The trip story

(This was written while suffering from jet lag. I think its understandable...)

Of all of my trips throughout the world (aka North and South America), I’ve never had an issue with visas. Actually, I’ve never had to mess around with visas or any other kind of legal documents. My closest legal document travel issue was in the 9^th grade when I realized that my Argentine passport was about to expire, thus potentially trapping me in Bolivia. I had to start my break a week early to renew the passport.

After my sister Sara dropped me off at O’Hare I happily went to the electronic kiosks to retreat my tickets and commence my trip to Frankfurt. When my turn came to have my passport examined, the man in charge noticed that my tickets were scheduled to allow me to be in Lithuania for five months. The law is that any U.S. citizen can be in Lithuania without any problem. If any additional time is wanted then a visa is needed. My student visa was waiting for me in Lithuania, which is what I told the questioning worker. No luck. He made a few phone calls to see if I could go without any proof of a visa but it appears that all of his superiors told him not to let me on the plane. As time passed and he made more and more phone calls I started getting a bit nervous. The United Airlines worker told me that I had two options, either cancel my trip or change my return flight to April (thus shortening my stay by two months). His reasoning was that I could change my return flight back to June once I received my student visa. Of course this came with a fee and I had to depart with $200. Ah, the price for education. Sadly though, if I am going to finish up the whole semester I will have to change my ticket again, for another $200. Natalija is going to try to get in contact with United to see if she can get my money back, or at least prevent me from having to change my ticket a second time. With this loss of money my total spending power will be lowered from $1 a day to .50 cents a day during my summer outings.

Because of my delay at the ticket counter I came extremely close to missing my flight. Once on though, I had a very pleasant flight and was able to watch a few movies. In Frankfurt I got laughed at by a McDonalds worker when I asked for a cup of water. After some Lufthansa workers scanned my ticket for Vilnius it tuned out that United had cancelled my ticket. Weird situation, but it got worked out. While I was about to walk up the steps into the small aircraft that was going to take us to Vilnius I noticed that both of my bags were sitting alone on the grown bellow the plane. I sneaked out of line and walked up to the two workers who were trying to scan the tags on my bags. For some reason when United cancelled my ticket to Vilnius it caused some problems with the id tags. I tried to explain in English that I was Mr. Joshua Greenman and that those were my bags. “See? That’s my name on the bags. Look at my ticket…same name!” For some reason they couldn’t understand me so I finally had a stewardess assist me. Yay my bags got on.

End of travel story. Not too stressful, but yucky to lose that money and thus screw up my travel plans for the summer.

A time to leave is a time to sleep

I had the good fortune of having three of my friends over for the weekend. It was great to be able to hang out with them before I started my trip to Lithuania. Included in our list of activities was a trip to Café Catedral where the movie "Stranger Than Fiction" was filmed. I was able to obtain a pass for the Shed Aquarium, which is quite a fun place to spend some quality time watching fish swim about. My cousin Ben and I were able to enjoy a meal at Tango Sur, a popular little Argentine restaurant. The wait for a table of the restaurant was a mere two and a half hours, well worth the huge asado that Ben I ordered. It was also cool that Amy and Ruwe were able to see part of our culture without having to buy a plane ticket. Did I mention that I ate like a queen at Tango Sur?

I'm leaving tomorrow for Lithuania. Pray for me as I depart to a land where I speak not the language. I'm leaving at 2 pm from O'Hare and should be getting into Lithuania at around 2 pm on the 8th. :)

Bienvenidos a Tilcara

Even in the driest of deserts where the people are suspicious of your every move, you will find welcoming handshakes where there is money. The little town of Tilcara used to be very small, quiet, and quaint. Whispers telling Tilcara's great weather and native culture spread throughout Argentina and the world. I remember when I was the only white boy in town, but slowly others came and took my spot. When I return I realize that to the natives I'm just one of the outsiders. So sad, but such is life.

The moral of the story is: When I'm in Tilcara I'm white. When I'm in Upland I'm Latino. When I'm in Lithuania I'm USA with a dash of eastern European.

My Pizza, My Love (numero uno)

I just made pizza for my family in Chicago. My sister was able to help and give me some suggestions while I made my famous pizza crust. I've actually never watched anybody make pizza dough before and this was a good chance for me to analyze how I make mine. It actually turned out pretty well, probably the best so far. I've decided that this recipe has been tested and re-tested enough for me post my recipe on the world wide web.

Mix together in a small bowl:
1 Tb. cake yeast or 1 package dry yeast
1/4 warm water
1 tsp. sugar
(let sit while you work on other things)

Mix together in a medium bowl:
3/4 c. water (room temperature)
1 tsp. salt
2 tbs. vegetable oil

In a large bowl mix in 3 cups of flour with the two bowls of liquids. Use a wooden spoon to mix it all together. Once the mixture starts sticking, go ahead and put it all on a floured counter and start kneading it for about 5 or 8 minutes. Make sure you keep kneading the dough until it is nice and soft. Spread oil or butter on the inside of a large bowl. Roll the dough around and make sure it is coated with either the oil or butter. Seal the top of the bowl with cling wrap so that air won't dry out the dough. Let the dough raise for about an hour. I usually warm up some water in pan and place the bowl on top.

Once the dough has risen to about double its size, punch it down and cut it into two balls. Place the two balls back into the bowl and let them sit there for 5 minutes. Set your oven on 350 degrees F. Roll out your two pieces of dough into the shape that you want (on a floured surface) and place on lightly oiled pans. Place into the oven for about 10 min or until the dough is a bit crusty (but not browned!). After taking out the crusts from the oven, decorate with sauce, cheese, and other goodies. After all of the decorating, place pizzas back into the oven for about 20 minutes or until the crusts are slightly browned at the edges. Yum and enjoy! I'll be posting a few other ideas concerning sauces and toppings.

Another Santa

Papa Noel has many faces. Santa can be a greedy capitalist to some, but to others he can be just about anyone with a red suit. I'm trying to become as legal as I possibly can, so I'm going to go ahead and say that I got this comic from here. All other White Ninja comics in this blog come from here as well. There, everyone is happy now. :) Oh yea, if you can't see the comic very well, click on it to get a better view.