The NYRD and the Future

Dear Meta-Humanity,

I know it has been a while since I wrote here, and for all six of my regular readers I want to talk candidly. As you may or may not know I have now started an online magazine called The NYRD. If you have enjoyed my writing I would very much suggest that you check out the site. You will not be disappointed. 

Unlike my current writings, The NYRD will be more focused on breaking down pop culture, and using the language of comics and movies to talk about real-world issues. There will still be the same irrelevance and fun, but maybe part of me is feeling as if it is time to grow up a little (not completely, seven hells, no,) but the books, TV shows, games, and even cartoons that we love are part of a greater whole. They are the myths that inform our lives, the heroes that inspire our decisions, and the lens through which we see the world.

Therefore, it is only natural that we use these stories to interpret what is going on around us. The goal is to engage geeks and nerds to start thinking critically about the culture they love and the issues we should care about. We are going to break down stories and ideas and live up to The NYRD's motto, of being Childishly Intelligent. 

The site will also feature short stories, artwork, podcasts, videos, and tons more of user generated content, at least I hope. As of right now I am still struggling in finding willing writers and artists. That is why I am asking you, my readers, and this community as a whole, to check out The NYRD, but don't just passively read the articles. Engage with them. Comment, Like, Share, Retweet, Bake a Cake (I'm not sure how that last one works, but I'm a little hungry.) Join the forum and start talking about what is on your mind or what you want to see us write about.

Most importantly, if you have anything to say or share or talk about, submit it to submissions@thenyrd.com. I am looking for your writing, your artwork, you cartoons, your graphics. This site is about us and our community with one another, and it should not just be my voice that is heard. 

Quite frankly, I am asking for help from people who I know are passionate and talented. This community and the geek community at large is filled with amazing and incredible people. If you feel like you have nothing to say, then submit a short story. If you do not think you can write, than give a piece of artwork for our gallery. Heck, if that's not your forte generate a meme for us. We will also be expanding into podcasts and YouTube videos real soon. If you have any talent in those areas, I want to hear from you. Whatever you submit we will promote it, through social media and though our website. 

I have always been a writer, for as far back as I can remember. In the beginning it was a way to play with action figures in my mind, to create characters and adventures. That is still true, but over the years it has become something so much more. Writing and stories are the ways I engage in the world and I could never picture myself doing anything else. Maybe that is why I have always been a lover of movies and books, of heroes and villains, and anything that ignited my imagination. Yet, I am getting older and I feel a responsibility to not just my beloved fictional worlds, but to our real one as well.

I cannot fly and punch meteors from the sky. I do not travel time and space in a blue box. I do not have magic or a ring of power, and my destiny was never foretold on some ancient scroll. I am only me, and the only power I have is this, right here. I can string a bunch of mediocre words together, so regardless, I am going to keep using that as best I can to goof off, to be weird, to entertain, and maybe even to inform along the way, but with your help we can do something amazing.

All I am asking is for you to take a step, and join me on this journey. No one can do it alone, and any adventure is always more fun when you have friends along to help.

This will be my last post on this site. I want to especially thank you for your readership and I hope to see you again in the future at www.thenyrd.com. Also check us out on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Sincerely,

Adam J. Brunner 

Pond of Consciousness : Fant 4 Stic

One of the newest trailers causing a buzz on the Intra-Webs is the new Fantastic Four trailer. For better or worse it is Fox's next attempt at desperately clawing onto franchises that they don't want returned to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, (because money.) The studio has decided to go a different route than the last two movies about the First Family of Marvel, but say what you will about those movies at least they didn't try to take themselves too seriously. Unfortunately, the new trailer hit every dark and stereotypical note that you would expect from a Post-Nolan gritty dark reboot, but does that mean its better?

So, occasionally, I do certain things in my life and just let my mind wander as I write down the thoughts as they come to me. When that happens all my streams of consciousness pool together and basically result in gibberish. This is one of those times... Enjoy.

Okay. So the first shot... obligatory Marvel title script. That's almost makes me think this is going to be a superhero movie. I wish the Fantastic Four were just a part of the MCU. All I want is Reed Richards in Civil War... Oh... There are wide sweeping shots of a city, a mountain range, all while a voice-over plays talks about human beings and discovery... Is there like a formula laying around in some Hollywood executive's office about how to make generic trailers?.. Do we all need to do gritty Dark Knight reboots... Am I going to hear the Inception noise in this trailer?... The shot pans up to the stars above a small town before quickly switching to a fast moving car moving through some sort of Kansas wheat field... Am I watching Superman again?... or is Matthew McConaughey going to be in this movie. "I was driving a Lincoln through a wormhole before I was paid to do it, and I mean that literally. There are many factors of time dilation involved." Anyway, so now it's a shot of some kids in that same small town working on some kind of experiment and the narrator very purposely says "invent..." because everyone in the movie going audience is thinking... I wonder if Reed Richards was ever a fat kid in Kansas. This movie looks less like a superhero movie and more like kind of movie whee a kid learns an adolescent lesson through fantastical events, like ET or The Shining. Actually that kind of movie sounds more fun. Maybe the movie is about a small boy growing up in a small town, trying to prove himself to his overbearing and drunk father figure. He's the brainy type, but his father, an ex-college football star, only understands sports and athleticism. Then he invents a machine for his science project to prove himself, but that machine winds up being some kind of receiver for alien transmissions... Boo-ya... this could be Oscar gold... Okay, Okay, I need to keep going. Now we have astronauts getting into tube-things... blah blah origin story... but what if that kid in the previous scene picked up alien transmissions and they told humanity how to build some sort of machine which will allow us to meet the Aliens... It's like Contact.... which also had McConaughey in it. "Sometimes when driving a Lincoln you have to go back to meet alien beings. They should have sent a poet." And for some reason we need to know that it is done by the same people as X-Men: Days of Future Past... From the man who once brought a glass of water to Christopher Nolan... Anyway, now we get some generic military officers looking at a generic screen... actually they aren't looking at the screen. They are looking away from a screen of moving images... for some reason... I mean they are obviously in some sort of briefing. Why aren't they looking at the things they are getting briefed on?..So what if the aliens that humanity contacts turn out to be not friendly. Maybe they unleash a weapon, instead. What if their weapon paralyzes people. That's why those Pentagon officials aren't moving. Obviously they would be the first people targeted by this weapon. The presentation going on behind them must just be on auto-loop... Stop getting distracted... Okay. So now we have Mark Zuckerberg walking through an auto parts factory. Susan Storm wearing headphones... while watching dots moving around a digital map. Then a kid playing baseball, probably Benjamin Grimm, and finally Johnny Storm fixing a car.... I'm going to try not to think about how Johnny is black and Susan white, or why they felt the need to do that, because if I think of anything accidentally racist I may be forced to write it down... But I just don't get why they couldn't have cast two African American actors instead of one. I have no problem with Johnny being black, but then make Susan black too... Why do we need some sort of convoluted adoption plot-line to mask the fact that we included a token minority. If anything that seems even more racist than just casting four white actors... Also, I like how the movie show them all doing typical "American" things. I'm surprised Sue wasn't baking an apple pie. I like the narrator though hitting those notes of "generations" and "responsibility?"... They are all very much just kids. I think I remember reading a comic book once about a group of four people with powers who would save the world on occasion... Fantasy Four? Fantastic Fourteen? Something like that... but they were much older. They were actual adults. I means these four are just kids, so there is no way they are like those other older people... Back to shots of the spacesuits getting into that machine and then there is a concerned look on that one older man's face. Everything is about to go wrong... Maybe now the aliens true plot will be revealed. Humanity knows its in trouble... Typical destruction scenes, military officials walking through a hall, and somewhere a plane exists as it flies over a mountain scene. There are people looking surprised. We see Mark Zuckerberg again. Then we see a piece of rock explode and it looks like something moves... Sigh... Bring back Michael Chiklis... He really wants to play a superhero... I feel bad for him... Okay, so what if that's not the Thing but one of the aliens coming to Earth to invade?.. Stop getting distracted by movies you make up in your head... More scenes of destruction, and then the narrator says "consequences," in that deep throaty voice and then that guy is on fire... What if all the aliens take on elements of our planet, like Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and Heart... Maybe that's why they need to come to Earth to use our natural resources to power their own physiologies... Bonus it could also be an allegory for Global Warming, which would only be slightly less subtle than Keanu Reeves facial expressions in Day After Tomorrow... Then there is an explosion in New York, and we see the astronauts climbing up a mountain, while a very strange noise happens in the background... It's not quite "Bwahhhhh!" but it's not too far off either... Also this movie really loves mountains... People explode in a hallway as a shadowy figure approaches them... Maybe it could be an alien with electrical powers... Then back to Johnny Storm, then more establishing shots with background of wierd desolate landscape... the negative zone... Or maybe it is Earth all along... "Damn you you dirty apes!"... So the aliens come to Earth to drink up all our resources, but in the process they drain the planet of them. That would leave Earth looking a lot like that hellscape of mountains and possibly lava (for effect), which would explain the suits. Maybe humanity needs to create special suits to survive this radical terraforming process... Oh, Mark Zuckenberg is really reaching for something there. Maybe its a glass of water, or maybe its the switch that will finally destroy the aliens and save the planet, or maybe its just the 'Like' button on his Facebook wall. Who knows?... There is the logo, which I still don't understand Fant 4stic? Fant for Stick?.. Now some actual generic dialogue that warns Mark Zuckerberg to beware of what is coming... if only he was talking about an alien invasion of resource sucking aliens... So the guy on the gurney was one of the original astronauts. Maybe he was on the first team that they sent to make contact with the aliens... the team that never returned... Maybe the movie would deal with the fourth team to make the attempt... which could explain the confusing title, but they recover this guy on their mission and he knows the truth, but he is half dead, and nobody on Earth is believing him... Or it's a rebooted Doctor Doom in a dark a gritty franchise about a team of superheroes that Fox is desperately trying to hold onto... tomato... Toronto... Now we have the final shot of our four heroes looking at some beam going into the sky... an alien terraformer machine?... probably not... You can barely see them or their costumes. Trailers are like the lingerie of the movie world. They hide all the good stuff, but give you enough of a tease to keep you interested... Also is the Thing not wearing pants?.. So does that mean he doesn't need to wear pants? Did the accident make him have no sexual organs, like some giant cartoon? Or is he just walking around with his boulder swinging in the breeze like some craggy version of Dr. Manhattan?.. I am not excited for this movie at all. It's just going to be another terrible, Incredible Spider-Man 2-like attempt to take advantage of the Marvel name. Fox should just give up and release the rights... I'd pay ten dollars to see that happen... I bet a lot of people would, and it would still be cheaper than going to see this generic gritty reboot... This kind of movie needs to really go away... Like Matthew McConaughey...

"Oh thanks man, the truth is I spend at least 90% of my year going away, exploring exotic places, having sex with my beautiful girlfriend, just doing sit-ups, I mean that really... and then counting money. The money that I made off my terrible films I put out into the American populous because they just love to see me doing what it is that I do."... 'Contact' They didn't even need you in that movie, they could have done the whole movie without you... "I know, I know I said the same thing, but they were just like - Oh we need a good looking guy with a great ass and some tight abs to provide some down home enthusiasm to this picture. Something to counter balance Jodie Foster, they took her to be slightly cold, uh unapproachable so they put me in there. I said it didn't make any sense. Said the same thing about that Bill Murray elephant movie but they said well the audience needs you."...You make me physically sick to my stomach and I wish you that would get a heart attack.... "I totally feel you man, the truth of the matter is I don't like my movies either but man they keep offering me money and I do it and I get to around the world, I mean did you see 'Sahara'. I'll tell you what that movie gave me, was the opportunity to take an Airstream all across the country and sell that picture one person at a time."...

That was weird... in conclusion... I will probably wind up going to see this movie.

A Contract and Back Again

This week marks the third and (thankfully) final installment of Peter Jackson's "ehh...pic" follow-up to Lord of the Rings. For most people this just marks a mediocre end to a drawn-out prequel of a much better trilogy. However, it holds a significant importance to yours truly, because it marks the end of the contract I signed with Peter Jackson. Now you may be thinking, "I don't remember seeing him in any of those films?" Well shows how much you know, Mr. Imaginary Skeptic, I was Orc #6.

I wish that was the case, and it reminds me of a story. When Peter Jackson was filming the first Lord of the Rings trilogy, and he needed extras for the Battle at Helm's Deep, (which took place in a rock quarry on the outskirts of Wellington, New Zealand,) he went to the local hostels in Wellington and basically hired all the international travelers and backpackers he could find to become orcs, humans, and elves during the big battle scene. In fact New Zealand was so committed to doing what Jackson told them to do, they basically temporarily waived all the fees and visa laws that said international travelers weren't allowed to work in New Zealand. So, had I been in the land of the Kiwi at the time of the first trilogy's filming I could have been Orc #6, or Elf #18, or Dirty Human #1 (it was the part I was born to play.) So, whenever you watch the Battle of Helms Deep, remember you are basically watching a bunch of illegally hired backpackers swinging swords at one another to earn enough money to subside for another day on ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches... but I digress.

You see, what I am really referrinto is the contract I was forced to sign before taking a tour of Hobbiton. Back in 2011, before the first Hobbit movie even came out, I basically agreed to not release any photos or stories to social media or the Internet in regards to what I heard/saw on the tour, which was hard for me. During my trip I was keeping a blog of all my experiences and had to leave one of the coolest things I did completely out of it, but now that contract has expired and I am free to spill everything... Ha ha ha, you have no power here, Jackson the Grey. (Because after six of these movies you have really aged.) That actually reminds me of another story.

So back in 2011 when I was spending my lost year journeying across Australia and New Zealand, I couldn't pass up the chance to take one (or three) Lord of the Rings' tours, one of which was my trip to the actual set of the Shire. Now, during most times of the year the filming location is not much more than an empty field with white cutouts representing where the hobbit holes had been built into the rolling landscape of a local sheep farm. However, I was lucky enough to arrive at a time when Peter Jackson had a stomach ulcer (because trilogy-stress) and filming for The Hobbit had to be postponed for an additional three months, but the Shire set had already been fully restored to its former movie-like glory. There was even a team of two people whose entire jobs were to live on the Shire set and maintain all the vegetation while filming was postponed. That means I was allowed to walk through the full and complete Hobbiton set. It was like walking through the actual Sauron-damned Shire. There were pumpkins growing in the pumpkin patch, Hobbit-sized road signs, even authentic English sheep roaming the grounds. It was like stepping another world.

I got all the stories about the set as we walked through it. Peter Jackson was so meticulous with how everything looked he went a million over budget just making (yes, constructed by hand) the tree that sits on top of Bag End. He flew in a flock of English sheep, even though he was on a sheep farm, but for Jackson New Zealand sheep weren't authentic to Tolkein's vision. Say what you will about the Hobbit movies, but if there is one thing Jackson nailed, it was Tolkein's vision. In all the tours I took I learned about a thousand little details you will never ever actually see in the movie, but are there because the guy who directed The Frighteners was obsessed with making every minute detail perfect. In so doing he put New Zealand on the map. Maybe that is why the government bent over backwards to do everything in its power to see Jackson succeed... Which reminds me of another story...

Remember how earlier I talked about the government of New Zealand basically nullifying their laws about international visa-work restrictions, well that wasn't one isolated case. The Kiwis did that sort of thing for Jackson, a lot. For the Shire set the government basically sent a company of army engineers to clear land, build roads, and create infrastructure for Jackson's production company so they could access their set on this remote sheep farm in the small town of Matamata. In fact, the government even assigned a company of combat soldiers to Jackson to use as orc extras for close-up shots, because they were all big burly men who knew how to actually fight. (Which also means that when you watch the Battle of Helms Deep, you are also watching those backpackers get their asses kicked in by actual New Zealand soldiers... who I assume are taught to fight with sword and shield as part of their boot camp training.).. but I'm digressing again.

The set of Hobbiton was located on a private farm belonging to the Alexander family on a small little dirt road named Buckland. (That was the roads actual name before anyone from Jackson's team even set foot on the farm.) After filming wrapped up and Old Farmer Alexander got his farm back from those weirdly dressed movie people, (he had never heard of Lord of the Rings before or JRR Tolkein... I guess sheep herding doesn't leave a lot of time for reading?) that was the last he had expected to hear of the whole damned thing. Unfortunately, then the tourists started showing up. People started finding his farm and banging on his front door asking if they could see the Shire. So eventually he started charging them for rides on his tractor to see where the filming had took place. Then more people and more people came and eventually he got a bus, then another, and hired a tour guide, and even built a hobbit-shaped cafe and souvenir shop. Farmer Alexander may have been old but he knew how to capitalize on a good thing when he saw it. By the end the Alexanders had negotiated with Jackson that for the filming of the Hobbit Trilogy, part of their agreement was that he build a Shire set that could last and endure the weathering for longer than a few months. Jackson agreed and after he was done filming this time he left the set intact, which means that if you go there today you will be able to see the full set, much like I did, and not just some white cut-outs left to represent the hobbit-holes.

Of course, the Alexanders had Peter Jackson over a barrel filled with dwarves. He could do nothing but agree to their terms, because Farmer Alexander's farm was the Shire. In fact, when Jackson was scouting locations for the first trilogy he had originally expected to film the Shire scenes at separate locations. When he scouted the Alexander farm he was only looking for a big tree (the party tree) beside a lake, which he found, but he also found so much more. He realized that he hadn't just stepped onto the location of the party tree but the entire Hobbiton set. There was no need to find other locations because every hill and field he needed was in one spot. The Green Dragon Pub sat across the lake, Bag End sat high atop a hill, and even the surrounding hills were so high as to block out the rest of the modern world. Walking onto the set was like being transported to Middle-Earth. The experience and transformation was so complete that the actors themselves didn't have to try very hard to get into character. 

There was a magical feel to the place, and for me, who was already on the journey of life-time, it felt as if I had stepped so far out of my own everyday world that I would not have been surprised to find myself face to face with a wizard or an elf. (Alas the only thing I came face to face with was a few Brits, some Irish, and the occasional Canadian.. which were all okay too.) Still it is an experience I will never be able to forget and now that I am free to talk about it, all I can really say is that, "You need to go." I don't just mean to take a trip to Buckland Road in Matamata, but a trip to New Zealand itself. 

The place was beyond description. I hiked beautiful parks, traversed snow-capped mountains, walked through thermal vents, canoed with seals, climbed a warm-weather glacier, learned about Maori culture, and did so much more. It is a place worth visiting and if you happen to be in the neighborhood, stop by Old Alexander's farm and take the tour. It even comes with a free sheep-shearing demonstration, which was both cute and education... but I am digressing again. Yet, maybe sometimes that is the point of a journey like mine. There isn't always one path, and sometimes the digressions can be more interesting than the straight road.

It’s a dangerous business going out of your door. You step into the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to. -Bilbo Baggins

Blog My Hell

There has been a minor craze going around YouTube in honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday called Draw My Hell. It was started by Mark Douglas of Barely Political, and the idea is to draw and narrate what your own personal hell would be like. Well I suck at drawing, so instead I am taking this concept and turning it toward my talents and I'm calling it "Blog My Hell." If anyone else is interested in doing this or the Draw My Hell challenge please feel free to share. I am always interested in seeing the inner torments of other people who aren't me.

In my Hell it is always a Tuesday, in early March. I hate Tuesdays, and early March is that time when you are sick of winter but you still have to endure for at least another six weeks until you get even a hint of spring warmth, and there isn't another day off from work in sight for at least four weeks. The dress code for Hell is a buttoned up shirt that never wants to stay tucked into my one-size too small pants and a tie that is always a little too tight, but for some reason won't hang straight down my shirt. My hair is always at that length right before I get a hair cut, where it just gets hot and itchy all the time.

I wake up every Tuesday morning and I have to shave, even though I don't need to. (It's just one of those things in Hell.) The water pressure in the shower is always too low to be refreshing, and there is no sweet spot between the hot and cold. Breakfast is a banana that you aren't quite sure whether or not it's still good to eat. I mean it tastes banana-ish, but it's kind of mushy and the dark spots I see on the peel give me pause.

Driving to work takes two hours and there is nothing on the radio but every Britney Spears and Ke$ha songs I've heard ten thousands times before, the kind that get stuck in your head and sit there on repeat for the rest of the day. For just a little extra discomfort, there is also a sampling of the kind Country songs that make me feel slightly uncomfortable to be a white man. All the while I sit in traffic raging at the cars that are too stupid to understand how to make a left hand turn at an intersection. (Pull into the middle of the lane so other hellspawn can pass you on the right! Damnit!)

I am always three minutes late when I get to work. I then spend the rest of my day never finishing any of my projects because I am constantly being interrupted by people with stupid questions or are too lazy to do something themselves. "What does it mean when it tells me to left-click?" "What does this error message mean?" "How do you do a mail-merge?" "How do you type the word 'six-six-six?'" I then spend the rest of my day explaining to old women how to download pictures from their email. Everyday I have to work through lunch, and the only snacks left to eat all contain pecans, raisins, and coconut. So that I am forced to look at the snacks and get hungrier and hungrier, but am unable to eat them.

It takes four hours to get back home through traffic and idiots. When I do finally get to eat, my dinner is always unsatisfying. My one roommate is an over weight forty-year old man who always makes me watch bad movies with him and then spends the majority of the time talking through the movies and explaining things I didn't care to know in the first place. In his spare time he collects pieces of toenails and uses them to construct scale models of historical turn-of the-last-century factories from the British Industrial Revolution. He has the coolest and hottest girlfriend who seems like she might be in to me, but of course neither of us will ever try anything because we both value the commitment she made to her toenail obsessed boyfriend. My other roommate is a nineteen-year old girl who "totes speaks like this so much, that I can't even..." and for no reason feels the need to claim everything even when it was clearly labeled with my name on it. She has no respect for boundaries and at night she stays up till 2 am blasting Britney Spears and Ke$ha songs while talking on the phone about how much her friends are basic bitches and who she hooked up with last night at the club. She spends her free time tanning and likes to have a beer and talk about how "totes wasted" she is. When I try to have a reasonable discussion with her she just screams really loudly till I start bleeding from the ears.

For the few precious hours of alone time I have, I sit in front of my half-finished novel, and alternate between starting at a blank page and pacing the room as I suffer from the worst case of writer's block imaginable. Sometimes I'll try to do something else but will get frustrated and go back to staring at the blank page as my mind fumbles for something (ANYTHING) to write down. Even worse, throughout my day, I will periodically come up with the most brilliant ideas for stories, novels, blogs, etc, (Like award winning, Harry Potter-level, ideas,) but the minute I sit down in front of my computer or take out a piece of paper to write it down, the idea will completely vanish and I'll be left with nothing but more writer's block. There is nothing to read in Hell, except 50 Shades of Gray and other trashy and grammatically incorrect fan-fiction that have made millions of dollars for authors who are way less talented than me.

In Hell, all my jokes are unfunny and poorly timed. In fact, whenever I say anything people just look at me like I have no idea what I am talking about. No one uses the oxford comma. My cell phone never has service and I am constantly missing important phone calls from friends and family whom I never get to see. I also miss calls from that better job I applied for, that girl I had a crush on back in high school, and the one that warns me to be in work the next day a half-hour earlier because I have an important meeting with an old woman who needs me to show her how to "do the Google." After a week of 86-straight Tuesdays, Satan allows us to have one Sunday, (Ironic, I know) but the day starts at 7 pm, and I have no time to do anything but grocery shop at Wal-Mart. After 348 days, any small amount of progress I have made on my projects at work or my personal writing gets reset and I start it all over again.

And that is my personal Hell.

Comics, Cosplay, and Coville

I don't usually like to delve into my personal life on this blog, after all, it's none of your damn business, (and it's never really that interesting,) but sufficed to say I have been having a rough couple of months. Yet, no cloud is so dark as to not let a little light through, (Well maybe a mushroom cloud, but then you have to hide in a refrigerator, and then people get upset...) anyway, the ray of light on my dark days has always been the anticipated arrival of New York Comic Con. This year marked a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I went to the convention solo and the first time I tried my hand at cosplay... yes I made a costume.

I've never cosplayed before, but it has always been something I have been interested in, mostly the creative aspect of it. Maybe that is why I decided to go with designing a Sith Lord costume as opposed to any sort of recognizable pop culture figure. I was more intrigued with the process of imagination and creation than the process of trying to replicate something that was already out there... Also I got to build a lightsaber.

It all started for me when I got a chance to get colored contact lenses for free and I decided to get red and gold lens, like a Dark Jedi. At that moment in time I had some vague ideas of making a Sith costume, but for the most part I forgot about it and moved on with my life. The idea resurfaced in August, while I was going through some personal problems, as a way to give myself new focus. It seemed like the right kind of ambitious and creative project that could help get my mind off my own issues and build excitement for Comic Con. So I set to work researching techniques on the internet, running material tests, and eventually settling on a design for myself that I thought would be both challenging and manageable.

Various pieces, including contacts.

I won't go into to too much detail of my process, but I will tell you that there were a few times I thought I had bit off more than I could chew, and more than a few false starts. Yet, I kept going and with each new piece my apartment became more cluttered but my vision began to take shape, and it was exciting. I made the costume mostly of craft foam and fabric I bought at local stores. I hand-cut, hand-sewed, hand-dremeled, painted, glued, glossed, weathered, stitched, pinned, etc everything myself. (I was also advised to highlight that I made pouches for my belt, as they turned out to be very useful later on for holding my phone, money, and extra safety-pins.) Regardless, the creation process was a lot of fun, of course after I was done with all of that there is a cold hard realization waiting for me at the end... I had to actually put it on and wear the damn thing through the streets of New York.

So be it, and on that Saturday of Comic Con I woke early, stitched myself into my costume (which took a few hours.) Next I applied the colored contact lenses, (which also took a good hour of crying and cursing.) Finally, I put on a bit of make-up to pale my skin and darken my eyes and I was off to the show.

Perhaps the most surreal experience was riding on the train, a mask half covering my face, wondering what the transit police were thinking. At least I looked pretty fearsome, which worked out pretty well when opening a spot to stand on the crowded train. I don't think I really relaxed until I found myself walking through the streets of New York, my cloak blowing out behind me, lightsaber in hand, and a bus load of scared tourists scrambling to get out of my way. I felt fierce. You couldn't seem my mouth under my balaclava, but I was smiling. Once I made it to the Javits Center I was wholly unremarkable, just one in a crowd of costumed thousands.

Jedi and Sith were not "in" this year, so at least I stood out in that respect and I had a few people who wanted a picture with the newest Darth in town. I saw a lot of Ghostbusters, Batmen, Attack on Titan and other Anime that I have no idea about. (It's not really my thing.) Mostly, though, I was excited for the panels, and although I never got to see Bill Nye, (That damn line was packed,) I did get more than a few surprises. I got to listen to Ron Perlman talk, and I got to learn Dothraki from the guy who created the language for Game of Thrones. I also attended an awesome panel on writing and gaming (and got a few free books for my troubles.) One of the most interesting panels was the Max Brooks' panel where he talked about World War Z and explained how the movie went so horribly wrong from his book. On a whim I sat in on the American Dad panel, (because my feet were tired and I wanted to watch a cartoon,) and though Seth Macfarlane was no where to be seen the panel did get a surprise guest in the guise of Sir Patrick Stewart. I sat ten feet away from the man himself.

Full Costume

However, the best surprise and the moment that is going to stick with me for a long long time was when I sat in on the Sci-Fi Authors Quiz show. The only reason I went in there was because I was trying to get a seat for the panel after that one, and watching four unknown science fiction authors try to answer obscure science fiction trivia was entertaining enough to keep my interest for forty-five minutes. I had assumed it would be a minor distraction and a chance to sit down, at least until they announced the names of the four authors and I found myself staring at Bruce Coville.

If the name sounds vaguely familiar its because you probably picked up one of his books as a kid at those school-run book fairs, Aliens Ate My Homework, My Teacher is an Alien, Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher, etc. I am not lying when I say that this man was my first (and my most formative) favorite author. I used to read all of his books, and a few more than a few times. I had to buy Aliens Ate My Homework twice because I wore out the first copy. Suddenly sitting before me was the man who taught me that it was okay to be weird and to enjoy reading. Bruce Coville was the man that first inspired me to write, and without warning there he was, right in front of me.

After the panel ended and people were mulling about waiting for the next one to begin I found myself debating if I should risk losing my seat to try and talk with him as he was leaving the room. I didn't want to be that guy, and I had a pretty good seat. Very quickly though I ended that debate with a mental slap. "When was I ever going to get the chance again?" Coville wasn't even supposed to be at the convention. He was never listed as a guest. So I scrambled nervously over to him, which must have been a site to see. Considering I was more than a foot taller and dressed as a Lord of the Sith, I must have looked completely out of place as I meekly reached out and shook his hand.

Also Sgt. Slaughter was there... looking a little less "Yo Joe,"
and a little more like "Yo... let me catch my breath... Joe"

It amazed me that there weren't more people crowding around him to say hello. Instead, I found that I had him completely to myself for a good five minutes. During that time I gushed more than I meant to, apologized for my imposing appearance, and basically told him how much his books had influenced my life. To Coville's credit he smiled and seemed genuinely interested and touched by what I was saying. He even gave me advice, writer to writer. "Never give up." He told me the story of how one of his more popular series sat on his shelf for fifteen years, unpublished. Then he shook my hand and thanked me saying, "You write books and you wonder if anyone will remember them. It's good to hear that someone has." He smiled one more time, we said good-bye, and he walked off. I resumed my seat and for the first time in a while, I smiled myself. I don't believe in signs, but if I did... that was a pretty good one.

Of course there were plenty of other highlights I am glossing over. I got some good deals on shirts and figurines. I got a few free comic books and the usual assortment of other free promotional crap. I got to catch up with Kirby Krackle, (whom I told you about last week,) and see some awesome Nerd Rock at Rock Comic Con, (where I helped carry a stage-diving lead singer of Daenerys and the Targaryens.) I also got to catch up with my friends Sam and Adam, and eat a burger at a dinner dressed as a Sith Lord.

I had been nervous about cosplaying and going to the convention alone, but once again New York Comic Con did not fail to deliver on the surprises, the goodies, and the fun. Even better I got to go home on Saturday and strip myself out of my costume (which also took an hour,) and shed the skin of a Dark Jedi, because I am done with darkness for now. It's time to step back into the light, and my future is looking a little brighter these days.

In the Land of Neh

Wherever I go, I find myself surrounded by pig heads.

Did you ever wish you were somewhere else? I have been wishing that all week. With it being October and the midst of my busy period I have found myself nostalgically remembering the lazy days of summer when I was two months younger and so much more naive. Mostly, though I find myself recalling my adventures in South Korea. I spent ten days in the beautiful country whose nickname I don't know and am too lazy to look up, (And will hence forth be calling it the Land of the Casual Mountain Climbers.)

My trip to South Korea was beyond anything I could have expected and even though the country was never on my top ten list, I am tremendously glad I got a chance to see it, experience its culture, and eat its food... and boy did I eat its food. Every meal was a feast of meats, spices, rice, and noodles. In South Korea you don't just eat, you consume massive portions of delicious food with friends, like a medieval banquet (only with less dead Starks.)

This was what they would call a "light meal."

My visit to Korea was more than just one of sightseeing and relaxation (both of which I got plenty of during my stay there,) but it was also a chance to catch up with my long lost friends, Jon and Evie, who are currently living in the country. They were gracious enough to give my friend Doug and I a place to sleep and free reign over their fridge and alcohol. In return, we generally ate up their free time and sent them to work each morning bleary eyed and sleep deprived. It also helped to have "locals" on our side as they could recommend both food and places of interest, which was ultimately how Doug and I found this small eatery that served the best freaking pork cutlet I have ever had. I mean I am not exaggerating. It was delicious. The cutlet was lightly battered and fried, but a little sweet as well. Tender and juicy it came in a rice bowl with egg and other assorted mixings and spices. I want one now...

Anyway, like I mentioned earlier, food was a big part of our journeys in South Korea. From fried chicken in Suwon (I'm talking an entire chicken that was fried,) to a beef and leaf buffet in Uijeongbu, I did not have a bad meal while I was there. Thankfully, I also found enough excuses to exercise to balance out my expanding waist line.

There was the usual walking around that comes with exploring new places, but on top of that I found myself hiking up a centuries old fortress that is now a UN World Heritage site. With a little luck and skill we were even able to find a secret entrance into the fortress that required us to shimmy over a narrow ledge and pass through a forest that may or may not have been mystical in nature. It all paid off though, because we were able to sneak into the Hwaseong Fortress and unknowingly skip paying the entrance fee. We then immediately turned the wrong way and blundered into a toll booth and had to pay the fee anyway. (A fee of 1,000 Won = 1.00 Dollar)

If that path isn't a Call to Adventure
then Joseph Campbell is a dirty liar.

Yet, the real exercise came when we scaled Dobongson Mountain. This day trip started out almost laughably as we discussed how over prepared for hiking the South Koreans around us seemed to be. After all, the hiking trails were paved and barely constituted any rise more challenging than a handicap ramp. Our words, however, soon turned to bitter ash in our mouth as an hour later we found ourselves lost in what looked like a dry and rocky river bed. So with no options (we couldn't turn back or a group of picnicking South Korean women were sure to laugh at the two stupid white boys), and a steely clad determination borne of ignorance we pressed on. The boulders were bigger than us in some places but we scaled them with a skill befitting a drunk billy goat. Eventually the bed started to turn into a cliff and at one point we tried to turn off our path only to find a thick growth of trees and a rather terrifying frog that almost dropped Doug on top of my head. We soon reached the peak of what I was beginning to suspect was a dry waterfall only to be met with a small Korean man going in the opposite direction. We watched him for a moment before tracing the path where he had emerged. A flat, almost impossibly smooth rock about 5 yards wide on a incline of at least 100 degree, separated us from regaining our path. Doug climbed it first, doing his best Spider-Man impression, slipping and sliding all the way. I followed, feeling thankful that I had misplaced my older sneakers (and their worn treads) and was forced to pack my new sneakers with their greater traction.

Our next land mark was an Buddhist hermitage that required a hike up a long set of rocky stairs. Once at the top we made the judgement that we were lost and turned back down before realizing that we hadn't been lost at all, and therefore had to climb all 300 steps again. After a few more hours of trekking and climbing we made it to our first peak and got a stunning view of Seoul and the surrounding countryside, as well as a stunning view of the hundreds of South Korean retirees who had beat us to the mountain top. Apparently, climbing is practically a national past time in South Korea. A friendly English-speaking man related to us that on weekends the mountain would be packed of upwards of 10,000 tourists climbing all over the rocky peaks like ants on a discarded bread roll. Mind you, I took in this news as I was sitting there gulping down water at an elevation of almost 2,000 feet above sea level, while I watched people almost three times my age strolling across peaks and cliffs as if they were walking to get the Sunday paper. There was even a man doing jumping jacks in the distance atop the highest visible peak. (Because when I do my calisthenics, damn it, I want to ensure there is the visible specter of death hanging over me.) That higher peak was also our goal.

Flat and sheer with no handholds. That's just a
regular Sunday jog in South Korea.

We set out again, this time with a choice. We could have gone the safe and relatively flat route, along the forested backside of the mountain, but instead we went with Door No. 2 and took the mountainous path where we walked along ridges the width of a human leg. Thankfully some insightful Korean had drilled metal poles and steel cables into the rock-face so we had hand holds as we defied gravity and commonsense on the windswept peaks. The only incident came when we were descending one peak before reaching the next. The trail zig-zagged along a sheer wall, and the only way to get down was to literally hang on for life to the metal poles fused into the boulders around us. I took a misstep and nearly lost my footing, but in my rush to hang on my water bottle slipped out of my pocket and fell to the forest below. I watched in helplessness as my precious life-giving water plummeted away into the green cloud of forest below me. I felt like Ace Ventura in the beginning of Ace Ventura 2, or like Sylvester Stallone in that movie which Ace Ventura 2 was parodying, but I have never seen, and therefore don't feel comfortable making a reference to it. And that was how I littered in a South Korean National Park. Its what I am going to call, "extreme littering," (which is probably the title of a show coming this Spring to Discovery Channel.)

Thankfully, I was not deported for my crime, because South Korea's neighbor to the north was not a place I wanted to go. (I know that was the weakest paragraph transition I have ever written, and I'm sorry.) Also I am lying because, it was a place I very much wanted to go. Evie was able to set up a tour for Doug and myself of the DMZ, the border between North and South Korea. It was, with no exaggeration, one of the most interesting experiences I have ever had.

I do not want to go into too much detail, as I am not sure what exactly the contract I signed with the US Military covered, and I would hate to give away state secrets. (Don't tell North Korea, that there is a gift shop on the southern side of the DMZ.) Before venturing to the border we were forced to sign papers, basically absolving the American and South Korean governments from any responsibility in the event we became casualties of war. (I figure the ceasefire had held for 60 years, what were the odds it would bust apart on the day of my visit? Then I remembered Adam's Law, but decided to sign my life away anyway.) We were led around by an American Army Private who showed us the conference room that straddled the border between North and South. I even got to cross the border (In the safety of that conference room) and stick a toe in North Korea (IT COUNTS.)

When it comes to flags, we ain't got nothing on North Korea.

We also caught a glimpse of Propaganda City, the city that Kim Jong-un erected on the North Korean side as a shining example of the glorious People's Republic. It should be noted that the city is completely fake, with concrete buildings and painted on windows and doors. It's mostly deserted except for the few people left there to maintain it, the giant speaker system that the North uses to blast propaganda messages at the South, and the four hundred-pound flag that sits atop one of the tallest flag poles in the world. It's pretty hard to miss. We also visited one of five tunnels that the North tried to use to burrow into the South to launch some kind of secret invasion. All the tunnels were eventually discovered by the South (Usually in some sort of comic fashion that left the construction or utility workers staring into the faces of several confused and panicked North Korean would-be-infiltrators.) All in all, the whole experience makes you realize that Kim Jong-un and his son Kim Jong-il are really just Saturday Morning Cartoon villains, coming up with endlessly ridiculous plots and schemes that would make Wile E. Coyote shake his head in bewilderment. However, that is not say that the North is toothless. They have attacked the South before, mostly with missiles and artillery, most recently in 2010.

Yet, despite the dangers of war, falling off mountains, or irate old Korean women telling you that you need to pay admission to a centuries old fortress, I highly recommend this country to anyone looking to visit a new place that may or may not be on your standard list of tourist locales. It is a surprising and friendly country. The people are very used to Americans and are always willing to help someone in need. Most signs are in English and Korean, and when in doubt you can always walk into a restaurant and just nod. I promise that whatever food they bring out, it will be delicious and probably spicy. I was glad I got to spend the time there that I did, and even more thankful that I got to visit my two close friends, Jon and Evie. I miss them, almost as much as I miss that freakin' fried pork cutlet. I may have to visit again sometime.

Because Japan...

Is this a toilet or the captain's chair
on the bridge of the Enterprise?

Whenever I travel to a new place, it always takes me a week or two, after returning, to feel like I have fully digested the experience enough to give people a full impression. (Except for, when you live in a place for a year.) Japan is certainly one of those places, and yet in a lot of ways it also defies my attempts to define it. It is a strange, yet inviting land, that embodies a lot of contradictions. The most common question I have gotten since returning to the States is, "So how was Japan?" Unfortunately, I never quite know how to answer that statement. I usually mutter something like "It was good, or it was interesting." A generic answer for a generic question, but it's more than that. Everyone already has their own ideas on what Japan is and isn't. (You know what I mean. In fact you're thinking it right now.) They have this misconception that it is a country full of robots and panty-vending machines, where the weird gets weirder, and the weirder get downright crazy. Those aren't really true, and yet they're not really false either.

For instance, the country is fascinated with technology, yet we could not find a single ATM that took American bank cards, and more than a few places that wouldn't take credit cards at all. Yet, the best story I can give to illustrate this point is when my friend (and traveling companion) Doug and I went to check into one of those capsule hotels. First off, the very idea of sleeping in an enclosed bubble-like capsule for the night is very appropriate for the country. It encompasses that right mixture of strangeness and brilliant practicality that rings true in many places of Tokyo. All you need is to throw in a dash of adherence to traditional customs and you got yourself a perfectly baked Japanese cupcake. Sure enough, this place delivered that with sprinkles on top. After lugging our baggage through two trains and eight city blocks, we arrived at the hotel which was located on the twelfth floor of a very tall building. (There are a lot of very tall buildings in Tokyo.) It was at about floor nine that Doug noticed a sign written in English that said "Guests are not permitted to own tattoos."

He pointed it out to me and we had a moment where we both dumbly stared at my leg, emblazoned in black ink with a stylish Captain America shield. "Adam, cover your leg."

Apparently Karaoke is a large problem in public parks.

I dutifully slapped my giant suitcase over my leg, hiding the offensive ink, and wondering why I suddenly didn't decide to wear long pants in the 90 degree heat of the city. The doors opened up and we hobbled our way into the main lobby, with me walking awkwardly in an attempt to keep my suitcase between us and the reception desk. Of course, that task proved much more difficult than first believed. Upon entering the hotel we were expected to remove our shoes, and then stow them in lockers about ten feet away. We weren't made aware of this until we had already stumbled about halfway to the reception desk. We were then forced to stumble backward to the elevator. Take off our shoes there, and then make another awkward march to the lockers, all the while I had to keep my 25 pound bag pinned firmly to my right leg. With that feat accomplished we finally made our way to the reception desk.

As we began the check-in process all around us men walked around in towels (and some without them.) The place held the heavy humidity of a spa or sauna, and the heavy decorum of a 1950's rent-by-the-hour motel. Finally, the woman behind the desk, (the only woman in the place,) spoke rapidly in Japanese to another man who came over and apologized several times before telling us that we couldn't stay there. "You're friend has tattoo," he said to Doug. "I am so sorry. This is Japan custom." 

After some argument amongst ourselves, where Doug refused to stay in the hotel without me, we both made our way back toward the elevator, but first we had to stop to get our shoes. I fumbled with the key in the locker and walked my shoes back toward the elevator and put them back on only to realize I still had the locker key in my hand. I then walked back toward the lockers, only to be yelled out that I still had my shoes on. So I walked back to the elevator, took my shoes off, walked back to the lockers, returned the key to the appropriate spot, walked back to the elevator, and then put my shoes on again. All the while, I still kept the suitcase pressed against my leg, as if I was suddenly ashamed of my tattoo, but Japan has that effect on people.

It has this way of making you feel like you are doing something wrong. Everyone in the city of Tokyo, dresses in formal greys, blacks, and whites. Even the cars came in only two colors, black and white. My companion and I were the only two people in bright colored shirts, as if to further mark us as "foreign." I've been in countries where I have been the only white person, the only English speaker, and even the only one taller than six feet, but I have never felt as out of place as I did sometimes in Japan. It was like everything I did sent up a flare declaring how worthy I was of a disapproving head shake from the locals. As an American Nerd I like to wear my differences proudly, but this felt different somehow, and for the rest of the trip I found myself contemplating long pants. We did discover later that tattoos in Japan usually mark people as members of the Yukuza, the Japanese Mafia, and that is one of the reasons why they were so restricted, which brings me to my next point.

I am not Yukuza, and I am pretty sure that guy at the reception desk knew that. He couldn't make an exception, even though it was a pretty safe bet that the six foot, two inch white guy with the Captain America tattoo was not part of the local crime gang, because in Japan rules are made to be followed. People wait at the cross walks until the lights tell them they can walk. They obey every rule, every custom, and don't risk doing anything that let's them stick out. I often compare Tokyo to New York, but I would not compare New Yorkers to Tokyoians.

Truly this is a land of plenty.

However, no generalization is completely true. Japan has their outcasts, their otaku, who wear crazy colors, get piercings and tattoos, and sometimes dress as outlandishly as they can. In fact one of my favorite nights was our visit to Akihabara, or Electric Town. It is the section of Tokyo set aside for geeks like us. There is a five-story video arcade on every corner, and the place is bursting with manga, anime, and video games. This was the one section of the city where everyone seemed to be dressed in colors, and where conformity mattered less than having fun. We even went to a multi-story store dedicated entirely to Nintendo, where each floor was reserved for a different generation of the console. (NES on the bottom, and Wii/GameCube at the top.) Akihabara was like Las Vegas for nerds. It even had women in stereotypical anime costumes handing out business promotions to men as they passed by. (Doug and I argued over what type of businesses they were selling, and the only English on the flyer I grabbed read "Forest of Dreams," which didn't help to settle what sort of establishment they were working for, but is par for the course in Japan.)

Even though I did not come across one used-panty vending machine (And there were a lot of vending machines,) there is an under current of fetishism to the outwardly respectful culture. In fact, the capsule hotel was a men-only establishment, because there seems to be a fear that drunk businessmen cannot handle being around women, so it is better to segregate them. I will admit that I did get a creepy uncle vibe while we stood there pleading our case as to why we should not be thrown out. Even our hostel had a strict curfew of midnight, and two separate wings, one set aside for men and the other for women. However, it's not like Japan is the only country with its perversions. The US has plenty of our own, and in some ways, we objectify women just as much as they do. (I'm looking at you Hooters.)

Located conveniently right next to the Voltron Bed & Breakfast

I also don't want to end this post by giving anyone a bad impression. I had an amazing time in Tokyo. We walked all over the city. We saw beautiful gardens and shrines. We walked through the Imperial Palace, we visited the craziness of the Tsukiji Fish Market. We visited a war museum and saw hand-crafted Samurai armor and swords, and even read fascinating personal accounts from kamikaze pilots. We ate breakfast watching one of the busiest crosswalks in the world, and we had some of the best seafood and freshest sushi that I have ever eaten in my life. And through it all, whenever we were lost, the people were never too busy to help point us in the right direction or to stop and see if we needed help. Because that is also part of the nature of the Japanese people. They are genuinely good, honest, respectful, and helpful people. I think we forget that sometimes. 

In the West we often like to paint Japan as weird, but the majority are not. They are just people, like you and me, who work, raise their families, struggle to find their place in our crazy world, and just want to be happy. When we hear the strange news and crazy things people do in Japan, most of those people are fringe elements to an otherwise respectful and amazing culture. That would be like if America was judged by the Tea Party, or by our reality shows, or by any of the other ten-thousand crazy things our people do, (and maybe we sometimes are.) What I am really trying to say is that it is hard to boil one place down to a single sentence that will aptly answer the question "So how was Japan?" It was amazing, dull, weird, boring, perfect, flawed, historic, modern, confusing, understandable, sexist, respectful, monochromatic, colorful, and so much much more. It is definitely a place I will be returning to, and a place I recommend to anyone. There is much to see and even more left to experience.

Colombia (The One with an "O")

I find myself sitting here on the plane as the world falls away below me. I watch as we rise through the cloud cover to sore above the mountains and valleys of white cotton, as if entering a dream world, or is this the real world and the place I left far below me, the dream? Sometimes it feels like that, even now as I reflect back, my past few whirlwind days feel surreal, my days in Colombia.

Colombia is a like painting full of beautiful vistas.

I have always had a small penchant for travel as anyone who has read my other blog might attest, but there was something different about the days I spent in my first South American country. I was invited there for a wedding, between my friends Tony and Lina, the Aussie and Colombian who took me in while I floundered to find my feet in Australia. It had been a few years since I had seen them and the wedding seemed like a great excuse to do so again and visit an area of the world I had yet to tread. My arrival was smooth as I took a morning flight out of LaGuardia and made a connection through Fort Lauderdale and finally onto Bogota, Colombia. Tony met me at the airport with Lina’s mom, Carmen, a wonderful woman who even though we did not speak the same language was still able to convey her natural warmth and caring nature. That night it was dinner at her house, where I was reunited with Tony’ parents and met Lina’s bothers, sister, and grandmother, (all wonderful people.) I also met two other wayward travelers such as myself, friends of Lina’s, and fellow North Americans, a Canadian and a Mexican national. Dinner was soup, which was particularly good. It was a mix of potato and chicken soup, and just the thing I needed after a long flight.

My adventure truly began the next day as I volunteered to drive one of the three cars that would transport us about four hours north to Villa de Leyva, the small historic and picturesque village where the wedding would take place. I learned many things in those long four hours of driving. First off, I will never complain about New York traffic again. I also learned that Colombian traffic laws are really more or less suggestions to be followed or ignored as one saw fit. Thankfully, I was following Lina’s mother who was an excellent driver, so we stayed pretty safe as I transported myself and my fellow North Americans through the jam packed streets of Bogota and the winding mountainous roads of Colombia. We made it with little incident, other than the rain, (but it seems to rain frequently in Colombia.)

Also, my hotel had a painting of Mary Jane's *ahem* full vistas.

The views, however, were beyond compare. The entire country seemed like it was composed of mountains and valleys that seem more like paintings than actual physical vistas. Even the rain clouds often broke apart to send shafts of light to glitter among the beautiful terrain. The stunning sights did not end at the village either. Villa de Leyva is a town that seems unchanged from its founding in the 1800’s. Cobble stone roads, small shops, simple lives, and a Spanish-inspired town square crowned with an amazing church were all situated on the low slope of a mountain, giving the town's residents and visitors spectacular views of the countryside. The peaceful beauty of the place hit me as we sat for dinner to eat my slice of pizza (It wasn’t a New York slice, but what really is?) Yet, pizza was not the highlight of the my food experience in Colombia.

In fact even now, I am still so full that it is hard to think of ever eating again. Food in Colombia seems to consist mostly of mounds of meat and potatoes, (two personal favorites.) There were sausages, lamb ribs, beef, chicken, and even more than I have a name for. My favorite food was the arepa. Each place makes it a little different, but essentially it is like a piece of cornbread stuffed with cheese. I practically swallowed them whole whenever they were served, and they were served quite often. There was an almost constant stream of food, especially at the wedding. Seven different small courses ranging from empanadas to vegetables and fruits (most of which I had never heard of before,) and of course meat. Juice drinks in Colombia are basically fruit smoothies with milk or water. I consumed them liberally.

However, what would an adventure be without a little harrowing danger and I found plenty of that as well. On the day of the wedding the girls went to get their hair done, (at a steal of roughly 15 US dollars apiece.) Lina’s family and Tony’s family were the first to arrive and loaded up in their cars to make the five-minute journey back to the highway to go to the wedding location, a beautiful ranch situated in a green idealc valley. My two passengers were the last to arrive. I was already dressed and we loaded up our car before heading out to follow the others. The wedding was located down a dirt path, marked with nothing but a small wooden sign, easy to miss, and we did. So I had to turn us around. An upcoming driveway gave me the perfect opportunity. I made a brief check to see if anyone was coming ahead of me and I signaled to make the left before doing so.

The next sound I heard was a scream and then the screeching of tires. A car had come up behind us and as I signaled to turn, the driver thought it a good time to try and pass me on the left, the same direction I was turning. We collided. Thankfully, everyone was okay, but I had a new problem. Two damaged cars and no way to communicate with the other driver. My new Mexican friend was able to explain to the other man what happened. He wanted to call the police, but the obvious problem was that I was not driving a car registered under my name. So my two passengers took off at a run toward the wedding (which was over 2 kilometers away) to bring help, leaving me alone with a portly Colombian who kept looking at me as one would look at a fish in a fishbowl, an oddity. In that moment I wished more than anything that I had studied my DuoLingo program harder. My Spanish and frantic hand gesturing were hardly up to the task. To make matters worse in the confusion and stress of the situation I went to sit down and split the back of my only suit pants, almost from belt to crotch.

Tragic results of my inability to drive in South America.

Next the police arrived and I was faced with another man who I could only barely communicate with, except this one was in a uniform and wearing a visible weapon. However, I cannot speak to ill of him, for he saw how stressed I was and did his best to help clam me down. We spent the next fifteen agonizing minutes trying to communicate. I gave me him my US license and the insurance information for the car I found in the glove compartment. Of course he picked out almost immediately how my name did not match the name of the owner of the car. I did my best to try and explain that I had not stolen it, but I could not shake the image of me locked away in a foreign country. (My only hope was that they served arepas in Colombian prison.) Finally, a small black car crested the hill and pulled up alongside me. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. My two passengers exited along with two of Lina’s uncles, one of which, Daniel, was a lawyer. They quickly straightened out the one-sided story that the other man had told the police officer. He claimed that I never signaled, but with myself and my two passengers emphatically saying that I did he seemed out of luck. It was also noted that there was a very prominent and clear “no passing” sign posted not ten feet from where we crashed. So after an exchanging of words, (and an exchanging of a couple hundred thousand pesos,) the man went on his way, and I got in the car with Uncle Daniel. The mess seemed sorted out.

However, my dear reader, if you know me, you know my own personal guilt was not so easy to assuage. I offered probably two dozen times to pay for the damage and the bribe that so neatly fixed the situation. Uncle Daniel and everyone else refused, simply saying that Colombian Insurance was the best and it was for reasons like this that it existed. Apparently such minor accidents are fairly common place, but I still felt responsible. However, there was one small bright spot, the wedding had been delayed, not for our sakes but due to other matters. So we made it on time, which was good because it turned out we also had the flowers and the main candle for the ceremony in the car.

Releasing balloons after the ceremony.

The ceremony was beautiful with Tony and Lina uniting together in words and through a ceremony of light which involved the aforementioned candle. We even released balloons, and as I watched the pink, red, and white symbols float away I think I finally started to relax. The story of my adventure spread quickly through the wedding with most people coming over to laugh with me about it, and tell me how it was “no real problem.” Uncle Daniel was especially kind and as the formal wedding wound down the night turned into one of drinking and dancing. Daniel, was especially keen to share a bottle of whiskey with me, making sure my glass never stayed empty for long. He did not speak a word of English and my Spanish was only passable at best, yet through the haze of alcohol and mistranslation we managed to have quite an in-depth and lively conversation. I enjoyed his company, and we talked about the differences between Colombia and America, how beautiful his country was, and even our occupations. We were the last ones to go sleep, and as he stumbled toward his bunkhouse, I tried to do the same. Unfortunately, I got a little lost in the darkness, and my suitcase was still in the damaged car, which I no longer had keys to open. Also, I had never seen the cabin I was staying in before, so instead of risking barging in on someone else, I just found the common couch and laid down. That was where Lina found me in the morning, sleeping by the fireplace, still dressed in my full suit, ripped pants and all.

All and all it was an eventful day, but not as so eventful as the next. Colombia is a place where once in never enough. You can’t have just one drink of whiskey with Uncle Daniel, one piece of meat from the platter, and one death-defying event in a car. After sobering up the next morning with a spicy soup meant to cure hangovers we returned to Villa de Leyva for some shopping and sightseeing. From there it was onto another small village several kilometers away for lunch and more shopping. On our return trip home to Bogota, we found ourselves caught in massive traffic jam, mostly due to the conditions of the road, the presence of slow-moving trucks, and more than a few accidents. (It seemed like such things really were an everyday occurrence.)

The only tricky thing was the money. That equals about 10 US Dollars.
Why don't they just drop three zeroes off all their currency?

However, the hour was getting late and the day was growing dark. I was not at control of the car. After my experience I had relinquished that responsibility to a more seasoned driver, a young man who was boyfriends with one of Lina’s cousins. He seemed a nice enough person, even if I couldn’t understand most of what he was saying. The three hour journey back to Bogota took nearly five hours, with even the road signs seemingly confused as to the actual distance of the journey. (100k to Bogota... 70k to Bogota... 76k to Bogota… "Wait, why did it go back up?") It was on this latter stretch that our driver got it into his head to pass a large tanker truck over double lines on a curve. He had been passing people on the left quite frequently, but so was everyone else. I was anxious, but who was I to talk? I had already proved my inability to drive in Colombia. On this particular pass, our driver misjudged the distance to the oncoming headlights in the opposite lane. Miraculously we managed to edge out the truck and beat the oncoming car, but it was only just barely. It's hard to communicate how scary this moment was. My own accident was merely a fender bender, this near-miss had the potential to be so much more, and I am very thankful that I am still here to write these words. Afterwards, we were all very silent, and I personally felt more relieved than angry. After that our driver didn’t pass anyone again, and my Mexican friend made him keenly aware how close we came to a very fatal car accident. He was visibly repentant.

Ironically, as scared as I was, I was also somewhat placated. My thoughts in the moment followed this order: (1) We’re going to hit. (2) I am going to die. (3) At least this one isn’t my fault. In that instant of near-death I found a new understanding, and it was the same as what everyone had been telling me, "These things happen all the time." I realized that my crash was not so much a crash of cars, but a crash of cultures. My accident was a result of driving like an American in Colombia. However, that was nothing to be ashamed of. To the people of Colombia car accidents are just part of life, and in comparison to our near-miss my own worries seemed more laughable than anything. Maybe it just helped me realize that life is full of problems, challenges, and the occasional speed bump, but that's natural. My own accident was just another occurrence on a long road. Much like the people of Colombia, I needed to learn to take certain things in stride and just do my best whatever the circumstances. After all there are more important hings in life than materiel possessions, and I think that is what I really took away from this most recent trip. 

As much as I spent a portion of my trip feeling guilty or even somewhat terrified, I cannot find many bad things to say about Colombia. Yes, the drivers are crazy and the roads are basically a game of bumper cars, but my true experience in this South American country is best summed up by that peaceful night I spent eating foreign pizza in a Spanish plaza under the stars. As I listened to the sound of a local guitarist strum out native and international songs I realized how far away from home I was and yet how familiar the people seemed. They were not speaking my language, but they were still just fellow humans going about their lives and loves, and even listening to the occasional acoustic Beatles' song. Their life was not simpler than mine or even less stressful, but they found the joy in the good parts and did their best to let the rest go. Colombia for me is not so much about the beauty of the landscape or even the amazing food, but about those people, like Nina’s mother, Carmen, or her uncle Daniel, or even the police officer that calmed me down after my accident. It is a land filled with kindhearted and caring people, who I am glad I got a chance to meet, and whom I won't soon forget.