elgeeko’s blog

I write this as an only slightly-willing passenger on a Utah bound flight. It’s the perfume (thick spice), the hair (flat, overdone blonde highlights), the doctrinal literature (Book of Mormon), the 3.5 children per family (spawned from a slightly evaporated gene pool), the smugness (derived from guaranteed self-ascension), and the glares towards the man who orders a whiskey (me) that all remind me of what was once home. Both age and geography grant me a greater appreciation for the home I found in California.

Aų4 (alternately Au4) is worth a listen. It captures my mood, depth of abstraction, and distance from reality.

The last few weeks have been dominated by travel. A weekend in Seattle for an ad-hoc convention; a weekend in Austin for a research presentation; a weekend in the Gulf of Mexico for beaches, soul searching, and sunburns; a weekend in Utah to pick up a new ride (well, family hand-me-down to be accurate); the last two weeks were in the Baltic; next weekend is Shabbat dinner and catching up with my adopted family in LA.

My first pond jump came at the offering of my family. They graciously offered a ticket to cruise the Baltic, a trip I could not have afforded with my modest grad student budget. After two lovely weeks in northern Europe, I began my return trip this morning (and as of my writing, is not yet complete).

My third cruise (the first two were Caribbean) confirmed for me that cruising is not my preferred mode of travel. Cruise ships are not vessels, they are cities: destinations that establish a distancing bubble between pampered passengers and foreign cultures. While cruises offer an enticing sequence of cities and countries along the voyage, each stop lasts mere hours, and most passengers disembark onto tour busses that have been sequestered by the cruise to further extend the bubble. What I do enjoy about cruises is making new friends to join in some of the ship activities, such as cocktail demonstrations, trivia games, table tennis, and just hanging around drinking martinis. It doesn’t take me long before I turn the boat into a floating high-school halway, where I’m saying “hi” and giving high-fives to friends as they pass.

I want to get lost in culture, to be in a city center without a map or a schedule, without friends or contacts. I want to leave each city with new friends, new first experiences, and a few new words from the local vernacular. A cruise doesn’t facilitate this, and I feel a backpacking trip through Europe is a must in my life. That, or I should just take a job overseas.

Princess Cruises proved itself a dishonest corporation. Perhaps this is true of all cruise ships, who operate unregulated in international waters without the guidance of law, police, or gaming commissions. Regardless, Princess got caught, and I take offense in a sense akin to Kant’s superior hatred of dishonesty. Finnish medical teams confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flew on both my and the previous voyage of the Emerald Princess. Administrators aboard the ship claimed this was false, and blamed the “rumors” on the Russian media. Okay, not that I care so much about swine flu - I think it would be funny if I were to catch it, almost a novelty - but the blatant lies were right to my face and implicated another country. There are other examples, but I shall only mention the most interesting here.

I was rather worried about the Baltic trip, not because of anything related to travel, but because I would be spending a great deal of time with my family. The last time I spent as much time with my family, it did not end well. I have a complicated relationship with my family, and I have discovered that in their presence, I am reduced to the 17-year-old kid who was compelled to move out into his own apartment. While the vacation was beautiful, there were times I needed some serious armor. It will be nice to return home to a world where I feel less need for shielding.

On a positive note, Europe is beautiful. There is so much history, such encouragement for culture and differentiation. This is a drive that I feel is lost in the states. I had Brat & beer in Germany and Cloudberry ice cream in Finland. I climbed castles in Denmark and churches in Russia. I shopped in Estonia and Sweden. And everywhere the art, the beautiful art. I simply must return, though next time with a backpack and a pocket translator.

Of special note are the East Germans, who lined the shores by the hundreds to wave off our ship, playing music over shoreline loudspeakers, and showcasing a fireworks display directly in front of the boat. If there has ever been a sign of the rise of East Germany, it is a cruise ship full of tourists from around the world who come to share their culture, and I was deeply touched by their gratitude. The scene brought tears to my eyes, and I now have a special place in my heart for the people of East Germany.

Lastly, I need your help. I brought back a souvenir from Copenhagen, a gift for my drop zone. Amongst my trans-Atlantic carryon luggage is a large inflatable duck. It is a spitting image of a canary-yellow rubber ducky, and it is designed to be a pool toy. It has two pontoons and two sturdy handles, and when I saw it, I thought, “my friends should ride this duck out of an airplane”. I am far too inexperienced to make the jump myself, but I hope to live vicariously through my friends. What I need from you is a name (preferably Danish) for my new yellow friend, thoughts on how to hand the yet unnamed duck to a crew who is down for a toy jump, as well as insight into whether or not the duck is even airworthy. If it’s not airworthy, it’s the thought that counts ;-)

Blue skies!

(P.S. Do I get bonus points for writing this entire blog on a cell phone?)