Lady The Tramp- Female Travel Blog by a Woman Traveler

How to Get an India Visa in New York

2010-07-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

I recently just got a ten year visa for India. The new process entails applying for the visa through an outsourced company, Travisa, who sets up an appointment time for you to drop off your passport and then pick it up on the same day at their office on 53rd street. When I dropped off my passport, I was surprised at the ease in which I moved through the process. There wasn't even a line when I dropped it off at the completely organized office.

This was a great improvement to the old system, in which you dropped your passport at the consulate. The "line" to the consulate would often be around the block, and once you entered the basement facility, you felt as if you had just stepped into the mayhem of the New Delhi train station, with men, women and children all shouting at once and pushing through the roped off areas towards the miserable looking women in saris safely seated behind bullet proof glass. It would take hours to even slip your passport through the window slot before your passport and visa application were scrutinized for any blemishes.

At the Travisa office, visa pick-up is between 5:30 and 6 pm for same-day service. I arrived at the office at the stroke of 5:30 excited about the receipt of my newly issued passport, and expecting an expedited service....I was greatly let down...I knew there had to be a catch to this seemingly smooth process. A line was already forming down the stairs to the office and woman toting yoga mats, Sikhs in bright orange turbans, and second generation Indian-Americans in business suits piled up in the waiting room. A Travisa employee informed us that the passports had not left the consulate yet. Supposedly there was only one person in the consulate office to sign visas that day. This was an omen that I was going to have a long wait. After standing for 45 minutes, the crowd began to thin as people grew impatient with waiting. I took a squat, and the line behind me followed suit, staking out for the long haul. I watched one tall, nerdy white man toting a "Passport Health" bag grow more and more weary of the situation at hand. He began shifting around until he finally took a seat in the middle of the room. The Travisa employee quickly ran over and reprimanded him for blocking the passage way. He stood back up....pacing in the mere square inches of personal space he retained in the hubbub. He continuously looked down at his watch, and muttering "Jesus Christ" under his breath.

Welcome to India guy; get use to the long wait. I found irony in his choice of the lords name as he was about to embark into the land of the hindu, and wondered how many more times he would be mumbling to Jesus Christ in vain surrounded by the images of Ganesha, Shiva, and Vishnu.

Our passports finally arrived over an hour late to a hail of cheers and clapping. I didn't leave the visa office until after 7 pm, broadly grinning with the acquisition of my 10 year visa, and my welcome back to India time. You can take a man out of the country, but you can't take the country out of a man.

The Comparative Religion and Culture Program - Global College of Long Island University

2010-07-28T17:30:00.001-07:00

I was recently promoted to Academic Assistant of the Comparative Religion and Culture program of Global College of Long Island University. I will be traveling with them to Taiwan, Thailand, India and Turkey in the coming academic year. I am ecstatic about this opportunity, and the best part is I have finally found a way to do what I love and also get paid for it.

Two years ago I was a student on this program. I only did the first semester, traveling to Taiwan and Thailand, but it was one of the most amazing few months of my life. While the program is physically, mentally, spiritually, and culturally rigorous, it yields the opportunity to explore a world rarely entered by most people.

In the modern day of jet-setters, many people have traveled, yes. Excuse me if I sound pretentious, but living and studying somewhere is completely different. It gives you a chance to dig deeper into the cultural landscape of a country. If you stay somewhere for long enough to learn the subtleties of daily life that most tourists are oblivious to. You know at what hour a man with a cart will walk down the street peddling his vegetables, you share food with people at the local restaurants where there is no menu in english, you learn the name of the woman who washes laundry and where her children go to school, and best of all, you make deep connections with the local people who eventually become your friends. I think this is why tourism is hard for me to handle....tourist look at things without seeing. They go for the famous sights, and adventure tours, but stay distant from the people and the thriving cultures of people. Locals become a hassle...instead of trying to comprehend their culture, tourists remain separated in hotels, bars, restaurants, tour buses, and only make friends with other tourists sharing their own cultural viewpoints.

I am excited to be back in the saddle and look forward to visiting some old friends and old haunts, and growing a deeper perspective to world religions.

Birthday Party in Brooklyn

2010-07-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

Traveling is lonely..and I think it is even lonelier when you go home, because you realize that all of your friends are abroad. Its virtually impossible to travel and constantly be surrounded by the people you love. Last month I turned 23. I think it was one of the best birthday parties ever and one of the first times I really felt at home. Somehow a majority of my friends that I've made over the past 5 years all ended up in Brooklyn on my birthday. I think this was the first times so many of my friends have been in one place at one time. Friends I traveled with in Taiwan, Thailand, Costa Rica and some local Brooklynites all showed up to wish me well and feed me a large portion of red velvet cake topped with cream cheese icing. I haven't had a birthday party since I was a young teen, mostly because my friends are always scattered around the world. Friendships are the nectar of life, sweetening this world little by little with each connection... and I'm grateful for the friends I have made and kept along this strange strange taciturn journey.

Ian Goodnight - Summer Music

2010-07-07T16:13:00.000-07:00

Ian Goodnight. Give it up for my brother. He's been working on a new album and finally posted some songs. I think this should be added to everyone's summer playlist.

Surf Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

2010-06-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

Go to the beach in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!
Surf Bar is located at 139 6th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

On Saturday afternoon I had brunch at the Surf Bar in Williamsburg. Kitchy to some, but fun for others.... The entire floor of this bar is covered in sand, and in the back garden, the owners have succeeded in recreating a beach party atmosphere, complete with surf boards and Latin music smack dab in the middle of bustling hipsterville, Williamsburg. Even the building itself is a little untidy, unleveled, with walls not quite matching up to the ceilings, like many makeshift buildings in beach villages all over the world. On a breezy sunny afternoon, this seemed like the best spot in Brooklyn.

Their brunch menu offered decent meals and decent prices. It's $12 for anything on the brunch menu, with a drink (mimosa or bloody mary) included. The bloody mary was probably one of the best I've ever had, mostly because of the presentation. The glass was topped with a salted rim, a crispy celery stick, a toothpick full of olives, and a lime. I felt as if the bloody mary was almost a little appetizer to my meal. I ordered the huevos rancheros, and Ken ordered the breakfast burrito (sans the eggs), and we shared an order of yucca fries...yes yucca fries!!! (These are my favorite). Other things on the special brunch menu include french toast, spanish eggs, a hangover breakfast, and another favorite of mine, fried sweet plantains. The huevos rancheros were delicious, with a very fresh tasting thick crispy corn tortilla. The breakfast burrito left a little to be desired, probably because we had asked for no eggs. This restaurant does not have many vegetarian options (particularly if you are a vegetarian that doesn't eat eggs).

The night crowd in this restaurant can get a little bit rowdy. I've often seen drunken hipsters and frat boys obnoxiously spilling out of the Surf Bar into the streets of Williamsburg. As a lunch location though, I think it can be ranked as one of my favorite places to chill out on a summer day.

UPE! Greetings in Costa Rica

2010-06-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have a metal gate that goes to my apartment here in Brooklyn. Every time someone comes in and out I hear little clicks and tinkles of metal grating on metal that reminds me of Costa Rica. All of the windows and entryways in urban areas of Costa Rica are covered with protective measures, usually iron bars or razor wire. In many of the house there will be a gate to the property, a gate to the porch, and a gate to the front door. This often makes for a very heavy key ring.

Also because of these gated entrances you can't knock on anyone's door or ring a doorbell. Instead, when you arrive at someone's house in Costa Rica, you simply stand outside and yell UPE! And if you really want to get their attention you tap on the gate. One of my friends even had a special big metal ring that he wore, that I swear was solely for the purpose of knocking on people's gates. "Upe" has become one of the most well-known colloquial word in Costa Rica, other than their mantra "Pura Vida", and somehow it was always a fun thing to yell. In the mornings and evenings, my neighborhood would always be swarming with the word, as friends and family members met at each other's houses. Now, as I sit in my apartment in Brooklyn with the windows open, each time I hear a scrape at the gate I expect to hear that familiar cry, "UPE!"

Ethnic Food Recipes

2010-06-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes what I miss most about other countries is the food. Although their are Indian and Chinese and Thai restaurants all over the place, I still miss the culinary experience of other countries, and many of the foods have not been properly replicated in these restaurants as they are catering to the Western palette. The food is never as hot as it should be, and I miss the interaction of being able to see the cooks, or preparing vegetables with a friend or an adopted mother in another country, learning ancient cooking tips along the way. Even sharing meals in other countries is a totally different experience, like meals in China where little dishes are placed on a lazy susan and communally shared, each diner dipping their chop sticks in and pulling out tasty bits to put over a small bowl of rice. Of course there are many dim sum restaurants, but still something is missing.

I recently got me a bunch of new cookbooks, one on Thai cuisine, a pan- asian (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Burmese, etc), Indian, and a vegetarian cookbook. I have been perusing them, looking for my old favorites, and getting excited on the prospect of having a kitchen to cook and new recipes to follow. Hopefully these will help me recreate some of the tasty dishes I have been missing. Another fun part of this will be searching out all of the ethnic markets in New York to find some of the exotic ingredients used in these recipes and hopefully some dinner parties with friends.

Ethnic neighborhood demographics of New York

2010-05-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Recently in an after-work haze, I (stumbled) onto the express A train rather than the local C train, and once we had blown past my stop, I decided to explore wherever I got off and lengthen a leisurely walk home. At the Bedford-Nostrand stop, I got off to find myself in a predominately muslim neighborhood. There were Halal delis everywhere, and men wearing djellaba with red henna dyed beards and beautiful muslim women covered from head to toe in head scarves and burkas. A few blocks down on Fulton Street, I found a huge pink marble mosque, with a lively congregation pouring in and out of the decorative doors. The mosque looks a little askew on the corner, as it is built to face Mecca, which does not always directionally match up with the existing infrastructure of buildings. The air was booming with the call to prayer over the loud speakers, a noise that I often miss from my travels in India and Morocco.

One of the things that I love the most about New York (including the five boroughs) is that you can find any culture from around the world here. China town, Little India and the Latin districts of Jackson Heights, the Jamaican neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the Hasidic Jewish sections, and the Russian and Eastern Europeans populations nearing Coney Island.....

Everywhere I have ever traveled, I have met people who dream to go to New York, their eyes glazing over as they talk about the sights they want to see there. So obviously, immigrants from all over the world move here to find some sort of dream, and as Ellis Island was once the main port of entry for the United States, New York has become one of the most diversified cities in the world. I love finding new pockets of ethnic neighborhoods, where suddenly you are surrounded by foreign languages, markets, and clothing.

Itchy feet for Traveling

2010-05-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

Itchy Feet.....
Summer time has finally arrived, and the warm weather is making me yearn for traveling paradise. Summer heat always magnifies scents, some taking me back to the places I have lived, exhaust fumes sweltering in the Bangalore heat, the deep musky smell of chinese food in New York's chinatown, vendors burning incense on the street like in the mosques in Morocco, fresh cut pineapple like in the markets in Costa Rica.

I have now been in the US for over a year continuously...this has been a long, arduous road, adjusting to life here and reintegrating after living abroad for almost 4 years. However, I am still finding the tendencies of travel in my daily life. It seems like every weekend I am busy going somewhere, visiting friends, going home to philly, visiting my family in Maryland. After traveling for so long, distances seem a whole lot shorter when you are still in the same country. My life is still a little scattered without a definite home base. I know I probably won't be at my apartment in Brooklyn for more than a few more months, so I only moved the basics up there. Otherwise, the majority of my stuff and comforts of material possessions still reside at my mother's house. One day maybe I will be settled again, but I have no idea when.

Today I received an e-mail from a friend I met in Thailand. She was asking me about future traveling plans and invited me to meet up with her on her next travels. I think I am going to take her up on that. She is heading up to Canada in the fall. Even though Canada is so close to home, I've never been there. I think this will be my next journey.

Judah Friedlander Stand-up Comedy in New York

2010-05-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Village Lantern 167 Bleecker Street (and Sullivan St)

At night the streets around NYU are amuck with drunken college students....Despite this minorly abrasive factor, and desperately craving pizza and a pitcher, my friend and I meandered our way through the little bars and cafes just south of the campus in Greenwich village knowing this was the prime spot for cheesy pies and cheap drinks. Even more plaquing than the loud shouts of drunken frats boys, are the touts who stand in front of restaurants and bars beckoning for passerbyers to enter. Around every corner are the "funny guys" advertising free comdedy shows while trying to shove a flier into your hand, which you will find dropped in a scattered pile on the sidewalk about half a block away. Feeling frisky, and needing some light-hearted fun, we decided to check it out and participate in some laughing yoga for the night.

Unfortunately, we soon realized that these comedy shows are free for a reason....the comedians are lame. In fact, they are so offensive, that they should probably pay the audience to watch them, or at least pay us a pittance to laugh. All of the comedians were men, and each one explored a liturgy of racist comments, some even directed to members of the audience, gay bashing, and vile sex jokes demeaning women. They each reminded me of those really annoying, immature kids in highschool who were always making fart jokes and trying to get attention during class, the one that wasn't quite "cool" enough to be a bully, but they made fun of people anyway, and then they got their a$$es kicked. I seriously wish I could have given each one a beat down, and for much of the show the audience was silent, while the comedian bashed the audience for not laughing. Maybe since they are in the neighborhood of NYU, they get a lot of the previously mentioned frat boys who think their jokes are funny, but I'm not sure what other decent human being would laugh at such hackneyed and obscene material.

Note to Comedians: maybe you should get some new material. Tell a funny joke that doesn't involve making fun other other ehtnicities, women, gay people, or sex. I thought we were making strides to end these prejudices... and I can think of about 10 other funny topics to discuss that do not involve hate.

The only redeeming aspect of the night: Right as I was about to get up and leave, without having laughed at all, Judah Friedlander, who plays Frank on 30 Rock, appeared on stage. I decided I had to stay to at least hear what kind of ridiculousness he produces live (I love his character on 30 Rock), and sure enough it was the first time I actually laughed all night. That night his hat said "World Champion".

Finding Bollywood in New York

2010-05-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

Finding a little slice of Indian Bollywood in New York... The first Thursday of each month DJ Rehka blasts out the Punjabi beat of Bhangra at SOBS (at the corner of Varick and W. Houston). If you get there before 8 PM its $5, and afterwards its $16 to enter, or $13 if you print out their flier.

The night starts out with a Bhangra lesson. The teacher asks the onlookers to form lines, as she then demonstrates a few basic bhangra dance moves. Mostly the class is full of honkies stumbling through the crowd as the semi-pro Indian Bhangra junkies watch the hilarious antics. It almost feels like being in India again with the blatant starring and shy grinning hidden behind hands.

But once the lesson ends, the dance floor heats up with a hodge-podge of people trying to figure out how to jump to the beat, and others bouncing around on one foot, flying to the rhythm of the dhol (the traditional Indian drum that makes up the bass -dhaggah- and treble -tilli-). Compared to the normal club scene, I like this environment. People meet up to dance with friends, and just have a good, old-fashioned party. Groups of girls bounce together while groups of more flamboyant boys form circles encompassing battles of Bollywood dance steps hot off the movie screens and oozing with the saucy drama of the Bollywood scene. There is less co-ed dancing than most places, so you don't have to worry about suddenly being unwantingly pelvic-thrusted by some weird, sweaty guy.

As the night wears on, the best dancers leap on stage to enact seemingly choreographed Bolloywood dance numbers as old Hindi movies are projected onto a backdrop.

First-timers beware though: Bhangra is an intense work our requiring jumping, leaping, twirling and other aerobic acrobatics. I suggest wearing comfy flats and modest dress, to allow for optimum movement.

Vagabonding with Rolf Potts

2010-02-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

Today I checked my sitemeter and noticed I had a referral from vagabonding.net, a travel website by Rolf Potts originally based off of his book Vagabonding. This made me proud. Rolf Potts is one of the most well-known travel writers in the vagabond world, and to be linked by his website means that my travel blog must be half decent. I haven't posted anything amazing on this blog for about a year now. Mostly, this is because I have been in the U.S. Even though I have been traveling a little bit around the country, I have not been inspired to write like when I was abroad. However, this link has spurred a little encouragement to start writing again. So this time, when I say I will write soon, I mean it.
Check out my link on vagabonging.net:

http://vagabonding.net/resources/chap6.html

Also, I have been updating my photoblog with some of my old photgraphs that I haven't posted yet. Check those out at http://travelerphotos.blogspot.com

More to Come

2009-11-15T21:51:00.000-08:00

More will be coming very shortly......I will be spending Thanksgiving week at a place with internet, something I have been seriously lacking for the past couple of months....stay posted.

New Hope is Still Cool???

2009-08-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

I got two comments on my post about New Hope. Obviously some shop owners were a little disgruntled by my reviews.... Anyway, I'd like to post them, because these people do care about New Hope, and do care about retaining the old hipness of the little funky town. I hope that anyone traveling to New Hope will take these people's advice and maybe stop by their stores...
I still have to say, that despite the great efforts of people like this, New Hope is still being gentrified... I know there are still the funky shops in the "back allys," but the hip vibe and artsy appeal of New Hope should never be shoved into the back alleys.
Thanks for commenting!

Superkind has left a new comment on your post "Travel to New Hope, PA":

Night Owl Vintage clothing is now Night Bird Vintage clothing and is located at 12 West Mechanic St. New Hope. It is owned by the same great hippie dude that has had it for decades.
I own a business in New Hope, and let me tell you it is VERY hard to survive! People would rather buy things at the mall or online. Independently owned businesses everywhere are dying.

Love Saves the Day will refund you your 20 cents when you leave. They charge mostly as a joke because people treat the store as a museum, they want to look but have no interest in actually buying anything. Its pretty hard to make a profit that way!

The rents were too high for the used record store and the used book store. How many $5- alblums do you have to sell to make $2000 a month just for rent, never mind taxes, utilities, employees, etc.
The book store has moved to Trenton.

El Taco Loco has been in New Hope for over 20 years, and I find that it is typical for Tex Mex. Down the street there is an amazing Mexican place called the Blue Tortilla.

Next time ask a local shopkeeper to recommend you to their favorite restaurant! After all since we are here all the time we know the best places :-)

Oftentimes our memories of the past are made golden, and reality doesn't measure up.

New Hope still has funky back allys, and if you go up the side streets there are still cool shops filled with stuff you can't find at the mall. Clearly you missed the mortuary memoribilia and Victorian oddities shop, which is across the street from a funky punk rock shop, a vintage and retro shop, next to a hippie shop and above Night Bird Vintage.

You can thank wealthy developers for building condos and jacking property values. Unfortunately you cannot pass laws saying one kind of person is allowed to buy property or open businesses and another kind of person isn't.

If people want places like New Hope to flourish they have to support them! Otherwise we will all go away and be replaced by super wallmarts and such.

Don't be so quick to write New Hope off! Nothing stays the same after all!
____________________________________________________________

meshell has left a new comment on your post "Travel to New Hope, PA":

Well..I am sorry you didn't enjoy your visit to New Hope.The economy is hitting us hard here. Obviously, you didn't visit my shop on Mechanic Street called God save the Qweens. Perhaps if you would have walked up to it,you would have enjoyed picking through my shop, filled with awesome rock and roll clothes for infants to adults,vintage toys,collectibles,costuming,punk rock,even beautiful handblown glass by an incredible local glassblower.etc. There is something in my store for everyone. And then, you would have noticed that your famed "boarded up" vintage clothing store had moved to a bigger location right across the street.You also would have noticed an authentic old skool curio shop filled with interesting items from all the way back to the victorian age...also a newly added antique store...a mug shop,a beauty store, a corset shop and much more... so I hope you give New Hope one more chance...don't let 1 bad meal and a 20 cent entrance fee leave an additional bad taste in your mouth...you just need to take the time to shop the side streets...you just never know what you will find...enjoy...
meshell
owner of
god save the qweens
13 w mechanic st
new hope,pa 18938

Travel Book Review: Holy Cow

2009-08-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

The first time I started reading Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald was in 2006, in the summer before I left for India. I never finished it though. When I read it I was disturbed by her initial hatred of India. She talked of the smog and rickshaw drivers and dirt and begging and bargaining and hassle of every day life there. I didn't believe her.

When I was in Costa Rica the year before I had met a lot of people who hated it, who had awful experiences there, who were in constant battle with the country/ culture. On the other hand, I had a great experience, I loved it, and to this day it is still one of my favorite places in the world. Because of this, I thought I could conquer India, that I could overcome the horribleness that many Western travelers experience. I had always wanted to go to India while growing up and I was determined to love it.

However, when I got there, I realized it was just too much. I couldn't handle it, and like MacDonald, I also became physically ill and depressed and hassled by the culture. I was so eager to run away, that I left on the last day of classes. I handed in my final revisions of my school work and caught a rickshaw to the airport. Despite my commitment to stay for a year, and my scholarship I had received to study there, I just couldn't handle it.
Since then I have always regretted not pushing through. I have always regretted not overcoming that challenge.

Now I am reading Holy Cow again, and loving it. I feel like I need to push through the reading, like somehow if I do that, then eventually I will be able to push through another round of India. I am more equipped (mentally and emotionally) to deal with that country now, and as I read her story, my yearning to go back is only growing. By the end of the book MacDonald has acquired a deep love for India, and a rewarding comfort living within the culture.

My boyfriend is going to India for a few weeks this winter. I have to stay in the USA and work for a couple months, but hopefully by December I will have enough money saved to embark on another journey through India. Out of all of the countries I have traveled to, I think my desire to return to India is the greatest, because I know it is the most challenging country I have been to....a challenge I want to overcome.

Travel Blogs are Weird

2009-07-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

I think blogging is a little bit weird, or maybe just the type of blogging one does. I write a travel blog. It is usually a non-fiction first person narrative. This is my favorite sort of writing, but often it is very personal. I write about places where I am and activities that I am doing. Other people have travel blogs that are more like travel guides and reviews. Maybe that is more effective. I think first person narratives are more interesting though.

Back to the point. Blogs are kind of creepy. Anybody in the entire world can read my blog and look at my pictures. If you Google search my name, you will find links to my blog. This makes an easy target for stalking. Everyone, everywhere can know where I am. Sometimes people who I don’t necessarily want to know what I doing know where I am.

I have a site meter on my blog to see where people are entering my blog and what they are searching for when they find my blog. Sometimes it is disturbing to see what people are looking for. One of my most popular pages on my photo blog is under the title “trash cans and school girls.” When I posted on “Women with armpit hair,” my blog traffic instantly increased by about 50 people a day. This is weirdo stuff.

Now that I am applying for jobs I wonder how much of this employers may be looking at.

Travel to New Hope, PA

2009-07-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

Despite the weather forecast of rain and thunderstorms all weekend, Saturday turned out to be a gorgeous sun-filled day. I peeled back the top of my convertible Volkswagen Cabriolet and hit the road, heading towards New Hope. In high school this was one of my favorite places to go, often taking day trips there with my mother, especially during my senior year of high school when I was homeschooled. New Hope is a little hippie haven on the PA/ NJ border. The streets are lined with quaint ancient buildings with back alleys leading to a run-down canal and there’s an old train line where tourists can ride up and down the tracks in antique cars. New Hope is famous for its antique stores and vintage clothing shops and boutiques offering treasures from every corner of the world. With its close proximity to Philly and New York, the artsy urbanites would flock here to go antiquing and many transplanted to open up art galleries or studios. I should say….this is how it used to be.

I arrived in the early afternoon to streets packed with tourists in big hats and khaki shorts. To my dismay, New Hope was looking a little less quaint. I cruised around looking for parking, and finally settled on a lot near the train where a new mall had been constructed. I was starving and thirsty from the drive so I jumped into the first restaurant I passed, a Tex/Mex place. I liked the decorations with orange and yellow and blue paint, Aztec calendar mandalas covering the walls, and a particularly awesome sculpture of a Mexican mariachi drunken skeleton. I ordered a taco salad (after one caught my eye coming out of the kitchen) and sat down to wait, sucking down a rootbeer.

My meal came, a big fried tortilla bowl with rice, refried beans, lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. I doused it with salsa verde and munched a few intermittent pickled peppers (my favorite). Half way through the plate I couldn’t eat anymore. The food was mediocre, and maybe Taco Bell would have even been better. I surveyed the tables of other customers and realized everyone had a variation of these same ingredients. Nothing different, nothing special, nothing that looked any better. I guess that’s how Tex/Mex places are. The meal left me feeling full and my stomach never quite settled the food.

I stepped out into the hot sunshine. The restaurant was right next to a vintage clothing shop I use to like. It was closed, boarded up and all. I turned the corner and headed towards my favorite record shop. I had once gotten a Patti Smith record there and a Souxsie and the Banshees album for about 5 bucks. I found it also closed. Things were looking down, and my food still felt like it was bubbling up into my throat.

I headed towards the river, and the main drag. The sidewalks were swarmed with summer tourists, fat old men and shi-shi women. A dirty hippie decked in mismatched tye-dye was spotted every couple of blocks through the drone of people. The roads were at a dead stand-still with traffic. Solitary men with one ear pierced blasted 80’s dance music from their convertible Porsches and BMWs and a meaner sort of men dressed in leather chugged by on motorcycles, out to enjoy the verdant ride by the river down route 202.

I reached the corner, and to my dismay the famed vintage/ curio/ novelty shop was now charging customers 20 cents to enter. The shop windows were lined with signs reading “No Photos.” This every inch of this shop is cluttered with curious objects, antique wedding dresses, fishnet stockings, old metal lunch boxes, dirty playing cards, punk rock buttons, and other little trinket treasures. Somewhere they must have changed their politics, and were now charging people money to enter. I thought this absolutely absurd and refused to go in. Why would a shop charge people an entrance fee? This just seemed greedy.

I walked further down, and browsed the 500 shops all called “Shop of India” and all selling the same few brass statues of Hindu gods, Nag Champa incense and hippie clothing from India that Indians don’t actually wear. Some time someone must have gotten a huge shipment of these items, and never restocked or tried to find anything more unique.

After perusing shop after shop, I found one man who had imported a ton of knick-knacks from Bali. One sculpture stuck out as a jewel among the rest of the rubbish; a wooden image of Hanuman, meticulously carved in detail to show each and every hair.

I searched up and downs the streets for a used book store that use to have excellent deals, but this too had been swallowed up by the new commerce of New Hope. This was the final straw. New Hope was no longer for me. All the things I had loved about the place were gone. All had been replaced with pricey kitschy tourist shops. The artist seemed like ghosts, and the crafts were all cheap, imported, mass-produced. I guess an end comes to everything good. I know for sure I have no desire to go back to New Hope.

Little India in New Jersey, USA

2009-07-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

Missing India led me to Little India in New Jersey, searching for a meal, action, and a little bit of the discomfort felt in traveling. The little stretch of town itself is a hodge-podge of cars and restaurants and jewelry shops and stores selling knick-knacks and illegal Bollywood CDs and DVDs. I instantly felt like I was back in the land of the East listening to the blaring horns, wailing bhajans, and multitude of incomprehensible languages. The women were all decked in brightly dyed sarees and salwar kameezes stitched with sequined embroidery, and the men spit out great gobs of red paan soaked saliva, dying the sidewalks with the familiar bloody splotches. I walked passed shops selling sparkling expensively intricate gold jewelry, and perused a few selling old holy books in Hindi and shiny brass dancing Gods and Goddesses. A little food court appeared to be a main attraction, packed with shouting men running all over the place, devouring chai and Indian snacks. I ordered a sugarcane juice with lemon and ginger and uncomfortably waited amongst the men. Even a honky hippie couple entered the establishment, barefoot, dreaded, and cloaked in tie-dye scarves and baggy corduroys.

I think America is awesome because of our diversity. There are little pockets of people from every country of the world adding to our stew pot.

When I was in India I hated it. I hated all the crowds of staring people and all the commotion and all the pollution. Maybe it was just Bangalore, where it feels like everyone is desperately trying to hide the fact that they are Indian. The place feels robbed of its culture, like all the crap of India resides there without the colorful charm and spice that defines the rest of India.

I also think I went there at the wrong time in my life, to the wrong place, and with the wrong people; definitely the wrong people. When I traveled alone in India, in Rajasthan I loved it, but I hated my time spent in Bangalore, feeling suffocated. As soon as I left India I regretted it. I missed it dearly. I knew I had not unlocked the secrets or nearly explored all of the back alleys or met all of the colorful smiles that the country has to offer. I have always felt a yearning to return, under better circumstances.

For a few short hours I enjoyed this reminiscence of India and envied my sisterfriend who arrived in Dharamshala today.

Vagabunda goes corporate

2009-07-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm not actually going corporate....just searching for a job.

I have been getting some e-mails from people wondering where I am.SO.....I am currently stationed at my family home in Philadelphia. After a long semester in Brooklyn, I finally graduated after 4 long years abroad. But after writing a thesis and having all of my hair fall out due to stress and dengue related illness (I guess all of your hair falls out a couple months after having dengue...what a fun surprise that was), I needed a couple months to recuperate and be taken care of by my mom (she cooks delicious meals, what can I say?).

Now I am searching for a job. The past couple of summers I have relied on archaeology jobs to earn my traveling bean money, but this summer the beans just aren't sprouting. I had a potential job offer in New England which fell through (still a little upset about that), and contacted my old co-workers, most of whom are also hard up for work. I thought that this "economic crisis" wasn't going to hit dirt diggers, but I thought wrong. I am gauging the severity of shovel bum job loss by a post on shovelbums.org's job listings. There was a post for a project in Philadelphia, and hearsay suggested that they needed about 30 field techs. A couple days ago the company re-posted asking people to please stop sending in their resumes, as they had received over 500. I think this is cause for a little bit of alarm. My resume is competing with over 500, probably more qualified applicants.

So, I have moved on to bigger and better, or maybe just different things.
Ultimately, I want to help people, I want to works towards making this planet more habitable, I want to work towards humans being happier and less hungry.
SO, I am making a call out to my readers....Anybody got a job out there for a young, idealistic woman???

P.S. I will try to write some more. I am sort of just wallowing in a hole in the USA, not doing too much traveling, so I have been lacking passion for writing about my passion....traveling.

Almost finished

2009-05-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

I will be finished with this semester of climbing in and out of windows in a few days and then I will get back to writing. I have so much to tell you about!

Road Trip in Thailand Part II

2009-01-24T15:44:00.000-08:00

Here is part II of my road trip in Thailand. Hope you enjoy!

Road Trip in Thailand

2009-01-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

Between Christmas and New Years I took a little road trip through northern Thailand with some friends. We went to the country in Fang, Chiang Rai, the Golden Triangle, monkey temples and all over the place.
Enjoy the video

I'm a Bad Blogger

2009-01-11T05:10:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I will admit it. I am a bad blogger. Andy from hobotraveler.com says a blogger should post everyday. When he says things like this I always self-consciously think they are directed towards me. (Andy I know if you read this you will tell me I am self centered.....or have some other snide comment, haha.)
I go through long bouts where I just don't write on this thing at all. Maybe I am just super lazy.....or maybe there is the even greater problem that I let my "life" get in the way of my "life." Weird how that happens....
In December I was moving around through the wilderness quite a bit...trekking, going on road trips, and basically trying to get a little too caught up in Thailand. Oh, yeah, I remember, I was also writing a very long thesis....wow, that took up a lot of my time....those things are really hard to write, I realized....and you should probably give yourself more time than a week to write it.... no matter how much you want to be doing this instead........

But at any rate, I think I will start posting again. I am backlogged a little bit from Thailand....getting ready to move up to Brooklyn for a few months.....we will see where this journey takes me.

XOXO,
Mira

Empty Space in an Empty Night

2008-12-11T23:54:00.000-08:00

Middle of the night and there is confusion floating through my brain…too much coffee…too much life….The night is perfumed by farm scents…like I am home in America…tucked into bed with my actor daddy home from New York for the weekend and my artist mommy and the house smells of oil paints and love and comfort and creativity…familiarity…Here at empty space Chiang Mai the momma is a potter and the papa is a german actor who works in New York...the drama is all too similar.
and the farmlands of America must have flown on the breeze across the world to visit in Thailand…cow manure and chickens and the dank smell of irrigation water…I grew up next to a farm and a pond and here I am surrounded by rice fields and lotus ponds...but it is slightly different....spiced with enticingly fragrant foreign flowers telling me that this must be a dream…I must be in Thailand…I must be in the tropics…the longitude and latitude are all wrong for home…dogs are barking and roosters crowing and I fear they too are confused for the morning sunlight is hours away…or do they cock-a-doodle-do to wake something up inside myself…wake up…wake up…wake up….and out of this bizarre dream…this bizarre dream of infinite happiness that will never reach truition because somehow I have gotten time mixed up in my mind…between past present future future past future present…future present tense…present progressive…gerund….do they cry cock-a-doodle-do or eeky-eeky-eeee as they are Thai roosters and therefore must speak Thai more fluently than English…still lost in my dream…and things can be hard here like walking through vanilla pudding….I am afraid of waking up from this dream….waking up and saying goodbye yet again…and again and again and again…and it gets so taxingly depressing that they all turn into ghosts whom haunt my e-mail in-box…. “greetings from Germany, Hola de Honduras, Bonjour du France, Howdy from Colorado, I want to talk to you from New York, ‘Ello from England, Ni Hao from Taiwan.” How many must there be? I am scared of the impending doom of “Sawadee krop from Thailand.” I know it is coming. I, too, am a ghost hovering over a bright screen through the psychic medium of cyber-space…lost in the space-time continuum of I miss you after two years when are you visiting again been thinking of you XOXO.

Orphanage in Thailand

2008-12-11T02:34:00.000-08:00

I arrived at the Orphanage to a confusing scene. I visited the orphanage as part of my school curriculum. There were children crawling all over an open patio area. There were 2 camera men filming the scene. In the middle of it all was a very beautiful girl dressed in posh clothing. I soon found out that the girl was a Thai movie star, and she was doing charity work by giving gifts to the orphans. Everyone seemed very caught up in this, and no one really even noticed my arrival. I had no idea what I should be doing, so I just sat on a bench and watched.

The movie star was filmed dancing with the children. The children then sang her a song and she happily clapped. Next she handed out flowers as each child clasped there hands in a wai and replied “Ka phoon krop.” Next she handed out clothing and toys. The toys caused a complete uproar as the children ran all over, ripping the heads off of their new Barbies and crashing their plastic planes on wheels into people’s feet.

One little boy noticed me then, and we began playing with his little plane. I still had no guidance form anyone, so I guessed I should just play with the children. The movie star had stolen the show from me, though, and most of the children were not interested in playing with me, despite my efforts to be fun.

The whole situation was odd. No one from the orphanage approached me to explain what was happening. No one explained who these children were, or how they had gotten here. No one explained what the orphanage did, or how they were funded, or what happened to the children after they reached a certain age. No explanation. No one even asked me who I was, or why I was playing with the children. I feel like it would be easy for just anyone to walk in off the street and start playing with the children.

There were other foreigners at the orphanage also playing with the children. I didn’t know why they were there either. Maybe it was common for random tourists to volunteer to help at the orphanage? Maybe they were looking to adopt the children? I did find a bulletin board with pictures and letters of Western families who had adopted children from this orphanage.
All in all this was a strange experience.