Still in the capital

Washington, D.C.

Chuck Brown and I have been hitting the streets of DC looking for a place, and we've pretty much settled for a place on U St. I'll keep you posted on that. Last night I met up with some of the old Youth Legislature governors and some LBJers, and we finished 2nd at Stetson's trivia night. If only Newcomer had been there...he could have helped with the New Kids on the Block questions.

I'll be in DC until this Sunday and then heading down to BR for two months to do some more research for the Chamber. Here is the latest on my dissertation from Cambridge. In short, the tax credit bill is sitting on the governor's desk waiting for a signature.

Back in the USA

Washington, D.C.

I'm back baby!

I arrived last night and within a few hours was at the LBJ alumni reception at the Capitol. I saw Bulldog Savio, Lt. Kelly C Ward, the Kornegays, and many other friendly faces. Tonight I saw bighead Rivas, big burns Sid, and more. Good times thus far in DC and I'm excited to be moving here in a few months.

This just in...I have a US cell phone. The phone will be shipped here by early next week but for those curious or mildly interested, the number is (202) 674-7499.

Ciao, adios, and aurevoir...oh, and cheers

Cambridge, England

If you're reading this then you already know: I made it back from Morocco safely. It was quite a terrible journey home. I flew the only low-cost African carrier in the world, Atlas Blue, from Marrakech to London Gatwick. The airport was crazy -- truly seemed like a chaotic market or something. Just one quick example: when I was boarding the flight, we were asked to walk out on the runway to get on the plane. This is fairly common, so I wasn't all too surprised by that. But it was pretty funny that there was no one on the runway guiding passengers to the planes, so theoretically I could have just gotten on any on of the dozens of planes lined up on the runway. The flight didn't get much better. We sat on the runway for over an hour with the warm African sun baking our plane. By the time we took up, my shirt was soaked from sweat. Awesome.

This could very well be my last post from my little dorm room in Cambridge. I probably should write out a long and thoughtful post on what my time over here has meant to me. That will have to wait though, as I'm franticly trying to pack up all of my stuff into two little suitcases. Should make for a fun afternoon! I'm doing some last minute laundry right now and actually just finished cleaning out my desk. Now I just need to figure out how much luggage I can bring on my flight!

The wheels on the bus...

Essaouira Morocco

...go round and round...round and round...round and round...all through the town.

At least that is how I remember the lyrics going for the song from preschool. The bus company in Morocco seems to have taken the song quite literally. Ben and I made it down to the Atlantic Coast yesterday and hopped on a bus to return to Marrakech today. We arrived at the bus station in Essaouira early and bought our tickets and a little breakfast. The bus was supposed to depart by 815 and I suppose that it actually did. But as Ben and I waited the last few minutes to depart a bunch of random guys walked around the parking lot yelling Marrakech. They herded people on the bus, seemingly getting people that were not even planning on going to the ancient city. Perhaps they offered them a discount just to get on the bus? Or maybe they were just stragglers? Still, when we finally departed these quasi shepherds accepted a tip from the official bus ticketer and then looked around for the next bus to fill.

Funny thing though is that it didnt stop there, as we drove around the small town picking up random people from seemingly random locations. Ben and I got the feeling that we were not going to be leaving until the bus was full. Every now and then the bus would slow to a roll and the ticketer would hang out the window, yelling Marrakech. Sometimes the bus would completely stop and the entrepreneur would run up to a cafe and a random chap to encourage more butts for the seats on the bus. It really did seem like a negotiation. I could just picture it perched from my high seat on the 20 year old bus. "Oh, you know that you want to go to Marrakech. Good price. I give you good price." Sometimes they would relent and we would be one spot closer to departure. This went on and on, and continued when we passed through smaller villages.

The result: it took us about 3.5 hrs to go about 100 miles. Nice.

I will write about Marrakech a little later today or early tomorrow. Ben left for Switz and I leave tomorrow for London.

By the way, here is an article on my dissertation from Cambridge.

Congrats!

Marrakech Morocco

I must take the time to congratulate my awesome girlfriend on her new job offer to do health policy research with Mathematica in Washington DC. I am very happy for Sarah! Send her an email of congrats if you get a chance.

Oh the snake charmers are still going! I am off to Essourya tomorrow to try some surfing then back to Cambridge on Sunday to do some final packing for the move home.

Snake charmers

Marrakech, Morocco

After great stops in Rabat and Casablanca, we have made it to Marrakech. The keyboard is still terrible but I just wanted to write and say that there are currently snake charmers outside the window of this Internet cafe. I am talking king cobras. Needless to say, Ben is scared.

Morocco is an amazing place.

Made it and the keyboards stink

Tangers, Morocco

I cannot find the period on this keyboard, neither can Ben, we have relied on using the cut and paste function and frankly I a, sick of it

But we arrived to this port town and promptly got got by this tourism official, ha

We are on to Fes tomorrow and I will keep my eyes peeled for a non Arabic keyboard that has periods

Ciao

Laundry

Still...

Cordoba, Spain

I haven´t made two blog entries in one day in a long time. Still, it´s worth it. I am currently sitting in an Internet cafe that is connected to a local hostel which happens to be the only place in town that I could find a washing machine to clean my crunchy clothes. Actually, it was fairly easy to find the machine. The hard part was finding some detergent to clean off the crunch. Seriously, every shop is closed on Sundays in Spain, or at least in Cordoba. I´ve already struggled a bit with the hours of shops and restaurants in this country, as the standard mode of operation is to have the three hour siesta (or longer) in the afternoon and then reopen in the evening. But everything shuts down on Sundays, which I suppose is a nice thing...just not for tourists like me.

So I finally found a shop called OpenCor that is opened year round and 24 hours a day. Nice. Cleaned up on some cleaning supplies, and got a yummy yogurt shake to boot. Now I´m online trying to find a cheap way to Algeciras, which is the port town that we´ll leave from tomorrow for Tangiers, Morocco. Tangiers is supposed to be pretty bustling with skams and aggressive locals, so we´ll jet from there asap. Perhaps my next entry will be from Fes.

War Eagle.

Long and winding

Cordoba, Spain

I´m currently chilling out in Cordoba waiting for Ben to arrive on a night train from Barcelona. Once he gets here, we´ll head down to Algeciras to catch a ferry over to Morocco. The travels with Imran and Jason were a lot of fun. We hit up the beaches of southern Portugal for two days in Lagos. The most memorable experience there was a New Orleans trained street performer. He was kind of like a Richard Simmons look alike with crazy energy and this catchy saying that Jason and I kept repeating all weekend. He´d say to the crowd, "I like you, you like me. 50 50! Yeah, no problem." I guess you had to be there.

From Lagos we took a long bus ride over to Sevilla, where Imran and Jason flew out of late last night. Sevilla is a beautiful little city, with lots of flamenco dancers, tapas, and even a bull ring. We had tapas and tried to find the flamenco dancing, but were out of luck. Spent a day walking around and saw the splendid cathedral and bullfighting museum. Last night I hopped on the train for Cordoba and somehow ended up in the nicest hostal that I´ve ever stayed in. BA.

I´ve gotta run but will likely be online later for a better posting. Ciao.

Real hospitality

Sintra, Portugal

This is going to be a quick one again. My apologies. I will go into an Internet cafe soon and write a proper (as the Brits say) blog entry.

But the short story is that I'm currently at a new friend's office in Sintra checking my email -- trying to finalize plans for meeting up with Jason tomorrow. So yesterday I came to Sintra to visit this magical little village outside of Lisbon that was supposedly really cool because of the palaces here. I hopped on a commuter train and was here in the early afternoon. I was famished and decided to hit up this Chinese restaurant just outside the train station. Again, the short version is that I meet a native born Brazilian but actually Belgian citizen (although never been to Belgian) with an American mother and thus an American accent. Catherine lives here in Sintra and runs a company called Cycling through the Centuries. After a brief intro, Catherine offers to show me around, and by the end of the day I'm sitting in a fabulous restaurant on the Atlantic Coast eating seabass with her and her boyfriend Martin. This after an unbelievable day of touring around scenic Sintra, which really does seem to be nothing but palaces. I also made it out to the western most point in Europe. Now I understand why all those Portuguese sailors were so excited/enthuastic to sail around the world. Quite majestic. In the end, it was a truly amazing day and yet another experience that showed me how kind and giving humans can be. What a great travel experience.

Imran got in early this morning, and we did a bit of sightseeing around Lisbon. Then we came out to Sintra again for another fabulous day in this lovely little village. Gotta run for a dinner in Lisbon but more later. Jason gets here tomorrow and we're off to Lagos (probably).

A few shout outs: Congrats to Grant for getting engaged a few weeks ago, and to my boy Willie for getting engaged last week! Also, happy birthday to old head Adam Newcomer!

Watermelon drop

Lisbon, Portugal

I'm about to drop like a watermelon in a watermelon drop (or whatever you call that game from the 4th of July picnic when you try to pick the watermelon up out of the pool but it's greased and you can't.). So I'm tired and will write more tomorrow. But I had a great day in Sintra. Absolutely fantastic. Wonderful. Just an amazing travel story.

Oh, and I skipped the trip to Coimbra. Came straight to Lisbon yesterday. Imran arrives tomorrow and Jason on Thursday.

Ciao.

Port in Porto

Porto, Portugal

This is going to be the six minute version. Partly because the person using this computer before me has the language setting on Mandarin and I haven't been able to change it, and partly because the shift key keeps sticking and it annoys me.

Wow, that's a minute down.

Okay, so I'm here. I'm on another backpacking trip in Europe. Get exited because I'm going to write some deep and profound stuff this summer. Okay, probably not. But I'll try to make it funny as hell.

Arrived last night and immediately had two random acts of kindness from some local yocals. First, as I sat outside of the aeroporto waiting for the bus -- and not knowing which bus -- a guy came up to me randomly. He was my age and just walked up and asked if I knew where I was going. I sure did, but just didn't know how I was getting there. He proceeded to guide me to the correct bus, and then asked the bus driver where I needed to get off. The kid was amazing...actually trying to move to England next year to study graphic design. He even paid for my bus ticket and offered to show me around his hometown outside of Porto (Espiro). Remarkable...as he said, only part of the Potuguese hospitality.

The second act came after I arrived to the drop-off point from the bus. I was walking around pretty aimlessly without a map -- as you can see, I was very prepared for this trip -- when I asked two guys if they knew where my hotel was. They in fact knew and I was delighted! But rather than tell me how to get there, they grabbed my arm and dragged me off down the road to personally show me the location. Along the way, we chattered in English and broken English. Again, remarkable.

Today I had a lie in and then crossed river to go and tour the famous port wine cellars of the city. I saw the cellars at Croft, Offley, and Camel. (I think I'm spelling those right.) It was quite interesting to see it all -- will put the pics up at some point -- and I especially enjoyed the port tasting. Wow, this stuff is way better the cheap stuff they serve at formal halls in Cambridge!

The rest of the day was spent walking around this scenic city. It kind of reminds me of a medieval San Francisco. That might sound funny to some. But it is so hilly and the streets are incredibly scenic. It does remind me of SF with the steep hills, except that the city is many hundreds of years older (and also smaller). I had dinner tonight in a random little diner...the best meal that I've had in a while. Okay, maybe not...it was a typical English meal only in Porto. What's going on? I can't get rid of chips no matter which way I turn!

I'm off to bed or maybe to watch a movie in Portuguese. Oh, I'm staying in a nice little pension in the city centre. Tomorrow I'm taking a bus early for the college town of Portugal, Coimbr. You know I'll love that! Maybe I'll see if they have a public policy PhD program.

School's out for summer (a loooong summer)

21 years of higher education (10 degrees)

Cambridge, England

It's final. I've turned in my dissertation and my education experience is finished (for now).

I thought that I'd feel a tremendous relief, excitement, and joy. But it hasn't really been that emotional for me. I think part of that is because for the past two years, I've basically treated graduate school like a job -- doing research on public policy (first for LSU then for the BR Chamber). I guess (and hope) that my job will stay similar -- looking at complex issues and trying to solve them. Of course, the hours will change. Oh how they will change! (no more 11 a.m. - 2 a.m. days for me!) I also think that it just hasn't hit me yet that I'm actually finished with school. Unbelievable. I started college in September 1998 and just finished. What a long and enjoyable experience.

I organized a final party for my class -- kind of like last year's blowout at 2800 (minus the keg, shot luge, and sunshine). I went with Tim Poon over to Tesco yesterday afternoon and bought a stone's worth of meat etc. Then we settled down on the island at Darwin College for a nice afternoon BBQ. There was champagne, fellowship, food, and more champagne (Bill, our course director, even brought a bottle!).

And then the rain came.

I suppose that is typical for British weather...or for my British experience. Right when we're having a good ol' time at our grand finale (and my first BBQ in the country), the sky opens and we have to move everything inside. Funny, we bought one of these disposable grills for the BBQ. I had never heard of these things, but they have an entire row of them at Tesco. Now I know why: no one will buy a legitimate grill because they can only use it for a week! In any event, (I'll stop the hating on British weather) -- we did have a great time. It was one last hoorah before we all go off to separate corners of the world. Kind of neat to have good friends in the US, UK, Fiji, Pakistan, Jordan, France, China...you get the point.

I'm off to Porto in about 3 hrs and I still haven't packed. Doing some last minute laundry then going to shove it all in a bag. I'm going to pack light this year...I think just a pair of flip flops, some jeans, and a few shirts. It's my last backpacking trip for a long while (although I'm already planning a trip to South Africa to visit Dr. Newcomer).

Oh, I went into London on Wednesday for a daytrip. It was a solo journey, as I received curses from my classmates anytime I invited them along (dissertation was done for me!). I checked out a few museums that I've missed -- National Gallery, National Portrait, and National Army. I was quite curious to see the National Army Museum because it has the Brit perspective of the American Revolutionary War. Funny...when I would ask my British friends if any museums in London had anything on the war, they would be like "What war? I don't know what you're talking about." So it wasn't much of a surprise to find the section on the American Revolution in the museum to be nothing more than a corner of a small room. There were a few red coats and a battle plan of Bunker Hill, and a cool model of a Queen's Ranger troop. That night I went over to the West End to see a show that I've been wanting to see for a long while: Les Miserables. I've read the book and know the music (from mom and sisters), so it was wonderful to finally see it performed on stage. Quite a powerful performance and one that I highly recommend.

Okay, I'm outta here. I'll be putting posts on the blog when I can...it's back to a travel blog I guess. Fun times.

Until next time...