The Big Trip Contest: How Does Around the World Sound?

by Jamie Rhein on

“A Map for Saturday,” the documentary conceived and directed by Gadling, guest blogger Brook Silva-Braga has been raking in movie festival awards. Read Justin’s review and you’ll see why. If you look across the top of the film’s home page, you might notice how the award graphics look like winning symbols on a slot machine. That’s what I thought, anyway. If you watched the trailer of the film on the Web site, or saw the whole thing and started thinking, “Aw, rats! Why didn’t I take this trip,” or, “Sure, what a great experience for someone who can actually AFFORD a plane ticket, ” don’t fret. Your life is not wasted. All is not lost. Not yet, anyway.

There’s the most awesome opportunity for some wordsmith, traveling type to win an around the world journey. Did you catch that? AROUND the world!!! . . . Plane ticket. . . Journey!!! Along with the airfare, the winner will received 20 nights in hostels, guidebooks AND a backpack. Plus, Brook who will give a one-on-one sit down to help you plan your trip. As you can tell from this Talking Travel interview with Justin back in June, Brook is an engaging kind of guy.

To win, write a 400 word essay that explains just why YOU should be the one who gets such a prize. Click here for exact details, and click here for the rules. Once you’ve written you missive, email it to contest@amapforsaturday.com. You have until November 30, 2007 to enter. Get busy. Need some inspiration? Read Brook’s posts from his Gadling series “Across Northern Europe.” They’ll whet your appetite for that possible trip in your future

**The contest is being sponsored by Earthchild Productions and Hostelling International, thus the hostel stays. If you’re traveling solo, hostels are one of the best places to meet people. If you win, you have time to pack–the deadline for hitting the road is November 30, 2008.

Golf Love: In Afghanistan and More

by Jamie Rhein on

Thai writer Pira Sudham wrote a short story once about a farmer who lost his rice farm to a golf course developer because he didn’t understand the terms of the contract. I can’t remember which book the story is in, but for anyone interested in understanding the lives of Thai farmers, Pira Sudham is an excellent place to start. Monsoon Country is the novel that marked his literary success. After reading Sudham’s story, one of my students at the time, a 10th grader at the Singapore American School, said that he would never look at golf courses in the same way. When a guy I once worked with said that he loves golf courses in Asia because they have the best views, I almost choked and kept myself from shouting out, “Haven’t you ever read Pira Sudham?”

However, there is one golf course in Asia that I just read about in a New York Times article by Kirk Semple, that I so want to succeed. In Kabul, Afghanistan, one man started the Kabul Golf Course three years ago in anticipation of its success. The golf course business has not gone as well as he had hoped for, but he refuses to hang up his clubs for good. The course is a symbol to him that things will get better in his country. The description of the currently grassless golf course reminded me of a golf course I went to in Jos, Nigeria with a banker that I stayed with as part of a Rotary Club exchange program. Instead of the greens, it had the browns. I don’t think my friend who likes golf courses would have liked the view from that one all that much. Personally, I was happy to see that water wasn’t being wasted turning the brown to green. In Afghanistan though, a little green wouldn’t hurt.

Worldwide Eid-Al-Fitr Celebrations

by Abha Malpani on

I’d say, the Eid-Al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan is equivalent on scale to Christmas and the Hindu celebration of Diwali.

Ramadan is all about charity, sharing, reaching out to the less fortunate and thanking God for what you have. Eid-Al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and is mainly a family celebration. This particular Eid sees the largest migration as 1.2 billion Muslims around the world make plans to be with the family. According to the Gulf News: 14.8 million in Indonesia were expected to head to their homes and 1.2 million cars in Malaysia were expected to hit the nations biggest highway.
Generally Eid-Al-Fitr is celebrated by an early morning prayer, a special meal with home-baked sweets for desert; they wear new clothes and in some countries ‘Eidi’ (money for Eid) is given to the children.

Now, having said that, what I saw for Eid celebrations in Madrid were slightly different. I went to a Ramadan/Eid tent where Sudanese music artist Rasha rocked the crowd with tunes in Arabic to afro-reggae-jazz-Arabic music; free Arabic tea and sweets were served and you could hear the odd person saying ‘Eid Mubarak’.

However more than the Eid spirit, was the amount of alcoholic ‘spirit’ I could see around me. People brought in liters of beer and calimochos (red-wine and cola), and were smoking pot in same tent along with their Muslim friends who were celebrating the end of their fasting for the religious festival. Having lived in a Muslim country for a significant period of life (alcohol is forbidden in Islam), I found this rather sacrilegious but I suppose inevitable at the same time.

Should bringing alcohol into a Ramadan tent have been forbidden? How can you experience the different cultures of a multi-cultural society without insulting the tradition and hurting democracy at the same time?

The Unsung Masterpieces of Los Angeles Architecture

by Neil Woodburn on

Although frequently lambasted as a cultural wasteland, Los Angeles holds its head up high when it comes to architectural masterpieces.

Unfortunately, the City of Angels is frequently overlooked by aficionados of the arts. In fact, earlier this year when the American Institute of Architects published a list of the America’s 150 favorite buildings, only eleven from the Los Angeles area made the cut. Obviously there’s some kind of East Coast bias here.

In response, journalist Jamie Stringfellow interviewed an esteemed group of LA based architects to come up with her own list–albeit with a West Coast bias. The result is a smattering of styles ranging from art deco to modernism and everything in-between–such as the futuristic looking, arched building at LAX.

If you’re a fan of architecture and would rather spend time exploring the masterpieces Los Angeles has to offer instead of tromping around Disneyland, check out the Stringfellow article for a details on what to see and how to get there.

David Sedaris’s Travel Stories

by Jamie Rhein on

Friday night on a whim, I headed to the Palace Theatre in Columbus to see David Sedaris. Since he was here last year, I hadn’t planned to go, but changed my mind. This year, as I laughed those kind of laughs that start to hurt after awhile, huge chortles and the gawfaws–along with everyone else in the audience, I thought about how much his stories capture the aspects of travel that I love. The absurdities one finds oneself in, either because of a lack of understanding of culture or getting the language wrong. When humor shows up, that’s the best.

Last year, he read an essay about his experience in a doctor’s waiting room in France where he ended up in his underwear while everyone else was clothed. Last night, he read an essay that wove together details about pretension, ineptness and fluency when it comes to speaking a foreign language and trying to capture or butcher accents. The story moved back and forth between talking about a college professor who said Nicaragua in an overly accenty way and a friend who visited him in Paris and insisted on speaking in French even though the friend, Sedaris and the friend’s wife were all American and the wife didn’t speak French. As Sedaris read this story, it was with such gusto and flair I wanted to share it with everyone. Alas, he said that it’s not going to be on This American Life, the NPR show that he wrote it for after all. Since Sedaris is on a several city tour, perhaps if you live near one of them, you’ll have a chance to catch him.

One of the things I adore about David Sedaris, besides his writing and how he reads his work, is his generosity of spirit. The Palace Theatre was packed and he stayed after to sign books and take time to visit with each person who handed one over for a signature. What I noticed during last year’s and this year’s book signing is his knack for making each person feel like a friend, and it seems like he means it. This year, like last year, we talked about TJs Restaurant, an establishment known for dishes like the Barnyard Blaster. When I reminded him of this, he said that he always asks people where they’d go to eat after a night on the town. He also said he’d been trying to remember the name of the restaurant all day.

For your reading pleasure, here is the essay about the French waiting room. It was published in The New Yorker, September 2006. And here’s David Sedaris on NPR’s Morning Edition in 1998 reading his essay, “A New Yorker in France.”