Bagless in the A.....R

This entry was originally posted as a facebook note on July 25th, 2007. I hope to be more formal in my future entries.

Hello everybody and I from the bottom of my heart I hope you are all enjoying your summer/winter depending on where you are. Also, I will thank all of you personally on facebook for your b-day wishes. Thanks a lot. I'm not really into like writing this kind of stuff, but I have to keep a blog and until I do that I'm just going to use facebook notes. Also, if you receive this in email form sorry I have to keep the older people informed too you know. So, basically, this is just a hopefully humorous account of my past three weeks. First, I'll talk about my wonderful time with many of my Nashville friends. It was really great and thanks to all of you and to all that helped out with the film. It was looking great when I left and I'm proud to have been a part of such a great project. Then I had the privilege to immediately follow up this time with the greatest experience of my life in Haifa, Israel. Spiritually it was really like awakening. The focus that the Shrines enable is ridonkulous. I use that term to try to express how incredible it was. Also, there is no better place in the world to spend time with your family before you leave. So, it was really good and then apart from the level of spirituality the place has there are incredible people there. I was able to see many random, incredibly random people, but it was great and I made many new, lasting friends of course in Bahai global style. I've now got more people to visit around the world. Well, I finally fell out of the clouds of Haifa and fell directly into some frigid water. Primarily of course getting out of the Tel Aviv was going under interrogation to the point of asking how far from my parents' home I studied and what did I study there. Also, why do I have an Arab name because that is just dumb if you aren't Arab. So, yeah oh well. Israel's airport was heaven compared to Dulles and JFK. Alitalia lost my bag. The one I had packed for my year in Argentina and as of now it is still lost. So, I get to Washington D.C. and a wonderful friend picks me up from the airport, but it's so late I can't buy any clothes to wear tomorrow. So, I go to Walgreens at like 2 in the morning and buy some basketball shorts and a t-shirt. So, then the next day I take the bus and subway to my uncle's house. He very kindly bought me a couple of outfits. I tried to wash my old clothes, but the dryer was broken and I couldn't use it. Then I was able to spend some really good time with some friends new and old and it was really great. I watched Children of Men again and I must say that you ought to catch that flick for sure. So, I ended my time with people who cared about me. The very opposite of how airline people felt/feel about my bag no matter how much I plead. So, then i was in the Dulles security line for an hour. However, that turned out to be great because a friend had kept my transcript (at my request) in her purse and we forgot it and she had time to leave her home in VA and bring it to me in line. If I hadn't had it many things would have been more difficult. So, then I got to JFK and spent more time in the security line. Was the U.S. on Terror Level Red when I left? The flight was cool, but long to BA like 11 hours and if I wasn't awake to take my food I was done. So, when I got to BA (Buenos Aires) yet another incredible friend and her nice mom picked me up and took me to another airport. Not only that helped me navigate the airport and spoke with the people there to make sure I got in the right place. Also, I forgot some stuff in the BA airport and had to go back in from the parking lot which was much easier than it would be anywhere else. Because basically I just went back through the security section by asking. So, my flight to Córdoba was cool I met a chill dude I sat next to a dude who just finished a year in Spain. He was cool, but then I left the airport and found one of my lasting possessions, my skateboard, chipped and broken. I believe I may be able to fix it for the most part, but it kinda sucks. Oh well, being in Córdoba has been pretty great and I have met up with the Bahais here. A side note, it's different, but even the guys here kiss on the cheek. It ain't really a kiss, but you know. Took a second to get used to, but it's all gravy now. Also, I just introduced my host "mother" to Three Six Mafia, don't worry, she can't understand the lyrics. "Poppin' My Collar" of course. So, it's pretty funny I've seen like an older black man, but that's basically it in Cordoba. They've said that the blacks here are Cuban and few Brazilians studying. So, people kind of stare at me and my hair. People are nice though. It's only my third day, but I've been relatively busy. Today I bought a phone. I don't have it near, but just email or facebook for the number so we can talk. Well, I guess that is all for this note. I just wanted to give people an idea of what's going on. Also, the spanish here is pretty cool and fortunately I understand mostly everything that's going on. The particulars still suck and the vocab is immense, but I've still got 12 months. Peace everyone.
P.S. The weather is nuts. Like it was ridic cold yesterday and today it felt good. It snowed last week and today I had just a tshirt on outside for the majority of the afternoon. Also, my bedroom is a freezer. Ok. Say peace to the family.

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