Between my personal journal and the group blog I'm setting up for everyone who went on the trip, I'm already getting sick of writing about Brazil. Therefore y'all will be getting the very abbreviated version ( Read more... )

For the next week and a half I will be on the internet very little, maybe even not at all. I will be busy lying on a beach with a caipirinha, taking pictures of a giant statue of Jesus, and salsa dancing at a wedding. It's going to be GOOD.

I am sunburned. I am covered with mosquito bites. My arms are sore. I have a big purple bruise on my thigh. I had a great weekend ( Read more... )

I'm back from my vacation, which was everything a vacation should be: fun, relaxing, and cheap. The weather was lovely, there were people around when you wanted them and there was space to be alone when you didn't. I played volleyball and splashed around in the ocean and read on the beach and watched movies and played putt-putt and ate and drank ( Read more... )

Sicily pix here. It's mostly nature shots, and I'm not in any of them, but there's much prettiness. Now that I'm back I have to get back into school mode, and go grocery shopping and do piles of laundry and other fun stuff like that. I don't wanna. But on the other hand, it's nice to have some privacy for a change and sleep in my own bed again.

Hello readership! I love Sicily. Love. The whole island smells like jasmine and every available centimeter is lush with exotic, aromatic flowers and citrus trees. The weather is great, warm but not sweaty. So far I've been doing lots of nature appreciation - two volcanos, this cool gorge formed by lava flow and lots of random Sicilian countryside. ( Read more... )

So, I'm off to sunny Sicily, and leaving the laptop home again. Maybe I'll log in on vacation, if I can drag myself off the beach long enough. It's okay to be jealous.

Okay, this election business is exciting stuff, but I'm going to talk about me again now ( Read more... )

I went in a mosque for the first time. I saw the Hagia Sophia and the Dolmabache Palace, where we had a tour guide who was obsessed with circumcision. I did not buy cheap trinkets in the bazaar for more than they were worth. I ate pounds of yummy Turkish food and drank raki and Turkish coffee. I went out drinking and dancing almost every night. I ( Read more... )

For those of you who may have heard about the internet cafe bombing in Istanbul on Thursday, I AM FINE. Just so you know.