i assume that the majority of you who are reading this know me at least on a somewhat personal level. and while we may be acquainted and even friends or relations, you may not know that i am no longer a christian. this change in my life began over four and a half years ago during my last semester at moody bible institute. it has been a steady process of introspection and reevaluation of the beliefs i had held to be truisms for years. it has been a difficult road but i feel that the overall experience has been a positive step in my life (though i know many of you will not see it that way).

"how did this happen?" you may be asking yourself. well, i had been struggling with certain doubts throughout all of my life as a christian, each of which i thought would be cleared up through a christian college education. to my surprise and dismay, i found instead that there were no good answers to most of my questions and that the attempt to answer them only opened my eyes to an even greater number of unanswerable questions. in september of 2003, during a weekly prayer session in my dorm, i felt a complete and utter lack of faith for the first time since i had become a christian. i felt that i was praying to nothing but the ceiling. i kept waiting for some sort of response, but none came. there were a number of smaller events leading up to this major "spiritual breakdown" (as i called it at the time), during each of which i felt an inability to effectively communicate with god.

my first reaction to the breakdown was that god had taken my faith from me in order to test me. for months i tried to pretend that all was fine and go about my life as normal. i spoke with a few close friends during this time, most of whom reassured me that god was testing me and that it would all be over eventually. during this time of trying to determine why god had taken my faith from me, i came time and time again across less-than-reassuring passages in both the old and new testaments which depict god as one who makes arbitrary decisions as to whom he blesses and whom he curses and i finally became convinced that either god had abandoned me for no particular reason at all or that there had never been a god and i had somehow just awoken from a life of spiritual delusion. over the next few months, i became more and more convinced that the latter was true.

as i had lost not only my faith in god but also my faith in the bible as the accurate and authoritative "word of god," i decided to withdraw from my final semester at moody bible institute in order to work out my doubts and beliefs. at least that was the stated intention at the time. in reality, i hid myself from working through those difficult issues for quite a while and tried my best to force myself to believe the tenets of christianity. i did, at times, attempt to search for answers to many of the simpler questions i had, but they only continued to grow in number. eventually i found the strength to return to the problem at hand and begin working through my questions. i read the bible daily searching for some reassurance that god was real and the my faith would return, but found none.

i finally had to admit to myself that i could no longer go on forcing myself to believe. acknowledging to myself that i was no longer a chrsitian was the single most difficult decision i've ever made. to allow myself to let go of beliefs that were no longer backed by conviction and begin to wander into the great unknown was both frightening and exciting at the same time. when i finally decided to shed the burden of forced belief, it was like a great weight was lifted off my shoulders. i found a peace that i had never known before. my soul was no longer at war with itself.

since making that decision, i have continued my search for truth. the bible, though i do not believe it to be the work of a divine being, still fascinates me and is the primary object of my studies. i have found many amazing things in it that i would never have found as a christian because i never read the bible critically with the assumption that it was not one cohesive work inspired by god. the more i read, the more i am convinced that i have made the right decision in leaving the christian faith.

as far as my worldview goes, i have come to embrace a form of secular humanism. i feel that much can be known about the world and humanity through scientific study and that direct observation is the best way to objectively know anything. i believe that christianity is one of the many systems designed by the humanity of antiquity to answer many of the unanswerable questions of this life, and as such it is a viable way to live, yet increasingly at odds with scientific discovery. there may soon come a day when one must choose belief over rational argument. in many areas where science and religion are at odds, that day has already come. but the chasm between what we as a society believe and what we observe continues to widen.

as many of you already know, i am going to school in grand rapids and studying classical languages. i will be continuing the studies of greek and hebrew that i began at moody and in addition i will be learning latin. i am not sure what direction my life will take once i complete my education. i am most interested in the early development of christianity and the rise of the post-temple jewish movements and their great impact on the world, even to this day. but whether i want to pursue a career in that direction or stay within the broader field of the classical world, i have not yet decided.

part of me also feels that i should be sharing the things i have learned in the last year with others who are discontent with religion but feel trapped within its walls. though i know that this would be viewed as an attack on religion by many believers, it does seem important to share my experiences with others who are in the same position. i am very hesitant to move in this direction, mainly because of the inevitable fallout it would create with many of you, my friends and family whom i do not wish to upset or offend in any way. but if i were still a christian, it would not matter who i offended in spreading the truth, and that sentiment still lingers within me (though my view of what the truth is has radically changed).

so this is where i am at. i am sorry that i chose this format to share such a major change with you, but i do not have the energy (or time) to have this conversation with each and every one of you. i also know that many of you will not know how to react to this, especially where our personal interaction is concerned. rest assured that i am open to rational conversation and am happy to discuss this topic with anyone. it is not a taboo subject, as far as i am concerned.

a reunion of alaska friends in chicago in january of 2008

well, since it's been over a year since my last entry, i figured it was about time to bring you, my faithful reader(s), some new content. first though, i suppose i should explain why there have been no new entries from me for over a year. you see, i am not a writer. i rarely write simply for the sake of writing. rather, i am an informer. i write to keep the people i know and care about up to speed with what's been going on in my life. but since our travels have slowed in the last year, i have had little to write about. it's true, we spent three weeks in france back in november/december, but as that was primarily wendi's trip, i let her do the writing about it. and since i added the "what we're up to" box to the home page, i have even less reason to write. but now we've had a significant change in lifestyle that i feel warrants a new entry. so here it is.

summer #3 in alaska is rapidly approaching. we'll be packing up to begin heading that way in about two weeks! this summer will be a little different from the previous two as i will be leaving before the season ends. for those of you who do not know, i am finally going back to school to finish my bachelor's degree. i have applied and been accepted to grand valley state university near grand rapids, michigan. wendi and i recently moved into an apartment near downtown grand rapids; our first apartment since we left chicago over 2 years ago. it has been nice to be temporarliy settled again and we look forward to the next two years in grand rapids as i finish school.

now when i mention that i am going back to school, inevitably people want to know what i'll be studying, and i assume you are no different. since i had a lot of greek and a little hebrew at my previous colleges, i looked into gvsu's classics department. and based on the few credits that transfered from my two previous colleges (37 credits out of 112), i decided to become a classical languages major. this means that i will be continuing my studies in both greek and hebrew and i will also begin studying latin. as most of you know, i love languages and am very excited about the next two years. since it has been a few years since my last greek class, i am sitting in on the second semester greek class for the remainder of the semester in order to review and make sure that i am up to speed with the rest of the class. so far, it has been a lot of fun. the only downside to all of this is that there is very little you can do with a bachelor's in classical languages aside from go to grad school. as of now, my ultimate goal is to become a professor. whether i want to stay in the general field of classics or delve into a more specialized sub-discipline or branch out into a related field, i have not yet decided. i figure i still have time to work all that out.

so that's the major change that we've had in the last few months. so far we love grand rapids. our neighborhood is not the best, but we are in walking distance of our favorite cafe (bitter end) and our favorite bar (the hopcat) and our apartment easily makes up for that which our neighborhood lacks. so far we have made a few new friends (our landlords christian and jodi; our neighbors jen and jeremy; our usual servers at the hopcat shelby and kim; in addition to a few fellow students in the classics program at gvsu) as well as spending time with stacy and aaron (wendi's sister and brother-in-law) and dan verkaik (our first non-relative grand rapids friend) and dan's girlfriend laura.

since we've been here, wendi has been temping a few days a week. with her spare time, she has been brainstorming ways to use her creative talents to make some money. today she posted some cards that she made on a website where artists can sell their goods; sort of an artsy ebay. it's called etsy.com and if you want to check out her stuff, this link will take you there. she's kind of playing around with designs and packaging and what not, so if you have any suggestions or would like to commission her to do something specific, don't hesitate! you can contact her at our normal email addresses or wendi@scottandwendi.com.

well, it's late and i need to go to bed. i hope this blog finds you all well and content. until next time...

scott

a mosque in buenos aires

well, this voyage has come to an end. though the voyage of our life continues, the stories and pictures of exotic places must take a break (at least for a few months). but first, we'll tell you about the last bit of our trip.

the bus ride from mendoza to buenos aires was the best bus ride of our entire trip. since it was our last "long" bus ride (we define long as more than 12 hours of travel in a day), we decided to splurge a little (an extra $7 each) to go first class. on many of the buses we had ridden, we had seen the comfy looking first class section on the bottom floor of the double-decker buses and grimaced with envy at the thought of the wonderful night of sleep ahead for those passengers, as compared with the cramped, restless sleep we would be getting in our own section. this time, we would be the comfy ones. our bus turned out to be an entirely first class bus (both upper and lower decks), and the nicest bus we've ever seen.

the seats were in rows of three (instead of the usual rows of four), the aisle was huge, the seats were ntirely covered in leather and when we got on the bus, there were already placed in each seat a pillow, a blanket and a copy of the day's newspaper. our bus left at 6:05pm (not to be confused with the 6:00pm bus, as we almost did, nor the 6:10pm bus...mendoza was a busy bus terminal!) and by 7:30pm we were eating a two-course meal for dinner off of little trays that attached to our seats. later that evening we received a late night snack and at 7:00am we awoke to the smell of coffee after a splendid night of sleep in chairs that reclined completely flat. we arrived in buenos aires around 8:30am and reluctantly stepped off the bus into our last town in argentina.

much like mendoza, buenos aires has a very european feel. the people are mostly white, the architecture is very 19th-century-europe and sidewalk café's abound. we took a cab to the area where we thought we would find a cheap hotel, though for some reason all the hotels that were cheap two years ago (according to lonely planet) were now two to three times more than we expected to pay. after settling on one of them, we found that it had recently been (and parts of it were still being) renovated. we thought this might account for the price jumps.

being near the end of the trip, we didn't do nearly as much in buenos aires as we'd have liked. we were tired and there's only so many colonial towns and double towered cathedrals that you can see before you feel like you've seen them all. also it's such a large city (by argentine standards) and there are so many noteworthy sights, we just decided to do those within walking distance since we had so little time and money to spend. one exception was the trip out to escobar to find the dormitory that i helped build in 1998.

the dormitory that i helped build in 1998

i had no idea where in escobar the place was, but i knew it was pretty big and probably any evangelical christian in escobar could point us in the right direction. so we bought our train ticket and figured we'd play it by ear.

much like our bus rides in bolivia, a train ticket to escobar actually requires getting off halfway there and changing trains. that along with our subway ride there made a total of six trains to get to escobar and back. it was train-tastic!

when we got to escobar, we walked out of the train station and down the street to a corner store. we asked an extremely kind and helpful lady behind the counter if she had heard of the place we were looking for, and no surprise, she hadn't. we explained that it was an evangelical christian center and she directed us to the nearest protestant church (though she had no idea what denomination it was or even it's name). we found the church easily enough, and as it was sunday, just after noon, there were plenty of people around to interrogate as to the whereabouts of our mystery center. everyone we talked to had heard of the center, and finally we found someone that knew someone that could take us there. after a short ride across town we ended up at the apartment of diego, one of the many argentine nationals that were around the center in 1998.

when i saw diego, i immediately recognized him and the memories of that era began to fill my mind. we talked for a few minutes and then diego's roommate came down to drive us to the center. long story short, he took us there, we walked around, took some pictures and surveyed the damage from a recent storm that had flooded the entire region, knocking over some trees and even a brick wall (though thankfully not one that my group built in 1998).

the center was still very active. we weren't able to fully explore the inside of the dorm as there was a group using it. but we took a walk around the grounds (that were much smaller than i remembered) and talked to a few of the people that work there on a regular basis and went on a tour of all the things that have been added since i was last there. the event seemed anti-climactic after the adventure of getting there, but fullfilling nonetheless.

from buenos aires we took our last bus for a long time to montevideo. it was an overnight bus with a 3:00am border crossing, but we barely noticed it as the driver took care of all the passport formalities for us.

montevideo's pacific coastline

montevideo, much like mendoza and buenos aires was also very european, but more eastern european. not so much in the look of it, but the vibe. there were many nice hotels and restaurants scattered about the city. but unlike most cities, those areas where the nice hotels were located were not nice areas. there were no nice areas. and there really were no bad areas either. every block had a series of shops and business, spattered with a nearly equal number of abandoned storefronts. the whole city seemed to be on the verge of becoming a ghost town. but at the same time very lively. the public parks and waterfronts were always full of people. couples, families, single men, but all of them with their cups of maté and hot-water thermoses. it seemed a very strange sort of paradox.

(now some of you read that last section and wondered to yourselves, "what is maté?" and i would tell you, but i have a friend that would do a much better job. his name is wiki. wiki pedia. and here's what wiki has to say about maté.)

our flight back to the u.s. was normal, uneventful, as flying should be. we had to go through an extra security area in panama (since we were boarding a flight to the u.s. and u.s. security standards are higher than those of...well anyone in the world), otherwise smooth as silk. we arrived in miami at 10:30pm and slept in the terminal for a few hours before our FREE 6:30am flight to houston (thanks to our wonderful friend kate who set us up with buddy passes!).

and now, here we are, in the lone star state. we'll be here another week and a half before heading up to michigan (via oklahoma city?). at some point in april we'll hit chicago for a few days, and then at the end of the first week in may, we'll start making our way up to alaska for another summer of work and fun. (really there's more fun than work.)

so anyone in texas, drop us a line if you want to hang out sometime while we're here. same with chicago. and anyone else along our path. what the heck. anyone, anywhere in the world. if you want us to stop by and visit, let us know. we can probably make it happen sometime in the next three years!

la paz, bolivia

so this blog will be completely different from the one i typed and myspace ate yesterday. (but you didn't read that one, so that's pretty much irrelevant.) yesterday i wrote all about our long bus trip to mendoza. and typing it all out made me exhausted all over again just thinking about it. so rather than wear myself out a third time, i will summarize and encapsulate as i usually do. i believe wendi left off just before our bus to bolivia, so let's start there.

our bus from cuzco turned out to be a foreshadowing of the aforementioned mendoza bus ride. we bought what we thought was a direct ticket from cusco to la paz. we didn't find out until after purchasing the ticket (which of course is non-refundable) that we would be changing buses at puno at 4 in the morning and that our connecting bus would not be leaving until 7am. from there, at least, we would be on a direct bus. wrong again.

the 7am bus took us from puno to copacabana where we had another bus change and layover, this time about 2 hours. the third leg, we were told, would take us directly to la paz. and this was nearly true, except for the part where we got off at what appeared to be a port town on lake titicaca, walked over to a little speed boat while the bus rolled onto a huge bus ferry and raced each other to the other side. and apparently the boat ride was not included in the price of the bus ticket as we payed for that separately.

bus and passengers all on the other side, we reboarded the bus and were on our way. we had numerous people tell us the alleged time length of the third bus, ranging from 3 to 8 hours. typically the longest estimate is the correct estimate. much to our surprise, it was only about 4 hours and we arrived in la paz in time to see children and adults alike chasing one another with water guns and water balloons in broad daylight, signifying the arrival of the dreaded carnaval.

the cathedral in la paz, bolivia

now we knew little, okay nothing, about how bolivia celebrated carnaval before we arrived. we assumed there would be the typical parades, fireworks and rampant debauchery that accompanied every other holiday we'd encountered in latin america. we had no idea the terror and atrocity that awaited us.

apparently, the primary bolivian custom for celebrating carnaval is to soak, by any means possible, as many people as you possibly can. especially the gringos.

i thought it bizarre the first time i went outside (to find a bank to cash some traveler's cheques) that the streets were lined with rain poncho vendors, despite the fact that the sky was bright and blue. my surprise faded once i left the calm of the sidestreets and crossed the major street cutting throught la paz. it was mayhem. absolute agua anarchy. balloons flying threw the air, aimed at unsuspecting bystanders. cans of sily string in the hand of every other person i passed. water guns at the ready.

that first day i was never the target of a direct attack, only in the crossfire or background a few times. but this was enough to soak me through. still, i thought foreigners were safe, exempt from direct bombardment. so i told wendi just prior to our first outing together. but apparently, walking alone, i just didn't look foreign enough. it probably helped that i wore a bolivian poncho. however two white people together, well they're definitely foreigners and prime targets for attack.

overlooking oruro, jacqueline's hometown

i eventually got used to it, but wendi had a harder time dealing with it. partially because she was usually the main target. little adolescent boys with water balloons aiming for pretty white girls, it was almost a form of affection. but wendi did not see it that way. we endured 5 days of carnaval. four in la paz and the last, the worst, in oruro.

when we arrived in oruro, we took a cab from the bus station to a hotel and settled in. we had heard that carnaval was exceptionally crazy in oruro, but that the worst of it was saturday and sunday. this being tuesday, mardi gras in new orleans, we thought it would be bearable. we couldn't have been more wrong. we tried to leave our hotel to find some dinner, but every street we walked down was full of oruroans hanging over rooves and balconies, waiting for passersby that they might dowse them with buckets of filthy water or shower them with a barrage of water balloons. we tried turning and going a different route multiple times to avoid the bombers that we could see, but in the end we accepted defeat and went back home. throughout the whole ordeal we never made it more than three blocks from our hotel.

luckily we found a little place on the same block with our hotel and ate there. it was lukewarm chicken and fries and cost less than a dollar. but we were happy to eat something. we went back to our hotel room and waited for the terror to end, praying that it would not continue the next day.

jacqueline's newborn baby brother

since it had been carnaval the entire time we had been in bolivia, we still had not found an open bank and had been getting by on atm withdrawals. but as these funds were limited, we needed to get to a bank and cash some traveler's cheques. we finally had that opportunity on ash wednesday. i went out alone to test the atmosphere, to see if the bombings had finally ceased and what i found was truly amazing. the streets, the day before entirely soaked (despite having not rained for many days) and covered in confetti, trash and millions (literally millions) of broken multi-colored water balloons, were nearly spotless. the only water on the streets and sidewalks was soapy water that the residents and store owners had used to clean up. the bleachers that had filled the parade streets were already being disassembled and in an hour and a half of wandering around looking for a bank i didn't see a single water gun. relief swept over me like a rushing river and i couldn't wait to get back to the hotel and tell wendi what a wonderful world we had awakened into.

a few days later we got to meet the little bolivian girl that we sponsor through compassion international.

her name is jacqueline and she'll be ten this april. she's very shy but very intelligent. and the day we arrived in bolivia, her baby brother was born. her parents wanted to name him scott, but i convinced them that it was too hard a name for spanish-speakers to pronounce (because they cannot start a word with an 's' followed by a consanant and 'o' is always long in spanish, so scott comes out 'es-coat'). so they asked us for a list of good american names and we wrote down those we could think of. when we left, they were talking about andrew or brandon, but we haven't heard what they decided on.

jacqueline eyeing the ice cream with anticipation

our compassion guide for the day, oscar, is the head of the oruro project. he showed us every aspect of the project, past, present and future. he constantly asked us what they could do to make it better, but we couldn't think of anything. they were almost finished building a new kitchen for cooking the children's meals and had plans to put a cover over the recreation field so the kids could play without worrying about ill-effects from rain of the harsh andean sun. they had so many plans for improving the project, but not the money to complete them.

argentine countryside

after showing us the project, they took wendi, jacqueline and i around the city to see some of the sites. they also took us to jacqueline's home where we met her mother and step-father and new baby brother. we saw pictures of jacqueline and her family and of her parents wedding and showed them pictures that we had brought along of friends, family and alaska. they prepared for us a typical bolivian dish called picante de pollo, which despite it's name, wasn't very spicy. on our way back to the hotel we took a detour and stopped at an ice cream shop. jacqueline was really excited about that. in all it was a wonderful experience, and we highly recommend it! (supporting, and if possible, visiting a compassion child.)

the next day at 11 in the morning we began our massive voyage to mendoza. 70 hours and five buses later we arrived. (the argentine countryside on the last leg of the trip was beautiful!)

exhausted, but relieved to finally be there, we settled into the first hotel we came to and have been soaking in the mendocino way of life ever since. argentina, and especially mendoza, seems more european than latin american and is full of good wine, good beef and lamb, and plenty of relaxing sidewalk restaurants and cafés. it is a good place to recover from four months of hard travel.

tomorrow we take our last overnight bus of the trip to buenos aires. and being our last long bus ride, we decided to splurge and go first class (seats that recline completely flat!). the difference between the cheap seats and first class was only about $7 anyway, so it's hardly even a splurge.

so it's three days in buenos aires, two days in montevideo and then off to texas (via panama and miami). we're a little sad that the trip is coming to an end, but it's been a long, full experience that we'll never forget, and we're excited to get back to friends and family and sit still for a while.

top 5 things not to do in ecuador; let's just jump right in, shall we?

1. lean back too far in a plastic chair - apparently in ecuador it is your responsibility as the chair-breaker to walk up the street to the chair store and buy a new $5.20 chair for the open-air establishment whose chair you just broke.
2. take the quito trolley at rush hour - apparently everyone and their mom takes the trolley and you end up letting mulitple trolleys go by before bucking up and diving into the mass of bodies blocking the door.
3. have money or anything in your pockets on said trolley - apparently pickpockets do exist and they're really good! i saw the guy lean into me, felt his hand coming out of my pocket, but as there was still some money in my pocket, and i couldn't remember how much there was to start with, i wasn't sure if he had actually gotten anything. and i realize in retrospect that i should have made a scene regardless and announced to everyone on the trolley that he had his hand in my pocket, but it's hard to think clearly in those situations.
4. trust cab drivers when they tell you the entrance fee to an attraction that you're trying to get a ride to - when you tell the driver that you only have $12 and need a round trip ride and money to get into the museum, he will make up a number, about 1/3 the actual price to get you to agree to a higher cab fare.
5. change money with moneychangers at the ecuador-perú border - we now know that false bill moneychangers have the following signs:
   • they only have the largest denomination of bill to give you
   • they insist that you need a certain amount to cross the border
   • they offer to walk you to the nearest atm to withdraw more money to change
   • they refuse to change anything under $30
   now if you know anything about normal, legitimate border moneychangers, which we do, these things are all very out of the ordinary. moneychangers always have huge wads of every denomination imaginable and will change any amount, no matter how small. we should have seen the signs, but again, you don't always think clearly in situations like these. it's an expensive lesson (a $94 lesson) that we will not forget. it also afforded us the oppurtunity to learn how to spot fake bills as we were instructed in this art when we tried to buy a bus ticket with one of them.

top 5 things to do in ecuador

2.10.7

cuzco, perú

so we had a wonderful time in ecuador and even though we've only been in perú a week, ecuador seems so far away already. but some things are still fresh in my mind. and here they are; scott's top five things to do in ecuador (from north to south):

The Market in Otavalo The view from the Museo de la Patria The Rio Tombebamba running through Cuenca

the otavalo market (left) - easily the most famous market in latin america, you can find nearly anything latin-americana here. from ponchos to hooded jackets with llamas on them to paintings of andean scenes to multi-colored stripy pants to $2 pairs of earrings of any size, shape and color imaginable. we spent more than we intended, but who goes to otavalo and doesn't? mitad del mundo (right) - the monument on (or at least pretty close to) the equator. it's a whole little colonial town with lots of cheapish restaurants and souvenir shops. though if visiting mitad del mundo before otavalo, don't buy anything! you can get all the same stuff for alot cheaper at the market. el museo de la patria (left) - or museo de la libertad, or museo militar, it has more names than items on exhibit, but it's worth it for the huge topographical display of colonial quito and the decisive battle that gave ecuador its independence from spain, and the view of the city (and the panecillo) is pretty great! el panecillo (right) - a huge hill in the center of quito with a huger statue of mary standing atop satan, or at least a dragon of some sort. why is mary standing on satan? who knows. but the views from up there are awesome. a leisurely stroll through cuenca (left) - cuenca is the highlight of southern ecuador, if you like colonial towns that is. there are plenty of old churches to admire and a walk along the río tombebamba is quite refreshing. and if you happen to be there when the super bowl is going on and your team made it, there is an american style sports bar in the mall on the other side of the river. and feel free to do like we did and go nuts and totally "america-out" and watch a few movies at the mall while you're there.

On both sides of the equator at the Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world) The Virgen do Quito

so there you have it, scott's top 5. now, some of you may be wondering why the famous galápagos islands aren't on my list. ther reason is very simple. we're poor. i'm sure the islands are fantastic, and many have told us so, but they are only for people with money. so here i give them an honourable mention, and though we in fact have never been, we hope to go some day.

while these events were the most memorable happy moments from ecuador, check the next blog for other "memorable" events.

coffee growing on the hillside

so, when we planned our little trip, we expected to spend about a week in colombia, total. so far we've been a week in santa marta on colombia's carribean coast, a week in bogotá with juliana (an exchange student that lived with wendi's family ten years ago) and now three or four days in manizales, which is still in the northern half of colombia. we've yet to make the trek south to ecuador which will take at least two to four more days.

a colombian fruit called lulo

so why, you may be asking, have we spent so much time in colombia? the answer is simple: it's frickin' awesome!

wendi's ideal site for her dream home has always been in (or very near to) a medium-sized city; no bigger than chicago, but no smaller than austin; a city with character and culture. my ideal home would be located in (or very near to) the mountains. any mountains really, just so long as we're high up, and the temperature never gets above 80. colombia has all this, and more. and though there is much to tell, right now i'm just going to write about our day on the farm while it is still fresh in my mind.

scott learning how to "shuck" a cacao

saturday, we spent the day at the coffee farm of juliana's parents, jorge and celmira. the coffee farm, or finca, is called la esperanza, which means hope. jorge told me that he named it thus because hope is the last thing that we lose. in the midst of turmoil and despair when all is lost, it is hope that we cling to.

in a mere 8 hours on the farm, we experienced a month's worth of activities. we learned and participated in, from seedling to cup, the miracle that is coffee. we picked the cherries, saw where and how they are processed and dried, roasted the beans, ground them, brewed them and finally, drank them. and not only that, but we planted our own coffee trees on the farm to bear more fruit in years to come.

a coffee tree, ripening for next season

but our farming was not limited to coffee: we harvested and learned how to recognize, prepare and/or consume: cacao (from which chocolate is made), yucca and plátano (both of which are very common in latin american cuisine), guayaba, mandarines, oranges, papaya, lulo and zapote. we ate more fruit in that one day than we had almost the entire month before.

and i was instructed in the proper use of a machete, which is used in virtually every activity we participated in. from the sharpening of the blade to the grip to the differing techniques used in harvesting various fruits, it is truly a versatile tool and difficult to master.

over the course of this trip, wendi and i have been talking a lot (dreaming, really) about starting a hotel or hostel someday in the future. we talk specifically about what sort of place it would be: the types of food and drinks we would serve in the café/restaurant; the type of atmosphere it would have and decorations we would use; and perhaps most importantly, where it would be. since coming to colombia, it's hard to imagine any place better. colombia's tourism industry is virtually non-existent and is on the verge of a huge boom. people have been so afraid to come here for so long, and colombians have been afraid to travel within their own country, but things have been changing for the better over the last ten years. bogotá is now no more dangerous than any major city in the u.s. transportation services occasionally experience late night hold-ups, and for this reason we travel only in the day. a certain amount of common sense is required, but overall colombia is definitely ready for tourism.

but like i said, dreams. and it's good to have dreams. they give us things to look forward to and aim for. things to hope for. but for now, we will continue on our journey and then go back to work this summer in alaska. after that, who knows? and wendi will be writing soon to fill in all the details i skipped over.

barack obama campaigning

for those of you that get emails from us and have already heard me rant about barack obama, i'm sorry and i'll make this quick.

so barack obama has finally announced his intention to run for president in '08. if you don't already know who barack obama is, i encourage you to get to know him. a routine google search will pull up his official page and any other related news items. in addition wikipedia.org has an article about him. but like i said in my email, don't just try to figure where he stands on one or two issues that you think are most important to your life. listen to his entire agenda. you may not agree with him on everything (as i don't), but his overall approach to the presidency and politics is refreshing and exciting (as exciting as politics can be, anyway).

that's it. thanks for reading. now i'm going to go write a blog about a coffe farm in colombia that we spent the day at yesterday.

so when we do splurge a little and get a room with a tv, at the end of a commercial break a screen comes up for a few seconds displaying the name of the movie or show that you're watching and a voice says in a heavy spanish accent "a continuación" which essentially means that the show you've been watching is about to come back on again. and then i breathe a sigh of relief that the tv station executives, in all their wisdom, decided to continue showing the program that i've already invested so much time and energy into.

scott and wendi overlooking ocotal

but aside from the excitement of star wars: episode 4 dubbed in spanish, a lot's been going on since we last blogged. i believe wendi caught us up from panajachel through comayagua, which brings us to nicaragua.

unfortunately, our first "memorable" moment in nicaragua was when we realized that one of the pockets on wendi's pack was partially opened and her little bag with all her jewelry in it was gone. at first we thought it may have fallen out accidentally, but the bag was upright for the duration of the leg of the trip during which it disappeared and there were also a few other less important things missing, such as a giant bag of q-tips, which we would have noticed laying on the floor of the bus. theft during travel had not previously been a major concern since mexican buses stored the luggage underneath the bus, greyhound style, and guatemalan buses hoisted the luggage on top of the bus and tied it down. nicaragua was the first time they simply set our packs in the very back of the bus where there had once been a row of seats. we soon found that this was the typical luggage storage method of nicaragua, so on each travel day we sat as far back as we could and we haven't had a problem since. in the meantime, wendi has been steadily rebuilding her jewelry collection.

our first stop in nicaragua was a town called ocotal. it was a nice colonial town in the mountains, not unlike comayagua, but quite a bit warmer. unbeknownst to us at the time, we would soon be craving those "cool" days spent in ocotal.

wendi sleeping soundly by 9pm

our next stop was león. almost immediately upon arrival, wendi fell into a deep sleep, and i took pictures of her.

but wendi's exhaustion aside, león was another beautiful colonial town and one of the three major tourist destinations in nicaragua (the other two being the isla de ometepe and the city of granada). in the early days of nicaraguan occupation by the colonial oppressors (aka the spanish), there were two cities vying for control over nicaragua. the liberal city of león and the conservative city of granada. the history is interesting, but quite frankly long and confusing. all this to say that the two cities couldn't come to an agreement as to which should be the capital, so managua assumed that role. a once tiny farming community nearly halfway between the two colonial cities, it is now one of the huge, uninviting, overpopulated capital cities of latin america. (we tried to spend as little time as possible in managua.) on our last day in león, we took a taxi to the pacific coast to a pair of towns called poneloya and las peñitas. the beach there was magnificent and we found ourselves lamenting the fact that we had spent a full week in león and not discovered the beach sooner. nevertheless, we had a date with colombia and didn't want to miss the rest of nicaragua along the way, so we left our newlyfound beach with hopes of returning some day in the not-too-distant future.

the isla de ometepe in lake nicaragua

despite our desire to avoid managua, travel between león and any point south requires transferring in managua. and when i say "transferring," i mean taking a bus to one terminal and then a taxi across town to a different terminal to catch the next bus. and when i say "taking a taxi across town," i mean getting off the first bus, having your bags wrenched from your arms and thrown into the nearest taxi, being herded into the taxi only to have the process repeated upon arrival at the second bus terminal. this only added to our dislike of managua.

after the nightmare that is traveling through managua, our next stop in nicaragua was the isla de ometepe. it's an island made up of two volcanoes in the middle of a huge lake (pictured left). we spent about a week on the island exploring the different beaches around the island. our favorite was definitely santo domingo. it's on the isthmus between the two volcanos and was the longest stretch of beach we found. it was also the nicest. the water in the lake was very warm, probably upper 70's, and very shallow for a long way out. we had to walk/swim about 50 yards just to get waist deep, which we did on christmas day.

we both had a bout of homesickness on christmas eve, and i went through a serious snow withdrawal. it was also depressing because we were in the only place in nicaragua where it was nearly impossible to call the u.s. we managed to get a merry christmas email out to our families, but couldn't afford much beyond that. on christmas day, we exchanged gifts, went for a swim and went out to a nice dinner at one of the three nicer hotels on the beach. (and by "nicer" i mean $25 a room and $6 a plate as opposed to the $10 a night and $3 a meal we were paying.)

christmas having come and gone, and the island explored to our satisfaction, we moved on to find a place to spend new year's. we ended up in granada, possibly the most charming town in nicaragua.

the yellow cathedral of granada

like león, granada is a beautiful colonial town, too hot for our long-term comfort, but nice for a week or two. we stayed in a record-breaking three different hotels during our 8-day stay in granada. our first choice was nearly full and had only dorm beds left when we arrived. after checking a few nearby hotels and finding them all full or beyond our budget, we decided to settle on the dorm for the night and look for a new place the following morning.

the next day we found a place on the other side of town that was adequate, but lacked personality and we decided to stay there on a night-by-night basis until one of the more charming hotels nearby had a vacancy. this happened on our fourth day in granada and we moved to our third and final hotel a half a block away from the second. it was by far our favorite and we were glad that we made the move. across the street from our third hotel was an american-owned sports bar and we spent our new year's eve in the most un-nicaraguan way imaginable, watching the chicago bears roll over to their arch-nemesis the green bay packers. it was a painful game, but we soon forgot the misery of the afternoon as we welcomed in the new year with dick clark. (they really need to replace him next year, i mean come on, he skipped 7! a five year old could've done better.)

having thoroughly enjoyed our time in nicaragua, it was time to hightail it across two countries and fly to colombia. from the very beginning of our latin american travels we knew we would be skipping costa rica and panamá. (why, you ask? because if we wanted to spend time with americans on the beach we would have gone to florida.) the 24-hour bus ride from nicaragua to panamá city ended up being a 33-hour bus-a-thon. despite the length of the trip, we crossed the borders with ease and went to the first hotel we could find in panamá to shower and recuperate before our flight to colombia the following morning.

so here we are in colombia having a wonderful time. bogotá is my favorite city on our trip so far. it has all the beauty and charm of a latin american colonial town with all the perks and excitement of a big (but not too big) city, much like our beloved chicago. but that's all you get for now. we will say more about colombia next time.

i will try to get wendi to add her own version of the last few weeks as she is infintely more eloquent (and has a much better memory). but i'll have to let this do for now.

until next time...

scott (and wendi)

on the road again

10.27.6

pflugerville, tx

so, it's been a while. and while i wish we could say that we've been horribly busy and bogged down with all kinds of craziness, it simply is not true.

we have been somewhat busy spending quality time with friends and family including (but not limited to)

our friends beth and al (pictured left) the friends that we left behind in chicago: lesley, lauren, keith, todd, heidi (and not pictured: dave, scotty j, ian and ruthie, mark and jenn) some of my family in northwest indiana (not pictured) wendi's family in michigan (left) some more of wendi's family in kentucky (not pictured) alaska friends kyle, steph and aj in oklahoma city (not pictured) and now my family (right) and high school chums in texas (not pictured)

it was great to be back in chicago after such a long break, though it did take some adjusting after a summer in alaska. catching up with the chicagoans and a guest appearance by scott johnson made for non-stop fun times. one night during an exceptionally eventful "get together" one of lesley's neighbors even invited a police officer to stop by. but they didn't stay long or come back later like they said they might.

our next stop took us back to michigan where we had lots more good times, one of which involved the brothers-in-law in a massive paintball extravaganza. then on our way down south, we stopped through paducah, ky to visit aunt carol and uncle tim and slept in one of the most comfortable beds ever! we debated staying there to live on account of the comfortable bed, but decided to go ahead with the travels instead.

next was stephanie and kyle's place in oklahoma city (with a guest appearance by aj), during which time we learned (a) kentucky fried chicken doesn't have jack on kyle's fried chicken (b) there are liberals in oklahoma (c) we should have gone to city college.

that having been established, we ventured on through oklahoma and into the great state of texas. we arrived home just in time for dinner, followed immediately by bed time so we could get up before the butt-crack of dawn and drive to san antonio to watch my brother jog down the street. now usually my brother jogging down the street wouldn't merit the entire family driving to san antonio to watch him, but this was a special occasion. it marked the beginning of the end of air force boot camp. this was the first public display of the soon-to-be airmen graduates. and that momentous occasion can be viewed by you, the blog reader, here:

jeff's the one in the front row, near the left with the blue flag

now many of you may be wondering how an individual like myself winds up with a brother in the military. i have asked myself that same question. but in the midst of my pondering i usually realize that had i not left texas and moved to a place that would eventually fill my head with loads and loads of liberal nonsense, i too may have joined a military branch. probably not the air force though, i'm not a huge fan of flying. and i don't really like boats much either. so i guess my options would have been more limited. nevertheless, i had mixed emotions going into the whole brother-air force-graduation thing, but being there and seeing my brother, and talking to him about having a healthy skepticism of the government and knowing that it's okay to disobey orders where morality or conscience are concerned, i felt more confident that this was a positive step for him. now that he's done with boot camp his training will be in automotive mechanics, which i think will be very valuable once he gets out of the air force. he's always loved cars, and now he gets to learn how to take them apart, and perhaps more importantly, put them back together again.

so if you're keeping track at home, this makes one cousin in the marines, one high school friend in the marine reserves, one alaska coworker recently retired from the marines, one brother in the air force, and one crazy friend from college living in syria "just for the fun of it."

then just this evening, we had some hang out time with high school chums adam, phil and grant. a bit of reminiscing, some cheap imitation shiner bock and a disappointing effort by the detroit tigers made for an enjoyabe evening at the hoke residence. (except when the tigers lost, that part not-so-enjoyable. and the dog that licked our toes. that was kind of weird.)

so that about brings us up to date. we've been doing our last minute shopping stuff for toiletries and what not and we leave for mexico on wednesday november first. i'd like to say that we'll write more often once we're moving again, but who am i kidding. with less internet access and more to keep us busy, you'll probably never hear from us again. (just kidding. we'll write as often as we can.)

but until that time...

scott (and wendi)

catching up

9.21.6

missoula, mt

so here we are, on the road again. summer's been wonderful. for those of you that we haven't talked to much but who check our blog regularly, we apologize for the lack of content lately. life in alaska has been very exciting and illuminating for us. we found ourselves constatnly wishing we had more hours in the day, and constantly sleep deprived (which we made up for by sleeping 12-15 hours on our days off). we haven't added much to our snapfish page lately, but we will in the next week or two.

our last days in alaska were bittersweet. as fall began to slip away (or more accurately, be blown away during heavy windstorms) our co-workers and we began to dread the impending separation we had feared all summer. saying goodbye to our new friends who we had grown so close to was as difficult as saying goodbye to any friend. our only consolation was the hope of seeing them next summer.

tearful goodbyes behind us, we loaded up our stallion of a car, leaving many of the things we brought with us on the way up so as to accomodate our newest acquisition, beth. beth has been traveling with us, through rainy alaska, the frigid yukon, beautiful british columbia (so their license plates say, and truly so), suburban alberta and into our most recent temporary home in missoula, montana, from where i am writing.

missoula is a wonderful, wonderful place. here we are visiting our friend al. and when i say our friend, well, it's a little complicated.

i (scott) met al in the summer of 1997 as we were on the same teen missions team to ecuador. it was a really big team, so al and i didn't get to know each other really well, but well enough to recognize each other when we met again in chicago 6 years later. beth met al independently of scott when they went to egypt together with the middle east studies program through their respective colleges. wendi and beth met at north park university and wanted to go to egypt together, but it didn't work out. so wendi went to egypt the following semester and had a wonderful time anyway. wendi and al met when wendi got back from egypt and al had just moved to chicago to work woth americorp. and then one day beth and wendi and al were all sitting around "girl-talking" and somehow my name came up and they realized that they all knew me. so they conspired to have me meet them somewhere and see if i remembered al without telling me she was going to be there, but my friend ernesto was privy to this info and warned me of their conniving plan. thus i re-met al and now we're friends again. so there it is, the six degrees of al.

anyway, from here our next stop is minnesota, where we'll drop off beth at her parents' house. then off to chicago for a week of hanging out with friends. and then michigan and texas for family time, oh, with a brief stop in oklahoma to visit some of our new alaska friends.

and that about brings us up to date. i'm sure wendi will be adding her two cents very soon, so keep an eye out for that. in the meantime, we hope you're all doing very well, and feel free to drop us a line and let us know what's going on with you. also, our cell phone is back in commission for the next few weeks, until we leave the country again. so call soon and call often.

wendi and the baker sisters out and about in alaska

just a quickie...

6.16.6

denali nat'l park, ak

dear readers,

we realize that we haven't posted here in a while and we wanted you all to know that we are still alive and well. we are having a wonderful experience, and despite the fact that the summer is 1/4 over, we are still adjusting to life in alaska, and especially living in a community.

wendi's college friend beth and her sister britta just arrived a week ago and so we have been doing a lot of catching up with them as well as helping them to settle in. the weather couldn't be better and aside from a wildfire raging out of control to the north of us, most days here have been picture-perfect.

for those who have not checked in a while, there are a few pictures from our flightseeing tour around denali (mount mckinley) on our photos page, as well as a couple pictures from some local hikes that we have gone on.

but fret not those of you living vicariously through us this summer, for much more is forthcoming. much more...

until then,
scott and wendi

ps for those of you that are interested, our first anniversary is this sunday. we are very excited that we made it this long and hope to god that we can make it at least one more year. ha ha! just kidding. it was a piece of cake. mmm cake. anyway, just thought i'd throw that out there.

the union of serbia & montenegro is no more

5.27.6

denali nat'l park, ak

for those of you who do not follow balkan affairs, montenegro, the homeland of my great grandfather (on my mother's father's side) has chosen to terminate its union with serbia. for most of you this means nothing, except that i have been lying to you for many years. for in the balkans, when one country divides into two or more countries, each of those new nations changes not only its flag and the name of its country, but also the name of its language (even though the language itself does not change) and its ethnicity (because apparently being in a different country changes your genes).

therefore, i have been made a liar, for i have always told you i am a quarter serbian when in fact, i am now a quarter montenegrin. and all those times you caught me reading books on serbian history, i was actually reading books on serbian and montenegrin history. and when i was reading language books on the serbo-croatian language, i was actually reading language books on the montenegrin-serbo-croatian language.

i'm sorry to have put you through this. i hope you can all learn to trust me again. and if, in the distant future, montenegro should split into the democratic socialist republic of montenegro and titogradestan, i will send yet another apology. may that day never come.

and now i leave you with the official montenegrin state anthem (translated into english, for your reading convenience).

O, bright dawn of May
Our mother Montenegro
We are sons of your rocks
and keepers of your honesty

We love you, the hard hills
and your terrifying gorges
That never came to know
The chains of shameful slavery.

While our unity gives wings
to our Lovcen cause
Proud shall be, celebrated will be
Our dear homeland.

a river of our waves,
Jumping into two seas,
Will bear voice to the ocean,
That Montenegro is for eternity.

scott (and wendi)

travels with scott & wendi and the books they've been reading

4.30.6

los angeles, ca

well, hello friends. here we are at yet another scott and wendi blog entry (this one written by scott). so let's get right down to the good stuff.

our time in texas was wonderfully restful yet still busy and exciting. we saw many beloved family members and quite a few old friends, though we somehow managed to miss a few. it's funny that the more time we have, the less we seem to accomplish. we kept thinking we would have plenty of time until suddenly our time was nearly spent and we scrambled frantically to fit four weeks worth of activities into the last four days. but thus is the procratinator's life. unfortunatley, we have become accustomed to it and resigned to our fate, though we are sorry to those we missed as a result. but fear not, texans, for we shall return, and our next visit will be significantly shorter, therefore we will accomplish much more, i'm sure.

our first stop out of texas was beautiful new mexico: two days in albuquerque with a friend of mine from my early moody days, evangeline. she showed us around the exciting parts of the city, including a tour of old town. if i were wendi, i would give you a well-worded, detailed explanation of the architecture and the atmosphere of this area that would make you feel like you were there, experiencing it yourself. but i am not wendi. i am scott. and anyway, wendi will probably do just that when she posts on here in the next few days. so you'll just have to wait till then. sorry.

our next stop was the enchanted circle area of northeastern new mexico. there are a series of state and us highways that circle wheeling peak (the highest point in new mexico) passing through beautiful mountain passes and quaint little ski towns (unlike the huge resort ski towns in colorado) including, but not limited to, taos, eagle nest, questa and my personal favorite, red river. i daresay it is one of the most beautiful places in this grand country of ours, and if you've never been, go. and even if you have been, go again.

we did a little camping, a little hiking and a whole lot of driving. we probably drove about 250 miles in the two days we were there, and the circle is only about 75 miles all the way around. we took a lot of scenic detours. we tried to take some pictures to share with you all, but it's just so hard to capture the fullness of it all. nonetheless, we picked the best of the pics and added them to our our photos |photo gallery for your viewing pleasure.

our next stop was a night in tucson arizona to visit one of wendi's friends from her semester in egypt, rachael. i won't expound on this stop with too much detail, because wendi probably will, but i will say that arizona is not all desert as many non-natives are lead to believe. and rachael and ed were most gracious hosts, staying up late to chat and fixing a wonderful breakfast first thing in the morning.

so now we are in los angeles visiting wendi's cousins erica and shannon. (yes, i know she has the same name as me.) from here, a few more stops in california, camping in oregon, a day or two in washington, the perilous neverending trek through canada and finally, three months after leaving chicago, we reach our destination and home for the next four months: alaska.

since we left chicago i, scott, have been doing the driving and wendi has been doing the reading. our first book was travels with charley. while i am told it is not one of steinbeck's best, it is the quintessential road trip book. it is merely an account of steinbeck traveling around the country, much like we are, and describing his encounters with the common people.

our second book was a bill bryson book called "i'm a stranger here myself". bill bryson is perhaps the foremost travel writer in the english language. he has written numerous books on a myriad topics, and he is very good at what he does. this particular book is a compilation of weekly columns he wrote for an english paper about life in his homeland america after living in britain for over twenty years. we didn't finish it yet, but it is one of those you can pick up and put down anytime, so it's good for short stints.

while driving through texas we read "a separate peace." while texas is indeed big enough to start and finish a book that size, we had actually started the book many months before while driving to michigan, and had only just remembered that we never finished it. it didn't end the way i would have liked, but overall it was still a very good book. and being as short as it is, definitely worth the time that it takes to read.

since we finished a separate peace so quickly, we decided to move onto our next mammoth project "the da vinci code." though the puzzle sections were so long and drawn out that we always figured them out before the characters did, "the teacher" was a bit of a surprise. overall i'd say the book was very entertaining, though i could understand why christians are so up in arms about it (especially catholics). having learned christian history at a bible institute, i knew what was historically true and what the author embellished for the book. not knowing the difference between those could cause one to question one's beliefs. though maybe that isn't such a bad thing. there are many books written on church history, but few readers. i highly recommend this book. if you are a christian, follow it up with this wikipedia article and any of a number of church history books of your choosing. just keep in mind that the premise of the book is that a lot of the bible was re-written centuries ago, so the things the da vinci code claim as facts in this work of fiction are only facts in the fictional world in which they exist.

we haven't decided what our next book will be, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to shoot them our way.

and on a completely unrelated topic, for those of you who think you are history/geography buffs, there's a guy on myspace who likes to make really hard tests. they're usually one hundred questions long and moderately hard. wendi and i did the geography one together and scored in the low sixties. i took the history part one test today and got a 66. so for all you gluttons for punishment, you can take them here.

well, that's it for now. till next time...

(scott)

on the road again...with the proper car insurance

4.20.6

pflugerville, tx

well, it's almost that time. we've been in texas for almost four weeks; caught up with some old friends, visited with family near and far and relived some of my favorite texas memories (including, but not limited to, getting a speeding ticket, just like the good old days). and though it's been fun, we're excited to move on.

less excited is our insurance company. so it turns out that your car insurance premiums are based on where your car is parked overnight. and since we'll be working and living right at the entrance of denali national park, the insurance company had a hard time figuring out how much our premium should be. after being put on hold about five or six times for about three to five minutes each time, the lady on the other end finally asked if she could just call me back. and here i thought i'd just give them the address and it would be over. oh no, friends. they had to cancel our old policy and go through the entire process of setting up a new one. in the end it was worth it though (and this is the part where i feel like i'm in a geico commercial). "i just saved a boatload on car insurance."

well that's all i got for now. so, until next time (and this is the part where i feel like i'm on mister roger's neighborhood)

*changes shoes*

*takes off button up sweater vest, puts on rain coat* (it's raining here.)

bye!

-scott (and wendi)

p.s. for those of you who love the godfather and video games, the new godfather video game is awesome! but only one player and takes about 30-40 hours of play time to beat.