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Red. White. Blue.

Well, I’m back home again in my wonderful city, New York. It was actually sunny yesterday when I finally arrived and, although I can’t say that I was ecstatic to be home (more like lost in a haze of complete exhaustion), I was happy to not be traveling anymore. When all was said and done, I had been traveling for 60 hours straight and I think that’s a new record for me!

I was thinking about doing a big “Well, what did you learn, Alexis?” post but I’m pretty beat so I will keep it short and focus on probably the single most important thing that I learned on this trip.

My final weekend in Indonesia, I decided to participate in the Ubud Writer’s & Readers Festival in Bali and I went to a few seminars and a wine tasting. At the wine tasting event, I was seated at a table with a woman from India, a German couple and a few other people from countries I can’t remember. We were going around the table and telling a little bit about ourselves: where we were from, our occupations, etc. The usual.

I gave an overview of my details and sheepishly said, after announcing that I was an American, that “I realize we’re not very popular out there right now….” to stem the almost guaranteed comments that I was sure to get about my home country. It had become so commonplace for me to tell people where I was from and automatically brace for the inevitable attack.

The German guy, probably in his 40’s, looked me straight in the eye and I got ready as he began to speak.

“Never be ashamed of where you’re from. Never,” he instructed decisively and emphatically.

I was getting so used to being attacked about being an American that I guess I was just used to stating where I was from and almost apologizing in the same breath.

The thing is, I’m not at all ashamed of being American. But I do think that it’s important to note that wherever I traveled, people had some very strong opinions about the state of our country and its international policies and they had no qualms about telling me exactly what they thought, in no uncertain terms. Being an American in America is so easy in so many ways -- but once you leave the safety of the States you become an easy target for all of the animosity, anger and frustration people are feeling towards the country at this moment. To put it bluntly, we’re really unpopular right now and I’ve been taking one for the team. In so many ways I'm ready to quit talking about being an American and just be an American for a while.

It is time to look deep within ourselves and decide who we want to be, and what we want the word “American” to mean. When I was in Bali I also met an Australian woman who said that everyone in the world should have the right to vote for the next American president because he or she has such a huge effect on everyone on this planet. Of course, this is impossible (we have a hard enough time just getting Americans to vote), but her point was well made. Although it’s easy to vote and live your life based on the things that affect you on a daily basis, as Americans we must realize that our actions and policies affect everyone on this planet in so many ways.

It is time for a change and we are now poised to be able to make a positive impact in the world.  Vote and act for things that affect you locally, but also think of how the decisions that you make on a daily basis are affecting the lives of people in places you may never go. I’ve seen first-hand how American aid has improved people’s lives; I’ve seen first-hand how it’s harmed. Let’s all work together as Americans to be more compassionate, more educated on our nation’s policies both domestically and internationally – and most importantly, let’s hold our elected officials responsible for their actions.

I’m proud to be an American – for what we’ve accomplished as a country and who we are as a people – but most of all for the hope in my heart for what is yet to come.

And I’m really excited to be home.

Home Sweet, Sweet Home!

I have arrived!!!!!!

I am slap happy and pretty out of it -- but I survived the journey!

More thoughts/feelings in my next post but I am safely at home in my new Brooklyn apartment. And now, I'm going to bed!

London Fog

You just knew that this was coming...I am stuck at Heathrow!

The travel agent (not naming any names) that booked my original ticket home didn't allow enough time between planes when transferring in Paris....so I missed my connecting flight to London....but because the flight that they rescheduled me on was also delayed because of weather, they gave me an amazing free room at the Hilton! I must've been a really good person in another life.

So I have been trying to get ahold of Rusel to tell him that he doesn't need to pick me up tonight at the airport. I'll be arriving tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m at JFK. If anyone out there sees Rusel or talks to him, please tell him! I have tried everything but we're both kind of in transit at the moment.

Rusel (or anyone else out there) if you're out there reading this, please call me at the hotel:

+44 (0) 20 8759 7755

Room 193

I've tried calling you, but it's not going through. I'm not sure if your cell phone is working yet and anyway, it costs me $8 US a minute to call you so if you could try to give me a jingle, that would be great.

So a big ARRHRHRHRH and another AHHHHHHHH. Off to bed, I seriously don't know whether to wind my butt or scratch my watch.

*UPDATE -  Rusel and I have spoken and we will have our first night apart in over three months...

I Know What You're Thinking: I Am So Glad I'm Not Her Right Now

To gain a few sympathy points and also to keep Mom, Paige & Adam informed, here’s my horrendous, horrific itinerary from Perth to New York City.

Yes, some people fly direct or maybe have one stopover somewhere. I prefer to be hard-core. Just kidding --- half of this ticket home was free and “purchased” with miles (therefore a big thanks goes out to American Airlines for always treating their miles customers with extra special brutality); the Paris-London-NY is the open, tail end of my original ticket to Aceh. It's all very tricky but hopefully it will work! I swear, I was a travel agent in a past life.

It will definitely be strange to be back at the Singapore airport again. It feels like so long ago when I first passed through there on my way to Aceh in July. So young, so innocent! ☺ I will try to update along the way when I can get wireless internet, and I’ll be sure to post when I get back to the good old US of A.

Monday, January 14th
Quantas
Flight 71
Depart Perth: 4:30 p.m.
Arrive Singapore: 8:45 p.m.

Japan Airlines
Flight 710
Depart Singapore: 11:45 p.m.
Arrive Tokyo Narita: 7:25 a.m.

Tuesday, January 15th
Japan Airlines
Flight 405
Leave Tokyo: 11:05 a.m.
Arrive Paris: 3:45 p.m.

British Airways
Flight 319
Leaving Paris: 5:10 p.m.
Arrive London: 5:25 p.m.

British Airways
Flight 173
Leave London: 6:55
Arrive NYC: 9:35 p.m.

Alternatively, here’s Rusel’s itinerary for his flight home. One layover…what a wimp!

Monday, January 14th
Emirates Airlines
Flight 421
Leave Perth: 11:30 p.m.
Arrive in Dubai: 5:45 a.m.

Emirates Airlines
Flight 201
Leave Dubai: 8:30 a.m.
Arrive in NYC: 2:10 p.m.

Many people have asked me what is going to happen to the blog when I’m no longer traveling. The truth is….I don’t know! Obviously, I won’t be blogging daily when I’m back to being a boring graduate student in NYC because….I just don’t think that it will be that interesting.

I’m thinking about a few final posts and then considering “Life of Lex” a completed project. I may set up another blog for big events – my birthday extravaganza in February, for example (the 13th, please mark your calendars!) or a way to showcase different writing projects I’m planning in the future.

For all of you loyal readers out there a BIG thank you for keeping up with me and my travels throughout the past six and a half months. Although I tried not to check my daily hits stats too often because I wanted to make sure that it didn’t affect the quality of the blog, I must say that I really got a kick out of seeing my readership grow over the months. I especially loved the comments to the blog as well as the encouraging e-mails that I received often. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me.

It’s been a fabulous ride! Thanks so much for coming along.

Hold Onto Sixteen As Long As You Can

When I arrived in Bangkok last week and popped into an Internet café on Khao San road to quickly check my e-mails and make sure that Rusel had boarded his flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, there was an e-mail waiting for me in my in-box from my best friend from high school. She told me that her Mom, Sallie, had died unexpectedly and quite suddenly on Thanksgiving Day.

The news hit me pretty hard and reading the words on the computer screen immediately transported me back home and back in time. Although I am halfway around the word and haven’t spoken to Sallie in quite sometime, she was definitely one of those people who left a mark on everyone she came into contact with. She left an imprint on me that’s still very real, so many years later.

I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately. Fittingly, as we rode on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, Rusel and I started talking about time and he tried to explain Einstein’s universal time theory to me. He spoke of how everything is actually constantly happening and that nothing is linear. I sort of get it and I sort of don’t but in the end, I guess, in certain ways things that happened to me ten years ago are just as real as the things that happened last week. Time is really humanity’s way of ordering things linearly.

There are things that are forever a part of me – like Sallie’s voice and laugh, my Dad’s whistle, the smiles on the children’s faces in Aceh. And then there are things like heartbreaks, weeks of work, and horrible winter months that I have completely erased from my memory forever. I guess that’s just how we work.

Thinking back about Sallie makes me remember being sixteen again, and all of the good, bad and the ugly things that come with it. Sallie definitely fit into the “good” category. Quick to laugh, slow to judge; Sallie was everything you want in your best friend’s Mom when you are sixteen years old. She was always there to listen when you needed to talk but was also one of those people who intuitively knew when to give you space. Whenever I was at Melanie’s house she was there for the essentials when you’re a teenager and the world revolves around you: to pick us up when we needed a ride, to provide us with junk food, to give us some advice. But she wasn’t one of those “hovering” mothers. You just always knew that she was there if needed, and that knowledge was comforting.

Growing up in a small town in Nebraska might not sound ideal to many, but it was quite a bucolic existence. Now that I have some perspective on my growing-up years I realize just how idyllic and special they were. For the most part, in my little bubble, kids were allowed to be kids. But then again, maybe I’m just letting time do it’s job and forgetting all of the bad things that happened and the ghosts and darkness that enveloped me at times living there. In the end, Sallie was always a bright light and her home was a haven to me during these sometimes-turbulent years.

Sallie was a special person because she truly cared for others and let you know it. Her loyalty and level of caring for others was really the stuff of legends. The way that she always thought of other people first serves as a model to me now in my life. Each person a teenager comes into contact with helps to show them the tools needed to be an adult, for better or for worse. Sallie was truly the best example I could’ve had in terms of being a good human being and at that point in my life the impression she made is something I carry with me today.

Everyone would be so lucky as to have a person like her in his or her life. And she was definitely a character. With her bright-red shock of short hair you could easily pick her out of the crowd. It was just another way on the long list that Sallie stood out.

Most of you out there reading this didn’t know Sallie, but perhaps you knew someone like her who made a big difference in your life. Made you feel safe when you needed a place to feel safe, made you laugh when you needed a laugh. Had that certain something that makes people like her unique, even though you can’t always put your finger on exactly what it is. I don’t know if I believe in heaven or not, but wherever Sallie is right now I’m sure that she’s having a great time – and is making those around her just a little more joyous.

Safe Arrival in Japan

Rusel and I have arrived safely in Japan........

It was definitely strange to get on a plane, and in a little under three hours, be in a totally different country. No provodnitsa giving me stern looks, no scenery outside except clouds. For reasons that are too boring to explain, Rusel and I are on different flights the rest of the trip so he left the hostel quite early; I got a few extra hours of sleep as my flight didn't leave until early afternoon. We easily found each other at the airport and made our way into Tokyo.

So here we are, and the usual stress of finding the place ensued. It's funny because there is usually a predictable turn of events for us now when trying to find our accommodation, which is usually in some crazy unmarked dark alley where you need to know the secret knock. It goes a little something like this:

1. We're working together to read the map or the guidebook
2. We get frustrated with each other and the situation because we are inevitably lost and the guidebook or directions are completely wrong or just confusing
3. One person screams at the other person
4. We turn on each other
5. One of us asks someone on the street where to go, while the other person glares at them
6. They tell us where to go quickly in their native language or in limited English
7. We act like we understand and walk away
8. We walk a few more blocks (still mad at each other, sometimes a little bit of yelling is still happening, sometimes just dirty looks)
9. We ask another person
10. We make up (usually with a hug, which is hard to do with backpacks and even though we are still lost)
11. We ask another person
12. We find the place

Sometimes, Steps 1-11 are repeated many times before Step 12 is achieved.

Today's adventure was no exception and that's exactly how it went down. But we are here now in our cute little Tokyo bed and breakfast, called a minshuku. It seems to be run by two very funny old ladies and I can already sense that they are probably going to get their own blog posts. The place has a pretty good location and so far, so good. Tokyo is extremely expensive and we are already feeling the pinch after getting used to Chinese prices.

But we're excited to be here and we're both feeling a bit better, thanks for the e-mails!

Calling in Sick….

Eeeek! When you’re sick in your everyday life, you give your boss a jingle jangle (using your convincing 'I'm so sick I could die' voice to get extra sympathy points), get back into bed and pull the covers over your feverish head. But what do you do when you’re sick and you’re traveling? It is quite the conundrum.

Rusel and I have been outrunning sickness for two continents now, but it finally found us. We’ve both been coming down with various illnesses and ailments and today it really just hit us -- Rusel especially. We went to a crazy and amazing acrobatics show tonight and afterwards, on the subway home, poor Rusel was burning up and was feeling just terrible.

But what do you do? You can't really call in sick when you're not really working, can you? We don't want to let one day go by in bed when our time is so limited....yet, if we continue to push ourselves it just seems to be taking longer to get over our bugs.

Up until now, we went pretty much all-out whenever we got off the trains and then collapsed into one huge, exhausted heap once we boarded the next train. But even when we were on the trains, as Rusel noted tonight, we were still under low-level stress of one sort or another. Even if we were just sitting on the train watching the world go by, we were still always dealing with: snoring old men, dirty toilets, anxiety about missing our stop, anxiety about finding our hotel when we got to our appointed city, hunger pains from lack of food without meat, etc. etc (and usually a combination of the abovementioned). Don’t get me wrong, it was a hell of a good time, but we were never truly relaxing. I think that it just really took a toll on our bodies.

So what we really need is a day off, but we’re leaving tomorrow for Japan. Rusel leaves on a really early flight and I leave in the early afternoon. So we just have to deal with our current sniffles and sore throats.

Wish us luck! Our next update will come from Japan and, hopefully, healthier bodies.

Asked & Answered

What is up with Rusel’s beard?

The beard has grown in slowly -- or maybe it’s because I spend every waking moment with Rusel and so I didn’t notice it come in. I didn’t give it much thought until everyone started e-mailing me about it.

Many theories abound: in Perth, where Krista is from, the men grow beards in November to support "Mouvember"………….where basically every man and his dog (and old Italian ladies if they have the urge) try to grow a moustache for the 30 days of November. It is all very tongue in cheek and it’s all for a good cause as people raise money for Prostate Cancer (this from Krista, thanks!).

Cheryl in Nebraska thinks it looks “very handsome,” (Editor’s note: extremely biased source who wouldn’t be surprised if Rusel woke up tomorrow morning and walked on water.)

The beard suited Rusel well in Russia, where it was freezing and kept his face warm. It has also earned him a new nickname: “Redbeard.” For some reason, it is growing in red! I guess I could also call him “Rusty,” although he doesn’t seem to like that at all.

Rusel’s answers:

1. It’s a “traveling beard.” (I have no idea what this means, talk amongst yourselves.)
2. I don’t like to shave.
3. I’m not working.
4. It is weather-appropriate. We traveled through Russia in winter. Enough said.

Rusel tells me that he will probably shave it off in warmer climates to come. Stay tuned.

How are you and Rusel getting along?

To be honest, before Rusel and I met up I was slightly anxious. We had been apart for three months, one of which I was traveling on my own and doing my own thing completely. How would it be, after not seeing each other for three months, to spend every day together?

Yesterday as we were waiting for the subway in Beijing to go to the Lama temple, we did the math and figured out that by the end of this trip, we will have spent the same amount of time together that we usually spend together in one year. So in three months time we’ll have spent a normal year’s worth of time together.

And it’s going great. Like any normal couple, we have moments (which sometimes even span out into “uncomfortably long moments,” and – rarely -- “ten minute breaks”) but for the most part it’s going really well. Rusel is an extremely patient man.

Strangely, we rarely do separate things even though we do have separate interests in our everyday lives. It’s just easier and more fun to do things together. Today, I was tired in the afternoon so I went back to the hostel to take a nap and Rusel hit up a museum on his own, but this is the first time this has happened since St. Petersburg. So on the whole, all is well.

I would say, on average, that Rusel makes me laugh out loud (the kind that makes my belly hurt and sometimes even ends with a snorting noise) at least once a day.

Are you going to run away and get married by a Tibetan monk?

I don’t think that Tibetan monks perform wedding ceremonies. ☺ And anyway, we’d have to sneak into Tibet to do it…..although now that I think about it, that does sound romantic……..although probably not legal and binding in the end. Everyone can learn a lesson from Mick Jagger.

How’s the money situation?

Well, Russia kind of drained us. Moscow was expensive, but we were prepared for that. However, everything else in Russia was expensive as well. And admittedly, we’re a little bit too old to be the stereotypical backpackers. Many people really rough it and sleep in the “bunks” in the hostels but Rusel and I don’t do that.

We were staying at “cheap” hotels in Russia but found that they were slightly isolating and not as friendly. As much as we want the most authentic experience possible, it’s also nice to be tapped into a community of travelers so we can swap information and just talk to some friendly people. So, since Irkutsk in Russia, we have been staying at hostels and enjoying it much more.

The hostels that we have been staying at have private doubles, which are just fine and comparatively not that much more than the open rooms. For instance, at the hostel we’re staying at right now in Shanghai, a bunk bed is 50 yuan each (so it would be 100 yuan/$13 US total for the two of us), and our room is 200 yuan ($26 USD). So we could be doing it cheaper, but this is pretty cheap as it is. It really just depends on how you look at it.

Many people we met along the way also traveled platskartny on the trains. This is the train car where all of the bunk beds are open, like one big dorm. Although that did seem to have its advantages – cheaper, and easier to meet other travelers – Rusel and I felt like kupe was roughing it enough. We also have laptops and Rusel has a nice camera and so we kind of are always keeping an eye on these things, which would’ve been more difficult in that car.

So Russia was a budget-buster, but Mongolia was cheaper and China cheaper even still. Japan is going to be expensive, but we’re only there for ten days. Thailand is cheap cheap cheap and in Australia we’ll be with Krista’s family so that shouldn’t be too bad either. We’re definitely watching our cash flow (only flowing one way at this point, sadly), but our kidneys aren’t on ebay….yet.

Are you sick of the red coat and hat yet?

A resounding YES! should now be heard throughout the land. I am still struggling with what will happen to my winter wear once we hit Thailand.

As anyone who has traveled with me or has visited my apartment knows, I grow attached to inanimate objects for sentimental reasons. When I was six, I saved our old, broken hair blow-drier from the trashcan because I felt sorry for it. So although you may not see any more pictures of them soon, they will probably live on. Maybe we will mail our winter stuff home? But then, that feeds into the above question….so who knows.

Luck Be A Lady

Saying goodbye to France wasn’t as hard as saying goodbye to my sister, Paige. She is my “rock,” and it is difficult because I won’t be seeing her again for quite some time and I was really getting used to being around her – we laughed quite a bit in Nice and told some good stories --- some new, and some old which were worth retelling. It was nice to be around someone who knows all of my stories -- and loves me anyway.

I really enjoyed my time in France, but never felt the same kinship and love towards the people here that I have felt in other countries – Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa….I don’t know what this says about me but it is what it is.

But I did have such a special time in France with my family, and that’s what made the trip great more than anything else. And I do have to say that I met some really cool French people along the way – all of the people at the front desk of our hotel in Paris, our waiter at the Italian restaurant (although he was Russian!) and Etienne in Nice.  I think that if I learned the language I could definitely fall in love with France and the way of life here – the French people really seem to have an appreciation for style, grace and elegance that is unique. And the food – the food! My jeans fit a little bit tighter after ten days in France but it is well worth it.

We also got so incredibly lucky with the weather. It was raining the first day that we arrived in Paris but I think that might’ve been it (except maybe one brief shower one day). Paris in October – deeelightful.

Today, Paige accompanied me to get my haircut and go to the post office. While we were waiting for my haircut appointment, we had lunch at a place directly across the street from our hotel at a tiny, hole-in-the-wall café/restaurant.

“I feel like I have gone down the rabbit hole,” Paige said, as the place was full of characters. First off, we tried to order what we wanted but the waiter basically told us, “no,” when Paige said that she wanted the special of the day and I said I wanted a cappuccino. We listed off other things that we wanted, and after denying several of our orders he finally agreed to bring us sandwiches – I guess that he needs to approve everyone’s orders first?

Apparently, when Paige was picking out the table and I was scheduling my haircut, the waiter kept saying, “No! Not there! Reserved!” to each and every table she chose, until he finally agreed to let her sit at the last one she picked. And mind you, this was around 11:45 a.m., before the lunch rush. The entire restaurant was empty at that point.

As we ate, the place began to fill up. Everyone who walked in knew everyone else. So as each person entered, they would make the rounds doing the double kiss to everyone and then to the cook in the back, and then finally to “their” appointed seat. It seemed as if this happened every day, and we were intruders (at worse) or observers (at best).

There was a very French old matriarch with her dog who sat at “her” table behind us, a wrinkly old man with a dapper hat on his head at “his” table in the window, and then a skinny, 20-something hipster who sat over in the corner. It was quite the scene and there was definitely something going on there that we didn’t understand, but it was fun to watch.

After our interesting lunch, I finally got my haircut. That ended up being a great experience. My stylist was fashionably sleek and cute and had lived in London for five years so his English was great. I was worried that if the language was a problem I would come out looking like Sinead O’Connor. But he did me a solid and I think that it turned out quite nice. Funnily, both Angie and Paige said that my hair looked exactly the same as before and that’s usually what people say after I get my haircut. In some ways I embrace change, and in some ways I like things to stay exactly the same, I guess.

After a frustrating trip to the post office to mail postcards as well as a package to Made and Badung (I think that post offices are annoying, regardless of the country), we headed to the beach. Unfortunately, I only had about an hour of beach time before I had to leave, take a quick shower, and head to the airport to catch my flight. Surprisingly, the beach was full of people. I vacillated on whether or not I wanted to get in the water but finally decided to go for it.

Al Gore, if you’re reading this, please stop now. It’s probably not right that I was able to get into the Mediterranean in the middle of October but that’s exactly what I did and it was amazing. The water was pretty cold but the air was warm and it was great to be back in the water again. Each time I go swimming in the ocean, I think back to the last time I was in the water, and where. For me it was a goodbye snorkel in Amed with my friend, Putu, where I almost convinced him that I could hear the dolphins talking to each other when I put my head underwater. Seriously, I could.

I am such a fortunate person and that’s what I thought about as I floated in the water and contemplated the moment, and the days and weeks to come. There’s something about the water and the way it envelopes you into a different world – surrounds you, holds you up, knocks you down, and carries you on. It was comforting, and made me think of when I was in Calang and Martin swam far out beyond everyone else and all you could see was the top of his face and the tops of his toes as he floated alone, with the Indonesian sunset as a backdrop. I suspect that he had a similar feeling then as I did today – all is right with the world in that little moment.

I reluctantly got out of the water, ran back to the hotel, and high-tailed it back to the bus stop. Paige saw me off and I made it up to Paris to catch my flight to Madrid (where I am now) and ultimately, next, to my flight Moscow which should be boarding any minute. The woman at the check-in counter at Iberian Airlines was so funny and cute. She looked at my boarding passes, which cover Paris-Moscow, Shanghai-Tokyo, Tokyo-Bangkok, Bangkok-Perth, Perth-Singapore-Tokyo-Paris, and she started reading each city out to her co-workers, her voice getting more excited with each city that she read off.

“Never before have I seen anything like this!” she said.

“I know, I’m a lucky lady,” I said to her as she looked at me, in wonder.

Tales of An Internet Junkie

My friend Jeff, in Nashville, e-mailed me a few weeks ago regarding working from the road. How was Internet access on my travels? By way of this post, I’m going to answer Jeff’s question because maybe some other people are wondering, too.

I have come to realize on this trip that I’m an Internet junkie. I haven’t even seen a TV, let alone watched it, since I left Banda Aceh about a month ago. The Internet is what I crave – information when I want it, how I want it. E-mail is my main mode of communication at the moment and even when I’m back home I’m (embarrassingly) much better at e-mailing someone than picking up the phone and calling them. So in that way, I guess that I am a product of my generation.

Since I left Banda Aceh – where I had free, 24-hour wireless around the clock, of all places! – the blog has gone from free (well, $8.95 a month for my Typepad service) to not so free. When I was in Sulawesi on Bunaken Island, the Internet was painfully slow. But right where the boat picked people up to take them to the island of Bunaken, in Manado, there was actually a high-speed internet place with broadband which was as fast as anything I’ve used.

I realized in Bunaken that it was a good idea to write everything up on my computer, and then figure out how to transfer it over to a computer with internet. This saves time and money as opposed to sitting at a computer with Internet and typing everything up and being charged by the minute. Usually I burn it onto a disk or sometimes the Internet café will take pity on me and let me use their memory stick, which has happened a few times and is really nice. This way, I can also spell check on my computer before I upload – but if you’ve noticed I don’t always do a good job of this. In Banda, each of my posts were looked over a few times lovingly and edited thoroughly. If I made some sort of mistake, I just logged back on and changed them. Now, it’s a little bit more on-the-run blogging, unfortunately, and I apologize if the quality has decreased a bit.

But I do want to stress how much I have enjoyed doing the blog and haven’t really considered stopping it. I am sometimes challenged by making sure that I am actually doing things to blog about, rather than getting stuck inside some boring internet café, but most of the time it’s not a problem. I realize now, however, how much I took the wireless in Banda for granted. I could blog whenever, instead of making it a planned event.

In Ubud it took me a few days to figure out what the locals already knew. There’s a place on Main St. called Highway that has extremely fast broadband that I can just plug into my computer. The only problem is that it is expensive – about $5 an hour. I balked at first but then, in the end, realized that I could be in and out of there in about ¼ of the time that it would take for me to do the same thing someplace else so in the end it all evened out. There’s also a really good wifi hookup at a restaurant called Dragonfly and if I’m not uploading any pictures then that’s where I like to go.

Uploading pictures – that’s the beign of my blogging existence. I think that pictures add so much and I’m actually excited about showing off my fun, little hobby. I’ve never been good with a camera and then once I met Rusel I don’t think I touched a camera for three years. It’s been fun to experiment with my crappy, five-year-old camera that will most likely get sent home from Paris because Rusel is bringing his regular digital camera, which I can use as well as an amazing new bells-and-whistles camera that he just bought for the trip. But uploading the pictures can really be hard. At Highway it’s quick and painless but in other places it’s anyone’s guess.

My rule of thumb at this point is the islands, or places near the water, are generally not the best places to get any work done. And most people don’t go to islands to work, as I’ve come to notice. So it’s really no big deal. The best thing is probably to check the guidebooks. Obviously the more remote, the less likely it is that there will be a good Internet connection but then again some places surprise you.

And then I came to Amed. Beautiful, amazing, magical Amed. With dial-up Internet. That’s right. Dial-up Internet. The last week has been so wonderful but the Internet issue has unfortunately turned some of my now sun-bleached hair gray. I am in the final final stages of the Gugus project. My amazing friend Steve “G” Gaydos copy edited the final document for me and sent it to me on Monday. I was unbelievably excited to see it in my e-mail in-box. Unfortunately, that’s all that I could do: look at it in my in-box. The computer’s connection was so slow that it couldn’t download my thirty page document.

After trying all of the three computers there, I was finally able to download it onto the desktop. Great! Next step, as I am being charged by the minute and it is blowing my budget, is to burn it onto a disk, take it back to Wawa Wewe, look and it and make changes, burn it onto yet another disk from my computer, take it back to the internet cafe, send it to Martin. One slight problem. The one computer that I was able to download it onto wouldn’t let me burn the disk!

Panic. Deep breath. Okay. New idea. I talked the woman who owned the café into letting me get off the internet (so the meter would stop running), make the changes and edits there on the computer, get back on the internet, send it to Martin, done. Whew. Ingenious! Working, working, working. That Steve. Thorough! Working….WHA!? Gone. The computer completely crashed. I had already been there about two hours, just to download one document and edit it. Now it was gone.

The woman looked at me as if I was crazy. I felt like a mad woman. I didn’t know what to do. I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore, that traveling about an hour away to what I had been told was “higher-speed” internet was my only option.

“Broadband? Wifi?” I asked the helpful guys at Wawa Wewe when they suggested driving me to another town. Blank stares. Oh no. Was I going to be traveling there only to be confronted with the dreaded dial – up again? I felt like I was being transported back to 1997. I could feel an Alanis Morisette song coming on.

I was walking back to my room dejectedly and ran right into Charles. He noticed the look on my face and I told him my frustrating story. As a writer, he knows all of the tricks. He asked me if I had burned it onto a disk. Check. Did I have a flash-disk? No. Stupid, but no. He didn’t either because he broke all of his by ejecting them wrong so he couldn’t lend one to me. Did I know that the guy who owned the dog who had the fits at Wawa Wewe I on Saturday night had wifi? Jackpot!

First thing the next morning, I walked over to Only You, the hotel that the German guy owned. His wife answered the door and I told her my sob story, all while petting her dog (this dog was actually cute, and I did feel as bad for him as I possibly could about his experience). Although the wifi and broadband was a rumor, he did have a faster dial-up connection than the one in the village. He very kindly let me copy the document to his hard drive and then he had a memory stick that I could transfer the document over to, and then I put it onto my desktop. Success!

I spent a few hours yesterday editing from the daybed on my veranda, burned the document onto a disk, went back into the village internet café and sent it off to Martin….and fingers crossed.

And the unsung hero in all of this is definitely Rusel, who has been patiently helping me lay the entire thing out. Hopefully I will be able to post it tomorrow or over the weekend.

Last night, when I went back into the village to do my regular blogging, I noticed another guy there on the computers working on his own laptop. At the end of his Internet session, he pulled the cable out of his computer, put it back into the café’s computer that he was sitting near, paid, and walked out. It was then that I realized that I could’ve just done the same, with my own computer, and avoided all of the drama. Sigh.

Lex’s Tips For Working On The Road:

-Try not to! Obviously, if you can help it, try to finish everything up before you leave. If you’re a writer, photographer, etc. and traveling is your thing then you probably don’t need me to tell you how to work from the road.

-Always carry a flash disk, which can be purchased quite cheaply before you leave and weighs next to nothing so it won’t cramp your style. You can then easily transfer things from your computer to computers at various Internet places along the way.

-Carry a few spare burnable CD’s, just in case all else fails.

-Determine free Internet wifi connections from the guidebooks. Go there and order a cup of tea or a glass of wine and hook-up. If you can, book accommodation at hotels with free wifi.

-Make sure that you pack a universal adaptor to give your computer the juice it so desperately needs to run. Also, it might not hurt to bring a bit of tape, as sometimes it's a challenge to get everything working together: adaptor, computer plug, electrical socket.