tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72018452024-03-13T16:15:02.226-04:00RedCat Travelswhere I go, how I manage and what I encounter along the wayPamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-87138132423482506272011-04-08T14:42:00.000-04:002011-04-08T14:42:39.729-04:00Bike-able Jersey CityMy first piece for offManhattan.com is now available for your reading pleasure!
A Self-Guided Jersey City Bike TourPamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-80924593322401897822011-01-07T21:08:00.000-05:002011-01-07T21:08:54.507-05:00Lucky Last Night in L.A.It was my first time. I swear I only had one drink. And really, it was more a matter of chance than anything else, but it happened. I won bingo at Hamburger Mary's in West Hollywood. According to my friend Nancy, I've been "WeHo'd."
We were attending a bingo night benefit at the popular LGBT haunt. These "legendary bingo" nights happen at least twice a week all year long, benefiting charities ofPamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-36020195453204515012011-01-05T22:59:00.000-05:002011-01-05T22:59:21.831-05:00Getting Around In and Out of L.A.I got up at 5:15 yesterday morning to catch the Rapid 733 bus from Mar Vista to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. The bus took about 55 minutes. My primary journey was on the Amtrak Surfliner up the California coast to San Luis Obispo, a 5 hour train ride, to meet up with my friend Jay for 24 hours. The goal? Enjoy the view.
On Monday, the day before my trip up the coast, I ventured into Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-20241374459720482592011-01-03T12:19:00.000-05:002011-01-03T12:19:14.855-05:00The Wackness That is L.A.Charming, beautiful, ageless strangers in their best cocktail wear at Bar Chloe in Santa Monica on New Year's Eve, with too-expensive Stella Artois, warm bodies lightly touching as they move through the crowded club, silky fabrics, dim lights and dance rhythms pounding...it was a great way to spend the holiday. I met a group of wonderful ladies (including a jewelry designer whose elegant pieces Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-77016305995160585242010-12-15T15:27:00.002-05:002010-12-16T00:06:55.476-05:00The Places We Think We Hate...and LoveOne of the many travel bloggers I follow recently posted a thoughtful piece on how much he hates Los Angeles. The point of the entry was not "why I hate L.A." but rather "why DO I hate L.A.?" Why does anyone "hate" a place where they have never lived, or possibly never even been? I could apply this just as easily to why some people "hate" certain public figures like Oprah or Michael Moore. How Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-34224631875408217192010-11-17T22:54:00.000-05:002010-11-17T22:54:59.632-05:00Exploring the FamiliarA great journey can happen, from start to finish, quite close to home. It can happen three blocks away. In fact, it can happen in one's home, or one's new home as the case may be. I am moving. It is not the first time I've lived alone, but it will be the first time I've done so in a space other than a shoebox-sized, cockroach-infested rooming house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. That Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-30848363461285627352010-10-18T00:24:00.002-04:002010-10-18T00:46:01.492-04:00A Travel PoemMeditation on Africa
Six trips to AfricaAnd what do I have to show?Beaded earrings, necklacesA bracelet or twoDesert stones, a seed husk from a tree I cannot identifyMemories and photosBarack Obama kanga purchased on the roadside in TanzaniaA friendA namesake
Six trips to AfricaGhana, EthiopiaKenya and South Africa twiceTanzaniaAnd finally BotswanaPicking up bits of Twi, Amharic, SwahiliI never Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-49078108085689466562010-09-24T01:22:00.001-04:002010-09-24T14:18:30.616-04:00Life changesI have written “life changes” in the subject line of about 20 emails in the last week. It is a statement and a description. It is what happens, if we are lucky and brave enough to face it. The end of a relationship, a change in career, a child, a marriage, a death, political upheaval, natural disasters…everything. Change is the very essence of life. Yet there is Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-64631829805326494462010-09-10T10:15:00.000-04:002010-09-10T10:15:09.663-04:00Ghana Essay Now PublishedOver the summer in between teaching, working on my degree and stressing about money, I wrote an essay about making connections in the so-called developing world. Specifically, this essay is about my friendship with a man I met in Ghana and how it has evolved. It was a challenge to write something so personal but very fulfilling and I hope you'll take the time to read it. It has just been Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-5052039500529758922010-09-07T18:44:00.000-04:002010-09-07T18:44:58.846-04:00Sneaking a peek at JoziI did not see much of her, but Johannesburg ("Jozi") is a huge city, peppered with steep hills, lovely gardens and a true urban feel. We stayed at a cozy B&B in a suburb called Melville. Melville is something like a mini East-West Village hybrid set against a hilly, African landscape with walled single-story homes lining the residential streets rather than multi-storied apartments. Good food,Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-50880262059480963242010-08-31T18:33:00.000-04:002010-08-31T18:33:45.624-04:00Botswana has her claws in meThere was a moment the other day when I felt discouraged. I questioned whether this was the right place to come for my dissertation. I think it was really just a slip in confidence. Luckily, it was fleeting. That afternoon we (actually, Ciprian) succeeded in making the GPS data collection device communicate with one of the computers. We were then able to pinpoint some probable feeding sites for Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-88663148572970912572010-08-24T11:52:00.001-04:002010-08-26T06:35:18.221-04:00Okavango Research for NewbiesIn truth, the research methods, complications and so forth could really be applied almost anywhere in Africa, but since I am in the Okavango Delta region, I will try to be specific to this area. First and foremost, being here is incredible. The animals are considerably more present and visible and seemingly fearless than in other places I've been, but I can't really say that as a generalization Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-23873914513668366442010-08-21T07:00:00.000-04:002010-08-21T07:00:07.514-04:00How to Camp in South AfricaThere may be campgrounds in South Africa where people bring their own tents and pitch them on the edges of streams like we do in upstate New York and New Jersey, but that is not the type of camping we did at Shongweni Dam. The dam was originally built in 1927 and went under the name of the Vernon Hooper Dam. I don't know the history of why it was created, only that it was mostly the Brits who Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-77160740912083514892010-08-15T18:36:00.001-04:002010-08-15T18:38:24.904-04:00A belly full of DurbanI arrived in Durban late on the evening of August 12th. Instead of resting, I dove into my mini-vacation here with Ciprian, his sister Daniela and her husband Justin. We are staying in the Durban metro area, but we are located in the suburb of Kloof. It feels like a separate town, but then Durban is a huge metro area.
Daniela, Ciprian and I spent the first day in downtown Durban. Few white SouthPamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-44987197047806810752010-07-10T20:29:00.001-04:002010-07-10T20:31:34.005-04:00Preparing for BotswanaI am not going on vacation. This will not be a wild safari adventure. Well, it might, but that is not the goal. I'll be spending a week in the Okavango Delta doing pilot research for my dissertation. This is the glorious part of being a physical anthropologist - I get to go places like Botswana. I'll be in South Africa too, but that is mostly for personal reasons.
The trip will be a bit of a Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-62357048878869426502010-07-08T09:48:00.000-04:002010-07-08T09:48:04.857-04:00Now published for your reading enjoymentHey y'all,
One of my recent blog posts is now transformed into a proper article on a travel network called Matador. It's a cool site, so if you like traveling, or even if you like staying home, you might want to stick around and read other articles, but please do check out mine!
Pam's first published piece.
Happy reading.
P
P.S. I also had an essay accepted for publication at a different Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-85984710628540508992010-06-27T13:12:00.000-04:002010-06-27T13:12:17.949-04:00Mud, pain and deer on the Appalachian TrailSome people devote their lives to hiking the Appalachian Trail. They hike a little bit at a time, taking years to finish. The trail runs from Maine to Georgia. That's a whole lot of the U.S. to cover (about 2,178 miles to be exact). I used to think it had some historical significance, like it was a trail used by Native Americans or early pioneers. But no, it was just an idea that some guy had in Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-32727056297157153342010-06-08T15:55:00.000-04:002010-06-08T15:55:55.489-04:00Jersey City's gastronomic best...an evolving reviewI have lived in JC for over a year and a half and I have not eaten out at nearly enough of its restaurants. With that in mind, I'm sure my opinions will change over time. However, I have tasted enough of what JC has to offer to write a semi-educated overview.
First, and most importantly from my perspective, JC has a large Indian population and therefore a delectable selection of Indian Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-66696258571392177112010-05-31T17:21:00.000-04:002010-05-31T17:21:38.630-04:00Help me change my domain nameI think it is time to abandon my redcatwebdesigns.com domain and switch to something that is a bit more reflective of my life at the moment. I want to keep the redcat part because that's me. I am redcat. But redcat.com is not available and besides, that by itself does not really say anything. So I need help.
Send me any ideas you might have on what I can put after redcat. Maybe it's as simple asPamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-72034347299688540062010-05-23T20:12:00.002-04:002010-05-23T20:16:19.179-04:00Jersey City's big parksOver the last two weeks I've had a chance to explore the two big parks here in JC. One is Lincoln Park and it is only two blocks from my house. The other is Liberty State Park, about two or three miles away. They both have their beauty and charm, but are distinct in what they have to offer to the city and their local communities.
Lincoln Park is run by Hudson County and is the older of the Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-73915090941981583492010-04-08T15:29:00.000-04:002010-04-08T15:29:09.705-04:00Sleep deprivation and (in) AlbuquerqueI’ll be heading to Albuquerque in about six days. (Every time I say “Albuquerque” I think of Bugs Bunny.) I’m going there for the annual conference that I attend - The American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA). This will be my fourth year and I’ll be one of the few taphonomists there. Most of them will be in St. Louis at the Palaeoanthropology Society (Palaeos) meeting. But I Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-58649227075040077062010-03-10T11:34:00.002-05:002010-03-10T11:38:27.420-05:00The quirky joys of commuting (or why I want a car)Yes, I want a car. I won’t deny it. There are countless tasks that would become orders of magnitude easier and less time consuming if I had a car. I would not have to make several trips to the grocery store each week, including traveling into Manhattan just to go to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Petco. I would not have to take taxis at night. I would not have to rent a zipcar to make a quickPamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-45631637419477738462010-01-20T19:58:00.003-05:002010-01-20T20:03:52.460-05:00Living Abroad? Sort of.I live in Jersey City, just across the river from NYC. After living in NYC for a little over 15 years, Jersey City (JC) was a difficult move. It had to be done, of course. We'd been living in Brooklyn and once I got accepted to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, we knew the commute would be too much, particularly without a car. JC was our choice based on proximity to NYC and Rutgers. Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-83396217879971896152010-01-14T14:01:00.020-05:002010-01-14T15:22:13.129-05:00Making friends in the Crescent CitySometimes you wander around trying to think of stuff to do, taking into consideration time of day, weather, meal options, and so forth, and sometimes you wander into a cool-looking bar and find yourself becoming immersed in the scene. Ciprian and I were hanging out in the French Quarter on Monday. The weather was finally becoming a bit more normal for this part of the world. I think it even Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7201845.post-81338887176103189202010-01-11T00:17:00.000-05:002010-01-11T00:17:08.863-05:00White Gators, Big Insects, and...the Dharma?Serendipity is my friend when I am traveling, or perhaps at any time at all, but especially when traveling. It means that I end up in completely unplanned situations that inevitably become much more memorable than any of the museums or restaurants I go to. This serendipitous event began with something mentioned in my previous entry - seeing the Dharma Bums on our first night in the city at the Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00989129017295322282noreply@blogger.com0