The Election

Stone Town
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

The election is something that I've wanted to write about since my first week in Thailand. Upon landing in Krabi, one of the first things I saw was a Thai man with an Obama '08 t-shirt. I held off on the post, though, as I saw more and more shirts and buttons, not only in Thailand, but just about everywhere I traveled during my 3 months abroad. I had many, many locals come up and talk to me about the election.

In short, it shocked me how much the rest of the world cares about who we elect and how each country covers our election every night on the evening news. The BBC broadcast both of our conventions live around the world. I saw coverage of daily campaign stops on local news coverage in Thai, Hindi, Nepali, Arabic and Swahili, often leading as the top story. I saw an Obama button on my waiter's shirt when I had my first meal in Kathmandu. The taxi stand in Stone Town, Zanzibar hung a homemade Obama poster on a tree and painted Obama all over the curbs. Throughout Tanzania, I saw Obama painted on the rear windows of vehicles (Bob Marley was also a very popular paint job on vehicles, by the way).

The democratic convention started on my last night in India. Until that time, in both Thailand and India, I had people all excited because they thought that Obama had already won the presidency when he beat Hillary Clinton. I explained the difference between the primaries and general elections at least 30 times during my first month of travel. They all countered with, "But Obama's going to win, right?". When I explained that I didn't know because the polls at the time were close, they look stricken. It was such an odd feeling explaining our political process and seeing how much others care at the same time.

Why did everyone I meet feel so strongly about Obama? I think that in Asia, they feel like he has an understanding of their lives and hardships that no candidate has ever had before. After all, he did live in Indonesia for two years after his mother remarried. Not only did he live there, but for much of their first year, they didn't have a refrigerator or running water. To them he gets it, at least a little.

The support in the Middle East is very obvious. The Iraqi war has cost the region a lot. The number one industry in both Jordan and Egypt is tourism. Both suffered greatly when the war broke out, especially Jordan, who basically lost the entire industry. It's been so bad that about half of the restaurants and hotels have had to close. The tourists are slowly coming back, but not nearly in the numbers they saw before the war. Couple that with the fact that they've taken in over 1.2 million Iraqi refugees, and it's no surprise that they need this war over. McCain believes that we need to stay in Iraq and Obama wants to start phasing us out of there.

Tanzania was also a bit obvious. Obama's father was Kenyan and Kenya shares a border with Tanzania. While Obama never lived there, he has visited a couple of times and stayed in a village with his father's family. Like in Asia, they feel like he's got an understanding of how they live and what their challenges are. Plus he's a "native son" (I actually heard that phrase a couple of times). They can't help but love that.

BBC World News asked their viewers if they were following the US elections and why. There was one email response that they put up on the screen regularly during my time in Egypt and Tanzania. A man in India responded, "America is electing the most powerful man in the world and I live in this world. How can I not care?" Can't put it any simpler than that.

So this time next week, we'll know who our next president will be. Whatever you do, vote on Tuesday and remember that our decision is not just about us.

And just a quick side note: The Nepali were very confused about our party conventions. Most of what they see are people dressed in stupid hats with flashing buttons who are dancing to music and being silly. They consider electing a president to be very serious business. They wanted to know what a party had to do with the election process. I had no idea what to tell them.

Surf City '08

Starting the Kiddie Cross Race
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Surf City has now come and gone. The weather was wonderful, the racing was good, and the costumes were, well, interesting. From the man in the bikini to the wiener dogs, I couldn't stop smiling. So many kids took part in kiddie cross and the costume cross race was over 100 people and quite a bit of mayhem -- as it should be. Thanks to the keg who rode over and poured for the judges!

Now I'm going to put some aloe on my sunburn and get some sleep. Maybe this weekend got me back on Pacific time ...

Building the Course

Surf City 08 012
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

So today the Bellas and friends built the course for tomorrow's Surf City Cyclocross race as well as ran a skills clinic for all interested (and there were 50 participants). Tomorrow's the big day and it's going to be a great one.

Anyone in the area should stop by Soquel High. Racing will start around 8:30am and go until mid afternoon. Kiddie Cross and Costume Cross is always a kick. Come see if I can ride a bike in a sari!

Hope to see you there!

p.s. Absolutely wonderful to go out to dinner with the gang after. At one point, I looked around the table with a big grin and got all teary eyed -- it's so great to be around familiar faces!

The Bucket List

After being awake since 4am yesterday, I fell asleep way too early tonight while I was getting ready to watch a movie. So from 7:30 until about 1am I slept and then woke and watched "The Bucket List". You would have thought that I'd watched that movie before I left on my trip, wouldn't you? Well, I didn't. NetFlix didn't deliver it until yesterday. But I did go to 4 of the places that Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman did: the Serengeti, the pyramids in Giza, the Taj Majal and the Himalayas. But I got to see Everest and they didn't, so there! A few notes though: 1) they must have filmed at the Taj on a Friday because it's closed then and I can't imagine getting into the mausoleum without anyone else in there; 2) there is no way you can sit up on one of the pyramids in Giza -- especially being higher up than Khafre's pyramid which is now the same height as the Great Pyramid; and 3) they would never be able to get to where they got in the Himalayas in that kind of weather and the places that they would stay would never be that nice. But now I really wish I'd sang the weemaway song while we were on safari -- especially when there were lions lying next to the road. I really blew it on that one.

Yesterday I went on my first bike ride in more than 3 months. I did ride 2km to the elephant breeding center in Chitwan, Nepal, but that didn't count. I was unable to go fast because of the combination of really bad roads and piles of elephant dung anywhere (yes, dung is the technical term that everyone uses). Today, I rode up highway 1. My cardio fitness was fine and I was a little surprised at that -- I guess all that walking did some good after all. My legs are much skinnier than then were when I left, but even they did just fine. My sit bones, however, are killing me! They hurt so bad that I had to turn around up by the Italian flag. I would have stayed out of the saddle, but my feet were completely numb from the balls forward through my toes. But the shoes I used were new when I left on my trip, so I think I'll use the old ones for a bit and see if that helps. My only fear is that I won't be able to sit on the saddle tomorrow and will have to skip a ride. Hell, it hurts to sit on the couch right now.

If I could only get myself on Pacific time, I'd be a really happy camper. Oh, and for lack of photos to add, I'm putting up a photo of cheetah cubs taken from the hot air balloon ride.

It's Weird Being Back

On the one hand, it's really nice to walk down the street without everyone staring at me (I kinda stuck out like a sore thumb in many places where I traveled). On the other hand, there's some big adjustments. I still keep walking to the wrong side of the car to get in (I keep expecting the steering wheel to be on the right side), pre-packaged and frozen food kinda upsets my stomach, and my iPhone keeps pinging me all day long -- kinda the opposite of the trip where I wouldn't get contacted at all. I went to Costco yesterday to see about replacing my broken TV that they sold me 20 months ago and I just wanted to run and hide from the moment I walked in. It's a little funny, because the bazaar in Cairo was much more crowded, but whatever. However, they were nice and refunded me the total cost of the TV and I was able to get a bigger, nicer one for $200 less than the old one.

The sleep thing is starting to get better. On Sunday night I woke up at 10pm and just couldn't get back to sleep. So last night, I stayed awake until 8 and slept until 4 this morning. If I can just stay awake until 9 or 10 tonight, I could be back on schedule. Wish me luck!

Anyone up for a bike ride?

Jet Lag

It's a funny thing. I don't quite understand how it works, but I know I have jet lag worse than I ever have before. When I got home on Saturday, I ate dinner and went to sleep by 7:30pm. I woke up at 10:30 and was up until 3am. It wasn't a total waste, though -- I got through 3 months of mail. Then I slept until about 7am and couldn't sleep any more even though I was exhausted. So what's a girl to do? Get up and get on with things. I went the errand route (deposit checks, get gas, buy groceries). I even stopped by Soquel High to "help" with the course for Surf City next weekend. I was absolutely useless, but it was so good to see familiar faces. Of course, I briefly dozed off on the lawn there.

So after a couple of hours of being too tired to do anything, I finally fell asleep about 3pm and slept until 10pm. I've since unpacked, fixed the power problem in my garage, caught up on my Sailing Worlds, and am having trouble finding things to do in the dark.

Something tells me that I'm in for a fun few days.

p.s. I did finally manage to get the champagne bottle open at 1am last night.

Home

The End
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

I showered, got a burrito at El Palomar, dropped by Deke's to get something to drink and ended up with a chilled mini bottle of champagne. It seemed appropriate. But I'm so tired that I cannot get the bottle open. Go figure.