A Cavernous Discovery

So one day in 1905 two boys followed a lost cricket ball down a hole. This is what they found:

 

Crystal Caves in Bermuda

 

If you find the ball you get to keep the caves (so said our hungover tour guide)

 

 

Tombstone as Eulogy from Years Past

St. Peter's Church; St. George's, Bermuda

“ To the memory of George Forbes, MD.

Whom living

A fingular complacency of manners

Joined with many ufeful talents

And eminent virtues

Render’d highly eftimable

Bleff’d with a convivial difpofition,

In the cheerful hour of focial feftivity

He throne irreprehenifible

An agreeable companion,

Ever affiduous in furthering good humour

And the enjoyments of fociality.

Friendly to mankind,

His endeavors to mitigate the evils of life,

Which he ore himfelf with temper & philosophy,

Were not alone confined to the Healing Art ,

Long exercifed by him with much Reputation;

But were likewife exerted

In compofing differences

Restoring ancient friendfhips interrupted

And promoting

Peace, harmony, and a mutual good undertfanding

Among His fellow-men.

Having acquitted himfelf with approbation

In the feveral relations of life,

As he had lived repected and beloved,

So he died

Lamented and regretted for thefe virtues

And many others,

With

Tho’not enregifter’d on this marble,

Are for ever engraven

On the memory of his furviving friends.

He died Jany 9^th, 1778 Aged 68”

Guardians of the Dockyard

Small and mighty they guard and never back down, Faithful and Powerful.

Coastline between Tobacco Bay and Fort St. Catherine. St. George's, Bermuda.

Only the lulling sounds of nature penetrate the stillness of the secluded bay.

The lapping of water against the rocks; the chirping of birds calling to one another; the wind rustling across the cove and past the greenery all around me.

Currents mix and move around the various outcroppings of rocks, reminding me of the shipwrecks spread across the island’s treacherous shores.

This is Bliss.

Bermuda Beach Bum

Dark & Stormy sea day in May  vs. a Swizzle-ing day in the June Sun.

Decisions, decisions.

Snapshots of the Caribbean

The many masts in St. Thomas' harbor.

The Caribbean. It’s known for mascara wearing pirates, rum in every form, and underwater scenes that lure tourists of all shapes and sizes to their islands.

What makes the Caribbean interesting to me is its diversity. Each island has its own specific flavor which comes from it’s topography as well as which European power planted their flag there first.

St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands) is tourist town at first look, but mostly consists of homes for the luxurious and wealthy. The number of yachts in the harbor is a testament to that fact.  Secluded beaches and coves with 15ft of water visibility make up for the long line of tourist and typical duty-free shops that crowd the ports.

The rustic and untouched shoreline of Tortola.

St. Maarten takes a cue from its Dutch and French ancestors in giving it a Rivera seaside type of feel complete with historic architecture while still catering to the tourist bent of Duty-Free heaven.  The island is actually split in two (the north half is France’s territory Saint-Martin while the southern half is the Netherlands’ Sint-Maarten) and you can distinguish a difference in the culture on each end.  It’s  not at all unpleasant to spend your day sitting outside at a cute café under a palm tree, drinking coffee to die for, and watching the tropical blue waters pass you by.

Yellow umbrellas spot the beach in St. Maarten.

Tortuga (British Virgin Islands) and Antigua are untouched in their wild beauty. They are rustic and simple but if you travel off the beaten path a little, you will find areas that will make up for the lack of shops, restaurants, and restrooms.

Traveling from East (above) to West you will find the drastically different islands of the Bahamas. The tollbooth to the Caribbean, so to speak, they were the first stop for European visitors and continue to have the feel of a median on a highway, just sitting there while everyone whizzes past.

The biggest (and best by far) tourist attraction in Nassau, Bahamas is the Atlantis resort.

The Bahamas best assets are the numerous untouched (or almost untouched) islands. Owning your own little bit of Bahamian sand doesn’t seem that out of reach once you’ve witnessed all of the “privately owned” islands in the region.

Seeing the Whole Picture, through 96 eyes.

As I am about to embark on my next great adventure, I turn to a project which has been on the back burner for some time. There are, as always, things I would love to continue tweaking but sometimes you just have to finish a project.

A year and a half has now passed since I spent a blissful month wandering around Europe with a busload of people I had never met before.  I took massive amounts of video and pictures while I was in Europe thinking I would make some sort of video of featuring all the amazing monuments and beautiful scenery I finally got to see.

I may still do that someday…

But for now, what you see below is a result of my thinking about all the people I met on my trip and all the memories we made together. For me, going to Europe was a lifetime goal come true. Seeing the sites and experiencing the culture was my utmost priority, and my pictures reflect that. I also ended up having an amazing experience with my group. To reflect that reality I started looking through everyone else’s pictures that they had posted.

I noticed in many famous locations we had all taken, and posted, the same pictures (only different angles). I thought it would be interesting to take our individual snapshots and put them all together to show the complete picture of a memory.

I realized, like myself, everyone had a specific ‘type’ of picture that they took. They focused on what was important to them. Some posed by themselves in front of monuments, while others captured groups of friends. There were albums with only scenic pictures, and albums with only party pictures. While some of my peers recorded our daily travels and activities, others caught the candid moments or focused on artistic photography.

Our experience, in reality, was more expansive than our individual pictures displayed.

There were also those who took themes of pictures (people sleeping, odd signs, animals, feet and hands, Berlin Bears, food they ate) and I wanted to pay tribute to those mini-collections that were thought out and anthologized.

So here is the product of not just my work, but the memories of all 48 people (96 eyes) who went on this journey with me. Essentially, we took pictures of what was most important to each of us. Together we have been able to make this, one collective image of our experience in Europe; from the mountains and monuments to the disco discos.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

I started this endeavor so that I would have a wonderful collection of memories. I continued because I thought it was interesting to see everyone’s point of view. I’m (FINALLY) finishing it to give something back to everyone I went on this adventure with. I hope you enjoy the memories; I certainly have.

Note:

- I didn’t change, Photoshop or correct any of the images in order to maintain the real and varying perspective of each of us.

- Watching this in a smaller window is better. YouTube made me split it up in order to post so it’s a bit of a pain…

-If you DON’T live in the States, you should have no problem viewing this. If you do live here and can’t view it on YouTube, please contact me.

Videos: Journey Across the Pond, Pt 1 and 2

Credits

Photos by:

Adam, Alejandra, Alicia, Amanda, Bec W, Ben, Cassie C, Cat, Carly F, Courts, Dom, Dave M, Elise, Ercan, Harriet, Helena, Maria, Matt, Nick, Rebecca, Ryan, Sarah N, Sarah Mc, Sarah W, Scott, Sophie, Stephen, Teegan, Vanessa, Wigi, Yvette, and TD Disco Disco

Music By:

We Are Your Friends – Justice vs. Simian

I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas

I Want Candy – Bow Wow Wow

Such Great Heights – The Postal Service

A Million Miles Away – The Plimsouls

Only the Young – Journey

Doing It Right – The Go! Team

The Ides of March

The steps where Caesar was killed.

2054 years ago Caesar was assassinated on these very steps.

Today, their ruins sit amid the busy streets of Rome, with only a small fence surrounding the area.

I always encourage people to look for any excuse to celebrate any outlandish holiday so; have a toga party, read Plutarch, watch Rome or Marlon Brando play Mark Antony (’53 Julius Caesar), and eat a Caesar Salad in remembrance of this great day in history.

The Upside of Starbucks

The coffee may make you cringe, the prices high, and the “easy listening” hard to swallow but Starbucks is good in fact good for a few things.

1) (Relatively) clean bathrooms.

2) Locations throughout the world, from small towns to big cities.

3) Whatever the quality, at least you always know what you’re gonna get.

4) A place to sit and wait for interviews, the rain to let up, or for work to begin.

5) Wi-Fi!!!!

So pop open your laptop, plug-in your headphones, choke down the cheapest thing you can find on the menu and enjoy a peculiar home away from home.

Echos from Amsterdam

View from the front of Anne Frank House

I stood transfixed in the incredibly small room staring at the faded wallpaper marking where images of hope, glamour, and escapism once hung. Here she sat, wrote, cried and dreamt. All I could think of was how my outstretched arms could almost touch the walls.

With a sense of time standing still I made my way through the rest of the Annex and didn’t return to the modern world until I stepped out into the cool mid-day breeze.

——–

267 Prinsengracht, the location of the Anne Frank House, is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Amid the sex shops, coffeehouses, bicycles and Heineken lies one of the most remarkable memorial museums in the world.

With a line wrapping around the block on a Sunday morning as the bells from Westerkerk Church ring, it is impossible to ignore the impact this 13-year-old made on modern day society.

Westerkerk Belltower

The Museum itself has taken over the building next door to the infamous Secret Annex (Number 263), located in the upper levels of Otto Frank’s former place of work, the Opekta Spice Company. Quotes adorn the freshly painted walls. Interviews of friends and helpers to the Annex clan play on TVs while tourists watch in a variety of languages. Pictures are forbidden, making the experience more like a church or memorial than a museum.  The lines of foreigners weave through the small rooms, and up the steep stairs. I catch my breath as I approach the bookcase door I’ve read so much about. It looks exactly how I always pictured it.

Ducking under the doorway it feels as if I’m entering a time warp, or a tomb. Personnel effects and furniture has been moved out, but the movie-magazine pictures on Anne’s wall still remain. The rooms are more like small closets, connecting from one to the other, even closer quarters than I’ve imagined. “Upstairs” is nothing more than a few steps up the landing. The attic where she, “looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistening with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air,” connects to the modern day museum and lobby. I catch a glimpse of the outside world through slotted windows, and snap an illegal picture.

    

Passageway between the Annex and Museum

Downstairs, near the exit and gift shop, lies the best memory of the morning. Encased in a glass podium is the red plaid diary. It is the diary that invited millions into the real-life world of World War II. The diary that so eloquently contemplated life, love, and evil it’s hard to believe that “a young girl” wrote it.

Inside the gift shop, the miracle and reality of Anne Frank’s legacy assaults you. Copies of her diary in every language imaginable can be found there. Every edition, every version is there; photo albums, annotated, unedited, and original. Literature explaining the current Anne Frank House and its sister organizations covers every surface. The organization that Otto Frank started after realizing he was the only Annex survivor, has grown exponentially. His efforts to publish his daughter’s work were have been paid back a thousand times over.

The old Opekta building, 263 Prinsengracht, which housed the location of The Secret Annex.

Re-reading the 413-page book (1995 Definitive Ed.) for the first time since I was thirteen was an eye-opener. This is a girl who is insightful, who has incredible potential, and who is just trying to grow up. She started her diary because, “Mr. Bolkestein, the Cabinet Minister, speaking on the Dutch Broadcast from London, said that after the war, a collection would be made of diaries and letters”. She decided she wanted to be a writer, a journalist. She knew she was different and unconventional compared to those around her and she wanted to take a stand. She wanted to prove them wrong.

In some ways she accomplished all of these goals. Anne brought awareness and a heart-breaking reality to the Holocaust. Though many others have written about it, and will continue to memorialize it in various ways, her words and ideas alone have touched millions. I’ve seen the concentration camps and Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, read multitudes of accounts, and talked to survivors first hand but it is her words that have left the longest lasting impression on my mind. Maybe if she had lived her diary never would have been published. Maybe it would have been been published but polished, less sincere. Maybe she would have gone on to do even greater things. Either way the Anne Frank House, sitting proudly alongside the quiet Amsterdam canal, serves as a little morsel of redemption for what history had in store for this young girl.
Click here to learn more about the Anne Frank House.