Venice

...is like a theme park. I've never seen so many tourists in one place in my entire life. Italian Disneyland!

And here are the rides:

demonstrations

A few more photos and some videos from last week's demonstration, which thankfully was peaceful. A friend and I were caught in the middle of it trying to get to a lunch appointment so we stopped to take in the crowds (first video), and on our way back there were only a handful of people left sitting in the street blocking traffic, surrounded by the police in riot gear (second video). The police forcefully moved them off the street so the cars could pass through after the streets had been closed all morning. We took the opportunity to be stupid American tourists and take our photos with the police boys. :)

oh yes we did...

us + 40,000 of our closest friends.......and SAKIS!!!!

A few weeks ago, Britt spied a big, sweaty Sakis Rouvas poster in the metro with her birth date on it. From that moment she knew she had to go to this concert, and she couldn't be dissuaded. :) It was in the ancient marble Olympic Stadium, Kallimarmaro, pretty cheap, and it ended up being so much fun! He is a great performer, one of the most popular in Greece. Our affections have changed from making fun to thinking he's not so bad. :) I wouldn't buy an album or anything, but I would have to admit now that I actually kind of like Sakis. [Ok, so we still did poke a bit of fun at dance moves and one who takes himself so seriously...oh, and at the women screaming all around us...and maybe at the awful backup dancers...but all in all, it was great!] And what a cool location for a concert! Good call, Britt, for your great birthday wish.Notice the gender of all the fans around us :)
He did a little tribute to MJ ("Billie Jean") and threw in several old school rock songs, as well as plenty of his own - to which the ENTIRE audience sang along. The fans were pretty diverse actually - of course you have your abundance of teenage girls, but there were also women in their 30s and 40s who grew up with Sakis, and plenty of men too, who I suppose really love their wives/girlfriends or else just really love Sakis (if you know what I mean)...(What a rock star.)

And don't you know I am just KICKING myself for not being closer to the stage...this could have been me, could have been my hand reaching out to try and touch him, could have been my blood-curdling screams:

Phnom Penh, part 2

It is clear that the city of Phnom Penh is still recovering from the loss of so many lives under the Khmer Rouge Regime and from the lasting blow to its economy. As a result, the streets don't seem as crowded as they do in other big cities, and the population is noticeably poorer. Tuk-tuk drivers and motorbike "taxis" aggressively pursued me, and once delivering me to my destination, they would often insist on waiting for me in the hope of a return trip - which I soon realized may be one of their only chances for business for the day with tourism having taken a recent downturn. (This picture was an accident, but hey, it shows my view for a better part of the day)...I felt slightly out of place here as a female tourist traveling on my own; at one point I walked down a road toward a temple I could see in the distance and quickly noticed I was the only female in sight. Worse, there were monks everywhere, and they, along with the other men, were accutely interested in my activities (which only happened to include walking down the street). I saw monk robes hanging in doorways, drying from recent laundering, and hordes of monks congregating all down the street. I finally saw one old lady, a vendor trying to sell her product to a few men who were busy avoiding being struck by a group of teenage boys playing with a hackey sack. However, I decided the temple wasn't worth it the weirdness I was feeling; I've seen plenty of temples on this trip! So I turned back.

As I was exiting the street, a young monk caught up with me and started talking. Is that allowed? In Bangkok we were told repeatedly don't touch the monks, they can't touch women. I guess I assumed that meant they wouldn't be talking to us either. :) But he wanted to try out his English and be seen talking to me in front of his friends, who were waiting down the street in a tuk-tuk, grinning at him. I had to laugh.
I was also intrigued that they use US dollars as their currency; all prices are listed in USD and my familiar green bills came shooting out of the ATM. In fact, when I arrived, I had to change my Euros into dollars. I don't even know what their actual currency is called; I only saw it when my change was less than a dollar. Rather than use coins, they give you thousands of their Riel (I just looked it up); one dollar is around 4200 Riel.

My hotel was great - minus the 15 mosquitoes I killed in my room upon arrival and also the power outage in the morning - and I had the best night's sleep there on the whole trip. It's only too bad I didn't have more time to enjoy it:

Walked down near the river and around the city a bit...I didn't take too many photos here, but this was priceless...

Why not have an aerobics class in the park? I also saw one in a large u-turn lane on a busy boulevard. What fumes?

One week

Meet John (that's "Glen" to you)...

He wanted to watch this over and over on my camera. :)

George & Lydia had me up for dinner last night and said the boys had been so excited all day long that I was coming. I'm so thankful to have found a place with this family. They lived in the States for several years and in London for one, and are themselves trying to adjust back to living in Greece with three kids. We are going to IKEA on Monday morning, so hopefully it will start to feel a bit more like home around here for me.

It has been an interesting couple of days. Obviously I need to try and figure out my place here. In talking with a few people, I think the main thing that I have on my heart is some kind of a resource center or organization that exists strictly to network other agencies that are already working on (or are interested in working on/learning about) human trafficking. There seems to be a similar desire on the hearts of a few others I have been talking with. I guess I need to start learning about what that entails, what I need to do, and how it will work. It could incorporate resources, training, and strengthening partnerships & collaboration for stronger effectiveness, advocacy, and support. There are already agencies in place that do outreach, shelter, services, etc. well. One bonus, I already have a lawyer and a social worker to partner with in this. :)

A really important contact, a woman who runs a shelter that has recently taken in at least seven new victims, told me yesterday that her shelter is in danger of shutting down because of new financial constraints from the bank. This is really discouraging. I'm meeting with her on Saturday, and praying urgently that this closure won't happen.

A new shelter opened in Thessaloniki this month (the group that I met with up there in March), and they have just received their first victims, a young Bulgarian couple who were trafficked for forced labor (and the wife for sexual exploitation). They are beginning the restoration process, and the church in Thess is really rallying around the shelter. I will be traveling up there in January or February to do a training for the shelter workers!

So...what is my place? A couple times the past few days that has crossed my mind. What am I doing here?? I've entered something here with zero structure or form. That is going to be largely up to me.

I let go of Greece in April, and God brought it back in May. Seven months later, here I sit in my new home. This is clearly his doing. I'm not yet certain what his plans look like here for me, but I can be certain that they are his. The timing, the connections, and anything that comes of this.

The New Yule Log

Remember that soothing video you could put on your TV and watch a fire burning all day long? We have created a new one.

So as not to incriminate anyone, I will just say that that is NOT me at the very end. (It's Janell.)

An Ode

We are very sad to be moving out of our apartment. And leaving each other. It is very sad. At least you didn't stay up until 4 in the morning with us laughing your head off as we made this video. :)

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Central Park. And, just so you know, David Blaine isn't actually hanging upside down for 60 straight hours.

Well, this week is the second time this year that I am visiting the same city as George Bush. Except this time, he was joined by a whole lotta important people, so much that law enforcement was out in force yesterday (we heard there are 36,000 policement in New York - I think they were all downtown yesterday), making traffic nasty.

Just across town, requiring (for some reason?) almost an equal number of bodyguards and men in suits with Secret Service ear buds, David Blaine is performing his latest publicity stunt, hanging upside down in Central Park for 60 hours. The diginitaries may be elusive, but David Blaine is hanging out for all to see; Kristin and I weren't going to miss this one.

We had a few hours to kill yesterday before leaving for the airport so we went to Central Park; it's huge, you get lost, and you end up walking 10 blocks south when you think you are walking east. :) But there are lots of pretty things to see along the way:

I like to call this one "A famous grassy area" ...So, off we go to find David Blaine on his DAREdevil DIVE of DEATH. Finding anything in that park is challenging, but as we approached the location, saw the scaffolding and crowds, our excitement grew! We came around the corner in eager anticipation and saw ---- hey, wait a minute! What exactly is going on here???He was STANDING UP. We were confused -- did he quit? Did they make him come down?? What's going on???

Apparently he was taking a BREAK. For a medical check. To make sure his eyes weren't bugging out of his head or blood pooling in his brain. Is that allowed???

In a few minutes he flipped back over and hung upside down again.

There was so much press around, we decided to shoot our own small video (press play below the picture)...

He whizzed around for a couple minutes and came down to be shielded from the scorching sun by Umbrella Man and to do some interviews. (What would he do without all this attention?)

And photos. We couldn't resist. I didn't want to touch him or look in his eyes because I am kind of scared of him. Something weird going on there. But I felt guilty for getting my photo with him like he was some ornament hanging there so I managed a cheerful "Hi!" and he said "How's it goin'?" in his monotone Brooklyn accent (only David Blaine can make those two descriptors go together). Sometimes he pulled up halfway to get blood back into his brain.We were there for maybe 20-30 minutes...and suddenly we were told to get out of the way, for it was time for another "medical check." So back onto the orange platform he swung. I'm sorry...10 minute breaks every half hour??? I'm pretty sure that does not count when you are supposed to be Hanging Upside Down for 60 hours in a row. What's the big deal? I could do that!
So we decided to attempt our own publicity stunt... (press play)

We didn't get quite the same press as David did. Oh well. I am also not sure why I took so mahy pictures of him. All that aside, don't forget to watch his grand finale live on TV tonight. Hopefully he gets off the orange platform before the cameras start to roll!

P.S. those two posts below, the "Where in the world" one and the "Kristin is a fruitcake" one are both VIDEOS, in case you didn't notice (Mom). Press play below the photo to view.

She is a little bit of a fruitcake,

and that is why I will miss her.

Where in the world is Kelsey?

More to come!