End of the Summer

One of the best adventures of the summer was Camp Footprints.  I feel like I learned more in that time than I did in the entire rest of the summer.  It is amazing what unconditional love and spending time interacting on a real level with other people can do.

After camp, I spent the last week of summer in Kauai.  It was a blast and we had a couple of notable adventures, including driving 5 miles on a "4 wheel drive only" road to get to a beach that only locals frequent and a day-long zodiac ride to the Napali coast.

In addition to enjoying the sun, I finished the website that I've been working on all summer.  It is the business site for Dr. Pamela Kushner's doctors office.  Here is a link: http://firstchoicefamilydoctor.com/

Well, off to work towards an MS/BS in chemistry by the end of next school year.

July update: what I've been up to

Well, it's been a while since I've updated this blog, but I've had what I think amounts to a good excuse for that.  I've been viewing nature, for example, in Sitka, Alaska, at the St. Lazaria puffin colony, I took this picture:

When I wasn't out looking at nature, I was spending time with family and making new friends on what turned out to be a wonderful cruise on the Amsterdam.  The cruise in total lasted two weeks and I have quite a few adventures to show for that time in our country's northernmost state.  Here's what I was up to:

• Ketchikan, Alaska: 6 mile roundtrip hike up Deer Mountain
• This hike was a bit challenging, seeing as it involved going up and coming down a mountain, and we weren't able to make it up to the summit due to rain and the fact that wet icy snow and tennis shoes don't mix well, but it was still a lot of fun.

• Sitka, AK: 5 miles of walking through the city and Sitka state historic park.  I also went on a boat ride to St. Lazaria island where I took the puffin picture above.
• One of the best boat trips I've ever taken and really a chance to see nature at it's best.  It's a shame that I had to come so far to see it but it was worth every mile.

• Itinerary to be continued, as I now have to go to bed in preparation for a foray into some of the best nature that Long Beach has to offer, the LA river bike path.

 In other news, "Camp Footprints", a volunteer camp that really made an impact on my life so far, is coming up in a couple of weeks and I am going to be a team leader.  With prep for camp and designing a website for my mom's office, I definitely have my work cut out for me for the rest of the summer, but these tasks also promise to be a lot of fun and a great learning experiences.

The Benefits of Jetlag

Being home has been great so far.  I've gotten to spend time with Sam, with my cat Rocky, and catch up with some friends. All helped out at least in part by Jetlag.  I never would have believed it would be so useful, but the ability to wake up at 6:30 in spite of not setting an alarm and irrespective of whether or not I got enough sleep the night before has come in handy.

Here's just a quick summary of the perks:
1. Wednesday: 12 mile bike ride with my Mom and 1.2 mile ocean swim, all before noon.  Also, I got to try out my new bathing suit, a Jammer bought in Palermo, Italy.
2. Thursday: School with Sam.
3. Friday: 46 mile bike ride with friends.

All in all, not to shabby for a week that I thought I'd be having to sleep through a lot of.  However, at this point it might not hurt to get some extra sleep.

Also, here is a quote that I have always tried to live by but that I had not heard until recently:

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever."
-Mahatma Ghandi

Return Trip

All good things must come to an end and this one is no different. Tomorrow morning bright and early it's back to the United States of America. It's been a wonderful trip, but there really is no place like the good young US of A.

On to Venice

I just left Split Croatia, where I spent my first Saturday night in Europe ashore. Quite an experience and one which allowed me to see the country in a truly different light (pun intended). In front of and inside what was once the Roman emperor Diocletian's palace are now bars and residences that have been built up since the middle ages. It's amazing how something that is "new" in this town is 500-1000 years old and built over the "old" 1700 year old ruins.

Also, over the last couple of days, I've been getting in regular workouts in the ships very small pool. The funny thing is, compared to any other swimmer on the ship, I mine as well be an Olympian. I actually got cheered on by one very nice woman who later jokingly asked me for my autograph.

Between workouts and sight seeing, the ship also has some very interesting lecturers. One, who is a classics professor at Oxford, brought up the interesting point of national mythologies and how they are formed. It is amazing how what is highlighted in a tourist brochure today might be a result of hundreds or even thousands of years of choosing only the most interesting parts of a country's history. However, at the same time, some parts of national mythologies, although they might go far back in history, were only added recently. For example, many of the Italian towns with medieval names reverted back to what they were called under Roman times due to Mussolini's obsession with making himself seem like a Roman emperor.

Tomorrow, it's off to Venice to see what this historic and beautiful city has to offer.

Change and Time

The last couple of days, I've seen more than a few ruins of Greek temples, and I can't help thinking that it is amazing that there are perhaps more well-preserved Greek temples in Italy than there are in Greece.  The entire area was part of Magna Grecia in the 6th to 2nd centuries B.C.  Another interesting point is that some of the temples are bigger than those built in Greece.  The Doric style of Greek architecture involved building temples on a human scale.  However, in an attempt to show off to mother Greece, some of the colonies threw this aside and built gargantuan structures.  The collapsed temple of Zeus, that I saw today, was nearly 400 feet long and 140 feet high when standing.

Some of the most interesting sites that I visited were a temple and theater at Segesta and the world-renouned "Valley of the Temples" in Agrigento.  Visiting all of these ancient ruins has really gotten me thinking about how time can bring some serious change, whether good or bad.  The interesting part about this is that even an area that has remained relatively static over the years can have a completely changed function.  In Segesta, what was once a theater and fortress city (built by the Elinins in the 5th century B.C.) became a castle in the middle ages for its ability to command the surrounding land.  Today, it is merely an abandoned hilltop with ruins that provides a place to enjoy the nature and watch the scenery.

The city of Erice is another example.  What was once a fortress city is now a town with 300 permanent residents and 30 catholic churches.  Another spectacular change: one of the largest sources of the town's visitors is a nuclear physics institute housed in what was once a monastery with its larger meetings in a nearby church.  Seeing this change in the function of these buildings, I can't help thinking that to some people, science is a sort of religion and perhaps professors are the monks of today.

With this talk of nuclear physics, I'll end by translating a quote by Albert Einstein I saw in Italian on a t-shirt, "There are two things that are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.  I'm not quite sure about the first."

Shopping in Palermo: More dangerous than it sounds

Sunday was a beautiful day in Palermo, Italy on the island of Sicily.  The sky was bright blue, and I was feeling relaxed and shopping with my Grandma.  As we were walking down what seemed to be a pedestrian street, I heard the honking of the horn of a Vespa and looked back to watch as, seemingly in slow motion, an ~18 year old vespa driver and his distraught girlfriend/passenger careened out of control and knocked over the cycle, in the process knocking into my grandma and sending her crashing to the floor.

That's the basic story of how my grandma got her arm pretty badly cut up and began bleeding out onto the street, but it is only half of the story of the day.  The other half is Sicilian hospitality.  In spite of the fact that my grandma did not and does not speak a word of Italian, she managed to get some sort of help from practically every person we passed: an ice pack from the street vendor, a paper towel from a clothes seller, the use of a restroom from a restaurant owner, and finally the wound was cleaned and dressed by the restaurant owners aunt.  All, thanks to the fact that she was not seriously hurt, making for a somewhat traumatizing and unique experience.

The day ended with my grandma getting treated by the ship doctor and beginning to feel a bit better.  I'll end with what she said on the way back,

"Well Max, you got an adventure today."

Palermo, Italy...Life and history

Today was a day of churches and more churches. It's amazing how many churches there are in Sicily when the place was founded by Phoenecians and conquered by muslims and has therefore only had a christian presence since the 1200's (The city was founded in the 8th century B.C.).  However, the Artwork in the Palentine Chapels and cathedral in Palermo are huge Byzantine-style mozaics of bible scenes combined with arab architectural features which makes a very interesting combination.

Italy is a place where history is everywhere, including in the present.  While going on a run this afternoon I stuck out like a sore thumb.  Perhaps it was because I was wearing running clothes and the youth around me were wearing the fashions of tomorrow, but I could have been walking around in 12th century Palermo and might have blended in better. 

In any case, my project for the next couple of days is to do some more exploring on my own and hopefully to communicate with some local youth.  I don't know Italian, but I can say enough with the few words I know combined with some slow Spanish that it should make for an interesting conversation.

To where no Kushner has gone before

Though my grandparents are very well travelled, they had not yet gone to Sicily, at least not until today.

The day started with the awesome eruption of an active volcano, Stromboli, which erupts every 20 minutes with jets of lava. Amazingly, people still live on the island in the shadow of the volcanoes cinder cone in spite of past disasters such as Pompeii.

The afternoon saw a visit to Cerafu, a small seaport on the northern side of Sicily. The town was delightful with sandy beaches and lots of sun as well as friendly Italians, narrow streets, sweet ice cream, traffic jams (involving cars, vespas, and pedestrians), and amazingly inconspicuous thousand-year-old cathedrals and olive oil factories.

While touring, I learned a valuable lesson from the Normans who ruled the island during the 12th and 13th centuries: tolerance is the best policy towards diversity, even if you are an absolute monarch. Roger II, a catholic and a Norman, on advice of the pope, invaded a Muslim-run Sicily in the 12th century AD. When he successfully conquered the island, Normans made up only 7% of the population. However, by involving Muslims in government and adopting 3 official languages (Latin, Greek, Arabic, and sometimes Hebrew), he was able to usher in a golden age of art and architecture to the island.

Also, my first attempted exploratory mission on my own, a desired walk down the beach, was vetoed by Grandma and Grandpa. The reason, it was not safe and the mafia is strong in Sicily. After careful negotiation, I was able to secure some exploratory time for myself in the upcoming ports.

A long day of sightseeing and some amazing sights coming up, so I'm signing off for now.

Ashes to ashes, dust to ... plaster?

Yesterday's trip was to the former Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.  The interesting views of these communities preserved in their final hours on earth is a real testament to how real a threat mortality is.  However, it also shows how it is possible that your legacy can live on in a very interesting fashion.  In the case of some of Pompeii's less affluent citizens who were left behind, in the form of a cast of their final position as they were hit by the 800 degree F blast of a pyroclastic flow from nearby Vesuvius in August of 79 AD.

It is important not to despair, however, because the remaining inhabitants of the Roman empire went on to rule much of the known world for another 3 1/2 centuries.  It is curious to wonder how people 2000 years in the future will look back on our civilization.  Will they think that today's soccer games are as primitive as the gladiatorial games in Rome seem to us, or begin using phrases like, "it took them a whole 8 hours to get across the Atlantic!"  Who knows?  One thing is for sure, Pompei and Herculaneum are a testament to the fact that being accomplished alone does not guarantee you a place in history.  It also helps to keep a good written history your own accomplishments.  An interesting example is a rich fish sauce seller in Pompei who's vain frescoes tell us both his name and that he was one of the largest fish sauce manufacturers in ancient Rome.

In any case, I hope that I will be remembered rather in the history books than as a plaster cast buried by 10 feet of volcanic ash, but who knows.  Right now all we can do is live life.

In other news, today I went to Paestum, which includes some of the best preserved Doric architecture in Greek temples dating back 2500 years.  These were abandoned during Roman times due to an influx of Malaria.  All along, I've been helping my grandpa and pushing my grandparents to take new challenges.  This experience has reminded me that the definition of "adventure" changes with age.  What for me is merely an afternoon stroll, for my grandparents becomes a great challenge, but it is a pleasure to spend time with them, and I cannot think of anywhere else I would rather be, except perhaps if my mom, Sam, Michael, and my friends could come along for the adventure too.

Also, the average age on the ship must be 60, but I have managed to meet a couple other young people who seem nice.  Well, I've got an active volcano to watch at 5AM my time, so I'm off.

Arrivederci!

When in Rome...

I am a big fan of museums because they often offer the chance to learn about something that you wouldn't usually learn.  In the case of Rome, I learned that the entire city was a sort of museum.  On display, among other things, the local Italians.  The reason for this was mainly my short stay.  I think that I managed, in 7 or 8 hours, to see the largest possible number of Roman sites, including the Vatican museums (including the Sistine Chapel), the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, among others.

Overall, the city was great and the Vatican was very impressive.  It was nice to see that G-d, or at the very least a very insistent Pope, could inspire such great works of art.  One surprise was the synagogue of the former Jewish Ghetto.  It is often easy to forget that the Rome, home to the center of the Catholic church, is also home to a Jewish community that dates back to before the birth of Jesus.  One of the oldest communities in the world, these Jews have had their share of persecution over the years, including being relegated to a ghetto in a specific part of the city in the 300 years previous to the unification of Italy in 1870 (although they were allowed to leave this part of the city to work during the day).  Another interesting fact is that the pope, in spite of encouraging the inquisition in Spain, actually encouraged fleeing Jews to move to Rome, where he hoped they would help the local economy (which they did).

A great day and also an interesting introduction to modern day Italy through a city that is home to everything from ancient history to living history.

Lessons of an International Flight

After a day of travelling, I have arrived in Rome and have learned some valuable lessons.

1. Eat something sweet as soon as its given to you: When I was on my Swiss International flight, I was given some Swiss chocolate.  Thinking that that would be a great treat for later, I put it in my pocket.  I'm smart, I was going to eat it before it melted all over the place.  Wrong!  Now I've got one chocolate covered cell phone and one chocolate covered pocket.

2. Go to the right baggage claim: After coming through the wrong Italian baggage claim port in Rome, I realized that I had just come through customs and did not have my check luggage.  Luckily, I have mastered the art of looking like I know what I am doing and was able to sneak backwards through customs and retrieve my bag.

3. When keeping kosher in Rome, ask what's in the food: My grandparents and I went to a nice italian resaurant, after ordering, the waiter made a suggestion of something else to order.  Of course, I took it.  One spectacular meal, and one pork meatball and bacon covered pasta later, I have learned this lesson.  By the way, "sauce" in Italy can include bacon.  Who would have known?

Well, tomorrow I'm off to the Sistine Chapel and right now I'm off to bed with a belly full of home cooked Italian pasta.  An interesting start to whats promising to be a great trip.

Big Adventure

And now for the greatest adventure yet this summer.  Off to Italy!

Jungle in the back yard

Monday saw the unfolding of an amazing event right in my room.  The praying mantis egg case that my brother, Sam, had gotten at the bug fair last week hatched.  Hundreds of baby mantises marched out, fully formed miniature versions of their parents, and proceeded to fill their terrarium.  Then Sam and I launched an hour-long effort to disperse them in our yard.  I would not want to be a tiny bug in my backyard this week.

All of these simultaneous births got me to thinking about the meaning of life, and I came up with this:
"The best way to approach the meaning of life is to live it."

Searching in the night

Sometimes what time you visit a place is as important as which place it is in determining its feel.  For example, last night past midnight, I decided to take a look at the stars.  It took nothing more than a three quarter moon and some patience to make in my back yard into an almost unrecognizable scene (see photo).

Pondering the skies with a telescope can be surreal experience.  That is, once I got over my frustration and adjusted my telescope to viewing through the proper lens.  Stargazing is truly a window into the past.  While gazing at those tiny specs of light so far away, it sometimes comes to mind that they are actually broiling infernos, burning at temperatures far hotter than man or anything he can make can survive.  However, the most appealing take on on the stars from my perspective is as a window into the past.  The light shining from those tiny specs in a sea of darkness is quite ancient, and it is always interesting to think that, the stars I saw last night might have shined their last thousands of years ago.  However, the sound of birds under a night sky at midnight served to dispel any anxiety this thought might have caused.

This thought on time, my backyard's night and the brightness of ancient stars, reminds me of time's passing.  Time is limited and the summer day awaits, so now I will sign off with a quote on adventure from O. Henry in "The Green Door":

"The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate."

The Mission

I've often thought while driving what a depressing philosophy it entails.  Touch as little as possible, if you do touch something, you will get horribly hurt and might destroy it. 

In life, I have taken the opposite approach.  Try to interact with many people and things as good an impact as possible on them.  In this quest, I have realized that changing one person's impression of the world for the better is changing the entire world.  The world might seem daunting if you try to change the whole thing at once.  If with each of these contacts, I change some person or animal's outlook on the world for the better, I will be changing the world for the better.  On that note, here is a shot of a butterfly that I photographed the other day at the bug fair at the LA museum of Natural History.


So that's the mission, now off to make adventures and an impact.

On Adventure

Adventure: its allure has drawn many a man to his doom, but its payoff has brought many a traveler to glory.  Well, life is short, and I've decided that it is time to get some adventures of my own.

Before deciding to begin this quest for adventure, I've done a bit of thinking (and traveling) to learn about the subject.  What I've realized is that life itself is an adventure.  It's not necessary to go far and wide to find a worthwhile quest.  Some can be found in the pages of a book or in a home project.  In any of its forms, adventure is the quest into the unknown.  Whether this unknown consists in feelings or far away places, it can be daunting.  This summer, I'm hoping to add a bit of adventure to my life in all of its forms.  This blog is created as the repository of the tales of these adventures.

Happy adventuring!