio in Italy. And I went to Sven’s hometown in Germany. However, as you can tell we have not been anywhere near Finland yet. Monna = not happy about this. Thus the trip was born.

Since crossing the pond is not only expensive but creates on awful lot of pollution, I decided to add a few other destinations to the itinerary while I was over there.

Here is my plan: I fly into Heathrow. Spend a couple days in Brighton catching up with old friends (and adjusting to the time change). Then Monna and I will fly to Stockholm for a couple days. I believe (correct me if I am wrong) that Claudio meets us in Stockholm and then the three of us take the night ferry over to the capital of Estonia, Tallinn. Sven meets up with us there, where we assume we will take advantage of the sights as well as the quick hour ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki. After a day or two in Helsinki, we are planning to venture into the crazy Finish wilderness and hang out with Monna’s parents for a week. From the parent’s house, we plan to train to St. Petersburg then to Moscow and finally to the capital of Latvia, Riga. It is at this point that we all must return to reality. We fly back to the UK from Riga and then two days later I fly home to lovely Seattle, where July 4th will have passed and the weather will be wonderful for the rest of the summer. Yes, I have already knocked on wood. Don't worry.

So there you have it folks! Obviously, there is more to come but for now that is all she wrote!