Biplane

AT HOME OFF THE MAP. Welcome to the future home of Biplane, your global Rolodex of travel partners and hosts in wild places, international volunteer opportunities, and small community projects. Functionality coming soon!! For now, enjoy our random curation of cultural oddities, internet flotsam/jetsam and explorations of a changing world. Check back often, follow us, and join the conversation!

[biplaneglobal]

So an invitation to an "Antarctic Winter Dinner" showed up in my inbox today, and how could I not be intrigued? These two cool ladies just published the "Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning," an account and recipe collection from a "makeshift kitchen at the bottom of the world." This, needless to say, is rad. 

I'm also into this collection of old journal entries on the website: can you imagine finding yourself on the shores of Antarctica, pioneering the exploration of the continent in 1897? Well, here're some stories about that. Happy historical fantasizing! 

[jordlevinson]

The Good Old Travel Guide Days

Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet Publications, remembers the fun early days of travel guide writing, but says they’re not over yet.

“‘No problem…the train goes through the station very slowly, so you can jump off.’” An old school guidebook author waxes nostalgic about tripping through Burma…and makes us Biplaners dream of recruiting YOU to submit cool tidbits about cool places in our forthcoming Locations section…soon soon soon!

[biplaneglobal]

Good morning, Biplaners! Need a little extra joy this A.M.? This was filmed all over a city that's VERY close to my heart and captures it pretty well...though I don't remember quite so many sexy French ladies doing yoga.

[biplaneglobal]

So, we've got some demo news popping...but for now, enjoy photos of this dude who got his passport tattooed on his back!! Shockingly, airport security won't honor it, but apparently he used it to get some cash out of an Australian bank. Remind me never to rely on financial services in Australia. Further reading here. 

[biplaneglobal]

So, Biplaners, we are launching our first real-live-human-beings-on-the-site-TEST. THIS. WEEK!! Stay tuned for details and how to get involved. It’s about to jump off.

But, to tide you over, here are some shots of Cote d’Ivoire’s freaky…and oh-so-slightly larger…copy of St. Peter’s Basilica. According to Messy Nessy Chic, one of my all-time favorite purveyors of internet weirdness:

"Basilique Notre-Dame de la Paix de Yamoussoukro, also known as the “basilica of the bush”, is the estimated $300 million indulgence of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the Ivory Coast’s first President and third longest-serving leader in the world at the time of his death (after Fidel Castro and Kim Il-sung of North Korea). Perhaps you see where this is going.”

For more eerie footage of the misplaced monument, and of some uppity travelers enjoying the briefly-prosperous pre-Civil-War Cote d’Ivoire, check out this video. 

And stick around…(taps mic)…testing…testing…

[biplaneglobal]

ON OUR WAY! Biplane is getting all geared up and ready to take on test users in mid-February. We'll be presenting our demo to Peace Corps Volunteers at the All West-Africa Volunteer Conference in Thies, Senegal. Well, they're in Thies, we'll be in our pajamas slapping each other awake at 3AM EST. 

Once we get the demo going, we'll have some more details on how you can get involved and start getting out there for good! 

[biplaneglobal]

10 Peculiar Holiday Traditions You May Not Know About

Take a quick glance around the world and what some people call "holiday traditions" we just call "weird. " Of course, America is no innocent bystander. Our fascination with bad ...

Apt, I thought, for the happenings of the day here in the United States and across the Christian world. Apparently, Christmas is not all jollies and chocolate Santas...in some places, it's downright terrifying. Sorry Austrians, but I have to imagine that the Krampus monster (#7) provides a fair amount of fodder for therapists across your fair land. Personally, I'll keep Rudolph. 

[biplaneglobal]

"'Culture' resembles 'chaos' or 'imagination,' like a numinous idea that lets us know we don't have all the variables covered. One cannot pin it down, but one ignores it at one's risk."

John M. Chernoff, Hustling is Not Stealing

[biplaneglobal]

I've pulled this Wayne Lawrence photo series up several times over the last few weeks. I am a major sucker for good portraiture and these are some jaw-droppers, but beyond the aesthetic pleasure, it's a sound reminder of how important it is to be an open-eyed explorer in your own backyard. I'm just back to New York and seeing a once-familiar environment with very fresh eyes. And, I have to admit, straight-up missing the summery weather. 

It's no revelation that this city is a treasure-trove of cultural oddities, but an enclave like this is some good local flavor that's often denigrated or ignored by, well, some other locals. Lawrence captures this space with some real love and sensitivity. Also, the anthropologist in me is getting off on thinking about the unique conceptions of beauty and body adornments up there...love that style. Might start scoping out some complicated stringed-up bathing suits for next year. But seriously, how often do we stop to take a solid ethnographic look at our own 'tribes'? 

[biplaneglobal]

27 Surreal Places To Visit Before You Die

This is when a savings account would really come in handy. All travel destinations were suggested by these answers on Quora .

I'M BACK!  In the States just three days now and I'm already contemplating my next trip. Don't get me wrong, it's been a very pleasant re-entry. It's lovely to be back among family and old friends, and even the stark East Coast autumn has its charms. I do my best to eat most meals twice and may or may not have teared up a bit in the specialty beers aisle at the grocery store. But I suppose it just takes a few days of hot showers and plentiful American food to regain one's will to wander...either that, or this kind of dreaming beats apartment hunting on Craigslist. 

Sidenote: anyone else noticing that the Internet-distraction fodder is like 75% numbered lists of stuff now? Is this modern day's answer to those 88-things-about-me Hotmail forwards, or is there some innate human mechanism that loves a countdown? Regardless, here's some first-class wanderlust inspiration complete with stunning photography. #2 made my stomach flip just looking at it. Thanks, buzzfeed!

[biplaneglobal]

Also, amazing. A full-scale grocer stuffed into a subway car, as snapped by a tourist in Seoul. Now that sh*t's convenient!!! Original link here. 

[biplaneglobal]

The Most Surprising Things About America, According To An Indian International Student

Indian international student Aniruddh Chaturvedi explains the things he found most surprising about America.

As I'm preparing to settle back in the States for awhile, I get lots of questions about reverse culture shock. I'll let you know when I get there, but as I'm cushioning the re-entry with a hedonistic week or two in the fancy capital city of Dakar, I'm not anticipating anything too jarring. Though I do continually find myself going the wrong direction through stores, greeting too many strangers on the street, and feeling like I'm being stared at for doing something unnatural, but not sure what it is. On the upside, I'm also taking the opportunity to eat most meals twice. 

Being 'gone' and suddenly 'back' generates nothing if not some solid self-reflection on one's culture and identity...to me, one of the big reasons for going in the first place. That particular line of navel-gazing, however, is making me more interested in contemplating how it feels to be a foreigner in the U.S. I read this piece awhile ago and really liked it: it's an honest but (mostly) kind view of my own big weird country. Enjoy!

[biplaneglobal]

"I always love endings, because you never know what's about to be born." --my buddy Clifton

Sorry for the hiatus, everyone. I'm packing up my hut and bidding Kolda adieu, after two beautiful, complicated, difficult, wondrous years. Cooking up some beignets with the fam, planting some last seeds with my work partners, and saying some heavy farewells. Will be back in action up in here in a few days.

[biplaneglobal]

Alhamdoulilahi! (that's Arabic and West African for Thank God, and, I think, more expressive) ...came across this in the Times today. I haven't used these sites yet, but I spent an embarrassing number of hours trying to figure out South African city-to-city buses online, before signing up for eternal spam from a janky pseudo-Ticketmaster, putting down the $10 and realizing I had to find some grocery store in the middle of Johannesburg to pick the damn thing up. Though I don't know how easy it *should* be to find your way onto a Chinatown bus, these aggregators will be crazy helpful once a winner emerges and they dig deeper abroad. Also, perhaps a signal that a rising demand for buses and trains in the States will push them to become more...useful?

[biplaneglobal]

"Instead of a train, going full tilt (gliding through bright-yellow birch forests, and on, southward, through tunnels which had their own sudden daybreak, and along the shore of a dazzling sea), it might be an airplane, a race car, a bobsleigh, taking a sharp turn in a whirl of flying snow, or else simply a forest path along which you run and run."

Nabokov, Glory

[biplaneglobal]

LOCAL MUSIC FESTIVAL HEATS UP ALREADY SWELTERING EVENING IN KOLDA

I maybe have some 'splainin to do, as I haven't ever officially introduced myself. I'm a Peace Corps volunteer finishing up my service as an Urban Agriculture Extension Agent in southern Senegal. Obviously, this is not an ag project, but it is one that's really close to my heart. I worked with some local radio and club DJ's to put on a music festival this Saturday, celebrating the richness of musical talent in all genres and age groups. 

We've put on several smaller shows and youth talent contests, but this was the big one: 8 professional acts, 12 youth groups competing for prize money, and probably about 600 people chilling in this field to watch the best of Fouladou (that's the local name for our region, land of the Pulaars). To my great joy, everyone really dug the name 'Foulapalooza,' though admittedly some context might have been lost.

Much love to World Connect for supporting us with their grant. They're a fantastic small funder for youth projects worldwide...Kolda, and Biplane, thank them!

[biplaneglobal]

So, it has just come to my attention that a couple of Senegalese rappers are completely killing it with this Internet newscast. In terms of alternative broadcasts, this doesn’t quite eclipse the satirical weirdness of the French puppet news they air here sometimes, but it’s also nice not to feel so creeped out when I’m getting my current events on. Warning, it’s in French and Wolof, but you can still rock out with it: this week's issues, Dakar’s water shortage, a historic ferry accident, and an editorialized bit about the shortcomings of Senegalese journalism.