Sunday Mass

As a first timer to Paris, I did the usual things. Eiffel Tower, Versailles, Escargot.  But what I didn’t bank on was attending Sunday Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral.   After 3 days of clouds, cold and rain, we finally had a beautiful day.  Full of sun and a little wind.  I actually took my coat off. But never my scarf. I think scarves are mandatory in Paris.

Notre Dame Cathedral

 

On first glance of the cathedral, I was let down.  It is the 850 year anniversary and in front there is a huge, ugly building blocking any decent front view, housing a makeshift museum of Notre Dame and it’s past.  The line was long and we only had so many hours left in the day to see everything, so the plan wasn’t to go in.  Also, it reminded me of Westminster Abbey, and I’m not too impressed with the Abbey. Sorry. So going into another church wasn’t on my list.  Was I ever wrong.

Upon entering you are greeted with huge wooden doors, and that brown darkness that comes with any old church. It’s not black, but brown. Maybe because of the candles, or the stained glass windows. Or because black is too “dark” for a church.  I always look up first. The eye to drawn upwards with all the elaborate arches and light filtering in from blue and purple windows.  Then I heard the singing, more like chanting. It was in Latin. It was Sunday, after all. I had seen the “Silence” signs, but figured that was a general. Respect the church and be quiet type sign.  Nope, they were having Mass.  Awe and excitement.  To have stumbled upon such a unique experience, in such an iconic place.  Having never attended a Catholic Mass, I was intrigued.

 

 

 

 

 Regardless, of what you believe I felt a supreme presence in that place.  You know, when the hair on the back of your neck stands up and you get goose bumps down your arm.  Being in such a beautiful place, witnessing a thousand-year old tradition it’s hard to not feel something in your soul.

 

 

View from the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I felt very irreverent being there as a tourist who just stumbled upon a church service.  I took pictures anyway.  I lit a candle, God forgives me.

 

 

From Paris, with love.

Red Velvet to the Rescue!

I have been feeling quite homesick this past week. With Easter coming up, being my all time favorite holiday.  It really is the best. The food. The colors. The pretty, new dresses and hats, and Easter egg hunts. I remember waking up on Easter Sunday, and finding my Easter basket, full with chocolate bunnies and yellow peeps.  Oh, man peeps. Pop a whole one in your mouth and feel the sugar melt and the marshmallow go all gooey. Yeah, I miss peeps. The UK doesn’t have peeps, or bags and bags of jelly beans and you don’t find aisles of pretty green and pink Easter grass for the baskets. There is also an absence of the thin boxes of egg dye kits and no “He is Risen” signs.

With all this homesickness blues, I decided to make some “feel good” food. Some southern comfort to help get me through, if you will.  A yummy, from a box, red velvet cake, complete with cream cheese icing. I’m not as good as decorating cakes as my mama, but I try. 

MMMMM

I hope you all have a great Easter holiday, and that you eat lots of yummy food and visit with your family.

From Britain, with love.

 

Blarney is more than just a stone.

A few weeks ago, B and I went to Ireland. Ireland. The land of my ancestors.  I wasn’t even that scared on the plane, I was so excited.

I have wanted to go to Ireland for as long as I can remember. I was expecting green fields and smiley people and old men walking with canes, coming out of pubs.

I got all of that and more!

Blarney Castle

We were met at the airport by our friends Shane and Morgan. Shane is Irish, Morgan is Texan. Two of the  quirkiest people I know, and I love them for it.   As we were walking through security, Bill mentioned that if we weren’t greeted with a sign, he’d be disappointed.  So as we turned the corner, we see Shane holding up this thin strip of paper, with our names on it.  A sign made from an old receipt.

We dropped our bags off at their house, and Shane’s roommate (mom) took us into Cork City.  As we walked around, all I could think was “I’m in Ireland. I’m drinking a pint, in an Irish pub. Is that guy getting arrested?” I had been in Ireland for less than 2 hours and already saw a guy getting a talking to by the Garda (Police, in Irish).  I was in heaven.

The highlight of the trip for me was going to Blarney Castle. The famous castle, where you lay on your back and bend backwards to kiss the Blarney Stone. Thus gaining the gift of gab. Of course I did this.

Kissing the Blarney Stone

What I wasn’t expecting from Blarney, was how beautiful the grounds would be.

There is this “secret” garden, behind a high rock wall.  You walk through a low beam tunnel and discover on the other side this wonderland. Waterfalls and a witch’s kitchen, and trees with red fall leaves.

It also had these strange plants, that looked like they should have been in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Huge green leaves and tall branches.

Fairy Plants

It was a total fairy land.  As you follow the path, you discover more waterfalls, and old druid sites.  Ireland is so old. No, not old. Ancient.  Ireland is ancient.   People know about the Potato Famine, and that the Republic of Ireland was once part of the Commonwealth. Or that Guinness is brewed in Dublin.  But they forget, or just do not know, that Ireland was invaded by Vikings. Which means that there were people on this green island, long before the Vikings.

Druids and faeries and witches and Blarney stones.

My dream to visit Ireland is now complete and I can not wait to visit again!!

From Ireland, with love.

Brooke Teacha…Where you been???

I haven’t written a post in near a year.  I kept meaning to, but then didn’t.  I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

I am no longer Brooke Teacher, and while I wouldn’t trade my days as a teacher to some of the sweetest, cutest, smartest kids in the Eastern Hemisphere. I am glad that chapter of my life is closed.  My time in Korea taught me things I never knew I needed being taught.

That you can work a full week while having a 101 temp and border line walking pneumonia and manage to get things done.  Apply and get accepted into grad school within 10 days. Start to finish.  Have your intelligence and patience tested daily for weeks on end by your superior, yet remain polite and courteous…..Melt downs in the stairwells doesn’t count.  Have your life turned upside down and plans changed because oceans aren’t going to keep you apart.

This new chapter of my life involves a new country, a new school, and more adjusting.

I’ve moved to London, y’all.

Started graduate school (yeah, I know) and getting used to misty rain and lots o’ tea. I’m liking it here. I think. The British. I’m quite fond of one said Briton.  The rest? Only time will tell.  Between young mothers pushing their strollers (prams) everywhere. I think they are the ajumma of the English. (Ajumma: Old Korean woman that will mow you over.), and everyone else walking around with an angry look on their face. I smile at them, they look at me funny, and then smile back.

At one point, I heard some people talking and thought ” wow, you sound pretentious” and then remembered where I was.  The first week I was here I thought My Briton was going to kill me if I said ” You sound like you’re from London” one more time.  But that was nothing compared to the fiasco that occurred when we visited Parliament, and I had forgot that my innocent pocket knife was still in my backpack……Yeah, there’s no telling what kinds of “lists” I’m on now.

I am loving my experiences thus far.  I don’t think I’d ever fit in anywhere where there’s not cattle grazing within a 10 mile radius, with proper cowboys tending them. But I do know that if I don’t continue to chase whatever it is in me that won’t let me stay home I’ll never be happy.

Stay tuned……My Briton and I are going to Ireland this weekend, let’s see if I get something else confiscated.

From London, With love! XX

There’s a sniper where?!?!?!

I haven’t posted in quite awhile.   I’ve been a busy girl……

In the last 6 weeks I’ve been 400 meters underground…..seen North Korea up close and personal…..Watched a real international football(soccer) game…..Had beers…make that several beers with a couple of Irish guys, 1 full, 1 just half…saw the Sea of Japan from 22 floors up….and hang out with zombies.

I think that qualifies as busy.  To be honest, I’m not sure where to start.

Perhaps I should start out by saying that if you come to Korea and don’t take the USO tour of the DMZ you have just done yourself a disservice.  As it is the most amazing thing I have ever done!  Yes, I was nervous about having rifles pointed at me by North Koreans, but when you get back on the bus, sit down and realize what you just saw…..I still get chills.

We went down into the 3rd tunnel…saw the black powder paint the North Koreans used to mark their way through.  That was cool and all, but it was nothing compared to when we pulled up to Camp Bonifas and an American MP stepped on our bus to escort us into the most heavily guarded area on Earth.  Maybe I’m just biased, but I love our guys in uniform….Just throwing that out there……

Before we could go into the JSA (Joint Security Area), where North and South Korea can meet peacefully, we pretty much had a debriefing.  It was candid and everything you would hope it would  be.  Then it was time to get back into our single file lines and walk into the little blue room.  The ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers are truly badasses!!  They are constantly in a stance for attack.

That folks is The JSA

A group of Okies...

Looking into North Korea, you realize how small this world is.  That certain things just don’t matter.  I can not wait to go back to the DMZ.   I hope more people would go.  You are perfectly safe.  My cell phone worked the entire time…

In the next few days I’ll update on more of what I wrote at the beginning….As I have much to talk about!!!  But as always….

From Korea, with love!

Jimjilbanging

Boryeong, South Korea is famous for its mud, and its mud festival, which is held every July.  I wish I had taken the advice of a fellow traveler and gone this year, alas I’ll have to extend my contract through July next year. That why I’ll be able to tell you what’s it’s like to get painted in mud and walk around the beach with a couple thousand other foreigners.

But I can tell you all about how I got naked and bathed in mud…in a spa! (gutter minds)

The story goes down as follows…

We had just arrived at Dacheon beach when it began to rain.  After finding a place to stay for the night, we walked to the beach and got our feet wet, followed by a dash to shelter as the sprinkles turned into full-blown rain drops.  DANGIT!! I wanted to lay out and soak up all the sun I could!  Then Tina mentioned the Mud Spa just up the beach.  By all means lets check that out and get out of this rain.

Down the beach we walked to this modern building, covered in little white people in black face…uh I mean covered in mud. Oh Korea….We walked in and looked at the prices….Whoa a full massage is how much?  $30?? oh hell yes!  We paid the man and were pointed upstairs.  And that’s were it got weird.

At the top of the stairs we were instructed to remove our shoes and place them in little wooden lockers, and then enter the next room.  Once inside we are then instructed to remove our clothing, fold them and place them in slightly larger wooden lockers, put the key ring on our wrist and enter the bathing room.  I look at Tina, she looks at me…What do you mean take off all our clothing?? Whoa lady, look I don’t take off nothing on a first date, I sure as hell ain’t getting naked with a bunch of ajumma’s just waiting to point at a couple of waygookins.

But we had already paid…So off went the clothes, on went towels we swiped! 

We then proceed into the bathing area, are told to wash “really” good and then we are to get into a series of baths.  My eyes remain on the ceiling, like it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen, and we step into the “Hot Mineral” bath.  Since no one else is in that one…After playing musical baths for about 45 minutes, we are summoned into the massage area.

And then it gets weirder…

We are told, by comical gesturing, to lay down in these little pod like things.  They look like strange little tanning beds, and I’m an old pro at tanning beds.  Never met one I didn’t like…Well unless it was made prior to 2003, goes longer than 15 minutes and doesn’t have high pressure bulbs. Then I don’t like it.  But these things looked like something a small space man would fly in.  I eye it, and the spa attendant laughs at me. Not cool!  I lay down and she mashes a couple of buttons and closes me inside, just my face is sticking out.  Then she puts a face mask on me, hits another button and walks away.  I feel warmth inside the pod…Oh shit what is this!  My skin starts to sting. Not cool at all.  I spend the next 15 minutes holding the pod door up because they are trying to cook me.  I still don’t know what that thing was for!

After 15 minutes we are led to tables and told to lay down on our backs, and were given little privacy towels.  How cute, nope they didn’t do their job with me.  Next, we were given make shift hand and feet massages and then told to roll over.  Now comes the mud part…

A lady begins to smear mud all over my backside. It drys, and then she proceeds to do the same on the other side.  Let’s just say she got to second base.  After I’m completely covered in mud I have to go lay in this sauna thing with a warm brick under my head.  I didn’t like it. Sauna’s aren’t my favorite thing in the world.  Next came a shower! And then the best part of this whole experience!! The milky flower bath!!

Oh my, it was heaven!  They mix this warm bubbly bath for you, and it smells wonderful.  Like flowers and sugar.  Total luxury.  It was what I figure the baths were like in Egypt for Cleopatra. For serious.  I wish I could have just had that for the 4 hours I was there.

Then we could put our clothes back on.  For what would have close hundreds back home, we were treated to Korean luxury fr only $30 and had one crazy, naked experience.  If you’re ever in Boryeong, or Korea for that matter, I highly recommend the Mud Spa.  Just be prepared to get naked…

From Korea, with love!

Weekend of Firsts

It’s Chuseok weekend.  Korea’s version of the American Thanksgiving.  Where they gather with their families and pay respects to their ancestors…To foreigners this means a few days off work!!  This is my Chuseok Story.

I wake up at 7:30am Saturday morning, having gone to bed just 5 hours prior.  “What am I doing?” I ask myself…Going off on a weekend trip with 2 people I barely know.  It reminds me of a spring break long ago, where memories still warm my heart, so I shower, put on my backpack and head towards to the subway……An adventure is waiting…….

A few transfers later I am in the train station, searching for my new friends. They are waiting in a jewish sandwich shop, that serves bacon…Have I mentioned I love Korea….

Anyway, after a quick breakfast, Jordan(AKA Mr. Rogers or Mobs. I like to nickname people) distributes the $9 standing-room-only tickets.  I then learn that for about 50 cents more we could have had seats.  I’m sure I give him my best “WTF Brooke face”.  He assures me that there is a dining car and we’ll sit there.  Tina, who made up this threesome just looks on with a toothy grin…

We  proceed to get in line, the only waygookins in sight.  I am approached by a non-Korean couple, they ask if we are going to the DMZ.  They are from SE Asia somewhere and speak impeccable English.  No matter where I am people to walk up and chat…Must be the okie smile.  Jordan sees that the line is moving and we are hustled outside to the terminal.  I am about to board my first real train.

With a swoosh of air, the train for Boryeong arrives…WEEE I’m on a train!  We push and shove our way towards the – existent dining car……But find space in the little area where the train cars meet, I assume this is called the joints. So we claim some steps and feel the train begin to move!  I look up at the window and see buildings zooming by in a blurry haze.  After a few minutes the colors of the haze change from a beige-gray to greens and blues.  We have left the city, I am now in the countryside of Korea…

Somewhere between Seoul and Boryeong

 While standing and sometimes sitting in the  un air-conditioned joint area of a train car, where your nose is assaulted with brake dust and ajummas grace you with disapproving stares, it really wasn’t all that bad.  I did witness some hilarious scenery.

Glorious shoes worn by a twentysomething Korean male...

 

Welcome to Sillyewon.....What??

 

 

 

 

First train ride…Success!!

 

First time letting a man decide on what tickets to buy….

 

Stay tuned for Part 2….

accommodations and naked mud spas…

 

 

“The Great Chuseok Adventure” Teaser….

Coming this week….The Great Chuseok Adventure!!

Starring Brooke, Tina, and Mobs…

Featuring…

Train rides

Sparklers

Clams on the half shell

Ajumma’s with Roman Candles

Ferry rides to nowhere

Island Pastors

Naked Mud Spas

Introducing…Little Germany

Powder River Let ‘er Buck!!

Last week was County Fair time in Johnson County, where the fairgrounds are over run with kids with free rein, drunk Basqos, and the earthy smell of cow shit.  I would have  been on the first flight home if I could be there.

Rural summer would be something I knew I’d  really miss when I boarded that plan in Seattle 3 months ago.

Buffalo, Wyoming.  A place that has become my hometown.  My parents finally bought the house we’ve lived in for 8 years.  We moved in a month before I left for college.  It sits on the foot of the Big Horns.  It’s my home. Spruce trees and lilac bushes.  Nosy neighbors who would no doubt report if I ever had a party.  Don’t worry, that’s not my style.

But back to this place in the wild wild west.  I love it when people ask me where I’m from and I throw up the west side gang sign ( make a “W” with my fingers) and say Wyoming!  Home of Chris LeDoux, The Johnson County Cattle War, Basques, and the fabled Powder River.

The only state whiter than Wyo is Utah.  We have more sheep than people, and if you ask anyone, we’re sure as shit fine with that fact.

I even brought Steam Boat with me to Korea.  He’s the Wyoming bucking horse. And he lives on my wall.

And of course mine has glitter on it…

The State sport is Rodeo and the state song is Home on the Range.

Dick Cheney is a Wyomingite, and yes we’ll all shoot you in the face if need be.

And no I didn’t photoshop this.

I recently met a girl in Korea from Arizona.  When I told her where I’m from, she said ” oh I’ve met someone from there before! She was so nice!”  I’m probably the only person in Korea from Wyoming.

Wyoming is where I drank my first beer, Coors Light.  Sitting around a bon fire, made from palettes stolen from a lumber yard, along the Platte River in Junior College.  That’s how we do in Wyo.

It’s where I learned to drive a stick shift real quick, and where I became a legend when I told another girl to F off one cold morning in the Ag Shop, while I was in high school.

Wyoming still holds a wildness you can only find in the west.

I used to wake up and look out my window and see snow covered mountains….

There is a phrase we say in Wyoming…..Powder River, Let ‘r Buck!!

When something starts to head south, or starts to get a little hairy.  I say this phrase.  I’m not 100 % sure why this phrase even exists.  And I really don’t care.

It’s a battle cry, a party starter.

I miss the crisp morning air laced with sage brush.  Seeing horse trailers getting pulled up the mountain and dirty cowboys getting down on some Dash Inn (the best burger place in the state).

If you’re ever in Wyoming I highly recommend you stop in Buffalo.  You’ll more than likely drive through it anyway. Since 2 of the 3 interstates in the state meet there.  Get a dashburger at Dash Inn and eat with the locals.  Be sure to drive within the speed limit if you have out of state tags.  Then head over to the Ice Cream Parlor for some Huckleberry ice cream and stroll down historic main street.  Walk through the Occidental Salon (with real bullet holes and ghosts of cowboys and fallen women). If it’s Thursday, stay for the jam session.

Wyoming will always be my home, and I’m proud to say I’m from there.  With its wind and winters that last all year.  It snowed on the high school graduation day.

I dare you to drive through Crazy Woman Canyon and not fall in love….

See ya soon Buff!

Shout out…

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Just wanting to say a quick little thanks to all of you who have been reading.

THANKS!!!!

I was so surprised and honored with all of your sweet and encouraging comments that you’ve left me in various places.

I’m glad that you’re liking what I’m writing and you’ve made it so that I can’t just stop writing now.  I have to keep it up!

To me it’s crazy who is reading.  Please don’t stop.

When I’m breaking 50 views a day it feels incredible that so many people are caring about what I’m doing over here.

I’d love to have visitors too….hint hint 😉

With love, from Korea…