jet-setting

the last few weeks have been a blur...i want to update, i really do, but we're having some problems with our internet at home (art, i need help!), so i'm squatting in my roommate's room right now and i don't want to be in her room all night.

so...here's what i've got to report, in a nutshell:

- thanksgiving was good...was a bit busy, but managed to see people and spend a good amount of quality family time. also went to a crazy fondue party. crazy because the hostess went a leetle overboard in the prep. here's a pic...dunno if you can tell how heavy-laden the table was, and there was much more in the kitchen:
- kenya in december was also good...didn't do anything too special, but one night, t, h, s, and i went to the fancy schmancy fairview hotel for a fancy schmancy birthday dinner. t is biking buddies with the owner, so all the wine was on the house!
- went to south africa for a workshop, and got to hang out with co-workers from atlanta. here we are at the cafe outside the apartheid museum, where a had banana pizza. i kid you not. they also had ostrich carpaccio, which we weren't brave enough to try.- the entryway to the museum...- nelson mandela square...so this trip was a bit different just because it was one of the few times i've traveled that i felt unsafe. the first incident was in nairobi, when a bunch of us went to a crafts fair and on the way back, witnessed a kenyan-style police chase, or at least, the aftermath of one, on the side of the road. i'm talking bullet-riddled car, bloody bodies lying outside of the car...in kenya, the police shoot first, ask questions later, and i'm not sure what happens if innocent bystanders get in the way. that shook us up a bit...

then, in south africa, a few of us were eating dinner at a shopping center, so my co-worker hung her bag on the back of her chair, and...you guessed it, it got swiped. it could have been lot worse, but she was a bit shaken up, of course. we went through this whole thing with security, tracked the thieves with the security cameras, by which time it was too late, and filed a police report.

on the plane ride back from south africa, i sat next to a woman who had been living there for a few years, and she said that she had been held up, or close to being held up, 4-5 times. dude...

i guess when you travel a lot and haven't had too much trouble, you tend to get a bit complacent, but my december trips were definitely eye-opening...

i have a good amount of travel ahead. i thought my travel schedule was going to be light for the first few months, but i just added another trip and lengthened one other one. so here's my schedule for january-march 2009:

jan 22-30: el salvador
jan 31-feb 7: kenya
feb 13-16: los angeles (yaay!)
feb 16-27: guatemala (yes, there's overlap...need to work that out somehow)
feb 28-mar 7: bangkok

um, yes, that's about 6 days in atlanta from the end of january until march...

the holidays were good...will post pics from that in another entry.