Glasgow, Scotland April-2002

     The fact that there were no hostels with rooms available in Edinburgh forced me to add Glasgow to my travel plans during Easter break of 2002. The addition turned out to be rather serendipitous, when I took out my travel guide, I read that my all time favorite painting (Christ of St John of the Cross by Salvador Dali) was housed in the St Mungo Museum of Religious Art in Glasgow.

     My delay in booking accommodation had now provided me with good reason to spend the extra money to travel back and forth from Edinburgh for that one night.

     By the time I arrived in Glasgow it was early evening and the light was fading but the people were among the warmest and friendliest that I had met in Europe. As I meandered down the high street, no less than five people stopped me to ask if I was lost or needed help or directions.

     I noted some interesting things that I thought I would have to check out the next day-the Renie McIntosh Lighthouse for one and the building with the metal peacock on it as well, but my first order of business was to find some lunch.
    
     A pub named Droothy Neebors looked like a pretty friendly place with its colorful windows and funky lettering. I decided to give it a try. The interior was pretty standard, dark wood, a few smoking punters bellied up to the bar and a curly blonde multi-tasking cleaning and talking to the customers. I grabbed a stool a few down from a bald gentleman and his half full pint of Stella Artois and ordered a pint and some mushroom stroganoff.

     About 6 hours later the bald guy next to me was my new best friend after helping me get out of what I think was an attempt by a local to "chat me up". A man who literally only talked out of the right side of his mouth began speaking at me in an accent I could not understand and being the polite midwestern girl that I am I just nodded and smiled, whereas I guess the local girls would have just told him to "piss off" in their equally thick local accents.

     The bald man and I bought each other pints back and forth and he told me great stories about being a tour bus driver and his run-ins with celebrity personalities. By far the best was when he said a member of the Eagles got his number of an ancestry website and asked to meet to go over family tree stuff. That just doesn't happen when you're an ethnic mutt from the USA!

      Five more American girls on break came in and asked my bald bus driver what he thought of Rob Roy... "Bloody Irishman filmed in England" he said. "Braveheart?" she asked. "Aussie filmed in Ireland!" he sneered. "Shrek?" she asked with a very small voice. "Bloody Brilliant!" he beamed. It was about at that point at which I had to retreat to my hostel because I had been drinking for 6 hours at a seasoned Scotsman's pace.

      After waking up with a mild hang over I ventured up to St Mungos using a coupon the bus driver had given me for his tour company and there it was. The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. The paint glowed and although you could see the restoration lines from when the painting was attacked with turpentine, it didn't detract too much from the amazing piece of art.

       Walking out the back door of the museum was a grave-filled hill with all kinds of ornate and beautiful headstones and sculptures. I took several photos and felt so incredibly happy that Glasgow had made it into my travel plans even if I hadn't originally intended to venture that way.

Costa Rica-March 2009-Packing Appropriately

     Unlike most of my travels, I went to Costa Rica as part of an organized trip to write for Minnesota State University Moorhead's online magazine Horizonlines. The 10 days I spent roaming all over that amazing countryside epitomized both sides of the argument for and against traveling with a group versus traveling on your own.
     Our first and less than exotic adventure after arriving in San Jose was trying to fit all of the student's luggage on the top of the hotel's minivan. After several years of traveling various distances by various means, I cannot stress my first travel tip enough- pack appropriately and as lightly as possible. This doesn't mean leave out nice clothes or high heels either, it means prioritizing and folding or rolling what you need and making it fit in a manageable sized suitcase.
     During one episode of MTV's house of style, I happened to catch the part where Daisy Fuentes instructed travelers to roll rather than fold items that you wished to keep as wrinkle free as possible. I've actually found that rolling also saves space and creates better cushioning for breakable souvenirs.
     The second part of packing appropriately is to limit wastage. Since we were doing stories focusing on sustainability and ecologically friendly practices it was kind of amusing how much what people packed said about how attached people in the U.S. are to both our looks and quantity. Don't get me wrong, keeping up appearances when you're trying to do professional interviews is one thing but some of the girls had brought straighteners, full bottles of product and razors.
      The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stipulates that all of that product and razors had to go into stored luggage. Bringing travel-sized bottles and wax strips could have saved on space as well as weight. It's also worth mentioning that most of that product and primping materials didn't do much good; in the end, we all ended up sweaty, with humidity-ridden hair, sunburn and various scrapes and blisters.
      If for no other reason when packing for a trip of any length or distance remember that you and not necessarily the bus driver have to carry the baggage- literally if the rollers or extending handle breaks.

Nationhood vs Statehood

It's only appropriate to start a blog about travel with an explanation of why I picked the "Every Nation Project" as my title as opposed to cities or countries or some other geo-cultural indicator.

Perhaps it is my background in political science or my experience from traveling to different regions of various countries (including the United States) that has clearly established for me that one anthem, language or flag may unite people but that unity is not homogeneous.

This is also the reason that several countries appear on my blog more than once, because going to Amsterdam is not representative of Holland; it's a representation of the Netherlands and there are others. Just like London is a representation of England and Bavaria is a representation of Germany, they aren't definitive and usually just feed the stereotypes shown in movies.

From the Black British street preacher shouting sermons to the masses of shoppers outside of the Bullring shopping center in Birmingham to the tattooed naked man with gray dreadlocks in Barcelona I want to show what the places I've gone to have really been like rather than the caricatures.