I want to remember: Liberia

I want to remember how music from the church filtered into my days when I lived on 9th street. It was too loud and too frequent, but I definitely ended up singing along to some bangers and it came to feel like home.

I want to remember my lockdown routines. Eating dinner on the back porch and watching Friday Night Lights, then coming in to wash dishes while listening to music from the aughts. Drinking a beer, eating Pringles, and reading a book at 6 o'clock on weekends. Dropping what I was doing to do barre3 classes when they started on Instagram live.

I want to remember the flow state that I sometimes got into when coding in Stata or programming surveys in SurveyCTO. I went from feeling like an imposter to a "technical influencer" to a genuine resource for other staff in my office on survey and data questions.

I want to remember how nervous I was at the start about whether I would be able to pull off the survey, and how nonstop I worked when we were preparing to launch.

I want to remember seeing storms roll in across the ocean.

I want to remember becoming a connoisseur of sunsets and how I could tell when it was going to be a great one.

I want to remember watching the water and how it changed from hour to hour and from day to day. I feel so lucky that I got to see the ocean every day (with literally just a small handful of exceptions) for a year and a half. 

I want to remember coming back from hot, stressful workdays in October and November - when we were trying to launch the survey and weren't allowed to use fans in the office - and jumping in the pool and just washing the entire day off. 

I want to remember family dinners and the joy of sitting down together around the table after helping (or "helping") to cook.

I want to remember beering the margs.

I want to remember coming over the last hill in Robertsport and seeing the ocean and how even though it happened about once a month, it made me giddy with happiness every time.

I want to remember arriving at the beach on Sunday and how even though we went once a week, it made me giddy with happiness every time.

I want to remember the joy of coming back from a weekend at the beach or a trip to the beach in a neighboring country and... still being at the beach.

I want to remember the relief I felt when preliminary results started coming in and making clear that I hadn't messed up the survey.

I want to remember the jokes. I don't know if I've ever had as many laughs per minute as I've had here. 

I want to remember stopping for Korean on the way back from Robertsport: sunburned, dirty, slap-happy, and ravenous for pork and bibimbap.

I want to remember bobbing in the ocean and making jokes.

I want to remember the Sunday routine: stopping at Kaldi's for coffee and croissants. Driving out to the beach. Swimming, chatting, reading a book, drinking a beer, playing Rummikub, eating lunch. Home for a face mask and a call to my parents.

I want to remember the Mohammeds, our Guinean drivers who brought us on so many adventures and tolerated us (and our music) so kindly. Who knew our names and didn't need to be told where we were going, just who we were picking up (and even that they could usually guess). 

I want to remember the ten-second calls to Mohammed to arrange a car and his three-second call when the driver arrived: "Yeah he's there" or "Yeah ousside." I normally hate talking on the phone. But I think about going home and calling an Uber and getting sent someone I've never seen before and will never see again and I get a little sad.

I want to remember the public taxi rides, where everyone greeted each other good morning, debated teh political news of the day, and was instantly on the side of the driver against anyone else on the road who may have wronged us.

I want to remember grilled staffed fish, oregano grilled wraps, potato greens, and sushi pizza.

I want to remember driving at 90 down those country lanes.

I want to remember the music of Liberian English. The "eh-HEH." The "ehyouknow." The "thank you ya." The "Ah!" The o's at the end of sentences.

I want to remember my colleagues- the jokes we shared, the kindness they showed me (especially when I was alone during lockdown), and what we were able to accomplish together.

I want to remember the feeling of community. Of spontaneously popping downstairs to eat dinner or watch a few episodes of something. Of playing Ligretto or Ticket to Ride and drinking wine and processing our workdays. Of running into friends or the Mohammeds when out and about.

I want to remember stopping for a coconut at every chance I had and how it made daily life feel like a tropical vacation.

I want to remember monitoring the survey in the field and racking up a fantastic step count, getting to experience parts of Monrovia that I would not have otherwise, winding through crowded markets trying not to knock produce off anyone's head, the field staff worrying about me getting lost or sunburnt. 

I want to remember keke rides to drop off lappa at Michelle's tailoring shop or to buy produce on Benson Street.

I want to remember the rolling hills on the drive to Nimba and the joy of seeing mountains again.

I want to remember the lush green - the palm trees and banana trees and so much more foliage that I don't know the names for.

I want to remember stepping out on the balcony or walking home from work or popping up for air during a swim and breathing in the salty ocean air.

I want to remember the sights and sounds of daily life in Liberia. The motorbike drivers with their snazzy jackets and the extra long umbrellas during rainy season. The guys selling fuel and gas out of mason jars by the side of the road. Folks playing checkers under a tree or drinking beers in a bar. Haircuts and manicures happening in open-air shops. Drivers washing their motorbikes and kekes on the weekend. The guys with megaphones walking down the street: "Orange data, Lonestar data. Orange minutes, Lonestar minutes. Rechaaaaarge your phone." The guys with a handful of chickens hanging by their feet.

I want to remember the joy of getting to do something I'd long dreamed of.

I want to remember how happy I was here. My life in Liberia had three key ingredients: a sense of community, challenging and meaningful work, and the novelty of living abroad among the unexpected. How lucky I am to have found that.

Photos are favorites from the last few months. All are mine except for the sixth and last, which were taken by my friend Erik Jorgensen, and whoever self-timered that big group shot.

Arriving

My ninth-grade trip to France with my French class was transformative in many ways, but there's one moment that, 16 years later, stands out more than any other. We arrived in Lille and were distributed to our host families and, once at the Bénys' house, I took a shower in a light-filled bathroom. Once the rituals of arrival were over and the shower was complete and I was out of reasons to delay, I knew I needed to go downstairs and greet my host family and begin the awkward task of integrating into their lives for a week. I so vividly remember the feeling of taking a deep breath and making the plunge - the seemingly insignificant act of walking down the stairs somehow more daunting than the entire trip across the ocean.

 

I've arrived and taken that plunge in many other places since then. In Turkey, after my internship in Palestine in 2012, I woke up in the hostel in Sultanahmet, where I'd arrived a few days before the friend I was going to go WWOOFing with. I realized I was in a new country, on my own, where almost no one knew exactly where I was. It was equally terrifying and thrilling to feel untethered, like there was no ground underneath me.

 

In Tunisia, where I first traveled for work in 2013, I remember getting into the hotel in the early evening and staying in my room for the rest of the night and, somewhat inexplicably, crying. My mom had sent me with a "Fearless" chocolate bar and a lovely note referencing my own fearlessness. But at that moment, I didn't feel fearless. I felt terrified. I was scared to go out and explore and ashamed to feel that way, because just six months before I had traveled around the world, and I'd spent plenty of times in Middle Eastern countries before, and shouldn't I be an expert at this by now and ready to plunge into life in Tunis?

 

In Bangladesh, where I traveled for an internship in 2018, I arrived in the middle of a downpour and was struck with an overwhelming sense of "what on earth am I doing here, in a country where I know literally no one?" I got to my guesthouse and slept on and off for hours and hours – partly because I was exhausted from travel and partly because I was disoriented and couldn’t imagine a time when I wouldn’t be. In my grey semi-wakefulness, I read the news about Anthony Bourdain and cried. In a weird way, I felt blessed that his death surfaced so much online writing about his life – about the enthusiasm he brought to the places he traveled and the food he ate – right at the beginning of my own travels. It felt like he was a guardian angel of my adventure, and I offered up a silent prayer to him when, two weeks later, I spent Ramadan in a rural village and ate cow brain at a baby blessing ceremony and knew this adventure would be a good one.

 

This time, arriving in Liberia, I reminded myself to be patient. By now I’ve learned that just because I've done it before doesn't make entering a new place, even one ostensibly similar to other places I've traveled, any easier. (And of course, now I’m in a place unlike anywhere I’ve been before.) This time I’m blessed with plenty of time to move slowly and ease my way in, to trust that I don’t need to master Monrovia immediately, to know I’m not a failure if I’m not out exploring every minute of every day. What a gift it will be to watch this new country slowly unfurl itself in front of me.

Fall in (love with) Cleveland

For as long as I have dated Austin, I have known that if we stayed together, there may be a move to Cleveland in my future. I fought and fretted about that possibility for a long time. How would I continue to grow an internationally-focused career outside of Washington? How would I have a fulfilling social life away from my friends and family on the East Coast? (As silly as it is, I pictured all my East Coast friends hanging out without me, even though in reality they're spread across 3+ different cities.)

Midway through law school, Austin landed a job with a law firm in Cleveland, in fulfillment of his destiny. We decided that after we graduated, he would move to Cleveland and I would move... somewhere else, and then in a year or two I would circle back and join him in the Land. Long story short, some job opportunities fell through and, by the time our lease in Cambridge ended in August, I didn't have anything full-time lined up. So I initiated my back-up plan which was to... follow my boyfriend to Ohio and crash at the bachelor pad he had rented for himself.

We orchestrated what felt like the world's most complicated move (the movers came and packed everything up while we were on vacation in Italy so we came home to a mostly empty apartment, then we had a day to scrub it clean before Austin flew with three bags to Cleveland and I flew with one bag to Mexico City for a girls' trip, then I returned to Cleveland instead of to Boston). I remember waiting to board the plane during my layover in Houston and the man behind me (because Midwesterners are very friendly) asking if I lived in Cleveland. "Well," I said, "I'm about to."

At first, I was excited to explore a new place and determined to have a positive attitude. (Nothing worse than someone who makes a decision and then complains about it.) The apartment had tall ceilings and huge windows and (praise be) a dishwasher. Our neighborhood was super walkable - there was a grocery store right behind our building, yoga across the street, a library branch a short walk away, Cleveland's flagship brewery on our block, and bars and restaurants all around. With all the enthusiasm that comes with living in a new place, we made a point of doing fun stuff - musicals and museums and a Parks & Rec-themed happy hour.

I had a consulting gig and was working remotely. Some weeks it added up to a full-time job but most weeks it didn't, so I had lots of time to explore and to go for long runs and walks. And gradually, I started finding favorite places. I found new group fitness classes and spent way too much of my budget on them. I realized that I could easily see water everyday. I scootered to the beach and ran along Lake Erie. I found my way to the towpath along the Cuyahoga River and started to recognize the different boats passing through to the Great Lakes. I would walk along the path and listen to Unobscured (on the Salem Witch Trials) as the Cleveland skyline glowed during golden hour and lit up after dark.

And gradually, I made the mental switch from "looking for the best in this place" to "this is a place that could feel like home." I started to feel the pride, tinged with defensiveness, that seems to be all Clevelanders' birthright. I even bought, with my own money, a Cleveland shirt to accompany the one Austin's parents gave me as a welcome present.

All together, it was a quiet season. I enjoyed spending time with Austin's high school friends and law firm colleagues but didn't actively try to make new friends of my own. It wasn't lonely, exactly. After the nonstop stimulation of graduate school, it was nice to be a bit of a hermit and to spend my evenings catching up on TV and reading on the couch. And it was nice to spend time with Austin after feeling like ships in the night for much of the past three years. But I did spend a lot of time alone. Every time I left the house, I saw the Terminal Tower - lit up in the colors of the Cavs or Ohio State or something else that I would try to guess - and it came to feel like seeing a friend. (So much so that I felt a nostalgic pang when I saw it again on the Bachelor.)

In some ways the timing wasn't ideal. I would have liked to come to Cleveland when I knew I was there to stay, so there wasn't an asterisk to my excitement and so I could throw myself more fully into making it home. I didn't like the feeling of waiting for my next stage to start, of being in-between. But over the last few years, I've also gotten used to living for places in short stints and I really believe in embracing the current season as much as possible. And it also "left me wanting more," as they say. It gave me a taste of what life in Cleveland could be like and made me excited to go back.

As the fall went on, I got more serious about applying for other jobs. After Thanksgiving I started an interview process and right before Christmas, I accepted a position in Liberia. I got on a plane on January 21 and jumped into a different life. I now find myself living abroad and, while totally thrilled about it, feeling homesick for Cleveland which is not something I EVER thought would happen.

Where before I could see only the drawbacks of living in Cleveland, now I can see the possibilities - of buying a house, of investing meaningfully in a community, of figuring out ways to continue working internationally or to shift my focus. I'm grateful for a restorative fall and for a new attitude. I'm both enjoying the current adventure and looking forward to the next one. 

'twas the season

A busy couple of months mean I am behind on that sacred rite of the blogosphere-- a recap of the last year and some goal-setting for the next. But first, December deserves a post of its own. Because oh man, December, you were one of the crazier months in recent memory and a fitting end to a full year. One that was somehow both packed with work but also full of travel and time off. One that will forevermore be my benchmark of how much can happen in a month and a reminder that busyness has the magical property of making time stretch.

On December 1, I submitted my application to the Harvard Kennedy School, then took off for a lovely solo weekend in North Cyprus - one of the few places you can reach by a direct flight from Gaziantep. The next weekend, I spent 24 hours in Istanbul for a policy forum for work and a few days after that, flew back from Gaziantep to DC. Austin came to down for a few days, then I celebrated Christmas in southern California with my family, then flew back to DC for a packed workweek between Christmas and New Years, then flew up to Boston so Austin and I could drive out to the Cape to ring in the New Year with the Countdown Cod.  In total, I took 12 flights, one of which involved extended questioning by US Customs and Border Control and three of which landed me with an SSSS (Secondary Security Screening Selection) on my boarding pass and patdowns by TSA, thanks to extra scrutiny on travelers to southern Turkey.

 

This marks the third year that I've spent a good chunk of December abroad - Tunisia in 2014, Mauritania in 2015, Turkey in 2016. (And as crazy as that feels, it's even crazier that if I stick with the grad school plan, that won't be my life next year.) And all throughout the season, I felt the familiar tension between home & away, the desire to lean in to adventure at the same time that I crave a cozy nest. I was a little bummed that I didn't have a chance to keep up my own little Christmas traditions this year, though equally glad that I didn't wait until life was more stable to start those. In that spirit, I was totally delighted to buy a grocery store poinsettia to enjoy for all of five days in my apartment in Turkey.

One of these days, I will have a cozy December at home, full of Christmas shopping, cookie baking, and ugly sweater parties. But I believe that life is long and, as long as we don't get stuck, there is plenty of time for everything we want to do. The flipside of missing the lead-up to "Christmastime in the city" this year is that I got to spend a weekend in the rolling hills of North Cyprus and to do some truly cool stuff professionally. I am grateful for all of it.

Currently: Turkey edition

I've been working in southern Turkey for more than a month now (crazy!) so I figured it was high time to record a slice of what life looks like right now.

Exploring: the mosaic museum, the old castle, and the Euphrates River. This part of the country is not highly-touristed by international travelers and it doesn't have the flashy Mediterranean views or fairy chimneys of other part of the country, but the corners I have seen of it have been delightful. You can't really travel in the Middle East and North Africa without tripping over a Roman mosaic, so I thought I had seen them all, but the mosaic museum here is mind-blowingly good. And last weekend we drove down to a spot on the Euphrates River where you can take a boat ride past an ancient castle, man-made caves in the hills, and a city that sunk during the Birecik dam project, and eat dam fish in a delightful village.

Enjoying: doing work that's in that elusive sweet spot where I'm comfortable enough with what I'm doing that it's not totally overwhelming, but it's challenging enough that I'm learning. Where I have enough work that I need to keep a close eye on my to-do list but not so much that I want to cry.

Writing: like I'm running out of time. Which I am for submitting a couple of additional grad school applications to Boston-based schools.

Eating: so well. During the day, folks in the office often order in or go out for Turkish or Syrian food. It makes for a quick and delicious route to cultural tourism. Gaziantep is famous throughout Turkey for its kebab and baklava since we are in a major pistachio-going region. In the evenings, I generally cook for myself and it's nice to have that familiar routine to balance it out. As snacks, I've also been eating a ton of pomegranates and Magnum bars. When traveling I am much more likely to treat myself - unfamiliar and sometimes challenging circumstances demand comfort food.  I only occasionally buy ice cream bars at home but here I eat one most nights and I am not sorry. Even better is the fact that they come in pistachio, hazelnut, and tahini flavors.

Running: a lot. I live conveniently very close to the gym within my already convenient gated community and I've gotten in a good habit of regularly going a few times a week. For the last three years I have set the goal of running 365 miles and then as my interest in running waxes and wanes over the year, I quickly fall behind. This year is no exception, but with no Bar Method to keep me away from the treadmill, at least I am finishing strong. Work trips often mean late nights, heavy food (so much shawarma!) and little opportunity to work out, the combination of which leave me feeling sluggish, so I'm glad I've been able to build in a consistent exercise routine here.

Listening to: Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. I am always reluctant to subscribe to a new podcast because I listen to so many, so new pods really have to prove themselves if they are going to stay in rotation. This is, as promised, a reading of Harry Potter as a sacred text. I initially thought that meant they would talk about the literary and biblical allegories ("Lupin means wolf!") in the text, which I feel like I've gotten plenty of over the years. Instead it's a close reading of Harry Potter with a view towards its spiritual lessons. done by folks pursuing non-traditional ministries at the Harvard Divinity School. It is like a balm for the soul, especially when my political podcasts have my heart racing and my head spinning. It reminds me a bit of Unitarian church (where, appropriately enough, the head minister looks just like Harry Potter to me).

Laughing: at myself for writing more in the Harry Potter paragraph than anywhere else in this post.

Watching: Outlander. As a story of a 27-year-old stranger in a strange land, it's proving to be surprisingly resonant for me at the moment. And the Scottish scenery feels very cozy this time of year.

Reading: Life after Life. Loving it even if the passages on Hitler's rise to power are hitting a little too close to home these days.

Buying: a lamp, wine, and cheese. Even though Turkey stayed on summer time this year (i.e. did not end Daylight Savings Time) and the sun sets an hour later than it might otherwise, it still gets dark early. Better lighting and creature comforts are making all the difference on long winter evenings.

Missing: Halloween and then the election and now Thanksgiving. I'm so glad to be here but a little wistful about being far away during such an eventful time.

Learning a ton - just how I like it.

Thanksgiving in Turkey

Thanksgiving at the Hagia Sophia seven years ago and Thanksgiving in my apartment elevator today.

This was the second Thanksgiving I have spent in Turkey, with all the delightful pun opportunities that provides (plus the sad irony that Turkey the fowl is difficult to come across in Turkey the country). The first was Thanksgiving 2009, when I was studying abroad in Egypt and a few of us took advantage of the long weekend to get out of dodge. Turkey felt like a breath of fresh air after the chaos and challenges of Egypt and I completely imprinted on it. I don't remember exactly what we did on Thanksgiving day, but we were probably seeing the sights around Istanbul. When we were back in Alexandria, our cohort simulated a Thanksgiving dinner as best we could.  I missed my boyfriend, whose studies abroad had been curtailed early.

I came back to Turkey for the second time in spring 2012, fresh off three months working in the West Bank and less than a year after graduating from college. Turkey again felt orderly and easy to navigate after the complications of life in Palestine. I stayed for six weeks, volunteering on organic farms near Yalova and Fethiye. I missed my boyfriend, who was on a fellowship having his own adventures around the world. I didn't know it then, but a few months later I would start working at NDI and begin the defining chapter of my twenties.

This year, I'm relearning Turkish phrases and paying careful attention to the security situation and focusing most of my attention southward. I'm remembering that travel, at best, lets us scratch the surface of a place. I celebrated Thanksgiving 2016 with friends from DC, roasted chicken and two kinds of stuffing, and a signature cocktail with pomegranate and rosemary. And I miss my boyfriend, who's embarking on his first year of law school.

Much has changed, much has stayed the same -- not least the regional environment and Turkish politics and foreign policy -- and I won't bore you with too much navel-gazing. Basically I have experienced the amount of growth and change that's only natural over the course of seven years in your twenties. But it strikes me that whenever I'm in Turkey, it's during a time of transition, of processing and figuring out next steps. For that reason and many others, it will always have a special place in my heart.

An elections retrospective

In  2008, I got to vote in my first election, amidst the excitement of hope and change and getting to elect our first black president (and the ugliness that arises when people other than white men run for office). I remember watching Clinton and Obama debate in a living room full of my college friends on Feb break. My boyfriend and I had just gotten together, I was surrounded by new friends, and the world felt fresh and promising. I seriously weighed the choice of candidates in the primaries, but ultimately got swept up in Obama fever. (A choice that I would occasionally doubt over the next eight years when the going got tough for Obama.) On election day, we got Thai food for lunch in our small Vermont college town and watched Obama crush McCain as the returns came in at the student center.

In 2010... I have no recollection. The midterm elections fell during the crazy fall semester of my senior year in college, when I had decided it would be a good idea to take two senior seminars in political science while preparing to write a senior thesis. But I am pretty sure I didn't vote because when a political consultant showed me my profile in the Democrat voter database at an NDI event a couple years later, it showed that I was an inconsistent voter, to my great embarrassment. I'm sure I excused it by the fact that I would be voting absentee in Maryland, a reliably blue state.

In  2012, I had just started interning at NDI - long enough to feel like I had a front row seat on some of the action as we held our big conference in tandem with the DNC, but not quite long enough to get the campaigning itch in time to really get involved. In the days leading up to the election, we hosted a group of young North African party activists for a study mission to learn about how the democratic process works in the US and to get a front-row seat for the campaign. We visited Democratic and Republican campaign headquarters and saw Tim Kaine speak at a campaign stop when he was "just" running for the Senate. On election night, we watched the returns come in from a hotel near our office, and when they called it for Obama, we paraded jubilantly down to the White House as the North Africans shouted Obama a gagne!

I had come to NDI interested in working in international development in the Middle East, and somewhat agnostic about NDI's particular focus on democracy and politics, but that week was a turning point for me - I got to see our work up close as democratic practitioners from across the world shared and debated about political processes.

I was also on pins and needles the whole time because I had applied for a full-time opening on my team. The Friday after the election, I learned I got the job, went to my part-time SAT tutoring gig after work, picked up Chipotle for dinner, then greeted my boyfriend who had driven to DC from Ohio to move in with me and find a job - kicking off four years there together. I remember thinking, giddily, that Obama and I found out in the same week that we would both get to keep our jobs.

In  2014... I shamefully did not vote. Working for NDI brought me to Tunisia for most of the fall to work on programming for their legislative and presidential elections, and I messed up my application for a DC absentee ballot. So the great irony was that as I was working (indirectly) to encourage people to participate in elections in Tunisia, I had failed to participate in my own. I reassured myself that I would be voting absentee in DC, a reliably blue non-state.

In  2016, I was again abroad for election day, this time working in Turkey for NDI. But this time I was prepared. I knew I'd be heading out of the country, so I was vigilant in ensuring that I got an absentee ballot - no way was I going to miss voting for our first woman president, even if in the flurry of packing for Turkey I neglected to get an absentee ballot selfie.

Before I left, I also did a couple days of door-knocking in Philly with the DC for Hillary team, and a couple evenings of phone-banking to contact other volunteers. Once in Turkey, I used the campaign's online call tool to help get out the vote in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Arizona when people in those states were awake. All together, I made 200 calls. In the scheme of things it wasn't much, but it did ease my election anxiety.

I really wish I had gotten involved during the Obama campaigns, but I am proud that did what I could and glad that I've broken the ice. I also learned a lot in my brief canvassing experience. How to make the hard sell and not offer people an easy way out. How to not take rejection personally. And how to talk on the phone even though you hate it.

With the time difference, on election day I made a bunch of GOTV calls between finishing my NDI work, slept for a couple of hours, then woke up at 6:30 am to CNN and a text from my boyfriend saying "this is not going our way." At first it seemed like a solvable problem - some swing states had gone for Trump, but surely the pendulum would swing back and others would go for her - but by the time I left for work a couple of hours later, a Trump victory was all but assured. I went through the day stunned, refreshing Facebook for reactions from friends and #pantsuitnation and receiving condolences from friends and colleagues from across the world and thinking about all the ways this will affect my life.

I have so many thoughts about the outcome of the election that I will not weigh down this post with. But yesterday, I listened to the Keepin' it 1600 podcast - run by dudes from the Obama administration who have been confident in a Hillary victory - as they apologized for being smug and wrong. Throughout the campaign season, they have poked fun at "bed-wetters" wringing their hands about the outcome - and they reiterated that they did so not to allow people to be complacent, but to encourage them to channel those feelings into action. That politics are not a spectator sport.

People often roll their eyes or shut down the conversation when it comes to politics, but if anything is clear these days, it's that politics are deeply personal, and that they matter. I, like I know a lot of people are, am resolving to be much more active in them in the years ahead.

then & now

There is something so special about coming back to an old place that, plus or minus a few restaurants, has stayed basically the same - it gives you a window on what has changed in yourself. I first came to Mauritania when I was 23, less than a year after I wrapped up my post-collegiate world travels and just six months into my first real job. Now I am 26, feeling more like an adult in some moments and as confused and naive as ever in others. I have changed and stayed the same in ways that, while endlessly interesting to me, would be very boring to read about. But the sun is still hot, the beach is still lovely, and the seafood is still fresh and plentiful. Plus ça change. 

My traveling-for-work intentions

This draft started when I last traveled to Mauritania earlier this year, not expecting that I'd be back so soon. I rediscovered it when I was getting ready to travel to Nouakchott last week and, though Austin gives me a hard time for saying this, I was reinspired by my own words. The funny thing is that it applies just as much, if not more, now than it did before.

I am currently in the middle of a trip to Nouakchott, Mauritania. This is my sixth seventh work trip, depending on how you count it. And no two of them have been the same. (With the exception of the three Tunisian election days, which were like living the same day three times). I like to try to set intentions, but I've found that the key is not to hang on to expectations too tightly based on what things were like in the past. Every time I've come, the office has been helmed by a different country director with a different style and different favorite haunts around Nouakchott. This time there's no acting country director and so it's even more different.

So my goals are to be useful and to learn something about the culture -- and most of all to be open to whatever happens. And to never think I know everything there is to know. The nice thing about Mauritania is it's clear, right off the bat, that you are just scratching the surface. When I first came to Nouakchott, I expected it to feel like a sleepy town at the end of the world. And in some ways it does. But there are also surprisingly gorgeous beaches and well-stocked supermarkets and a society far more complex than you can grasp in a quick ten days.

And speaking of being inspired by my own words, this note fell out of my legal pad when I was unpacking. It's my handwriting, but I have no recollection of writing it and no idea what originally prompted it -- it was a couple years ago, based on the stationery, and when I was presumably in a more woo-woo phase than I am now. But it was almost spookily apt and surprisingly reassuring as I geared up for my time here. 

Our California adventure

For what was originally meant to be a travel blog, I have, ironically, done a very poor job blogging about my travels. I'm going to try to do better - and first up is a recap of the nine days Austin and I spent in California in early September. This was not an adventure in that it was very far off the beaten path - but we did do a lot of moving around and made a lot of decisions on the fly.

A few months back, Austin and his parents started talking about meeting up for a long weekend in Napa over the summer, and were kind enough to invite me along. I mentioned that as long as we were on the West Coast, I'd like to combine it with a visit to my sister in Southern California, since I'd been hoping to make it out her direction this summer anyway. Austin was game to join me - and so the idea was hatched of doing a mini-road trip down the coast from Napa to Newport.

Lonely Planet recommended you take a week or two to travel down the coast. I scoffed a bit at that suggestion since Google Maps only showed seven or eight hours of driving time between San Francisco and Newport Beach - a trip that could technically be knocked out in one day that we would be taking a leisurely route on over two or three. Oh man, have I seen the light. Sure, the driving time is one thing, but there is so much to stop and see along the way. This was a fantastic trip but I would love to go back and hit some of the spots we missed.

We landed at SFO early on Saturday morning and made our way to Fisherman's Wharf, where we stayed at The Argonaut hotel. That was a San Francisco highlight for sure - it was converted from an old cannery with some of the original wooden beams still showing (and the best and only octopus wallpaper I have ever seen). After Irish coffees and a bit of wandering around the piers, we hit Zuni Cafe (I believe on a recommendation from Tom Sietsema, who can do no wrong in my book) for roast chicken and several glasses of rose in the hour it took them to roast the chicken. (No complaints here.) We hit City Lights bookstore and the cable car museum, and then the bar at the top of the Mark hotel for happy hour. We had been wondering whether it would be a better stop by day or by night - the obvious solution is to stay for a few hours and several drinks to watch the sun set and the city lights come on.

We capped off Saturday with dinner in Chinatown and an impromptu driving tour, including Lombard Street and a stop at Coit Tower. I had never heard of it but would definitely recommend it for the fantastic views - though there seemed to be no shortage of those, what with all the hills. It's a cliche but they were SERIOUSLY SO STEEP. And it wasn't like the city was just a tilted plane, they went up in all angles in all directions with no discernible pattern - hard for us swamp-dwellers to wrap our heads around.

On Sunday morning, I went for a walk along the Embarcadero to see the sea lions at Pier 39 (spoiler alert: seals and sea lions were my absolute favorite thing about this trip). Before heading across the bay bridge, we stopped at the Ferry Building for lemon-lavender-charcoal juice and artisanal mushroom jerky. Similar vibes to Union Market in DC but pretty cool that it is still a working ferry terminal.

We stopped in Berkeley for fantastic Mexican food and a quick self-guided campus tour, then continued on to Napa - just in time for happy hour at Mumm, where the two-drink limit was a source of some disgruntlement among our party. We then embarked upon the first of several vineyard photo shoots. Let the record reflect that I would have been happy with a few profile pic-worthy snapshots, but Austin egged me on into an extended session featuring a number of jumping photos. (Foreshadowing.)

We continued just a few more minutes down Silverado Trail to our airbnb. We had opted to stay in St. Helena since it seemed a bit less congested than more southerly areas of the valley, and it ended up being a great location - we could have drunk for weeks without ever going beyond a five-minute driving radius. Austin found a fantastic two-bedroom airbnb, of which everyone's favorite feature was a palm tree in the middle of a vineyard. Doesn't get more California than that.

On Monday, we hit Sterling Vineyards for its tram ride to the top, had a nice lunch in neighboring Calistoga at Solbar, got inspired by the idea of port and hit Prager Winery and Port Works, and capped it off drinking a lot of cabernet sauvignon (including some of the really good stuff) at the beautifully-designed Hall Wines - of which my favorite feature was the rabbit sculpture. This was, predictably, the site of another jumping photo session - the results of which I will spare you.

 

Tuesday morning, my back started bothering me. Some back story (do you see what I did there?!) - my lower back has been hurting on and off since April (the hilarious thing is, I remember that's what it started because I made a daily card the first day it was bad enough to leave work early). It flared up the week before we left, but I was hopeful that I would be over it by the trip. It never felt 100% back-to-normal - the cross-country flight didn't help - but it didn't feel like a big deal until Tuesday, when it appeared that all the jumping photos came back to bite me.

Nonetheless, we had a great wine-tasting at Frog's Leap and learned about the perks of growing organic grapes and not irrigating your vines (so they grow deeper, hardier roots) - the community gardener in me was totally fascinated that the same principles that apply to my vegetables apply to wine. But it got harder and harder to stand up, and by the afternoon I was yowling every time I had to get out of the car. Since we kept passing the turn for the St. Helena hospital on the way to and from the wineries, I put in a request for a quick emergency room visit. I left a few hours later with a bunch of drugs and a new lease on life for the rest of the trip. It sucked to spend part of vacation at the hospital, but it did have the nicest views of any I've been in.

Wednesday morning, we got an early start to drop Austin's parents off at the airport, passing through Sonoma and over the Golden Gate Bridge, and then drove to Palo Alto to pay Stanford a visit.

We made it to Monterey by late afternoon and checked into a fantastic airbnb, about ten minutes in the hills surrounding the town with fantastic views of the area. We had gone back and forth on the idea of staying in Monterey - initially we thought we'd spend Wednesday night in Big Sur - but it looked like most places in Big Sur were inland, and Austin was adamant about staying someplace with views and NOT staying in the woods. We walked around the wharfs as the sun set and then had fish at a Tiki restaurant in town - the first of a few restaurants with a "water only on request" because of the drought. We would have liked to visit the Monterey aquarium, but it didn't quite work in our schedule - that's top of the list for a future trip.

On Thursday morning, we did a quick driving tour of Monterey to see Cannery Row and the Middlebury Institute, and then headed onto California 1 through Big Sur. It was everything Instagram promised and more. We pulled over every few miles to take in the view and saw some whales along the way. We skipped Nepenthe and ate an impromptu picnic lunch of the various foods we'd accumulated during our stay. We took the can't-miss-it trail (a little over a mile round trip) in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to see where the waterfall hits the sand. Probably one of the most Instagrammed parts of the park and worth a visit for sure.

This photo makes me laugh - I love the composition (nice eye, Austin) and the pictures of just me in front of the ocean are a little misleading. (I actually didn't mind the throngs since hey, it's cool to be around people who are just as excited as you, and it was a good way to pick the "best" scenic viewpoints to stop at.)

After leaving the Big Sur area, it's a short drive to San Simeon, where the elephant seals joust on a beach near Hearst Castle (which we didn't hit - it wasn't top of my list but I'd definitely be curious on a future trip). We made something of a mad dash to Morro Bay to watch the sun set by Morro Rock. On a recommendation, we hit Taco Temple for shrimp and swordfish tacos that did not disappoint. (But tortilla chips that did. Somehow none of the tortilla chips in California were up to par.) If there's one contribution I have to what is an amply-covered part of the country, it is that Morro Bay is a super-worthwhile stop.

We knew Friday was going to be A Lot of Driving to get to Newport Beach. (We'd given some thought to spacing it more evenly, but based on where we were interested in stopping for the night - and the fact that Big Sur seemed like the part of the drive we'd most want to linger on - we gave into a longer drive on Friday.) If we'd had more time on Friday, we would have kayaked around Morro Rock - but we satisfied ourselves with gazing upon it from the shore. We got coffees in a charming bakery - full of salty dogs and bread in the shape of various sea animals - on the embarcadero and then hit the road. We ventured away from the Pacific Coast Highway (I think) in the interest of efficiency, but the views through Santa Barbara were surprisingly scenic. I think we dipped into the Santa Ynez Valley - another place I'd love to go back to for wine-tasting and more fantastic views.

When choosing the airbnb for Newport, the two front-runners were a room in a beach house on Balboa Peninsula by Newport Pier, a couple blocks from the beach, and a room on Balboa Island facing the harbor. We ended up opting for the latter and oh man, was it the right call. Our room had French doors opening onto a little terrace, and then right across the sidewalk there was a private beach where we flouted the rules a bit to have some sunset chardonnay.

After sundown, we took the ferry across to the peninsula for a private Ferris Wheel ride and a fantastic sushi dinner. We sat at the bar at San Shi Go in Newport and, like the proper hipsters we are, asked what fish were local and in season - which led to course after course of delicious sushi being presented to us and a much higher bill than anticipated. It was well worth it though and a huge highlight of the trip.

Saturday morning, we had frozen bananas for breakfast on Balboa Island and geeked out at staying where Arrested Development was set. We then picked up my sister and kayaked for a few hours in the harbor between Balboa Peninsula and Balboa Island - we even pulled onshore across from our airbnb and lounged in the sand for a bit. There were more sea lions there - swimming around and hanging out on the backs of boats and honking when anyone got too close. We got more fantastic tacos at Sancho's tacos and leaned into SoCal life with acai bowls for dessert. After chilling on our little beach that afternoon, we had dinner with my sister in Huntington Beach.

Sunday morning, we were up at 4:45 to drive to LAX - foregoing the smaller, closer Orange County airport for the promise of a nonstop flight back to DC. We were a little nervous about tackling the traffic and figuring out how to return the rental - but at that hour, there were very few people on the highway and the airport was a cinch. And it was cool to drive into LA as the sun came up.

So that's it! Overall thoughts: I could probably vacation in California for the rest of my life and never get bored. And I have a newfound appreciation for the fact that a road trip is a tricky thing to get right. It's hard to balance the on-the-move parts with let's-explore-this-locale parts with let's-sit-and-drink-wine-and-enjoy-the-view parts. And to balance the fun of spontaneous adventure with the stresses of last-minute planning. I wish we had had the time to spend two nights at our stops down the coast - so we could explore the aquarium and the castle and do more relaxing in our lovely airbnb spots and to not have to pack up and drive several hours every day. If we did it again, I'd want to stay longer or try to cover less territory.

In summary, the big winners: Airbnbs, tacos, views, wine, sea lions, and health insurance. The losers: tortilla chips and sciatica.

...and if you made it to the end of this post, we both deserve a nice glass of California wine. Even if in my case, it's from the nearest grocery store. Cheers!