My week in Hawaii was not a vacation, I can tell you that. I went to see if I might be an apprenticed to an inventor named Dean after graduation, but it turned out that he had an agenda for the week we (my dad and I) were there. I never quite figured out what the agenda was, but I learned a few things about his past (among other things, he invented a way to turn black-and-white video into color for the Apollo missions) and some tricks to use in my future (such as doing ‘externships’ with companies I like). We also ate yummy foods like plantain fries and tortilla soup, with Dean’s own fresh-picked plantains and prickly pears.

Everyone kept telling me how expensive it is to live in Hawaii, but by the end of my week I had a plan — and it involved a beautiful bamboo house with barely a wall to block the trade winds, and a tropical garden full of bananas, coconuts, strawberry guavas, and avocados. Every morning I would walk along the shore, like Papa and I did that week, and in the evening I would count the infinitude of stars in the Hawaiian sky.

Here Joannie would call me naive and impractical, Joannie being my Grandmom’s first cousin who graciously offered her guest-rooms to us. The payment was only lively debates with a 93-year-old Republican at breakfast and dinner, and she ended up wearing me out — she would then put me out of my misery by pulling the “I lived through the Great Depression and/or World War II” card, and my commie Obama dreams were kaput. She managed to be indignant that the Hawaiian school district would let homeless children attend class, since education is obviously wasted on the lazy and ill-bred. And then she would regale us with stories about Uncle George (George Patton, that is, or “the tank guy” as I know him), or the silly commanders who, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, told everyone to “hold everything” until they arrived.

But never fear, Joannie, for my plan is a bit more concrete than I let on in the above paragraph! Just in case the Dean thing didn’t work out, I had scheduled an appointment with the head of the Architecture department at the University of Hawaii. One would not expect the UH to have a top-notch architecture program, nor would one expect me to become an architect, but by the end of the tour my heart was in it. They seem to focus on sustainability, design appropriate to historical and cultural contexts, the inclusion of emotional and functional aspects in aesthetics, and teaching a strong base of design and material understanding so that I could do something besides design houses (though I’d like to do that, too) — I could in fact do this three year program, get an Architectural Doctorate, and then become an industrial designer — all without going to art school! Max, my prodigal architect brother, had even heard of UH’s program, so it’s got to be some kind of good — though he was surprised by my interest in it.

There are so many other things I love about Hawaii. Meeting family, finding roots — meeting my distant cousins at the Mission House, where I was embraced in warm reunion, though we were really strangers — hearing about the world of my grandmother’s childhood, with all the glamour of nostalgia — the brilliant idea of connecting up Ellen, Joannie’s daughter who works with special-ed kids, with Thomas, who’s so darn good at it — and of course the seductive greens and inviting blues of the islandscape. I always claimed my Hawaiian blood (1/32 Pacific Islander) was calling me home, and right now my best-laid post-graduate plan leads me straight there.

Aloha!

I should speak about Ireland now, with its green fields and its crumbling castles and its eternal rain. Mary had come to work at Tir na nOg, “Land of the Children,” our host’s indoor playground. Anne practically raised Mary and Thomas, and her son Kieran was almost a younger brother. (Now he is a surly teenager, who loves hurling, but over two weeks spared not a dozen words for conversation.) Now she spends her days running her own business, bringing brightness especially to children with special needs. By the time she got home, she was exhausted, but still she managed to run the household.

Fortunately we weren’t just there to mooch. I suppose I expected to be taken around the countryside and the coastline, shown the wonders of the Irish world, but what I saw I did on my own steam. Thomas, Mary, and I spent a day in Cork city — a bit disappointing, to tell the truth, but it’s the company that makes the day. Our day trip to Killarney was far more exciting. We took the tour of Ross Castle, and our guide had a soft lilting narrator’s voice. It was like exploring the setting of Beowulf or my most recent read, The Pillars of the Earth, all the while listening to a book on tape. The rain threatened us, but we made it to the ruined abbey on Inisfallen Island, clambering over the half-tall walls and gaping at the luscious lake scenery.

Having walked all afternoon, we compromised with a horse cabby and rode halfway to Muckross Abbey. Mary bemoaned the loss of its pristine ruination, since it was covered with scaffolding — restoration is sometimes less authentic than leaving things to disintegrate. But suddenly we were an hour away from the last train to Charleville, and we had to walk all the way back to town. Even speed-walking we were unlikely to make it. My solution? Hitchhike! A plan of indeterminate success, as car after car passed us by, but as Mary’s wellied feet began complaining, we were picked up by a friendly North Irishman — a visitor like us!

As wonderful as Ross Castle was, it hardly compared to Buttevant Castle. No one knows about Buttevant Castle — not even life-long residents of Ballyhae or Charleville, who live less than half an hour away. In fact, it was tucked away in a back street, with a rusty chained gate as a symbolic deterrent, and its walls were nearly stone rubble in a verdant jungle. With a little — okay, a lot — of encouragement from Thomas, we climbed through the half-gone towers and found nesting birds and second-story trees. This was the Ireland I was looking for.

But mostly the Ireland I found was at home. Thomas and I helped a bit at Tir na nOg, starting with jobs like “making sure the castle is safe” — really just license to fire the air cannons at one another and fly down the slides — but inevitably ending with cleaning up. I honestly don’t know how Anne does it all day, every day. The funny thing is, working with the kids, you find that their accent is about as contagious as their germs — Mary picked up both, and although I never got sniffles, I did start lilting a wee bit.

Anne and Paudie’s families all live in the area. Everyone seems to have large plots of land, some with fields of rolled-up hay, plenty of cows, and a few horses; in the middle of each, somewhere off the pedestrian-hostile roads, is a good-sized two-story house. Everything besides the ruins is new as of the Irish Tiger, and everyone has stories of growing up in third-world conditions — Paudie had so many siblings they had to eat dinner in shifts! Except for the shiny houses, you’d hardly guess Ireland was so new to middle-class-dom. Yet they got both sides of the sword: now they have American-style problems in addition to American-style prosperity.

One family who is friends and neighbors with Anne run an organic farm. They had us over for tea, and showed us all around — though they kept apologizing for the messy state of affairs, I loved the slight wildness of the place, with under-ripe apples at eye-level and fresh currants for the picking. (I get a thrill from eating food right from the ground, so used to stores am I.) They were so enthusiastic about sharing their passion for organics and polyculture, and I was so enthusiastic about seeing it all first-hand, that they invited us back for dinner the next day — pasta with tomato-chickpea sauce, and fruit salad mixed with orange juice, all followed by a struggle of Scrabble.

I must also mention the kittens, for they were adorable. Jill, their mother, was quite young herself — a teenager in cat years, yet she had had two failed litters before this one. This was the first time I saw cats actually feeding themselves with wild-caught things, though they were supplemented with store-bough cat food. There must be some semblance of domestication, of course! We took one kitten to its new owner when we were there, carrying him to a little girl who bossed us around (”Thomas, you have to go to jail. You’re too pretty.”) and who was determined that the kitten be a Dora (though when she finds out his real gender, we’re hoping for Dorian or Dorito).

The flight back was uneventful except for the failure of Orbitz to tell US Airways that I’m vegan, but I had inspired Anne to change her family’s meals for the healthier — she’s hoping to keep my “vegan shelf” in the pantry a little while longer — so I ate my home-made muesli with orange juice and was happy.

And now I am home again, with Thomas and his family on Cape Cod, reading and eating and swimming and socializing, and I could hardly feel more welcome and comfortable than with my own family on the other coast.

Oh how I love this life that I’m living!

My adventures continue! After getting a seal of approval for my aesthetic taste and design competence (at least regarding 3D collages), I trained into Zurich to meet Thomas. Or at least, that’s what I thought. Before Thomas arrived, I was surrounded by a wizard named Retros the Magic Stick and his beer-weilding compatriots. It was a bachelor party, and apparently it is traditional for the groom-to-be to be suitably embarrassed in public. And a wizard who has had too much beer to entertain an 8-year-old with magic certainly is embarrassing!

After four hours with no Thomas, and cursing myself for not having a back-up plan, I found some free wi-fi and discovered that I was 24 hours early (or 20 at that point). So I went to Bottighofen, found my little room above the campsite store, and returned the next day to the airport. With my toes on the line that said “go no further.” Standing at the first place Thomas would emerge to my sight, where I could behold and hold him for the first time in half a year. Half a year? No, the intervening time melted away when he walked through the customs door. No more counting weeks, my heart is happy.

After the first night, we stayed with Melanie and her husband Stefan. They used to live and work in the city of Konstanz, on the German side, but the city was too loud and busy. Now they have a new apartment in Bottighofen, only a ten-minute commute for Melanie and a 30-45 minute walk for Thomas and I. Which is simply lovely, since there is a path along the banks of Lake Constance, with beer gardens and theaters all open to the sky. As Stefan says, they all live outside during the long summer — at least when it’s not raining. For us, the rain (tagging along unseasonably) brought other things of interest: one day, slugs; the next, snails; the next, frogs. With no overlap between them.

The border between Switzerland and Germany, along our path, was marked by a signpost and a bundle of security cameras. This was so subtle, overpowered as it was by breezy trees and modern art pieces, that it took us a few days to notice it. Thing I did not know: Switzerland is not part of the EU. Not that it mattered, since we spent most of our time in Konstanz, with its delicious German bread, shady waterside parks, and the romantic Münster cathedral (unfortunately echoing with the screams of school children).

Melanie and Stefan were swamped with work, it being near the beginning of summer holidays and all, so we only saw them in the evenings for tea and coffee, sometimes for wine and dinner. Fortunately, Melanie did get an afternoon off to take us to Stein am Rhein — a quaint little town on the Rhine, all sunny and decorated with the ever-popular St. George and his dragon. We walked along the jaunty river with our gelato (or sorbet, as the vegan case may be), feeling the sun bounce off the water and pour through the trees. We explored the local old monastery, with its medieval wine press, and then set off up the wooded mountain to Hohenklingen castle to look over the whole thing. On the way back home we watched the beginning of the sunset at Napoleon III’s summer house, and Melanie dropped us off at her favorite pub for dinner.

Thomas and I did a day trip on our own, too, taking a ferry to Meersburg across the lake. Looking for the castle, we managed to stumble awkwardly in — and quickly out of — a boarding school (which admittedly looked a bit like a palace), and also a tiny museum we thought was the castle museum — at least they had some cool wood inlays on the doors and floors. The signs kept pointing us this way and that, and enclosed in the tourist labyrinth of very-German buildings and little streets, we were blind as bats. And we kept finding more interesting things besides, like an ornately decorated church and the awesome Zeppelin Museum — if only we spoke German, the lady who ran the place sounded like she’d talk our ears off about zeppelins! Finally, finally, we found the castle, lost in plain sight. I don’t know if zeppelins or giant medieval swords are cooler, but as luck would have it, you don’t have to play favorites in Meersburg.

As wonderful as Lake Constance is, as much as Germany tugs at me to stay, we had to move on to our next adventure. The European rail system is so timely and easy to use, it has gone quite far in relieving my travel anxiety. I still like to get moving early, but I don’t fret quite so much — and the arriving early gave me a chance to show Thomas a bit of Zurich before zipping off to Belgium. There is another thing that has helped me control OCD-induced stress and enjoy the moment, a piece of advice given by Dr. Ellen Langer on Fitness Rocks: “Notice new things.” In the simple attempt to notice things, I start embracing each little bit of experience as it comes, living in the now — a feat unattainable when I just told myself baldly to “live in the now.”

Unfortunately, my lack of freakish concern for things going horribly wrong led me to pick a train that went through France instead of Germany… and Thomas had a rail pass that covered Germany and not France. The French ticket-checker had no sympathy and chucked him out the window — “No ticket.”

I’m kidding. He did have to pay a 60 euro fee, though, which more than made up for the savings of the Eurail pass. I felt horribly guilty for the rest of the 8-hour train ride, only distracted by conversation with the two young women sitting across from us. They had spent the weekend hiking in Switzerland, and were returning home to Holland — one was a primary-school teacher who had done her training in Tanzania, and the other was a nurse who was taking classes to teach kindergarten. They were very friendly, sharing their water and sudoku, and finally helping us find the connecting train to Dendermonde. It was only unfortunate that in the rush to get on said train, we didn’t have a chance to swap information. I made up a whole bunch of nice meishi, and for what?

Anyway, we made it safe and sound to the little town of Hamme, where lives the family of Fred, a backpacker my dad picked up years ago on cross-country road trip. Fred is liberal and engaging, and Thomas and I were soon learning all about Belgium politics. The French and the Flemmish side are practically two separate countries, and now they might seriously split in twain. They were without a government for almost a year, and when the Prime Minister tried to give up on the whole mess, the German king of Belgium told him to stay put. What is so interesting is that all this turmoil is happening without any violence whatsoever — it’s all debated in pubs over large glasses of strong beer.

Fred’s wife, Annick, was simply wonderful. She is a vegetarian, an herbalist, and a fan of organic food, and she made sure I was a well-fed vegan — she introduced me properly to tofu and seitan (greetings, friends!), and kept me well-stocked with hummus and Fred’s home-made muesli. I met my first vegan since becoming vegan, the owner a local organic food store — we conspired to send Thomas off to a vegan re-education camp spa. Fred and Annick’s children were great, too, Zena and Jona helping us read their comics (Belgium is the land of comics) as they ate their raw tofu and veggies (they didn’t like them cooked or dressed).

We went for a bike ride together soon after arriving, one-speeds on the perpetually flat Belgium countryside. I managed to catch my bag on the handlebars, falling over and making a gooey mess of my knee, but it was not far to a local pub (what am I saying? you are never far from a local pub!) where I discovered the first form of alcohol I kind of like: Lindemans Framboise, a sweet 5-proof strawberry soda. I much preferred my other drink discovery, on a rainy day in homey pub: flavorful red rosehip tea.

We stayed with Fred’s sister, Annie, and her husband, Mark. Annie was bowled me over with her bubbly exuberance, always so happy and excited like a puppy… even when expounding how she was so shy and quiet nowadays. She claims to have learned to live like a monk thanks to practically silent Mark — except he actually is as quiet as she is lively. He took us to Antwerp one day, and we spent hours in the cathedral and the Rubens’ House. It was lovely, but we hardly got a peep out of him the whole time! They we wonderful hosts, even if their house did smell like cigarettes, and even if Annie was the only one around who didn’t understand veganism. (Is there a gracious way to be a vegan houseguest? I helped out or made do where possible, but it’s hard to get out of “being difficult” or impolite when refusing food someone else has made for you. I may be thinking of the ones who suffered and died to contribute to the meal, but it’s the very living and very frustrated friends and family I have deal with at the dinner table.)

On our own we went to Ghent. There was a big festival going on, the whole place had a carnival atmosphere, with people walking from booth to booth, eating pommes frites and ice cream. There were street musicians playing hangs and Stroh violins, creepy giant Dark Crystal-type creatures selling shoes, an organ concert inside one of the churches, and a flea market. It had the summery feel of the Fourth of July, and a welcome change to almost claustrophobic feeling of Hamme with its grey skies and repetitive brick architecture. In the end, I was ready to leave… even if Belgium does have the cheapest chocolate in the EU.

I found myself missing Japan at some point, a sweet nostalgia that shows up every once and again, like a faint smell of something no longer in the room. I wonder what these memories will feel like years from now… what will the nostalgia taste like with age?

Ah, my last day in Milan. I suppose you want to here about my two weeks, eh? I will skip the parts about the top-floor apartment where I retreated every night, mostly left to my own devices by my two shopping roomies (they’re in Fashion Marketing, but academics probably has nothing to do with it), reading and bumping my head on the slanted ceilings and debating with myself as to high to turn up the air-conditioning. Yes, that part has already been over-stated.

I am one of only two Americans in my Product Design class, with the rest from Thailand, Mexico, Turkey, Poland… all over. There’s a girl from Amsterdam who sits next to me — a model — who can pick food out of her teeth and look good doing it. She’s actually quite like me, interested in natural food stores and sustainable living, and disinterested in mindless shopping and late-night clubbing. Then there’s this kid from Bulgaria, just seventeen. He dresses quite sharp — or I should say, he dresses like his dad probably dresses to go to work. He’s so inquisitive, asking all these questions. “You’re a vegan and a feminist?” “You have your license — do you drive a hybrid, then?” “Sorry I’m asking so many questions, but what do you think about smoking?” Then he mumbles something about “all men should be equal,” and clams up when I try to delve. I ask him about himself and suddenly he’s looking away and practically blushing. Is he trying to judge me? Or size me up as his future wife? Curious little bugger (though I’m sure he’d resent me calling him that).

The class itself is far from academic. There are no exams or grades, simply lectures to attend, a strange collage project, and field trips to design shops and studios. The best part by far was the brief time we spent at Cibic & Partners. Apparently the rest of the class was falling asleep, but I was all ears: the Partner presented a series of urban planning projects reminiscent of Christopher Alexander, and I’m sure he’ll remember me for asking about A Pattern Language. He seemed as excited about his work as I was, and eager for the CV’s of interested students (the more diverse the background, the better). Alas! Their office is in Milan, and I do not think I like Milan much. It is, after all, a city.

But special. Imagine that all the overweight people you see on American streets were replaced with models. That’s what it seems like, walking around Milan. It’s clean and neat (my Swiss tutor may disagree with me here), with a completely consistent character from end to end. Seriously, you won’t miss much if you only see four blocks. It’s one giant upscale shopping mall. There’s at least a fifty percent chance that any store you walk into will be full of designer clothes, and the rest (if they aren’t full of designer stuff instead) are cafe-bars and gelato stands. Yes, the very same fashionable, thin, serious individuals are consuming pasta, pizza, and ice cream with much trendy gusto.

More edible oddness: I was eating string beans for lunch, and a young man — wearing an afro (italifro?) and something approximating a basketball jersey — was eating pizza a little way off. Presently he stood in my periphery, at an angle indicating he wanted to ask me something. “Are you eating those for lunch?” “Yes…” (no, I’m mixing them with my saliva to create a green dye for my latest art project.) “I like to do that too! Fruits and vegetables. But my friends think I’m crazy.” “Really? But they’re so good for you! Well, tell them you’ll live to be one hundred years old.” I was listening to Fitness Rocks at the time. “Thank you. I will tell them I saw you.” Great; I’m the Vegetable Buddha, bringing fresh produce to the carb-loving Italian masses.

The project part of the class consisted of first “drawing” a camera, without pencils or pens. Instead we engaged in three-dimensional collage, armed with scissors, fixatives, and piles of magazines, newspapers, fabric scraps, and dried spaghetti. What emerged from this mess (after much misunderstanding as to how abstract our teacher didn’t want the cameras) then became the starting point for our own “products.” We re-created all the components, thought of something new to make with them, and then re-created the components again in order to put together our final… things. Bikes, dresses, lamps, and my own little clock. Talk about it and get a diploma! Just don’t ask for my work, as there was no way transport anything more than photographs.

If I had come across a continent and an ocean for this class alone, I think I would be disappointed. A chance for some mindless creativity, really. But the people I’ve met, and the vision of awesome I got at Cibic, have made the experience worth more than just a pastime. Pretty soon I’ll have enough new contacts in Europe to justify a return trip… just not to Milan!

I am rather in love with Stuttgart. Moni’s apartment looks like it came out of an IKEA catalogue, and her friends’ apartments are much the same: clean and bright, simple and uncrowded. The city is full of nice-looking buildings, beer-gardens spilling into the streets with cheery car-workers taking their lunch out amongst the sun and the passersby. You can’t go two blocks without finding an organic food store, and the bakeries have the most wonderful loaves imaginable, full of pepitas and flax and oats and rye, so that the bits on the crust tumble to plate in delicious crumbs — they even have multigrain croissants beaded with seeds.

The city is home to several car companies, but several years ago they did an unbelievable thing: they redeveloped the center of town to be less car friendly. So that even though you see a few more shiny Porsches than usual, there are little pedestrian streets and stairs all over. Stuttgart is also in a valley, surrounded by miles of forest and well-kept trails. The woods have flame-red squirrels and blackbirds in them, and chartreuse chestnut trees that dapple the sunlight and frame the blue sky. You just have to get up the formidable steps, which are even more numerous than Altea’s. The first full day I did a short tromp through the closest parts, and discovered a zip-line to my endless childish delight. And a few days ago I did a four-hour “tour” to the nearby Castle Solitude and back, joining hundreds of Germans at some points, all walking and picnicking and enjoying a day of perfect clarity and humidity. On my second full day, I borrowed Moni’s brother’s bicycle, and together we toured the city from top to bottom (literally), through parks and Epcot neighborhoods.

Moni herself is quite remarkable. I worried I wouldn’t recognize her, but I knew her at once, short-sighted though I am. Her hair is short and dyed red, her skin is freckled and thin like mine, and she dresses and moves and lives in what seems a totally relaxed fashion. She works with a few colleagues to produce short science videos for TV — she does the 3D animations. It’s been nice, the little routine we have going: I wake up to the sun in my eyes and go out for a run… or just climb the stairs, since even that takes half an hour… and I’m back in time to shower and break my fast with Moni. She works while I go exploring (Bauhaus architecture, check; Chinese Garden, check) or stay in her living room cum office to read; or else we go out to do errands, stopping every once in a while to look for good stuff in the inorganics (already some shellac records for a friend).

That’s another thing I like about Moni, she resourceful, and prefers old things — like her crafty manual drill, or the old cash register her dad fixed for her birthday, and her mom’s sewing machine which helped me make a new bag. But it’s not just her, I think, as the recycling bins on every block hint at a general consciousness about being friendly to the environment. Between that and the praise Moni’s friends give to the city, I’m practically ready to move!

Now, there is one more essentially important thing about staying in Germany right now, and staying with Moni in particular, and it is football. Not rugby, not tell-me-when-the-Superbowl-ads-are-back-on-ball, but soccer. Back in Japan, when my dad and I first met Melanie and Monika, we bonded over the World Cup final. Germany versus Brazil. So fittingly enough, it’s currently the European Championship, with a game on every night. And the most exciting match by far has been the one that pitted Germany against Portugal, two teams with exquisite ball control and team coordination. It twisted and turned until the end, when the whole bar leaped out of their seats with cries and hugs and flags — Germany won! Germany’s going to the semi-finals! And tomorrow night, they’re probably going to kick Turkey’s butt, because they’ve got a way better team, and because I’ll be there with Moni in a beer garden cheering them on.

Ole Ole Deustchland!

In Paris, everyone looks beautiful. The smoke lines on their faces aren’t full of wisdom, they’re full of character. There are the fashions, of course: the trench coats, the scarves, the fabulous boots and cocky hats. But even the girl with striped stockings held up to her butt with garters, even the woman who wore nothing that matched plus garish gold platforms, even the street artist with ruffled shirt sleeves who stood bent scowling at passersby with scissors idle in his hands. They are all somehow beautiful.

I was walking through the subway station when I heard classical music wafting down the halls. I turned the corner hungry like a dog straining on its leash. It was like a dream, a holodeck malfunction: before me was virtually an orchestra, violins and cellos at least, their bows dancing in time and the musicians wearing suits and satin in their minds if not on their bodies. They were students from all over Paris, bringing classical music to the masses. And the masses clogged the tunnel, held there by vibrating strings, and I leaned against the staircase railing hoping to lose my parents — and myself — and stay in thrall forever.

Once upon a time, even tires were pretty. At the Musée des Arts et Métiers, everything is steampunk. Everything is brass and ivory and glass and wood and designed in minute detail. The astrolabes, leather gas bags, microscopes, bicycles, and printing presses — however utilitarian, they were crafted and decorated as if they were objects of art. Which now, of course, they are.

Will anyone want to put our modern junk, our television remotes with a hundred squishy buttons, in a museum someday? Will anyone want to visit?

French no longer seems scary to me. I can almost pronounce half the words half correctly, and I can imagine learning how to spell them someday, too.

The food, on the other hand, is impossible. The French have perfected the art of cream, butter, and eggs (which can also be used by bridge brigands to hurl at Seine river tour boats), using exactly those features of their ingredients that are irreplaceable, unreplicatable. And then they serve only those things. I stand amongst the macarons, an ethical vegan, a little sad.

Not that the food I did eat in Paris wasn’t fabulous. We ate at Bob’s Juice Bar every day it was open, where I filled myself with wraps and smoothies. Maoz taught me how much I need falafel in my life. The bright La Victoire Suprême du Coeur was the first restaurant I have ever been to where the menu items are specially marked “not vegan.” And with Naturalias around, I could almost live in Paris!

Almost… but not quite. There was not a wild plant to be seen within the city limits. Unless you count the milligrams of moss between stones along the Seine.

Next time I go to Paris, I will walk without purpose, bring trail mix along, and carry a map of public toilets. And next time, I’ll make it inside the Louvre!

Perhaps you are all wondering what I am up to, what new adventures I’m having in Spain. Since coming to Altea, my parents and I have settled into a regular routine. We all wake up about the same time as one another, between 8 and 9 o’clock, do some quick stretches, and head down the many stairs to run along the shore. We do a mixture of jogging and walking, actually, but my mom is such a fast walker that my dad and I have to jog to keep up. Our neighbor, David, calls us crazy, and yesterday I would have to agree with him — we must have been mad to go running in the pouring rain, and this time I do mean “running,” as it was the only way to keep warm.

Then we walk up all those stairs again, take showers, and eat some breakfast of fresh squeezed orange juice, fruit muesli and oatly (a brand of oat milk), or bananas sliced up with cinnamon on top. The rest of the day is a mixture of reading, working on the computer (or sewing tiny bears if you are my mom), chatting with neighbors that wander past, and walking up and down all those stairs several times to explore the town. The old town is by far the best, situated on top of the hill surrounding the blue-domed church, a mix of terrace restaurants and art galleries set in white buildings and narrow streets. The rest of town is more modern, with cars and clothing shops and “Consum” and “Masymas” supermercados. The beach is lovely, with a long sidewalk or boardwalk extending almost uninterrupted from Altea to Albir, and English-speaking cafes arranged along the entire stretch.

Dinner is a casual affair, something simple and light like chickpea salad and plum tomatoes on pan multicereal, or a broccoli stir-fry with brown rice. And it is always accompanied by Star Trek. Somehow dinner and a show manages to remain special no matter how many times we do it. In fact, this whole routine may sound boring to some, but it is truly not. The daily rituals frame continuing conversations with my parents and the gradual soaking in of the Altean atmosphere. Instead of violently inflicting culture upon myself (and perhaps myself upon a culture), I think I prefer this sponge method of travel. I can sit still, watching and listening, and for a time at least, figure out how to live here.

Lest life get altogether too formulaic, however, we have done several day trips. In addition to the fabulous local Tuesday market, there is a flea-market on Saturdays quite a drive out of town. Last week David took us with him, and we spent at least a hour taking in the booth after table after carpet displaying everything from nudibranch-like polyester dresses to antique bronze braziers. Yesterday it cancelled due to the downpour, but next week I hope Anna, our other eccentric British neighbor, will join us.

We hiked out to the lighthouse in the Serra Gelada one day, and another we spent getting our train tickets refunded and exploring the hilltop castle at Alicante, and just last Friday we walked the painted town and floral bayou of La Vila Joiosa, ending the expedition with a mancerina of dark drinking chocolate at the Xocolateria.

And really, every adventure should end in chocolate.

I am in Altea, Spain. In fact, this is my second full day in Altea. And guess what? No stress, thanks to the mere presence of my friend Becki and my wonderful parents! Even though the transportation systems seemed hell-bent on keeping us from getting here, we persevered.

Becki and I flew to Barcelona through Rome, where we spent five hours for our connecting flight, since our original flight was delayed three hours and it caused a huge ripple effect. My parents had no way of contacting me, and in their efforts to figure out why I had not arrived, they were thwarted by evil airport minions.

We then lugged our stuff on the bus to our little hostel, a pleasant enough place with painted walls and a shared bathroom. Except miscommunication landed us with two beds the first night, and we slept family-style (Becki had her own hostel, thank goodness). I felt a bit out of place, the place being geared toward gay travelers, but I got a giggle out of the hulking men in their brochure collection.

Barcelona is a clean city, with beautiful architecture and wide sidewalks, narrow pedestrian alley-ways that wend past unexpected cathedrals. On La Rambla you can find hordes of tourists, cages of birds and reptiles and small furry mammals, the scents of a hundred different flowers, and every sort of living statue imaginable. Including a devilish gargoyle who grabbed you if you got too close, flashing the whites of his eyes and the red of his tongue.

The city was ultimately just a city, however. I missed the green pouring out of the Athenian balconies, and coexistence with dogs and cats, that diversity of dominant species. I missed the ability to find vegan food in any taverna. But Athens is also just a city, and I am not a city person.

We left Becki to do further sight-seeing beyond the tour buses, and fled by train to Alicante. Well, almost. We were delayed for five hours — on the train — a mere half an hour from our destination. Too much rain! The electricity was out, and we were as stuck as the train. I am astounded at our patience: my feathers, at least, were hardly ruffled, and when we finally made it to Altea, I conked out in my own room.

Altea is touristy, it’s true. But there are little stair-studded streets everywhere, and our town-house is big and bright, and our neighbor is a gregarious older British man with a cat named Cassandra. We went jogging on the beach this morning, and in the early afternoon we were overwhelmed by the smells and colors and potential tastes of the outdoor market. There is fast and reliable internet, delicious tap water, chirping birds, passing clouds, and no traffic. I use the church bells to keep track of time.

Breathing is nice.

I have struggling with veganism, but not in the way you might think. It has been so simple to give up meat, then eggs and milk, and even being at the mercy of the CYA cafeteria I have found it more difficult to eat conveniently than to stick to my guns.

Much more problematic is how I am to deal with the omnivores around me. They are my family and friends, and as much as I want to believe that veganism is simply “my personal choice,” that is statement is not consistent with my values. At first I went about seeking ways to defend those values in the most reductionist terms, something akin to Peter Singer’s utilitarianism: it’s good for the environment (you know, the planet we must live upon), it’s good for one’s health (taken with a grain of salt), and it’s good for ensuring a full range of empathy and compassion (arguably keeping up more a harmonious society).

But it comes down to this. As a society, we should decide what we want to value rather than defending or pushing the values we already have. We can not hope to reduce ourselves to purely-rational robots, since we require points of view and frames of reference to think within. We need deuterotruths, and however flexible our brains may be, we can only trade one set for another. Because we occupy an intellectual and social space as well as a physical one, we need a common ground for negotiating that space. And genetically or culturally, we are all given a starting point: we all value life and abhor suffering.

I like those values. Unadulterated, compassion leads to the urge to preserve ourselves, our companions, and the environment that sustains us. The compassionate person is open-minded and tolerant, hoping to understand and connect with the world around them. The compassionate person seeks out the beautiful things in life, because those things reinforce their values. And as much as I hesitate to define the value of living things by their capacity to suffer, it is surely a great measure of how much compassion we feel. Where we share suffering, we should extend our empathy.

But we quickly start watering down our values in an attempt to paint to world in bold strokes of black and white. We want situations to be Right or Wrong, completely justified or not at all, so we start qualifying where and when to apply our compassion. Why not accept the inconsistencies of the world, and struggle instead with juggling the full weight of our values? When people share values, they can communicate effectively and productively debate over what to do with them.

For example, does veganism naturally lead to an anti-abortion stance? I have wrestled with this issue on my own, but other vegans have done the same in concert: on one Australian forum I found, vegans with differing opinions managed to have a sane and thought-provoking discussion (at least on the first page). Unlike the Christian fundamentalists and heart-bleeding Liberals, who become so entrenched in defending their own values that they fail to communicate with each other at all, the people in that forum share a simple unadulterated compassion. They are seeking how best to be compassionate when the world offers so many factors to consider. No matter what anyone says, abortion is a difficult moral issue that deserves this kind of moral questioning.

I once thought women would only abort their pregnancies in extenuating circumstances, but I have heard that in Greece and some social circles in the US, affluent young women use abortions as a form of birth control. I find that upsetting, like crushing bugs on a window ledge, and rather excessive when they made the decision ahead of time to forgo preventative measures like condoms, pills, and IUD’s. But I am certainly capable of being saddened by an abortion at the same time that I object to forcing a reluctant mother and an unwanted child upon the world. That is surely the greater source of suffering.

From Jackqueline on the Human Abortion and Veganism forum:

Rights inevitably clash.  Hate speech is a clash of the freedom of speech can clash with the right to equality.  [What] they do each claim has to be weighed against the other.

But back to my problem of living and loving omnivores.

There seem to be two types of meat-eater: the one who eats meat because of its cultural pervasiveness and for its convenience, who would rather turn a blind eye to the hundreds of animals who suffer and die for their sake than suffer social awkwardness or diet change; and the other one who eats meat and accepts, even rejoices, in cold hard reality of animal butchery. I cannot respect the hypocrisy of the first, and I cannot respect the values of the second.

Some object the use of disturbing images of animal cruelty to turn people into vegetarians. Yet if you find them so disturbing, should you really be supporting those practices by reaping the results? How can you be a whole person if you reject your own compassionate impulses? Do you really believe that those animals aren’t suffering, that they are so inferior as to deserve it? Do you really value the simple pleasures of intelligent beings over the entire lives of less intelligent beings? Is that really what you want to believe?

I can challenge omnivores all I want in the safety of my head or the company of vegetarians or the lofty words of this article (which are not meant to be passive aggressive, but a hard-edged formulation of my thoughts, without the careful hedging I might do in the presence of a loved one). But I don’t want to come off as judgmental — I do that all too easily — and I don’t want to antagonize those around me and isolate myself in a fortress of moral superiority. I am hardly perfect, but I try to do better. I may not be able to prove that veganism is undeniably Right, or construct the perfect definition or defense of compassion, but I can certainly ask people to reflect on their choices based on their own feelings. Feelings at least, unlike morals, ethics, or values, are real.

If you consume animal products of any kind, you have the responsibility to know where they come from. There are gentler ways to inform yourself, but soft words do not always do justice. Watch Meet Your Meat or Earthlings if you can, though it feels like getting shot in the gut. I could only get through a few minutes of each before wanting to vomit and cry, and I would be concerned if they don’t make you want to do the same. Yet how could it be a dirty tactic to show you these videos, however shocking, when they show you a reality that you are otherwise unwilling to accept? We find it necessary to be saddened by war movies and holocaust exhibits because it reminds us of the human capacity for cruelty, that we might better avoid great harm and indifference ourselves.

Somehow, no matter what comes along to crush my faith in humanity, there is some part within me refuses to become jaded. My deepest belief — or perhaps my greatest hope — is that every human on this planet has a seed of compassion buried deep within their minds. It is as powerful as apathy and as world-shaking as hate, if only we would let it grow unhindered.

But perhaps it is too painful. My own is often left untended. For there are too many horrors in this world for one little girl to handle.

So much to say, so little internet! Here I’ve been off having adventures, and leaving all my anxious readers (if I have any) in the dark. Well, no more.

About two weekends ago, I went to Mistra on my last CYA excursion. Little did I know that Mistra is actually right next to Sparta, so I was able to spend the twilight hours in the ancient site — now a most tranquil place of olive groves, overgrown wildflowers, and wide cobbled paths. Prof. Coulson, advanced in years though she is, even jumped a fence to get us into the ruins of a Byzantine church.

Not that the next day wouldn’t be full enough of the things. We made sure to stop by the church Prof. Coulson did her thesis on, which actually left me completely enthusiastic for our on-sight final. Half Eastern, half Western, it was an intriguing puzzle… at least for those with at least a few weeks of background and an unusually excited guide.

The on-sight final was a similar project, describing a little church at Mistra in an attempt to argue whether or not Byzantine architecture was stagnant or truly creative. I went for the latter, but it’s hard to see why with the untrained eye. However, whether or not one likes Byzantium, one must certainly fall in love with the fairy-tale-like ruins of Mistra, with its brick-red churches and castles giving way to a spring of lush greenery and a kaleidoscope of flowers, all buzzing with honeybees. I saw a lizard, a lumbering beetle two inches big, a donkey, and came face-to-face with a grasshopper the size of a weta.

I also met a young man who didn’t know what pollination was… It’s still too painful to talk about.

Mistra, in fact, soon leapt to the top of my favorite locations in Greece, immediately followed by Meteora. However, you are in Greece for Orthodox Easter, do not miss pension Carlos in Akrotiri, Santorini. I’m sure glad I didn’t.

My Easter holiday was cold, windy, and rainy. Naxos provided me with hours of wanderings through the Old Market, a series of alleyways between white buildings with blue trim and dozens of little shops spilling out onto the pedestrian street. Naxos town was like a clean white labyrinth set on a hill, a pleasant enough place to stop for a day or two before moving on to Santorini.

But at the port of Santorini, I was picked up by Maria, and driven up to the modern town of Akrotiri and her family-run Carlos pension. I didn’t actually realize it was Akrotiri until I went for a walk past the (unfortunately closed) archaeological site, but wouldn’t you know it: a swallow flew right across the road in front of me, looking just like the famous Minoan wall-paintings. I am quite the Classics geek: It took my breath away.

I became fast friends with Maria, and her mother Eva. I helped Eva set up breakfast one morning for the big group of Icelanders, and we talked of vegetarianism: “Do you do this for God?” “No, I do it for myself.” It turns out Eva had been vegetarian herself for a time; “When I am on my own, I would like to give up meat again.” She made me some delicious fried vegetable patties.

The lambs, though… I almost had to leave the room. The night before Maria made candles for everyone, and we went to church to be mortar-bombed by fireworks. Now was the Sunday feast, and they brought in three whole lambs on spits, their white teeth grinning horribly from holocaust-charred faces. And there was Eva, honing her knife theatrically, and she and her son just started hacking those bodies to pieces. I stared at my water, waiting for the carnage to render them shapeless and meaningless.

Fortunately, it was uphill from there. I filled myself with potatoes, vegetables, bread, and Easter cakes. And then, oh then! Five hours of dancing: we watched the Greeks do individual Zembetiko, some of them quite amazing performances; and everyone joined in the line dances, and we eventually even picked up a few real dance steps. The Icelanders and I took center stage for a short bout of Western and Latin American music, from Wild Thing to Ricky Martin. By the end of the night, my feet hurt, but I was the happiest, most unselfconscious thing in the world!

I even managed to keep my spirits up for the 11-hour ferry ride I had to suffer through the next day, passengers sitting on the floor in the hallways like refugees. I might have gotten a little stir-crazy towards the end, when I started getting the urge to wear the fire-extinguisher cover as a pope-hat… er, let us never speak of this again.