Finally Home

It’s been two and a half weeks of traveling and I’m finally back home. It’s almost as if I am currently experiencing culture shock of my own every day life, since I am not used to the daily grind. It’s kind of funny how a trip lasting more than a week will change your perception of life.  What- a bed to sleep in for more than a night or two? Amazing! Being in a static location for more than a day? Who knew?!

So instead of detailing every single amazing day of my two trips, or posting a handful of photos (they have yet to be uploaded from my camera, but perhaps this too will come later), I intend to share a sampling of things I learned while away: (The first five are in regards to my Spain trip and the second five points are about my road trip.)

1. One of the reasons I was particularly excited to travel to Barcelona was because I had learned that the city had a bounty of amazing street art. While I did not see as much of the street art by artists I had read about, I did end up seeing the works by an artist or two who are actually pretty well known, so those few instances made up for the lack of quantity.
2. I remembered more Spanish than I thought I would.
3. I didn’t know as much Spanish as I thought I would.
4. Worn-out Converse sneakers, while they may not give me away as a tourist, are not the most comfortable choice of walking shoes. The incredibly thin soles do not work well on Spain’s many cobble stone-covered roads.
5. The Sagrada Familia church by Gaudi was one of the things I was most looking forward to seeing on my Spain trip. Even though it wasn’t as large as I was imagining it would be, and even though seeing the tons of photos that many have taken of the church may have slightly tainted my experience, it was still one of the best parts of the trip.
6. Driving for roughly 10 hours in a day isn’t as long as I had thought it would be.
7. Apparently I hate Colorado for it’s non-existant and/or incredibly confusing signage while driving through the Rocky Mountains. It is because of this that my friend and I missed seeing a concert I was really looking forward to and instead drove a few hours out of our already lengthy way. On a possibly related note, the only places in Colorado that I actually do like are cities that start with the letter, ‘D’: Durango, Denver, and Dinosaur. (Yes, that last one is real.)
8. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time of a suicidal bird is terrifying. In other words, when a bird flies right into your car’s front windshield, the proper protocol is to: 1. freak out 2. keep on driving (moving to the side will not help, neither will breaking, even if there are no cars behind you, and accelerating probably won’t do you much good either. Think of the physics of all of these cases.) 3. and make sure to take your car to a powerful car wash afterwards to remove all the blood and guts from your vehicle.
9. Kansas City was surprisingly boring. My friend and I were in the downtown area which, for a Saturday afternoon was basically a ghost town. (However, the Public Library did prove to be a highlight.) The Country Club Plaza was also unexpectedly mundane except for the wedding party we saw being photographed in front of the city’s many famous fountains.
10. I have developed an even deeper love for Elvis Presley, even though I didn’t think that would be possible. Case in point:

• My new dream job is to be a back-up singer for Elvis, especially singing the male back-up parts.
• I have decided that I want to marry an Elvis impersonator… a young Elvis impersonator. I have yet to see someone impersonate Elvis before his trendy disco era, but nevertheless, that’s who I want to marry.

I’m pretty sure that there’s more than just that as to things I discovered/learned while away, but those are probably the most important and memorable. As you can tell, there were plenty of fantastic memories that I now have because of the privilege I have had to be able to travel. Like always, I anticipate the next trip I can take, but for now, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to come back home to daily routine.

Road Trip 4: Kansas

There are plenty of awesome things about Kansas, but what people tend to associate with this state, is of course, the classic book/movie, “The Wizard of Oz.” This is for good reason, since the movie especially, was so revolutionary and memorable. The problem with this association however, is that thinking of “The Wizard of Oz” and Kansas thus leads to thoughts of tornados. These deadly storms can and will tear up the state in the blink of an eye and living in this portion of what has been known to be called, Tornado Alley can be quite risky.

Tornados, as you all very well know, create some pretty hazardous and strong winds.  And conveniently enough to this post, there is a band named Kansas, who sings about some particular wind…

My Latest Halloween Costume Idea

The other day, I was thinking about how it’s already April (read, only six months away) and I still do not have a solid idea of a Halloween costume for this year. I realize that most people don’t even start thinking about this holiday until the beginning of October, but I am not “most people.” Halloween is my favorite holiday and it’s something I look forward to, more than your average person.

Sure, I have plenty of possible costume ideas (Aron Ralston, of 127 Hours, a Flamenco dancer, and old lady, the bearded lady, Marie Antoinette, a (non-ghost) bellhop, the Sun Maid raisins girl, The Day of the Dead…) but none of them have really called out to me… at least, yet. I mean, I still may go as one of these ideas, but so far, nothing has captivated me enough to really stick with an idea. The other night though, I was tossing around a few more ideas, when I happened on another good idea.

I was thinking about the movie, The Wizard of Oz, since a friend of mine might be moving to Kansas. I was thinking about dressing as Dorothy as an homage to my friend’s new move. But dressing up as Dorothy is so overdone and unoriginal. But then it hit me. I could dress up as Dorothy in her sepia/black and white parts of the movie; before and after she dream up the world of Oz.  Now that would be different!

I’ve heard of dressing up as someone in black and white, and that alone is pretty cool. But, to take that one step further for a Sepia’d Dorothy would be super neat.

The thing is, finding and making the costume would be pretty time consuming. This is why I would probably need the full six months to create such a masterful costume. I could either just buy the blue and white dorothy dress and then paint it brown, or I could try to find a similar looking checkered dress in brown, rather than blue. That would be the first step: buying/creating the dress, shirt, and shoes. I would also have to figure out how to cover my body and hair in brown face paint/makeup in order to fully achieve that Sepia’d look. I have a feeling that this could be more difficult (in order to master the shadows and highlights so I don’t just look like I have brown skin) to figure out, in comparison to the clothing aspect. But either way, this costume would require a lot of work.

My other issue with this costume (aside from the painstaking time and work) is that it’s not necessarily something I would want to re-wear. Ideally, when I create a costume, I’d like for some aspect of the costume to be re-wearable and recycled into something I could wear everyday. I may surprise myself, but I feel like I won’t want to wear a brown and white checkered dress very much other than for this costume.

So that leaves me yet again unsure of my Halloween costume for this year.  Also, the problem with posting this new idea online, is that I’m afraid someone might try to steal this idea. The last thing I’d want is for my awesome and very original idea to not be so original. That would be extremely disappointing!
I guess I’m back to square one, only with one more totally doable idea in tow. I need to weigh my options of course. Is this latest idea’s awesomeness worth the effort? I’d like to think so, but then again, I may not know what I would be getting myself into.

Oz Casting

A few months ago, I wrote a post about Shirley Temple and the unique fact that she once lived in D.C. Today, I discovered another well known actress of a similar vintage who also lived in Washington. This actress however, was older than Miss Temple, and the two actresses almost even starred in one of the most well known and well loved movies together:

But alas, Shirley Temple was too young and that’s ok, because Judy Garland is amazing. But this post is neither about Shirley Temple, nor Judy Garland. It is about the woman who played Glinda the Good Witch, Billie Burke.

Miss Burke was born in Washington, D.C. and her original name was the lengthy, Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke. She was married to the famous Mr. Ziegfeld (of “Ziegfeld’s Follies”) and her career started in the circus with her family. Maybe the circus was not so far behind a bizarre movie, such as, “The Wizard of Oz.” Interestingly enough, Burke was a whopping 53 years old when she portrayed possibly her best known role in The Wizard of Oz.

It seems Burke has been in many movies with very popular movie stars. In addition to Judy Garland, Burke has shared the screen with other house-hold names, such as Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor in 1951’s, “Father’s Little Dividend.” Burke was also in Katherine Hepburn’s film debut (Burke played Hepburn’s mother) in the movie,”A Bill of Divorcement” from 1932.

Frankly, I think it’s just pretty neat that such a well known actress was a native of Washington, D.C. Normally, when people recount local-born celebrities, you frequently only hear of those born in the last 50 years or so, such as Tim Gunn, Samuel L. Jackson, Mo Rocca, and Ben Stein. However, when I discover a well known person from say, before my parents were born, I think that is just as neat, if not more note-worthy. It just goes to show you that some of the most famous people have had their stay in D.C.