US, US, baby

Philly edition:

Something I’ve recently decided is that if I ever have kids, we’re taking multiple family trips a year. And these are gonna be trips of all shapes and sizes. Camping, beach lounging, history seeing…I want them to experience all of what our country has to offer.

For some reason, my parents weren’t ever big travel fans. In my 18 years of living with them, we took two family vacations. I look back fondly on them both. But those were the only times I left the state of Missouri, up until I went off to college and started taking road trips (oh, yeah, add Final Fouring to that previous list), going on mission trips, and studying abroad.

I think I’ve decided this because now that I’m an adult, I’m seeing things for the first time that many of my friends experienced when they were in elementary school. I mean, on my recent trip to Philly, I was nerdily excited to see the Liberty Bell. I guess I just hope my kids get their nerdiness out of their system before they hit their 20s.

The last few weeks I’ve been getting updates from the organization I volunteered with in South Africa.

While I was volunteering at the home, I learned of one of the high school girls’ past home life. The abuse she had suffered from her family was absolutely horrifying. Still, though, she remained friendly and driven in her studies. And when I went on my morning runs, she was usually one of the girls joining me. The first email I received informed me that she had been returned to her family by the government’s order, and she was recently found working in a brothel. She is only 14. I am absolutely heart broken thinking about this. And now reminded how far my life is now from what I was doing just a year ago. I feel quite useless at this moment.

But in a bright spot of news, the organization emailed me yesterday saying that inter-country adoptions will be OK’d starting April 1. That means that some of the kids who have been there since they were babies have a much better chance for adoption. There are a handful of these young kids (under 5) who’ve basically been raised in the home and have no emotional or physical problems…but just have to share their house with about 35 others.

So if you or someone you know has ever thought of adopting internationally and want to have a super-sweet kid (that I can completely vouch for in the sweetness department) who probably speaks pretty good English, let me know, and I’ll put you in touch with the organization and their lawyer.

For the third time in my life, I spent St. Patrick’s Day in New York City. For the first time I wasn’t a tourist and was actually too busy to watch the parade.

But, being a true (now) New Yorker, I of course made it out that night.

Here’s a little video of one Irish-ish man cutting a rug. And why he shouldn’t have.

I just have to say that overall, this past week was a great one. I got assigned a story by one of my favorite magazines, caught up with an old friend returning to the city, and made it out of the state for an evening. It even ended with a win for my touch football team, and the Tigers taking the Big 12 Tournament.

But this next should be even better. Can’t wait.

Philly…here I come! (And I’ll send my heart to Boise)

for Megabus. I’m finally going to get out of the city this month…if only for a little bit.

Girl has GOT to get out more.

Here’s a picture I forgot to post a while back. It’s from when some friends and I went to see a one-man show (btw, Sleepwalk with Me is definitely a must see!). We wanted to have dinner together beforehand, so I googled for nearby places and discovered one down the street from the theater had fried okra. As we were from small-town kansas and Missouri and big-town Texas, I knew the others would dig it as well.

I also had the red beans and rice to go along with the okra, and I was reminded of college and how different food is across our country. One of my freshman year dormmates had never had or heard of fried okra. After about the third time I talked about, she asked where I got the whale. Yeah…thought I was talking about fried orca.

I must be looking pretty FOB lately. This past week, I’ve had multiple Asians talking to me in their native languages. From my eight months in Asia, I at least have an idea of what they’re saying (”You’re Korean?” or “Thank you!”), but I have completely forgotten what to say in response.

However, because I keep buying kimchi from the same Korean bodega, I know I might have to bust out the “I was adopted by an American family” line again. I pulled out my little phrase sheet to refresh my memory. It’s kind of annoying how quickly I’ve forgotten all that I learned while I was traveling. I’m still racking my brain to remember how to say, “I was raised by a family other than my own” in Thai.

But I don’t think I’m going to pull out my Mandarin handbook any time soon. My Chinese accent sucks.

What am I thinking?

How can I have joined the dark side??? Please…be nice…no tagging of unflattering photos please.

When I was traveling in SE Asia, I took a trip that had two French people on it. They were amongst other Europeans and a couple of Canadians. Everyone on the trip pretty much ignored the older French man and his much younger companion, who I’d talked with a bit (in broken English and really broken French). The second day, though, I came to find out that everyone else on the trip thought they were a couple. Uh, no. It was a dad taking his daughter on a graduation trip. When I let them in on that fact, they responded with, “Well they are French…” insinuating that age is clearly not an issue for men with names like Pierre or ladies named Amelie.

Which brings me to last week. A few friends and I went to “French Tuesday,” which is basically a monthly mixer for Frenchies in New York and their friends. It was my first time to one of these, and another Asian-American gal in my group commented ahead of time that there would be lots of “older” Asian women there…the ones in their 40s (or 50s) going after the young French guys because of said un-taboo-ness. Sure enough…there were a few pacts of these snow leopards on the prowl…and the French blokes were being sussed out like fresh meat. It was like watching an Asian twist of American Pie’s milf scene.