Back home

2 boxes downs, 8 to go. I'm just now beginning to unpack the boxes of papers, binders, and books from 822. It's amazing the amount of memories stored it an unorganized pile of receipts; I've got a stack of receipts detailing trips to grocery stores (party beer runs), restaurants (dates over the years), and other purchases over 4 years of college, and I'll have to bring myself to throw them away tonight.

Traveling ended abruptly. We returned home on a Friday, and I spent the weekend at home as it was the first time all 5 of us had been together since Easter (my sister left for France before I came home from ND). By Monday, I felt like I had been home forever, not missing a beat (2 weeks home, and Gina just observed we changed one of our outside lamps. These are the changes I don't notice, so perhaps that why everything seems the same).

It's been strange; I don't feel like what I did this summer has really sunk in. My memories are a blur; doing 2 trips back to back, with no rest between because of the passport debacle, certainly didn't help. Sometimes, I'll be telling my friends here in Carmel what I did, and traveling around the world like I did is almost unfathomable for them, while for me it became the new normal, and I can feel the disconnect. My cousin, who had a similar summer, insists the magnitude of what I did will sink in over time. I certainly hope so. I do feel like I learned much more about the world on this trip, and I certainly have a nice cachet of stories to tell. The pictures are still just a pile of things to captions, but I was looking through my photos from my travels while at Oxford, and they brought up nothing but warm memories.

The adventures are certainly not over. I think I will continue to blog, sporadically. But let's look back at the memories:

Boldest thing I did: Go out on a limb, trust my friend Edo, and take a bus down to Prijepolje. Aside from a tense hour waiting at the bus stop, it was a complete success.

Biggest disaster: Losing the Passport. No questions. And, in theory, it's still in Bangkok, in the hands of the State Department. Arg!

Biggest near disaster: Dropping all of Anna's and Sam's valuables off a cliff in a dry-bag. Oops...

Greatest regret: No Tigers. Didn't pet one, didn't see one.

Most frustrating cultural disconnect: Toilets. I don't want to pay for it, and if I'm going to pay for it, don't make me fish through the trash can for paper products.

Most confusing cultural disconnect: No, Turkey, I'm not on my honeymoon. Especially not with my little sister.

Greatest surprise: Taxi ride to Sarajevo. And the beauty of the Balkan mountains in general. 3 straight hours of staring out the window, mouth open in awe, and knuckles white with fear.

Most surprising non-surprise: Couch surfing in Krakow. It was ... easy... and nothing happened. I was almost disappointing nothing strange/unexpected happened.

Greatest discovery: Motorcycles. And how much fun they are to drive.

Greatest food market: The one in Chiang Mai where we bought our ingredients for our cooking class. Home of the Greatest Snack Food Of All Time (GSFOAT), crack peanuts, and the best smoothies I've ever had.

Best decision: Biking around the Angkor complex. Full credit for this one goes to Anna.

The best trip improvisation was the taxi ride and the whole side-trip to Bosnia, but that decision was actually made against my will.

Best decision that sounds like a bad decision: Chiang Mai women's prison. Great full-body massages. [I don't think this made the blog, but Anna and I went 1 day, and Sam another morning]

Strangest food: peanuts. Fresh, raw, moist peanuts straight from the ground, in the hills of Thailand. Banana worms were a disappointment, and none of us had the courage the eat the much larger bugs.

Best Hostel: Hiker's Hostel, Plovdiv.

Worst Hostel: Oriental Hostel, Istanbul. Didn't have a problem, but I never trusted the men at the desk.

Best tour guide: Huan, or whatever his name was.

Best cook: In the hills of Thailand. Spoke no English, no Thai, drank hard alcohol constantly, and cooked on an open fire in a wooden hut. What's not to like?

Best form of transportation: Trains. 2 reasons, smooth ride and free toilets.

Worst form of transportation: Buses. Or maybe bus stations meant I was always grumpy whenever I rode buses.

Most consistently frightening form of transportation: Taxis.

Best nationality: Canadians. Gotta love 'em.

Most Postcard Perfect Location: Koh Nang Yuan. Yes, the beach between the 2 knolls looks exactly like the pictures.

Favorite moment: Sitting on the shores of Srah Srang, looking across the reservoir to the jungle as Cambodian boys splashed around at the base of the platform.

New Mexico

Within 12 hours of my arrival in Chicago, I was back on a plane, flying to the Albuquerque Sunport for the Martinez Family Reunion. My mom's mom was born in Cebolla, NM, as the 5th of 10 kids. Cebolla is a tiny town, but 3 generations later the Martinez clans is enormous and far-flung. The reunion was in the old school house where my grandmother had primary school (now a community center). I had been to New Mexico 3 summers before with my family to see family, so many of the sights were familiar, and it was good to see many relatives, most of whom I had only seen once before, if ever.
On Friday, we immediately headed to the Frontier, a delicious establishment across from U of NM, to meet family and good food. On Saturday, we went kayaking with some young cousins (once removed), and then Saturday evening we had the reunion dinner, followed by drinking and dancing. On Sunday, we had Mass at the old Martinez ranch above Cebolla, which now has a different owner who has converted the land into the Sacred Heart of Jesus Immaculate Heart of Mary Oratory, which is a collection of beautiful bronze statues laid around the grounds, primarily a stations of the cross. Mass was done by Monseigneur Jerome, the first priest from this family in hundreds of years (according to Jerry), assisted by my brother, soon to the the second priest from the family. Afterwards were much picture taking, then goodbyes; thereafter the McGauley family vacation began, with my mom, Gina, my brother Alex, and myself.

On Sunday night, we got a call from our horseback-outfitter for the next day saying he was dealing with a horse’s injury and had to cancel on us, so we had to scramble to find a new outfitter; usually McGauley vacations are thoroughly planned and don’t involve much scrambling, but after two months of daily planning/scrambling*, I suppose it was only natural to continue the tradition.

* During debriefing after we had gotten back to the States, one of Gina’s complaints was that she wished we hadn’t wasted so much time scrambling to figure stuff out each time we got to a new city. Scrambling? Gina, that’s called planning. I just do it the day of arrival...

On Monday, the horseback ride ended up being quite good. Though we didn’t go as high up in the mountains as we originally planned, it was a good trail, and we had a good guide with whom I talked at length about huntin’. I didn't realize that there was such a big difference between hunting deer, elk, bear, mountain lion, and so forth, and that the rules are different for each animal (for the predators, bear, cat, and bobcat, hunting season is a quota (say, 6 cats for a region), whereas for deer, elk, sheep, and so forth it’s a set time duration).

We passed the anticlimatic Continental Divide on US 84 on our way north into Colorado and had lunch in Pagossa Springs, Colorado, where I continued to unnecessarily stuff myself with greasy Spanish-American food (Beef! Chiles! Beans!). We drove to Durango, CO where we spent a long time wandering around the pretty town, checking out old hotels, art galleries, and stores. I expanded my small leather collection, and my brother bought a cowboy hat that actually looks pretty good on him. Dinner was in Cortez, CO where we spent the night.

The following day we explored Mesa Verde National Park, which is filled with archeological sites from the ancient Classical Pueblo Indians. It was interesting to see the parallels btw the cliff dwellings in MVNP and the cliff dwellings in Cappadocia, Turkey. We then drove on to Four Corners National Monument, which was recently rebuilt (2010) and actually looked pretty nice. It was interesting to read about how far off the surveyors from the 1890s and 1900s were from the correct latitude and longitude, but the courts and Congress (and Prez T.R.) ruled that the USGS marker is what marks the official spot, correctness be damned. The Four Corners region is perhaps the most desolate part of the world I have ever been in, but it has a stark, almost grim beauty. It’s not mindboggling flat as I assume the western Great Plains are, as there are attractive rock formations that break up the landscape, but the land just feels so empty and devoid of anything but shrubbery.

On Wednesday, after spending the night in Chinle, we took a jeep tour of Canyon de Chelly, AZ. The jeep was an open top truck that sat 24 (or 12 when you are carrying the Pittsburgh Steelers, true story), and we drove down 1 main branch of the canyon and then the other. This took pretty much the whole day as every 15 min or so, Ron the guide* would stop the truck, get out, and talk about something interesting, usually one of the many ruins of the ancient Classical Pueblo native Americans, and then around every hour we could get out and walk around, usually conveniently next to a few stands where residents** were selling their wares. At one of the stops we purchased a CD from Travis Terry, who is apparently famous (if you google image him, he's the Navajo one) and definitely loquacious (learned lots of cool stuff about how Hollywood studios choose their sound, from Gladiator to The Eagle, and how slightly different choices in flutes can affect the mood/setting)

*Ron’s first language is Navajo, so it was interesting to listen to him talk. Not as much an accent as a different cadence to his speech. Similar (but not as strong) for our Acoma guide at Sky City.

That night in the hotel, after Alex went to the pool, I decided to try to swim some laps to work off all the good food I'd been eating, but I nearly got sick afterwards because of the altitude and not being in shape.

**Though the land is a National Monument, it is also in the middle of the Navajo nation. Therefore, the park rangers there protect the ruins and enforce no one trespasses on the archaeological sites, but the rangers have 0 control over how the Navajo use the land, so the rest of the canyon is home to families practicing dry farming (no irrigation b/c the dirt filling the bottom of the canyon quickly silts up any attempted irrigation system). Therefore we saw lots of horses and cows and a few orchards and fields.

On our tour was a former graduate of ND ('99), who had done ACE in Brownsville, where I have a few friends heading soon, and French family with an absolutely adorable little girl.

On Thursday, went to Uranium museum in Grants (the capital of U mining in the USA in the 70s), where we had spent the night, then a tour of Acoma Sky City, lunch in really nice visitor center (nice mix of looking modern and traditional), then onwards to Albuquerque. We had dinner on the old plaza, and I had huevos rancheros because hadn't had any yet this trip and to go to NM without eatin huevos racheros would be unacceptable. (and it was perhaps best meal of trip). We watched Flamenco dancing on the Old Town gazebo. There was a little girl in a traditional flamenco dress standing behind the gazebo (so away from the audience) who was watching the dancers and trying to mimic them, spinning her dress around and stomping her feet. I enjoyed watching her and wished I could have gotten a good picture showing both her and the adults dancing, showing the transmission of culture across generations.

Culture across generations. I'm going to close this post with reflections from Monseigneur Jerome's (cousin Jerry to my mom) homily from the Mass at the Family Reunion. He talked about 3 things - past, present, and future. He spoke about the struggles of my ancestors on this unforgiving land (in NM since 1608), the importance of love between current members of the family, and the importance of passing on the family's stories to future generations, such as my own. I'm beginning to learn these stories, and beginning to understand NM as the land of my fathers (well, Mother's). Perhaps because my mom speaks of it so, I feel a strong connection to the land of NM, a connection I never felt when I visited Ireland. My last name is Irish, but I think the culture that has the strongest imprint on me is Spanish. Central Indiana is my home, but New Mexico is the home of my ancestors.