This entry explores a few memories of one of my hometowns, Victoria, Texas. For those of you visiting the blog with no experience in Victoria, just imagine how much your own hometown has changed over the years. Change is universal, but can be so shocking to an expat! This entry is cross posted at Ni Howdy.

In a repeat of a journey I first took 25 years ago, I have arrived in Victoria, Texas from Denver, Colorado. I was only 8 years old in 1984 when my parents informed my brother, sister and I that we were leaving Colorado for my father’s new job in South Texas. After considering Seguin (their chosen house was too close to the airport) and Cuero (a town with big football dreams but maybe a bit too small) they finally settled on Victoria. With a house bought, we knew there was no staying in our beloved Colorado. We flew into Corpus Christi that summer and drove a rental car up the coast. I’ll never, ever forget the wash of heat and humidity that confronted us on arrival. I was immediately worried that I would never breathe again. The heat and humidity were not helped much by being crammed into that car with my siblings, mom, dad and two giant chocolate Labrador retrievers.

We moved into our first house, in the Cimarron subdivision off of John Stockbauer. My parents made to placate our broken hearts on leaving the snow slopes of Colorado with a new sport – trampoline jumping. At Bernie’s Boats & Motors, we received our first lesson in the Texas language. My mom, perhaps worried we didn’t appreciate the giant tramp, said, “you guys better use this.” The nice salesman couldn’t help himself, “Ma’am, we say ‘ya’ll’ here.” These days, my parents are fluent, using “fixin’ and ya’ll” with a native’s ease.

My first school in Victoria was in Deleon Elementary’s third grade. My memories have faded, but I will never forget the joy of picking my first dewberries in the fields behind that school and plucking moss off of the trees in the fields in front. Now I drive down John Stockbauer and can’t even see the school buildings. The fields are full of houses and nearby, a giant new high school is taking shape.

Through the years, we moved from Cimarron to a house off of Mockingbird, where I attended Rowland Elementary, and then eventually to Goliad County, where I rode a bus for the first time and learned how to raise chickens and cows. Further moves took my family to Kuwait and myself far and wide, from Central America to Europe to Canada to Asia. I’ve always returned to Victoria, always returned with mouth wide at the changes I see each visit.

For those of you who have lived years in Victoria, the changes taking place here are visible to you on a daily basis. Perhaps they are not shocking to you as they are to me.

To suddenly roll into town and find your favorite dollar movie theater is shuttered, to see
the full price Cinemark abandoned, replaced by a giant cineplex behind the mall. You see,
when my friends tell me they are heading out to a midnight screening of New Moon, I imagine them pulling into the parking lot between Blackwood Toyota and Lack’s furniture store. And I still think of the shiny and huge HEB next door as a K-Mart. Driving to Hasting’s, I’ll inevitably turn to the right instead of to the left, finding myself at a liquor store instead of book store (not that this is entirely bad, mind you.) I used to think Victoria ended at Northcrest, but am now amazed to see an entire shopping center there. Who knows what’s next.

Back in my Victoria College days, I ate quite a few meals at Applebee’s. I remember clearly when it opened and how long one had to wait for a table. Now Montana Mike’s sits in its place, although I imagine the opening lines were just as long. There are new restaurants all over the place. I remember shopping trips to Corpus Christi always included lunch at Chili’s and how I wished Victoria had one. I have to admit real sadness at the loss of Village Inn, though. Once upon a time there were no Starbucks, just Village Inn and Denny’s for a cup of Joe.

Even the roads of Victoria have changed. For years, any trip into Victoria we made meant a drive down Business Highway 59, over the Guadalupe River bridge, into Old Victoria. Now we can bypass all of those stop-lights and head straight into North Victoria via the Highway 77 loop. I remember when “the loop” meant the truck route of Highway 59 that deviated to the East at Aloe Field and bypassed the city to just north of the airport.

New overpasses, new stoplights, new median dividers, new fast food joints, new hotels, new drugstores…

My, my, Victoria, how you have changed.

Last month I was forced to renew my passport. This is a pretty momentous event in the life of an expat. Our passport is our most treasured and protected document. With it, we can travel and live legally in our chosen expat domain. Without it, we are naked in expat purgatory, trapped, reliant on our consulate and the speed with which they can produce a new one, cold and empty as it may be.

I really didn’t want to renew this passport. As the dreaded “six months to expiry” date approached, I knew the deed had to be done. If I wanted to travel at all, I needed more than six months of validity. But it was not easy. This passport is full of memories. Each page and every stamp tells a small part of the story that is my life as a traveler and expat. This passport also tells the story of my life with the DH. We’ve known each other for each of the ten years of this passport’s life. We’ve been married for eight of them, eight years today, coincidentally. Ten year anniversary of my passport, eight year anniversary of my marriage. I told you there would be anniversaries!

I love flipping through its pages, and at first I thought I would post scans of them, but that would have made for a mile long post. Instead, I’ll post highlights with my memories of how I got the stamps throughout the month ahead.

1999 Passport, so worn out the US seal is no longer visible. 2009 Passport with the dreaded RFID chip symbol.

Although my new passport is indeed cold and empty, I look forward to all the unknown stamps and visas that will fill its pages and to another adventurous ten years with the DH, my favorite travel and expat buddy. Happy Anniversary, DH!

En Español:

Como puedes imaginar, el pasaporte es muy importante a los expatriados. Sin ello, no podemos viajar a un pais al otro y en el caso de China, tampoco podemos mover dentro del pais. Sin el pasaporte, nostros no existimos. El mes pasado yo tenía que ir a Beijing para renovar mi pasaporte en el consulado americano. (O estadounidense si quieres ser perfectamente correcto…)

La verdad es que no quería renovar éste documento. Está llena de muchas memorias de los ultimos diez años que he vivido en el extranjero y todos los viajes que he tomado con el DH. Hemos estado juntos todos éstos diez años del pasaporte, y casados ocho de ellos, ocho años hoy, precisamente. (Te he dicho que habría aniversarios, verdad?) Pero si yo quería continuar viviendo así, no había mas remedio. Una pasaporte sin seis meses de validez no tiene valor ninguno.

Me gusta mucho mirar a los visados y sellos que rellenan las paginas y recordar las buenas experiencias que he tenido. En vez de poner aqui fotos de todas las paginas, como quería hacer, voy a enfocar en un par de visados/sellos especiales durante el mes.

Aunque éste nueveo pasaporte parezca muy frío, tengo illusion para poder rellenarlo de visados y sellos de mis aventuras por el mundo al lado de mi aventurero preferido – el DH! Feliz aniversario!

Not your typical travel photo…

Visiting Kuwait’s Fairgrounds, 1992

After the Gulf War ended, Kuwait was left with a huge amount of discarded Iraqi weaponry. Much of it was left in the desert for later recovery. Some was moved to the Kuwaiti Fairgrounds where it was on display to the public. My guess is that these workers were Egyptian. They were, like us, taking advantage of their free time for a stroll around the macabre museum of tanks, artillery and assorted mortar launchers.

This post is part of Photo Friday featuring Travel Photos. Visit Delicious Baby for more!

*Today is Kuwait’s Liberation Day – the day that Operation Desert Storm, the First Gulf War, successfully restored Kuwait’s sovereignty, eighteen years ago! Wow, I feel old. Yesterday was also Kuwait’s National Day. During my time in Kuwait, I remember these two days as being a time of jubilant celebration! (Lots of colored lights strung up on houses, tons of Kuwaiti flags and the occasional gunfire!) Here is a post I have been working on for quite a while as I attempt to document my experiences in Kuwait 1992-1994.*

Variations on a theme – Submunitions left behind – 1991 Gulf War

Once upon a time I lived in a desert. Sounds awfully romantic. I had wanted this desert to be red, with soft rolling dunes like the Sahara, but it was not. This desert was flat and had been scarred by war. We were not allowed in this desert. It was a dangerous place. The enemy was gone, but the bombs remained, abandoned on the sand like grotesque party favors. 

I left that desert over 14 years ago. I often wonder what has become of the remnants of that time, these evil playthings. Have they been left to rot and rust away? Have they all been collected and destroyed? Have the sands captured them and hidden them away? I am certain many have been lost to time and the elements. 

While my brother saw the reality of war, my parents and I saw only the aftermath. These photos might remind me of the destructiveness of war, but on an aesthetic level, they are intriguing examples of the textures, shadows and colors of the desert sand. And through time and memory those sands have become for me more rich and varied than I ever could have possibly imagined. 

The bomblets featured in these photos were most likely dropped by the Coalition Forces. Thousands of bombs never exploded. Photos taken in the Kuwait Desert in 1992 by my father, an avid military and weapons enthusiast, who by nature of his job had free access to this playground of danger. Enhanced by me.

I have a collection of Kuwait photos on Smugmug, including the desert, oil fires, scanned postcards and a few of the city. I plan to highlight some of these photos throughout the year. I have more photos to upload to Smugmug, as soon as I can get them off of my ailing external hard drive.

Additional Reading:

Kuwait City Journal: With a Bang! Bang! Bang! War Cleanup Goes On. NYTimes article from 1991 on the cleanup efforts.

Landmine Monitor Report on Kuwait 2003

Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions from Handicap International, 2006. P.36 gives information on Kuwait.

Not that I remember… I believe I was six weeks old.

Grand Canyon Circa 1976

My brother and sister might remember, however, as they were about seven and five years old. And they rocked the Grand Canyon! Check out my brother’s collar!

The Wright Kids Rock the Grand Canyon Circa 1976

I obviously have no memories of being here, so I’ll have to go back someday. I imagine that it is one of the “wonders of the world” that truly does not disappoint. I love that over 30 years time, it probably hasn’t changed at all. Now millions of years, that’s a different story!

I am home visiting my parents right now and have been scanning lots of old photos. This post is part of Photo Friday, featuring travel photos. See more here.

I’ve been watching the construction of a new restaurant in our neighborhood with great interest. We are connoisseurs of Linyi restaurants, you see, and we’re always open to new options. After the turtle debacle, I was feeling like eating Pizza Hut last night. But instead we were lured by the flashing neon sign of the recently completed restaurant.

The New Flash Chinese

Our first year in China, living at the Shijiazhuang Airport, we became intimately familiar with all the restaurants in the area. All six or seven of them. More often than not we ate at the Russians, the Mongols or a particularly dirty little dive we called the Kwik-E-Mart, but every once in a while we ventured over to the “Flash Chinese.”  (That’s it above.) The flight instructors who arrived to the company before us had christened it the flash restaurant, I can only guess because it was a little nicer than all the others.

It had the distinction of being located next to a big pink brothel, complete with faux-European white balcony. We called it Casa Rosada and that’s it on the right.

We ate out nearly every night while living in Shijiazhuang. (We did live in a hotel, afterall.) Here in Linyi we eat out practically every other day, if not more. It’s just too good and too cheap not to. I’m really looking forward to a few restaurant meals back in the US & Vancouver. (Sushi at In the Raw in Tulsa, Chicken Fried Steak at Double-D Eatery in Victoria, and who knows what kind of delights in Vancouver!)

So, the new flash Chinese is really ostentatious. So much so, I almost felt uncomfortable. While we waited for a room (private dining rooms only, which is common in China) we sat in this giant central room and had green tea, prepared just for us in an elaborate little ceremony.

It’s a little fuzzy, the DH doesn’t like to shoot with flash.
Flash would have been appropriate here.

A close-up of the waterfall. There were a few fat koi in the water.

The DH, drinking tea and waiting for our room.

Try to ignore my make-up less look here and focus on the room.

This restaurant is brand new and very, very shiny. The rooms are plush with television screens (we watched CCTV9, the English language channel), soft chairs covered in nice fabrics, complementary soy milk, fruit, tea, snacks, soup and your own personal fuwuyuan (waiter/server) who stands at attention nearby, attending to your every need. No, really. He pours your beer. You take a sip. He refills your sip. You take another. He refills again. We’re used to this by now. See the little door under the TV? That is where the outside wait staff deliver your food.

And so, our bellies full, we left the flash, vowing to return.

The new flash truly did not disappoint. The food was delicious and well prepared. We had lotus bulb & celery, eggplant fritters with shrimp (that would be two slices of eggplant with meat & shrimp in between, deep fried.), broccoli and steamed clams. The service was efficient and fairly non-intrusive. The bill was not even ridiculously high. (17 Euros for private room, high quality tea, four dishes, three bottles of beer and lots of little extras like fruit & soup…) 

And even the other clientele were friendly, good natured and drunk!
When this guy saw us, he jumped in the pic & then insisted on shaking hands with DH. We get that a lot.

I recently received an email from a friend with a Christmas Meme included. One of the questions asked, “Do you like egg nog?” When I read the question, I was suddenly seized by an overwhelming craving for the stuff. A serious craving that I would in no way be able to satisfy in Linyi, China, no matter how badly I wanted to. 

What the heck is in egg nog anyway? I always bought it in those cardboard milk cartons. I’m sure as much as I love the store-bought version, homemade egg nog must be knock-out. I “did a Google” (Wouldn’t McCain be proud of me?) and found a slew of recipes. This “traditional” version lists eggs, milk, cream, bourbon, sugar, brandy and nutmeg. Hmm… if only I were in Beijing or Shanghai… no cream and nutmeg here. 

The meme also asked, “Do you have a favorite Christmas memory?” Here’s a happy memory. When I lived in Costa Rica, I was delighted to find tetra-briks of Dos Pinos brand rompope in the supermarket year round (sans liquor). That’s right! Costa Ricans consume egg nog any time of the year! Much to the DH’s disgust, I regularly consumed the stuff. Rompope, incidentally, is Latin America’s version of egg nog. (Or egg nog is the Norteamericano’s, minus Mexico, version of Rompope, if you see the world that way.) As far as I can tell, Rompope differs in that it is flavored with vanilla and includes rum instead of bourbon. 

It’s all good in my book. There is a possibility I will be in Canada in late January… Any chance egg nog will still be in the stores? (She asks while wiping the drool from her chin.)

I’m really enjoying having my Google RSS Feed Reader open today. Because I am so many hours ahead of all of you, it is not Christmas yet for most of my favorite bloggers. But, as time slowly marches forward, the occasional post will come through with Christmas greetings. It’s like having a mailbox that delivers goodies all day! I am at work because although the Chinese enjoy the trappings of Christmas, it is not an official holiday. (Although with the kind of work I have been doing today – ahem, blog surfing – I really needn’t of bothered coming in at all! Shh!)

The wee Global Gal visits four states
at Four Corners, USA, Late 1970s

This Photo Friday I decided to visit the archives for a travel photo. Here I am as a youngster visiting the Four Corners – the place where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet.

The Four Corners states have played an important role in my life. These states mean more to me than the others – even Texas, where I spent many years of my life – and I think that is because these are the states of my youth and my family. I have lived many places yet belonged wholly to none. I will probably always be confused when asked, “Where are you from?”

I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1976 and lived in Grants for three years. Although I have few memories of the enchanted state (other than the many, many drives we’ve taken through on our way to Utah) it lives large in my imagination.

My parents were both raised in Monticello, Utah, a tiny town in the Southeast Canyonland country close to the Colorado border. I spent many vacations visiting grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles there.

After New Mexico, my family lived for five years in Castle Rock, Colorado, and in a way I will always consider the city one of my “homes.” My first real memories are of a happy childhood in an idyllic neighborhood and exciting skiing trips all over the Rocky Mountains. My first “scared to death” moments also occurred on drives through those same mountains, during blizzards. I learned to ski at Telluride at only three years and I still marvel at how I could have possibly done that!

My very first travel adventure took place in Arizona. My parents took the family camping at the Grand Canyon, not that I remember much seeing as how I was six weeks old. We took many road trips over the years, and in addition to our moves this probably influenced my love of travel as an adult.

The Four Corners area might be the closest thing I have to roots, which is why I love seeing this picture of myself “planted” in such a lovely place.

For more Photo Friday featuring travel photos visit Delicious Baby.

A pilot’s wife lives everyday with a little fear in the back of her mind. It’s something we must live with, and for most, it is a fear not unlike the one other people feel every time their loved one gets into a car.

I’ve just learned that a friend has died in an airplane accident, a fellow China alum. Living everyday around pilots, the activity of flying becomes routine, so normal. Just like getting into a car. Accidents happen far more often on the roads, we don’t think about them much. Airplane crashes, however, are so visceral, so dramatic. So unfair.

My friend was young. Those who knew him knew he was genuine, fun-loving and easy to laugh. He had overcome a devastating neck injury to return to flying and was engaged to be married. I feel sad and shocked. Panam, my former workplace, was full of characters. Masa was one of the good ones. We’ll be drinking a few Tsingtaos for you, Masa!

Hey, did I forget to tell you I ate a fried scorpion the other day? Well, I did and it tasted like a potato chip. I was having dinner with my students and, although I was totally freaked out (I grew up in a house full of little non-deadly scorpions and I fear and loathe them.), their encouragement bolstered my nerves. I popped it in and… seriously, like a potato chip.

Anyway, that wasn’t supposed to be the point of this post. I wanted to talk about a movie I just watched, Two Brothers (called Two Tigers in Chinese). If you haven’t seen it, it should be available on DVD. Watch it. Do you remember the movie The Bear? I remember seeing that movie in the theater. It was incredibly moving. Two hours of the life of a bear – “bear-ly” any human acting. (haha). Still, the emotions and motives of the bear were clearly visible and anyone who did not empathize with that giant beast and little cubs probably needs to watch it again. Two Brothers is like that. The tigers are actors, too. I don’t want to give too much plot away, but when they meet again after all that time and recognize each other – I bawled!!

The movie was filmed around Angkor Wat in Cambodia. In fact, the temples of the Wat complex feature prominently. The temples and landscape are stunning, and other than the obvious addition of  extra plants and vines inside the temples, that is how they look. (Add in a few hundred package tourists posing in front of everything!) Warning, watching this movie will make you want to visit. And why not? South-east Asia is fast becoming my favorite place and I’d love to go back to Cambodia. We might be in Vietnam soon…

And what are the snakes I refer to in the title?  In the opening scene of the movie, a close up is made of a particularly vile looking snake. Seeing that snake instantly catapulted me back to Monteverde, Costa Rica. Years ago, the DH and I took a weekend trip to the cloud forest and jungles there. (Extremely beautiful, supposed to be full of amazing wildlife. Unfortunately, we clomped through the jungle a bit too loudly and saw nothing! In fact, the highlight of the trip was when we both fell asleep, in the shade of a tree, waiting for the bus back to San Jose, and woke up an hour later only to find the sun had moved slightly and the right sides of our faces had turned bright red!)

One of the features of Monteverde is a small serpentarium – a reptile house with examples of all the slimy, creepy fauna that inhabit the nearby jungle. We spent a good hour or two going through, looking at all the snakes, spiders and lizards. When we reached the Fir de Lance, one of the deadliest snakes in Costa Rica, we couldn’t see the snake. We kept looking and looking, with our faces right up against the glass. Oh well, we thought, he is pretty hidden in that tree branch. That is when we realized that not only was there no padlock on the cage, like many of the other cages, but the whole locking mechanism was wide open.

I cannot confirm that the Fir de Lance was on the loose…nor could I deny it. Once this realization dawned on us, we got the hell out of there. Looks like I am not the only one. When searching google for the name of the snake, I found this: scroll down to the picture of the boulders and read.

Serpentarium in Monteverde – I’d think twice. Cuddly, feel-good movie about two tiger cubs in Cambodia – a better choice!