From Philadelphia to Mumbai to Jodhpur

WOW.  So I've been all over the place, blah blah, you all know that, but India is nothing like anything I have ever seen in my life.  I thought I'd done third world (Cambodia) but even that doesn't hold a candle to this place.  First of all, our flight was long, 16 hours, and I've never sat on a direct flight for that long.  Even Thailand was broken up.  I am pretty sure save for one other person we were the only white people on the flight, and our flight attendant definitely took to us, giving us free bottles of booze! Mumbai is where we arrived at 930pm and we went straight to our hotel which was on the beach.  We changed and had some dinner and drinks at the restaurant outside, and were all ready to go out but were told to "take caution it's night time" so in our jetlagged state, we decided it would be better to just get some rest and drink those airport bottles.  The next day we hired a cab to drive us around Mumbai, and take us to the Taj hotel (site of the 2008 terrorist attacks).  The hotel was GORGEOUS, simply stunning, yet on the outside surrounded by slums.  I've never seen anything like this......children barefoot playing in garbage piles sitting in front of gorgeous palaces.  I was not a fan of Mumbai.  I could barely breathe from the pollution, our driver and hotel workers kept trying to rip us off and demand tips from us for EVERYTHING (including the guy working security, give me a break), I didn't see another white person the whole time in the city, and to them we were just dollar signs.  I can't blame them, but the city was chaotic and unfriendly and not for me.  So we got our cab ride to the train station for our 16 hour overnight train to Jodhpur in the province of Rajasthan (northwest)....not knowing our train station was the "second" station.  Good god.  I wish I had pictures but I was too scared to take out my camera.  It looked like a run down bombed building....there was literally shit everywhere, and we were not only the only white people but the only females as well....and EVERYONE was staring at us and crowding around us.  The men were just leering and pointing and trying to talk to us and grab us.  I thought Julia was going to panic and I had to stay calm or we both would have lost it.  Somehow we found our platform and waited for our train to arrive and when it did 4 westerners got off and I was so excited to see them I ran over to them and started blabbing away until i realized they were not American and their english was minimal.  They had just left jodhpur and told us to stay at Yogis guesthouse.  So we board the train.  Second class AC sleeper....in US? nothing this ghetto.  Like a subway with curtains around the "beds" that had cockroaches crawling over them.  16 hours.  The bathroom? a hole in the floor of the train where you just did your business and it fell on the ground below.  Good thing we drank all the airport bottles the night before.  The only thing that saved our sanity was a) the xanax i had left from my flight (unfortunately, only 1) and b) an indian family (young mother, 1 year old son, and her parents) who spoke english and fed us and had their adorable son playing with us.  They even invited us into their berth to sleep.  On a train full of men, they were so comforting I could never even begin to describe it.  FINALLY we arrived in Jodhpur....and what a breath of fresh air!!!  Still dirty by our standards, but beautiful little walled city of alleyways and everything is painted blue, and there is a giant fortress on top of a hill where apartments are carved out of.  We jumped in a rickshaw and told them yogi's guesthouse and crossed our fingers it would be good, and this place is FANTASTIC i don't ever want to leave.  Rooftop restaurant/bar with swinging couches, cushions to lay on, balconies to read on, monkeys and parrots....finally this is the India I came for!! Off to take a nap, will write more later!

Suzy and Albie's Wedding

I wanted to give a shout out to Suzy and Albie for coming to my show at 2424 studios! Shooting their wedding was an experience to say the least:  it snowed so hard that the wedding had to be postponed a day! But the snow made for such a beautiful setting and everyone was so relieved that they were able to put it off so it was such a fun environment to work in and I feel blessed to have been a part of their beautiful day!  Hope you enjoy the preview!

Cambodia

Innocent child wandering the streets

Traditional Cambodian attire in the temples of Angkor

This sweet girl followed me for an hour and never said a word

"excuse me madam you give me one dollar for my baby"

Buddhist Monk at Angkor Wat

Studio 2424

I just finished hanging up my first photography show today.  Yay!  Here is a preview.....

Why I can and can not die happy.

Places I have been, things I have done and things I have seen that if I died tomorrow I would have no regrets:

• Standing on top of the twin towers
• New York City
• Washington D.C.
• Grateful Dead concert (the real dead, with Jerry)
• David Bowie concert
• Las Vegas
• Grand Canyon, AZ
• Rocky mountains
• Everglades
• Disney world
• Jazz fest in New Orleans
• Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park
• Big Sur in California
• Arches National Park, UT
• Zion National Park, UT
• Lake Tahoe, NV
• Sedona, AZ
• Puerto Rican Rainforest
• Costa Rican Rainforest
• Zip-lining through above
• Riding a quad up to an active volcano in Costa Rica
• Amsterdamn
• Tower of London
• Buckingham Palace
• Scotland Yard
• Tate Modern in London
• Van Gogh musem in Amsterdam
• Rode the London eye
• Have the obligatory red phone booth picture with Big Ben in the background 
• St Patricks Day in Dublin, Ireland
• Sagrada Familia in Barcelona
• Monestary de Montseratt outside Barcelona
• Dipped my feet in the Meditteranean sea in Spain, Italy and Israel
• Guernica, Goya and Valasquez in Madrid
• Sat by the Danube river in Prague, Czech Republic
• Saw the Roots in Barcelona
• Bratislava, Slovakia
• Brussels, Belgium
• Budapest, Hungary
• Saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Vienna, Austria
• Anne Frank's house in Amsterdamn
• Roman Collosseum 
• Pantheon in Rome
• The Vatican City
• St. Peters Basilica
• Florence, Italy
• Michelangelo's David
• Tuscany, Italy
• Sienna, Italy
• Rode a Gondola in Venice, Italy
• Was a regular at the famed Wetlands club in New York City
• Sunset over Jerusalem
• Wailing Wall, last piece of wall from King Soloman's castle
• Birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, Islam
• Sea of Galilee
• Golan Heights
• B'hai Gardens of Haifa, Israel
• Partied in a Tel Aviv nightclub
• Traveled across Israel with the IDF
• Sat at the red sea and watched Egypt from across the water
• Climbed Masada
• Swam in the Dead sea
• Camped in the Negev Desert with Bedouins
• Ping pong show in Bangkok, Thailand
• Kao San Rd, Bangkok
• Grand Palace in Bangkok
• Thai massage on the beach in Thailand
• Chased by monkeys, Phetchaburi Thailand
• Rode scooters through the rainforest in Krabi Thailand
• Snorkeled in a lagoon off koh phi phi Thailand
• Angkor Wat, Cambodia
• Mt. Rainer, Washington state
• Death Valley, CA

I can't die happy until I see these places/things:

• Great Wall of China*
• Forbidden City*
• Tianiminn Square*
• Tibet*
• Mt. Everest*
• Friendship highway*
• Kathmandu, Nepal*
• Chitwan national park, Nepal*
• Darjeeling, India*
• Kolkatta, India*
• Taj Mahal*
• Rajasthan, India*
• Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma
• Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Killing Fields, Cambodia
• Vietnam
• Japan
• Gobi Desert, Mongolia
• Trans-Siberian Railway
• Bali, Indonesia
• Micronesia
• Paupa New Guinea
• New Zealand
• Petra, Jordan
• Dubai*
• Pyramids of Giza
• Luxor Egypt
• Nile River
• Morocco
• Kenya safari
• Cape town, South Africa
• Mt. Kilamanjaro
• Parthenon
• Greek Islands
• Oracle at Delphi
• Sarajevo
• Croatia
• Sistine Chapel
• Da Vinci's last supper
• Uffizi Gallery
• Capri, Italy
• Swiss Alps 
• Concentration Camps in Poland
• Transylvania
• Norwegian Fjords
• Iceland
• Toledo, Pamplona, Guernica, Andalucia, and Seville Spain
• Oaxaca and Mexico City, Mexico
• Alaska
• Cuba
• Tikal, Guatemala
• Badlands North Dakota
• Glacier National Park Montana
• Panama
• Cartegena, Columbia
• Brazil
• Bolivia
• Machu Picchu, Peru
• Pompeii, Italy
• Potala Palace, Lhasa Tibet*
• Argentina
• Antarctica
• Galapagos Islands
• Sri Lanka
• Sphinx

*If all goes well I should be in these places by the end of 2010!!

Travel plans

So I have spent all my free time (and some of my non-free time) surfing the net for info on the most amazing trip I will be taking at the end of September. I'll be flying to Beijing and from there going to Tibet (my number one dream destination for as long as I can remember) and driving from Lhasa-the capital-to Kathmandu, Nepal. Spending a week in Nepal and then onward to India for two more weeks before flying home. I'M SO FREAKIN' EXCITED I CAN'T TAKE IT!!! This past year 2009 was an extremely difficult one for me and it's looking like 2010 is going to be wonderful! It's been a long time (almost 4 years) since I've gone anywhere that was so far off the beaten path and otherworldly. I loved Europe the multiple times I went, and I loved Costa Rica, but I need third world, adventure, and things to make me appreciate not only what I have back at home, but to see the good that really does exist in people who live in such impoverished conditions yet are among the most kind-hearted in the world. I'll be accompanied by one of my best friends Julia (who actually just got home from a month long yoga certification course in Goa, India) and possibly my friend Heather or friend Maggie. Hopefully all can come!