“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
–Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)
I guess fall is here a tad longer, but I still love gray for the fall/winter transition time. This picture seemed appropriate because it had the last of the summer blooms sitting next to the shades of gray.
Via: Pony Girls
This video and post on the Around the World in 80 Mays blog on “How to start learning Italian” had one especially good tip for practicing a new language. Create a twitter account and practice your language of choice with quick 140 character updates. The kind of things people post to their twitter account are usually very conversational and to the point. I think this is a great idea.
I’m thinking of creating a similar post of language resources for languages I have attempted to actually learn in depth, Russian and French. Before traveling to any new country I get travel fluent. Travel fluent means that I’m not scared if nobody speaks English because I know just enough of whatever the language is to get by. I may not remember much of the three-weeks of Italian cramming now, but I could reactivate what little I do know on the plane next time I go back. I have attempted to get travel fluent in Italian, Spanish, Croatian and Chinese. In South America and Italy I was really glad I did this, but other places I was mostly just less freaked out and found someone who spoke English quickly so it didn’t matter. It was nice to know that if necessary with a lot of gestures and my “travel fluency” I can get by.
In Chile my travel spanish saved me 50% off the cab ride from the airport to the hotel. The English only speakers paid double what I did. Of course the fluent spanish speakers paid even less than I did, but I counted it a small victory.
I know we’re officially still in fall, but its beginning to feel like winter here. Gray is such an appropriate color for the beginning of winter. But it doesn’t have to be dreary. Gray can be beautiful, like this tea party. Have a cup of tea today and celebrate the coming of winter.
Photo: Polly Wreford
Continuing my comfy teaparty theme of late, here is a photo from Jacob Termansen. Have a cup. It revives you.
We walked downstairs to the lobby and got in a van driven by a local surfer-boy. He rolled-down the windows and turned on the radio for the short 1 hour drive East from Waikiki beach. We drove-up through the mountains and the radio died as we popped into a tunnel and sat in silence for a few moments before popping out on the other-side to a view of the ocean meeting the mountains.
The small town of Kailua on Oahu’s East Coast is full of surfers like our van driver. In the summer the windy coastline allows them to kite-surf and in the winter the increased waves on the North-shore drive the scuba divers to the East side of the island in search of wrecks and whales. That morning our surfer-boy was taking us on a sea kayaking tour to look for Honu (Green Sea Turtles) and other marine animals in beautiful Kailua Bay while visiting the Mokulua islands.
Because of the time of year, the economy or maybe just sheer luck our group tour included just the two of us and our guide. There was another group with another company on the water that morning with 20 something kayaks to one guide. They had to go at the pace of the slowest kayakers and we quickly outpaced them, tacking on a trip to Popoia Island, a dedicated sea bird sanctuary on the way out to the Mokulaa Islands.
Once we reached the Mokulaa Islands and finished our lunch our guide turned to us and said, “Ok, now its time to jump off a cliff.” Now if you knew me personally you would know the fear that struck into the bottom of my heart. Falling and heights are some of my worst fears. But I’m trying to make life an adventure so I let him guide us on a hike around the island, climbing hand over hand along volcanic rock and barely clinging on at times. We reached a little cove with a rocky-ledge and sat down to take a break. The ledge was too high up for me to imagine jumping from so I sat there watching the waves and resting up for the hike to my inevitable jump. I’m sure you can imagine what happened next. We stood up to keep hiking and our guide asked: “Are you ready to jump?” “Say what?, huh?” I turned to my husband and said: “You first.” Without blinking he went for it, taking away my excuses, so I jumped.
Back on the beach we threw on our snorkels and found some sea turtles to watch. Even if you don’t feel like jumping off of a cliff you should stop baking on Waikiki and see more of this amazing island. If you want to hang with the same amazing surfer dudes that we did you should look up Hawaiian Water Sports.
All prices include life-vests, paddles, snorkel, seats, backrests, dry-bags, lunch, and transportation to and from your Waikiki hotel. $99 4 Hour Group Tour if you book online, about $30 more each if you book in person. If you’ve had experience kayaking before you can rent out a double kayak without a guide for just $39 a day + $10/day for a snorkel set. For us, that was a little too much adventure for our first time sea-kayaking, but we would definitely try a rental if we did it again.
I refuse to use the cliche staycation, its like fashionista, recessionista, and other annoying “now” words. I think of what that word refers to as really just making the most of your time that’s not at work and enjoying the pleasures of home with or without taking time off. This weekend is probably the last one before the snow sticks for the winter so its got my thinking cozy thoughts.
Half the time when we have the weekend together without Army or travel to interfere we spend it mutually tuning each other out with the tv on, the laundry running and both of us on opposite ends of the sofa on our laptops until one of us says “That’s it, am I seriously killing time on Stumbleupon at home?!” and then we actually do something. This weekend we got a headstart and made a list of things to do together to enjoy the pleasure of being home. Tonight we’ll cap it off with an end of summer BBQ. May as well get some use out of the deck before the snow flies, even if it means flipping burgers and watching our breath rise. Smores are definitely in order.
This list is my version of the one on this Zen Habits post. Since we are still childless I edited down to more couply ideas for a weekend in, but see the original list for family ideas.
1. Play together in the snow, rain or leaves, then go inside for a cup of hot chocolate made with real chocolate and marshmallows.
2. Make a large bowl of popcorn and snuggle in front of the DVD to watch a movie you’ll both enjoy. No chick-flick that he pretends to like, but something you are actually both interested in.
3. Have a picnic. In wintertime, it’s just as fun to have a picnic indoors.
4. Snuggle together in bed on a cold Sunday morning.
5. Go out for a leisurely Sunday brunch.
6. Just talk. The art of really truly communicating with each other takes practice.
7. Grab a board game. My husband and friends play a mean game of Risk
8. Cook together. Then eat without turning on the tv.
9. Visit the library. Part of the beauty of staying home and not traveling is that you don’t have to buy books to enjoy new reading material.
10. Have a family make-your-own-pizza night.
11. Go for a hike. Maybe in your neck of the woods its still warm enough for this. Right now we’re in that odd period where its too chilly for mountain hikes and not cold enough for snowshoing. Fall actually makes for nice bike riding too.
12. Go to the museum. Play tourist in your own home-town by hitting up the local museums.
13. Go ice-skating/skiing/snowboarding/sledding.
14. Make breakfast foods for dinner, together. Then eat it in bed. Almost as good as room service and a far better value.
15. On a warm fall night, it’s fun to go camping in your own backyard and sleep in sleeping bags, under the stars. We actually drug our mattress into the living room once when it was -20F out just to shake things up a little. We lit candles instead of a fire. Silly, but memorable.
16. Get moving together. Our community has free dance lessons on Saturday nights and Latin dance nights once a month. We have also tried Aikido, fencing, swimming and ultimate frisbee together.
Doesn’t this look cozy on a fall day? Have a cup of tea. It revives you.
Photo: emma-mitchell Photography
