The October winds whispered that summer was coming and, sure enough, it was time. I was wearing a knee-length black dress with color buttons the size of M&Ms, my trademark white socks with ruffles on the edges and black, flat, patent leather shoes — totally 90s style that will shame me forever — but I was ready. To match my clownish look and, with the full force of my stubborn disposition to beat my fears, I got my bike out of the backyard. The big almond tree in front of my house’s lawn was the start, and the end of the road was the finish line. I mounted it, and before God as witness, I rode my Pepto-Bismol colored bike out to the street, making no concessions to my Nana’s biking Prohibition mania.

I tempestuously raced against the wind, pedaling as fast as my twiggy legs would allow and scantily breathing while my thick, brown hair waved back against the breezy thrill of my newfound freedom and the spite of a 6-year-old riding her bike alone for the first time.

Halfway around the world 17 years later, I grumpily ride a hot pink bike to school in snowy Copenhagen. A bit more stylish now with black stilettos, a mini black skirt on top of dark wool tights and a flashy beige party shirt hidden under my big black coat, I cycle to the trendy Vesterbro neighborhood during a snowstorm that had traveled from Siberia to Copenhagen. Any stoplight downtown becomes a fashion show, not only for onlookers but also for us cyclists: Long-legged blonde women pedaling in sheer black pantyhose in -10 degrees Celsius weather and thick-thighed Viking men waiting for the green light look like models straight from a Perry Ellis catalogue. In my bliss, replaying in slow motion those handsome Danish men snaking around on their bikes, I break. The bike lane has become a race track. Fact: Copenhagen is home to the world’s busiest biking lane with up to 36,000 cyclists per day. Fact: About 55 percent of Copenhageners ride their bikes to school or work daily. Fact: Copenhageners bike twice back and forth to the moon yearly, cycling 1.2 million kilometers. Fact: Copenhagen is nuts.

This Scandinavian town is a city of trends — the world’s best restaurant lives here; the Louisiana Modern Art Museum has become a zeitgeist landmark for contemporary art lovers; and Stroget Street elongates 1.1 kilometers in hundreds of unique Scandinavian fashion stores. But to the newcomer, what is striking about this city is that riding a bike to work or school is not only the cheapest, fastest and most common way of transportation, but it is also an environmentally friendly trend that, along with other advances and reforms in green technology, is expected to grow and make Copenhagen carbon-neutral by 2025.

In Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway, arguably also Iceland and Finland), Copenhagen has been named Bike City for four years in a row. The city’s bike culture developed through the whole of the 20th century, but not surprisingly, it was in the early ’70s during the oil crisis when Copenhageners voted to make the city clean and healthy. Superhighways are being planned not for cars but for bikes, and adding 15,000 bikers to the city over the next five years is expected to save the health care system about $60 million a year.

It sounds utopian, but it is true and possible. Even though I waited a little longer than my classmates to man up and ride my bike under below freezing conditions, I am glad I make my 13-kilometer stretch to school twice a week. On the white-carpeted road, I enjoy some beautiful, frugal moments that I would otherwise miss in a car or on the bus. A couple cycles, hands tied to each other, and behind them, a mother with a cargo bike carries her son to the local kindergarten in what otherwise looks like his personal limo. And as the snowflakes blast against my bare face and melt into sweat drops, I slow down, pausing at intervals only to look at the amazing world-renowned architecture for which the city is famous. All the while, I am not singing “Colors of the Wind” because of course everything is snow-white. Instead, I sing “Old Dirt Hill” by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds.

Now, it’s not always fun gliding through these bike boulevards. What took me some time was to sort out my fear from the angry bikers during the rush hours between 15:30 and 18:00. People can be mean. Because more and more people are joining the bike rage, the city has become congested, and bike traffic is quite dangerous. Sometimes it can be a real hassle to find a decent parking space for my hot pink bike because I will not let my baby fall on top of another bike in a domino effect that can leave it paralyzed and make taking it out of such entanglement a real stress. And sometimes, if I cycle back home still drunk at 4 a.m. when Siberian winds shake even tree trunks from their stillness, there is a chance that my 45 kilograms of girl power will succumb and fall on the ground. Obviously that’s funny, but it is no fun.

But it’s all bliss here in Copenhagen. For this breed of Vikings, there is no snowstorm, rainstorm or raging wind that will make them hop off their bikes. I’m glad I joined them.

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I didn’t want to explain how I had missed my flight to Morocco for spring break that morning, or how I had, after hours of deliberation and juggling the ways I could save the second leg of my flight, settled on London as a destination. And I especially didn’t want to bring up the fact that I would be in London for three days completely alone.

I arrived in the city past midnight with nowhere to stay. My phone was dying and I was hungry. I bid my fellow carpoolers farewell, reassuring them that I was meeting up with someone who would take me in for the night. The first hostel I happened upon wouldn’t, but two hours and three miles from Old Street later I was tucked in with Wi-Fi and a flurry of Facebook messages.

“How’s Morocco?”

“Where are you? We’re in Marrakech!”

“I was thinking we could go to Essaouira on Monday!”

Even though I had made a conscious effort to pack light, I was exhausted from lugging around the few belongings I bothered to bring and closed the messages without responding. Status updates were already popping up announcing where many of my friends had gone for the week, often coupled with smiley faces or superfluous exclamation points. I was embarrassed, sad and jealous; I had completely ruined my travel plans and now found myself in a city I had no idea how to navigate with no plans, little cash and no one to contact. The hostel was booked for the next night and I knew I would once again be on the prowl for a place to stay the next day. I logged off of Facebook without posting anything.

By the next day, I had found another hostel out in Wimbledon after hobbling around all morning with my bag. I was still disappointed about my situation, but I realized that I would have to become comfortable with the idea of exploring the city alone.

It wasn’t difficult. London was beautiful, and despite its belittling exchange rate, offered an incredible amount of free entertainment. I got lost in the British Museum wading through history, I ate fish and chips by the Thames and realized I had more trouble than I expected understanding London English. And it was strangely exciting.

When I got back to the hostel that night, I logged onto Facebook before bed. Photos from all around Europe and beyond sprinkled my feed as friends provided visual evidence of their own spring break adventures. Groups smiling at the camera, some doused in the North African sun I had missed by minutes, others posing before the facades of monoliths and architectural wonders built centuries ago. Some mounted monuments, others feigned while holding them, others even desecrated them. It was all in good fun, I figured. I once again had nothing to post and logged off.

The next two days were eye-opening, as I visited free museum after free museum (London is really great for these) and wandered the city’s sprawling parks and galleries. I listened to crazy people get up on stools and preach nationalism at Speakers’ Corner while others berated them. I watched Arsenal lose to their biggest rival in North London and complained belligerently with other diehard fans. I strolled around the posh houses of Earl’s Court at night aimlessly — and I enjoyed it.

I wasn’t held back by anyone; I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I didn’t have to wait for anyone and no one had to wait for me. I spent hours walking from Baker Street to the stunning Regent’s Park all the way through to Abbey Road, but I didn’t feel the need to take a cliche picture that would likely look ridiculous alone anyway. I ate very little, I took the Tube a lot and enjoyed watching people live their everyday lives in a city I was just discovering. My feet hurt frequently.

And at the end of the day, I would log back onto Facebook before bed, seeing the same thing again. Instagram thumbnails with double-digit amounts of hashtags. Location check-ins with double-digit amounts of people. Tagged pictures with double-digit amounts of drinks.

It didn’t bother me at all, nor was I jealous or embarrassed anymore. But I wondered if some of the posting I had done in the past had in any way contributed to my experiences besides proving to others that I had been somewhere with someone. I felt more fulfilled with all the time I had to think alone in London than I had ever felt posting a picture with a friend. I didn’t need a status update for myself to know that. It all seemed a little foolish, even though I knew I would probably resume posting at some point in the near future. Still, I couldn’t help but notice that social networking does less to advance us as individuals than it does to coddle our image for the people around us.

My image had become worthless. I was in a city of millions alone, just a face in the crowd and I loved it. I didn’t have to impress anyone or feel sorry for myself. I could make decisions on a complete whim. I felt less lonely than I had in months.

The freedom that comes with being alone can be powerful. Much is often made of the jump from high school to college — that is, the jump from living pampered by parents to living “alone,” surrounded by thousands of other students of roughly the same age in similar situations. But perhaps what has worried me more, as I have shifted into the last third of my four years, is the jump from college to post-graduation. Friends will move, goals will change, and it is possible that at some point, I will find myself alone.

In the age of social media, loneliness is a scary thought. But being alone doesn’t equate with loneliness. With college life and Facebook getting us spuriously comfortable with constant social interaction, a step away from the need to socially validate myself reassured me that being alone can, in fact, be a beautiful thing — and definitely not one to be spurned or to feel embarrassed about.

At the hostel I was staying at, I met a woman who had seemingly been there for weeks, if not months. She told me she grew up used to small town life in the north of England, where everyone knew each other. After losing her job, she came to London ready to find work anywhere in Europe and to take on a new city alone.

“All of my things, they’re in this one locker,” she said, motioning to a 2-by-4 foot grey door. “The fact that I can go anywhere in the world with just that — it’s very liberating.”

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My mind was already going down a cochlear path of delirium as I pondered about the afterlife during a visit to Paris’ largest cemetery. Maybe I’ll end up in a casket I said to myself. Or do I want to be cremated and want my ashes to fly with the wind into the ocean? What will people remember of me? Will they? It would be cool to be in display in some futuristic museum 100 years from now. But how … Ah! Disgusting! Damn it! The earth is dripping. Where is the water coming from? I asked myself as I looked up. The whole floor was wet, and the skulls were too. I assumed it was the rain water filtering through the Parisian limestone.

I had waited two and a half hours to get into Les Catacombes, Paris’ unique cemetery. Don’t mind the Pere Lachaise or Montparnasse, which was about three blocks away from the Catacombes and where Beauvoir and Sartre rest so romantically on top of each other in their grave. It was cloudy, and of course I was thinking about the future and the past, what I had done back in Israel and what would become of me in the months ahead in Denmark. But it was ominous to think about my future death and about the approximately six million people buried beneath a single ossuary in Paris’s 14th arrondisement (but the skeletons are actually stocked like wine bottles in cellars extending into other neighborhoods too).

The entrance to this curious cemetery feigns to be just any other box office at another low-key Parisian theater, but when you cross the threshold into hundreds of funereal tunnels, the name “Death” takes on another meaning. I spiraled 130 steps down from street level to a bed of limestone 45 million years old that was created during the Lutetian geological period. (“Lutetia” was the ancient name for Paris.) During this period, Paris had a tropical seashore from an advancing sea from northern Europe. Its marine sludge slowly became limestone that was compressed by the emerging Pyrenees over the last 20 million years and left some gastropodic fossils for me to check out as I walked along the tunnels. Long story short, the tunnels were left abandoned after they had served their purpose during the Middle Ages up until the Gothic period and were, by the eighteenth century, caving in and producing panic in the human world upstairs. So, the Paris authorities had the ominous idea to strengthen the tunnels and fill them with the bones from the Cimetiere des Innocents — which was overwhelmed by old Parisian bones that were becoming a health hazard to the living population — and also from other deconsecrated cemeteries. Abandoned after the French Revolution, the necropolis opened again and survived to see French Resistance soldiers, the construction of a German bunker and, more recently, some mysterious improvised cinema exclusive to some kind of film noir sect, or so it was believed back in 2004.

I felt lonesome as I tried to label with proper names the skulls I was staring at, given that the tunnels have indeed almost elegiac names with their construction date and patrons properly labeled. (Actually, some of the bones in other arrondisements receive some illicit visits from the Cataphiles — an underground secret society of anarchistic artists, lawless fugitives or otherwise rebels without a cause.) The doleful eye sockets, the femurs and the decomposing stench of some of them, piled up in anonymity, didn’t bother me at all. But the nuisance of their loneliness was heartbreaking, as if seeing their bodies breaking into smaller and smaller splinters was awakening my anxiety and infecting me with despair to know exactly what death I will have but more importantly, whom I will join after that …

I wondered if perhaps in life any of them ever went down into Les Egouts, as I did after visiting the Catacombes. Modestly tucked next to Pont de l’Alma metro station and a few steps from the Seine, the Musee des Egouts is the start point to immerse yourself in Paris’ smelly history. What we now know as Les Egouts is the culmination of hundreds of years of architectural puzzling of Paris’ sewage system. The Seine River was a putrid carrier of wastewater from where, unfortunately, Parisians would withdraw their drinking water. Under Napoleon I, two men worked tirelessly to solve Paris’ wastewater evacuation problem. One of them, Emmanuel Bruneseau, sewer inspector and close friend of Victor Hugo, surveyed the existing sewage system. Some of that concrete survey information channeled its way into Les Miserables. We then have the leading character Jean Valjean escaping into Les Egouts in his effort to save his adopted daughter’s dying love Marius from slowly sinking into slimy, fetid sewage water. Hundreds of years later, I’m the one trying to avoid any rancid drop of water from falling on my face and hair yet wishing like a little kid fascinated with grossness to do the underground boat cruise the museum used to offer some time ago.

If you’d like to get more up close and personal with Paris’ “suburban” matrix you will have to go great lengths. I, at least, know exactly where my next party will be once I move to Paris for good.

Image source: Susan Urrutia, contributor to The Daily Californian 

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My hair is askew with a mind of its own, I’m sure. My face is weathered from days of squinting — forgot my glasses — and facing the harsh winds. Yet there’s still a smile on my face.

It’s my first time traveling without a friend or family member by my side. Yet, I never once feel a tinge of loneliness.

If I had traveled with someone I knew, I feel like I would not have meet so many fascinating people that wander as I do.

The first day in Dublin, I meet a lovely person from Brazil. He teaches me a hodgepodge of words in Portuguese and how to imitate the Brazilian pronunciation. I blush and laugh as I botch each and every word. He never stops smiling as he helps me improve my accent.

A few days later, as I sit down to charge my phone in the lobby of my hostel, a group of people from Croatia, Italy and England join me within minutes to talk about music, life, school and travel. Though we
have little in common, our passion for wandering drives the conversation.

I find out my sweet friend Emily from my hometown is there at the same time as I am. We exchange our crazy study abroad experiences while laughing over a Guinness.

Staying at a hostel is the most amazing experience for a young person. If you have never done it, I think it would benefit your travels greatly if you give a hostel a chance. If you travel alone, you will not be lonely.

Image Source: Rachel Morgan, Daily Californian Contributor 

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This was my first glimpse of Greece, a country that most of my knowledge of had come from campus frat parties and a brief obsession with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. My second glimpse of the country came from the food: kalamata olives, feta cheese, baked aubergine, and saccharine baklava. (I’d recommend Café Avissinia or, as indicated on the restaurant sign, ΚΑΦΕ ΑΒΥΣΗΝΙΑ, if you ever find yourself in the birthplace of democracy. We ate there twice!). The food of Greece is much like its people – warm and familiar. Citizens are not merely friendly; they treat you like family, joking with you, recommending traditional dishes and holding conversations for hours on end. At one restaurant, a post-dinner dessert of Greek yogurt with honey was gracefully delivered to our table compliments of the chef!
Although my family did spend a good
portion of our time in museums – the Acropolis Museum is small enough to see in a few hours, while the National Archaeological Museum is a bit denser – I found that Greece is best absorbed if one takes in the outdoor surroundings. The famous Acropolis is not to be missed. Situated on a high plateau, the Acropolis houses the Parthenon. To be in the presence of such a grand historical undertaking is truly astounding. The panoramic view of Athens (you can even see a sliver of the sea!) doesn’t hurt either. We hiked up at dawn and it was magical to watch the sun rise above the wide Doric columns, casting shadows on the ancient ruins.

Another memorable moment was a walk in the rain at Osios Loukas – a secluded monastery about 50 miles west of Athens. Located in an isolated mountain village, the monastery is built in the Byzantine style – gold work, small candlelit spaces and a central dome. In a dark side chapel we met a short, balding Greek man with round spectacles and a patterned sweater – a visitor as well – who explained in Greeklish the historical significance of Hosios Loukas: to house the preserved relics of Loukas the Hermit, a famous Greek saint not to be confused with the Saint Luke of New Testament-fame.

As a working monastery, Hosios Loukas is still home for a few monks whom we spied in traditional, black garb walking around the religious complex. As we were still in Greece, it was impossible to leave without making a few friends. We met a sweet shopkeeper who gave us hot chocolate and almond cake and even posed for a photograph with us. We also befriended four beautiful dogs that walked us back to our car on our way out. 

Greece is a country of contradictions. The architectural ruins are built on a grand scale – ionic columns tower over tourists, the Attican mountain range looms in the near distance, the glorious remnants of one of the greatest civilizations are overwhelming in the most positive sense of the word. Yet what one remembers most are the smaller, everyday incidents – Greek folk songs in an empty restaurant, children playing soccer on a slippery plaza, crackling thunder heard from the safety of a church, a dark, terrifying drive through small mountain towns at night, a rainy walk through Delfi and the wise words of an ordinary taxi driver.

Image source: Addy Bhasin, The Daily Californian 

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Even when their Mediterranean beaches are world famous, their Tel Aviv nightlife rivals many hotspots around the world, their Jewish population combines incredible cosmopolitanism and diversity – Ethiopians, Russians, Colombians, French, etc. — and their land area safeguards places like the west coast of the salty Dead Sea and crystal waters with amazing coral reefs and and marine life just some feet away from the shore of the southernmost town of Eilat, Israelis would still ask me: “So, why Israel?” My best shot at avoiding any crude explanation of my visit there was, “Why not Israel?” But my go-to response for my closest friends or for that handsome Yemeni hookup from Netanya was (and please forgive my young-adult cliché): I am on a quest.

Anyways, if you are, like me, having a quarterlife crisis and are suddenly uprooted from any belief ingrained to you by your parents, church, school, or The Daily Show, you sure will find some ghosts in any corner of Israel to remind you that you have been here before, maybe in some other era, maybe with a beloved someone.

As I serpentined the narrow streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, I could only think of how to fathom the extent of memory left behind by thousands of souls before me who have come to this place for forgiveness, for a petition, for power or for glory. Everything is encircled by stony walls puzzled together after war and then reconstructed, to be destroyed and rebuilt once more.

First, you enter the Time Machine — as I call the Old City — through one of its seven gates. You are here: Jaffa Gate. You lift your eyes high to spot the Tower of David to your right hand, but you choose to tread down the straightest road in front of you. David (Al Bazar) Street shepherds all tourists in a line. The tourists soon become prey to loud-mouthed shopkeepers who cat-talk ladies into trying their jewelry for a good price, “just for you.” You wheel slightly right and slip further down until you once again see up: “Wailing Wall.” Make a right. Wait in line past a TSA-style scrutiny, and you are there: the heart of the world. “This is IT?” Your thought interrupted by a pale red-head: “Miss, you have to cover up. Here, this [blue] cloth is free. You cannot go inside like that.” You try to shun that statement given that you’re conservatively wearing loose jeans and a black spaghetti strap shirt, and walk down the stairs into the Blue. The Israeli flag hangs down its pole hiding David’s star in the middle of the Kotel. People here pray: men on the left side; women on the right. You bake slowly and lonely in a hot August afternoon, and then it strikes you: Keep looking.

Second, you trail down the same path as before to the Kotel, but above the crowd and the Wall, you see a ramp. It’s high up. There’s a two-hour line that runs outside the walls of the Old City into it. Do it. You make it past the two hours and the paranoid search of the Israeli security point into the Temple Mount. There. It lies golden in front of you – the Dome of the Rock. You gaze and stare, then gaze again and stare again. It’s too beautiful. Tiles and tiles perfectly coordinated to send you a message – in Quranic Arabic. You don’t understand the words, and you don’t need to. Play a while with a horde of Palestinian children, and it settles: no peace here. Keep looking.

You maze through the country.

The northern port of Haifa lures you high atop the Carmel and prompts a visit to the Bahá’í Gardens – an architectural monument to the Bahái’í Faith – which teaches that all religions (Abrahamic, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.) come from the same “Source.” You’re amazed to stand atop and follow down some stairs onto symmetrical lines of fresh grass compounds and bundles of kaleidoscopic flower colors inviting you to curiosity. You check the place out: Nope. Not here. Keep looking.

You go a bit Roman and you hit Caesarea, between Haifa and Tel Aviv. (By the way, you’re co-piloting a rented car with three Colombians, an Argentine, and a Chilean to get there from Haifa.) Yet another hippodrome, a theater, a Crusader church, and a desolate minaret all jut into modernity. They rest alongside busy restaurants and coffee shops that welcome tourists to a promenade that leads them to peek at the port King Herod built in honor of Caesar Augustus. All this history just winds away your hopes of relief into the Mediterranean’s sulphuric blue. Keep looking.

Then you arrive. It’s in Tel Aviv. Everything and nothing is in Tel Aviv. What way to torment! Ulises is you, Ulises from Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives. You settle in Giv’atayim with a sweetheart. Blonde and blue-eyed, he makes you cringe in delight every time. Focus, you! The outskirts of Tel Aviv are just, again, the start point. Scout the city:

Check out “The White City” lengthening Rothschild Boulevard and Bialik and exhibiting Bauhaus architecture brought by German Jews early in the twentieth century. It’s a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization “site.” Eat well and much. You’ll need it to last the night in Florentin, the bar and club area where Hedonism and Debauchery drink and toast to life. Anything goes here. Hipsters welcome. After a full night’s drunken fest, you walk hung-over along the Tayelet promenade, and the dawn’s beachy mist reminds you that you still have to get home in the middle of the Sabbath. No buses run, no restaurants are open, no hope of food or drink to recover unless you get home, fast (because hopefully you’ve stocked up your fridge on Friday).

You’re done with touristy stuff, now on to the nuts and bolts of it. Walk all of Arlozorov all the way to Petah Tikvah, as Ulises did, past Rehov Hamelekh, then back in a circle to Hayarkon Park. Thirst and sweat coach you to the belief that you’ll find it. I never will. I can travel the Ages and stroll the universe with his arms locked with mine; I rush to that moment when I cross the town of Dan, when I rest with him again under the starry sky of Buenos Aires, two years ago. I realize then, it’s never been about Ulises questing for his lover Claudia all over Tel Aviv or about Jerusalem with its timeless spirit of IT or a High spirit waiting for me in Haifa. Bolaño directs me to southern Beersheva for a final encounter with him and the Desert – timeless sage. By late November, my hopes now devoid of sobering guarantees to put this love to rest, and my mind edging on madness, I didn’t go to Beersheva. Peace is there.

Image source: Susan Urrutia, Daily Californian Contributor 

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Find yourself in the middle of the Jordanian desert and you find yourself nowhere, except right on top of millennial underground layers of history dating back to the Iron Age.

For six, long, sizzling weeks under a scorching Jordanian sun, I and team members of the Dhiban Archaeological Field School excavated pottery, pottery, bones, pottery, bones, more bones (oh! a coin from the Roman period), pottery, pottery…and more bones, dating back from the 9^th BCE to the Byzantine period.  I can recollect pieces of my heat-stroked memory: waking up at 4am, then breakfast at 15 past that, waiting for the bus at 4.45 sharp en route from Madaba (second largest city in Jordan almost at the level of Jerusalem), where we stayed at the roach infested Mariam Hotel, to Dhiban (I still don’t know exactly where that’s on the map). After an hour ride, you realize at 5.45am that six hours of digging lie ahead of you under 40F heat, under conservative dig clothes you are required to wear in order to conceal any inch of skin that could alarm the propriety kept by Dhiban’s Muslim norms, or the sun’s wrath, and under the supervision of overstressed and under-washed grad students eager to dig out the maximum area of dirt for each of their specific research needs.

But beyond the discomforts of working in a field that’s not my own area of study (my majors are political science and Spanish literature), with the program I traveled around most of Jordan, missing only the sandy Wadi Rum, the desert where “Lawrence of Arabia” once battled for a half-baked Arab liberty (pun intended) during the Arab Revolt.

Cal Bears, you don’t want to miss Petra, a place made familiar by Harrison Ford.

To all brave Oskis out there, dare feel the desolate, warring spirits still alive and inside medieval Crusader castles in the high desert.

Ladies, take the challenge to practice your unforgivably bad Arabic with a genuine Jordanian Bedouin. But! Be warned! You will get unsolicited marriage proposals and you will be worth, I assure you, many camels.

Visit the holy sites: Mukawer – where Salomé oh so sensually danced for Herod King – and Mount Nebo, believed to be the panoramic point where Moses still in charge of the Israelites spotted the Promised Land (you can see Jericho from here too). Dhiban is after all a holy site, I deem, as it was here where the Mesha Stele was found.

During the program, I was quick to friend my dear Lucia F., and we had a great time. We would sing our Disney ballad to bond, but mostly cope with, the day’s intensity. But far from the true sands of Arabia, Jordan is definitely a country of the Levant with welcoming people, charming families and pushy store vendors that invite you for tea with (TOO MUCH) sugar in it.

But sometimes, when you are that far away from home, some of that kind of tea sits well with your nostalgia because you realize: you are indeed on your own in a whole new world…

Image source: Susan Urrutia, Daily Californian Contributor 

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“When I was a little boy,” Dr. Wissanu said, “I dreamed to be a teacher.” Taking the entrance exam at Thammasat University, one of the most prestigious universities in Thailand, Dr. Wissanu chose to study in the Faculty of Liberal Arts, hoping to pursue a career in education.

Indeed, it was due to happenstance that Dr. Wissanu ended up studying law at all. Several of his friends were law students and, having gotten “used” to their company, he “just followed them to law school.” After one year of liberal arts courses, Dr. Wissanu transferred disciplines and quickly found that law was his “dream.”

“The subject, classes and courses about logic, reasoning and legal thinking… I did not know about this before in my life.”

Dr. Wissanu earned a Bachelor of Laws from Thammasat University, graduating with first class honors in 1972. Soon after, he received a scholarship from the government that allowed him to study abroad in the U.S. on one condition: however long Dr. Wissanu spent abroad studying, he would have to teach for twice that amount of time upon his return to Thailand. Dr. Wissanu attended UC Berkeley, earning both a master’s degree and a doctorate in juridical science from the institution. However, the terms of his scholarship undercut his overseas studies. While he “enjoyed going to school” in Berkeley, he said he studied “very hard” in order to expedite his return to Thailand.

In accordance with his scholarship, Dr. Wissanu’s graduation from law school was soon followed by a teaching career at Chulalongkorn University, another top university in Thailand. Dr. Wissanu’s early expression of his love for teaching turned out to be prescient: after completing the terms of service stipulated in his scholarship, he continued to teach for “ten more years, happily.”

Much like his incidental introduction to law, Dr. Wissanu’s ascension through the political ranks was also not premeditated. ”One day, I was invited by the Secretary General of the Cabinet to be his Deputy Secretary General,” Dr. Wissanu said. He transferred from his job at Chulalongkorn University to be the Vice Secretary General of the Cabinet. About two years later, he was promoted to be Secretary General of the Cabinet, a post he held for roughly a decade.

Then Mr. Thaksin came knocking.

“One day, Prime Minister Thaksin asked me to be his minister, just ‘minister,’ that’s what he mentioned,” Dr. Wissanu said. Dr. Wissanu initially rejected Mr. Thaksin’s offer, not wanting to abandon his career. But Mr. Thaksin, who served as Thailand’s prime minister from 2001 to 2006, could be persuasive.

“He said, ‘Two or three years and then you can come back. But if you reject, I will not let you be here as Secretary General anyway,’” Dr. Wissanu said.

Dr. Wissanu served as a Deputy Prime Minister to Mr. Thaksin for four years, advising him in legal affairs and representing the government before the parliament.

“Of course, he did some things out of the system underground, and I never gave him advice about that and he never asked,” Dr. Wissanu said. “He had his own legal advisor in that affair.”

To give an example of Mr. Thaksin’s private dealings, Dr. Wissanu referenced the 2006 deal in which the former prime minister and his family sold its stake in Shin Corp. to a Singaporean holding company in a tax-free transaction worth $1.9 billion.

A controversial figure, Mr. Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup and went into a self-imposed exile to avoid corruption charges. Some say that questions regarding the role of the constitution, corruption and the disparity between urban and rural dwellers underlay much of the 2005 and 2006 events that led to Mr. Thaksin’s ousting. And it was in that environment of political instability that Dr. Wissanu resigned, leaving his post in June of 2006.

“I resigned because, at the time, politics was very confusing,” he said.

He cited the “dissolution of Parliament” as hindering the government’s ability to “work, or start anything new.”

“I was unable to argue with anybody or to fight,” Dr. Wissanu said. “So I resigned and never returned.”

Speaking on the political future of Thailand, Dr. Wissanu said “the situation at this time is very bad” and “has never happened before.”

“People don’t trust each other,” Dr. Wissanu said. “Even the teachers now, they never know what their students are affiliated with.”

The social and political unrest that led to the overthrow of Mr. Thaksin and his political party in 2006 is still present, with a notable flare in instability occurring between 2008 and 2010. And, though Mr. Thaksin remains in his self-imposed exile, his political influence remains palpable – his sister Yingluck Shinawatra is currently serving as prime minister. Despite being the first female to hold the position in Thailand, some see her as no more than a pawn for her brother’s political intentions.

While “many put the blame on Prime Minister Thaksin” for the political turmoil, Dr. Wissanu said that if he could speak to Mr. Thaksin, he would urge him to return to Thailand, “accept some liability” and “seek amnesty from His Majesty the King.”

“I believe that the process tends to be very smooth if he comes back,” Dr. Wissanu said. “But he must come through the legal process. Some people try to negotiate for him and assure him he’ll just be in custody for one week instead of two years…Or even one day. So what? He says no.”

In regards to the future of Thai politics, Dr. Wissanu simply said, “it’s up to time.”

“Maybe some day in the future people will get tired of arguing or fighting and just stop everything.”

Currently, Dr. Wissanu is a part of the Juridical Council — a council that acts as a legal advisor to the government and is involved in drafting bills and interpreting laws. The Council is divided into 12 groups; Dr. Wissanu acts as chairman to the sector concerned with constitutional and public law. Additionally, Dr. Wissanu hosts a short television program and authors about five columns a week, with topics ranging from politics to gastronomy. He also holds many corporate directorships and chairman positions for companies including Loxley Public Company Limited and Post Publishing Company Limited. (According to Dr. Wissanu, “those companies belong to my friends.”)

And in fulfillment of his youthful dream of becoming a teacher, Dr. Wissanu is still teaching. He is a law professor at both Chulalongkorn and Thammasat Universities.

The post An interview with former Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, Dr. Wissanu Krea-ngam appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Those of us who grew up in urban parts of the U.S. will agree that we have pretty specific ideas about animals in our society: dogs and cats are beloved pets that require love, attention and the occasional piece of unnecessary clothing. When I drive past a dog walking down the street alone, I immediately assume it’s lost. Seeing a cat dart across the street leaves me wringing my hands with worry. Imagine my utter shock when I realized that people in other parts of the world view pets as relatively autonomous creatures.

While visiting some incredible ruins of an amphitheater in Greece, I spotted something lying in the road next to a not-yet-fully-excavated stadium. The little brown dog was sprawled out on the hot gravel, completely still. It would’ve been a sad sight, had the dog not merely been sleeping.

It had no collar, nor was there an obvious owner nearby. It was just there, napping in the sun and completely oblivious of spastic American tourists ready to weep buckets over it.

But while this leisurely canine seemed perfectly content, a local in the little seaside town of Nafplion told me that, in fact, some of the dogs and cats I’d seen roaming the streets had been brought from the larger cities and abandoned, their owners unable to afford them anymore. The assumption is that small town residents are kinder and will occasionally feed the strays. Whatever the case, a few other animals I encountered during my travels proved to be quite capable.

It was a sweltering day in Corfu, Greece … and that’s if you weren’t stuck in a fur coat. This dog took matters into his own paws and found a clever way to keep cool.

While this isn’t exactly novel or shocking in any way, imagine the reaction a dog lying in front of Chipotle on Telegraph would receive.

The cats I encountered during my trip were few: a couple ragged-looking felines in Greece and a few snoozing under miniscule cars in Italy.

In Florence, a dog snoozing near the entrance to the Uffizi Gallery could count on not being disturbed thanks to a little sign placed by its owner, an artist selling his work nearby.

By far the most fascinating pets I have yet encountered were in Venice, Italy. Imagine, if you will: a city consisting of 118 small islands connected by bridges and narrow canals. There are no bikes, no taxis and no cars – the only modes of transportation are boats and your own two feet.

In contrast to other Italian cities I had visited, I didn’t see one stray dog or cat roaming the streets of Venice. If they were there, they kept a very low profile. There were plenty of dogs walking with their owners all over the city. No small feat, considering that getting around in Venice is somewhat an ordeal for people. Most people get from place to place using the public ferry boats – or vaporetti – and dogs are no exception.

This little guy hesitated a little bit because the platform and the boat were rolling up and down on the waves, making it difficult to jump the gap. But he made it just in time – obviously an old pro. I can only imagine the nervous mess my own little suburban-bred dog would be.

The post It’s a dog-eat-dog world appeared first on The Daily Californian.

YES

LONDON

This magical trip began with my visiting a place I’d often heard of and one I’d also often heard English people lament about: Picadilly Circus. Please note that it is NOT actually a circus (this may seem like a ridiculous clarification, but I assure you it is a very necessary one).

Technically, I began at Trafalgar Square:

The colossal enormity of the place, the latent history embedded in it, just standing there, for Christ’s sake, was more than enough to send anyone’s head spinning. Regrettably it is, of course, a tourist trap, but it isn’t without its charms; I saw children mounting those giant lions and sitting on them giggling, pretending to ride them while their parents shouted, saw a man (street performer?) spray painted entirely bronze/gold standing on a podium, motionless (just when I thought only LA got those types), and tourists and children teenybopping all over.

But oh, it was so very beautiful. I felt myself drowning in beauty;

and there was something far too surreal about looking off into the distance and seeing Big Ben,

seeing the river Thames.

It was simply too hard to believe, that after all this time I was finally here

(finally home, I liked to think).

Being immensely curious, I decided to spend some time in the stunning National Gallery. It was glorious, far too much to possibly hope to describe. I just walked around, literally open-mouthed, for about an hour, meticulously going from room to room (wearing an Abbey Road t-shirt and looking like a ridiculous tourist, which I was), examining every painting and imagining how my old Art History teacher would react when I told her.

above: The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’) by Diego Velazquez, 1647-51

This painting was one of my favorites. The way her face is in the mirror, you’d think she was admiring herself, but when you approach it in person it seems as though she is staring at you — that murky, phantom face looking directly into yours. It was chilling.

One of the things I loved the most about the gallery, and the painting above, was getting to think about and see firsthand classical ideas of beauty. we live in an age where media puts a lot of “pressure” on us blah blah blah, the point is nowadays it’s hard to be conventionally construed as beautiful unless you are thin. Now, this doesn’t hurt me too much personally seeing as I could care less about ‘conventional’ beauty (always being attracted to extremes, violent passions, freaks and such types)  but it was wonderfully refreshing to, once more, be forced into a new perspective far broader than my own limited experience. To be able to truly comprehend that our way (the American way, Californian way, whatever you choose it to be) is NOT the only way of thinking.

I loved looking at the many many paintings of Venus and similar nudes, seeing their pale bodies, curves and curly hair and knowing that they were beautiful, and the rest of the world thought so too.

Just as I was about to head out of the Gallery I saw a poster that said the place featured Gustav Klimt (the artist of the following painting, The Kiss, which I intend to be my first tattoo. I am fantastically in love with it.

(This was painted in 1907-08, roughly around the fin de siecle period. Curiously enough, all the greatest loves of my life — this painting as well as many others, authors and books, emerge from this golden period)

So naturally when I heard the Gallery housed Klimt my poor heart had a spasm and I ran around like mad looking for it. After going to the room it was promised to be in with no success I approached the information desk with a sinking heart, only to be told it had been moved —

and for a split second I nearly burst into tears

but LUCKILY ENOUGH

it had only been moved elsewhere in London,

to the Tate Modern Museum

(next stop)

(and yes, I will cry)

After the Gallery I went out in search of curry, Indian food being my absolute favorite (the lengths I go for a good curry), so I headed into Picadilly:

FUCK YEAH

(cue Led Zeppelin “OH YEAH, OH YEAH, OH, OH, OH” from Black Dog)

I wore boots this time but it was no matter. I felt like a character from Greek mythology condemned to spend all of eternity walking, having walked so much that day, that not only did my feet bleed but blister as well. Of course I was too giddy to care about what my body wanted (having abused it thoroughly thus far, being too excited to sleep or eat properly for days).

So I walked:

and walked.

I spent the entire day trying to frantically memorize everything I saw; I felt my body close to collapsing from exhaustion but kept begging it to go on, so desperate was I to take in as much as possible.

There were a great deal of parks along the way, incidentally, including the famous Hyde Park (above); I didn’t stop in them for too long, though. But what was fantastic is that you could rent bikes AT the parks — the first half hour costing you nothing, and then some ridiculously nominal fee (a pound, I believe) for an hour.

It just goes to remind me how very different the English culture is. The particular ways in which it is unique strike me at first as usually comical (is this a typical reaction?) but then, when considered, I have grown really fond of several things. The lingo, for instance, bewilders everyone at first, but certain words and phrases grow on me (‘car park’, rather than ‘parking lot’, is one of my favorites — it just sounds so much more whimsical).

The English apparently also love to read newspapers, something that sounds perfectly average I’m sure, but just think: how many times do you see anyone in America reading a newspaper that isn’t some sort of older businessman?

Public transportation here, too, is FAR better than back home. In California, you see, the majority of the people that take the bus are BAT SHIT INSANE. Being a gypsy and all I have been taking the bus for years and years and seen every variety of freak/freak incident known to man, from a robbery that took place on a bus I was on in Oakland, to drunks and raging alcoholics cussing out crying babies, etc etc.

But in England, everyone rides public transport. Normal people, for the first time in my life, ride the bus with me. It is such an immense relief; infinitely more practical, too.

At any rate, I got my curry (after four hours of walking); sat in Trafalgar Square reading The Brothers Karamazov and just generally had a wonderfully pleasant afternoon.

P.S. they sell cigarettes EVERYWHERE here, even at the Student Store on my campus …

I am never going to leave.

Next:

LONDON,

NIGHTLIFE

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