According to freedictionary.com the definition of gold rush is: first; a noun. & second; the rush of migrants to a city where gold has been discovered.
...this guy
Alaska State Library photographPCA 44-3-15 Sourdough in stream panning for gold (Skinner)
Which brings me to my next question: What is a contemporary gold rush...
(google images, gold rush..seriously)
maybe it's taking advantage of an economic recession to buy scrap jewelry at lower than store value prices. or maybe it's taking risks to pursue something in your life which before seemed unimaginable.
(google images, beard of bees) Whatever the term gold rush means to you, there will be always be an after. With this comes the realization that the pursuit of anything in life which is meaningful and of substance will take time and commitment, patience and self discipline. Thom Yorke helps us to recognize this in his cover of Neil Young's "After the Goldrush" seg-waying into Everything in its Right Place at the 2012 Bilbao Music Festival in Spain. Thom Yorke killed it. Having suffered an alcohol induced antibiotic reaction the morning of the day Radiohead played, I was considerably worried as I sat slumped against the bathroom wall in the basement of a Spanish all-you-could-eat buffet, if my body would make it to see them play. Thankfully my reaction subsided enough for me to enjoy an amazing night of Thom Yorke prancing around on stage and creating saweet music.
2012 was the 40th anniversary of Neil Young's album Harvest. Meg and I were lucky enough to meet Neil on the international road through a couple special encounters, Bilbao was one of them. I am now back in Ottawa, our nation's capital, currently occupied by Stephen Harper, and according to wikipedia, former home of Dan Aykroyd, Jeremy Gara (drummer of the Arcade Fire)... ...and this citizen, in need of many square pieces of foam. http://ottawa.en.craigslist.ca/wan/3287521752.html More, later Larissa
Time flies when you’re on the road, living like a bum out of your backpack, bussing, training, hitching your way across borders until you feel like you could throw your entire bag and it’s contents into a giant bonfire with zero regret.
My last post was written in Italy, from where I would train mistakenly to Austria and exhaustively drag my body across all of Germany to the little town of Freiburg to visit a good friend from home. We spent our time catching up, enjoying German bread, the outdoors, and doing a little camping. It was wonderful to see her living in her new home!!
Our farewell to Janet, led to another adventure in ridesharing…with Veo.
There is nothing I can say about Veo which could accurately describe the insanity Meg and I experienced for a fullfledged 1900km, from Freiburg, Germany to Granada, Spain. Upon first glance, his skeletal wilted frame and long blonde tresses, complete with receding hairline and red bandana might have given it away. Or perhaps, as we boarded the automobile it was the slew of crystals strewn across the dashboard. Veo’s fulltime occupation was to sell these energy sources at music and yoga festivals. Or maybe we should have gotten out of the car as Veo proceded to explain his experiences of his past life at the pyramids in Egypt, or his theory of global telepathy, or his theory of aliens, crop circles and the earth’s central energy points. (There are five, in case you were wondering).
But no, we decided to continue on our forty eight hour journey which led us to one night of wild camping, sans tent, but including many bug bites and an evening from hell. Complete with frightening trance music, as venus crossed over the sun or something like that, and Veo’s increasingly loud chanting as the night grew long, we suffered a general and very real fear for our safety. After 24 hours of driving Meg and I suggested around 4am that we take a rest, and sleep, seeing as Veo was pulling off the road every 30 minutes to take 10 minute naps. When he awoke from these naps he would speed up to a solid 140-180km/h with the trance music blasting at full force.
This is what someone had to say about Trance music
I normally listen to rock, but sometimes if I'm playing a game online (like chess) that requires deep concentration, I listen to trance just to help calm me and to help me focus.
-Dan (yahoo answers)
Perhaps this is what Veo thought he was doing.
Meg and I were unsure of his methods but he remained vigilant in his desire to reach our destination. His desire was so strong and his mind so insane that Meg and I are pretty sure he forgot that we were people and thought we we were just negative frightened energies that he could chant away if he persevered.
And what can I say. We reached Granada around 8am, where Veo took us to some natural hotsprings complete with old naked Spanish men and a naked Veo. It was a much welcomed break, supplemented by a little bit of the child of the earth’s craziness.
We finally parted ways at a grocery store near the bus station in Granada, the heat was pounding, we were completely exhausted but we had made it.
Having left our tent in the West Bank, Meg and I invested in a new 20 euro dollar store, children’s quality two man tent, lovingly named ‘Tenty’.
After Granada we spent five days camping illegally on Bologna beach, a severely windy but ultimately beautiful sandy beach in the most southernly point in Europe. On our sixth day we hitched to a new location, where we knew there was a campsite with showers. After sneaking into the showers and admiring our extreme tans, some might say they were a little scary, we passed out in our new home, only to be awakened early the next morning by screaming policia civilia. We quickly packed up Tenty and made a fast walk for it. We spent the following weekend in Gibraltar, the British part of Spain, climbing a mountain with monkeys, thinking about Morocco, and drinking beer with our couchsurfer.
Let's not get too political, I have had a radical and culturally intensive time in both Israel and West Bank, making friends on both sides of the wall and trying to understand a little more about this controversial piece of land.
The West Bank is not Gaza, (they are on opposite sides of the country). I have little idea as to what the reality of that situation is in Gaza, other than it is the most densely populated area on earth, but the West bank is not a war torn place. The four days that Meg and I were in Ramallah and Nablus we just chilled out, drank a lot of coffee, ate some shwarma, hummous, kanafeh and falafel and visited with our couchsurfers friends and family; we took some car rides, went to the park and had chewy ice cream. We also visited a couple of refugee camps, witnessed some peaceful protests, and learned about Palestinian travel restrictions. We wore all our clothes and would gather quite an audience whenever we went to play cards and drink coffee alone.
In the West Bank, people go about their day to day lives, working, cooking, taking the bus or shared taxi, going to school, and spending a lot of time with family and friends.
Many Palestinian people, especially those living in the 64 year old refugee camps (which are not made up of tents but are small, crowded cement houses, making up poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of Palestinian cities), believe they will return to their original homes in what is now Israel. This is called the "Right to Return". The West Bank is not a giant refugee camp. Many Palestinians have lived in the towns, villages and cities of West Bank long before it was the "West Bank".
Jewish settlers lived in Palestine lived before it was "Israel".
Shalom from Israel.
Sorry for the delay, it's just that the Israeli's,
have so much to say. (in english).
Many moons have passed since I crossed the border in Aqaba (Southern Jordan) to the holy land. And I have to say, I really dig Israel. After my week of volunteering, drinking 10 shekel ($2.60) wine, and watching many many hours of Scrubs in the Maktesh which is Mitzpe Ramon, my reverse culture shock subsided, and I became used to seeing prices marked 37.90 shekels for cereal in the grocery store.
But more importantly I was able to chill out with Meg in the most rockin' apartment in Jaffa, an old port city which is technically not Tel-Aviv, but feels like a neighborhood of the city. We spent an incredible three weeks hanging out in a beautiful, old arabic style building with some radical Israeli's who were stoked on showing us a good time.
-the view from the balcony in Jaffa house. Every morning we would get up, make our coffee and breakfast and sit outside; talking, playing cards and people watching.
-except during passover...and shabat
We were invited to a Passover dinner which is similar in the timing of easter, but a completely different holidays surrounding the leaving of the jewish people from Egypt to wander the desert for forty years. There is a huge dinner, with the different foods symbolizing different parts of the story. My favourite part of the meal was when the kids search for the hidden matzah (weird, wheatless, yeastless, passover cracker bread) and then bargain with the head of the household for something in exchange for the missing matzah...also the Gefilte fish
Our next big adventure was a road trip with one our couchsurfering hosts in Jaffa to the desert to see the Ahava Dead Sea music festival, featuring some of Israel's more popular rock and roll artists. It was a fun evening, which stretched into early morning, leading us to see a beautiful sunrise over the hills of Jerusalem on the way back to Karme Yosef, our friend's hometown. We spent the next day hanging out in Newe Shalom, the peace oasis, making coffee, wondering when the guy mowing the grass would be done and shouting in the silence dome...
later that week, after Meg's Birthday and a lot of sunning ourselves on the sands of the medeterranean sea we went to another sea. The DEaD Sea. Smadar, also from the Jaffa house, took us on a dreamy picnic to a deserted area along the shores of the world's lowest elevation point, over 400 meters below sea level. We lay around in the waters, covered ourselves in mineral mud and made avocado, tomato, and goat cheese sandwiches. It was a magical day. The dead sea was a completely bizarre experience, similar maybe to being a happy sausage rotating and baking under a heat lamp in a bath of salty oil. There is no sinking in the dead sea, or even sitting, when you push one part of your body deeper under the water, the salt content flips you around and forces you nearly out of the water again, see rotating sausage metaphor.
Boo-Yah!
-old pals, sultans bitzy and glumloch have a day at the spa
but it wasn't always fun and games. Sometimes real life would come and slap us in the face. For example, the day when Meg had an itchy eye because Hartool (the cat) and Mika (the dog) slept on our bed.
the most obvious solution was to strap a bunch of tea leaves to her face
Two side notes, firstly, whenever we have gone on a road trip there are always some great new tunes and artists to learn about. The first which sticks out in my mind is besides Dudu Tassa, and the Bonai Brothers is Asaf Avidan. We listened to him a lot. Many Israeli artists use english lyrics instead of hebrew, hoping to make it in the big ol' scene of international music.
Secondly, one the greatest (in my opinion) car ride/getting to know people/being bored games ever is the questioning game "Your girlfriend is sababa (fine, in hebrew) but..." The but part is the most important part and the asker usually goes something along the lines of "your girlfriend is sababa but...she never changes her socks" To which the person being asked says "yes," it's cool with me, or "no" I couldn't do it. Meg, myself and our friend Ido, played this game endlessly on our hummous eating trip to Ben Sima's in Jerusalem.
-our foreign tour guide Ido, and Meg hanging out waiting to eat the best hummous we have had so far. And we have had a lot of hummous.
The day after the Dead sea, Smadar loaned us her car and we took off for Northern Israel. A land of Kibbutzim, magical forests, and tradition. But it is 2:55am in Jerusalem, so I will continue catching up when I have time.
Good afternoon readers, I am writing this from the infinite comfort of the hostel I am volunteering at in Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. It's been just over two weeks since I departed my lovely second home in Istanbul for Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories (just to be politically correct).
I will begin with Jordan. Wow. What a bizarre (and freezing cold) place.
And it is Jordan where I want to address my troubles with travelling. There are many different kinds of travelers, some like to stay in five star hotels, some are ignorant, some are racist, some are alone and crazy, some are rich, some are students, some are awesome, and some just should have stayed home.
But maybe there is a division in travelling between cultural exploration and sightseeing, both have their pros and cons but what frustrated me the most about Jordan was my lack of ability (or perseverance?) to immerse myself in the culture. There is a certain tone in Jordan, where white western women appear to have made quite a name for themselves, particularly in the most touristic areas. And regardless of what kind of person you may be, I found, as a solo female traveler, I was always treated the same. I didn't stay long in Jordan, just 10 days, because I became absolutely frustrated with my inability to move independently around the country without being hasseled... about money, about my gender, about my origin, etc.
This is much heavier than I anticipated. If you need some relief check out fail blog. http://failblog.org/
As always there are always two sides of the coin. You have one side, which was that it kind of sucked to be a girl traveling solo in Jordan because men don't leave you alone. I never once felt unsafe, just really tired of being talked to like I wasn't a real person. And then you have the other side, which is that strikingly large number of tourists (11-12% of GDP accordingly to wikipedia, 8 million visitors in 2010) visiting Jordan because it is the "safe place" in the middle east, and with this comes all sorts of people (who maybe shouldn't have left their country in the first place) who trample all over cultural norms and values, wreaking havoc and bringing ideas which seem natural and normal in the west, to a country where it's really not the same at all. Prices increase, and local culture can be lost, and stereotypes from all parts of the spectrum seem to play out in some sort of self fulfilling prophecy.
I don't want to dissuade people from visiting Jordan, this is a recount of my experiences, observations and nothing more. A lot of people I have run into loved Jordan, and there were parts of it which I did enjoy but overall my level of frustration led me to an early evacuation.
So to conclude I will sum up the important events in Jordan with a simple list.
-couchsurfed with a German ex-pat in Amman, a sandcoloured lego city, and finally I was blessed with the means to have normal french press coffee. It was amazing.
-Jerash, got yelled at in every language you can think about transport back to Amman, ended up in a (scary) private taxi for one dinar...which then turned into 8 by the time we got there. I had previously arrived in Jerash by bus for 1 dinar.
- Petra, absolutely crazy and amazing, steeped in history, bedouins and throngs of tourists. Had Kanafeh, an almost fried cheese with sugar pastry stuff on top. Really nice
-saw camels in the desert
-Caught a ride with two crazy dudes from britain and france, got a flat tire in the middle of the desert near a fat dead dog. Spare tire was also flat, and the rim on the spare, was unfortunately bent all out of shape. We drove very very very very very slowly to the next town, were overcharged to fix the flat.
LONG DAY.
-Cruised to Aqaba, where it was finally warm, all day and all night, (about 10km North of the Saudi border, along the Red Sea). And chilled like there was no tomorrow for four days with this rad Vancouverite whom I had met previously in Petra.
Here in the depths of the zillıonth internet cafe in Sarıyer (near Istanbul) I found someone who was able to help me upload photos.
-Termessos
-Beaching it
-Pastoral Vadi and the innumerable fruit trees
-our living quarters
-day off from the farm! We hitched back to Katabaş Beach
-wwwwwaaaaaaaat
-Cappadocia. The most touristic and spectacular place
-reallllly reallly east. In diyarbakir, the Kurdish capital. There is a fıve km wall surrounding the city! It is ridiculously old
Hasankeyf- and what river is that? Oh just the TIGRIS!!!...no big deal
but the story behind these caves of wonder is that the Turkish government is in the process of building some huge dams whıch will flood the 10 000 year old cave city just across the water.
-some older gentlemen who sang some wack songs when we came to sit with them for a spell
Yes. I went to see Batman.
ps.the fıve photos above are not mine (they are davids) I forgot to charge my camera, but I was lucky to travel east with people who were substantially more camera prepared.
-out of order Termessos
This section concludes my trip to Turkey. I certainly saw less than I had anticipated but I spent a lot of time hanging out with the people and learning about cultural norms and values. I would love to come back (when the weather is nıce) but now I will try my luck in Jordan.
There is a lot to catch up on and no personal pictures that I can upload at this moment. So those of you reading will have to bear with this less aesthetically pleasing account
Still in the search of the very elusive, extremely frustrating sun I have made not one but two trips to the beautiful and mystical coastline of turkey. I don't know why but it seemed like the thing to do at the time
here are the highlights from mid-ish february to the beginning-ish march
-Termessos: more specifically the theatre. Our hosts brought us 27km out and 9km up into the mountains near Antalya to see this magnificent thousands (of course) year old city. These people definitely had, if I may so, a pimp lifestyle.
-from google images but I think I have the same picture
-learning tavla and then having nearly every turkish person (man) thereafter be completely astounded that a woman had learned to play
-having second dinner with some rogue french canadian musicians who had been living in the mountain forests near olympos and Sasha, a turkish magician with a belly bigger than sinter klaus and a love for G 6's?
-hitchhiking along the turkish coastline, baking in the sun and eating Finike oranges, with one of my best arkadesh's (friend). We got 8 rides that day and passed by the beach which is on the cover of lonely planet turkey.
-doing hard labour and an surprising amount of gossiping with the ladies who worked in the kitchen on pastoral vadi farm. A beautiful piece of paradise just outside yaniklar village. This was one of the best weeks for me in Turkey. I will post photos when I get the chance but it was spectacular. Everyday we would open (dig up dirt in a circular fashion around a fruit tree) and close (fill in the hole, after of course we had wheelbarrowed manure to each one).
IT WAS REALLY HARD WORK. Especially because we were working in a stone field as opposed to a dirt field. Shoveling rocks takes considerably more effort than shoveling dirt.
See below
~How many rocks do I see before me~
~more than all the turkish tea~
~how many rocks do I see before me~
~one two three four, seventy~
~how many rocks do I see before me~
~more than the oranges in the trees~
~how many rocks do I see before me~
~five six seven, ninety three~
~how many rocks do I see before me~
~more than the fishies in the sea~
~how many rocks do I see before me~
~eight nine ten, one hundred three~
luckily we found a guitar and so were able to sing our favourite song with accompaniment
We had many good times on that farm.
Also "Turtles Can Fly" is a beautiful film about young refugees on the Iraqi-Turkish border before the invasion began. I really recommend watching it.
...this guy
