Finding My Fix: Chronicles of a Travel Junkie

“…and this is why God made Europe… so Americans could escape the reality of their own people.”

-Kara L. (American friend of mine currently studying in Paris and my future travel companion and roommate)

My mum’s coworker, who it would seem is a fan of my travelblog, was apparently unhappy with the fact that I didn’t mention I was heading home to Virginia this past weekend. Well, here’s the story… I went home to VA this past weekend. I came back. The end. Exciting, eh?

In case folks are curious about how these big bad trips get planned… I cheated on this one a bit. I headed down to a travel agent a couple weeks ago. I’ve been outfitted with one eurail pass, one britrail pass, and a flight from Istanbul to London. Since then, Easyjet and Orbitz have been my new best friends, so I now have three more flights in the itinerary (for a total of about $250): Paris to Fez, Malaga to Milan and Milan to Athens. Now if this seems confusing, it should be. Here’s the itinerary for the summer.  This one’s pretty dang solid since most of those tix are non-refundable, oh, and funny side-note… the idea of travelling alone doesn’t seem to be happening more than maybe 3 weeks this entire summer:

Paris

Morocco

Malaga (for a day)

Milan to Rome to Venice and back again + a side trip to Croatia or Slovenia or somewhere else in Italy
Athens and Samos

somehow getting over to Istanbul

UK for 6 weeks

Ireland

Germany

Denmark

Sweden

back to NYC

The one thing that makes me nervous about this whole thing is, there’s a warning for women travellers not to travel alone in Turkey. Well now… I guess my options are tough it out or hope I meet other trustworthy travelers on my way to Turkey.

In 56 days, my flight takes off from JFK!

Spring has finally come, and with it warmer weather. I have finally been able to shed that extra blanket, that jacket sprinkled with road salt, and walk down the street in just a sweater, and pants of course. Not only has this weather brought with it the shedding of clothing, it has brought the sweet smells of this city.

In New York City, the frigidity of winter air seems to paralyze the odors, or else they paralyze the senses. But come spring, come heat and sun and humidity, those smells thrive. As I left work yesterday I was overcome by the aroma of baking cookies. It lasted a block before it was replaced by the smell of roses outside a corner deli. As I crossed the street, the stink of old spit made me cringe. Passing an open cellar, I caught a wiff of rot. Then, at W Broadway, I was hit by the sweet fumes of an espresso machine. And as I passed a construction site, the wonderful mix of asphalt and rain made me smile.

This, this is the thing that makes the city and winter all worthwhile—spring.

Here is my first attempt at writing a newspaper article since the fifth grade. I submitted it to several editors and haven’t heard back from any, so I will publish it here unless an editor decides to publish it, in which case, I’ll remove it. I think these kids deserve a little publicity…

NEW YORK—The tank, as it was described by New Orleans native Gary Solomon Jr., 19, carried him and his family inside as it rolled along familiar city streets, submerged under several feet of water. They were among the few civilians given military clearance to re-enter New Orleans in the days following Hurricane Katrina, which devastated much of the city back in August 2005. As they passed the Saenger Theatre where Solomon had seen every Broadway show since he was a little boy, he realized that the arts he called the heart and soul of New Orleans culture were endangered.

“To see that it was completely underwater, the marquees outside, water up to Dame Edna’s knees was horrible,” he said, fearing that the artists who have always driven New Orleans’s culture will no longer be able to survive in the city. “They’re going to go away and never come back.”

Motivated to prevent cultural extinction, Solomon said, he turned his first enterprise as a theatrical producer into a charity. He and approximately 50 volunteers, all New York University students, have devoted long hours to the first Manhattan production of The Full Monty since it closed on Broadway in 2002, which they will perform at NYU’s Shop Theatre on the second floor of 721 Broadway from March 6th to 11th, with performances at 8 p.m. each night and one matinee at 2 p.m. on the 11th.

According to Solomon, half of all ticket sales will be donated to the Performing Artists Fund established by the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans to support artists who have returned to New Orleans and are committed to rebuilding theatre culture there; the other half will go toward production costs.

Solomon grew up in New Orleans with a love of both the city and the theatre culture he is trying to save. By the age of twelve, he had developed an interest in the theatrical arts.

Solomon started out in theatre doing lighting for productions at St. Martin’s Episcopal School where he was a student. By his freshman year of high school, he knew he wanted to attend Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. He was making money working in theatre in a variety of venues by his sophomore year, and in his junior and senior years, he attended New Orleans Center for Creative Arts six hours a day as a supplement to his normal high school education. Since the fall of 2004, Solomon has been a student at Tisch where he studies on the Technical Production Track.

“We were concerned he had this passion and nothing else,” his father, Gary Solomon Sr., 49, venture capitalist, recalls of his and his wife, Martha Newman Solomon, 48’s, initial reaction to their son’s enthusiasm, but he later added, “He’ll work in the theatre somewhere, in some form or fashion; I’m sure.”

Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Sr. are currently living with Solomon’s two younger brothers, Sam,17, and Conway, 13, in Metairie, Louisiana while they wait for their house in New Orleans to be rebuilt. Solomon says they have helped him contribute upwards of $10,000 of his own money to the production costs for The Full Monty.

Solomon said he was in New Orleans for the summer, relaxing after a day of work at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre when his mother called him to inform him of the mandatory evacuation ordered by Mayor Ray Nagin.

“This was just another evacuation. We’ve done it all our lives. We rake up the leaves in the yard and go back to work. I never wanted it to disappear,” he said of his beloved city.

When Solomon arrived late to NYU where classes started on September 5th, friend and fellow Tisch student, Caleb Hammons, 20, from Kentucky, contacted him with a proposition. Hammons wanted to direct The Full Monty a musical about six unemployed steel workers who perform a striptease act.

“It’s one thing to say you’d like to do a huge show with 21 people in the cast. And another thing to have someone like Gary who can totally handle it,” Hammons said. “It is essential to have a producer you can trust.”

Their initial attempt to obtain a license to produce the show was denied by Music Theatre International, the company that handles the show’s production rights. According to MTI License Rep. Uriah Leddy, permission had to be granted by the owners of the original rights. All organizations within a one-hundred mile radius of Manhattan fall under scrutiny, and because of Solomon’s affiliation with NYU in Greenwich Village, he fell within this area.

With the help of his friend and mentor Tom Capps, the production supervisor of Mamma Mia!, Solomon was able to contact Jack O’Brien and David Yazbek, the original director and composer for the Broadway production of The Full Monty. He was given a contract in November, and rehearsals began in January.

One week into rehearsals, Solomon approached the student team with his idea of donating part of the ticket sales to the Performing Artists Fund, having gained approval from the Contemporary Arts Center. He was met with excitement, according to Hammons. Solomon said he felt guilty living in his apartment in New York, having lost the first floor of his New Orleans home while others lost entire homes and family members.

“It’s obvious Gary loves New Orleans. It’s a part of him,” Hammons said. “Arts and culture can’t really ever die as long as there are people there supporting it.”

Anyone interested in seeing the show can call the Box Office at (212)217-2040. Tickets are a suggested $5 donation.

A lot of people have told me over the past year just how jealous, envious, proud of me, inspired by me they are for doing the whole travel thing, going out on my own to the other side of the world, actually getting off my butt and following my dream.  As great as it makes me feel to know that I am inspiring people, giving them reason to travel, to be proud of me, reason to be proud of myself, not one of those congratulatory, awe-filled comments meant half so much at the time it was uttered as a few I got tonight.  Maybe it’s because it’s midnight and I’m dog tired after a day of working, practicing guitar, reporting, playing cards and eating Lo Mein, but I think it’s because even a born nomad needs to feel appreciated by a good friend, needs to feel at “home” every once in a while.

I just finished an online conversation fifteen minutes ago with, Eli, a good friend form high school who I haven’t seen since I left for New Zealand and who is now working via the internet as my editor for articles I am hoping to publish.  Before she signed off, she told me this, “Just wanna tell you one more thing.  Just want you to know that I respect you a lot for what you’ve been doing, i.e., following through with your goals of traveling, etc.  So many people are all talk and they never just up and DO things, you know?  It’s refreshing to see someone that actively pursues what they want to do, even if it takes a lot of effort.  I’ve just been thinking this whole time; I couldn’t have done what you did.”

My response to such a complete compliment from such a good friend who, until recently, I had been afraid I was starting to lose was this, “That is why I end up traveling alone.  [Not everyone is willing to work long hours to afford plane tickets or overcome their fears and board that plane].  I definitely appreciate what you said, and that you’re helping me with it.  I wish, though, that all this travel stuff didn’t interfere so much with friendships.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s the trade off you make,” she said.  “But it also helps you meet new people.”

I am so grateful to have friends who stick by me, despite distances, despite the fact that my goals quite often don’t include them.  I have recently begun to doubt my decisions, for the reason that these decisions interfere greatly with relationships.  It is difficult to maintain a friendship across oceans and continents.  But I have also recently been reassured by friends that I have not lost them.

Friends I met in New Zealand have invited me to visit them in Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Singapore.  My friend, David, another of my best friends from high school told me I have inspired him to try to take winter intersession classes in Ireland.  My friend, Bowen, who lives on the other side of the continent, 3,000 miles away, solicited me for advice on applying to study abroad programs in locations such as Brisbane.  Another high school friend, Mandy, and I have recently begun concocting ideas for a travel related television show that is currently in the daydream stages of production.  Kara, a friend at NYU, is going to be my travel companion in Paris, Morocco and Italy this summer.  Other friends including Alice and Lily aren’t against the idea of traveling in Australia or the UK on work holiday visas after graduation.  My father’s parents who are notorious for spending all of their vacations in the same place in the Adirondacks have stepped out of their worn out hiking boots, crossed a couple ponds and cruised to Panama, Costa Rica and Baja where they bought a timeshare.

Maybe my travel isn’t so isolating after all?  On Monday, Lindsey and I planned a rendezvous in the West Village.  Lindsey was one of the first people I met in New Zealand.  She just happens to study at Columbia.  We had a nice talk at Grey Dog’s Café about how wonderful an experience studying abroad alone is.  Lindsey said traveling to New Zealand taught her that she doesn’t have to change depending on who she is interacting with; she can be herself.  I told her I had exactly the same experience.  We also both agree we are now comfortable being alone for extended periods of time.  I then tortured her with my choppy rendition of Yellow Submarine on the guitar, but she withstood it gracefully, even singing along.

Travel has changed us, both of us.  It changes everyone.  If you asked me to describe that change in a single word, it would have to be respect.  I respect myself so much more than I ever did.  In turn I am so much happier, more authentic, in tune with what I want and need.  When a body is in that sort of place, respect flows that much more easily from others.  And I have to say, I now more than ever respect those people I love who love me back.  I have never felt so much satisfaction in my life as I have these last few months.  So, thank you.

I wrote this post back in January, left it sitting, stinking in my drafts box, and after a second read, I think I should post it.  It’s how I felt when I first got back to the city (before that “cold” turned into a wicked four-week-long sinus infection):

Jan 26, 2006: 

 Since I, the travel junkie, posted my last entries about my trip here in “Finding My Fix” on January 20th, just five days ago, I have been suffering terrible withdrawal. I desperately need another fix. I’ve got the shakes; I caught a cold for the first time since April; I can’t resist looking up plane tickets; I’ve even gone so far as to write… poetry! I’ve applied to a six week Journalism in London program, so hopefully I’ll be accepted and be able to start writing gramatically correct, aesthetic, organized, decent posts, and maybe even make some money off my writing for once. It’s the only way I know that I can take a “Travel Writing” course and an “International Journalism” course while enrolled here at my university. At the moment I’m enrolled in both Intro to Creative Writing, and Reporting I, but even all that writing is not enough!

I’ve been in NYC for two weeks and I’m still suffering culture shock. I’ve had disturbing anxiety ridden dreams involving zombies and natural disasters and my government trying to kill me. Call it paranoia, call it what you will, but I think it is a combination of watching too many movies and the temporary discomfort of change. New Yorkers talk so fast, I can’t understand them anymore; they crowd the streets in such numbers, I can’t walk; rain falls at a rate I would expect of England, and collects with oil in black puddles in the crosswalks. These are the things I used to like about the city, save for the puddles. They were the things I loved like the quirks that draw you to a lover. But those quirks eventually become thorns in your side. No worries, though, life is grand, and so is this city, once I get off my lazy butt and start doing things, I know I’ll start to forget about the thorns. And hell, maybe it’ll finally snow so New York’s true beauty can come out.

Feb 20, 2006: Well, it would seem wishes do come true!

Guess what happy blogger was just accepted into the Journalism in London program… this one!  I will be studying travel writing and journalism in a post 9-11 world.  Sweet as, mate, sweet as!  You better be ready!

“Hey, I’m at third and eighth, you’d better be ready when I get there!”  Those were Iggy’s words.  And we had our snowball fight in the middle of the Bowery!  We tried to build a snow man, but the snow was too powdery.

A man pulled up with his window rolled down just as I was flinging snow in Iggy’s face.

“You’re not gonna take that are you, man?”

“No,” and he tackled me in the middle of the street.

The light changed and the man drove away saying, “have fun making up!”

Now, wait a second, what…?  No wonder it’s so fard to find any mens in NY; they all think I’m taken.

SO here are some photos from this record breaking snow complete with thunder and lightning and 60mph winds that just stopped about an hour ago:

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s snowing here in NYC for the first time in a month.  Man, have I been back in NYC a month already? dang.  Three more then I’m off to Europe!!  Anyway, this is great, the snow I mean.  I was about ready to file a complaint with Mother Nature.  I was gettin a bit sick of all that cold rain we’ve been having.  I even managed to develop an infection that the antibiotics still haven’t quite done away with, even after three weeks.  It’s amazing how that happens, barely a single bad health day while I’m abroad, I get back to my own country, and BAM three days bedridden with a fever of 102, three weeks living the life of a zombie on drugs that make my mouth taste bad, and my insides twist into pretzels.  But I finished the meds yesterday morning and so far I’m still feeling alright.  Not gonna push it, though.

One reason I’m happy to see the snow: it’s pretty.  Another: I’ve been trying to organize snowball fights since my junior year of high school (my second to last year), with no success.  But I’ve got a promise from a friend that if it sticks he’ll throw snowballs at me!  Unfortunately its not sticking yet.  I’m going to play ignorant about the fact that after a NYC snow storm, the snow has to melt, and when it melts it leaves behind a slushy mess of oil, urine, cigarette butts, and dog crap.  We’ll just pretend that doesn’t happen, and enjoy the beauty of the day.  I think it’s time for me to get out of this cozy little box I’m living in and buy a hat; I forgot my hat at my parents’ house in VA, and I’ve been regretting it since.

Oh, one last thing… no need to worry about the chickens, I’m pretty sure they’re safely tucked away in their warm nests somewhere.  Maybe they’ve got themselves a nice little studio up the street.

As I sit here, procrastinating a much needed shower because it’s cold in here and I don’t like to get wet when it’s cold; I think I’ll share with you one of the most bizarre sites I have ever layed eyes on in New York City.  Now Naked Cowboy, and large houses driving east on 4th St may already be enough for you, but here’s what happened to me about a week or so ago:

I was talking to my grandma, and I was ranting and raving about Freudian theory because she had just suggested I go study it in Switzerland, to which I had to shout, “You mean study a theory that tells me I’m afraid of spiders because I have a repressed desire to have sex with my father? Are you kidding me?  I’m not going to study psychoanalytic theory!” 

And if you know me well enough, I pace when I’m on the phone.  At this particular time, I was pacing the entire ten shuffles across my apartment from the window to the kitchenette with its listing stove, and back again.  Well as I spoke, I took a glance out of my seventh floor window.  Ah, pretty garden, nice chickens.

It wasn’t until a good bit later, when I paced back to my window just at the moment in my grandma’s sentence when she was uttering some uninteresting preposition, like “of” perhaps, that I realized… wait a second, those are chickens on that roof over there!  There are chickens on a sixth story roof in the middle of the East Village, down the street from CBGB’s, next door to a homeless shelter!  Chickens pecking at window boxes that somehow balance on a wall 60 feet in the air.  Chickens!