DMV Confession

It might have just been luck. But I didn’t deserve it. I was thrown together. I slept past my alarm. I even forgot my bike helmet until the 4 year old neighbor reprimanded me and recommended that I go back home and get it. As it turns out, the Washington department of motor vehicles can give you a written test, upon license renewal. I hadn’t reviewed the difference between a guidance sign and a warning sign or read over the driver’s manual. And, I had moved, which can require documentary “proof of residence.” I had no such documents with me. I had just rolled out of bed. I’m not a morning person. I was not looking or feeling very swift.

I walked into the DMV and there were people EVERYWHERE… angry, unhappy people that had been waiting for hours. I only had really allowed an hour and a half to renew my license, and my lack of preparation made it seem a little unlikely to happen today. I wasn’t worried. It’s not my style, and besides, I don’t even really drive. I was not under the same pressure as the other, much more respectable Washington residents at the DMV this morning.

And I couldn’t find the number dispenser. There were several lines and you were supposed to have a number to know your place in line. Gosh, I should have had some coffee. I did a full lap through all of the irritable people, trying not to stand out or look too happy. I may become a target. This type of tense environment can be dangerous. A riot could have broken out at the DMV this morning.

Finally, on the beginning of lap #2, I found the number dispensers. They were by the door, when you walk in, under a large sign that read: PLEASE TAKE NUMBER HERE.” Everyone can get a license. It’s not as intellectually challenging as I was finding it. As I started to push the button to dispense my number, a young woman at my left asked, “Are you renewing or getting a new license?” I had no intellectual capacity to spare, so I answered her honestly and acted like it was a reasonable question. Normally, I may have wondered why another DMV patron cared about my renewal vs. new license categorization.

“I’m just renewing,” I told her.

“Some guy got tired of waiting and gave me his number. I’m in the ‘new license’ line so I can’t use it. Do you want it?”

“Sure, thanks! That’s really nice.” Sweet. It was number 48. I took it and kept my other number, just in case. Cool, maybe that’ll speed things up a little. They weren’t calling the renewal numbers yet. I had no idea how long I was expected to wait. But whatever. I’ll just give it to someone else if I have to leave.

Right after I found a place to stand (all of the seats were taken and it actually took a few minutes to find a place to camp out that didn’t invade someone else’s personal space bubble), the reality message came. One of the DMV staff members stepped out from behind the counter and said “if you are waiting to get a new license, the current wait time is approximately two and a half hours. If you are waiting to renew your license, the wait time is approximately one and a half hours.”

Yikes! No wonder everyone was so stressed out. I briefly wondered how long my wait time was going to be, since I had the special number from my friend by the number machine. They still hadn’t called any numbers from my line since I had gotten there, so I had no idea where I stood. One man, who had also noticed that the “renewal” line was not only moving slowly, but it was not moving at all, took this opportunity to get some face time with the DMV guy making the announcement.

I couldn’t hear the entire exchange, but it ended with “Listen! I’m waiting for another 30 minutes; you had better start calling license renewal numbers before I leave!” And he was fuming. We were just short of a fiasco. The room was just shy of the tipping point to revolution.

As I was thinking about this, and wondering how angry that man would be if he knew about my little number situation, the number announcer came on: “number 48, please go to window two. Number 48, window two.”

And there I went, took the vision test, gave them my new address, took a new photo, and signed the form… approximately 15 minutes after arriving… completely unprepared. Anyway, glad I got my new license. I’ll have to remember to do a bunch of nice things so I don’t mess up my karma too too much!

Babyness

I Love Berkeley

Escape to California

California was a good place to find refuge from the Seattle rain with family this winter.

Survivors

Billy’s mom died last Thursday. It wasn’t very long ago that she was diagnosed with cancer, but they had time to start making plans. She died much sooner than expected. The whole family was planning to get together while she was still able to enjoy them. That was supposed to be this week. I haven’t talked to him yet, but I hear that Billy flew to Texas just in time, and was able to be with her in her final moments.

The same day that I found out that Billy’s mom and her doctors had decided that chemo was not an appropriate option for her, my Aunt Diane was diagnosed as terminal. She has three sons who are taking care of her. I admire their positive outlook, and their hope/acceptance balance. I have a lot of emotions that are a little more neurotic and confused.

This week, it seems like everyone is dying of cancer. I’m a little sad, but a little weirded out as well. It feels like the plague is striking again and picking up speed. I’m worried about my friends and family. I worry about myself. I’m sad.

Cancer.
CANCER!
Fight cancer.
Fight!
Billy’s mom, Diane, Scott’s dad, Gina,
Meghan’s father, GRANDPA.
Everyone everyone EVERYONE!
Peace.
Find peace.
Rest In Peace.
Fight!
Peace. Fight. FIGHT!
Peace-fight-peace-fight.
PEACE!
Pre-CAN-CER-ous-cells.
Cigarettes. Cell phones. Car exhaust.
Sunblock?
Sun.
Chronic exposure.
Acute exposure?
Unknown risk.
Everything everyone everywhere.
Exhaustion.
Cancer.
Live In Peace.
Survive!
In Peace.

Thankful in Fernley

Fernley, Nevada is one of my prime Thanksgiving spots, I recently discovered. Uncle Danny and Aunt Kim moved there a few years ago and this was the first time that I've managed to visit. It's a small town without a whole lot of population. My cousin Lisa enjoys traveling through the Sierras to play in her soccer games (yes! Good job Lisa!) I'm hoping to convince her to move to Seattle for college. Then she can play in Co-rec. That'd be fun!
I flew to Fernley via Mt. Rainier. Check it out! Twas a gorgeous day!

As we looked down at the baren Nevada desert landscape, I had the great pleasure of listening to this: "People say there's overpopulation," a woman behind me proclaimed, "but there's not," she was very matter of fact. "Because, I mean, just look at Nevada. It's totally empty. There ain't no people here." I was slightly irritated at her presence. But I was stuck with her, given the airplane situation. It certainly wasn't worth intervening. Just when I was about to get back to my Harry Potter book, she decided to continue. "I mean you could just take all those people in China, and put 'um right here in Nevada!"

God bless America! It's not every country where people say things like that!

Anyway, back to Fernley: We enjoyed a mean game of... of... this game that's kind of like Taboo and Pictionary, but you don't have to buy it. You just make it up yourself. I will not make up a name like Tabictionary or Pictionoo.

Believe it or not, Fernley is not the only place in the area. Virginia City took us in for the afternoon. It showed us its Cowboys, its gambling, its unexplained love of Mark Twain, and a memorable fire drill in the local theater... It was a just a fire drill. It wasn't a security alarm that went off because my family was having an impromptu talent show on the main stage that we thought was not in use. Soooo, no worries there. Just a fire alarm!


This is Robin hanging out with a statue of Mark Twain (the aforementioned love). She's HOT!

Tahoe also allowed us to enter... even after our talent show episode in Virginia City. They hadn't blacklisted us, at least not yet. We didn't actually enter the lake, for fear of freezing our little booties off, but we did walk around and check it out a little bit. And we ate burgers and garlic garlic garlic fries. They were good. I love garlic. And, while we alienated the rest of the world with our powerful breath, we had each other man. We were in it together. My family is there when I need them!

These are the Perrymans. I love them very much. I realize this is not a very good picture of the Perrymans, but it my only picture with all four of them. In fact, this, my friends is my only picture of Cheryl in my entire photo collection from Thanksgiving. Note to Cheryl Perryman: hang out with us for longer! Maybe next year I'll include your entire face in a photo, instead of only two-thirds of it!
We all had a GREAT time in Fernley! Even Robin thought so! Countless thanks to Kim, Dan, Cheryl, and Lisa for hosting us all and throwing a rockin' Thanksgiving party!

Mongolian Camel Movie

The railway runs through Siberia and the Gobi Desert. It kind of looked like this most of the way from south of Lake Baikal to Ulaanbaatar, except the little pond was special.

We found refuge inside the ger for a mean game of sheep ankle bones. It's a game played with... ankle bones of sheep.

The National Park had some beautiful views, but unfortunately not any hiking trails that we saw.

This would have been a perfect sampling well for my microbial source tracking project. The cows hang around right next to the drinking water well. I would say this is a high-risk well. It may or may not have been the source of my intestinal difficulties to come.

This is what the traditional Mongolian gers (or yurts) look like. The families move five or ten kilometers away, four times each year. It takes three adults about an hour to disassemble on of these gers and pack it up (usually onto a truck).
It was beautiful in Mongolia... but darn cold!

Adjusting Adjusting

My dear, sweet Uncle Hal took me in to Spanaway, and sent me back out again to Seattle on Wednesday morning. He picked me up at the airport after one of the clearest days I’ve ever seen along the west coast. Seriously, you could see all of the San Francisco Bay bridges from the plane! It was phenomenal! For those of you who aren’t familiar with San Francisco weather, IT’S ALWAYS FOGGY. The flight from San Francisco to Seattle was beautiful the entire way. However, I missed a lot of it because I was busy relishing in the fact that I was coming home with Ben, the person on my right. He and his wife had lived in the Czech Republic ten years ago. He acted like it was special to be the one to share this moment with me. “I feel so lucky to live vicariously through you right now,” he said. “OK, what do you want to eat most when you get back to Seattle?”

That was when I first realized “yeah! I’m coming home!” I survived the past year abroad. And there’s something about coming home that makes me realize how human I am. I just got back from Siberia, the Gobi Dessert, the Arctic Circle, but I feel the same way that I felt after the first day of kindergarten. I’m home!

Beijing Traffic

Nobody is winning the battle between the motorists and the pedestrians in Beijing. But, strangely enough, no one seems to be losing too badly either. OK, this is the situation at most intersections: You get to the corner and you notice an immense amount of activity. There are bikes. Lots of bikes. Pretty cool bike of all kinds, but anyway. Some go straight, some stop, and some turn either left or right. There are vehicles. The same is true for the cars (stop, straight, left, or right). And then there are pedestrians. In addition, if you can see him amongst all of the activity, there’s often a crossing guard officer with the apparent goal of keeping this quadratic equation in order. But he’s very polite, and you don’t really have to listen to him is you don’t feel like it. And he doesn’t exactly agree with the traffic signal. He’s usually a little ahead of the traffic light… probably… if you trust him. Oh yeah, if you’re a motorist and you want to turn either left or right on the red light, you’re in the right city! Both left and right turning seem to be acceptable on the red. No problem there.

If you’re a pedestrian, your chances of making it across the intersection with all of your appendages in tact is just as good with the signal as without. There are bikes and cars coming at you from all directions at all times, regardless of the greenness of the traffic light. In fact, I bet you’re better off crossing in the middle of the block instead of at the intersection where you have four directions of oncoming objects, instead of just two.

The funny thing was, I hardly saw any close calls between motorists and pedestrians (except with myself and a few motorists/bicyclists). This was not true in Paris, Porto, Tampere, or Helsinki, where I had a much better understanding of what I was supposed to do in order to conserve life at the traffic intersections. Somehow, everyone develops the necessary dexterity and visual acuity required to cross the street in Beijing. Or maybe no one is left who unfortunately did not develop these skills. I am proud to say I survived (though just barely) pedestrianism in Beijing!

The Most Annoying Lady in the World

Marie and I encountered her at Simatai, a semi-touristy town nestled up against the Great Wall of China. Actually, she encountered us. It wasn’t a casual encounter either. We were not special. She was looking for someone to follow, and as tourists, we qualified. She followed us as we hiked along the Great Wall for over an hour offering unwanted information and tourist trinkets. How can we get away from her? We wondered.

The Great Wall is precariously balanced along a steep ridge, with the original purpose of guarding China from… various enemies throughout history. While it had questionable success, its placement also makes for fundamentally amazing views, which are aggressively marketed at tourists all around the world. If we only had peace and no annoying ladies following us, we could imagine China back in the day, defending its territory. And, so long as we faced away from the snack bar, the tourist gondola that transported us three quarters of the way up the mountain, and the merchants selling plaques that said “Great Wall,” we could enjoy the beauty of the region.

“We want peace,” Marie very genuinely, yet assertively, explained with her outstanding Mandarin language skills. “We don’t have any money.” This was actually true. It wasn’t a miscalculation so much as we forgot to think about the funds before leaving Beijing. We had precisely the right amount of money to get us on the bus back to Beijing. No more, no less. No snacks. No trinkets. Our annoying follower had heard this before and it unfortunately just fueled the fire.

“Mongolia side,” she pointed to one side of the wall. “Chinese side,” she pointed to the other side (with the trinket tables and the snack bar). We happened to already know which side of the Wall was Chinese.

She was ANNOYING!! After over an hour of ignoring her/asking her to leave us alone my temper came through. “NO!” I yelled (in English). “I don’t want any postcards that say China is beautiful!” But then I was a little surprised (and I felt a little meaner than Marie) when she actually did leave us alone after that. Maybe it was because we were almost to the end of our walk along the Wall… and not because I’m so horribly mean that I was able to scare away even the most annoying lady in the world. Anyway, we had the last 20 minutes to ourselves to enjoy the tranquil beauty of Simatai.

31 in Moscow!!

I turned 31 in Moscow on the 28th, just after meeting up with Marie and Ever in St. Petersburg. We toured around and motivated to start our journey across Russia.





I have many pictures and few words on Krasniarsk and Yekateringburg. There are many stories to tell. You will hear them when internet access is more frequent.Sunday we're off to Mongolia!

Lake Baikal