A Bird and a Fish in Barcelona

I wrote an article for Meridian Magazine on reconciling vastly different interests and tastes in marriage and in travel. You can click here to read it or click on the picture below. Bryan and I are pretty different, but something we really share in travel is a deep and abiding love of FOOD. I was going to try and incorporate that somewhere in the article, but there was literally too much to say about all the things we ate and loved in Spain. 

As such, there will be a forthcoming post exclusively about our experience with Spanish cuisine from our hunt for the what are allegedly the "world's finest strawberries" to empanadas that were so delicious, I nearly wept. 

Stay tuned. 

My Land of Beyond

Mr. Bryan and I went on our first official training hike for Kilimanjaro yesterday. We are taking on Africa's tallest peak in September so this will be a summer of hiking in preparation. As we hiked a section of Utah's Lone Peak trail, Bryan helped me to memorize The Land of Beyond by Robert Service. He said each line and had me repeat and the further in we got, the more feeling he added, and gestures and the view down into Utah Valley was stunning and I could see that Land of Beyond and this poem so perfectly captures my feelings toward life right now, I have to share it:

Have you ever heard of the Land of Beyond,
That dream at the gates of the day?
Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,
And ever so far away;
Alluring it calls: O ye yoke of galls,
And ye of the trails overfond,
With saddle and pack, by paddle and track,
Let’s go to the Land of Beyond!

Have ever you stood where the silences brood,
And vast the horizons begin,
At the dawn of the day to behold far away
The goal you would strive for and win?
Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height,
With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned,
Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,
Still mocks you the Land of Beyond.

Thank God there's always the Land of Beyond
For us who are true to the trail;
A vision to seek, a beckoning peak,
A fairness that never will fail;
A proud in our soul that mocks at a goal,
A manhood that irks at a bond,
And try how we will, unattainable still,
Behold it, our Land of Beyond!

You could interpret this poem as being about futility. No matter how we journey and what heights we attain, the Land of Beyond remains out of reach. But on the other hand, how delicious that there is always this stunning, distant beckoning peak to drive us onward and upward. Right now in my life, my beckoning peak is an actual peak: Mount Kilimanjaro. My sister-in-law asked the other day why I want to climb it--where is the appeal for me?

1) In 2012, I flew through Kilimanjaro airport en route from Mombasa, Kenya back to the states. I was annoyed at the out of the way stop and we picked up a bunch of chatty student trekkers just barely off the mountain that filled all the seats I had hoped to stretch out on in the long flight ahead. We took off again and I casually glanced out the window and the sight of that mountain almost brought me to tears.

It isn't part of a range, it just juts up from the plains as a singular, stunning interruption on the horizon. It's snow-capped and so high that the blanket of white on the peak blends into the clouds. I saw it and just decided that someday I would need to come back here and climb it. (This is a good thing to clarify for those of you who may have assumed that this forthcoming adventure was solely inspired by my fairly recent marriage to a mountain man).

2) In high school, I read a story by Ernest Hemingway called 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro.' It fascinated me. Much of the narrative has nothing to do with Kilimanjaro, but two things in it kept the place in my mind. In italics at the opening of the story it says:

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai "Ngaje Ngai," the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.

The image of that frozen leopard, up too high just stayed with me. No one knew what it was doing up there, but I kind of understood the inclination to ascend, explore, and try.

The story is about a writer, dying at the base of the mountain from a tiny scratch that turned into a serious infection and at one point, as he looks back on his life he says: "What was his talent anyway? It was a talent all right but instead of using it, he had traded on it. It was never what he had done, but always what he could do."

That line cut me to the quick. I've always had a sense that I could do great things, but I read that line from a man running out of breaths and dreaded the thought that I might someday find that I had only ever talked about doing things and never actually done them. 

There are lots of reasons to do this: I feel deeply connected to Africa and I look forward to doing this with Bryan. I need the physical challenge and I'm enticed by the exoticism of the idea, but more than any of those other things, I am motivated by that; a desire to be someone who does things and doesn't just talk about them.

All this to say that, in addition to the other travel posts I hope to add to this blog on a more regular basis, Bryan and I will keep you updated on the training process and on our local adventures in preparation for the big, beautiful foreign one.

We'll add videos and pictures and probably more poems, so stay tuned.

10 Things I’ll Miss Most About Oxford (I.e. 10 Things You Shouldn’t Miss If You Go)

Note: I wrote the majority of this post the day before I got to Oxford for Graduation. The ending I wrote after. There was a bit of delay in delivery. 

This afternoon, I will arrive in Oxford for the last time as part of my Master’s program. This time when I leave, I will carry the degree away with me and I won’t have the excuse of being a student to justify coming back again.

It’s been a kind of magical experience to intermittently live in this medieval college town, but for different reasons than I was expecting. I’ve got them old, familiar graduation goggles on and everything’s feeling nostalgic and achey. Then I realized that a list of the things I’ll miss most about Oxford might make for a pretty compelling list of things you shouldn’t miss if you ever visit.

So, here they are, the ten things I will miss most about this place (and the ten things you shouldn’t miss on your own visit here).

1. The Architecture

It’s a bit of a given, but I’ve made a concerted effort not to forget to look up as I walk these streets. Every path and alley and corner has some ornate evidence of its history and the architecture is particularly stunning in those drawn out northern evenings when the golden sun lingers on what are affectionately called the “dreaming spires” of Oxford. The University has around 40 individual colleges (like the houses in Harry Potter) and many of the old ones are veritable fortresses with their chapels, dining halls and common rooms inside castle-type walls. In fact, a [ghost tour] guide here once told me that long ago they were actually used to protect students from warring factions the way a real castle would.

Magdelan College is hard to miss as you come up the High Street into town and it’s worth paying the small fee (or flashing your student ID) to check out the inside. C.S. Lewis was a fellow there and the rooms that were his in the New Building (new because it only started being used in 1733), are marked by window boxes of bright red flowers. Worchester College is my favorite and a less common one for tourists to visit. It has a gorgeous courtyard with one of Oxford’s signature perfectly manicured lawns, but a door in the stone wall off to the left takes you to a little more relaxed garden and a pond where the geese have clearly ignored the “Keep off the Grass” signs and so do the students. A large, burly tree grows straight out over the water like a levitating dock. I always meant to climb that thing.

The head of Broad Street is one of the most interesting crossroads of architecture in the whole town. The Bridge of Sighs connecting Hertford College and New College Lane, curves above the street on one side and the Sheldonian Theatre rises on the other, fenced in with a row of carved heads of emperors or scholars whose names have been lost to time.  Go exploring in this general area. Literally everywhere you turn there is something new (and by new, I mean very old) to look at and appreciate.

2. Humming Meadows and Quiet Walks

I was told early on in my time here that Oxford’s educational philosophy includes deliberately making both time and space for long, pondering strolls to be part of an education here. As such, the place is filled with parks and meadows and college grounds and greens that provide really wonderful places to think and talk and picnic and ponder.

My favorite of these is Christ Church meadow, particularly when the evening is becoming dusky, but you can still see all the shapes of the distant spires and rooftops reflected in the river (the same river that, during exam time is suddenly filled with glitter and confetti because so many people celebrate being finished by getting decorated by their friends and then jumping into the water).

University Parks is another great place for a jaunt and perfect for jogging because its looped, but meandering pathways make an excellent place to do laps. The waterfowl at the duck pond that you run past will gladly consume any bread you decide to throw to them (might as well double down on your University Parks health plan by running and giving away your carbs). Port Meadow is another not-to-be-missed though slightly out of the way place to visit. In spring and early summer it becomes a field of yellow wildflowers and throughout the year, wild horses roam around the meadow grazing.

3. Jim-Bob’s Baguettes

I’ve found that most people here agree on the good bargain that is half-price sushi after ten at Itsu on Cornmarket Street or the international cheap eats you can pick up at the giant open market at Gloucester Green several times a week, but it seems like every person has their own idea of what sandwich shop is best and they will defend their choice to the death. Jim-Bob’s Baguettes is mine. And so help me, I will defend it. TO THE DEATH.

The sandwiches are inexpensive and their wheat bread in particular is delicious (even if you’re not a wheat bread person). My usual there is brie and grape with cranberry sauce on wheat and my mouth is watering just typing that out. They have dozens and dozens of combinations and you start getting free stuff on their punch card after only like four sandwiches. The have quick wifi, friendly service and often pretty good music playing. This place is the closest I’ve ever been to having restaurant where I walk in and everyone knows my usual and everybody knows my name.

Go there. It’s across the street and down a little from the Ashmolean Museum which is free and world-class and has among other things, Lawrence of Arabia’s Arab clothing.

4. The “Great Exhibition” of Natural History 

And speaking of Museums, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History became my happy place in my time here, I don’t know why. It’s sort of built like a cathedral on the inside, only most of the ceiling is glass so it feels like stepping into The Great Exhibition in the 19^th century when they’d bring animals and treasures and technology from around the empire for people to gawk at in London.

Among the treasures of the museum are the most complete remains of a dodo that exist anywhere in the world. They are less complete than you would expect, but it’s still interesting to see. You walk down these aisles and aisles of dinosaur bones and crabs too large to fit your arms around and snakes and giant tortoises and precious stones and every natural thing worth displaying you could think of. The museum also uses its central tower as a place to study and breed swifts so you can watch the little baby birds on the swift cam whenever there are any in the nest.

Also note, the same building houses the Pitt Rivers Museum which is…an experience. It is the enormous hoarded collection of one very rich, very well-traveled individual from long ago and they left it sorted like he had it—by category rather than by culture or time. So there is a display case of “Things made of bone” or “vessels for carrying water” or “how to deal with enemies” each displaying a mish-mash of things from cultures and tribes all over the world that fit into that category. 

5. Punting on the River

Oxford and Cambridge disagree on the proper way to punt and obviously, Oxford is correct. A punt is like our own little version of a gondola like they use to navigate the canals in Venice (without the stripes or the singing). In Cambridge you stand on the front of the punt to propel it, in Oxford you punt from the back. The person standing on the back carries a long pole and uses it to push off the river bottom to move the boat forward.

I think most people rent a punt from the Magdalen Boathouse because it’s right in the center of things and so easy to find. It’s an excellent option. You will pass Magdalen Tower and the greenhouses of the oldest botanical garden in Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. Catch it in the waning, golden light and you’ll get another enchanting view of them dreaming spires.

You can also punt from the Cherwell Boathouse. It’s a little cheaper though a little harder to get to by foot. You can take your punt down to the Victoria Arms pub and alight for a snack and at some times of the year you can hang around on the shore by the boathouse and catch floating opera performances from another passing punt.

*Note: Punting is kind of hard to master. If you find you are zigzagging from bank to bank rather than gliding down the middle like the Lady of Shalott you’re probably leaving your pole on the river bottom too long. Try pushing off and then letting the pole drift backwards and direct from behind like a rudder.

6. The Greatest Shop on Earth

I’m not a shopper. If you’ve ever looking for great shopping tips about a destination, I am not your girl. HOWEVER, Scriptum is probably my favorite store on the face of the earth. If I could, I would buy myself one of everything that’s in there. Maybe if I ever get rich, I’ll do just that.

Scriptum is a little stationary and journal and globe and mask and compass and miniature hot air balloon and pen shop, tucked away just off of the High Street in Oxford. Walking in there kind of feels like walking into the study of an old eccentric professor. One with whom you would hope to be lifelong friends. Everything is close together and interesting to look at and gadgety and vintage and printed and beautiful. GO THERE.

7. Radcliffe Camera and Everything Around it

 Oxford doesn’t really have a central student union since each college has their own facilities meant for their own students, but if there were a center of campus, it would be RadCam Square. The Radcliffe Camera is the domed, above-ground reading room for the massive Bodleian Library whose materials fill the underground chambers and tunnels below as well as many of the buildings around it.

Visit the Bod. It’s probably haunted and definitely beautiful and they’re so strict on their policy of not checking out books to anyone that when Oliver Cromwell came through with an army during the English Civil War (1640s) trying to check something out, they were threatened and pressured and finally wrapped a book for him and sent him on his way. When he opened the parcel he found that, instead of the book he came for, it was a copy of the library rules with “we DO NOT check out materials” circled repeatedly. I can't definitively say that story is true, but the sentiment seems to be.

When you’ve seen the Bod, come out and just stand on the cobblestones by the RadCam and look up at it. It’s stunning against a blue sky with All Souls on one side and Brasenose on the other; the spire of University Church reaching up tall behind. You’ll probably have to move for a bike to pass and the ice cream vendors may or may not succeed in tearing your attention away from the view, but enjoy it for me.

And just to one side of University Church as you make your way to the High Street from here is the Narnia door. There an intricately carved lion’s face in the middle of it and two fauns decorate the doorframe and if you look from there back towards the square, there’s a lamppost. It may just be a rumor, but people always say that this little collection of images, in such close proximity, inspired C.S. Lewis as he created the imaginary world we would later check our closets for as children.

8. Oxford’s Own Ice Cream Café(s)

Drinking is also incidentally a big part of the Oxford experience, but when you’re Mormon and looking for a way to connect with friends on a Friday night, you go out for ice cream instead. G&D’s is “Oxford’s own” ice cream café and they have three locations so you’re never too far from one. The G always stands for George, but the D stands for something different in each location. I paid most of my social visits to George and Danver on St. Aldates and most of my lonely, craving visits to George and Davis on the charmingly string-lit Little Clarendon Street.

The ingredients are local and the available flavors change from day to day, but there are two important things you must do there if you can. 1) Before you order, take note of the chalkboard that tells of the week’s challenge. If you take them up on the challenge, there’s free ice cream in it for you. I have pantomimed my order, sung the requested song and done more tongue twisters than you can imagine to earn my dessert. My extensive repository of totally useless trivia facts suddenly becomes very valuable at a G&D’s. 2) Do yourself a favor and order a cookie monster. It’s a scoop of ice cream sandwiched between two heated cookies and it’s just too good. Their Daim Bar cookies, when heated, have pockets of melted toffee (i.e. chunks of Daim Bar) and it pairs with practically any ice cream. It's the perfect amount of soothing warmth and sweetness to take the edge of a blustery Oxford day (they can be like that sometimes).  

9. Oxford Markets (Covered and Giant)

The Oxford Covered Market is a series of little storefronts and permanent stalls under a giant roof, which are open during regular business hours pretty much every day of the week. Check out the Alpha Bar in there for good vegetarian (or just healthy) food and eat it while you window shop intricately decorated cakes and elaborate hats.

The Giant Market, as it is sometimes called, is a temporary outdoor market that crops up with rows and rows of blue and yellow canvas stalls in Gloucester Green by the bus station on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The local vendors there feature everything from used books and clothes to antique coins to fancy cheeses and pastries. Most recently I met a vendor there who calls himself Peter the Brass and specializes in old doorbells (with actual bells a la A Christmas Carol) and skeleton keys with functioning locks and antique tools. The place is full of characters as much as it is full of products and that, along with the cheap dumplings and Indian food and Hungarian fried bread and paella, makes the market well worth a browse.

10. Rubbing Shoulders with History  

Last, but possibly most, I will miss the feeling in this place like you are sharing air space with inspired and intellectual and interesting people from years past. I like walking past the Bird and the Baby (pub) and knowing that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to exchange ideas and read things they were working on to each other there. I think it’s funny that each July there is an Alice in Wonderland themed celebration in the entire town and that Wonderland and the little girl that wandered there came out of someone’s imagination who sat on the same benches and looked at the same buildings as me. I like to see Einstein’s scrawled notes preserved on a chalkboard in the science museum from a time he gave a lecture here. I like wondering who else has studied at the same desk I’m sitting at and who sang in this chapel and who thought about what in this garden.

Most of my graduation ceremony was in Latin, so I was left to sort of imagine what was being said, but the one bit he did tell us in English was that Oxford will be a part of our experience and our identities for the rest of our lives. I couldn’t help looking around at the ornate décor inside the Sheldonian Theatre as he went on and feeling awed by that thought. I saw the edge of a statue through the windows above him and thought “I am now as much a permanent part of the history of this place as that statue is. Whatever tiny part I had, I had it and it’ll always be here. I’ve left my tiny entry in the 800+ year journal of this place.”

So, if you visit, see a few of my favorite things. And while you're there, remember me and that singular, blessed, lovely moment in my young life when I called this place home. 

The Start (Or Really, The Revival)

It is apt that Facebook memories unearthed the following 7-year-old treasure from my life on the very day when I had already designed this new travel blog and was sitting in front of an empty page wondering how to start it:



At the time that I made this video, I had recently returned from four months in Jerusalem and it seemed like absolutely the most urgent thing in the world not to lose the feelings I had there. Every day that lengthened the time between my present and the last time I'd looked over that golden, gleaming city of my namesake seemed like another snap of the threads that bound me to it. Like performing a play on its closing night and knowing that each line you say will be the last time you ever have to say it. Your brain won't need to keep remembering those words, but a part of you hoped to keep them forever.

I didn't want to no longer need to remember the walking route from where we slept at night to the Old City of Jerusalem. I didn't want the names of the city gates to no longer be important to keep in my memory, didn't want to forget the exchange rate or the familiar faces or the constant balancing act that is walking every day on slick, Jerusalem lime stone. I couldn't get through the script of the narration without crying and I decided to just let it happen and leave it immortalized that way. A record of how much it truly meant to me.

And now it's been seven years.

I've traveled a great deal since then, made it my full time priority to find a way to do so, and even been back to Jerusalem once or twice. It continues be my soul's city, enticing to me in a very singular way, though I have since cried to say goodbye to other places too.

That's why I'm starting this blog, I guess. To preserve the poignancy and the joy and the humor and tears of my travel experiences while they're still fresh, rather than grasping for what it meant to me then, seven years on.

I also hope that someone, someday will read something here that will push them from merely dreaming about a trip to putting the first fiver aside for it. It really does start with that initial drop in the bucket and soon you find yourself buying a plane ticket and then standing in a place you've only heard of and smelling it and tasting it and seeing it all for yourself.

The exhilaration of that sensation is something I've never really been able to shake, so I guess I'm deciding not to shake it, but share it instead.

I recently returned from Costa Rica (which I will no doubt write something about) and am currently planning trips to the UK (next week), Spain, and Tanzania, and I invite you to come along. I'll also write posts on my favorite destinations from past trips and welcome any interest in adding to this blog as a guest.

Until next time, Pennypinchers. Travel on!