Washington Heights: No Habla Espanol?

Just under a week ago, Hanna and I signed our lease and began moving into our new apartment, in Washington Heights, upper Manhattan. The first few days I walked around our neighborhood, I heard a lot of Spanish being spoken. By a lot, I mean I heard significantly more Spanish than English. Our friends Dylan and Elaine, also former Mongolian Peace Corps volunteers, took us to a great Dominican restaurant a block away from the apartment and told us that our neighborhood is known for being predominantly Dominican. Interested in learning more, I hit the always reliable and informative Wikipedia :D and read a bit more about Washington Heights. Here's one tidbit that seems to accurately describe my new hood:

"Today the majority of the neighborhood's population is of Dominican birth or descent (the area is sometimes referred to as "Quisqueya Heights"), and Spanish is frequently heard being spoken on the streets. Washington Heights has been the most important base for Dominican accomplishment in political, non-profit, cultural, and athletic arenas in the United States since the 1960s. Most of the neighborhood businesses are Dominican owned, driving the local economy. Many Dominican immigrants come to network and live with family members. Bishop Gerard Walsh, former long-time pastor of St. Elizabeth's Roman Catholic Church, located in Washington Heights, said that many residents go to the neighborhood for "cheap housing," obtain jobs "downtown," receive a "good education," and "hopefully" leave the neighborhood."

If this isn't the perfect opportunity to pick up another language, I don't know what is. If every minute of my time is not taken up by my graduate studies, I'll have to see about getting some lessons in Spanish.

It's been obnoxiously hot in NYC the past few days. By obnoxiously hot I'm talking Cambodian hot. It's been in the high 90's, hovering around 100 degrees and higher some days and of course, it's incredibly humid. NYC is already humid enough but we live between the Harlem and Hudson rivers so I can't imagine that helps. The dogs are doing well for the most part, adjusting to the craziness of living in the big city. We have a park right down the street, which is pretty nice. I'm pretty sure that we are the only people in our neighborhood with dogs other than chihuahuas and pit bulls, so Zack and Jack get a lot of looks from the neighborhood kids, some excited and curious, some terrified.

I had a ton of thoughts I wanted to write down in more detail as part of this blog post, thoughts and observations from living here for the past (almost) week, walking around my neighborhood, the madness of driving in the city during rush hour, etc. but I am experiencing a serious brain fart and I really need to eat dinner. More profound and thought provoking blog post coming very soon. In the meanwhile, here's a few pictures from the past few days.

The Poconos, New York City, Nomad, Vagabond

After two and a half days of driving, we arrived in Pennsylvania to spend some time with my mom's family. Nebraska, Iowa, and Indiana were obnoxiously hot. Zack was my copilot, he was pretty calm for most of the trip but didn't do a whole lot of driving, mostly sleeping in the passenger seat. :) The cool water of Fairview Lake in Paupack was a welcome change from being couped up in a vehicle driving across the torrid midwest summer.

The last two weeks or so have been interesting and fun. I was able to spend time with aunts, uncles, cousins, my siblings, my grandma and my mom. Hanna met almost all of my mom's side of the family, we spent a lot of time by and in the lake, swimming, boating, relaxing. Zack seems to be enjoying PA for the most part. The humidity seems to have helped keep his nose from getting too dry and he seems to have an extra bounce in his step when we go for walks. The first day we had him at the dock, he launched himself into the lake in pursuit of my aunt Cathy's dogs at the next closest dock, seemingly not realizing that once he fell into the water, he'd have to swim to get anywhere. He looked panicked for a second, swum in a circle, and turned right back around, the terrified look in his eyes screaming at me "MATT MATT MATT GET ME OUT OF THIS WATER HOLY CRAP!!!!". It was surprising and amusing to witness.

I came into New York City last week to meet Hanna, meet up with some of my good friends from Peace Corps, and check out an apartment that we are trying to get into. Hanna found a nice place in upper Manhattan that we put in applications for and we've got our fingers crossed that we can possibly move in sometime this week or weekend. I've been spending a few days in the city, going back and forth between a friend's place and my aunt Peggy's house in Long Island. I'm a nomad, vagabond, call me what you will, at the moment and really looking forward to getting settled into an apartment in the city so I can do some more exploring and hopefully find some temp work.

New York City is, in one word, crazy. There are people everywhere, there's something going on on every street corner, there is so much to see, so much to listen to. It's so much louder and more fast paced here than in Colorado. I take the subway everywhere so I'm constantly watching people, wondering about them. There is so much diversity here. It's so amazing to me how many different ethnic groups have such a large presence in this city. So many people from so many different walks of life, all living crammed into one city. It's incredible.

I've taken a lot of pictures, I've asked a lot of questions, I've eaten a lot of good food, I've caught up with friends from Peace Corps Mongolia, I've been lost, I've gotten on the wrong train, I've met some new and interesting people and it's only been a few days. I'm doing my best to stay optimistic and curious. I'm here for at least two years, going to make the most of it.

18 days until my trip to Kenya. Can't wait. Here's a few pictures I took over the past week.
Driving across the country. Sunset in Ohio.


Fairview Lake, Paupack PA, view from my aunt's dock


Few random shots in New York City

All Packed Up and Ready to Go....East Coast Here I Come

I'm sitting in my old room at my mom's house looking at piles of boxes containing all my stuff while I try to find the words to express my feelings about leaving Colorado again. Tomorrow is my last day working at Mission Possible, my last day to spend time with friends, my last day in Colorado until who knows when. I've been in Colorado since September and it's been nice. I've enjoyed being able to spend quality time with friends and family, showing Hanna my favorite places in Colorado, introducing her to my friends and family, and just being home. There have been ups and downs but I'm glad I stayed as long as I did. Colorado will always be home for me, though I foresee a future of lots of moving and traveling around the world. I get stir crazy often and I think between spending time in Pennsylvania with my family, exploring New York City, traveling to Kenya, and starting school at NYU, I will have more than enough to keep my stir craziness in check over the coming months.

The past few weeks have flown by but it's been nice. I was able to catch up with a lot of old friends, spend quality time with close friends and enjoy Colorado's beautiful summer. Whenever I'm driving and I look at the mountains, I realize how much I'm going to miss it here. It's funny how we take certain things for granted and don't really appreciate their significance until we don't have them anymore. I have no doubt that I will visit Colorado as often as possible while I'm living in New York City but there's so much I'm going to miss. I'll admit I'm a bit nervous about living in a city as massive and fast paced as New York City, but I'm trying to be as optimistic and open-minded as possible. There will be new people to meet, places to see, foods to eat, experiences to have and it will be nice having Hanna show me all of her favorite restaurants and spots, introduce me to her friends and family, and show me how to get around the city. I'm anxious but excited for this move, for this new experience.

Tonight I'm hanging out with friends, tomorrow I work my last shift and I will be having dinner with some of my friends, then Friday morning we venture east. We'll be staying at my sister's place in Iowa Friday night, then driving as far as possible on Saturday and barring no problems, arriving in Pennsylvania on Sunday. It will be nice to see a lot of my mom's family since the last time I saw most of them was on my break from Mongolia two years ago. I'm excited to go swimming in the lake, enjoy the summer and catch up with my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins. It will be a great segue from Colorado to the east coast. Hopefully next week I will be able to venture into New York City and take a look at some apartments with Hanna. Ideally, I'd like to find some temporary work so I can make a little bit of money before I leave for Kenya, but we'll see what happens when I get there. I will probably start putting in applications for part time work and go wander around NYU's campus to see if there's any leads there. 12 credit hours as a graduate student will be very tough, no doubt, but I'd like to work while I'm in school. Fingers crossed.

More blog posts to come as I move forward on this next journey of my life.

Peace Corps, Third Goal

The Peace Corps has three main goals. Straight from the Peace Corps website, here they are:

The Peace Corps' mission has three simple goals:

Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.returned.thirdgoal.whatis

Third goal activities are basically meant to educate Americans about the peoples, cultures, etc. of the countries that we served in as Peace Corps volunteers. On a small level, I've engaged in this goal by talking about my experiences, telling stories and educating friends and family about Mongolia and Kazakh and Mongolian culture in short exchanges. Up until recently though, I didn't do anything official or on a larger scale to educate Americans about Mongolia and Peace Corps in Mongolia. A few months ago, my best friend's sister, who works as a teacher and also works with a Girl Scout troop after school, asked me if I'd be interested in helping her Girl Scouts earn their World Citizens badge by teaching them a little bit about Mongolia and what I did with the Peace Corps there. Of course I agreed and Hanna agreed to help me out.

We prepared a short presentation with some activities and brought some of our souvenirs from Mongolia to share with the girls. I prepared the information and slides anticipating that the girls were mostly in fifth grade. To my surprise most of the girls were quite a bit younger so I had to make some adjustments in how we presented the info. Despite the confusion, the presentation went pretty well. First we talked a bit about Peace Corps, its history, its mission, where volunteers work and what they do. Next we asked the girls if they knew where Mongolia is or if they knew anything about the country. None of the girls had ever heard anything about or knew anything about Mongolia but we were pleasantly surprised when one of the girls was able to point out Mongolia on an unmarked map. :)

We let the girls check out our Mongolian schwag, out of which the Mongolian wrestling hat and the Kazakh caps generated the most interest. We provided them with some basic information about Mongolian demographics, cultural norms and differences and even taught them some Mongolian numbers and phrases. At the end of the session, we played a 'Jeopardy' style game and quizzed the girls about information we provided on Peace Corps and Mongolia. The girls did well and seemed very pleased with themselves.

Overall the presentation and activities went well, though in the future I'd like to be better prepared. The girls seemed to enjoy meeting with us and hearing what we had to teach them and it felt good to finally engage in a more official third goal activity. I'd like to do some more of these in the future and of course, Peace Corps or not, I'd like to teach Americans about other countries I plan to travel to and work in, in the future.

Here are a few pics from our session with the Girl Scouts:

Shaquille O'Neal's Retirement

Shaq announced his retirement today, after 19 seasons in the NBA. I grew up watching Shaq in Orlando and Los Angeles and from when I first saw him play, he was my favorite player. I followed him from his rookie year until his last season with the Lakers. For a few years I didn't really pay attention to basketball but I always remained a Shaq fan and loved it when even as he was moving out of his prime, he won his fourth NBA championship with the Heat and had some incredible games with the Suns. Though I'm not a Boston fan, I was hoping he'd have one more solid season and help them win a title but it appears as though injuries and so many years in the league have finally caught up to the Shaq Diesel. He'll always be my favorite player and in my opinion, the best and most dominant center in NBA history. Here's a cool video tribute with some great Shaq hightlights:

Memorial Day

http://politicalwire.com/images/5-30-11.jpg

Couldn't agree more. Happy Memorial Day to those that have served and to those that continue to serve. Here's to hoping that those who choose to serve are taken care of and not sent to their deaths for questionable causes. Remember that Memorial Day is for more than just barbecues and days off of work.

Boulder

Hanna and I spent the weekend in Denver and Boulder, visiting some friends and enjoying a lot of great food and drink. We had some delicious pho with our friend Lisa, who just returned to Denver from Cambodia. If you are ever in Denver, Pho 95 off of Federal is a great place to get some good Vietnamese food. It sucks that we have nothing like that in the Springs.

After spending a few hours in Denver and me getting an MRI (left knee, as always) at the VA hospital, we headed up to Boulder with our friends Ridge and Anna, who were both Peace Corps volunteers in Mongolia as well. No need to go into the details of a hard partying weekend in Boulder but here's a few pictures I took while we were walking around.