My dear friends and family,

What a rush these past three weeks have been. There is so much to tell of my experiences so far, and I have fallen behind with my journal. But again, this is not meant to be a perfect record, but an encapsulation of what has happened.

Here I go.

When I arrived Monday night at 11:30 in the airport in Antananarivo and was shuttled to my house, I couldn’t have known what I was getting myself into. I arrived at the house at 12:30 ish, sick from the airplane food and nauseous from twelve hours of flying. *Travel lesson that should be common sense- always arrive early, especially for international flights. I arrived three hours early, and after 1.5 hours, I realized that a security guard pointed me to a terminal on the opposite end of the airport from where I needed to be… 30 min brisk walk away to be more precise.

The house is a newly remodeled, 3 bed and 3 bath house. It used to be the old fitness center (which irked most of the embassy staff- bad way to start out. Most of my first conversations with embassy staff went like this:

Staff: “So are you the new intern?”

Alex: “Yes, I just got here last night. My name is Alex.”

Staff: “So Alex, where did the embassy staff put you up?”

Alex: “They put me up at Villa Manovasoa. I think it was the old fitness center once upon a time.“

Staff:  “Oh, so you are the one they tore it up for... I used to use that all the time. I was really frustrated when they closed it to remodel.”

Alex: *awkward silence* “Yeah... sorry about that…”

So went almost every conversation. Apparently the house I am staying in was the only fitness center within a 30-minute drive.

After checking the house, showering, getting my clothes ready for the next day, and getting some food in ma’ belly, I managed to catch some z’s at about 3:30 a.m. The shuttle picked me up at 6:45 the next morning.

The nausea wore off after about four days of riding in the back of a bumpy van along winding, pothole marked streets. (Some of these potholes are a foot deep or more). *Travel tip- when traveling, make sure to hit the gym or go running when you wake up. This helps to reset your clock faster, while the endorphins help curb the nausea.

The embassy here in Tana is surprisingly new. It was just built a few years ago, so it is clean and fairly tech oriented. No Wi-Fi though. That apparently poses a security risk. So does taking a picture of the embassy. I was scolded for taking pictures of the embassy from about a half-mile away, even though tourists could just drive past the embassy fence (300 or so feet away) and take pictures… apparently a DSLR with a telescoping lens at 300 feet is no match for an iPhone 4S at a half-mile away. I am still shaking my head about that.

My ride to the embassy starts at varying times in the morning. I have an embassy shuttle come by my house (earliest has been 6:25 and latest has been 6:45) every weekday, picking me up and then picking up various other embassy workers in a neighborhood we call, “Little America.” The neighborhood is actually called Ivandy, but houses diplomats from the Russian, Indonesian, French, and American embassies. Yes, I said Indonesian. I actually marched up to the Indonesian embassy on Saturday and asked for someone who spoke Indonesian. The security guard thought I was nuts. Apparently it is closed every weekend.

Here are some pictures that I have taken the past few weeks:

The first three actually embassy pictures that have been sanitized for your viewing. She's a beut'.

 Yes it has a pool. I haven't tried it out yet though.

The next several are all going to be of Paris. It just takes one look and you know you will need good shoes.

This was the door to the LDS church in Paris. It is easy to miss when you are walking down the street

I saw no Quasimodo, but felt a bit out of place wearing my suit and dress shoes. This was day 3 in this outfit without changing.

 *TRAVELER TIP* Always be sure to bring a spare pair of under-garments if you can manage. One of the guys at the embassy always travels with a miniature emergency bag with some of his essentials in mini form. It can be a life saver. Airports tend to carry the toiletries you need at a high price.

A nifty panoramic shot of the Louvre palace/museum entrance. I didn't have time to go inside.

We all know what this is. 

I had to go pretty far away to get this dorky shot. I spent the day with an American pilot named Mike (we met when I went to church). We palled around for the day and he showed me the sights. Though I have seen most of them from my last trip with Ev, it was neat to see them now that I have learned a little more about their history.

Getting on the subway. That is Mike trying to buy a ticket. I bought a day pass so I didn't have to worry about purchasing different tickets for the transits.

A parisian breakfast. Bread, meat, cheese, and a little bit of fruit. The buffet was almost all bread and cheese. Not bad. Now that I am in Madagascar I see how the Malagasy restaurants and roadside shops got their selections. One visible indication of the French colonization is French bread everywhere you look. If you want to buy a sandwich at the market, it is most likely French bread loaves around your meat and veggies.

*Travel tip* Arrive much earlier to the airport than you think you would need. I arrived three hours early and spent about one-and-a-half hours following a security guards incorrect directions (given in English, mind you)

The sign of the church in Tana

The church building in Tana. This is literally a 10 minute walk from my house. I timed it. I have no idea why it is orange. Apparently no one at church knows either. 

The road to church. That strip of sand is about 1.5 ft wide at its widest. 

For one of our projects, we held a journalism competition for youth age twelve to nineteen. There were thirty-two submissions and one winner for each language (English, Malagasy, and French).

Here is a link to a report on it:

http://www.antananarivo.usembassy.gov/embassy_news/press-releases2/the-embassy-of-the-united-states-and-its-partners-reward-the-best-young-environmental-reporters-in-the-best-reporter-challenge-contest.html

I was taking pictures, but I helped judge the essays (seen above). 

This is the press center where we held the event

I am good friends with the director of the WWF here in Tana. We play together on an ultimate frisbee team once a week and he invited me to see his office/ how they organize their events.

This is the LDS church in the center of Tana. There are 4 churches here (one being built next door to the embassy) but this one is easily the biggest I have ever seen. It isn't a temple, but could easily be turned into one. This past Saturday I presented a powerpoint here, to an audience of about 120 visitors, on the embassy's programs in Madagascar. I am working on the embassy's Facebook post concerning this event and will share it on my wall soon.

Driving down the road in Tana's Chinese market

My house. I had to sanitize this so you don't see my guards or their post.

Yep so that is about it for now. I will post some more later when I take some more pictures. I will post again this weekend.

About this blog

As I am sitting here in the IBIS hotel in Paris with sore feet and a full heart*, I realized I would rather have a dedicated page for my travels than to use the one exclusively for family. 

So what's with the title? Honestly, I couldn't think of any popular/snappy way to make my name fit somehow with Gulliver's travels and Robert Frost momentarily sprang from my sub-conscious to slap me when I went for a cliché. With a stinging conscience I went with my usual, unfashionable but meaningful Indonesian fallback. 

So. What it means to Ber. Most of you have never heard of "Ber-", while those of you who have sometimes find its explanation elusive. "Ber-" is an Indonesian grammar structure that acts as a prefix  (hence the hyphen) to a vast quantity of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, causing those words to mean, "To be, to have, to wear, to travel by, or to produce." "Ber-" also indicates a reciprocal relationship, refers to work, and causes a verb to become reflexive (where the verb does something to itself). I will not try to explain every, irregularity, or every possible meaning for all our sakes. Suffices it to say that "Ber-" performs a long list of grammatical functions. But most importantly, it causes a word to take on the property of some attribute to which the prefix is applied. 

I chose this as the title for my blog about my travels, because I find that whenever I travel, a portion of that place or culture becomes part of me. Ironically, one can't use the word in the way I am about to use it*. But for example, I "Ber-"ed Indonesia when I went there. I fell in love with many aspects of the language and culture where I served on my two-year LDS mission, thereby taking on many properties and attributes that personified the wonderful people of that country.

Travel does that to everyone in one-way or another. I strongly believe that one cannot immerse themselves in a new culture, new language, and new social setting without experiencing opportunities to learn and grow. I whole heartedly agree with Mark Twain's statement that, 

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Also, I find that travel interestingly fulfills an injunction in my belief system to, "...study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people...[to] be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand...Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms..." (D&C 88:78-79, 90:15).

That being said, I will not push my personal opinions, beliefs, ideologies, etc. Nor will I purposefully attempt to stir up controversy or argument over currently hot topics through personal commentaries. This is an attempt to relate to fellow travelers, as well as all others who wish to keep up to date with my travels, how the experiences I have can help you to become better prepared for your journeys as well as how those journeys might shape you as they have shaped me. If someone or something has taught me a valuable lesson, I will record it here. That being said, I will not edit the accounts of my experiences to "sugar-coat" or create the false pretense that I don't make mistakes. If my mistakes provide a learning experience, then I will, however reluctantly, share it for all our sakes.

I will do certainly do my best to proof-read these posts but, because I would rather concern myself with experiencing new things than meticulously editing experiences I have already had, you might occasionally find some awkward verbiage and run-on sentences. I also might occasionally include the use of hash tags because of the nuance they can provide. For instance, today I walked for miles all around Paris in dress shoes. Instead of writing a whole paragraph about how purchasing the dress shoes at the thrift store, I could instead write, "#thesebootswerentmadeforwalkin #blisters #thriftshopfail" and you also get the idea. Though, in the event that a comment is just too long for a hash tag, I will just insert a snappy social reference like *even Macklemore would agree that was a bad idea*.

*I spent the day walking around Paris in a pair of slightly too small Bostonian dress shoes. Sure they look nice and they came at a meager price of $6 at Goodwill in Gig Harbor, WA, but they make miserable walking shoes for when you take a day to walk around Paris. If you decide to spend any length of time walking around cobblestone streets, be sure you have some pretty comfy kicks. 

*(in a mixture of Indonesian and English which my friends and I call Englonesian)