What about me?  Well, I’ve been dealing with my own version of travel/home-related angst.

A little over a month ago, it looked like Marc was going to get a job out in rural Winchester, VA (near the West Virginia border).  Without going into too much detail, it would have resulted in us being able to afford to rent a house with money to spare, made it easier for me to make the jump to being a full time photographer, and would have improved our quality of life in general.  I like where we live in Alexandria, across the river from Washington DC, but it just isn’t…me.  Marc and I have talked before about eventually moving somewhere cheaper, more rural, less steeped in stupid city bureaucracy, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  I got really revved up over the idea of finally getting to make some of the changes in my life that I had been waiting for.

Well, there have been complications with that job and it’s looking less and less likely that he will be able to take it.  He’s pursuing two strong leads for other jobs in his field, one with a government agency and one with another contractor like the one he already works with, as he is getting really fed up with the antics at his current employer.  It’s great that he has so many opportunities, but I am finding it hard to be happy for him, because all of his current prospects necessitate us staying exactly where we are, keeping the status quo.

There are two things pulling at me these days: fear and yearning.

I say fear because I am really worried that Marc is falling into the trap of just going with the flow and that our existence five years from now will look largely the same to what it does now.  I don’t want that.  Right now we’re kind of floating down the river of life but aren’t particularly engaged, and I really hate that.  I certainly don’t want more of it.

I say yearning because I feel like I am yearning for a life that I can’t even really define.  I’m yearning for something of an abstract melange of life traits that is more like a movie montage than anything else.  The difficulty here is that while I felt I was on my way toward that life, now that we’re not moving, I feel lost.

So, I’m reevaluating.  I’m taking stock of my life and what I do and don’t like about it.  The next step is to figure out what I can do to get rid of the bad and increase the good.

I’ve had a few thoughts about what I could do, but they’re all pretty clearly based in a desire to have a life that is “not this one” without really having a plan on how to turn them into the life I want.  I’ve thought about going back to Korea for a year, or over to China or Vietnam or even Argentina.  I’ve thought about saving up the money to buy an old towable trailer to refurbish and live in while driving around the country, doing photography projects.  I’ve thought about going back home to live with my parents and work and save up money for who knows what.  The issue with all of these plans is that while they’re all tempting, not of one them really get me closer to what I want my life to look like (except, possibly, the trailer plan).  The only thing they have in common is that they’re not the life I’m currently leading.

The additional complication is that I don’t know where Marc fits into all of this.  I have a bad habit of postponing or even shelving my own plans and desires in favor of those of my romantic partner.  It’s a really bad habit and I worry that I’m doing the same thing once again.  How do you reconcile your own plans and desires with those of your partner when they’re rather radically different?  It’s just not something I really ever learned as a child because my parents were always on the same page, on the same path.  So, I don’t know how most people do it.  On one hand, I don’t think that I should have to shelve my own wants and needs, but on the other, I don’t want to be a jerk who says “my way or the highway”.  Frankly, I’m stumped.

This is one of those side effects of living a less than ordinary life that nobody ever talks about, I suspect.

Any advice would be heartily welcomed.

Today’s Travel Tuesday photo comes to you from my time spent living in South Korea.  This is a shot of the roof over the gate to a temple in my small neighborhood.  The temple was only a few buildings away from my apartment, and I could hear people singing and chanting there all the time.  I took this shot on my first full day in the country, while I was exploring my surroundings.

The best place to taste a food is where it originated, and as a foodie who travels, eating is one of my favourite parts of any trip.  Here are five foods I want to try in their country of origin.  I’ve had all these foods before, but I love them all enough that I’d love to some day get to experience them where they’re best.

Bun – Vietnam

Vietnamese food is one of my favourite cuisines.  I always feel healthy when I eat Vietnamese food, and I love its emphasis on fresh ingredients.  Though Pho seems to be the most popular Vietnamese food in America, I tend to stick to the rice noodle “buns”.  In fact,  just writing about them is making me want to get one from the place down the street!  The food is one of the main reasons I want to visit Vietnam, and I’d love to get a chance to have it where it’s cheap and good!

Sushi – Japan

I was introduced to sushi when I was young and my taste for it has never left me.  Like Vietnamese food, Japanese food always tastes so light and healthy to me – I can eat a ton and not feel like I’ve just eaten a brick.  I was hoping to find good but cheap sushi when I lived in Korea, but I had a hard time finding sushi of any kind, which was heartily disappointing.  Some day I hope to be able to sample the good stuff in its native land.

Steak – Argentina

I’m not a huge fan of beef.  In fact, for the first 20 or so years of my life, I didn’t eat it at all, and even now I eat it very sparingly.  As a result, I’m extremely selective about the beef I eat.  I’ve come to really appreciate a well-made steak that came from a well-raised cow.  I have heard phenomenal things about the cows in Argentina and the beef that comes from them, so I’d love to give it a try.

Ceviche – Spain

This is one of the foods that I actually haven’t eaten much of, unlike the others in this list.  I have only had ceviche once, and I was pretty young, but it made an impression on me.  I’m a huge seafood fan, and I love it when it’s served raw or close to raw, as in ceviche and sushi.  This dish seems right up my proverbial alley and I really would love to try it in Spain, as well as getting to know Spanish food a bit better in general.

Fish & Chips – United Kingdom

This one may seem a bit out of place, given the semi-gourmet nature of some of the other listings here, but it goes along with my (by now obvious) love of seafood and cheap eateries.  Having grown up in the south, I love fried food of all kinds and there’s just something inherently British about a fish & chip shop that you just don’t get here in the USA.  I haven’t been to the UK in about 15 years, and the next time I go, I’ll definitely be stopping by for some chips and a pint.

What foods would you love to eat in their native land?

[Photos by Robyn Lee, Renee S, and Or Hitch]

Today’s Travel Tuesday photo comes to you from the tiny village of Les Balayes in Auvergne, France.  I took this shot while I was there this summer while visiting Marc’s family and was stunned by the beauty of the region and have been surprised to find that it is rarely visited by tourists.  So, if you’re visiting France and want to get off the beaten path, I can heartily recommend Auvergne!

See that crowd?  Take a good, long, hard look at it.  That, my friends, is Paris in the second week of August.  The most-touristed week in the most-touristed city on earth.

Short of a fully comped press trip, I would never, ever again visit France in August, and I would advise you against it as well.  Here is the reality of France, especially Paris, in August:

High prices.  Merchants and hostelers crank up their prices because they know they can.  It’s a great example of supply and demand and you, as the demand, are not on the winning side of that equation.  Say hello to $70 hostel beds and $4 bottles of water.

Yes folks, that's actually a line.

Crowds.  Everywhere.  I’m convinced that Paris in August is some giant study in the maximum occupancy of the city.  The street pictured above is not typically meant to be a pedestrian-only street but the sheer number of people packed into one place turned it into one.  The line to get into Notre Dame rivaled the lines I saw outside Apple stores when the iPhone 4 came out.  Restaurants are crowded and noisy, souvenir touts are at their most aggressive, and staff everywhere are so tired of the foreign invaders that you’re pretty much guaranteed to get poor service.

It’s hot as a Finnish sauna.  France really only has a few weeks of what I would truly consider “hot” weather, and they are all in early- to mid-August.  Combine the hot, steamy temps with a general lack of air conditioning and you will discover what it feels like to feel permanently sweaty and gross in a city of high fashion.

So, take my advice: keep your trips to the land of frog legs and brie to months not named “August”.

One of the side perks of being a historical reenactor is that it means I actually get to spend quite a good portion of my weekends out of town.  Though Marc and I have driven as much as 14 hours each way to an event before, most events we attend these days are within 3-4 hours of where we live, if not closer.  However, it’s still good to get out of the house, and you can’t get much further away from daily life than to step into the shoes of someone in another era in history!

While I don’t spend a lot of time on longer trips like many travel bloggers do, thanks to my involvement in the historical reenacting hobby I do still end up spending a sizable amount of my time on the road.  In 2012 I’ll be spending more than 40 days traveling just for reenactments.  To show you all more concretely just how much time I spend on this every year, I’ve decided to show you what my schedule is for this year.  I already posted it over on my reenacting blog, Historically Speaking, but I feel it also belongs here as well.

Events are listed like so:

Date – Location – Era – Event Name – Unit Attending With

January 28-29 – Fort Indiantown Gap, PA – WWII – Battle of the Bulge - None (Press)

February 24-26 – Newville, PA – WWII – Winter Line – Kampfegruppe Martz

March 17-18 – Jamestown, VA – Timeline (WWI) – Military Through the Ages – None (Press) (w/ East Siberian Rifles)

March 23-25 – King & Queen County, VA – Revolutionary War – School of the Soldier – Queen’s Own Loyal Virginia Regiment

April 14-15 – Lexington, MA – Revolutionary War – Battle Road – None (Press)

April 20-22 - Newville, PA – WWI – Neuville Tactical - None (Press)

April 21-22 – Glenn Dale, MD – Timeline (Algerian War) – Marching Through Time – 1er Regiment Etrangere Parachutiste

April ?-? – Big Pool, MD – Revolutionary War – Fort Frederick Market Days – Queen’s Own Loyal Virginia Regiment

May 18-20 – Virginia Beach, VA – WWII – Virginia Beach Air Show – Tretiy Vzvod

May 19-20 – Carlisle, PA – Timeline (WWII) – Army Heritage Days – Kampfegruppe Martz

May ?-? – Dundalk, MD – Roman Era – Roman Days – None (Press) (w/ Legio XX)

June ?-? – Louisa, VA – Vietnam War – Vietnam Tactical – Civilian Press Corps

June ?-? – Reston, VA – WWII – Sully Plantation – None (Press)

July 21-22 – Ticonderoga, NY – Revolutionary War – Defiance & Independence - None (Press)

August ?-? - Louisa, VA – Vietnam War – Vietnam Tactical – Civilian Press Corps

August ?-? – Nokesville, VA – Timeline (Algerian War) – Tank Farm - 1er Regiment Etrangere Parachutiste

September 15-16 - Gettysburg, PA – WWII – Ike Farm - (possibly w/ Tretiy Vzvod)

September ?-? - Reston, VA – Timeline (Roman) – Virginia Scottish Festival – None (Press) (w/ Legio XX)

Considering that there are probably going to be a few more events added to this list (especially in October and November), at 18 events (and probably counting) this may be my busiest reenacting year yet!  One change I’ve noticed is that I’ve started to attend a lot more of the public events “out of uniform” as a photographer instead of a reenactor.  I still usually go with a unit and help them set up, but I’m not dressed up myself and am mainly there to take pictures.  It means that I get to attend more events, but it also means that I reenact less.  It’s a trade-off, and one I’m still trying to get the balance right on.

If you’re going to be at an event or in the area, let me know!  I’d love to meet some of my travel readers in a different context than usual!

Sadly, a few years ago, Duck died.  After a year, my parents got another black-tri Aussie, this time a girl who they named Lola.  I haven’t grown up with Lola the way I did with Duck, but I have spent enough time around her to know that she is a great dog.  She’s very sweet, rather smart, and is quirky in a way that I really enjoy.  One of her quirks is a fondness for riding in vehicles of all kinds.  She flew in our family plane on the day my parents picked her up from the breeder, and she absolutely loves to fly.  She also enjoys more terrestrial transportation, however, and she loves to ride in the front seat of my old truck, which my parents now own.  She stares out the front windshield and loves to smell the fresh air whooshing by from a partially-opened window.  When you get up to highway speed, she lays down and puts her head on your lap.

I drove my truck a few times while I was home and I always made sure to give Lola a quick trip around the block when I came back from whatever errand I was running.  During the year I spent living out of that very vehicle, I had many friends riding shotgun in the passenger seat, but I think Lola is my favourite driving companion.

I had my mom take a few portraits of Lola and me in the truck, as I felt that it would be a very good representation of both of us.  Here they are:

When I lived in South Korea from 2008-2009, I lived on a small, rural island off the southwest coast known as Jindo Island.  The island had a reputation as something of a backwater (I used to tell people I lived in the Alabama of South Korea), but it was well-known for two things: a tidal anomaly known as the Moses Miracle, and the native dog breed, the Korean Jindo Gae, which is thought to have originated on the island.  The dogs are exceptionally rare outside of Korea, and even on the peninsula, the purebred dogs of Jindo Island fetch a high price due to the fact that they are guaranteed to be purebred because of a law prohibiting all other dog breeds on the island.  This has resulted in an island with more dogs than people. As someone who loves dogs, this was actually a selling point for me when I was trying to figure out where to live and work in Korea, and I got to know the breed quite well during the time I lived there.  I now work with two Jindo Gae rescues in the USA, and would consider the breed myself if I lived somewhere with more space.

The breed is thought to have originated from the dogs brought to the Korean peninsula by the invading Mongol army during the 14th century.  The Mongols established a horse breeding facility on Jindo and though they later abandoned it, the dogs were left befhind.  They were raised by the local Koreans to hunt wild boar, deer, and even the giant Amur tigers that lived on the island.  As a result, they are a highly intelligent and independent breed with a strong prey drive.  They are difficult to train due to their independent streak, but when trained, they can perform some extremely complex feats.

They are also both cute and beautiful, and I spent many an afternoon riding my motorcycle through the countryside, photographing the various Jindo Gae I encountered along the way, often stopping to talk with some of the breeders I ran across as well.  I almost adopted one that had been living behind a convenience store near one of the island’s temples, but the owner changed his mind after the dog had puppies. My photos of the Jindos are some of my favourites from my time in South Korea, and since today’s #FriFotos theme is “Dogs”, I figured it was a good time to share them!

Enjoy!

Today’s entry is a series of photos I took on a visit to a family friend’s house.  Our friend Rosemary, whose second home I stayed at in Lagamas, France this summer, makes traditional Dutch apple fritters every Christmas.  They are delicious and she invited us and several other friends over one afternoon to enjoy them and some champagne.  As usual, I brought my camera with me and below are the photos I took of the occasion.  I hope you enjoy them.

Good advice!

This shot is actually the back door of our mechanic’s shop, and I have always loved the red painted brick and the colors of the photo.  Plus, since most of my Travel Tuesday photos tend to be more towards the traditionally “pretty” side, I felt it was time for something a bit grittier.