Edinburgh

I really love Edinburgh. The look of the city, the feel of the city, just the thought of being in this city makes me feel happy.  

I'm sitting in the Elephant House Cafe, where J. K. Rowling worked on Harry Potter. It's a really cute little place with views of the Castle and pretty elephant decor. I think it's magical for Jasmine to be here where a large part of her childhood was created. And they have a pretty good vegetarian chili. 

We started out by climbing to the top of the Scott Monumnet. Those of you who know me will be surprised to hear that if you know anything about the Scott Memorial. It was constructed to commemorate Sir Walter Scott, and is 200 feet tall. The only way to reach the top is to climb up a very, very narrow staircase in the middle of the stone structure. I actually forgot about being claustrophobic and afraid of heights until I started up the staircase. It was rough going for a little while, but I made it to the top and the view was amazing. I'm so glad I had my Valor with me!  

After that we did a hop on/ hop off bus tour of the city. We didn't hop off until the end of the tour, though, so let's see what we end up doing next. There are so many interesting sites here that's it's really hard to choose. Tomorrow we are doing a bus tour up to Loch Ness, so this is our only day to explore Edinburgh.

So, it's many hours later now and we are beyond pooped. We ended up doing a walking history and ghost tour this evening. In one day I climbed up a very narrow tower and went into several small ancient vaults below the city. I think I faced all of my worst
feaI really love Edinburgh. The look of the city, the feel of the city, just the thought of being in this city makes me feel happy.  

I'm sitting in the Elephant House Cafe, where J. K. Rowling worked on Harry Potter. It's a really cute little place with views of the Castle and pretty elephant decor. I think it's magical for Jasmine to be here where a large part of her childhood was created. And they have a pretty good vegetarian chili. 

We started out by climbing to the too of the Scott Monumnet. Those of you who know me will be surprised to hear that, if you know anything about the Scott Memorial. It was constructed to commemorate Sir Walter Scott, and is 2000 feet tall. The only way to teach the top is to clim up a very, very narrow staircase in the middle of the stone structure. I actually forgot about being claustrophobic and afraid of heights until I started up the staircase. It was rough going for a little while, but I made it to the top and the view was amazing. I'm so glad I had my Valor with me!  

After that we did a hop on/ hop off bus tour of the city. We didn't hop off until the end of the tour, though, so let's see what we end up doing next. There are so many interesting sites here that's it's really hard to choose. Tomorrow we are doing a bus tour up to Loch Ness, so this is our only day to explore Edinburgh. I think I faced all of my worst fears today and survived. Surely I must be stronger now, right?

I also discovered today that our family name of Chism (Chisholm) means "cheese meadow". Does becoming vegan and then traveling to Scotland only to discover that you are descended from the cheese meadow clan constitute irony?

It's just fun to say that I'm posting this note from "Southend on Sea", Essex, UK.   What a cute seaside town this is.  Once again, we've been very lucky and the weather has been just beautiful since we've been here.  From our apartment we can see where the Thames runs into the sea, and since it's been bright and clear every day I have a nice view of it every morning when I get up and every night before I go to bed.  Depending on the time of day, we either see gently rolling waters or a sandy/rocky beach stretching out until little boats are left sitting directly on the ground looking like a child's toy that was left out in the living room after play time. 

I think the thing I love the most about this town is all of the beautiful flower gardens.  Not only do you see gorgeous, colorful flower beds and pots in front of the houses, but on the walk down to the river as well.  There are all of these beautiful flower beds along the road and all down the hillside between the apartment and the river.  Every time I've been out for a walk I've seen people out enjoying picnics between the flower beds and under the trees.  It's just a little something extra that makes the town even cuter.  There are roses and lavender everywhere.  It's hard not to feel happy when you're surrounded by roses and lavender.

Barcelona workshops

We finished the Tribal Pura event in Barcelona today. There were 70 dancers from several different countries in the classes. It was quite a group. It's always so nice to see so many people from so many different areas coming together to dance. Below is a pic of a room full of 70 dancers doing floor work.

After the classes, we were able to have dinner at a nice little vegan restaurant called Vege Garden. We had momos! And sangria! It was a lovely meal all around.

I'm tinkering with the idea of diving into learning Spanish. My desire to understand Hindi keeps jumping out in front of any attempts to learn any other languages, though. I'll probably end up saying things like, "Namste. Aap ka llamo, Por favor?"

With the show Friday night and two full days of classes we are beat. This event came right on the heels of a 10 day trip to Michigan (which was another great event). It's been a busy couple of months and we're looking forward to getting home.

Tomorrow is our last chance for sightseeing in Barcelona, so cross your fingers that it doesn't rain. We'd appreciate it. ;-)

Barcelona

Just having tea with Carolena after a walk up to the mall that used to be a bullfighting ring (Yay for that change!) and a walk back to the museum of art. Barcelona is lovely. :-)

Germany

July 21, 2011 Right now I'm sitting on flight Delta 14 to Frankfurt for the second time today. After driving 2 and a half hours to Atlanta and then flying toward Germany for about an a hour, I found myself heading back to the Atlanta airport. I have to admit, I felt a little surge of fear when the captain announced that we were heading back to Atlanta due to something that we couldn't fly over the ocean without having checked.  Obviously, I'm glad we turned around if there was something wrong with the plane. They gave us all snack vouchers and scheduled us to leave on a different plane two hours later. So, here I sit with a belly full of pineapple smoothy compliments of Delta, and my second pair of Delta socks on my feet for the day. Hopefully everything will go perfectly smoothly this time and I'll be in Germany in about 9 hours. And I hope my ride will still be able to pick me up! Well, I arrived in Germany with no further delay or problems. Our sponsor's husband was there to pick me up. One of the first things he said was, "so, there was a mouse on the plane!". This was news to news to me, but he said that's what someone in the know told him. 

We had a nice long drive to the house and I got to see how beautiful this part of Germany is. The house we are staying in is set back from the road, in the woods, in a small town outside of Dillenburg. The bedroom and living room have sliding glass doors as the outside walls, so we get a gorgeous view of the lovely back yard at all times.  Most of the time has been spent teaching and then the show, so we haven't done a lot of site seeing. We did visit an old castle, which was really interesting.  The main room of the castle was built in the 1200s and the rest of it was built up and added on to over the years. There was a lot of battle armor and weapons from hundreds of years ago. Full suits of armor, swords, lances, and even armor for the horses.  The rest of the castle was full of original art work from Italy, Spain and Germany, as well as beautiful old furniture and tapestries.  One of the highlights for me was seeing an original Ruebens painting.   We then went to another location where an old castle that was destroyed was rebuilt into a tower that overlooks the town. It was after closing hours so we didn't get to tour the inside but it was interesting to see the site.  The weather has been quite a surprise the whole time we've been here. Even though it's summer, it has been pretty cold most of the time. It was rainy and very cold the first few days, then it warmed up a bit, then got stormy and cold again, etc.  Today it's cold again. This is my last day here so I was planning to walk around Dillenburg, but the weather is threatening to dampen my enthusiasm a bit. Not enough to stop me though.  (very long break in writing here) It turned out that our friends Hannele and Axel were in town for the Teacher Training session, so Axel and I did some sightseeing while Hannele was in the class. We did get to go in the old tower after all. The view of the town from the top was amazing, and the history was quite interesting.  All in all, it was a lovely trip.  Our sponsor, Gabi, was really sweet and I made some new friends while adding another country to the list of places I've been so blessed to be able to visit. 

New York, New York

I'm officially hijacking my own blog. This blog was previously called "Megha in India", but I'm going to use this space to add posts from all of my travels now. Let's see if I can keep up with it.

I'm at the airport now, waiting for my flight home after a weekend of workshops and a show organized by Mimi Fontana of Manhattan Tribal. I have to say, she did a really fab job of organizing everything. The show was in a nice little theatre and had a good lineup that seemed to last just long enough to keep everyone's attention and leave them wanting more. The workshops were held in a super great studio in Manhattan with lovely, high windows on two sides and good floors. This place was like a huge office building of studios. They had so many studios that they had big monitors up on the wall in the lobby with the studio numbers and events on them, like airport flight monitors. People were rehearsing and auditioning for all kinds of shows. It was a really great place with a lot of excitement in the air. The students in our classes were such a great group. It seemed like the whole weekend just flew by and everybody was happy with how it all went.

I have had such a pleasant experience on this trip. Every single person I've had any dealings with has been so nice. From the waiters in the restaurants to the cab drivers and the airport staff, they've all been kind and courteous. And to top it off, there was a weird cool spell in the city this weekend, so the weather was incredible, too. My only regret is that I didn't make plans to see a show while I was here. Next time I will definitely plan ahead for that.

To top it all off, I got to eat at, or order from, four.... Yes, that's right... Four different vegan restaurants while here! Considering that there isn't one single vegan restaurant in the entire state of Alabama, this was thrilling for me. In fact, I have a vegan coconut donut in my bag waiting for me right now. Hmmm, I think I'll end here and have it now. ;-)

Next up... Gerrmany....

Catching up

I'm so behind on my journaling.  So much has happened since my last post. 

On January 13th, one of our cousin-sisters husbands put on a huge program in Udupi.  There is a dance drama art form from Karnataka called Yakshagana.  It's a bit like a folkloric style of Katakali, which is a classical dance form.  It's only performed by men.  The productions tell the stories from the Maha Bharata and Bagavad Gita.  This particular production told the story of how the Goddess Kali destroys the demons that are reeking havoc in the heavens and on Earth.  It's really a beautiful story, which I have read but not seen performed all the way through.  My Sasu managed to stay for the entire program which lasted from about 5pm (when we met at the temple and paraded the Goddess statue from the temple to the place of the program) till about 6:00am the next morning.  I only made it to midnight.  This event was huge.  It looked like all of Udupi came out for it.  People were vending balloons and snacks out front, it was so big. 

On January 16th we boarded the train to Mumbai.  We were trying to get 2 tier A/C seats but we ended up in 3 tier instead.  That means there were 6 beds in the compartment.  With all of our luggage and 6 people it was a pretty tight fit.  I was struck by how people here don't think anything about playing music from their phones very loudly without earplugs.  Apparently it's not a big deal, but when you're trying to sleep it's pretty annoying.  Anyhow, we survived the train trip and arrived in Mumbai early in the morning.  I was shocked at how little traffic congestion there was on the road.  They have made a lot of improvements in the roads in Mumbai since last time I was here.  It was quite a pleasant surprise. 

We spent a day with our niece Priya and her husband and son.  We had quite a nice time with them.  She made saag tofu and peas pulao for Jasmine that was really good.  It turns out that her neighbor across the hall is an amazing henna artist.  She did incredible henna for me and Jasmine.  People everywhere we went were commenting on how good it was.  There will definitely be pics of that. 

Stayed tuned for the next chapter of this saga where DeAnna arrives in India and we make it to Pushkar......