On a New Continent:

At 9:10 PM local time, LOT Airlines flight 007 [JFK, New York, USA to Warsaw, Poland] turned its tail to the last of the North American continent, bound for Europe. While perhaps not as poetic a moment as Samwise Gamgee’s furthest departure from the Shire (seen in the movie, I can’t remember if the book actually portrayed that moment), it was a milestone for me as well; finally leaving North America for the great beyond. Unfortunately, I am located at the furthest possible position on the plane for taking photographs, seat D on a Boeing 767-300 ER. If you aren’t familiar with aircraft layouts, this is square in the middle of a 7-seat row. I can barely see a window, let alone see out it. But alas, the middle of the plane, the back of the plane, the cockpit, they all get there at approximately the same time, so all is well that ends well (and if I get around to posting this, you can guess it ended well).

Dinner was surprisingly good for airline food, but reminds me of (no offense meant here, just a practical observation) of a noisy Church of the Brethren Love Feast. Everyone is crowded into extremely cramped seating arrangements, trying to eat a meal without causing a minor catastrophe, and not everyone is entirely sure how to approach the whole exercise. I must count myself among those who feel more than just a little bit out of place, but pleasantly so. I have known all along that traveling to another country means trying to get used to unfamiliar customs and struggling to keep up with the language, but I really didn’t expect it to start before I even left the US. The primary languages on board are Polish and Russian, with English clearly taking second fiddle to the nationality of the airline’s origin. Mind you, I know the world doesn’t revolve entirely around Americans and speakers of the English language, but short of a few passing incidents with French Quebec, this is my first major exposure to signs that read in another language first, then English. At the very least though I must get used to being in the minority of people who actually understand what is going on. Fortunately, however, when I get to Vilnius, I will be reunited with my translator whom I have dearly missed, for reasons besides understanding one language (Russian) that I barely get by in and one language (Lithuanian) that I have hardly a clue in.

A few hours and brief catnaps later... During these morning hours, we have flown over Scotland, Denmark, and as I write this paragraph, we are just turning southeast from the Baltic Sea into Polish airspace. One convenient little attraction that is displayed when movies aren’t being shown is a map with travel statistics showing progress overall, time remaining in the flight, and a live update of your precise location over Halifax, Edinburgh, or Copenhagen. It certainly would have been nice to have seen the real view, but alas, it will suffice. I should also mention that it’s a chilly -56 degree Celsius outside here at 10.7 kilometers above the earth’s surface. Next stop: The Center of Europe…well, one of them.

p.s. I had to go through security AGAIN: 3 for 3

p.p.s. This is NOT going to be my usual schedule for posting updates.

Posted from: Chopin Airport, Warsaw, Poland

Actually, a journey of 4,530 miles...

As I sit in New York's JFK airport, I am slightly annoyed by having to go through security again on a domestic flight, but otherwise elated to be on my way to Lithuania. It seems that the "Journey of a Thousand Miles" is in fact 4,530 miles; but at least all has gone well to this point. In less than two short hours, I will begin the first I what I hope will be many hops across "the Puddle" we know as the Atlantic Ocean. I have taken a few photos so far, but those will come in due time. In the short jump from Dulles to JKF there were a great number of very fine examples of tidal wetlands and a few barrier islands, along with what appeared to be some algal blooms in the Chesapeake Bay. I will have to look closer at the images to see if the streaks of different colors really are differences of of turbidity in the water, or just tricks of the polarized window.


All the same, I would welcome prayers for safety in the remaining travels. It really is somewhat surreal when you consider this system we have of cramming as many people as you can into a little, pressurized metal tubes and sending them hurtling through the void, propelled by the combustion of volatile gases from decomposed organic materials thousands of years old. And all of that just to get between cites thousands of miles apart. Anyway, enough of that over-dramatized mental meandering, onward to Vilnius!


p.s. As I am sure I have mentioned to many of you already, I am REALLY hoping to get a good view out the window of the Warsaw to Vilnius flight, as there is shale-gas drilling currently ongoing in Southern Poland.


Posted from: Gate A3, JFK Airport, Jamaica, New York, USA

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

The more poetic among us would say it begins with the first step, but they conveniently skip over the hassle of packing, checking your travel documents, making sure you have your tickets or necessary papers, worrying that you somehow forgot something in the preceding list, worrying about volcanoes, worrying about TSA, ad infinitum. However, barring any catastrophe, I will be departing the country on June 2, around 12:30 PM. In the meantime, unpacking the contents of my entire dorm room, repacking them into bags for Europe, and packing the rest up for when I move to Morgantown in August, I am somehow almost as busy as I was at Bucknell. As I have hinted at online and in personal communication, this is largely the way I intend to communicate with the world from here on in. I will be using this as a travel journal to keep you updated where I am, and what Vaida and I will be up to. Photos will be posted on davidmanthos.shutterfly.com, and that's just about that. I will being writing more in earnest once interesting things being happening, as I doubt you want to hear about me rejoicing over finding a section of PVC pipe that now completes my blowgun set for shooting around corners...well, you might find that interesting, but its not ALL fun and games.


p.s. A huge thank you to all of my friends and family, most of them at Welty Church of the Brethren in Smithsburg, MD, for the many generous graduation gifts and kind cards.


Posted from: Smithsburg, Maryland, USA

No Good Deed...

As typical for me, this took back burner when second semester senior things began piling up en mass. I actually wrote this about a month ago, but never posted it. With spring break coming up, there may be some more time to do a little work here.


February 18, 2011:


This week has been a constant mess to get get caught up since a medical absence on Monday. After spending the weekend in West Virginia, I was returning with a friend late Sunday night and came into an unfortunate set of circumstances. About the moment I was going to alert the driver of a dog running across the road ahead of us, we saw it's body flailing in our headlights. The driver, however, did not stop, though I suspect a suspiciously leering SUV that came by later may have been the guilty party.


The animal was clearly injured, but thankfully not acting aggressively or even really in much visible pain. However, as cars accumulated on the side of the road, an Amish wedding party clopped by (I assume that is the only reason they would cover a carriage with paper and white ribbons) and calls were made to the local authorities, the animal's condition deteriorated. It was a cold night, injured and laying on the wet ground, he began to quake quite noticeably and it was obvious something had to be done. Unfortunately, in Millheim, Pa, there is no animal shelter, animal control, or even police that would offer any assistance. The numbers on the collar led nowhere at the time, leaving very few options.


Obviously, anyone who stopped was concerned with the well-being of the animal, but its difficult to be the ones to actually do something. In the end, it became obvious the dog had to be moved into a vehicle and off the pavement, or we would just be standing my watching him die of hypothermia or shock. In retrospect, the blanket should have been my first choice, but it didn't occur to me until after that fact, something which might have saved a large amount of stress later in the week. That said, having a decent grip on the uninjured parts of the animal and the head secure, I almost lifted him up. Unfortunately, between a well meaning bystander grabbing the injured back and the fact he could contort in an unnatural way due to what turned out to be a broken back, he managed to nip at the left side of my chin. Ultimately, he was rolled onto a blanket and hoisted into the back of the Jeep.


It shouldn't have been anything, the aftermath was barely a scratch, but the nip broke the skin and that was all it took. Long and sad story short, a trip to the emergency clinic in State College (once we finally found it), putting money down on a problem that wasn't really ours to take, and a long drive home till after midnight, we were back at Bucknell. The next day was an adventure all of its own.


Medical protocol requires vaccination within 48 hours of an unknown animal bite, because of the risk of rabies. But just my luck, because rabies travels via the nervous system, rather than blood or aerially, in the event of a facial wound, the time horizon is only 12 hours to vaccinate. 14 hours later, I was on my way to the Evangelical Hospital ER,  only to get one of the best calls I will probably ever get from a doctor. They had found the owner, identified the vaccination record, and I didn't need the shots!


Sadly, the story didn't end so well for the poor black and white Border Collie named Ricky who was struck and left to die on the side of Rt. 45. Because of the extent of his injuries, his owners choose to have him put down. Not the happy ending we would all like, but such is life. However, I cannot personally accept that because this happens all the time (which I know it does), the correct course of action is to move on and let it be. Sometimes, the circumstances force to you act, even if it is not the most convenient to you. Additionally, I believe people should take responsibility for their actions, even if it is inconvenient or undesirable. Personally, I would have had more respect for the driver of the car who hit Ricky if they had stopped, evaluated the situation, and chosen to dispatch him there (as the collar was of little help), than just to drive off and pretend as if nothing happened.


Posted from: Bertrand Library, Lewisburg, PA, USA


Update: A month or so later I received a card from Ricky's owners, thanking Angela and I for helping our their dear friend, along with a picture which I will post if I ever have it with me+a scanner.


Posted from: Grigiškės, Lithuania (June 4, 2011)

Stories of the Susquehanna River

At least 12 years ago, maybe longer, I first came in contact with a river that didn't make sense to me. The Susquehanna River, can be up to a mile wide in certain spots,yet is shallow enough to wade across the better part of it during the warm months of summer. Coming from the mountains of Western Maryland, I was used to fast flowing but relatively small rivers, but I was nonetheless intrigued by the beauty of this wide, ancient river. Considered the longest non-navigable river in North America, I have since had a number of experiences with the Susquehanna in the past decade that have significantly shaped my education and future interests.


My relationship with the river began with canoe trips with my father on the mid-Susquehanna and its largest tributary, the Juniata, and has now found me studying on its banks at Bucknell University in quiet Lewisburg, Pa. Several of my academic projects have been directly related with the river, which I would like to share here.

Last summer I had the privilege to participate in the Bucknell Susquehanna River Initiative's undergraduate research program, the Summer Writers Institute. Over the course of that summer, I had the opportunity to travel from the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania to Harrisburg, the state capital, investigating the policy and impacts of the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom. Because of concerns over the environmentally questionable practice of hydro-fracking, along with water contamination, habitat fragmentation, and the impact of thousands of wells to be drilled in the state over the coming decades, this is a leading environmental issue for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The products of that program will be online shortly, (and I will post a link when that happens) but just today this video was posted on the University website, explaining some of what we were planning to do as of early last summer.


Right: One of MANY natural gas wells in Tioga County because of the profitability of the Marcellus Shale Gas boom.


(Unfortunately some new multimedia ways of sharing things don't turn out to be as wonderful as intended. The code for "sharing" the video isn't working, so just follow this link: http://www.bucknell.edu/x68.xml and watch the "River as Classroom" video.)


Also, I participated in the inaugural Bucknell on the Susquehanna (BotS) program, a multi-disciplinary program that exposed 11 students to a wide variety of experiences and issues within the Susquehanna River watershed. I wrote a blog for the University website, journaling our travels through 9 states on both the East and West Coast of the Continental United States. With 23,000 words in the blog and 900+ publication-worthy photos, I am currently looking to publish a large-format book featuring all of our travels, which I will probably write more about as time progresses. Maybe in time it can be required reading for a class like these books were for BotS 2010.

All Woods Must Fail

O! Wanderers in the shadowed land Despair not! For though dark they stand, All woods there be must end at last, And see the open sun go past: The setting sun, the rising sun, The day's end, or the day begun. For east or west all woods must fail.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

Written for Middle Earth, Tolkien's poem, spoken through Frodo, is unfortunately not reflected very well in this world. For Hobbits, Dwarves, Humans and Elves alike, their forests were deep, dark, and full of mystery. And while some grew to embrace that, an endless wood was something to be wary of at the very least. In our world, I would honestly like to find more forests that could are as deep and mystical as the ones imagined by the brilliant but somewhat incoherent English Professor we know as J.R.R. Tolkien. Our woods, such as they exist, are increasingly fragmented, and shrinking in size, being replaced by an even more labyrinthine maze than the glades which our ancestors used to fear: Suburbia and the Urban Jungle.

In centuries past we feared the wilderness because it was so much larger than us, but at 7,000,000,000+ citizens, we are now clearly the majority. As a geography major with a focus on environmental studies, I am deeply concerned with how the human race is dealing with our superiority of technology and influence in the natural world. In centuries past, what did it really matter if an edge of the forest in Medieval Europe was felled to make room for fields? Or what difference did it make if refuse from an 18th Century ship was dumped into the ocean? Nature was so gigantic, and our influence so insignificant, that any poison was merely swallowed up by the enormous mass of the world we inhabit.

I write this journal to track my continued academic interests, as well as personal interests in the field of environmental studies, journalism, and geography. This is also a spin-off from a series of articles I wrote for the Bucknell website (http://ots.blogs.bucknell.edu/author/dmm048/), chronicling the travels of a unique interdisciplinary program at Bucknell University, so you may be familiar with some of my writing already. I look forward to sharing with you in the future, so please stay tuned as I intend to update this at least weekly.

We must away! We must away!
We ride before the break of day!

-Over the Misty Mountains Cold