U.S.A., California, San Francisco

Got on the San Francisco Muni for the first time in my life.

impeccably clean

girl with the pink and yellow sunshine flip-flops

exceedingly white people in “Giants” sweatshirts and baseball caps on their way to PacBell Park

a woman wearing a red and white floral print miniskirt with black cowboy boots reading a tattered paperback copy of “Bridge Over the River Kwai”

the ultra-hipster in long leather jacket and pin-striped trousers and double-pronged belt and big scuffed boots and twin silver earrings and orange-tinted sunglasses

a regular-looking dude in sneakers, blue jeans, green T-shirt, short haircut, with a tiny jeweled stud in his nose

a couple holding hands, talking intently, staring deeply, presumably lovers, men

a thirty-something couple of Asian and church-going appearance with an eight-year-old kid in a tan cap. He got up and I saw the stylized ovoid flag-of-Japan patch on the back of his cap

U.S.A., California, Belmont

Yeah, work’s going okay. Sometimes they let me out of my cage to walk around in the sunshine for a few minutes. You know, if it's a holiday.

U.S.A., California, Redwood City

I’ve realized that I think about Mongolia every day.

U.S.A., California, San Francisco

On one of the final days of December 2000, I was standing in the sunshine on a greened hill looking at the Golden Gate Bridge and talking to my brother, who was in his trailer house in the North Star Trailer Park in Minot, North Dakota.

U.S.A., Minnesota, Minneapolis

Last evening was warm for the trick-or-treaters. Then it thunderstormed after midnight.

It's raining beautifully outside.

U.S.A., Minnesota, Minneapolis

I finished my paper! Now I can go to Missouri.

Atlantic Ocean

Radigan Neuhalfen

U.K., Bermuda, Royal Naval Dockyards

Dove on three wrecks today in two dives. The first dive, we descended to the Constellation. According to Bermuda Shipwrecks by Daniel and Denise Berg, the Constellation was built in 1918, later refitted to be a school, and finally converted back to a freighter in 1942 for the war effort. On its first voyage from New York across the Atlantic, it wrecked on the reef at Bermuda. Its cargo consisted of cement, drugs, and whiskey. The U.S. Navy salvaged the whiskey. Upon descent, we could see the cement, stacked and scattered on the sea floor like pillows. The bags had decomposed and the cement had hardened. At the stern is a windlass and at the bow, a large metal box. Near the bow lies the wreck of the Nola, a.k.a. the Montana, a U.S. Civil War Confederate blockade runner. Its paddle wheels are easily identifiable. I took a slate down with me to write on, but the pencil didn’t work. On the Nola and Constellation, we encountered another group of divers – middle-aged, probably sport divers. They were picking among the litter of the Constellation, picking up and discarding or keeping drug ampules, broken bottles, and such. We surfaced, ate lunch, then dived on the wreck of the Lartington, an English ship wrecked in 1879. Here we could see the two large boilers amidships. I followed the propeller shaft halfway through the wreck, but could not see it clear to the boilers. I also could not see where or how the boilers were attached to anything. I surfaced once during the dive to clear my right ear. On the bow of the Lartington, we could read, “LARTIN.”

U.K., Bermuda, Royal Naval Dockyards

Went out on the boat to view three wrecks. Snorkelled on the first one, the Pollockshields. Wreckage spread over a large area – boilers, shells. A German-built ship captured by the British in WW I and used to haul supplies. Then went to two other wrecks, the Minie Breslauer and the Mari Celeste. Another intern arrived yesterday, Sam from Sydney, Australia. (When I first arrived at the hostel, I had concluded that it was not a real hostel, because it was missing the obligatory Aussie. But then he showed up the next day.) Sunburned my face and hands on the boat. At night, I went up to the front of the Commissioner’s House here in the keep. A ship’s mast there perpetually flies tattered Bermudian, Canadian, U.S., and British flags between two well-painted cannons pointing at the sea. A large cruise ship, the Nordic Princess, is docked at the Dockyards. This is Bermuda, the Royal Navy, the Atlantic Trade, the history – but it doesn’t feel like it in the streets. Coke is sold in cans measured to “12 US fl oz.”

U.K., Bermuda, Royal Naval Dockyards

Arrived in Bermuda today. Arrived at eight p.m. Took a taxi to the Maritime Museum, clear on the other side of the island. The museum is inside the keep of an old British fort. The gate of the keep was locked. I hid my bags in an alcove in the fort wall, took off my shoes and socks, and climbed the gate. The hostel was empty. Found Brian, the old caretaker, sitting outside in his underwear, smelling of liquor. He said he was watching the stars. He apologized for being in his underwear. He opened the gate for me and I retrieved my bags.

U.S.A., South Dakota

It’s nearly the Fourth of July weekend. Americans love their flags. They’re everywhere. Saw a pick-up on the Interstate with min-American flags duct-taped to it, flapping in the 75-mph breeze. I even have an American flag sticker in the corner of the windshield of my Buick. It was there when I bought the car. Which is a good thing; otherwise I would have had to find a flag sticker myself.

I rolled through Kansas City at twilight in the last hours of June, 2000. I listened to a KC radio station deejaying and broadcasting live from a club in the city. They were also being simultaneously web-cast. So people watching the web-cast would e-mail in stuff like, “Who’s that girl in the pink dress?” And I blasted on through those bright Kansas City lights into the plain, listened to the club scene till I lost it, flipped the radio and on it was Elvis Presley.

A Greyhound bus passed me and I was glad not to be in it and instead in my own little futuristic highway module. A mile later the bus was pulled over on the side of the Interstate; someone must have been raising a ruckus.

Riding through the wheat here, I can clearly see the stars of the Northern Hemisphere.

U.S.A., Colorado, Avon

Drove down from North Dakota today. To Colorado.

Russia, Chukotka, Egvekinot

Got drunk three nights in a row. First with the sailors, then with the first mate.

Pacific Ocean

Russia, Kamchatka, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky

Sea of Okhotsk

Sea of Japan

Sea of Japan

Russia, Vladivostok

view from the Hotel Moryak

Russia, Vladivostok

Russia, Vladivostok

Monument to the Fighters for Soviet Power in the Far East

Monument to the Fighters for Soviet Power in the Far East

Russia, Siberia

I saw the end of a raduga [rainbow] today, in a clearing in the autumn forest in Siberia, from the train.

Russia, Ulan-Ude

Lenin's head

Russia, Naushki

In Naushki right now, on the train, in Russia on the Mongolian border.

I kissed her on the cheek. She kissed me back, on the cheek, and then wiped her lipstick from my cheek with her palm.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

"Bingo"

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

I am teaching English. A whole generation of Mongolians is learning how to form contractions from five words at a time.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

I am still in Mongolia.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Mongolia

Mongolia, Kharkhorin

Erdene Zuu Monastery

Erdene Zuu Monastery

phallic rock and vaginal hill

Mongolia

Radigan Neuhalfen
self-portrait

Mongolia

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Gandan Monastery

Lenin
Ulaanbaatar Hotel

Sukhbaatar
Sukhbaatar Square

Mongolia

Russia, Siberia

We have nothing better to do with our lives than ride across Siberia on a train.

Russia, Ural

horse wagon

archaeological dig

Israel, Tel Aviv

Was in a park in Tel Aviv a few days ago. A little old guy hobbled over and sat next to me on the bench. He was talking to me in Hebrew. I responded in English. He said, “I don’t speak English, you don’t speak Hebrew,” and raised his hands in exasperation. We sat in silence a while. Then I asked if he spoke Russian.

He said, “You speak Russian?! I asked you if you spoke Russian!”

I said I hadn’t heard him. So then he began to talk. He told me he was from Poland. He had worked in a Russian store a while and learned Russian. Then he had worked in a factory in Germany, and he showed me the five-digit number tattooed on his left forearm. Immediately after that he came to Israel and served in the Israeli army. He had been in Israel 50 years now. He had sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters. He asked me how long I was going to be in Israel. Leaving in a few days, I said.

“To where?”

“Russia.”

“Why do you want to go there?” he said. “Why not stay in Israel?”

“I don’t speak Hebrew,” I said with a smile.

“So? Stay here and you’ll learn it. I didn’t speak Hebrew when I arrived, and I learned it.”

“I could,” I said, and nodded.

We sat in silence a while again. Then he got up and hobbled off.

Israel, Sephoris

archaeological dig

Israel