|
|
 Here’s my third interview with a travel blogger (check out Phil and Shannon if you haven’t yet), but this time you get a two for one! Jack and Jill just started on their global adventure, but they are already having fun. Fortunately, they are travel veterans so they have a realistic though optimistic view. I want to thank them so much for giving me time while they’re on the road!
1. To Jill: Tell us a little about your background. Why did you leave Indonesia?
I was born and grew up in Indonesia until I was 16. Then we had that big riot in Jakarta where they were targeting the Chinese minority? Well, my parents had always wanted to send me abroad for college, but decided to do it a couple of years early because of the riot. But instead of sending me to cool, multicultural cities such as Melbourne or Sydney, they sent me to podunk Adelaide instead (no offense, I ended up really liking Adelaide).
But I guess it turned out for the better. There was only one other Indonesian in the whole school and it forced me to pick up English much faster than I would have if I had gone to one of the bigger cities.
After I graduated high school in Aussie, I studied art in Seattle and graduated. Then I realized I missed science and decided to go study engineering in California. Which is a very nice segue to your next question.
2. How did you and Jack meet? Was it in Australia? Continue reading Jack and Jill Around the World
Are you  worried about natural disasters, crime or terrorism? Neil Strauss was. He tried to prepare for everything, but ended up finding himself.
Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life is an informative, funny, and sometimes disturbing memoir. It details the transformation of the author, Neil Strauss, a music critic and writer who admittedly has few practical skills at the beginning of the book. Strauss’ family lived in a high rise apartment building, so he never learned about nature or how to fix things. By the end of the book, he’s able to care for both himself and loved ones in areas ranging from wilderness survival to hand to hand combat.
The book immediately draws you in with Strauss’ moral dilemma of whether to slaughter a goat in his quest for survival skills. Emergency then bounces back and forth in time, from location to location, and from factual narrative to analysis. This stylistic choice holds the reader’s attention, but is confusing at times. Continue reading Just In Case
 US citizens can leave, but they still have to pay taxes. I continue my interview with Adrian S., a married man with a family who sold most of his possessions in search of a better life. He is disturbed about the direction the US is taking, politically, economically, and socially. Links to earlier parts of the interview can be found at the end of this post.
Jennifer Barry: I’m very concerned about the effect of the housing bust on the US. The people who bought near the top could wait more than a decade to see the prices rebound. Too many won’t be able to hold on that long. A lot of these middle-class families aren’t middle-class anymore, they just don’t know it yet.
Adrian S.: Yeah, I feel like a whole new system is being put into place. But people are buying into this idea that it’s all just a big accident, we didn’t realize what was going to happen if we had all these crazy derivatives and such and that the bankers were just a little over-enthusiastic and they’re sorry. Continue reading Stranger in His Own Land, Part 12
I’m proud to say that today is the one year anniversary of Live Richly. I didn’t know if it would last this long. I started it as an experiment to learn about social media and marketing, but it turned out I really liked blogging for its own sake.
One of the best part [...]
 Retirees cut foreign vacations when the Dow falls. This is an excerpt from the October 2010 issue of Global Asset Strategist.
I continue my interview with Adrian S., a married man with a family who sold most of his possessions in search of a better life. He is disturbed about the direction the US is taking, both politically and economically. Links to earlier parts of the interview can be found at the end of this post.
Jennifer Barry: Bill Murphy has been saying for a while that he thinks the average American’s standard of living is going to fall 30%.
Adrian S.: Yes, I agree that I see that coming. The middle class is being cut at the knees right now. We look at the people that we’re staying with, our family, and they’re working very, very hard to keep things afloat. Looking years ahead, I believe there’s going to be war. It happens when you have these kinds of social cataclysms, and our son will soon become just the perfect age for a fighting young man, and so that’s one of the reasons that we want to get out. Continue reading Stranger in His Own Land, Part 9
This is an excerpt from  the October 2010 issue of Global Asset Strategist.
I continue my interview with Adrian S., a married man with a family who sold most of his possessions in search of a better life. Links to earlier parts of the interview can be found at the end of this post.
Jennifer Barry: I know that you’ve been farther head of the curve than your wife Karen has been on a lot of things. Was she really as gung-ho as you to sell the house and travel around, or was she a little bit more skeptical than you were?
Adrian S.: No, I was the driver initially. I was the one who was always promoting the idea of making a break and she kind of went along with it, at some point she said that she agreed that we needed to sell our house. And then things just kind of fell in place after that. Continue reading Stranger in His Own Land, Part 8
 Healthy food is important to Adrian. This is an excerpt from the September 2010 issue of Global Asset Strategist.
I continue my interview with Adrian S., a married man with a family who sold most of his possessions in search of a better life. Links to earlier parts of the interview can be found at the end of this post.
Adrian S: Well, we’re planning to go to Paraguay this year but we’re still researching what they would require for health examinations. I really don’t want to get shots from some Rockefeller allopathic doctor who’s going to stick me a mercury barb.
Jennifer Barry: Yeah, I can understand that. I have not gotten any vaccines in a while and one of the last ones I did was Hepatitis B, and I reacted poorly to that. I think that vaccine is still affecting me 15 years later. Continue reading Stranger in His Own Land, Part 6
 This is a continuation of my interview with Adrian S., a married man with a family who sold most of his possessions in search of a better life. Links to earlier parts of the interview can be found below.
Jennifer Barry: Did you tell me you’re going to Paraguay next?
Adrian S: We went to Panamá, and then we started looking more closely at places we might want to live. It’s been an internet search so far. Uruguay is near the top of our list because it has more of a European population, people who are more similar to our children. The average young person living in a small town in Panamá didn’t have a lot in common with our kids. There seems to be such a huge gap between their life experiences that it’s difficult to overcome. I don’t know that it’ll be better in some other place. There were a lot of things about Uruguay that looked good. Continue reading Stranger in His Own Land, Part 5
 Uruguay has beaches, but is it really like Iowa? This is an excerpt from the February 2008 issue of Global Asset Strategist.
Montevideo’s focus is naturally on the beach. While it’s convenient to walk many places from the water, some attractions like the old city were too far away. I never bothered to learn the bus system when cabs are so cheap by U.S. standards. Also, they have a unique radio taxi service that will automatically dispatch a car to the address associated with the number you call from, like your hotel, and will give you an approximate arrival time. Continue reading Exploring Uruguay, Part 2
This is a continuation of my interview with Adrian S., a married man with a family who sold most of his possessions in search of a better life. Links to earlier parts of the interview can be found below.
Adrian S: In November 2009, we went to Panamá because we had not been out of the country much, we’re kind of provincial people, we only speak one language. My two children really haven’t seen much except suburban life except for that brief time in the countryside of Oregon. And we thought it would be a good idea to go to Panamá. We stayed three months there, and that was a real eye opener. We saw that things were possible outside of the United States. There were a lot of things that were shocking. Continue reading Stranger in His Own Land, Part 4
|
I've used Hostgator for over a year and I'm very happy!
|
New Comments