Settling into Seattle mode

Well, being in Seattle again certainly brings more questions to light, namely, "what do we really want?"

It seems that our adaptability is a bit of a curse. We can see all the options and opportunities out there, and are having a tough time figuring out which path we want to follow next. On the one hand, we're loving the travel. We love meeting new people, seeing new places, and just being free of the stresses that come with obligations.
On the other hand, we've been missing the parts of life that come with being settled. We like having an income and all the security that brings with it. We want a home - a private space that we can invite others into. We miss the long, loving friendships, for which brief hitchhiking interactions cannot substitute.

But addressing this decision brings up a whole host of other questions, chief among them: how should our lives proceed from here? The only certainty is that Stina will definitely go to grad school. Of course, even the when of that becomes uncertain when we address the question of what other education we might prefer. She and I have been talking lately about returning to university for B.S. degrees.
Some days, we are definitely ready to write the book of our travels, and others it seems impossible. We only recently discovered that our visions of the final product are vastly different.
I have a list of aspirations. I don't know when or how they'll all happen, but I want to attempt them all soon.
Gosh. So much!

Balloons

Yesterday we went to Balboa Park. While there, I phoned John Johnson (aka Looney Dooney the Clown). John's ex-wife knew my father 29 years ago, and arranged for John to sleep on my dad's couch for 6 weeks when he first moved to Seattle. When my mom heard we would be in San Diego, she found him online and told him to look out for us.
He met us at Balboa park, and brought along his toys. He taught us how to make balloon animals and hats (and gave us some balloons), and he demonstrated his airbrush face-painting invention. Awesome! He really knows what he's doing, and he knows how to teach. In the few short hours we spent with him, we gained more potential busking skills than in the weeks we spent throwing balls at each other (though that was valuable and fulfilling, too). We managed to partially blow up a few balloons, and that was like realizing I could make people laugh for the first time. I couldn't stop grinning to do it again. That might be our future. At the very least, if we do YTN birthday parties again, we can offer balloons, too.

First self-created design: Squirrel with nut for Stina's mom.

Next, today we visited Stina's great-uncle Albert and great-aunt Stina (her namesake), then played in Balboa Park. We danced in the formal garden and crashed through the underbrush of a golf course. Altogether an active and delightful day. Tomorrow we're off to Huntington Beach for some beach sun and ocean, then hitching on up to Tulare. So far we've only had a couple rides in CA, and it's seemed a bit harder than other states... but first impressions are sometimes nothing. We'll see tomorrow.

Financial stats, Most thorough projected itinerary to date, and Other delightful bits of trivia

We’ve worked our way up to a consistent ~$10 per hour in trickle busking during peak times (weekends). We have yet to see any consistency in weekday trades, but we’re trying it this week.

I redid our numbers. My original figures failed to really reckon everything up (especially the projected cost of our wedding in 2010)... These figures do, too, but what they fail to include is some small bits of income from interest (~$50 a month until we deplete our kitty below $10,000)

Here’s what we have (total transparency):
What we’ve been spending:

Brendan's account:
10/10/08: ~$15000
1/02/09: ~$13000
~$25/day

Stina's account:
10/7/08: ~$4500
1/02/09: ~$2800
~$18/day
Total remaining in all accounts: ~$16000

Projected large future expenses:
Return tickets from abroad: $1000
Wedding: $3000
Brendan’s Student Loans: $50x18 + $400x6 = $3300
Stina’s Student Loans: $90x18 + $130x6 = $2400
$16000-$9700 = $6300
Approxmate days left in our trip: 550

Approximate allowance per day: $11.45 plus income

This is good. We’ve been far too free and easy with money when free options were staring us in the face. We didn’t do the legwork until we learned this to find actually free wireless, just cafe wireless (which is ~$3 per trip), and we’re starting to seek out events to entertain us for free, which are generally much more fulfilling than those that cost money (see the free concert of a few days ago). This city being what it is, free food is occasionally available (attended the grand opening of the new Vespa dealership - thought of Philip - and had a delightful chicken rigatoni with cream sauce, sadly nothing for Stina.), and the cultural and arts scenes are vibrant.

Februray 25th Leave NOLA
February 26th Arrive Houston
February 28th Leave Houston
Skim Mexico’s northern regions
March 8th Arrive san diego
March 12th Leave san diego
March 14th Arrive Tulare
March 20th Leave Tulare
March 21st Arrive San Francisco
March 23rd Leave San Francisco
March 25th Arrive Humboldt
March 27th Leave humboldt
March 30th Arrive Portland
April 1st Leave Portland
April 2nd Arrive Seattle

April 22nd Leave Seattle
May 6th Arrive wisconsin
May 13th Leave Wisconsin

May 21st Arrive Ottawa
May 24th Leave Ottawa
May 25th Arrive Montreal
May 27th Leave Montreal
May 30th Arrive Maine

June 1st Leave Maine
June 4th Arrive DC
June 7th Leave DC
June 10th Arrive NYC
June 30th Leave NYC (JFK)

July 1st Arrive Dusseldorf
Tour Germany
July 7th Arrive Scandinavia
July 20th Leave Scandinavia
July 25th Arrive Amsterdam
July 30th Leave Amsterdam
August 1st Arrive France
August 7th Arrive England
August 9th Arrive Scotland
August 13th Arrive Wales
August 18th Arrive Ireland
August 30th Leave Ireland
September 5th Arrive France
September 9th Arrive Austria
September 24th Leave Austria
September 26th Arrive Hungary
September 29th Leave hungary
October 4th Arrive Greece
October 17th Arrive Italy
November 3rd Arrive Spain
November 12th Arrive Portugal
November 20th Arrive Spain
Check finances
Either
Return to Seattle or Wisconsin (in time for Thanksgiving!)
Or
November 25th Arrive Morrocco
November 30th Arrive other parts of Africa
Tour Africa (Making our way 'round the coasts)
February 27th Leave Egypt
March 10th Arrive Asia
Tour Asia (especially Vietnam, Thailand, India, Japan)
June 14th Leave Asia
July 6th Leave Seattle
July 20th Arrive WI
October 10th Get Married

Our Plans

Stina and I just took a nice, 2 1/2 hour long walk and found ourselves talking about the future. That talk turned into a plan, and that all solidified our goals. Stina, using the wireless internet that we just set up (thanks for the router suggestion, Tony!), is on my mom's computer, and I am on mine. She is researching some of our more solid plans, while I blog, and hopefully we will soon both be blogging simultaneously.

We paused under the Bur Oak tree, by which we plan to get married. We tossed the small Packers football around and watched the dog explore further west along the path towards the river. After some time spent calling her back, and seeing her seek out that path, we decided to follow. She led us into the woods, where we found no man made interruption but my father searching for sugar maples and briefly tossing the ball with us before he headed back over to the north slope.

As the wind blew in the trees above our heads, we found ourselves wondering what would happen after this big adventure and our wedding. We have many grand plans for our lives, but how do we fit them into such a finite period as one's life, and how do we reckon that with the ages and the hypothetical children and... and... everything.

Well, many of you know how I get. We couldn't be done with our walk until we had a plan. So I proposed we walk through everything from today on to get us revved up and in the right frame of mind to figure out our timeline. This part took so long, we forgot our reason for beginning the task by the end of the task. Luckily that was still foremost in our minds, so we stumbled upon it again. In as succinct a form as I can bear to put it, our plans are as follows:

(We skipped the initial stages that we already have planned, but I'll include those here for easy reference.)
Today: Get the telephone numbers of all the friends and family from whom we have not heard, and press them to come to our show on November 1st at my parents' farm in Wisconsin. I hope we'll also have a bit of a party afterwards, maybe with some football and refreshments, and certainly with some catching up and getting along.

During next week we'll rehearse, visit niece, Erin, whose birthday was yesterday, fix my computer's dvd drive, pack, buy any gear we might still need (a lighter, warmer sleeping bag, waterproof shoes, a better backpack for me), and solidify our first few months of plans with the people we hope to visit.

On November 1st, we will have that event we're planning, and then bid adieu to my parents and everybody and travel home with Katie-Come-Lately to Waukegan near Chicago. We'll spend about a week in the area, a few nights with Katie, a few with Heather and Peter, a few with Jon Sabo (though he doesn't know that yet), maybe a few with some party members if we still feel the need and have worn out our welcome elsewhere. Claudia Hommel is a French singer and her partner Cappie (Kappie? Cappy?) and she have stayed here, and they've always been enthusiastic about supporting my performeriness.

After Chicago, we'll book it in a roundabout way traveling a bit further east than necessary to get to Jocelyn in New Orleans. We'll stay with my grandma and aunts along the way in Kentucky and Tennessee. Stina knows some folks along that route, too, I think, and then end up in Louisiana on the 8th or 9th.

We'll spend much of November accompanying Jocelyn's incredible tambourine and kazoo show that she does for all the cadavers at Tulane. (Don't deny it, Jocelyn, I know you do it when no one's looking.)

On November 23rd when Jocelyn heads to TN, we'll head to Fort Worth (actually Plano) for Thanksgiving with Stina's cousin Michael and Danielle and their children. Along the way to and from there, we hope we can stop by Mike and Stacey in Houston and Cassandra in Waco, and a few other TX friends. Perhaps we can extend the radius of our visits and go up to visit Kassie and Dan in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

One of those things that I mentioned Stina researching is a program for us to join whereby we exchange Spanish lessons for English lessons somewhere South of the U.S. My mother mentioned a program that we want to look into that involves volunteer work from us and free room and board to us.

We plan to spend December traveling around eastern Mexico and into Central America (perhaps ideally spending Christmas either in that program or with a friendly Couchsurfing host). Then January in Brazil (maybe we'll see a rainforest... maybe we can help save the rainforest... Who knows!?!), February will see us traveling down the eastern seaboard to the very southernmost tip of South America (maybe), and March will see us move back up the western side and through Central America to wind up in California in mid-April.

While in CA, we'll visit with Ca and Melina and Tai and Kira for a week or so (unbeknownst to them) and with Stina's San Diego clan for a week or so (also heretofore unbeknowing). Maybe we'll spend a day or two in L.A. (see how we're feeling). Then we'll head North and spend a day or two with Silas, and then we'll spend a day or two in Portland (Hi Kaitlin!) and Olympia, and finally end up in Seattle in early May.

Seattle will be a bit of a rest for us. We'll perform frequently, but it'll also be a time to visit with friends we've missed, see something happening at YTN, and recuperate.

From Seattle in June begins phase 2. We'll book it through Canada to the East Coast and tour NYC, the eastern seaboard, and parts of the south, probably down to Virginia, where we'll stay with Stina's people, and maybe see if we can visit with Emily Chilko in WVa if that's where she is right now (anybody know?). We will have found the cheapest flight we can from the U.S. to Europe in late July (probably a bad time of year for cheap flights...hmm). If all goes according to plan, we'll spend the whole month of August in Ireland.

Then in September, a week in Great Britain (mostly Scotland), a week traveling through France and Belgium (maybe 2 nights and a day in Paris?), a full week in Amsterdam (gotta see where in the Netherlands Anna and Lotte are living nowadays), two weeks traveling through Germany (visit Berlin for a few days, find some castles - mit Jungendherberge: e.g. Stahleck im Bacharach, rediscover Rothenburg...berg? It has a city wall!), and the rest of October through mid-November in Austria and Hungary, end of November in Greece and Italy, December in Southern France, Spain and Portugal, January in Morocco and northwestern Africa, February in
OOP! food's ready... time to eat. I'll finish this later. My father just pointer out that we could hit Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) after Finland (which'd be part of the Scandinavia tour I neglected to mention and should be inserted between the Netherlands (Den Haag, Utrecht, Amsterdam) and the bulk of our Germany tour) which I haven't even mentioned... so until a moment from now your time, and an hour from now food time. See you then.

Well... delicious chili time is over.
On to Africa: We don't know how good busking will be in much of Africa, having never been there. We're considering... more than considering, we're hoping to find a program or organization to join in Africa volunteering and getting comfortable with the place. Maybe something environmental or political. We'd like to see if there's a youth conference attended by the SWP as there has been in the past. We want something, anything, really that can help us feel more comfortable in a new place to begin with. Maybe Couchsurfing has a program through which we could help in Africa. We're looking for short-term commitments, maybe several 2-week or month-long commitments while in Africa that we could jump one to the next. Stina wants to go to Kenya at some point. I'd like to see what South Africa is like (I've heard truck drivers that I've hitched rides from talk about it, and I want to know what it would seem like from my own perspective). We'll probably leave Africa from either Egypt or Ethiopia.

In March, we'll make our way from Egypt through Israel (I'd like to visit Iran, and I may have friend living there (Hi Zhiela!), but we'll see) and Turkey and Uzbekistan (I wonder if anyone from the UW drama department knows anyone we could meet there). There's a lot of ground to cover in this time as we're trying to make our way over to southeast Asia.

It's hard to know what's "unsafe" and what's truly unsafe. Since we're trying to do it land travel-wise, and we're trying to follow laws and be safe, there seem to be some places that'd be hard to get to. Like India... Are Afghanistan and Iran saafe to travel through for an American? I imagine so, but I'm sure there are those who'd say no. And Pakistan. I mean I'm all support for oppressed peoples of the world, but I'm also all American. Am I silly to worry about things like these? I point out, and rightly so, that we still believe in philosophy of trust... but you also hear about scary things happening "somewhere over there". Where is this somewhere? Is it as dangerous as they all say? Do other nations hear about how dangerous the U.S. is with all its many gun violences each year? I guess I'm mostly afraid that because I will be less familiar with everything going on, I will be less able to deal with dangers. Like deadly spiders and snakes. We just don't have enough of them to worry about in WI, but I know they exist. Oh, bah.

Anyways, after March, we hope we'll be able to visit Thailand. Then we'd like to see if Ca and Melina and kids could join us and visit Ca's family in Vietnam. And then we'd like to see if Mimi can recommend places to visit in Japan (not to presume, but maybe we could even visit your parents, Mimi, whom I've met a couple times... Maybe you, Philip, and Yuki would like to come visit us in Japan in May of 2010 if conditions are right...?). And then we'd like to impose on more of our communities' extended families in the Philippines. Peter, do you know anyone we can visit? How about you, Manny? And then, finally (and really finally this time) we'll end up in Seattle in mid-June 2010.

But wait! There's more! Oh yeah, this was all just the rev up to the discussion of what we're going to do AFTER the big trip...
Well, as most readers know by now, Stina and I plan to be married on 10/10/2010 at my parents' farm in Southeast Wisconsin by the big Bur Oak tree that's one of the oldest trees in the county. Our friend Alissa has gotten ordained as the Reverend Princess Mortenson (RPM for short), and will marry us in whatever way we and she please.

After a tropical honeymoon of some sort (Australia perhaps? Only one continent left to go after that!... maybe we should stop by Antarctica while we're in Chile), we hope Stina can get into a 2-year grad program in Galway. I'll try to work as an actor in Ireland, but if not, I can surely find some work there. I may even start another theatre company to add to my list (WC 4-H, Klichet, RBP, RAT, and so on - you folks are welcome to join me out there). During the semesters off, we'll teach English in Vienna and brush up our German. After Stina's a master, then I'll hopefully be able to attend a university in Vienna and study Austrian and German theatre. I'd really like to someday be known as a political theatre scholar, and I think Brecht'd be a great place to start (maybe I can find Boal while we're in Central America).

Backing up a few years, Stina and I have talked about having a kid or 2 in our early thirties, so around the time I'm done with grad school we hope we'll have a one-year-old and another on the way... or something like that.

Around that time (about 5 years from now... well, 6 really, but who's counting?), we'll probably resettle in Seattle... at least that's where we're leaning. If everyone we know and love has packed up and moved away by then, maybe not, but since that's where so many people we love live and where they're likely to stay, it's currently in first place for a "settling down" place. I'd certainly enjoy trying to make it as an actor, but have long thought that opening a used bookstore/coffeeshop/gamestore would be a delight. Stina would like to write and teach at a community college.

On our 50th year or thereabouts, when the kids are in their early teens, or late teens and early 20s, or on our 20th or 25th wedding anniversary, we'll either take the kids out of school for a year and take them on or, depending on their age, challenge them to an adventure around the world very much like the one we're planning now. The world will have changed considerably, I imagine. Perhaps we'll be able to take public transportation all over... or maybe we'll have flying cars that run on tiny nuclear fission batteries.

Anyhow, after the kids are grown, and after we've taken 10 years to help get them started in their new home on a colony on Mars, I imagine someday 50 years from now, perhaps (since 60 is the new 40 now, I imagine in 50 years, 75 will be the new 40). When my parents are 115 and a 111 and will have escaped to become gnomes in the woods and swamps, we will come live here, in this place, on this farm. And we will raise those sheep I talk about, and I will teach occasionally at Kewaskum High School, and our grandchildren will visit their gnomish great-grandparents in the woods, and I will found a terrific new theatre company in West Bend, and we will perform in the basement of the Tri-county building. We will also use the farm as a Bed and Breakfast, and once a year our friends will all come for a month (during the off-season, of course) and we will play and celebrate our lives together. On weekends, folks will come from miles around for the fine ambiance and delicious food at the Stonehill Cafe. And urban artsy folks will come stay for a night on the farm, and contribute something to the artistic output of our community.

We love you!
Brendan (...and Stina)

On the Train - Brendan

Seattle is 3 hours behind us. We spent our past week giving away our stuff as best we could, and then we moved all the rest to Stina’s parents’ house in Everett, WA. Giving things away was fabulous! We managed to convince our friends to take bags and bags and bags of stuff from us that they will hopefully enjoy as much as we did. There’s more stuff in the world than there needs to be. We should share more, then we wouldn’t all need to own our own. I read an article the other day about Lucy, the “missing link”, and it made me think about what funny beasts people are. We hoard things and love them and hide them and collect them and lock them away. It’s just funny - there’s no inherent value to many of them, we don’t even enjoy a lot of them, and yet we save them. It’s funny is all.

My best advice for moving cheaply: do the math (and the research). After all was said and done, we paid $70-ish for the moving van plus $14 for gas, and $114 each for our train tickets. We used online promotional codes to get discounts on our rates (just use a search engine to find them) and we compared the various deals and then we did lots and lots of math to come up with each option’s final cost.

On from the tedium of our move, we were interviewed by the Everett Herald. We talked at length with the reporter about the philosophy of this whole trip - the idea of trusting strangers and of living this way that we’re living - I’m looking for words to describe it: “cheaply” comes to mind, also “sharing” and “through the kindness of strangers”, but I think it’s less about our not spending much money and more about our consuming fewer resources, which probably go hand-in-hand, but have expressly different goals... though cheaply also describes a goal of ours. “Living Sustainably” is a nice, quotable phrase. I don’t know how accurate it is, but as long as we’re living on other people’s excesses (hitchhiking, couchsurfing, dumpster-diving), I don’t think we can really count our carbon footprints. Hopefully we’re giving people something back, too, with our busking. We’re the rats of society - scavengers have a bad rap, but they serve a function and don’t hurt anything with their consumption of other creatures’ excesses.

The reporter also seemed interested in talking about our politics and the politics of our trip, from our interaction with the current state of US economics and our views on the failure of the bailout to the sexism inherent in hitchhiking safety (how to make it safer for women to hitchhike alone).

Later, we met the photographer, who turned out to be a hitchhiking hopeful himself. He told us about always having wanted to take a grand hitchhiking adventure, but never being able to. I’m sure he’ll find his way to it eventually. Look for the article in the Friday Everett Herald.

By the way, we have a show. A funtabulous show. We’re such convincing actors - when we showed the reporter a little bit of our show, I’m not entirely sure she got that we were pretending to fail. Either that or SHE’S a fabulous actor. Our performance last Saturday went off without a hitch, twice! We’re looking good. I don’t know what we’re going to do with an unsuspecting crowd, though. We’ll have our first real test in Wisconsin at the West Bend Farmers’ Market. Look for us there if you’re in the area!

The Adventure Begins!... Soon!

Our plans change everyday, but the current iteration looks like this:

We will begin by mapping out, writing and then creating a 30 minute show that includes all our special talents: individual juggling tricks, partner juggling, singing, storytelling, stilt-walking, partner acrobatics and contact improv, and violining (and maybe harmonicaing, monologuing, and yo-yoing)... and hat passing.

We will send advance invitations to friends and family in Wisconsin to market publicly for us announcing a kick-off performance of the entire 30 minute show at Bur Oak Farm in early October. There will be a donation tin if anyone feels generous, and perhaps a large meal with a suggested donation for that afterwards.

We will then take bits and pieces from the full 30 minute show and expand and condense them to make 5-10 minute shows appropriate for different kinds of venues.

We will perform these in Wisconsin cities as allowed, including farmers' markets, street corners, parks, businesses, and auctions.

Then we will travel to Louisiana and do the same thing.

Then the Southwest.

Then various parts of California.

Then the South.

Then the North.

Then Europe.

Then the world!