Ugggghhhh

IT'S. SO. FREAKING. HOT. UGGGGHHHHH.

I thought about ending my blog post there, I really did. But my narcissism got the best of me and I decided I wanted to write more about myself. Goodie!

I made it, I have arrived in Utila. And its hot. Very, very hot and muggy and sticky and sweaty and slick and and and.

I survived the night somehow. Sometime around 3am it got cooler and I actually started sleeping with a light blanket cover. Shortly thereafter, cars started screaming by at what sounded like 60 mph (excuse me, 97 kph) and honking and making all kinds of nice noise. Sleep was limited from there on out.

After getting up and showering I went down for a decent breakfast prepared (several hours before, by the temperature) by the hostel owner. I fended off the cab driver from the night before and jumped into the car of the hostel owner for a much cheaper drive to the ferry.

As I sat and waited for the ferry to leave I couldn't help but notice that the ferry I was destined to ride on was much worse off than the one going to Roatan, the nicer, ritzier sister island to Utila. Sounds about right. Waiting for the ferry I met a nice guy from Israel that was heading to Utila to do his Dive Master as well. We hit it off and he turned out to be a really nice guy. While I was studying dead philosophers he was serving in the Israeli military for three years. Somehow he found time to get certified in the Red Sea and do a bit of diving there (apparently its pretty cool).

The ferry took an hour to get to Utila and by the end I was very, very close to puking. Dad, you would have been heaving the whole time. Zero fun sir. I was also convinced that if the boat started taking on water we would all die. We had been sealed into this box area that looked pretty watertight as well as pretty impossible to escape from should the boat go down. The captain wasn't going to be the only one going down with the ship. But we safely made it to the island and embarked into, well into the depths of hell. Heat wise that is. The humidity is truly oppressing here. My shirt hasn't been dry since arriving and I am wearing a super high-tec dri-fit shirt from Columbia. They need to up their game, I tell you what.

I grabbed my gear and walked down the pier towards town. Almost immediately I was swamped by people hawking their dive shops. "No" quickly became my favorite word. I wouldn't even accept their maps. No Gringo here, no sirree. Just as I got past everyone I heard someone yell "Andrew!" and decided that this warranted my attention. Somehow Sarah, from the dive shop I am at, knew who I was and was there waiting for me. I am honestly still trying to figure out how she knew who I was. The only thing I can think of is that she has shown up every day since I booked myself with them and has shouted "Andrew" until someone acknowledged her. Pretty much the only answer from my perspective.

Sarah took myself and two women (one of whom was from Bend!) to the Mango Inn, our residence for the near future. All of the employees were beyond nice and made sure I knew what the drill was. After briefly getting settled in Sarah then took me to the dive shop and I got myself all squared away there, filling out forms, getting the grand tour, and meeting a number of other people.

The dive shop is really nice. They have five boats to take divers out, free wifi, a bar, and plenty of space to store gear. There seemed to be about a thousand employees but everyone was super friendly and nice. After the tour Sarah and I planned out my next few days, figuring out when I would make my dives and what boats I would be on. My first two dives will be tomorrow afternoon and I can’t wait!

At this point, I was pretty much free to go and do whatever my heart desired, and it was only 11:00 am! I more or less spent the rest of the day lounging around reading. It was super relaxing and a nice way to unwind from so much travel. At around 6:00 I headed back to the dive shop which is about a ten minute walk away, because word was that people were meeting there to go to dinner. I ended meeting a 24 year old Israeli (the second one I’ve met so far down here) named Johnny who is also doing his dive master at UDC. We started talking and he ended up showing me around the “town” (literally one street that takes fifteen minutes to walk end to end) and giving me the low down on what to expect. He was really nice and it was great to meet someone who could fill me in on all the little details of what to expect. I think I even found a place to rent in a few days when they kick me out of the hostel!

I really want to write more and explain all the crazy and cool aspects of Utila, but my roommate is trying to sleep and I think it is time that I do that as well. I will sprinkle in as much as I can in the coming days. I also promise to have pictures in the next installment! Sorry to leave you hanging like that, but I’ve got to get some z’s for my day of diving tomorrow!

Until next time, chau chau!

El Gringo

Muggier than an Alabama Sunday

I find myself sitting on my hostel bed, without pants on, wondering if there is a way to make an IV out of a Gatorade bottle, a muffin wrapper, and several thousands of dollars worth of scuba gear. Somehow, impossibly, the answer is no, so I drink the Gatorade instead, and unwrap yet another muffin.

The journey started 24 hours ago (at time of writing) in Medford. The flight from San Fran was delayed so we didn’t get out until almost an hour and a half later than we were supposed to. I didn’t think this would be a problem because a) the rather green check-in lady didn’t charge me for my overweight bag and so how could anything go wrong with a trip starting off $100 cheaper? and b) the flight from Medford to San Fran should only take like forty minutes so I’d be there in plenty of time. WRONG MISTER! Wouldn’t you know, an hour and twenty minutes later, my flight to Atlanta was taking off just as my foot was stepping onto the tarmac in San Fran. Balls. Thanks to an incredibly nice customer service agent I randomly approached, I was rebooked on a slightly later flight to Atlanta and so all was good. No thanks to an incredibly nice customer service agent I randomly approached, I arrived at my gate huffing and puffing after running the length of the terminal three times (three times!) trying to find my damn gate (everyone failed to mention I would have to leave security). No problem though, because I was on the flight. Except, oh wait, there was a problem. Turns out, the only seat left, the one with my name on it (not really because I was supposed to be in a different one), was a middle seat, next to a very, very large man. So my one, middle seat to Atlanta became half of a middle seat to Atlanta, four hours away. Needless to say, it wasn’t comfortable or fun but I persevered because, well, I’m a Saint and make sacrifices for the good of the world. I will admit, at one point I considered sleeping in the aisle, followed closely by a thought of sleeping in the bathroom. But alas, I arrived in Atlanta. Whether or not my bags filled with the aforementioned thousands of dollars of scuba gear did, well that was up in the air. Losing a bag becomes a lot bigger deal when you just poured lots of hard earned graduation money into its contents (thanks everyone!).

My mood quickly improved though, thanks to a Qdoba burrito and a window seat all to myself on the flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. It was further buoyed as we flew over the coast of Honduras. Good God that was some pretty blue water. I was amazed at how the land went from carribbean-esque seas to lush, rain forested mountains almost immediately. My arrival went off without a hitch, bags and all. The airport was tiny and dilapidated but I breezed through customs, booked myself a bus ticket to La Ceiba, and settled down in the air conditioning to read my book.

The bus ride was amazingly reminiscent of Argentina, same style bus, same style seats, and definitely the same crappy Adam Sandler movies with Spanish subtitles. No joke, the only movie I remember seeing on Argentinean buses was some Adam Sandler flick where he is with college (?) buddies in the lake house they used to visit. And this time? This time it was the one where he picks up chicks by pretending he is married and in order to get Brooklyn Decker he has to pretend Jennifer Aniston is his wife (as I wrote that I realized just how stupid of a movie that is. Wow). I gotta be honest though, I love watching Adam Sandler films with Spanish subtitles. The humor is just dumb enough that I can get it through reading, and the dialogue is simple enough that I can decipher it. Thank you Adam Sandler, it turns out you are good for something. Kind of. (Check out the trailers for "Just Go With It" and "Grown Ups")

            In between sleeping and watching the film, I took in the countryside. It reminded me a lot of Argentina as you drive north towards Iguazu, small towns amongst rainforest type trees and dirt roads. Very basic, very poor, but very beautiful. It was while on the bus that it hit me what was going on. I was traveling again! Argentina feels like yesterday in my head, but it also feels like a lifetime ago. I had almost forgotten the simple joys of being in a different country. Boy does it feel good to be back.

            I arrived in La Ceiba, a port town where I will catch the ferry to Utila tomorrow, at around six thirty, but it felt a lot later because it was fully dark by the time we arrived. I grabbed my bags and hopped into a taxi, immediately regretting my gringo decision as I knew I was being conned. Sure enough, the man, “Edwin” to me and “Duke” to the hostel owner, charged me $10 bucks for the ride, a fortune down here. I wanted to bang my head against the wall, what a rookie mistake! And the sad part? I knew better. As he was offering me a ride my mind was yelling “EXPENSIVE, EXPENSIVE” while my mouth said “okay”. Oh well, that’s my gringo move of the day. Supposedly he is coming back tomorrow morning to pick me up but the hostel owner said I can get a cheaper ride. So that’ll be fun to deal with.

            After checking into my room I walked down to a 24 hour mart to grab some grub and some much needed water. I hadn’t consumed either since the good ol’ US of A. It felt so natural to walk down the darkly lit street, confident that I wasn’t about to get shanked or, if I was, it’d be a decent way to go, all things considered. Upon arrival at the mart I did a double take as the man standing outside was cradling a shotgun. My reactions were: Oh! and, Huh?!  and, Cool! in that order. I calmly grabbed my muffins, water, and Gatorade and tried to not make any sudden movements.

            As I walked back to the hostel I reflected on just how alive I felt. I couldn’t have felt more alone in the world but at the same time, I knew that that was okay. All of my travels, all of my issues, all of my delays and obstacles were okay because I knew I could handle them and I did. Granted, nothing major happened (luckily), but it was cool to regain that feeling that when it counted, the only person I needed to count on was myself, and I was more than up for the task. Oh the wonders of traveling solo.

            So that puts us back here, in my room, on my bed, without pants on, trying to get Gatorade into my system as fast as possible. I guess I didn’t mention that it is MUGGIER THAN HELL here. Good lord. I knew it was going to be hot but this is something else. I’ve taken the equivelent of like five showers in my own sweat since arriving. It feels remarkably like Virginia beach in the summer, the only difference being I don’t have my family around to crank the AC down to -10 degrees. It might be a long night of lying spread eagle on my bed, begging the air to move just a tad. But hey, I’m pretty sure there is a significant amount of water in my future, so I’ll deal with the heat. So if you’ll excuse me, I am going back to eating my 100% pure sugar muffin and fanning myself with a dirty rag. It ain’t heaven down here, but darn it if it’s not close.

Until next time,

The Stupid, Stupid Gringo  signing off.

In the Beginning

"The greatest, most exciting adventure is the mere act of being 

alive where, amongst men, only the drowned visit you."

So what am I up to first? It’ll all start on a small island on the north shore of Honduras, an island called Utila. I’ll be spending about 8 weeks on this island taking classes and working with the Utila Dive Centre. By the end of the 8 weeks I hope to be a PADI certified Dive Master, meaning that I can work in dive shops or on dive boats around the world. The bummer is that most dive shops are in pretty shitty areas: Australia, México, Thailand. You see my point? Yes Dad, there is a reason I am spending so much money on this; I am trying to give you cool places to visit while in retirement. And who said I wasn’t looking out for my Pops?

As of now, a mere day before my departure, I am unsure of what awaits me. I would venture to say that I will eat, sleep, and live scuba diving for the next two months. Don’t be surprised if this is me when I get back. The courses I am taking are pretty intensive, since I will literally be responsible for people’s lives once certified. I will actually have to study (boy its been awhile since I’ve done that), and will once again find myself in the classroom. Luckily, that is the worst of it. The rest of the time I will be underwater or near it, taking it all in.

I recently purchased a new camera and underwater housing for it, so I fully expect this blog to be chock full of cool pictures. Other than that, I will just try to tell my story as it happens, updating whenever possible. I am not sure what that will look like but I know that the next few weeks will certainly make it clear.

So for all of you armchair travelers out there, eating lunch in Portland or St. Louis, New York or Sun Valley, sit back and enjoy the ride. I certainly hope you enjoy it because I know I will writing it, just as I did in Argentina. Until my first post from the wonderland, check out this video preview of where I am going! It’s a bit long and the color is a tad funky underwater, but it is made by the dive center I will be at which makes it fun. Enjoy!

Signing off with love,

El Gringo

Where Are You From?

I am not sure when it hit me exactly, but at some point I realized that my path in life can be charted by the way I answer a simple question: Where are you from? A simple piece of information, and yet, at the same time, extraordinarily complex and ever changing. Let me explain. Back in 2008, as my senior year of high school wrapped up, the only thing anyone seemed to want to know was “where are you headed next year?”. Up until that point my identity had been firmly entrenched in Ashland and all it held, I knew nothing else. But in front of me was something else, a new place to call “home” for four years. Those last precious months of youth can therefore be understood through my answer to the question “where are you going?”. My answer, as you know, was “Gonzaga University, in Spokane Washington.” Spokane was a nebulous place, somewhere I didn’t know, but nonetheless it was my future. Just as the favorite question at the end of high school was “where are you headed next year?” my first year at Gonzaga was characterized by another popular question: “Where are you from?” After asking someone’s name this was usually the follow up question. And so my identity became “Ashland, it’s in Oregon” often followed by “no it’s not outside of Portland”. The person I was had shifted, just as the answer to the question had shifted. This shift lasted until I stepped off the plane in a completely foreign and strange place: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Suddenly the way I answered a simple question became anything but simple. It is a relatively easy question in Spanish, something that everyone learns in 101, but it represented something new and different to me. Now I answered that I was from “Oregon, north of California”. It was the only way people would know where on earth Oregon was (literally). It also represented how my horizons were broadening. I went from an abstract, future place of residence, “Spokane, WA” to explaining where Ashland, Oregon was to finally just explaining where Oregon was. My answer was evolving just as my place in the world was evolving. I thought that this would be the end of this little revelation, a cool little anecdote to bore people with. I quickly came to realize that this was not the case. Starting around December of my last year at Gonzaga I started to get the all too familiar “so what are your plans next year?” shtick. This again, really? I have come to realize how much an evolution has taken place from the first version of this question to the newest. The biggest part? For the first time in my life I have no clue. Not a freaking idea. And it scares me to death. For 22 years of my life I have had everything planned out. I knew where I would be the next day, the next week, the next year. Going into college was scary but it was still a plan. I knew where I would be for four years and mostly what I would be doing. Now? Nada. I realized that I would not know how to answer the question “where are you from?” if you asked me today. The easy answer would be to say Ashland, but I don’t think that is true anymore. Ashland will forever be “where I am from originally,” but I don’t think that it is where I am from right now. Right now that question can only be answered with a giant question mark.

I am at a unique juncture in life where, for various reasons, I am completely unencumbered. The more I look at it, the more I realize just how special it is. My parents blessed me with the greatest gift a recent graduate can receive, no debt. In fact, it may be one of the greatest gifts anyone can receive. That is something I will never be able to thank them enough for. My friends are off doing their own things: internships, jobs, more school. What I am left with is something that I have never experienced before in my life: myself and only myself. I have no obligations, nothing holding me down or tying me to some place. This isn’t to say that I do not have support. Far from it. If you are reading this then you are likely one of the numerous and incredible people in my life that supports me and helps me in all that I do. No, what I mean to say is that there is nothing ahead of me but what I want. It is at once the most exciting and scariest feeling of my entire life, often leaning more towards scary. But you know what else was scary? Argentina. And that turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life. So don’t worry, I have faith.

As I stand on this doorstep to a new chapter in my life, I realize just how lucky I am, I realize how perfectly everything leading up to this moment has worked out. It hasn’t all been easy. In fact, much of it has been extremely difficult. But I am so blessed to be where I am because it gives me the wonderful opportunity to go out and really truly find out who Andrew is and what he wants in the world. The questions still stands in front of me, “where are you from?” Now, however, it no longer is simply a question of location. It isn’t asking me what city or state I live in. Instead it is asking me where in the world am I? What is my place in the world? Sound a little over the top and hokey pokey? Maybe. But if you look at your own life I think you might realize that there was a time in your life where you had to discover the same thing. If not, maybe it is still ahead of you. All I know is that there came a point recently when I realized that I had no idea who the heck Andrew was. It was the strangest thing in the world because I have always felt confident about who I am, what I stand for. And I still do. But there is a level of Andrew that I have not yet discovered and that is what this next journey is all about. I hope to discover what my true passions are, what it is in life that most fulfills me. I hope to discover some ambition, some sense of what I am meant to do with the array of skills I have been blessed with. Some people are able to find these things through religion, others just seem to know. For me, it is time to wander the world in search of my answers, completely unencumbered and free. I am not sure exactly where my wanderings will take me, but that is kind of the point. I just want to follow my heart wherever it may lead, taking the opportunities that are presented to me as they come, relishing in the moment. I don’t expect to learn all the answers to my questions, that is what the next 60, 70, maybe 80 years of my life are for. No, I’d love to just know the answers to a few.

This blog is meant to capture my wanderings. Mostly it is a way to share the experiences that I am having, and maybe to also shed some light on what I am finding and discovering. Writing is something that is really big for me. It is the best way I know of to fully capture and explain the thoughts and feelings running through my head. Words have always come easy to me and I enjoy writing tremendously. I also find it very healing and a wonderful way to fully internalize and process the world around me. Writing to myself is fun, but it is also fun to share with those around me, especially because it is often something I am really proud of. And so here you go, another blog where I get to talk about myself and wax poetic/spiritual. Another chance to make numerous inside jokes and references which 90% of my “audience” doesn’t understand. But I enjoy it, and that’s all that matters right? I do, however, hope you enjoy it as well, and if you don’t, I at least hope you’ll pretend to enjoy it when I am around. Feel free to share it or delete it, whatever your heart desires. This is my conversational piece with you and with myself. This is my journey and these are my stories.