Santa Claus is Coming to School

B.J. Stolbov
Art and Culture, Foreign Language, Personal essay, cultural immersion, holiday tradtions, holiday volunteering

by B.J. Stolbov 

As the only (old) white man with a (long) white beard in my rural Filipino community of Northern Luzon, I get the exceedingly great pleasure every December of being Santa Claus.

I am a volunteer high school teacher. My first year here, I was asked to play Santa Claus at my high school’s Christmas assembly.  I excitedly volunteered.  Dressed in a red t-shirt and red jogging pants (the colors of our school), my black rubber swamp tromping boots (cleaned), a red cap with battery operated white blinking stars, my wire-rimmed glasses, and my long white beard, I, Santa Claus, appeared from the back of the stage of the school gymnasium to loud amplified blaring Christmas music. 

One thousand students went wild. This was my ultimate rock star Santa Claus moment. I strode across the stage waving, and then waded down into the roaring crowd.  Carrying a red bag filled with candy, I threw handfuls of candy everywhere.  It was almost a sugar frenzy riot. Everyone loves Santa Claus. No wonder he does this!  What a rush! I felt like Santa Claus. 

Next year, I was again invited to play Santa Claus.  But not only at my high school, where now, of course, everyone knew me; but also at an elementary school, where few, if any, of the kids knew me.  I cheerfully accepted.

I arrived at the elementary school dressed in regular clothes, with my Santa outfit hidden in my tightly folded red bag.  The principal of the school had made all the arrangements, agreeing with me that no one, except for a few teachers, would know that Santa Claus was coming to their school.  In the principal’s office, I changed into my Santa outfit. 

Searching for Happiness with a child in Copenhagen

Jenny McBain
Lifestyle, cultural musings, Family Travel, Personal essay

by Jenny McBain

Perhaps my nine-year-old son has the makings of a therapist.  A Scottish friend was hosting us in his deluxe apartment in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile the ancient street which wends its way from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace.   In addition to owning a number of desirable properties, my friend is in possession of a title and sports a   "Sir" in front of his name; but wealth did not buy him happiness feeling distinctly discontent when he sought my son’s council. 

Death by Earthquake (Kit)

Jules Older
Environmental Commentary, Life Lessons, Personal essay, cultural musings

by Jules Older  

Inspired by the new California Academy of Sciences exhibit, EARTHQUAKE, we decided to check our earthquake kit.

Yes, we have one. We’re prudent Bay Area citizens, and like most Bay Area citizens, prudent and otherwise, we live on a fault line.

The Big One is coming and coming soon—more on that, below—so get your earthquake kit in order. We did.

But it had been how long since we put that kit together? Five years? No, more like eight. Maybe we ought to check it.

Maybe you should check yours. Ours came as something of a surprise.  

Eight years ago, we’d bought a large plastic bin that just fit the living room closet. In it, along with a few other items, we neatly packed canned beans and pesto, a can opener and plastic forks, crank-operated flashlight and radio, wipes and toilet paper, canned fruit and toothbrushes, candles and matches, disinfectant and Band-Aids, and, for reasons that now escape us, exactly forty-seven dollars. 

Sealed it up and stuck it in a cool, dry place next to the ski jackets. Should last forever. We’re earthquake-ready—rock on. 

Funny how fast eight years roll by. Until the Academy exhibit, we forgot all about our kit in a closet. Never opened it once.

Then, we did. Eight years later, it had shrunk… and grown.

Traveling the Side Roads

Traveling the Side Roads

Barbara Benjamin
Lifestyle, Off-the-beaten path destination, Personal essay, cultural immersion

by Barbara Benjamin

People travel for many reasons: to get away from the routines of daily life; to face a new challenge, to see new sights, or just to kick back and relax. I travel to experience new cultures, to come away knowing what it is like, day by day, to live in a place I’ve never lived in before. So, when I travel, I always travel on the side roads. Rather than booking accommodations at a travel agent’s favorite resort or hotel, I often land in another country I’m visiting without reservations, and, speaking to the airport cab driver or questioning some locals I meet on the road, I find out where I can rent a house. Occasionally, I am able to find a house far away from the tourist areas that is advertised in my hometown newspaper or on the Internet, and I can book in advance.

Adventures of a Cookbook Traveler

Adventures of a Cookbook Traveler

Dorty Nowak
Culinary Travel, cultural musings, travel essay

by Dorty Nowak

I collect cookbooks the way others collect travel books. More than souvenirs of places I have been, they help me recreate memories and whet my appetite for further trips. Over the years, I’ve accumulated an impressive library, with Europe, Asia and the Americas grouped together on my bookshelf. When I open Provence, the Beautiful Cookbook, and look at a picture of glossy tomatoes clustered with deep green zucchinis, papery garlic, and branches of rosemary I can taste the wonderful ratatouille I had in Nice, and I’m there once again.


I developed a taste for culinary travel early. My mother, who hated to cook, had a limited repertoire, which reflected her German-Irish roots. Meat, potatoes and vegetables cooked to a uniform grey were standard fare and I could usually predict what we would have for dinner by the day of the week. The Joy of Cooking was the mainstay of her library. It was, and is, a no-nonsense compendium of recipes, with no pictures to grace its pages. When I was fortunate to travel to Europe in college, the pleasure of sampling new foods and the beautifully illustrated cookbooks I collected were almost as exciting as touring the sights.

Use It Or Lose It: A Japanese Tea Story

Use It Or Lose It: A Japanese Tea Story

Jean Kepler Ross
Art and Culture, Culinary Travel, cultural musings

Thirty years ago, I was dazzled by my action-packed month visiting a friend and his family in Japan. They live in Fukui Prefecture near the Sea of Japan, but I gazed in wonder at the Gion Festival and temples in Kyoto, kabuki theater in Tokyo, the deer park in Nara and Himeji castle from Shogun days. The most delicate and intimate thing I recall was a tea ceremony performed by a friend of my friend at her home.

Bathing an Elephant

Jane Spencer
adventure travel, exotic travel, travel essay

by Jane Spencer 

 

“Guess what?  I rode an elephant in Nepal!”

My five-year-old grandson was not impressed.  “You rode one of those dirty, smelly things?” He’s very sensitive to unfamiliar odours and textures. 

“Well, we gave her a bath,” I elaborated, over the phone.

Weeks later, I was still thrilled with my visit to Chitwan National Park in Nepal.  The park, located in the terai or subtropical lowlands of the country, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a diversity of ecosystems (forests, ox-bow lakes and flood plains), animals (rhinos, sloth bears, deer, crocodiles), and birds (hornbill, kingfishers and peacocks). Elephant numbers there have grown to fifty.  They live in a protected environment in exchange for safari labour, with a guarantee they won’t be transported to zoos or hunted for ivory. 

It was my first safari and my first contact with elephants. Our group of four was guided to a platform with stairs which we took turns mounting, before lowering ourselves into a box frame roped around the elephant’s girth.  The elephant trainer, or mahout, wielded his sharp metal hook and shouted an order, then we were off into the grasslands to search for one-horned rhinos, and maybe, if we were lucky, a Bengal tiger.

An Alien Universe

Elyn Aviva
Travel Humor, travel writing

by Elyn Aviva

Unwittingly, my husband, Gary, and I walked into an alternative virtual reality. We were surrounded by aliens who looked human. Aliens who spoke a language that sounded like English, but their vocabulary was subtly different. Words like “ROI,” “SEO,” and “hashtags” peppered their speech. 

And they communicated with odd body language. Although they seemed to be talking to each other, they rarely made eye contact. Instead, they stared intently at small, vibrating, hand-held devices with brightly lit screens. And they kept tapping these strange pieces of equipment, sometimes with one finger, sometimes with several, or sometimes with their opposable thumbs. Occasionally, their eyes flicked up from the screen to glance around. But only for a moment.

Into what strange world had we wandered? An international travel bloggers conference in Girona, Catalonia, Spain. It sounded appealing in the invitational email: inexpensive, educational, entertaining—and it included a visit to a castle. AND it was taking place in my adopted home town of Girona, so why not?


In this alternative universe, everything was baffling, including the meaning of words I thought I knew. “Relevant” meant “meeting your fans where they’re at” and “content” meant maximizing your Google indexability (the number of searchable key words in your website or blog). “Service” writing” meant providing information and the rush to publish meant some bloggers are posting not weekly but daily or even hourly. A popular book author was called a “long-form print guy.” “Engagement” referred to how actively engaged your Facebook (or blogsite) fan base is, not to a diamond ring.

Meeting the Sultan at Topkapi

John Mole
Art and Culture, Historic Travel

by John Mole

Editor’s note: The following is by the oldest blogger we have ever published. Actually, he is more than 400 years old. Contributor, John Mole, was so taken by the diary of Thomas Dallam, who, at age 25 was charged with delivering the gift of a self-playing organ and clock from Queen Elizabeth to Sultan Mehmet III of Turkey, that he translated the work into modern English. This post, originally titled ‘The Sultan’s Organ” was written in 1599. It includes what is probably the first ever recoreded glimpse inside the Sultan’s harem by a foreigner. 

 

I set up the organ in the grandest pavilion of Topkapi palace. Inside was a little apartment. I have never seen the like for carving, gilding, paintwork and varnish. The Sultan had nineteen brothers put to death in there. It was built for the sole purpose of strangling them.

The main hall has two rows of marble pillars. The pedestals are made of brass and double gilt. The walls on three sides only go up to the eaves and the rest is open. But if there is a storm or a gale they can quickly lower cotton hangings that will keep out any kind of weather and just as quickly open them again. The fourth wall is made of porphyry so polished you can see yourself in it. On the floor are rich silk carpets. There are no chairs or tables or benches, only one royal divan. On one side is a pond full of different-coloured fish. 

***

The Sultan came over the water in his golden barge. I was ushered out of the room and the door locked behind me. I heard the Sultan arrive and the loud noise of his retinue. He sat down on his great throne and commanded silence. The Organ began to salute him.  First the clock struck the hour. Then a chime of sixteen bells played a four part melody. Two figures raised silver trumpets to their lips and blew a fanfare. Then the music started with a five part song played twice. At the top of the organ a holly bush full of blackbirds and thrushes sang and flapped their wings. Various other movements amazed the Sultan. He sat down in front of the keyboard and asked the Chief White Eunuch, the Kapi Aga, if he knew anyone who could play it. He said the man who brought it was outside the door. 

“Fetch him here,” said the Sultan.

Today’s Learning Objective: Kill a Goat

Laura Fuller
Art and Culture, Family Travel, Life Lessons, Transformational Travel, adventure travel, cultural immersion, exotic travel

by Laura Fuller

 

Ron’s blue eyes were bloodshot and watering when he returned to the group.  His cheeks were sunburned, his hair sun-bleached. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his white hooded sweatshirt, an act of 13-year-old toughness.  He and Mary had volunteered to eat the goat’s kidneys, not because they’d wanted to, but because peers’ opinions outweigh adolescent reason. Mary now smiled proudly in a pack of incredulous girls. Ron fought to put the texture of warm, raw goat kidney behind him and move on with his life, but I could see that he was struggling to gain control of his gag reflex.  Kyle offered to walk with him back to the tents, stoically, so as not to make Ron feel weak.  

I watched them walk away, their shadows long in the evening grass, and turned back to the other 20-some seventh-graders, all of them perplexed as to how to receive this cross-cultural gift. They were outlined against a horizon of royal blue Tanzanian sky, high above tufts of trees and shrubs on the rocky terrain below. The high rocks on which we stood began to glow reddish in the setting sun. This, I predicted, was both the height and the conclusion of my short, ridiculous teaching career in Dubai.  

The kids had all chosen to observe the ritual slaughter of this goat, not wanting to be cowardly among the courageous or rude to the Maasai guides.  After sixteen hours of Serengeti driving from the nearest city, we were lucky to have the Maasai patrolling our campsite’s perimeter every fifteen minutes at night to ensure our safety.  They silently taught our students to carve spears and showed us the soft cave in the bush where they held their councils. 

The seventh-graders, from Dubai – who actually came from all over the planet – were upper-class, elite, and as such, polite and appreciative. They were first inquisitive: goat slaughter? And then horrified: goat slaughter. 

A Woman Like a Fort on Sullivan's Island

Cinelle Ariola Barnes
Family Travel, Life Lessons, Personal essay

by Cinelle Ariola Barnes

My husband always tells me that I am strong.  Apparently, it is partly why he married me.  He thinks that there is an unwavering soundness to my soul, and he reminds me of that each day – on both calm and stormy ones.  Sometimes I challenge him, dare him, to put his finger on that which makes me so.  And every time, he says, “I can't quite pin-point it, but it is there. It's just something and it is there.”

I never understood. For the six years we've known each other, I've staunchly refused to see the opposite of my frailty.

On a warm July day this past summer, my back tanned in the Carolina sun and my legs lay comfortably on salt-and-pepper sand. My toes just touched  the hem of the sea; it was warm, like bath water.  In my hand was an Anne Lammott book. I had no real intentions of reading it. I sat, feeling blessed by the chance to read.  My husband built a sandcastle for our daughter, but she didn't care because she was only eight months old.  Instead, she raked the sand with her dainty fingers and ate it.  Every twenty minutes or so, my husband checked back in with me, for a drink fresh from our monogrammed cooler, or a reapplication of sunscreen. 


This was normal protocol for family day in Sullivan's Island.  This is what we do there – on Saturdays, Sundays, Church days, lazy Tuesdays and on days when friends or family visit.  It is our lather-rinse-repeat. Our very own ritual, the one that never gets old.  It is our stay-cation itinerary, the one that allows us to vacate our life while still playing in our own backyard.  We go there often, no matter the weather.  This casual, unhurried beach captivates us.  It is no tropical paradise but, to borrow my husband's words, there is something there. Strength, I think, is what he calls it. 

Genuine or Hoax? Visiting a Crop Circle Formation at Avebury, England

Genuine or Hoax? Visiting a Crop Circle Formation at Avebury, England

Elyn Aviva
Art and Culture, Personal essay, Sacred Places

by Elyn Aviva

The news rippled through our group like a breeze through a wheat field: a crop circle had just been spotted! According to a crop circle blog, it had appeared only two days earlier, on the side of Windmill Hill, close to Avebury, in southern England. We were told it was still fresh and relatively untrammeled. Even better news was that we were nearby, since our group was visiting sacred sites in the area—including Stonehenge, Glastonbury, and Avebury, site of the largest stone circle in the UK.

Crop formations usually occur in fields of ripe cereal grains. They appear all over the world but are most prevalent during July and August in the Wiltshire district of southern England. The complex patterns range in size from just a few feet across to over 900 feet, although the average is about 200-300 feet in diameter, and they vary in elements from a few to over 400. The designs may be circular (hence “crop circle”) or based on other geometrical forms (hence “crop formation”).

Zombie Boot Camp

Lauren Atkinson
Current Events

by Lauren Atkinson

Though they’re currently more popular in the United Kingdom than in the United States, so-called zombie boot camps are popping up with surprising regularity in the least likely of places. I recently had the opportunity to participate in one just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Let me tell you, as a fun loving girl who simply abhors all forms of violence and who ‘freaked’ when I found out my granddad owned a rifle, it was a surprisingly addictive way to spend a Saturday afternoon. The action was surrealistic and the staff added good doses of humour throughout.

For those who don’t yet know, zombie boot camps are basically live-action roleplaying events in which participants battle “live” zombies in a number of different scenarios. The whole experience closely mirrors the missions from first-person shooter video games. It is one of the most realistic types of life-action roleplaying. Although Zombie Camp is not for the light hearted, fans of such video games or horror movies would be thrilled with this kind of day out.

Visiting Ferdinand Marcos

Visiting Ferdinand Marcos

B.J. Stolbov
Historic Travel, Personal essay, cultural musings

by B.J. Stolbov

 

Ferdinand Marcos died in 1989, except in Batac.  Here, in this small town, in his home province of Ilocos Norte in the Philippines, the memory (and more) of former President Ferdinand Marcos is preserved.  His house is preserved, just as he left it.  Next door to it, now, is the Ferdinand Marcos Museum, where his portraits, photographs, press clippings, clothes, shoes, furniture, and other memorabilia are preserved.  And down a hallway, behind a locked door, opened only by a uniformed guard, in a starkly painted black room, coldly refrigerated, with a single spotlight shining down on a glass coffin, most creepily, is preserved ― Ferdinand Marcos.

Ferdinand Marcos, the son of a local politician, was born on September 11, 1917.  From early on, he was a brilliant student, public speaker, handsome, charismatic, controversial, and larger than life.  He scored a near perfect grade in his Law Board Examinations while in prison on charges of assassinating one of his father’s political rivals.  He argued his own case before the Supreme Court and had himself acquitted, on a technicality.  He was, by his own accounts, the leader of a guerilla group that fought the Japanese in World War II, maybe.  (More on that later.)

Always a man in a hurry, he met, courted, and married, in eleven days, Imelda Romualdez, a tall beauty, 13 years younger than he, from a powerful political family.  A successful lawyer, rich from his law practice and other unknown sources, Marcos was the youngest elected Representative in 1949, the youngest elected Senator in 1959, and the youngest elected President in 1965, and, in 1969, became the first President to be re-elected.

Black Jesus, Grilled Guinea Pig and the Damned Spanish

Adam Jones-Kelley
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, adventure travel, cultural musings, travel essay

by Adam Jones-Kelley 

 

Spain is Earth’s version of The Biggest Loser.

It’s hard to believe that Spain, a country that today is smaller than the state of Texas, once ruled an empire covering all of Central America, much of the US and South America, parts of the Caribbean, bits of Europe and even some outposts in Asia.

That’s a lot of empire to lose.

 

Remnants of the former empire are everywhere evident in Latin America, however, where Spanish remains the dominant language, where the culture and food retain heavy Spanish influence and where Roman Catholicism, the religion imposed on native civilizations at the often bloody point of a sword, remains the overwhelmingly dominant religion.

Even Cusco, a small city today but once the capital of the mighty Incan Empire, boasts 17 cathedrals for its 350,000 residents.

A couple of them are particularly fascinating, and a little funny.

Conspiracy on Malta?

Elyn Aviva
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, Off-the-beaten path destination, Sacred Places, cultural musings, exotic travel, travel essay

by Elyn Aviva

We were on Malta, a tiny island at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, within sight on a clear day of Sicily and Mount Etna, and we were confused.

Since our first day on the island, Gary (my husband) and I had been experiencing generalized confusion. For example, we had been told that everyone spoke English—after all, Malta had been an English colony for over 150 years—but street signs were unpronounceable, and our taxi driver didn’t seem to understand a word we said. He replied to our frantic queries in something that sounded like a mixture of Arabic and Italian. And it turns out it was. Sort of. Maltese is a Semitic language, brought by Phoenician settlers 3000+ years ago, so it sounds vaguely Arabic. And because Italy has had such a pervasive influence on Malta—in part because of proximity, and in part because for decades the only television channels available were Italian—Italian words and cuisine are prevalent.

But our linguistic confusion was superficial. Much more confusing were the temples, the fat ladies, and the cart ruts. We had come to Malta to see the massive Neolithic stone temples, recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. Some of them date back 5,500 years—or maybe 10,000 or 12,000 years, depending on whom you believe. Ggantija, on Malta’s tiny neighbor island Gozo, is thought to be the second oldest temple in the world, after Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. It predates the pyramids by millennia. Some writers believe the Maltese temples are oriented to astrological alignments that existed 12,000 years ago, not 5,500—and might even have been built by extraterrestrials.

How I Left My Sensible Life

Maureen Magee
Life Lessons, Off-the-beaten path destination, Personal essay, Transformational Travel, adventure travel, travel essay

by Maureen Elizabeth Magee

 

“No, Dad. I won’t do anything foolish.  Yes, I will be sensible.”

My last conversation before leaving Canada.

I sank into the airplane seat with relief. The decision had been made, fears conquered, and all the loose ends of planning a solo traipse around the world were tied up. I was a sensible woman; middle-aged, newly divorced and quite practical.  Although some argued that quitting a management job to travel for a year was not practical.  And others added that selling my home in order to finance the trip did not fall into the category of judicious. And many, many people pointed out that attempting to give up my five-star princess habits to travel on a shoestring was just asking for trouble.

I buckled my seat belt. None of them could find me now. No more concerned pleas or pointed observations about my lack of travel experience. It was just me and this Air New Zealand jet - a magic carpet – about to rescue me. Rescue me from  . . . from what? Just what did I need rescuing from?  A normal life? A practical life?  A sensible life. A ‘follow-the-rules’ life that had recently let me down.

A low rumble of power hummed through the plane and the flight attendant began to make her announcement, pulling me away from the past. The past didn’t matter anymore. The reasons for my break-away trip didn’t matter.  Only the accelerating whine of the engines mattered. It was all out of my control right now. I was tethered to nothing and that was a surprisingly comforting thought.

Horny at the Taj

Adam Jones-Kelley
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, exotic travel

by Adams Jones-Kelley 

 

Love can make you do many things.

It can make you laugh.

It can make you cry.

It can make you build the Taj Mahal.


The epic tale surrounding the construction of the Taj has all the trappings of a Hollywood fiction – tragedy, romance, betrayal, murder – but this fable is true, and is one of history’s great tragic love stories.

The story goes that at the ripe old age of 15, Prince Khurram, who would later become Shah Jahan, fifth Emperor of the Mughal Empire, married 14-year-old Arjumand Banu Begum, and fell desperately in love. He gave his beloved the name Mumtaz Mahal (Jewel of the Palace,) and over the next seventeen years they had fourteen children, six of which survived past childhood.

The seventeenth child died during birth, taking her mother with her.

The Shah was so devastated by the death of his wife that he locked himself away for eight days with no food or water. Legend has it that during this time the image of the Taj Mahal came to him in his dreams, so he emerged from isolation, organized a board of architects, and within a year construction commenced.

In My Father's Footsteps

Connie Hand
Family Travel, Historic Travel, Personal essay, cultural musings

by Connie Hand

The sun was bright under a clear azure sky. The birds were merrily singing on that beautiful Summer morning. As I stood by the country road and stared at the house in front of me, my heart was pounding. I was in Nariz, Portugal standing in front of a house that was typical of the area. But this house was special to me because it was the one in which my father was born. Immediately I thought of the stories he used to tell about his childhood in Portugal and his journey to America.

I always loved to hear about far away places and thought that one day I would travel to Portugal to visit those little towns and big cities that Dad talked about in such a vivid way.

The story of my father, Augusto Silva began on June 8, 1911 in Nariz in the district of Aveiro. He was the second of five children born to Maria and Luis Silva, and it was not an easy life. The family farmed their lands  and tried to make ends meet. In 1927, Dad decided to emigrate to the United States, and it was a life-altering decision. He researched what was necessary for his journey. It must have been very hard on both of them when his widowed mother gave him her approval to leave. He told me he vowed to go back to visit this sweet woman, and he did keep that vow. He described that visit with tears in his eyes.

He traveled to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, and worked there for several months until he discovered that Portugal’s emigration quotas were filled for the next several years. He was advised to travel to France to take up residency in Paris. He told me that he worked in Paris doing odd jobs. I remember Dad telling me that Paris was a huge, beautiful city. He said he saw as many sights as he could, but he really couldn’t wait to get to America.

What's Up with South Dakota?

Paul Ross
Historic Travel, Off-the-beaten path destination, U.S. History, cultural musings, travel essay

story and photos by Paul Ross

It was my first foray from Santa Fe, New Mexico, up South Dakota way and one my few experiences in the Midwest, “America’s heartland,” which is derisively included by bicoastal media under the broad heading of “flyover country.” Almost immediately, I sensed something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it but there was an element missing. I didn’t need my urban-honed 360o  hyper-awareness ...’cause, generally, I wasn’t in any big city in South Dakota; I was just surrounded by miles and miles of flat agriculture: corn, soybeans, hogs –NYSE commodities literally on the hoof. I didn’t have a problem with it, because it was what I’d expected. It was with the people. They smiled and audibly said “Hi” on the street –to a stranger -for no discernible reason!

At an annual charity affair –the McCrossen Boys’ Ranch Extreme Event Challenge Rodeo-- the best place from which to shoot photos was secured behind doubled fences. So I tried a big city ploy and walked in like I belonged. It worked, until Cindy Menning, THE woman in charge, approached. I mentally prepared a barrage of important credentials with which to snow, or at least impress, her. But, instead of a challenge, she offered access to an even better vantage point –right atop the chutes where professional bull riders dropped down onto their ¾ ton mounts.

No questions were asked, just friendly help extended.

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