You should keep a blog

So you're going to WHERE? For how long? Wow. You should keep a blog.

I don't know how many times in the last month I've had that conversation. I lost count. And for the most part my mode of thinking fell along the lines of, "Why bother?" It's not that I didn't want to share about my travels or I don't think my life is interesting, Lord knows I'm far too full of myself to not like my life. It's more a matter of thanks to multimedia projects - I feel like my life is slowly going from being a thing I experience to synergy in communicating said activities and stories to becoming a flood of spam no one wants to hear. The overkill of the internet. I have facebook (check my status messages!). I have my photoblog (updated daily with fine art photos!). I have a twitter (TheUrv is being eaten alive by mosquitoes in Bishkek). I'm posting on the TracingTea website (I have a job!). I'm LinkedIn and am losing track of MySpace but bit.ly keeps things neat and tidy as I share things in fewer characters while losing a sense of character while I become a caricature. And for a handful of individuals I write lengthy emails while for the vast majority I fall off the face of the planet as they know it by going to a country they've never heard of/can't pronounce.

And yet - I left last week on Friday, and by Wednesday night I'm realizing... I should keep a blog. Emails while more fulfilling are demanding to the recipient. When I have internet to go to in the evenings I get excited to talk to folks thousands of miles away only to discover their lunch breaks aren't long enough to have a full conversation and while I'm at the end of the work day with stories to share, they need to return to work, to class, to daily life and the work of living. And suddenly my excitement is stunted. I stop in my tracks like a 3 year-old tugging his mother's dress saying "Mommy Mommy Mommy!" and being so excited to share something new that by the time I get someone's attention to ask in a curt, "WHAT?!" I've forgotten what I wanted to share. I'm a stereotypical tourist lost beyond the language barrier and rediscovering the joy and fear of uncertainty and in the cliche way that travelers do when abroad, I just want someone who speaks my language to share the experience with. And I suppose if I keep a blog, I'll get to do that with anyone who wants to share this journey with me.

So.... here we go. The basics. The who, what, where, when, why and wtf of my observations.
Who: Myself. 23 year old recent graduate. Identity to be determined.

What: Traveling with a documentary film crew called Tracing Tea (www.tracingtea.com or www.twitter.com/TracingTea) from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to London.

Where: Currently Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan located in the heart of Central Asia - a blackhole on the map where Americans can't navigate. That undetermined land between the Russians and Cold War fears, the Middle East and exploding religious fears, the Gulf and overpriced oil fears, India/Pakistan and the nuke holding nations feuding fears, and China and the fears of changing economic relations... Actually a lot of those fears can be relocated - expanding economies, religions Americans don't get and histories beyond our public school understanding because sound bites are more catchy than understanding. But regardless - in the middle of all these places that tend to be presented as scary others, is a land where the average person has no understanding of. And right now I'm in the center of it. When I told one family friend I was off to Kyrgyzstan he later asked when I was leaving for Crazystan. Probably an apt description of where most people think I am.

When: Now. Last Friday till now. I shall be here until I take a vacation to go to an Indian wedding in Texas (another foreign scary land for Californians) and then will return to Georgia (the country) in October. But I'll be doing this for at least 5 months. Or so the schedule says.

Why: I'm young? I'm foolish? I'm footloose and fancy free? It's a job in film and I'm a Film and Media Studies Major? I don't know. Somehow I volunteered to drive a Land Rover from London to Moscow with a trailer of equipment for a friend I'd met once randomly and this seemed like a great idea for everyone, so they flew me out and paid for my food and lodging while I trucked across a continent. Somehow after a day getting lost in a thunderstorm in the Ukraine where I couldn't speak the language, read the signs and somehow had to play charades to get some men to fix the trailer when it broke down after 8 hours being lost - it seemed like a wonderful idea to accept the job offer in my inbox which extended the insane travel schedule. Honestly it seems like an amazing crash course in cultures, geography, how to work on an ever changing schedule, work hands on with expensive film equipment and get the sort of well rounded education that school didn't provide me with yet. So here I am.

As for the WTF moments, those will be posted as they come. For now, it is late, I am tired and there's more work tomorrow. So until then, I hope you're well and that if you're reading this you comment, email, tweet at or otherwise badger me in English so when I come online at the end of a day being surrounded by unfamiliar and new things, there's something familiar waiting for me.

Farewell,

Another Cliché Traveler Abroad
aka Urvi