jrive's Guestbook

It's good to follow your heart wherever it leads you, Josh!
Go wherever your heart beckons you, Josh... for those with free spirits are caged butterflies if they cannot roam... and never fear that your heart has a finite capacity for love... I think you will find that the more you embrace your passions, the more your heart will expand and grow to accommodate all that you love. Have a wonderful trip... I can't wait to hear all about it! Lotsa' luv, Toni xoxoxo

Amazing writing
Hi Josh, I've read a couple of your blogs and wow, you're an amazing writer. Your writing is full of depth, soul, insight, earnest, humanity, reflection, worldliness, understanding, poignancy, sincerity, and much more...Not sure what you're studying at Iowa State, but I sincerely wish you all best wishes.

Thailand - Bangkok
Is it really that bad? I'm leaving for Bangkok next Monday with my girlfriend. I've spoken to people who have been there and they said it wasn't that bad. Enjoy your stay at Ko Tao =)

Wow, Josh. That's really all I can say. You write with such truth and vividness. Reading these makes me feel as though I'm there with you, and I love that. You're amazing and it sounds like you are having an amazing time. By the way, I think you would make Anthony Bourdain proud. ; )

envious
I think you both are having too much fun by yourselves...I want to be there too!!!! The island sounds absolutely Ma Va Lous. Continue having fun you guys. Be safe. Love you lots Auntie R

following
Josh, Glad to read your Blog. You and Rachel seem to be having lots of fun! Your observation are trully classic. I really laughed at your observation of the global citizen you describe at the end of the blog. Enjoy the trip!

good choice
Hi, good recommendation from the taxi driver!! this is one of the place where Singaporean like me enjoy great crabs!! Cheers.

that was fun to read, keep blogging like that and you could just write travel books for a living

Voltaire
I believe one of the sites I would really like to see would be the French Pantheon where Voltaire is buried. He was one of the most amazing and interesting intellects ever. Rousseau is also buried there, and much of Jefferson's writings and personal philosophy were influenced by him, but I don't think he has endured nearly as well as Voltaire. Isn't it fun seeing all that art that you have seen in pictures or heard of all your life? Those museums hold the cultural iconography of Western Civilization - and you can walk right up to it! The Mona Lisa is, of course, just a small panel, but it is the Mona Lisa - probably one of the most universally recognized artworks in the world! And - if you look closely - you can see Leonardo's very brushstrokes! It has been hypothesized that the wet paint captured the sound waves that hit it as it was applied just as an analogue record/wax cylinder does, and - if we could only figure out how to "play" them - we could hear the sound of Leonardo's voice. They moved Napoleon's body to the Chapel of St. Jerome where it is now in 1840, and found it to be almost perfectly preserved. That has been attributed to the high levels of arsenic due to environmental and medical exposure, and has led to all the conspiracy theories about the British poisoning him.

FINALLY!
Hi Josh, thought maybe you were just hiding down the hall to get out of work and pretending to be in Europe! Everything is how I remember and see it when I'm there - just incredible. I will be in France Sept. 30-Oct.7 to give my third seminar in less than a month. Am spending time at the Bay of Somme and staying in a chateau - very cool. Most of my time will be in Lille at university. Hope classes are going well.

Yay!!
Pictures!! Yay!!!