Travel for me is an adventure. There is nothing better than filling a bag with clothes for a few days, hopping on a train and then darting off into the great unknown and basically, this was the travel method of choice for me the last few times I've been to Europe. Sure, I mean it provided some great adventures and I met some great people, but as I've gotten older, I've begun to realize that this might not be the best way to do my hopping about, given the risk of kidnapping, anti-Americanism, and the occasional rabid European girl. So, I've decided to plan.
Now, this thing called "planning" is a new thing for me and as with all new things, there is a certain amount of trial and error involved in it. Sunday night, I began planning a trip to Scotland and Prague in August. Seeing as that most of my time, and by "most" I mean "all", has been spent on Continental Europe, I have been able to use the wonderful, marvelous train system to get basically anywhere I wanted to go. However, Scotland presents a new problem. Air travel. I don't particularly like flying 100 miles or less, but when there aren't any roads or inexpensive trains to get to a particular area, the highways of the sky are my only option. Thus, I started to search for tickets. Of course I immediately went to my old favorite EasyJet only to find that they do not service Scotland from Paris. So, plan B....Ryan Air! Now, don't get me wrong. Ryan Air is incredibly cheap, usually on time, and if you are a student...a perfect fit. I've used them before and have always been pleased. However, the trick is getting to the obscure airport they use to serve Paris.
In order to get to Beauvais, you have to take a 2 hour bus ride to the north of Paris to a small airport. When I say small, I mean small. It is basically 10 check-in counters and a large holding room where people wait to walk out to there plane. Yes...walk out to the plane, rain or snow, sleet or hail, Germans or not. You walk. Personally, I love it! It gives me a chance to sit and listen to who is complaining the most so I don't have to sit next to them on the plane. Knowing all of this, I bought a ticket to Edinburgh from Paris which leaves at 10am and arrives around 11h30. Awesome. Except now I have to find a place to stay. Still haven't accomplished that. I'm thinking couchsurfers or a hostel. I'll make up my mind soon....maybe.
So, Now what to do once I get there. Fitting in should not be a problem given that my name is Graham Renfro...basically you couldn't get more Scottish if you showed up with a bowl of Haggis and a kilt. Both of which I intend to invest in while in Edinburgh. Following Edinburgh, the plan for right now is to hit up the Isle of Skye for a few days of hiking, then down to Renfrewshire to figure out where the heck my namesake comes from. Yes...it's called Renfrewshire. All hobbit jokes aside, according to Wikipedia (now all wikipedia jokes aside) its a town of about 20,000 people that is right outside of Glasgow. Hmm...a small town outside of a larger city...doesn't sound much different from my current situation.
Following Scotland, the plan is to meet up with my friend in Prague and then head back to Paris. Prague should be cool. The only thing I know about it is that they have moving saunas in buses and the Charles Bridge. Though I'm sure I can find SOMETHING else that would be interesting. Perhaps a not-so-rabid European girl.....perhaps. :)
Thanks for reading,
-Graham
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Love it...
In my life, I have been blessed with the opportunity to do lots of things. I've had a lot of crazy, interesting, dangerous, and cool experiences and I don't think I would get rid of a single one. But after all of these, the opportunities I've had to lead kids have, most definitely, been the best. Last weekend was one of those chances.
At 4h30 on Friday I loaded up a bus full of youth from my church and drove them to Asheville. The following morning, 12 kids and 3 adults from all over western NC made 2000 meals in 2.5 hours that will go to feed kids on free and reduced lunch during the weekends. The kids that receive free and reduced lunch in our schools are on this program because they cannot afford lunch money. The more insidious problem is that if they cannot afford food at school during the week, then they will not be able to afford food during the weekend. Therefore, Manna Food Bank in Asheville creates these meals for kids to take home on the weekend so that they do not go from Friday to Monday without eating.
In order to make 2000 meals in 2.5 hours, you would need to prepare 13.3 meals A MINUTE! Which means 1 meal every 4.5 seconds. That means that we were feeding a child that otherwise would have gone hungry every 4.5 seconds!
Although we were doing an incredible thing by providing aid to kids and families throughout Appalachia, I think the impact of our activity was felt among our group just as much as it would eventually be felt by the people receiving the meals. As we worked, these kids were sweating furiously trying to move box after box of meals onto huge pallets. They were organizing themselves without saying a word, in order that the assembly lines could move faster and faster and produce more and more. They were laughing and singing MGMT, and doing all of this for people that they most likely, will never meet.
These kids blew my mind. I wish I could have as much, for lack of a better word, lust for helping others as these kids have. The energy these kids emmitted while trying to get these meals done was viral. It made you want to move faster and it made you want to do more. One of the other adults on the trip noted that when it came time for us to stop working, he was almost shocked because it hadn't felt like we were working at all. It was almost as if time had no bearing because the only thing anyone cared about was packing as many meals as possible for these kids. It was incredible and is definitely an experience I will not soon forget.
Thanks for reading,
- Graham
At 4h30 on Friday I loaded up a bus full of youth from my church and drove them to Asheville. The following morning, 12 kids and 3 adults from all over western NC made 2000 meals in 2.5 hours that will go to feed kids on free and reduced lunch during the weekends. The kids that receive free and reduced lunch in our schools are on this program because they cannot afford lunch money. The more insidious problem is that if they cannot afford food at school during the week, then they will not be able to afford food during the weekend. Therefore, Manna Food Bank in Asheville creates these meals for kids to take home on the weekend so that they do not go from Friday to Monday without eating.
In order to make 2000 meals in 2.5 hours, you would need to prepare 13.3 meals A MINUTE! Which means 1 meal every 4.5 seconds. That means that we were feeding a child that otherwise would have gone hungry every 4.5 seconds!
Although we were doing an incredible thing by providing aid to kids and families throughout Appalachia, I think the impact of our activity was felt among our group just as much as it would eventually be felt by the people receiving the meals. As we worked, these kids were sweating furiously trying to move box after box of meals onto huge pallets. They were organizing themselves without saying a word, in order that the assembly lines could move faster and faster and produce more and more. They were laughing and singing MGMT, and doing all of this for people that they most likely, will never meet.
These kids blew my mind. I wish I could have as much, for lack of a better word, lust for helping others as these kids have. The energy these kids emmitted while trying to get these meals done was viral. It made you want to move faster and it made you want to do more. One of the other adults on the trip noted that when it came time for us to stop working, he was almost shocked because it hadn't felt like we were working at all. It was almost as if time had no bearing because the only thing anyone cared about was packing as many meals as possible for these kids. It was incredible and is definitely an experience I will not soon forget.
Thanks for reading,
- Graham
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Allergies and such...
There are some things that I think need explanation before people do them. The affects of using dynamite, rat poison, and the ever so rare gasoline fight all have a certain inherent element of danger that, to the average person, would merit a certain amount of explanation. Until last night, I did not consider the eating of a walnut to be anything meriting a casual off-handed remark, much less 3 hours of research on how you could potentially die from them. However, after having an allergic reaction in front of a large group of friends, I felt that I needed a little background.
In order to understand my current predicament, I feel that there must be some explanation as to how I first came in contact with this vicious fruit. On Wednesday nights, I trapes over to the International House of Charlotte for the French Conversation Hour. Usually the hour involves lots of jokes and carrousing typical of francophones with the occasional sexual joke covered up by the wonderful use of double entendre and horrible accents. Personally, I think that these situations more than make up for the pain of learning a second language and I would urge everyone who reads this to do just that....but I digress. The best part of the hour is that every week, someone from the group bakes a cake/cookies and brings it to the bar where we eat after the meeting. This week, the cake was dressed with Walnuts. Now, if you have never seen a walnut, it looks like a white and bumpy pecan or maybe a small hard piece of popcorn. Apparently God did not see it fit to include devil horns and a tail which, I feel, would be truth in advertising....however, again, I digress. Upon seeing this delicious cake, I immediately felt the need to express my pleasure with having it so close and thusly took one of the walnuts and ate it. It was delicious....for about a minute. After which point my stomach felt that my mouth needed to have a second visit from the walnut and my throat decided that breathing was too much of an inconvenience for it at that particular point in time. Immediately, I left the table and talked to the waitress, who was graciously offered me a benadryl and then promptly informed me that she had none.....typical. Having exhausted this option, I walked briskly across the street to the pharmacy and bought my own benadryl and immediately downed the recommended dose (this is the part where I say don't do drugs). After a few minutes my throat relaxed and I was able to sit down calmly and take the usual amount of shenanigans inflicted upon those of us counted fortunate enough to sit next to the very boisterous and flamboyant Manu. All in all, it was a quality night.
Of course now my interest in this offensive little fruit is at its peak. So, I started researching and it seems that the history of the walnut is quite interesting. Apparently, the earliest known walnuts have been found in Persia or what is now modern day Iran and Iraq. Early references to the walnut have been found in boastings about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which allegedly had "groves of walnut trees". Further, the walnut became highly prized in both the Greek and Roman societies and in fact, Walnuts were among the foods found preserved in the City of Pompeii after the eruption of Vesuvius. Further, during the Middle Ages, the walnut was so highly prized that the Church accepted tithes using walnuts. In the current era, Walnuts are found all over the world and in the US, California is responsible for practically all Walnut production.
Thus, in synopsis, the Walnut comes from a section of the world known for its ruthless empire building (see 300), is responsible for the destruction of Pompeii and Hurculaneum and the down fall of the Californian economy, AND tried to kill me. In fact, I would venture to say that the majority of the worlds problems can be somehow tied to the existance of the walnut.
The civil war? - Plantations grew walnuts.
The First World War? - Walnuts were first mass produced in England around 1910.
The stock market crash? - Europe had a shortage of walnuts after the first world war.
The Second World War? - See previous answer.
The presidency of George W. Bush? What do you think "W" stood for!!!!????!!!!
All of the ills of human history can be traced back to this offensive fruit. But of course, I am in no way biased. In fact, I should probably be thankful. The walnut DID inform me through a mild reaction that I am, in fact, allergic to them and that I should avoid them from here on out. I think that I will definitely take the advice.
Thanks for reading.
-Graham
In order to understand my current predicament, I feel that there must be some explanation as to how I first came in contact with this vicious fruit. On Wednesday nights, I trapes over to the International House of Charlotte for the French Conversation Hour. Usually the hour involves lots of jokes and carrousing typical of francophones with the occasional sexual joke covered up by the wonderful use of double entendre and horrible accents. Personally, I think that these situations more than make up for the pain of learning a second language and I would urge everyone who reads this to do just that....but I digress. The best part of the hour is that every week, someone from the group bakes a cake/cookies and brings it to the bar where we eat after the meeting. This week, the cake was dressed with Walnuts. Now, if you have never seen a walnut, it looks like a white and bumpy pecan or maybe a small hard piece of popcorn. Apparently God did not see it fit to include devil horns and a tail which, I feel, would be truth in advertising....however, again, I digress. Upon seeing this delicious cake, I immediately felt the need to express my pleasure with having it so close and thusly took one of the walnuts and ate it. It was delicious....for about a minute. After which point my stomach felt that my mouth needed to have a second visit from the walnut and my throat decided that breathing was too much of an inconvenience for it at that particular point in time. Immediately, I left the table and talked to the waitress, who was graciously offered me a benadryl and then promptly informed me that she had none.....typical. Having exhausted this option, I walked briskly across the street to the pharmacy and bought my own benadryl and immediately downed the recommended dose (this is the part where I say don't do drugs). After a few minutes my throat relaxed and I was able to sit down calmly and take the usual amount of shenanigans inflicted upon those of us counted fortunate enough to sit next to the very boisterous and flamboyant Manu. All in all, it was a quality night.
Of course now my interest in this offensive little fruit is at its peak. So, I started researching and it seems that the history of the walnut is quite interesting. Apparently, the earliest known walnuts have been found in Persia or what is now modern day Iran and Iraq. Early references to the walnut have been found in boastings about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which allegedly had "groves of walnut trees". Further, the walnut became highly prized in both the Greek and Roman societies and in fact, Walnuts were among the foods found preserved in the City of Pompeii after the eruption of Vesuvius. Further, during the Middle Ages, the walnut was so highly prized that the Church accepted tithes using walnuts. In the current era, Walnuts are found all over the world and in the US, California is responsible for practically all Walnut production.
Thus, in synopsis, the Walnut comes from a section of the world known for its ruthless empire building (see 300), is responsible for the destruction of Pompeii and Hurculaneum and the down fall of the Californian economy, AND tried to kill me. In fact, I would venture to say that the majority of the worlds problems can be somehow tied to the existance of the walnut.
The civil war? - Plantations grew walnuts.
The First World War? - Walnuts were first mass produced in England around 1910.
The stock market crash? - Europe had a shortage of walnuts after the first world war.
The Second World War? - See previous answer.
The presidency of George W. Bush? What do you think "W" stood for!!!!????!!!!
All of the ills of human history can be traced back to this offensive fruit. But of course, I am in no way biased. In fact, I should probably be thankful. The walnut DID inform me through a mild reaction that I am, in fact, allergic to them and that I should avoid them from here on out. I think that I will definitely take the advice.
Thanks for reading.
-Graham
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