Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Some Leftover Journal Notes

Latgalian old believers community is in Jekabpils.

Slavic culture usu. patriarchal, Baltic are matriarchal.

Salaspils, Latvija: first concentration camp I've been to.
Sat in the concrete square field and said the Shma and what I could remember of the Kaddish.

I'M LEARNING RUSSIAN

Vodka Museum
- Bullshit
- No free booze
- $5
- Lots of stamps

13 June 2009
Orange Line Metro
Moscow, Russia

I find the loud screech-clang-roar of the Metro surprisingly calming.

Fitness!

TO GET THERE (FROM WARSAW)
1) Tram out of Center (9, 15, 25)
-> Last Stop (Okecie?)
Bus stop ~50m farther
2) From center, take Bus to "Centrum Janki" (it's free)
(~20 km)
Catch it just W of rail station @ Al Jerozolimskie
40 min to Ikea, from there get on droga Krajowa 7 (E77)


I just peed on the Arctic Circle

Wenn du nicht rauchst, rauche ich auch nicht.

I've realized I no longer look at a building that seems in imminent danger of collapse and think "Jeezus, that building might fall over any second."  Instead, I hardly notice anymore.

shulllkur - ШУЛКУР (?) - sausage

БАНИЦА = yum

FLIGHT @ 1230 -> SAVE TL3.00

Haha. I think I'm a bit more blunt than Brian.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Some Leftover Journal Notes

We really are young, aren't we?

Or small?

What is a desert? And what is a jungle? They are both the human body.

Rocky swales like some sour-backed Stegosaurus.

The illusion of the desert is less like an endless, unknowable vastness, the expanse at hand surrounded exponentially by identical vastnesses, equations in perfect balance, trees and scrub and prairie dog holes arranged in an endlessly yet predictably random formation than it is like a private singularity of loneliness, a whole and finished world, the horizon described by a three-mile radius around the lost one signifying only the edge of the earth, or wherever this desert is nominally located, revealing beyond itself only humid black space.

reflected pools of blood and sherbet

Bleak, unforgiving landscapes have perhaps some precedent for our hearts and lungs in the __ __ and __ __ of __ (youth?).

If I slashed open your stomach now, with a three-dollar machete, I can imagine your pink guts wriggling, yet keeping me warm in the night cold, like in __The Empire Strikes Back.__

Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria
Puesto de Vigilancia Nº 08
Santa Rosa de Tibilo
Cuenca del Samiria
Río Tibilo

An environment is less of a sense of place, or location than it is like a vast flesh, but dynamic, arteries changing with every large rain.

You sit so low, and there is so little freeboard (two to three inches at most) that you feel like you ARE the river, one sentient chunk among many, moving with the water, seeing what the water sees.

Or that the river is the timeline of your life made into a geographical space, finding you here traveling with companions, there without, meeting people, seeing places, stopping for a while here or there, doubling back, taking shortcuts yet sticking primarily to the widest and deepest channels, feeling vaguely or acutely lost most of the time.

maelstrom of bats

partake of a wild and intemperate pleasure upon meeting another American.

like swimming in a tincture of

Black Hawk-eagles eat monkeys.

Water with the texture of vellum.

con cuerpo tinto

What does the moth seek when, time after time, she vaults the candle's flame with an endearing lack of grace or poise, and, having failed to be transported anywhere, falls or careens into the ground? Finally she seems to achieve her goal: She must be aiming for the brightest, whitest part of the flame, but this time she falls just short of her mark; maybe she is tiring, but this seems a less likely force than the pure and deft hand of fate. She strikes the black wick, she's trapped in the corona of melted wax, and in a few seconds she is immolated. It can't be that she sought warmth,

Friday, December 18, 2009

adulthood

I got the keys to my/our new house the other day. It was so.... adult. It is literally three houses down (or 1 down and 2 across) from where Meghan lived last sem. 8 beautiful bedrooms that have dark wood floors (except the basement, they have fake-looking tan wood floors. Too shiny in my opinion) and big windows (haha, again minus the basement. But we have a helluva lot of lights which are the culprit for the shiny floors), 2 cool bathrooms (the bathroom on the main floor has a claw-footed bath tub for crying out loud and a stylish looking shower head. I'm jealous) and a gi-normous kitchen with lots of counters and cupboards and windows and room for 8 people to move around. It comes with all new appliances, even a dishwasher. HUZZAH

first item on the agenda for January the night before classes start: a housewarming shindig? maybe?

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Vamos a regresar

Seems so strange, but we'll be home/finished this coming Thursday. Ari/Nat/Kat: We were in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile at I believe around the same time you three were seeing the Salar de Uyuni. (San Pedro is just across the border.)

I'm going to bring back some specialty alfajores made with marzipan, some 'handmade' honey, a musical score, a packet of archaeological diagrams, a tent, a belt, a textile, a ceramic bowl, maybe a vinyl record, a Peruvian schoolchildren's jacket, and a postcard.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

blogger in action

katie ari and I are in La Paz, Bolivia. I really like this city. It's not as huge and intimidating as Lima, and is rich in Andean culture. It is also smack dab in the high mountains, when you drive in, you can see these awesome snowy peaks, I think one of them is 19,000feet.
We just spent a week in Sucre, Bolivia's capital. We were there for their election, which was kind of cool. As Sucre is a wealthier city, it was less supportive of Evo Morales than, for example La Paz. Here, where there are pro/evo signs and posters and grafitti eveyrwhere. He was re/elected, ps. I think he got 63 percent of the vote.

We also went to Potosi, which is the highest city in the world and has this mountain with the biggest silver mine on the world or something. I guess 8 million miners have died in it over the past 500 years or so. Whoah. So you can take tours in the mines, which Katie and Ari did but I got claustrophobic and didn't go. They said it was intense but cool. The miners who work in it basically live on coca leaves, tobacco, and 96 percent alcohol, and they die before 40 because of all the dust in their lungs. Sometimes they have to work 24hours at a time.

Before that, we were in the far southwestern corner of Bolivia, near the Atacama desert. We went on this 4 day jeep tour, and it was awesome. We saw the huge salt flat of Uyuni, a red lake, a green lake, tons of flamingos, geysers, vicunas, it was way cool. A super surreal, stark, Daliesque landscape. Oh and our car broke down like ten times but it was still fun.

Tomorrow we're hopping on a 30 hour bus to Lima to catch our flights back north. The fact that our trip is ending hasn't quite hit me yet.
over and out
natz

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Check OOT mah WOOL


talkin' bout some M.I.A. roamerz on dis blog.

I'm not even really sure what to say, but it gets dark at 4pm and there a giant puddle of vomit outside my dorm. Srsly yall, willamette would never allow this kind of campus trashing.

But they put up a christmas um, holiday tree in the middle of campus and it made me miss the star trees. All that cheezy willamette stuff. And then I remembered that christmas, um holiday song some of us wrote together and played at the star tree lighting.

I canNOT wait to catch up with yall. I hope you all remember how to speak English. And forgive me if I call things "wee" or use other strange diminutives.

Taking any interesting classes?
I'll actually be doing my Senior Seminar next semester, which is a little scary.
Then I'm taking a Literature class about Motherhood, Death in America, and Modern European Cities for my TH.

How's that for a non-trad blog entry?
Love you all,
Madeline

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Roaming & Food

Most of this will not be about roaming. The first part is, though.

I'm going to Ireland over Winter Break to meet up with some friends I met in Latvia. I'll spend a few days in Dublin with Steffi and Jana, two German girls. Steffi was one of my flatmates in Rīga, and Jana lived next door. Then we'll venture West to Galway to visit JP and Meagan, two Irish people, who were also my flatmates in Rīga; Anya, a Ukrainian-Irish girl I met n the way to Russia; and Dermot and Jimmy, two of JP's "mates" who visited us in Rīga. A Polish girl named Magda and a Finnish girl named Laura might also come. I don't get very excited about many things, and when I do it's usually stormy weather, but I'm pretty excited about this trip.

Onto the food part. It's pretty long, but hopefully worthwhile.

I don't really know what I'm doing in the kitchen, and I tend to mess around a lot until something that seems edible turns up. I'm pretty good at making things that taste good, though, so I thought it would be a good idea to systematize some of what seems to work well. And then I thought it would be neat to share it. Maybe someday I'll publish a cookbook of really cheap foods you can make with only a stove, a pot, and a pan as cooking utensils.

None of this requires meat, which I think is cool. My favorites are 1) the lentils, because overcooking them seems to have no impact on the taste of the food, and 2) the deviled eggs, because I thought they were really hard to make, but they're actually really easy, and delicious.

POTATO STIR-FRY/HASHBROWN-SORT-OF-THING

Use this stuff:

  • Potatoes (two seems about good)
  • Garlic (a few crescents)
  • Onion (a little less than half is probably alright)
  • Pepper (about as much as the onion)
  • Tomato (a little less than the onion and pepper)
  • Whatever other vegetables you have sitting around
  • Oil
  • A pan that won't melt
  • A stove

Do this to it:

  1. Run the potatoes under water and scrub them with a sponge a bit to get the dirt off.
  2. Cut them into pretty small pieces, around the size of scrabble tiles seems good.
  3. Cut up all the veggies except the garlic into pieces a little bigger than the potatoes.
  4. Cut the garlic up really small.
  5. Set the pan on a stove turned up all the way.
  6. Put some oil in the pan. A spoonful's probably about right.
  7. When the pan gets too hot to touch, put the potatoes in. Move them around occasionally, otherwise they'll burn.
  8. When the potatoes start to turn kind of brown, add all the other stuff to the pan.
  9. Keep moving the stuff around sometimes.
  10. When the potatoes start to turn black at the edges, it's done.

PANCAKES

Use this stuff:

  • Flour (maybe a cup or so)
  • Milk or water (a little less than the flour)
  • Baking powder (a small spoonful)
  • Salt (a really small spoonful)
  • Butter (about as much as you'd put on toast)
  • An egg, if you have one.
  • Oil (some)
  • Whatever you like to put on top of your pancakes
  • A pan that won't melt
  • A stove

Do this to it:

  1. Mix all the stuff together, except the oil, the pan, and the stove. Oh, and leave out the eggshell.
  2. Turn the stove about ¾ of the way up.
  3. Put a dribble of oil in the pan. Probably about the size of a nickle.
  4. Pour some of the mix in the pan.
  5. Let it cook until the bubbles that pop leave holes that don't fill with goop.
  6. Flip it.
  7. Let it cook for a little less time than it took on the first side.
  8. Done. Put whatever you want on top.

REFRIED BEANS

Use this stuff:

  • Beans (a few handfulls)
  • Water (about twice as much as the beans, by volume)
  • Onion (half of a big one)
  • Bell pepper, any color (half)
  • Tomato (half of a big one)
  • Bacon grease, or some other oil (a few spoonfuls)
  • Ground cinnamon
  • Pepper flakes
  • Tapatio or some other hot sauce
  • Salt
  • A big pot
  • A medium pot
  • A big pan
  • A stove

Do this to it:

  1. Put the beans in the pot, fill it with water, then pour the water out. The beans are now rinsed.
  2. Fill the big pot with the beans still in it with about twice as much water as beans.
  3. Turn the stove all the way up and put the pot on it.
  4. Wait for it to boil, and then wait a few minutes longer.
  5. Add some cinnamon, pepper, and hot sauce.
  6. Turn the stove way down and leave the pot there for a few hours.
  7. Stir it occasionally so it doesn't burn to the bottom of the pot.
  8. When the beans are really soft, dump the water out into the medium pot.
  9. Mash the beans until it there are hardly any left unmashed.
  10. Cut up the onion, pepper, and tomato into big chunks.
  11. Turn the stove about ¾ of the way up.
  12. Put the pan on it and drop in a few spoonfuls of bacon grease or other oil.
  13. Add the onion, pepper, and tomato to the pan. Move the stuff around a bit so it doesn't burn.
  14. When the onions start to turn clear, flop the mashed beans on top.
  15. Stir the beans so the vegetables get mixed in.
  16. Pour in as much of the bean cooking water as you can comfortably fit in the pan.
  17. Add some salt. A small spoonful's probably good.
  18. Keep stirring the vegetable-bean-water mixture until a lot of the water evaporates.
  19. When the stuff only jiggles a little bit when you move the pan, it's probably done.

LENTILS

Use this stuff:

  • Lentils (a few handfuls)
  • Water (twice as much by volume as the lentils)
  • Carrots (a few)
  • Onion (a big one)
  • Salt
  • Tapatio, or some other hot sauce
  • A pot made of something that won't melt
  • A stove

Do this to it:

  1. Turn the stove all the way up.
  2. Put the lentils and water in the pot and put it on the stove.
  3. Wait until it boils, then turn the stove way down.
  4. Chop up the onion and carrots into big chunks and plop them in the pot.
  5. Add some salt and hot sauce. You'll probably want a lot—lentils seem to soak this stuff up.
  6. Wait a while, but stir it sometimes so the stuff doesn't burn to the bottom of the pot.
  7. When the top of the lentil-onion-carrot mixture starts poking out above the water, it's done.
  8. Pour the excess water out and eat it.

DEVILED EGGS

Use this stuff:

  • Eggs (a lot)
  • Water (lots)
  • Mayonnaise (a few big spoonfuls)
  • Mustard (a few big spoonfuls, but not quite as much as the mayo)
  • Sugar (just a little bit)
  • Horseradish sauce—optional (a spoonful or so)
  • Red dusty stuff—optional, but it won't look right without it (just a bit)
  • A pot
  • A stove
  • A bowl
    (If you don't have sugar and mayonnaise, a spoonful or two of vanilla ice cream works fine. Strange, but true.)

Do this to it:

  1. Put all the eggs in the pot.
  2. Fill the pot with water until the eggs are completely submerged. Then fill it some more
  3. Turn the stove all the way up and put the pot on top.
  4. Let it boil for a long time.
  5. Take the eggs out (careful!--they'll be hot).
  6. Get the shells off the eggs, but be gentle so you don't hurt the tender insides.
  7. Slice the eggs in half the long way.
  8. Get all the yolks out and drop them in the bowl.
  9. Add the mayo, mustard, sugar, and horseradish sauce and mix it up really well.
  10. Spoon the yolk mixture back into the egg whites.
  11. Sprinkle some red dusty stuff over it.