Blogs from Portland, Oregon, United States, North America

I'll be heading to Africa next week. I've been three times before--once to Egypt for a week or so with a tour group from Israel, once to Egypt for a day, and once to Tunisia for a day. I've never been to non-Mediterranean Africa, and I've never been to the Southern hemisphere. I'll be attending a seminar on public health in Botswana. The emphasis is on HIV/AIDS and public policy, but other topics tentatively include adolescent substance use and women's health rights. It should be engrossing. And I do hope to see some birds. It's winter in Botswana, but I'm as interested in round-the-year nuisance birds like crows as in anything else, so I should have a good time.... read more

After a three hour delay in Costa Rica finally arriving in Houston close to midnight, we were very happy to find Colin waiting at the airport for us. Our last week in Houston was spent enjoying catching up with Louise, Colin, James and Lachlan. We were lucky to be able to go James's Baseball games, James is a talented player and not only fielded well but also hit some home runs. We also were able to watch Lachlan playing in his soccer team and were thrilled to watch him score a goal. Alex and Marg attended Grandparents and Special friends day at the boys school, and we all attended the boys science fair. We all enjoyed going out for dinner on a number of nights, one delicious meal was enjoyed a local restaurant Ouisies, serving Southern ... read more

This morning I got to sleep in a few minutes beyond 3:30 am as my mom was unaware I was relying on her as my alarm clock. We still managed to take off from my parents' house around 4:00 am. I didn't really feel like anything to eat or drink, but I took an allergy tablet. I was very grateful to have Mom drive me to the airport. I went to get my boarding pass and check my small suitcase. With the help of Mom, Dad, and Levi my suitcase is now packed in a similar way to one of those magic clown cars (with clothes and gifts, of course, not clowns). I can only hope that once I remove gifts in Japan that it will open up some space in case I want to buy ... read more

There is no-one to go out with on this cold spring night so I go it alone. A good ole American dive bar is the only option in these situations... By the end of the night I would have had a taste of USA’s best beer drinking state, Oregon, and end up in a Japanese restaurant turned gay and lesbian country music karaoke night. This is Oregon and I hadn’t even hit one of my top American cities Portland or its grand landscapes. It was going to be hard to top Redwoods performance so I looked for a bit of city life to break it up. I made it as far north on my crappy spare tyre to Eugene. The hipster capital of Oregon, which in turn means the hipster capital of USA. To get an ... read more

March 22nd, 2012 Welcome everyone to our Peru and Bolivia travel blog! We'd like to take this opportunity to tell you where we'll be going, what we'll be doing, and how this blog works. This first post is to inform you that you are a participant in our blog, the only emails you'll get from us are ones regarding our trips. The Plan We'll be leaving for Bolivia early on Thursday (March 22nd) and arriving in La Paz at about six in the morning the following day. La Paz is the highest captial in the world standing at 11,913 feet (2 1/4 miles). We'll spend our first couple days here to acclimate to the altitude before heading south to the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats). Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world, is ... read more

The journey has almost begun; at least the actual travel adventure part of it. Over the past two weeks over 110 people have donated money to help us reach our goal (!!) of raising $10,000 dollars to send a container of books to The Gambia! Over the next couple of days our team will be departing the US and Britain and head toward West Africa. We hope to keep you updated as we meet with school children and ambassadors and work on developing connection to end the book famine and the literacy drought in The Gambia. The bags are packed, time to get traveling. Andy and the African Book Walk Team.... read more

"Where are you going?" "When are you going to come back?" "Are you going BY YOURSELF?" "You are leaving just like that?" Please don't be horrified if I can't give precise answers to your desperate questions. I made my mind back in April. My only plan is improvisation. My goal is to help others. Here is my tentative plan: Jan 31st-February: Flying to San Jose, Costa Rica and staying with Manolo's tia for at least a month. I am planning to take spanish classes and volunteer. Dancing? of course! March: Cuba. I have been trying to make contacts and get connections to stay with someone in Cuba. Hopefully I can get a visa with my Ukrainian passport in Costa Rica. The tickets are only $450 round trip and I can stady Salsa. ATACA~!/... read more

Lets continue shall we !! lets see, remember Na the hotel's transport driver ?? We gotten to know him a little bit more as days goes by. Turns out he's been coaching a Rugby team of his own, and he invited us to come and watch his team play and we did. O..goodness what a game it was, they kicked, they wrestled, and they throw the ball as well as their team. For a first timer spectator, we're not sure how they scored or the rules of the game, so we cheered when others cheered and yelp when something went wrong. Anyway, on one of the junior league we noticed some hostility going on and the result of that conflict was, the team member who gotten into fight had to seat by the goal for a ... read more

Its been very fortunate for us to have the time and savings to take vacations, and yes very grateful we are able to travel and love it. This latest trip to Rarotongga was very different for some reason. Maybe because many events was going on in my life, but not to go into details about me, lets start with the journey shall we !! We flew from PDX to LAX late July of 2009, then 9 hours of airtime to Rarotongga via Air New Zealand. Not a bad seat nor food for economy, or so we thought. It was also a smooth flight to our surprise. Rarotongga is the capital of The Cook Island, which nestle in the Polynesian triangle and consists of 15 tiny islands, you can barely see it on the world map. The ... read more