And now a note about work

After five months of fairly steady unemployment, I’ve been hired. Hallelujah.

Starting Monday the 14^th, I’ll be writing for a nonprofit organization in Silverdale. They build orphanages for kids in Africa and the Caribbean, and offer child sponsorships as well. I’ll be taking care of some of the organization’s web content, news releases, brochures, newsletters and stories about sponsored children.

It’s the first full time job I’ve had since I quit working at the newspaper last September and blew all my money on a poorly budgeted trip to Europe. I wrote a freelance story about a high school basketball game for the Kitsap Sun last week, but other than that the only thing that’s kept me afloat in the last three months has been the charity of family and friends. I’m incredibly thankful to them, and I see a mooch-free future up ahead. Hopefully I can pay them back in some way.

I'm a blog slacker

But I’m not a complete slacker when it comes to writing. I’ve ignored my blog for a few weeks, yes. But I’ve been steadily working on some travel writing that I want to get published. I finished a short (1,200 word) piece about trying on a kilt in front of an audience in Scotland and submitted it to an online travel publication a week ago. I haven’t gotten a response yet, but even if I get rejected there are plenty of other online magazines I can try. And I’m not opposed to further editing my work.

This week I’ve been writing about Istanbul and a walk I took from the European side of the city to the Asian side, crossing the Bosphorus Straight in the process. I originally thought I would just write a brief blog about the experience, but two sentences in, I realized I could develop it further. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m almost done with the first draft of that story, but I’m a little unsure of the direction I should be taking with it so I’ll have some friends look it over and then rewrite it a couple of times before it’s complete. Such is the fun and painful writing process. 

Fuelyourwriting.com

A little thought about Romanian

A few days ago, while I scrubbed my scalp in the shower, I started thinking about the Romanian language. I thought about the way it sounded when I heard a Romanian woman speaking on the phone in a hostel in Istanbul. For several minutes I sat in my bed trying to concentrate on the book I was reading but I was constantly distracted by the voice just outside my door. “Is that Portuguese?” I wondered. I took a year of Portuguese in college, and the language I was hearing had some recognizable words as well as the nasal inflections characteristic of Portuguese. But I kept shaking my head. Something wasn’t quite right.

Romanian is one of the five main Romance languages, alongside Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French. You can hear and see the common Latin roots in each of these languages. I thought about this as I continued to lather. I also thought about, geographically, where the speakers of Romance languages ended up, and how Romanians seemed to be the odd ducks. Everyone else moved west from Rome, while the Romanians went east. And not just a little east. The other four homes of Romance languages are connected geographically – Italy borders France, which borders Spain, which borders Portugal. But Romania doesn’t touch any of those countries. In fact, it’s got a bunch of Slavic speakers between it and its nearest brother, Italy.

So how did Romanians end up so far from their linguistic siblings? And how did they manage to keep their language in the process? I asked myself these questions as I rinsed off. What I should have done, once the Romanian woman hung up and introduced herself and told me where she was from, was ask her to shed some light on her country’s history for me. But I didn’t think of doing that, so now I’ll have to spend some time on Wikipedia solving this mystery.

New Year's update

This is just a quick update to let people know where I’m at as the new year begins.

At the moment, I’m still unemployed and looking for any sort of work. I’ve been jobless now for 4 months, since quitting the newspaper to gallivant around the world and spend too much damn money. I’m working on some travel writing that I’ll pitch to online magazines soon, but all that is going through editing and re-writes right now. (Thanks to Andy, Dan and Nathan for the help.)

Other than that, all job prospects are kind of up in the air. I’m hoping the places where I’ve applied will be ready to start hiring now that the holiday season is over. Being broke and going into debt get old pretty fast.

In the meantime, I’ll keep working on my writing and doing odd jobs to stave off depression and the feelings of being unproductive and poor. I want to save some of my travel stories for telling in person, or for possible publication. But there are a few I can tell here, so keep an eye out for those in the coming weeks.

Soggy times in Holland

One of Amsterdam's many canals, between downpours.

The water cascaded down on us without warning. It was like a cheesy bit from a movie: Five people walking down the sidewalk and suddenly a taxi whips past, shooting water onto the poor, shivering group. David, to my right, took the brunt of the splash. His curly hair was already matted and glistening with droplets of rain. Now his t-shirt was soaked beneath his black wool coat. Water was in my right ear, so I tipped my head to the side and shook it out, eliciting a laugh from Veronica. At least we’d finally found some entertainment on this dreary evening.

When the five of us set out that night, we hadn’t quite known what to expect, or even what we were looking for. The girls – Veronica and Katerina, friends from Germany – were hungry, while I and the other two guys – David and Adam, friends from Australia – just wanted a place to drink. It was the first trip to Amsterdam for each of us, and we weren’t sure what a Tuesday night would hold. We’d seen advertisements at our hostel, where we shared a room, for events happening Wednesday and Thursday, but nothing for tonight. Rather than stay in and be bored though, we went looking for action.

I was the odd man out in our group. When I’d arrived on Monday, the others had already exchanged formalities. They paired up that night while I turned in early, resting up from my trip in. Adam told me the next morning, referring to Veronica, “She is the hottest girl I’ve ever hooked up with.” I believed it. I couldn’t see anything special in the way Adam looked, but Veronica was stunning. About 5-foot-9 with straight blond hair, a beautiful face and curves in the right places, she looked like the type of woman that would catch Hugh Hefner’s eye. But ‘hooking up’ is such a broad term that I wasn’t sure if they’d shared a kiss, had drunken sex, or done something in between. When asked about Katerina, David just gave a shy smile and said he might be interested.

Whatever happened while I was snoozing must not have been too serious, though. When I returned to the room Tuesday evening after a walking tour through the Red Light District, the four of them invited me and another roommate to check out the midweek nightlife. They all seemed to be nothing more than friends looking to add to their numbers.

Now, the weather in Amsterdam is notoriously unpredictable. During my walking tour, it alternated sporadically between clear skies, downpours and drizzle. When the five of us left the hostel, we did so wearing what we hoped would keep us dry for a short walk to the nearest entertainment. After about a kilometer of walking, we came to a pub and the end of the lively downtown area. We were beginning to get damp, but the pub didn’t appeal to any of us. Nor had any of the coffeeshops or bars we’d passed along the way. We turned and kept walking. The girls knew of a club across town that was sure to be fun.

We kept on through quiet, dark streets for another 20 minutes. My hoody was getting wetter by the second, and my confidence in the girls’ sense of direction was waning. Finally we entered Rembrandtplein, supposedly the happening place to be on a Tuesday night in Amsterdam. Restaurants and bars lined the square, but most were dark. We spotted one on the corner that was lit up and loud and went in. But after a quick assessment, we decided the small crowd was too old for us. We were wet and tired of walking, but we couldn’t settle. We left the square and headed up another soggy street along one of the canals.

           None of us noticed the huge puddle or the speeding taxi until it was too late. With a sudden whoosh, the cab was past us and we were soaked. We shivered and tried to shake ourselves dry, but mostly we laughed. We were no longer in any condition to dance or drink, so we headed back to the hostel for warm showers and hairdryers and another night in, half-heartedly cursing our luck through smiles. 

Dutch humor