Wyatt in the World

It’s a hot Friday evening in July, and my husband and I are preparing for an overnight camping trip the next morning. My friend J, who is already at the campsite calls me and says “It’s really cold up here. Bring clothes for skiing.” This is not a ski trip. We are headed over the pass toward the eastern part of Washington State where temperatures tend to be much warmer than Seattle in the summer. We are a little confused, but we followed his directions.

Saturday morning we set off to spend a night at an event we’ve never been to before - a star party. This inimitable gathering could be described as a big geek fest in a back-country field on a mountaintop. However it is also an event where the awe inspiring and amazing things you see will have you wanting more. We certainly do.

With our car packed with too many things for one night of car-camping and plenty of ski-worthy clothes (including boots, hats, gloves, scarves and the little heat packets that you stick in your gloves when your hands get cold), we head out on a two and half hour drive to Table Mountain just near Ellensburg, Washington. At an elevation of 6,359 feet, you definitely feel much closer to the sky.

The drive up the mountain from the highway meanders through farm country, before it starts to turn into wooded forest and curving roads with beautiful vistas of the valley below. As we near the campground just after noon, in the distance we get our first sight of the camp that has over 650 attendants and looks like some type of space-age village with campers, cars, tents and numerous telescopes covered in shiny, silvery reflective material.

We pull up to registration and are greeted by a friendly staff member who guides us to our friends’ campsite. Our friends have been there for several days, some coming as early as a week before, even though the main Star Party event is only for 3 days. Although the sight of the entire camp is impressive, our friends’ site alone is quite remarkable. Several silver astronomy observer tents are lined in a row adjacent to a tarp-carpeted living room of chairs for some 15 adults and kids, a table covered with snacks and goodies, a camping stove and various other trappings, to keep everyone in comfort. As we start setting up our tent, our friend A asks if we want bratwurst and beer, and we happily partake.

<

During the day, most people hang out and socialize. There are expert speakers that talk about different astronomical subjects and there are plenty of activities for kids. On Saturday afternoon we tour the campgrounds and note that all of the campers and tents surround a big telescope field that has every type and size of telescope imaginable. Some are computerized where one just punches in coordinates, and some are so high off the ground on huge tripods that one needs a ladder to adjust them and see through the viewfinder.

One particularly interesting telescope is a solar telescope, which allows you to look at the sun in broad daylight. Looking through the telescope, all I see is a reddish orb. I feel like I am looking through a microscope at some organism in a Petri dish. Dennis Hoofnagle, a Star Party volunteer points out that we can also see solar flares –the tiny, tiny strings of red on the right side of the orb. They were so little – like the size of a pin head, that at first I didn’t see them, but finally I see this minute coloring that breaks the rim of the orb. Solar flares! It is hard to imagine these flares are actually the length of 3 Earth diameters. The sun’s diameter is approximately 100 times the Earth’s diameter.

At the first sign of dusk, people start preparing their telescopes for viewing and taking pictures, just as the first stars start showing in the sky. This is the time that those with the astronomy tents start to take the tops off to reveal even more telescopes tucked inside vestibules. Everywhere, people are calibrating and preparing for the big show the night is going to put on.

Words cannot really express the magnificence of the spectacle we are about to encounter, nor the brazenly freezing weather we experience. My friend J said it had been colder the night before. I can’t imagine it being colder than it is this night.

Just as darkness is approaching, I start to get colder, so I go into my tent to bundle up with my ski gear. I put on everything I have brought: long johns, jeans and ski pants, ski socks and boots, and my gloves, scarf and hat. It’s weird that it’s July and there is no snow, but I look like I’m ready to make snow angels. After 15 minutes of struggling in the tent to get my gear on, I unzip the flap and step out to look up in wonderment at one of the most spectacular sites I’ve ever seen - an unobstructed, uninhibited night sky full of hundreds of billions of stars and the Milky Way forming a cloudy white pattern across the sky. That view is imprinted on my brain. Although I have seen this sky many times before, I am still amazed. It is surreal. I think just for a moment, “I wonder if anyone is looking back at us right now?” Well at least looking back at our sun.

As I head back to the “living room” I hear hushed tones of conversation in a lingo I don’t understand. “I see M13, did you find M81?” “ISS should be passing at 9:25.” “Did you see that iridium flare? People are referring to the objects in the sky that they spot through their telescopes - galaxies, nebulae, satellites, planets, and the International Space Station (ISS). Some objects, like the ISS are viewable by the naked eye. Others can be seen through a pair of binoculars, like Jupiter’s moons. And some require a telescope for better detail. As I peer through a telescope at a nebula, I remark at how fuzzy it looks. My friend D, a fellow neophyte attendee responds, “They look like cotton balls”.

My husband and I decide to attend the midnight talk – Planetarium under the Stars with Tom Colwell to get a refresher on all of the constellations in the night sky. While Tom is telling us about Ursa Major, there is a flash of light so bright, I think someone has turned on car lights right behind me (white light is strictly forbidden after dusk as it impedes night vision), but it isn’t a car. It is a fireball, a bright meteor that falls to earth creating a trail of light so bright, for several seconds it lights up the entire sky. I turn to catch the tail end of it dying out just above a line of trees. That is the BIGGEST meteor I’ve ever seen. I only stay at the talk for about 20 minutes as I am so cold I go back to camp and sit under a blanket and look up at the sky.

At around 2:30 AM, I’m cold to the bone and sleepy, so we call it a night. Tomorrow we head home. The die-hard astronomers stay out until the first inkling of sunlight appears around 4:30 AM. With my long johns and hat still on, under my sleeping bag and two blankets, I dream about the heavenly bodies I have seen in the starry sky above.

A friend of mine, Ambrose Bittner, who works next door to our office, owns a tour operator called Red Lantern Journeys, which specializes in luxe trips to Asia.

Whenever I pass by his office, I often daydream about the places that he sends his clients, and I think about the day when I’ll ask him to set up a trip for me.

On my Web TV talk show, WhitneyandWyatt.com, we did a show with him not too long ago, which we’ve re-run today. It’s all about how to plan a trip working with a travel agent or tour operator, and what they can do for you that may be hard to do on your own.

Even thinking about the places he books for clients has got my feet itching. Due to the film I’m trying to make, I have no big exotic trips planned this year, which has got me a bit bummed. I’ve even canceled a week-long trip with friends to Hawaii in November. Some people say, “Well Wyatt, you go to Dominica and Sweden every year!” My reply to that is, “Yeah, but that’s like going to Ohio to visit relatives.” OK, not really. It is really wonderful to go to Dominica and Sweden every year. I am very lucky that I get do to it. I would like to see someplace new, though. Hopefully I will be able to do that next year. Or you never know. I may change my mind and just go wander around for a bit. We shall see…

April 14, 2008

My husband Jan and I were planning a trip for him to run the ½ marathon in the Whidbey Island Marathon this past weekend, but then he hurt his back and was unable to train for several weeks. We still had this Bed & Breakfast (B&B) reservation for two nights for the weekend. Plus my mom, JB was visiting, so we called the B&B to see if they would be willing to trade us the two nights on the weekend for one night with two rooms on a Thursday night. Instead we’d head up that way for the Tulip Festival, since we were staying in the Mount Vernon area anyway. Everything worked out for our new plan, and we headed up to Mount Vernon with JB and my sister Dost, mid-morning on Thursday.

The weather was not cooperating for us. As a matter of fact, the weather has been pretty miserable for the spring. It’s definitely been on the colder side, so we weren’t expecting to see much by way of flowers.

We arrive in Mount Vernon, which is kind of the center of Skagit Valley. It’s right on the Skagit River. The drive up there is scenic and we’ve been through the town a fair amount of times on our way up to the San Juan Islands. It’s a sleeply little town, so this is the first time we’ve actually stopped in the town to do anything. We found a restaurant, called the Potter House and had a tasty lunch. Then we made our way to Rozeengarde, which was our first stop on our tour of tulips.

We were expecting to see lots of fields of tulips at Rozeengarde, but there weren’t any. We did see a big field of daffodils, which was kind of neat. But the only tulips they had were in the small gardens. You still had to pay an entry fee to get in. We did that and got some “Kodak moments”, then proceeded to buy fudge and caramel corn before we hit the road.

After our visit to Roozengarde, we decided it was time for a break, so we went to check into our B&B, called Queen of the Valley Inn in La Conner. Jan and I had visited La Conner once before. It’s a quaint little town with antique and gift shops on a river. It’s kind of a little artist’s community out there in the valley.

We checked into this really great old Victorian house built in 1908 by an oat farmer’s son for his wife. The house has the original wood fixtures and is in great shape. The innkeepers having been running the place for about 4 years, and they live in a house on the property behind the inn. This is a perfect set-up because you don’t feel like you’re intruding upon a stranger’s dwelling/living situation. The innkeepers were friendly and helpful, but not too in-your-face, since they didn’t actually live in the same house. Nice.

The house has been a B&B for 20 years, so it’s got history of lots of people staying in it. The top (third floor) which is now a suite, used to be a big hall where the previous owners of the day used to throw parties. Each room has a theme from somewhere in the world. We had the Africa room, so yes, lots of animal print. JB and Dost were in the West Indies room. Our room was on the first floor and overlooked a field. In the distance were daffodil fields, like someone spilled a big giant-sized bucket of yellow-gold paint onto the green field. Beyond that you could make out the Cascades, which still had snow on them. For dinner we headed into La Conner and ate at the Brewery, then we went back to hang out at the Queen.

The next morning, we had a great breakfast of Dutch Babys, bacon, orange juice and coffee. The view was gorgeous, as the oat farmer’s pink Victorian house sits across the road, and in the distance the snow capped Olympic mountains were in view. The time at the B&B certainly brought you back to an era gone by, when oats were what oil is today, and life was simpler and things probably not as crazy as they are now.

After breakfast, before heading home, we went to Tulip Town, where Dost and Jan refused to pay 5 bucks to see the (however manufactured) tulip fields in different colors. JB and I went in and got some photo ops, which was fun.

On our way back to Seattle, we hit the designer outlet mall on I-5 for an hour and half of retail therapy, before making our way home. It was a fun little getaway, which every now and then one should do, even if it’s just for a day.

A few weeks ago I had the unusual experience of being at Sea-Tac Airport for a day without ever getting on an airplane. My flight wasn’t cancelled. Instead I was working for Eyeplay, a creative agency, doing a commercial for the Port of Seattle. The commercial is about the cool new amenities the airport offers, including shops, pampering services, and restaurants. I got to play a “business traveler” who hangs out the airport before my trip. I have to say that it was one of the most fun days I’ve had as an actor. I did some interesting things, and I worked with some great people.

My call time was 6:30 AM, which wasn’t exactly enjoyable, because it meant that I had to get up at 4:30 AM. That’s not my usual waking hour, so I tried my best to be bright-eyed when I arrived. The hours were long as well, but that goes with the job.

After getting ushered through security, we started out at Massage Bar where I proceeded to sit in a chair and get massaged by one of the therapists for a good hour while they shot footage of me enjoying my massage. There were definitely plenty of jokes on my part about having to do re-takes of the scene.

I’ll be the first to admit that acting is not as glamorous as those outside the business think it is, especially for those of us that aren’t Halle Berry or George Clooney. For the rest of us, its hard work with little pay. However, when I have days that start out like this I can’t complain too much. I certainly felt an element of glamour when I was doing my thing in the terminal and people would go by looking in wonderment at us.

After my massage, it was time to do a scene with my “business travel companion” at the wine bar Vino Volo. The crew set up some props including paperwork, food and “wine”, which was actually grape juice. The grape juice was a good thing, because we did a bunch of “drinking” during our takes. The funny (weird not ha ha) thing was, we were supposed to be doing an evening scene, where I’m winding down and having dinner with a colleague discussing work before our flight. Well, it was about 10 o’clock in the morning, and the place had several real customers in it drinking (some of them A LOT of) wine before their flights. Geez, I guess some people are extremely nervous about flying.

After lunch we had a series of shots of us walking to our flight, me doing some last minute work on my laptop, etc. So there was a lot of standing and/or walking back and forth, which is to say, I also got in a good amount of exercise. I was fairly beat by the end of day.

I felt for the crew though, which had to schlep all the gear (cameras, lights, grip equipment, wardrobe, etc.) to each location and set it all up, then take it all down and then do it all over again many times. Plus they had to stick around for a few more hours after I left to finish some scenes of “a family at the airport” with the other actors. I definitely can relate to how they feel, because I’ve schlepped my fair share of gear. It was nice to not have to worry about anything besides my wardrobe bag when I left.

Continuing stories from my time living in Sweden.

The Swedish Life

Stockholm, Sweden
The day after we found our apartment, we moved in. It’s a great little furnished one bedroom that looks like a page right out of the IKEA catalog. It has creaky parquet patterned wood floors and high ceilings, so it feels much bigger than its 65 sq meters. It’s on the inside of a 5 storey building so it overlooks the courtyard and some big trees. It’s also on the top floor, so it’s really quiet. Sometimes in the evenings when it’s dark I’ll look out the window and see the apartments across the courtyard through the lit living room or kitchen windows at the people going about their daily lives, cooking, entertaining, reading a book, watching TV, etc. We keep our living room curtains open as well, thinking that they too may like to look in and see what we’re up to.

Our building is on Kungsholmen, one of the neighborhoods of Stockholm. It’s an island to the west of central Stockholm, and we are one block away from the water (the lake). So on nice days we take long walks along the lake and look at the beautiful views and the bridges that run to and from the different islands that Stockholm is on. We’ve only had a handful of sunny days in the past few weeks - today being one of them. Jan and I went for a 4 hour walk through the city. We stopped at a few places along the way: a church in the Old Town that was built in the 1600’s, a small cozy cafe for hot chocolate and sandwiches, and an embankment on an island south of the center of town, called Södermalm, to take in the beautiful views.

Jan and I seem to be able to fill our days here just fine. I currently have Swedish classes that meet every morning for 2.5 hours. After that we usually try to head to the gym, as we have to work off all of the pastries, the rich food, and the wine that we’ve been consuming for the past couple of months trying out different cafes and restaurants. When we were researching gyms we came upon one that we considered joining, because the price seemed reasonable for our temporary stay. It was called Friskis & Svettis, which is basically frisky and sweaty. It’s a legitimate establishment, but apparently it doesn’t have the same connotation here in Sweden as it probably would in the U.S. Nevertheless, we decided that we would go elsewhere. So we pay more, but our gym’s name is S.A.T.S. which doesn’t mean anything in particular.

After the gym, we sometimes go around the city and see what can be seen or we visit with friends. I’m trying to get a real feel for Swedes and Stockholm city life, and so far I think I’ve soaked up a good bit of culture. I’ve observed some interesting things.

Swedes as a group seem to be very organized. As individuals, it varies, but order in society here seems very important. For instance, when you go into an establishment where you need help at a counter, like a deli, or a bank or something, you always take a number. There’s no confusion as to who is next and no trying to figure out where the end of the line is in busy periods.

Sometimes the Swedes are so orderly that they even keep their indulgences organized. To buy any type of hard alcohol or wine, you have to go to the government-run shops called the System Bolaget. Now, some states in the US also have government-run liquor stores, like Washington. But the difference here is that the alcohol is all on display behind glass, so you don’t just pick up what you want and then go pay for it. You make note of the ID of the alcohol that you want, make your request at the counter (once your number is called of course), and then your order is brought to you and you pay.

One day we went to the immigration office here to see if I could get an extension on my stay here. With no appointment, I was expecting to wait outside the building in a long line and not have any idea how long it would take before I saw someone. This is the experience Jan and I had at Seattle immigration. But here you walk in, you take a number, you fill out your paper work (with directions posted as to how and what you need to fill out) and you have a place to sit and wait for your number to be called. It was a beautiful thing.

Stockholmers’ schedules are made by their laundry. Most people living in the city don’t have washers and dryers in their apartments. When I was a kid, I lived in an apartment that didn’t have a washer and dryer in it either. You had to go into the basement. Usually there were 3 or 4 of each machine and you’d just go and hope that the facility or at least one machine was free for you to use, when it was convenient for you. In Stockholm, you make an appointment to do your laundry. So in our basement there is a special calendar on which you have a special lock that only you can unlock, and you use it to block off a certain 3 or 4 hour period on a certain day. At your designated time, only you can use the facilities, and of course the peak hours are after work or at decent times on weekends. Those times fill up early. And if it’s the only chance you’ll get to do laundry that week, you’re not scheduling anything else during that time. So if a friend calls up and invites you to a party, and it happens to be during your crucial laundry time (i.e. you have no clean underwear), then you tell your friend you can’t make it.

On a few occasions we’ve been to Gotland where Jan’s parents and brother live. Gotland is a large island off the east coast of mainland Sweden in the Baltic Sea. Jan grew up on a 300 acre sheep farm that has been in his family for about 400 years. His brother, Hasse, runs it, and he still has plenty of sheep and some beef cattle. The farm has old cottages on it from the 1700s and 1800s. It also has ruins, like old stones that Vikings once sharpened their swords on. Jan’s parents, Leni and Pelle, live in one of the old cottages about 6 months of the year.

Something I found out on a particular trip is that Jan’s father, Pelle, is considered one of the “old masters” of sheep breeding on Gotland, and he’s even mentioned in a book about the sheep farms of Gotland.

The farm is a great place to be if you want to unwind and just be out in the country, take walks, eat good food and play with the sheep dogs and relax. As a farmer running the farm I’m sure it’s quite different. But visiting is truly a wonderful experience.

Jan’s brother Hasse had his 40th birthday party on one of our visits. It was a fairly big party with about 70 people. I had no idea what to expect, because I’d never been to a Swedish party before, let alone one where there would be a lot of Swedish farmers. I was a little nervous, because, although my Swedish is much improved, I’m still not fluent and I certainly can’t converse at a party with all of the background noise that you get. It totally reminded me of the time in college when I volunteered at the UM Language Center and helped foreign students practice their English. I had invited one or two to a party, and they were a little apprehensive, mentioning that their English wasn’t good enough. “Pish posh!” I would say (not really). I didn’t fully understand why they were so nervous until this particular night.

I helped with preparations before the party, and then waited for the guests. Now, I’m not sure if this is what only the older generation Swedes do at parties (Jan says so), but as people came in the door, they went around the room and introduced themselves to everyone else in the room saying, “Hi my name is so-and-so” (in Swedish of course) to those they didn’t know. That was a little new for me, but fun. During the first part of the party, people were fairly subdued having conversation and eating. By late night, people were pretty happy. Those who had greeted me quietly and said a few words earlier in the evening were now laughing with me boisterously, telling me their life stories, funny jokes, and where they’d been to in the US. One guy came up to me and said, “I don’t speak English. America! I love America!” and that was all, before he left. By 3 AM, I was tired, but what a night.

This is an excerpt from my travel journal during the 4 months that I lived in Sweden with my husband Jan.

Arrival in Sweden

Stockholm, Sweden, September 2nd 2004
It’s about 6:30 PM on Thursday evening and I’m falling asleep. I guess jetlag will do that to you. We arrived in Stockholm yesterday evening amidst a downpour of rain, found our hotel and then went out for a late night pizza before heading off to bed.

Of course our hotel room was much smaller than expected. It looked a lot bigger on the internet. It’s so small that the iron and ironing board are attached to the wall in the hallway outside the rooms. A community ironing board, kind of like the community salad we got served before our pizza last night. The waitress just picked up a half empty bowl from the neighboring table and put it on our table for us to use. Jan says that’s the way it works in a Swedish pizza place.

Today we went in search of a few things - a local phone number for our mobiles, Jan’s old bank, and most importantly an apartment. After a day of walking around the city, we found all three! We went through an apartment broker who made appointments for us to see 3 places. The 3rd place was a charm. The apartment is in Kungsholmen, a residential area just west of downtown. We’re going to be on the 5th (top) floor of the building and we have a view of the inner courtyard and green trees! I wasn’t expecting to see green trees from an apartment that we got in the city. We are pretty lucky in that respect.

The only downside is that we may not be able to get internet access in the apartment. Strange though it may be, this will be a hardship for me. The internet cafes in Stockholm all come equipped with smokers and Swedish keyboards. Thus it will take a while for me to write a message, while doing the finger dance around all of the Ö’s and Ä’s and Å’s.

Stockholm is lovely as ever. It’s a bit chillier here than in Seattle, but it’s great for walking around. The people are much more reserved than in the States. They will not greet you on the street unless they know you, much less, smile or nod their heads if you make eye contact. They are not unfriendly, simply unto themselves.

Language is not a problem in the city as most people do speak English. Although I must say that I am learning more Swedish in one day here than I ever learned in a week at home.

I watched this film the other day at the Seattle International Film Festival. It is called Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog. It’s about his trip, sponsored by the NSF, to the South Pole, and what and who he encounters there. My favorite quote from that film was from a Caterpillar driver who also happened to be a philosopher. He said that a lot of people that are at the South Pole are “full-time travelers and part-time workers.” Brilliant. That’s exactly what I want to be. Although maybe not as hard-core as some of the people in the film.

I’m definitely not the backpacking type. I like to experience the finer things in life when I travel, however I can travel on a budget. I’ve never stayed in a youth hostel in my entire life, though. Nor do I plan to stay in one.

Anyway, welcome to my blog. Here I will post journal entries and videos about my travels and my experiences as a filmmaker. I’m open to your comments and questions. Enjoy!