Katie Marie

Hey there -

So, I have always hated blogs. I don't know why. But I swore I would never approach making one of my own with a ten-foot pole, and because of this, I have always updated folks from home on my random adventures via email. Now, however, five years after my intermittent globetrotting began, I've finally caved and realized that other people out there in the world might benefit from (or perhaps just enjoy) hearing about my experiences. Basically, understand that all of these entries were originally written as emails (thus the format, shout-outs, etc), and moreover probably weren't intended for everyone on the internet to read. So um, if they offend you, or if you are someone that I wrote about but clearly never meant you to read what I wrote, I'm sorry, hahahaha.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and learn from my mistakes!

Love,
Katie

PS. Here is my hard-won overarching advice to you: if it looks good, eat it.

Stop the Presses: I Have Fallen In Love.

North America » United States » New Mexico » Grants March 31st 2011

Katie Marie

Dear Everyone, Yes, it has happened – the unthinkable – I have fallen in love. I know, this must come as a shock to most of you. I never thought it would happen either. But it’s true: for the second time in my life, I have fallen head over heels for a place that is not San Diego (the first time was Thailand). I’m sorry if you were expecting a rather different kind of news. But as you probably know (if you know me at all), romance is just not a huge part of my life. And here’s the thing: a fundamental truth I have discovered (or finally admitted) about myself is the fact that place accounts for about 90% of my happiness at any given time. Sure, other things can bring me up or down ... read more

Why New Mexico Is Awesome #1: The Cast of Characters

North America » United States » New Mexico » Grants February 25th 2011

Teeny tiny Kayci hiking through the El Malpais wilderness

Katie Marie

Dear Everyone, Hello again! I know it’s been forever since I’ve written, but somehow one day has oozed into the next and suddenly here I am, almost through with my time here. However, this passage of time has also allowed me to have many wonderful adventures and gather my thoughts on one of the foremost facts of my current life: New Mexico Is Awesome. The fantasticness of New Mexico has many dimensions, and I will detail the first of them here. ……………………………… #1: The Cast of Characters There is nothing quite as spectacular in life as a different, interesting, quirky place populated by different, interesting, quirky people that somehow make your world grow simultaneously larger and unquestionably better. The main people in my life these days are relatively few, but pretty universally great. Let me introduce ... read more

Jackie and I on one of our many adventures!

Seth an Ashley amid charming Vegas decor

Eureka! Aka I've figured out why I'm here, sort of. In New Mexico, that is. Not in life. That's still a mystery

North America » United States » New Mexico » Grants November 3rd 2010

Katie Marie

Dear Everyone, The time has come, what you've all been waiting for: what on earth I’m actually doing here, and what it's really like. After 5.2 weeks (and it really has taken me the entire 5.2, I'd say things just started to come clear in the last couple days), I now have some idea of what I'm actually here to do. For starters, there is this law called the Wilderness Act of 1964. "Wilderness," as it happens, is actually a legal designation for land in the US - basically it's the most protected an area of land can be. Just because something is a national park or a national forest doesn't mean it's "official" wilderness; usually the "wilderness area" is some portion of a national park or forest or other type of federal land. Moreover there ... read more

Social Interactions for the Antisocial: My New Mexico Adventures, Volume 2

North America » United States » New Mexico » Grants October 6th 2010

Katie Marie

Dear Everyone, So here's the thing. You can travel all your life, but there are some things that you just can't possibly know about a place unless you put down some roots. But a very key component of Putting Down Some Roots is first overcoming Obstacle #1: Making Some Friends. Now, this is not as easy as it sounds, at least for me. On one hand, there are people like Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat Pray Love fame), who explains her main talent for globetrotting thusly: "I can make friends with anything. If no one is around, I will make friends with a 10-foot wall of sheet rock" (or something like that. I don't actually have the book on me). I, notably, am nothing like this. I seriously envy people this talent: people like Elizabeth Gilbert, and ... read more

Stranded in the Land of Enchantment: My New Mexico Adventures, Volume 1

North America » United States » New Mexico » Grants October 1st 2010

Katie Marie

Hello Everyone! As you may or may not have heard, these days I am living in Grants, New Mexico, which is on I-40 just a few clicks south of East Jesus Nowhere. I am here, ostensibly, to continue a project that another Yale Forestry grad has been working on over the last four months: I will be writing a Wilderness Stewardship Plan for El Malpais/El Morro National Monument. Don't know what that means? Well, then we're even - I don't either. But it's only Day 3, so I'm sure things will become clearer after another few days of staring at the computer and all eight billion folders my predecessor left for me. Here's hoping, anyway. The day I arrived - daunted by circumstances detailed below - I heartened myself with the thought that although I have ... read more

I Have Not Washed My Hair In Many Days - or - On the Road Again

Asia » Indonesia » Kalimantan July 26th 2009

Katie Marie

Dear Everyone, First of all, unfortunately I don't have my camera connector cable so I can't put pictures up, but to compensate I have made a faithful, detailed recreation of the best graffiti I've seen in a while, in red paint on the side of a white house bordering a canal next to a rice field in Middle of Nowhere, East Java. And so, my backpack and I find ourselves once again on the road, ever in search of enlightenment among the trees. Unfortunately, as yet in my travels there haven’t been quite as many trees as I would like, but then in very few places are there as many trees as I would like! As exhausting as it is, I rather enjoy this turtle-like existence (my backpack is even an appealing shade of green). It's ... read more

I Like Guava Juice, and other observations on Indonesian culinary delights

Asia » Indonesia » Java July 14th 2009

Katie Marie

Good quote from today, as I was getting up to leave my latest interview: “Oh! And something funny! When you wrote to me saying you were coming to Jakarta, I was surprised because you speak in Indonesian. And then you know, it was so funny, I shared it with my wife and children, you wrote that you stay in Jakarta two weeks, but you say you meninggal in Jakarta two weeks! Haha! My wife and I thought it was so funny! And she say oh no, I hope not!” -Deputy Minister, Ministry of Environment, Government of Indonesia. Hahahahahhaahha Dear Everyone, SO! Here I am at my kitchen table with my laptop, my roommate reading on the couch with a bad melodrama playing on the Australia Network in the background. I’ve just put together my first Lentil ... read more

Stuff About Indonesia

Asia » Indonesia » Java July 8th 2009

Katie Marie

Dear All, Hello! First off, I’m still here in Jakarta, although at the end of next week I have to go to Singapore for a couple days to renew my visa, and then I’ll (hopefully) be in weird backwoods places like the forests of East Java and West Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) for a few weeks before coming home. I’m just getting over a pretty nasty flu, which is unpleasant and mucusy, but on the bright side I’m not coughing up blood or breaking out in a rash indicating the hemorrhaging of blood from my floundering vessels, so I probably don’t have dengue fever (a problem in this part of the world). I’m here at the tropical-plant-laden café by the pool at this resort for foreigners cleverly disguised as an apartment complex, finally embarking on an email ... read more

Poem, But No Update

Asia » Indonesia » Java » Yogyakarta June 15th 2009

Katie Marie

Hiiii everyone, I know that many of you have been waiting for an email update about Indonesia, but sadly, I've been way too busy/tired to write much about it! I like it, though. Honestly it's a lot like Hanoi, but with more trees and prayer calls. Plus, I think best in the middle of the night, and when I'm up at 7 for class every day, there aren't too many middles-of-the-night to be writing through. But tonight my insomnia went to a whole new level, and I HAD to write something. So I got up and wrote a letter to my friend James. And then for some reason that just brought up a million other words I NEEDED to say - RIGHT now - and for some odd reason, for the first time in eight or ... read more

This One Time, I Ate Southeast Asia WHOLE

Asia May 25th 2008

Katie Marie

Chao! Sa-wat dii ka! Hei! (These are languages in which I can now say "hello." They include Vietnamese, Thai, and Norwegian, which is oddly enough what I learned in Cambodia. On the other hand, I can say "I love you" in eleven). So! I am now a world traveler. I wanted to write you all an update, now that I am (tragically!!!!) nearly done with my wanderings. I am currently in a town called Pai in the far north of Thailand, a tiny, ultra-laid-back little hippieville where people come when they're burned out on life...or just to get burned out. Needless to say, of course, this is not why I came: Pai is in the mountains. I came for the trees. Actually, on the way up here, the view was so unbelievably breathtaking...up and up through ... read more

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