A Gaggle of Michiganders

I finally flew out to Michigan for 5 days to visit Brad and his family in Detroit last week.
For your viewing pleasure, here are a few pictures of the trip.

B and I drove on 8 Mile into downtown Detroit. The city streets radiate out from the river like bicycle spokes, and there is a monorail that circles around the downtown area. No one actually lives here, and no one actually uses the monorail, but it is a pretty cool downtown.

and Canada across the river! Sadly, no
moose in sight....:(

We went to a Tigers game downtown and i met up with Andra! and missed the game because we were talking..oops...

Ok, I know there aren't a lot of pictures.... I always forget to take them! Below, we left Detroit to go to Ann Arbor to visit B's sis and her bf...and we all went kayaking on some river. It was such a gorgeous day! These are our Patagonia shots

We went out on the town after this, and I ended up being incredibly hung over the next day...you know, the day I had the privilege of meeting B's entire extended family...

I have NO pictures of Brad's fam, nor proof that we were in the final 4 of a cut-throat bocci tournament, but it's true. I'm really gifted at that sport about 50% of the time. The next morning we took the Focus (American made or die) "up North" to Sleeping Bear, a camping ground on Lake Michigan known for it's huge sand dunes.

This is Lake Michigan (that's not the other side in the background, it's a huge island)

View from the top of muy grande dune.

then...Running down the dunes of course...

Our campsite. Michigan is soo green! (not in the liberal sense)

And drove the 5 hours back to the airport the next morning...

One thing I forgot to mention is our trip to Cedar Point, a huge amusement park 2 hours out of Detroit. I haven't been on a roller coaster since 9th grade! There were a lot of families, a million kids, lots of fat white asses bouncing around, and even a couple guys on steroids wearing ripped tank tops (obviously ripped by their bulging muscles) The best ride?...THE MILLENNIUM FORCE, "the ride with the force of a millennium behind it." Rated number one by roller-coaster enthusiasts renting turquoise Ford Focuses for the week.

All in all, a great trip to a beautiful state, with a wonderful person;)

Ma Ma-ntra

I go through periods where I don't buy a thing for months on end, and then suddenly i have to SPEND SPEND SPEND!
Of course, I'm in saving mode right now so I can travel, but that's only on the outside. Inside I want to Buy! I want to buy clothes, and accessories, and weird house stuff that i don't need or have room for. I want to buy plants, and garden stuff, and all kinds of random things I see....
I'm taking this urge to splurge as a sign that I need to start creating instead of consuming.
In fact...along with food not lawns, this is my new slogan; Don't consume; Create! or..Creation Not Consumption...or Be a Creator not a Consumer...
I guess I just have to decide what to Create....there's just too many choices...
"Creating something" gives you a pretty broad range of things to do...you could be crafty and make something, artsy and paint something, literary and write something, foody and cook something, outdoorsy and build something, social and meet someone, movement-y and move sumthin'....

I choose, artsy with paint, and movement-y with Beyonce. 7pm my house. I'll be there.

rock city

Today I dropped B off at the airport. He'll be in Detroit for 3 weeks...and in just 5 days I'll be there too!
I've been grilling him on the local culture, but I still don't really know what to expect..which is all the more reason why i can't wait to go!
In my mind, everyone lives in the suburbs, which are now old and look like the houses from Gran Torino. There's gangs, but all they do is spit rhymes, tag old empty warehouses and try to steal old people's cars. Everyone has some link to the auto industry, if they aren't directly involved in it already. Everyone is really into the local sports teams, and if you call Michigan state "michigan" you get beat up eminem style. You'll likely be eating "all-American" more than anything else (no sushi or micro greens). Anything north of Detroit is "up north". For fun, there are a lot of things to do...most common? watching sports, golfing, drinking, and playing euchre, vandalizing community art. The city is also birthplace to a bunch of awesome bands including the white stripes, and my personal favorite...Kid Rock.
But, despite the preconceptions, I think the D's gonna be fuuun!
My Bay friend Andra is living there now (Hope we meet up!) Here is a link to her beautiful blog.
Her pictures are awesome, and give me a much different view of the city and state. Check it out.
So, anyway...Go Tigers! and Pistons! and Lions! and...State! and anyone else I missed!

Oasis

Kristina and I [were going to] enter a travel writing contest for Trazzler.

Oasis

1. n. a fertile or green area in an arid region (as a desert).
2. n. something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast
(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.)

Last Stop on the Road to Paradiso, Mangue Seco, Brazil

I'm engrossed in a Portuguese grammar book when the bus decides to play connect the dots

with the potholes in the road. Attempting to keep down the afro-brazilian delights I'd eaten earlier, I press my face against the window and am struck by the view; a forest of giant palms rising quietly out of the silvery sand, cutting cool shadows through the glaring humidity. This is the road to Mangue Seco, an isolated wedge of sand in tropical Northern Brazil that juts out between the tail of the Rio Real and the Atlantic Ocean. Ours is the last stop on this bus route, and though it is night, we manage to find an old wood waterbus to navigate us across the quiet waters. This secluded town is home to a few fishermen, and a scattering of little inns and restaurants, all sinking into the hills of sand that surround it. In the morning, we chart a dune buggy across the wall of dunes to...Paradise? Miles of pure white sand, turquoise break, a shady burraca with a hammock, and a fresh coconut with my name on it.

LA, Hell-A, El Lay, La-la Land

It never fails, visiting LA is always fun.

Sure, but the traffic, you say...the Bay area has just as much. Pollution?...okay, that's actually really bad. But nobody recycles and everyone has lawns...yes, it can be painful for a norcal girl to watch....

But LA has an endless supply of fun things to do, and ways to look good doing them. In fact, looking good, and doing "stuff" is what LA does best.

Since I was only in LA for 2 nights this past weekend, I didn't get to visit all my old fav places, but I thought I'd make a list of things that I enjoyed when I was living there, especially since one of my best temp friends is moving there in August. (this is for you!)

First off, getting beautified in LA is easy and cheap, so I recommend you take advantage...it's actually normal to get a "mani-pedi" on the weekend...and there are a bunch of places to go (some are better than others, but you'll ALWAYS find a local nail salon).
But say you want to do something a little different, possibly freak-ay, but almost always fun, grab a girlfriend and go to K-Town for a scrub. People go to the spas in Koreatown because they're inexpensive, and though it's definitely a no-frills kind of place, the good ones are clean, and definitely a cutural experience...The Korean spa is a large open room with showers, a cold pool, hot spa, and herbal spa, saunas, and naked Korean women sitting on stools scrubbing each other's backs. By the wall are the scrubbing tables manned by Korean women in matching black bras and underwear. This ain't no porno...those are definitely granny underwear... They call their clients over and proceed to scrub the hell out of their patrons, guiding the non-Korean speaker with nudges and light slaps. Do you're spa thing, lounge around, and then finish off your stay with the scrub...it feels so good. To some...awkward, but I love the communal atmosphere of women, and the weirdness...(K-town also has some killer karaoke-check out Palms)
For outdoor adventures in the city, go to Runyan Canyon (where the beautiful people go to get their outdoors on), Griffith Observatory (see the Hollywood sign (from behin a fence), and take a tour of the observatory). In Pacific Palisades, I really enjoyed taking people to Shrine Lake. Right off the 1 towards Malibu is a huge meditation garden with an enormous coy pond, and a shrine where part of Gandhi's ashes lie. The museum at the entrance is dedicated to the garden's founder Paramanhansa Yogananda...The museum was hilarious..."This is the pencil box Guru Yogananda used on the day he died. This coconut was given to Guru Yogananda just days before his death. These nose hair clippers were used by Guru Yogananda up until the day of his death...you get the gist) Anyway, it's a nice little reprieve from a day of hot pollutiony site seeing.
Every neighborhood in LA is completely different, so you'll hopefully get to explore them all!
I used to work off West Washington, which looks like a scary neighborhood to the naked eye, BUT Ziggy Marley's favorite, and very authentic, Jamaican restaurant is there in the middle of a sign shop, and a bunch of warehouses.
Culver city has some fun restaurants which are easy to find. My favorites though are Xotique, a little restaurant run by a British woman, and a little Asian woman who calls herself the fool with the spoon. I also looove the wine bar in downtown Culver. They have wine tasting Machines!!! You put money on a card, get a glass, and try any wine you want (I try a few then just get drunk off the 90 cent tasters)
Venice area has Abbott Kinney and of course the beach, but there are some really cool examples of green architecture there, though sort of hidden. A bunch have been featured in major magazines.
I always meet interesting people in Silverlake and the Silverlake Street fair is really fun.

Enjoy the Mexican food, and try the roach coaches, go to Japantown, and spend some quality time exploring downtown (there are some great bars there), visit the Abbott Kinney and Silverlake Street Festivals, ride up the coast through Malibu, go to the Day of the Dead festival at the Hollywood cemetery, roller blade on Venice Beach, go to some chic-y Hollywood clubs, check out art openings, and go to the Roxy for a show, do it all and have fun!!!!

King Tut-n-common

King Tut probably would have gone the path of historical obscurity when he died at 19 , and was buried in the Valley of the Kings in the 1300's bc. He was only 9 when he took the throne.
His big accomplishments? He changes his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamen. He reverts back to monotheism, and a bunch of cults worship him as the God King. Then, 9 years later he bites the dust...
Over 3000 years later his tomb is discovered by a western archaeologist who has been digging for 4 years, on a hunch, to find it. He's pumped, though slightly disappointed that his lunch ticket isn't the most accomplished pharaoh. However, gold outshines history, and there was a looot of gold in that tomb.
Today, the contents of Tuts tomb, the only pharaoh's tomb found completely intact, are making the museum circuit, and I went with my fam see it at SF's De Young a few weeks ago.
My two cousins, Delfi and Frankie, are 9 and 11, so I already knew they'd be over this pretty fast. We got little radios that explain the exhibits and they were pumped about that.
"cshp. Hello. are you there?" "cshp. code red. cshp."
Then we were ushered in a mock tomb entrance to watch a movie about King Tut...When the lights came back on and we were shown into the exhibit, a series of rooms filled with articles from Tut's tomb preserved behind glass cases. The artifacts were really beautiful. A lot of the pottery was painted and glazed in a beautiful bright turquoise blue, a color that signifies life, and the boxes and masks were inlaid with gold and stones in intricate geometrical patterns. They created mini tombs to lay on the real tomb, so if the Pharaoh was feeling lazy he could send his mini spirit to do work in the afterlife for him. My favorite was a dark wood chair inlaid with gold, and woven on the seat. It looked like it was made a hundred years ago...I can't believe it held up so well for 3,000.
Room after room of artifacts and my cousins were getting antsy so we skimmed the last couple of rooms until we got the the end of the exhibit.
There......the Grand Finale! The Tomb of King Tut! ......Projected onto a white platform...wait what?!?!!? Man...we were jipped!
We spent the next hour looking at King Tut paraphernalia in the gift store which they seemed to enjoy a lot more. The kids wanted to buy their parents all kinds of stuff...pens, toys, their names in hieroglyphics. I'm sure their parents were ecstatic to get all these useful gifts. Frankie decided to get his mom a bag of stones. You can fill a bag with as many stones as will fit, for $4. So he stuffed that thing until it wouldn't close and they overflowed onto the counter when he was paying.
Finally we rounded up the gang, my aunt, uncle, cousins, and dad, and squeezed into the car to grab dinner.
A lovely day. Everyone enjoyed it. On the way back, Delfi remarked "Man that exhibit was soo fake."
Getting through to the children, one museum at a time.

Learning to Drive - Continued

...Wow, I'm bad at this. Just give me time...especially YOU--The guy tailgating me at this stoplight, on a HILL!...I'm shiiifffftttinnnggg!!!

My mom took me to Sacramento to pick up my brand new beater. I got a quick clutch lesson there and was let loose into the world to drive the 3 hours to Santa Cruz...alone! I didn't do so badly, though I only braked once in the entire first 100 miles because I didn't wan to have to shift. I kept praying that traffic would be clear on the infamous hwy 17...No go..As soon as I hit that winding one way hill of a highway the traffic stopped, I sighed, and proceeded to lurch up it. It was SO hot, I was sweating like crazy and holding onto the wheel for dear life...and finally, I lurched into my little parking spot, and lurched through my front door, and lurched onto the couch, where I fell asleep and had lurching little dreams. Well, the next month will be interesting. I feel like I'm 15 again except with accountability...Sounds terrible, doesn't it?
I think I'll borrow the automatic for just a few more days until I figure out how to drive the steep hill...and after I scope out all the flat spots where I work.