Hi! It's been rather a busy few months. Ted and I were on the road from late November until New Year's: first in Austin, then to New York City for several weeks, and finally for a dramatic xmas visit to the in-laws in Massachusetts.
( The tale unfolds... )
( The tale unfolds... )
- Location:Tucson
- Mood:
cheerful
It is morning in Tucson, shortly before TED and ANDREA leave for Europe. ANDREA, dressed comfortably for the flight, is kneeling by the door and sorting through a packed suitcase, which includes lots of freshly-laundered black socks for TED. TED, wearing a blue t-shirt, black jeans and black shoes, walks over.
ANDREA: I thought you were going to wear your Tevas on the flight. Wouldn't they be more comfortable?
TED: Actually, I think I'll leave the Tevas at home and bring my sneakers instead. I could wear the sneakers on the plane.
ANDREA: You're bringing your sneakers? Ugh, that means I'll need to pack some white socks for you.
TED lifts up his pant cuffs to reveal he's already wearing blindingly white socks (with black pants and shoes).
ANDREA first drops her head in exasperation, then turns it up toward the heavens, raises and shakes her fists, and wails: Whyyyy?!!!
[Curtain]
ANDREA: I thought you were going to wear your Tevas on the flight. Wouldn't they be more comfortable?
TED: Actually, I think I'll leave the Tevas at home and bring my sneakers instead. I could wear the sneakers on the plane.
ANDREA: You're bringing your sneakers? Ugh, that means I'll need to pack some white socks for you.
TED lifts up his pant cuffs to reveal he's already wearing blindingly white socks (with black pants and shoes).
ANDREA first drops her head in exasperation, then turns it up toward the heavens, raises and shakes her fists, and wails: Whyyyy?!!!
[Curtain]
- Mood:
jet-lagged
For those of you still wondering how we possibly made it home from India back in July, here’s the long-“awaited” final installment of my India diary. Part of it was written at the time, and the rest comes from my laserlike memory, so enjoy.
We spent our last night in Palampur. Correction: we spent our second-to-last night in Palampur -- our last/bonus night was spent at the Delhi airport, as you’ll soon learn. The final night of teachings went very late, so it was great just to stay at Pop’s Picnic Spot itself, right next door. We got three precious hours of sleep before taking off the next morning, with our trusty driver at the wheel.
There was heavy rain in the early morning, and then we got in a fender-bender with a Punjabi lorry driver, which added about an hour to our trip. Along the way, we stopped for breakfast and lunch at the standard restaurants the drivers take Westerners to. Breakfast was not so yummy, but lunch was quite nice, and we ran into lots of our friends whose drivers had brought them there as well.
In Delhi we ate at a wonderful South Indian fast-food chain called Saravana Bhavan, which actually has branches in the US. I went to the one in Sunnyvale, California last month, and it was quite yummy, although quite different from eating in the heart/heat of Delhi. We then got in the car one last time to go to the airport, and I was extremely happy to be leaving India and heading home.
Here’s where the July 8 narrative begins, written by me less than eight hours after that yummy dinner:
I can hardly even begin to describe the heaps of obstacles Ted and I have come up against in the last seven hours. On the all-time obstacle scale, I think we’ve outpaced “Truman getting off the island” and “Snoopy coming home” while falling shy only of “Odysseus returning to Ithaka” and “Frodo unloading the Ring.”
Note that by limiting my saga to only the last seven hours, I'm leaving out Delhi traffic jams, a 12-hour car ride on rural Indian roads, monsoon rains, and a dramatic fender-bender. Feh, I mock those puny obstacles.
Anyway, we were scheduled to leave India on July 8 at 12:15 am, on American Airlines. Having been warned to arrive at the airport three hours before departure, we showed up at 9:10 pm, roasting in the 90-degree temps and 90-percent humidity, and eager to waltz back into the sweet air-conditioned confines of the Western world.
But when we lined up to enter the airport (you need a ticket just to walk inside), we found out our flight was cancelled and that we’d have to queue for rebooking. The line was huge, and I was quite sad and grumpy that we might have to face another night of the diesel-infected Delhi air and endure the cab ride between the hotel and the airport two more times.
Luckily, that particular fear did not come true! I am actually still in the airport, seven hours later, and further obstacles notwithstanding I plan to leave on a British Airways flight in a mere six hours. But I'm getting ahead of myself... let me return to the narrative.
The lines for rebooking were huge, and after fifteen minutes or so it became obvious the lines weren’t moving at all. But we persisted another hour or so, distracted by the occasional false hope provided by the white-shirted airline representatives, who were kindly taking down our destinations and appeared to have a Plan.
No Plan (or plan) emerged, and we started noticing that the number of people ahead of us in line was steadily growing, prompting in me vague thoughts of hidden trap doors, clown cars, and “A Night at the Opera.”
Ted still had a little bit of airtime on his Indian cell phone, so we managed to track down the local booking number for American Airlines. But his battery was run down, and although there are friendly pillars with outlets and designated mobile phone charging stations, none of them worked. Finally Ted tried the outlet in the men’s bathroom, and he eventually got enough charge to start making some calls.
First was the AA local booking number: no answer. Lacking the non-toll-free number for the US booking line (can’t call a US toll-free number from India, silly!), Ted called his father and gave him numbers and instructions for calling AA in the US (the AAdvantage Gold desk, actually, since we're both frequent flyers). The nice FIL managed to reserve spots for us on the BA flight we’re now waiting for, but we’d still need to get some paperwork from AA, and we also wanted to sort out bookings for some of our friends stranded here as well.
Our remaining airtime was perilously low, so Ted went hunting for an Airtel vendor in the airport (they’re everywhere in the rest of Northern India, sometimes several to a block). But the only one in the airport was behind security in the Arrivals area, from which we ticketless departers are rightfully barred. Happily, Ted found a nice security guard who went in for him and bought us a 500 rupee card. Unhappily, we later discovered it bore the fine print “Not for use in India,” as it was a card for using your Airtel phone outside of India.
With only about 75 rupees left on our phone (calls to the US are 16 Rs. a minute), we called my father in Austin to enlist some help. As soon as my dad picked up, I barked orders to take down our cell number and call us back right away, as incoming airtime was free. He did so, and we sent up a nice plan for him to call AA, get the non-toll-free booking number, set up a flight out for our friend Chunzom, and save all our fellow travelers from further woe.
Alas, “free incoming calls’ was not to be taken literally, and 10 minutes on the phone with Dad left us with only 18 rupees of remaining airtime. So when he called back a bit later and patched me through to American Airlines, I only had time to be told there is no non-toll-free number for American booking and to rant about the disastrous mess here in Delhi. Fortunately, Chunzom was already bearing a boarding pass for a different flight tonight, which will unavoidably prevent her from taking the flight the USA booking office gave her: our same (cancelled) flight three days hence. Dad certainly meant well, but I think he failed to ponder the full implications of three extra days stranded in a developing nation.
Anyway, with no working cell phone, we decided instead to use the public overseas calling service in the airport, but when I went there I learned the phone was out of service and the only other public phone was behind security. Thanks, local telco!
...
To summarize:
1. Our flight is cancelled
2. The rebooking lines never budge
3. CORRECTION: The rebooking lines get actually longer from the front end
4. Our mobile phone runs out of power and airtime
5. Public electrical outlets don’t work
6. New airtime card discovered only to work outside India
7. Airport public phone is out of order, with only the working phone behind security
By the time I wrote all this, we were settled in front of the British Airways desk, waiting for the opportunity to check in several hours later. I was all ready to blog out my saga, but naturally my laptop battery ran out, so I’m only finishing the tale months later, from the remarkable comfort of my own home.
Our travel went fairly smoothly from then on. British Airways gave us great seats in an exit row, so Ted had all the legroom he could want. He actually got a little weepy when his food arrived, all safe and clean and microbe free (we suspect it was prepared in Britain, not India).
Our layover was in London, where we discovered that all the other Chicago-bound passengers on our original flight were unknowingly given flights only to London. They thought they were booked all the way to Chicago, but they were all dropped in London with no further ticketing, so we were indeed quite lucky that my trusty FIL arranged our flights for us.
I love the international lounge at Heathrow Airport! It has great food, exciting shops, and, best of all, Boots. There I was able to indulge my Boots fetish with various pharmacy goodies, including insect-bite cream (thanks India!), compression stockings (long flight ahead), and more.
We had a lovely meal at the airport, featuring some delightfully uncooked vegetables, which we hadn’t eaten in weeks. The flight to Chicago was fine but not uneventful, as I had a nasty health problem arise early on. The details are personal, and everything is fine now, but it was just the sort of crummy complication you’d expect after the run of luck we’d been having. The flight crew was very kind and helpful, as was my sister Debby when I got back to Chicago.
Several days later I joined Ted on a business trip to Montreal, where I mostly just slept. I did, however, get to buy my favorite sunblock (since approved by the FDA), and my favorite mustard (not yet approved by the FDA). I also tried the famous maple donuts from Tim Horton’s, which were too sweet for me, and we saw The Devil Wears Prada, which Ted enjoyed immensely. Ted, a clever one, knows that chick flicks often involve lots of cute chicks to look at, so he’s generally quite willing to see them. I, happily, am not jealous.
Anyway, that's the end of the India saga. Dye from various pieces of cheap clothing purchased in India ran all over the rest of our clothes, so nearly everything we brought there got wrecked in some way. But we emerged more or less unscathed. My rear end recovered from that damn ant, my in-flight health problem has been totally resolved, and my digestive system has the smug satisfaction of having kept everything down.
We spent our last night in Palampur. Correction: we spent our second-to-last night in Palampur -- our last/bonus night was spent at the Delhi airport, as you’ll soon learn. The final night of teachings went very late, so it was great just to stay at Pop’s Picnic Spot itself, right next door. We got three precious hours of sleep before taking off the next morning, with our trusty driver at the wheel.
There was heavy rain in the early morning, and then we got in a fender-bender with a Punjabi lorry driver, which added about an hour to our trip. Along the way, we stopped for breakfast and lunch at the standard restaurants the drivers take Westerners to. Breakfast was not so yummy, but lunch was quite nice, and we ran into lots of our friends whose drivers had brought them there as well.
In Delhi we ate at a wonderful South Indian fast-food chain called Saravana Bhavan, which actually has branches in the US. I went to the one in Sunnyvale, California last month, and it was quite yummy, although quite different from eating in the heart/heat of Delhi. We then got in the car one last time to go to the airport, and I was extremely happy to be leaving India and heading home.
Here’s where the July 8 narrative begins, written by me less than eight hours after that yummy dinner:
I can hardly even begin to describe the heaps of obstacles Ted and I have come up against in the last seven hours. On the all-time obstacle scale, I think we’ve outpaced “Truman getting off the island” and “Snoopy coming home” while falling shy only of “Odysseus returning to Ithaka” and “Frodo unloading the Ring.”
Note that by limiting my saga to only the last seven hours, I'm leaving out Delhi traffic jams, a 12-hour car ride on rural Indian roads, monsoon rains, and a dramatic fender-bender. Feh, I mock those puny obstacles.
Anyway, we were scheduled to leave India on July 8 at 12:15 am, on American Airlines. Having been warned to arrive at the airport three hours before departure, we showed up at 9:10 pm, roasting in the 90-degree temps and 90-percent humidity, and eager to waltz back into the sweet air-conditioned confines of the Western world.
But when we lined up to enter the airport (you need a ticket just to walk inside), we found out our flight was cancelled and that we’d have to queue for rebooking. The line was huge, and I was quite sad and grumpy that we might have to face another night of the diesel-infected Delhi air and endure the cab ride between the hotel and the airport two more times.
Luckily, that particular fear did not come true! I am actually still in the airport, seven hours later, and further obstacles notwithstanding I plan to leave on a British Airways flight in a mere six hours. But I'm getting ahead of myself... let me return to the narrative.
The lines for rebooking were huge, and after fifteen minutes or so it became obvious the lines weren’t moving at all. But we persisted another hour or so, distracted by the occasional false hope provided by the white-shirted airline representatives, who were kindly taking down our destinations and appeared to have a Plan.
No Plan (or plan) emerged, and we started noticing that the number of people ahead of us in line was steadily growing, prompting in me vague thoughts of hidden trap doors, clown cars, and “A Night at the Opera.”
Ted still had a little bit of airtime on his Indian cell phone, so we managed to track down the local booking number for American Airlines. But his battery was run down, and although there are friendly pillars with outlets and designated mobile phone charging stations, none of them worked. Finally Ted tried the outlet in the men’s bathroom, and he eventually got enough charge to start making some calls.
First was the AA local booking number: no answer. Lacking the non-toll-free number for the US booking line (can’t call a US toll-free number from India, silly!), Ted called his father and gave him numbers and instructions for calling AA in the US (the AAdvantage Gold desk, actually, since we're both frequent flyers). The nice FIL managed to reserve spots for us on the BA flight we’re now waiting for, but we’d still need to get some paperwork from AA, and we also wanted to sort out bookings for some of our friends stranded here as well.
Our remaining airtime was perilously low, so Ted went hunting for an Airtel vendor in the airport (they’re everywhere in the rest of Northern India, sometimes several to a block). But the only one in the airport was behind security in the Arrivals area, from which we ticketless departers are rightfully barred. Happily, Ted found a nice security guard who went in for him and bought us a 500 rupee card. Unhappily, we later discovered it bore the fine print “Not for use in India,” as it was a card for using your Airtel phone outside of India.
With only about 75 rupees left on our phone (calls to the US are 16 Rs. a minute), we called my father in Austin to enlist some help. As soon as my dad picked up, I barked orders to take down our cell number and call us back right away, as incoming airtime was free. He did so, and we sent up a nice plan for him to call AA, get the non-toll-free booking number, set up a flight out for our friend Chunzom, and save all our fellow travelers from further woe.
Alas, “free incoming calls’ was not to be taken literally, and 10 minutes on the phone with Dad left us with only 18 rupees of remaining airtime. So when he called back a bit later and patched me through to American Airlines, I only had time to be told there is no non-toll-free number for American booking and to rant about the disastrous mess here in Delhi. Fortunately, Chunzom was already bearing a boarding pass for a different flight tonight, which will unavoidably prevent her from taking the flight the USA booking office gave her: our same (cancelled) flight three days hence. Dad certainly meant well, but I think he failed to ponder the full implications of three extra days stranded in a developing nation.
Anyway, with no working cell phone, we decided instead to use the public overseas calling service in the airport, but when I went there I learned the phone was out of service and the only other public phone was behind security. Thanks, local telco!
...
To summarize:
1. Our flight is cancelled
2. The rebooking lines never budge
3. CORRECTION: The rebooking lines get actually longer from the front end
4. Our mobile phone runs out of power and airtime
5. Public electrical outlets don’t work
6. New airtime card discovered only to work outside India
7. Airport public phone is out of order, with only the working phone behind security
By the time I wrote all this, we were settled in front of the British Airways desk, waiting for the opportunity to check in several hours later. I was all ready to blog out my saga, but naturally my laptop battery ran out, so I’m only finishing the tale months later, from the remarkable comfort of my own home.
Our travel went fairly smoothly from then on. British Airways gave us great seats in an exit row, so Ted had all the legroom he could want. He actually got a little weepy when his food arrived, all safe and clean and microbe free (we suspect it was prepared in Britain, not India).
Our layover was in London, where we discovered that all the other Chicago-bound passengers on our original flight were unknowingly given flights only to London. They thought they were booked all the way to Chicago, but they were all dropped in London with no further ticketing, so we were indeed quite lucky that my trusty FIL arranged our flights for us.
I love the international lounge at Heathrow Airport! It has great food, exciting shops, and, best of all, Boots. There I was able to indulge my Boots fetish with various pharmacy goodies, including insect-bite cream (thanks India!), compression stockings (long flight ahead), and more.
We had a lovely meal at the airport, featuring some delightfully uncooked vegetables, which we hadn’t eaten in weeks. The flight to Chicago was fine but not uneventful, as I had a nasty health problem arise early on. The details are personal, and everything is fine now, but it was just the sort of crummy complication you’d expect after the run of luck we’d been having. The flight crew was very kind and helpful, as was my sister Debby when I got back to Chicago.
Several days later I joined Ted on a business trip to Montreal, where I mostly just slept. I did, however, get to buy my favorite sunblock (since approved by the FDA), and my favorite mustard (not yet approved by the FDA). I also tried the famous maple donuts from Tim Horton’s, which were too sweet for me, and we saw The Devil Wears Prada, which Ted enjoyed immensely. Ted, a clever one, knows that chick flicks often involve lots of cute chicks to look at, so he’s generally quite willing to see them. I, happily, am not jealous.
Anyway, that's the end of the India saga. Dye from various pieces of cheap clothing purchased in India ran all over the rest of our clothes, so nearly everything we brought there got wrecked in some way. But we emerged more or less unscathed. My rear end recovered from that damn ant, my in-flight health problem has been totally resolved, and my digestive system has the smug satisfaction of having kept everything down.
On about the third night of teachings in Palampur (July 1, probably), I was sitting in class and felt something crawling on my leg. I couldn't be sure if it was truly an insect, since sometimes the humidity and the mere sense of bugginess are enough to make one's skin crawl. The crawling sensation made me squirm, but I didn't really leap until I felt a nasty zapping right on the patoot.
Yeouch! I didn't know if it was an insect bite, since it was like no other bite I'd experienced. It didn't exactly itch or hurt, but every fifteen or twenty seconds it zapped me. I respectfully left the teaching and headed for the bathroom, attracting attention with my leaps and zappy little cries.
Fortunately I got the attention of our friend Connie, a delightfully cheerful and capable Canadian who is a recently-qualified Registered Nurse. I got over my shyness about letting her examine my rear end (she works as a hospice nurse, so I figure she's already seen a lot on the job), and she took a flashlight out and took a look.
It wasn't immediately obvious I'd been bitten, so she was starting to craft some other delightful theories about my butt-spasm (dehydration! hemorrhoids! yikes!), but a little bite started to appear and the other theories were thrown aside (praise be!). Of course, "mysterious bug bite in India" is not the greatest diagnosis, since I couldn't help imagining dreadful complications, mostly involving necrosis.
I also couldn't help thinking of a brain teaser my dad once trotted out to entertain the whole family in a restaurant (my dad was full of goodies like this while I was growing up). The trick was to decode a telegram, which had been compacted into six cryptic words for purposes of economy:
ANACIN HOSPITAL ADAMANT BITTER ASININE PLACES
( Take your time, work it out. Or click here for the answer. )
Anyway, there I was, jumping from the weird electric bug bite, cursing that damn ant and grateful only to have been bit once.
Connie cleaned things up with my trusty alcohol swabs, and I took two Benadryl tablets before bed. No trace of a bite the next morning, just some vague mental ramblings about Anacin and the rest.
Yeouch! I didn't know if it was an insect bite, since it was like no other bite I'd experienced. It didn't exactly itch or hurt, but every fifteen or twenty seconds it zapped me. I respectfully left the teaching and headed for the bathroom, attracting attention with my leaps and zappy little cries.
Fortunately I got the attention of our friend Connie, a delightfully cheerful and capable Canadian who is a recently-qualified Registered Nurse. I got over my shyness about letting her examine my rear end (she works as a hospice nurse, so I figure she's already seen a lot on the job), and she took a flashlight out and took a look.
It wasn't immediately obvious I'd been bitten, so she was starting to craft some other delightful theories about my butt-spasm (dehydration! hemorrhoids! yikes!), but a little bite started to appear and the other theories were thrown aside (praise be!). Of course, "mysterious bug bite in India" is not the greatest diagnosis, since I couldn't help imagining dreadful complications, mostly involving necrosis.
I also couldn't help thinking of a brain teaser my dad once trotted out to entertain the whole family in a restaurant (my dad was full of goodies like this while I was growing up). The trick was to decode a telegram, which had been compacted into six cryptic words for purposes of economy:
ANACIN HOSPITAL ADAMANT BITTER ASININE PLACES
( Take your time, work it out. Or click here for the answer. )
Anyway, there I was, jumping from the weird electric bug bite, cursing that damn ant and grateful only to have been bit once.
Connie cleaned things up with my trusty alcohol swabs, and I took two Benadryl tablets before bed. No trace of a bite the next morning, just some vague mental ramblings about Anacin and the rest.
Faithful readers may have noticed that I hardly ever blogged from India. To be honest, I really needed the break from all things electronic, so I barely used my computer at all. I did, however, send a few e-mails to family, which I'm now cannibalizing to fill in the blog gaps. This comes from a June 30 e-mail to my sister Debby.
I'm afraid there's not so much more to report around here. I've been kind of tired and have been fighting a cold, though my friend Elly gave me some wacky Chinese pills which seem to be nipping it in the bud. All these pills are making me feel like a character in Valley of the Dolls: anti-malarial pills, dramamine, Chinese meds, etc. I haven't been taking the Pepto Bismol pills before meals [my mother's time-honored travel remedy] but have instead been hyper-vigilant about not eating off of anything that's even slightly wet. This is a little hard, since it's very humid here and nothing dries, but it's working so far. There are lots of great restaurants here (Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Thai), and I know which ones are "safer" than others (though it seems like every day someone else is down with the runs). I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
The teachings from my own lamas have begun. They are in Palampur, about an hour from Dharamsala, so we are commuting every night in hired cars. The roads are a little exciting, but it's going all right. The subject matter is very deep and intense -- important subtleties about the nature of emptiness (the whole Buddhist "things don't exist the way we think they exist" philosophy) -- so it's a real brain-bender. We get back late at night, so we've been sleeping late and sort of sluggish during the day.
Today we bought Ted some pants. The clothing situation was getting urgent -- Ted only brought the jeans he wore on the plane, and we assumed it would be a little easier to buy clothing here, so he's been wearing his increasingly manky jeans every day. But today he bought some pants, and we'll get our laundry done tomorrow. I too am a bit short on clothing, but my non-sweating superpower is still in effect, so it hasn't been too big a problem. I bought several items a few days ago in a panic, and once I got them home I decided half of them weren't actually all that nice. But I can wear the pants as pyjama bottoms (which I needed), and one skirt and shirt are really nice. I'm out about $15 for the whole pile, so it's not too tragic a loss. Ted bought a gold-colored shirt printed with red OM symbols and such, and we're all teasing him that it's the Indian equivalent of wearing I *heart* NY clothing. Even worse, he briefly paired it with a similar scarf, and we joked that it was like adding a Mets hat to the ensemble.
I read Cold Mountain during the flight and the first few days here. I knew that Renee Zellweger was in the movie (which I didn't see), and the whole time I pictured her in the the wrong role. So when I read that Nicole Kidman was in what I considered the RZ role, and that RZ played a character I pictured totally differently, I lost all interest in seeing the movie, which seems to have over-glamorized things (based on the casting). Good book, though.
I also read one of Ted's books, a fantasy novel called Ill Met By Moonlight. It was about young Will Shakespeare and how he got entangled with some local elves/fairies near Stratford, explaining the "Dark Lady" from his sonnets and how the glovemaker's son became inspired. A fun book, if you're not too much of a purist.
Now I'm reading Fever Pitch by the author of High Fidelity and About a Boy -- it's a memoir of his total obsession with football (soccer), and the blurbs on the back promise it's interesting even if you don't care about football. So far so good, and the timing is right, seeing how World Cup fever has gripped this part of the world like any other. It's only my deep respect for the monastic robes that's kept me from snapping photos of young Tibetan monks gathering around a little TV at night to watch the games. (I really must rent "The Cup" one of these days.)
I'm really sorry I didn't get to attend [my brother's extremely informal] wedding -- it sounds like it was really a nice time, and Ted would have enjoyed all the sweets. Here I'm enjoying some banana porridge at our hotel every morning: oatmeal cooked with milk and cut-up bananas. I'm sure it's not helping with my unexpected constipation problem (who saw that coming?), but the porridge is so yummy. Actually, the poop situation is improving, slowly but surely. Ted points out that the oatmeal should be helping, but it looks too much like spackle to me. It's a bummer not being able to eat anything that isn't cooked. Sometimes food comes garnished with lovely looking tomatoes and onions, but I have to remove them and avoid the area they touched.
On the plus side, Elly has turned me onto wacky Indian snack foods, available in all the little stores (more like stalls). There's one called "Haldiram's Nimbu Masala" which is little threads made from potatoes and various pulse flours and strongly spiced with savory masala flavor. Then there's "Haldirman's All-in-One", which seems to be the leftovers from all the other Haldiram products thrown into a single bag. It has little flakes and crisps and pulses and nuts and the occasional raisin, in a wacky mix of spices including the masala stuff but also mango and other sweet flavors. I really wish I'd bought some prunes, as I am reluctant to try the local dried fruits. I wish I didn't have to be so paranoid, but when someone I know gets sick every day, I am sadly reminded of how important it is to be careful.
Thanks all for now ...
I'm afraid there's not so much more to report around here. I've been kind of tired and have been fighting a cold, though my friend Elly gave me some wacky Chinese pills which seem to be nipping it in the bud. All these pills are making me feel like a character in Valley of the Dolls: anti-malarial pills, dramamine, Chinese meds, etc. I haven't been taking the Pepto Bismol pills before meals [my mother's time-honored travel remedy] but have instead been hyper-vigilant about not eating off of anything that's even slightly wet. This is a little hard, since it's very humid here and nothing dries, but it's working so far. There are lots of great restaurants here (Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Thai), and I know which ones are "safer" than others (though it seems like every day someone else is down with the runs). I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
The teachings from my own lamas have begun. They are in Palampur, about an hour from Dharamsala, so we are commuting every night in hired cars. The roads are a little exciting, but it's going all right. The subject matter is very deep and intense -- important subtleties about the nature of emptiness (the whole Buddhist "things don't exist the way we think they exist" philosophy) -- so it's a real brain-bender. We get back late at night, so we've been sleeping late and sort of sluggish during the day.
Today we bought Ted some pants. The clothing situation was getting urgent -- Ted only brought the jeans he wore on the plane, and we assumed it would be a little easier to buy clothing here, so he's been wearing his increasingly manky jeans every day. But today he bought some pants, and we'll get our laundry done tomorrow. I too am a bit short on clothing, but my non-sweating superpower is still in effect, so it hasn't been too big a problem. I bought several items a few days ago in a panic, and once I got them home I decided half of them weren't actually all that nice. But I can wear the pants as pyjama bottoms (which I needed), and one skirt and shirt are really nice. I'm out about $15 for the whole pile, so it's not too tragic a loss. Ted bought a gold-colored shirt printed with red OM symbols and such, and we're all teasing him that it's the Indian equivalent of wearing I *heart* NY clothing. Even worse, he briefly paired it with a similar scarf, and we joked that it was like adding a Mets hat to the ensemble.
I read Cold Mountain during the flight and the first few days here. I knew that Renee Zellweger was in the movie (which I didn't see), and the whole time I pictured her in the the wrong role. So when I read that Nicole Kidman was in what I considered the RZ role, and that RZ played a character I pictured totally differently, I lost all interest in seeing the movie, which seems to have over-glamorized things (based on the casting). Good book, though.
I also read one of Ted's books, a fantasy novel called Ill Met By Moonlight. It was about young Will Shakespeare and how he got entangled with some local elves/fairies near Stratford, explaining the "Dark Lady" from his sonnets and how the glovemaker's son became inspired. A fun book, if you're not too much of a purist.
Now I'm reading Fever Pitch by the author of High Fidelity and About a Boy -- it's a memoir of his total obsession with football (soccer), and the blurbs on the back promise it's interesting even if you don't care about football. So far so good, and the timing is right, seeing how World Cup fever has gripped this part of the world like any other. It's only my deep respect for the monastic robes that's kept me from snapping photos of young Tibetan monks gathering around a little TV at night to watch the games. (I really must rent "The Cup" one of these days.)
I'm really sorry I didn't get to attend [my brother's extremely informal] wedding -- it sounds like it was really a nice time, and Ted would have enjoyed all the sweets. Here I'm enjoying some banana porridge at our hotel every morning: oatmeal cooked with milk and cut-up bananas. I'm sure it's not helping with my unexpected constipation problem (who saw that coming?), but the porridge is so yummy. Actually, the poop situation is improving, slowly but surely. Ted points out that the oatmeal should be helping, but it looks too much like spackle to me. It's a bummer not being able to eat anything that isn't cooked. Sometimes food comes garnished with lovely looking tomatoes and onions, but I have to remove them and avoid the area they touched.
On the plus side, Elly has turned me onto wacky Indian snack foods, available in all the little stores (more like stalls). There's one called "Haldiram's Nimbu Masala" which is little threads made from potatoes and various pulse flours and strongly spiced with savory masala flavor. Then there's "Haldirman's All-in-One", which seems to be the leftovers from all the other Haldiram products thrown into a single bag. It has little flakes and crisps and pulses and nuts and the occasional raisin, in a wacky mix of spices including the masala stuff but also mango and other sweet flavors. I really wish I'd bought some prunes, as I am reluctant to try the local dried fruits. I wish I didn't have to be so paranoid, but when someone I know gets sick every day, I am sadly reminded of how important it is to be careful.
Thanks all for now ...
The night we arrived in Dharamsala (11 hours from Delhi by car), we settled into our grim and spartan hotel (we've since moved) and walked down to Hunted Hill House (our current hotel, home to most of our friends) for a group orientation meeting. There was bad news about some logistical issues, which seemed insoluble at the time (now fixed, of course), and I felt a deep sense of despair, along with total dread about being stuck here for 18 more days. It was an oddly familiar feeling (miserable, exhausted, trapped), and I immediately placed it: it was like the first night of summer camp.
I had a lot of vague ideas of what Dharamsala would be like, but I never thought it would remind me of Camp Blue Star. But that first dismal night rang a bell -- strange, considering I was usually happy to be reunited with my summer friends -- and like camp, my experience of Dharamsala improved immensely in less than a day.
You wouldn’t think I'd still be reminded of life at Jewish overnight camp once the Dalai Lama started teaching, but somehow I am. Part of the similarity is the constant tromping up and down hills (North Carolina, like the Himalayan foothills, is a lot bumpier than Illinois). I am also much more connected with the outdoors than I am at home, since no building is truly closed off, just like camp cabins and recreational buildings. And the general lack of cell phones and technology plays a major role: if I want to find someone, I just have to walk (up and down hills) to find them, and along the way I inevitably run into several other people I know, since at least fifty of my good friends and close acquaintances are here.
And insect repellent. Can't forget the insect repellent.
The break from routine and responsibility is quite pleasant, and reminiscent of childhood summer vacations. I’m using my computer very little, and aside from the two daily teaching sessions there’s nowhere I’m really required to be. And yet there are loads of sagas happening among almost all my friends -- the intensity of the setting seems to be ripening karma at triple-speed -- so it’s definitely not the calm, meditative environment you might be imagining. It’s more like the non-stop drama of summer camp, even though the issues are no longer (1) boys and (2) who's fighting with whom.
There are, of course, some differences. At camp, occasionally some friend or bunkmate would spend a night or two in the infirmary, while in Dharamsala we hear every day about another member of our group who’s "got it coming out both ends." Plus, Camp Blue Star had a lot more Polo shirts than saffron robes, and there was a distinct lack of cows roaming the streets.
That's all for now. Pretty long and detailed for a letter from camp, no?
I had a lot of vague ideas of what Dharamsala would be like, but I never thought it would remind me of Camp Blue Star. But that first dismal night rang a bell -- strange, considering I was usually happy to be reunited with my summer friends -- and like camp, my experience of Dharamsala improved immensely in less than a day.
You wouldn’t think I'd still be reminded of life at Jewish overnight camp once the Dalai Lama started teaching, but somehow I am. Part of the similarity is the constant tromping up and down hills (North Carolina, like the Himalayan foothills, is a lot bumpier than Illinois). I am also much more connected with the outdoors than I am at home, since no building is truly closed off, just like camp cabins and recreational buildings. And the general lack of cell phones and technology plays a major role: if I want to find someone, I just have to walk (up and down hills) to find them, and along the way I inevitably run into several other people I know, since at least fifty of my good friends and close acquaintances are here.
And insect repellent. Can't forget the insect repellent.
The break from routine and responsibility is quite pleasant, and reminiscent of childhood summer vacations. I’m using my computer very little, and aside from the two daily teaching sessions there’s nowhere I’m really required to be. And yet there are loads of sagas happening among almost all my friends -- the intensity of the setting seems to be ripening karma at triple-speed -- so it’s definitely not the calm, meditative environment you might be imagining. It’s more like the non-stop drama of summer camp, even though the issues are no longer (1) boys and (2) who's fighting with whom.
There are, of course, some differences. At camp, occasionally some friend or bunkmate would spend a night or two in the infirmary, while in Dharamsala we hear every day about another member of our group who’s "got it coming out both ends." Plus, Camp Blue Star had a lot more Polo shirts than saffron robes, and there was a distinct lack of cows roaming the streets.
That's all for now. Pretty long and detailed for a letter from camp, no?
I expect the edit this through the rest of my trip, but I thought I'd share now...
Things I’m glad I brought with me to India:
insect repellent
tampons
ibuprofen
Emergen-c packets
a good poncho
hand sanitizing gel
comfortable, rugged closed shoes (for the filthy streets)
slip-on sandals (for inside the hotel room)
bedsheets
a towel (less fluffy would have been better, though)
a blanket
energy bars
small packets of kleenex
earplugs
dramamine
zip-lock bags
a waist pouch
Things I wish I’d brought to India:
grapefruit seed extract
baby wipes
white ankle socks
dried fruit
Things I’m glad I brought with me to India:
insect repellent
tampons
ibuprofen
Emergen-c packets
a good poncho
hand sanitizing gel
comfortable, rugged closed shoes (for the filthy streets)
slip-on sandals (for inside the hotel room)
bedsheets
a towel (less fluffy would have been better, though)
a blanket
energy bars
small packets of kleenex
earplugs
dramamine
zip-lock bags
a waist pouch
Things I wish I’d brought to India:
grapefruit seed extract
baby wipes
white ankle socks
dried fruit
[I wrote this days ago, but I've spent wonderfully little time online and am posting this long after the fact.]
It's the evening of my fourth day in India, and I finally have the wherewithal to write something more detailed than "Not dead."
After a long journey, I am now in our hotel room in Dharamsala, serenaded by the noise from the nearby front desk and main staircase, and enjoying the monsoon-blurred view from our window of the Himalayan foothills. It’s the first big rain since my arrival, and I know that the country downhill is yearning for it, so I won’t mind the splodgy dirt road that will greet me tomorrow morning.
The trip began in Delhi, where we had arranged a soft landing by booking two nights in the legendarily posh Imperial hotel. Ted and I aren’t normally the five-star hotel types, but the combination of “Delhi” and “off season” put the Imperial within our reach. So I’d long been looking forward to being greeted at the airport by a driver from the hotel, whisking us past the squalor of India into a colonial haven.
And it worked as planned, until just after the “greeted at the airport” step. We were in the car, on the way to the hotel, when the driver’s phone rang and he passed it to me. It was “Vivek,” the duty manager at the Imperial, welcoming us to Delhi and then apologizing that our room was suddenly unavailable due to a “special delegation” at the hotel. We were instead to stay at the Shangri-la Hotel, blah blah blah...
Alarm bells! This sounded like a classic scam, detailed in our Lonely Planet guidebook and elsewhere: The taxi driver offers to call your hotel to check on your reservation before you arrive, but suddenly the hotel is “overbooked” and you are routed to some other hotel (the beneficiary of the scam). With this in mind, I was quite brusque with Vivek and ended the call, and then I looked up the number of the hotel in my own files and called it myself to verify that this was all on the level.
I was patched through to Vivek, who reassured me that he really was the duty manager at the Imperial, which I only sort of believed. For gosh sakes, couldn’t the phone be hacked to redirect calls to that number to the scammers’ line? This is India, after all – a country not lacking in technical know-how. We demanded to be driven to the Imperial to get to the bottom of things.
But it was actually the truth, and our room at the Shangri-la was totally swank (for about 25% less than the room at the Imperial), and we got a free meal at the famous Spice Route restaurant, so we definitely came out ahead.
Not too much else to report on Delhi. Hot, blah blah. On to Dharamsala.
It's the evening of my fourth day in India, and I finally have the wherewithal to write something more detailed than "Not dead."
After a long journey, I am now in our hotel room in Dharamsala, serenaded by the noise from the nearby front desk and main staircase, and enjoying the monsoon-blurred view from our window of the Himalayan foothills. It’s the first big rain since my arrival, and I know that the country downhill is yearning for it, so I won’t mind the splodgy dirt road that will greet me tomorrow morning.
The trip began in Delhi, where we had arranged a soft landing by booking two nights in the legendarily posh Imperial hotel. Ted and I aren’t normally the five-star hotel types, but the combination of “Delhi” and “off season” put the Imperial within our reach. So I’d long been looking forward to being greeted at the airport by a driver from the hotel, whisking us past the squalor of India into a colonial haven.
And it worked as planned, until just after the “greeted at the airport” step. We were in the car, on the way to the hotel, when the driver’s phone rang and he passed it to me. It was “Vivek,” the duty manager at the Imperial, welcoming us to Delhi and then apologizing that our room was suddenly unavailable due to a “special delegation” at the hotel. We were instead to stay at the Shangri-la Hotel, blah blah blah...
Alarm bells! This sounded like a classic scam, detailed in our Lonely Planet guidebook and elsewhere: The taxi driver offers to call your hotel to check on your reservation before you arrive, but suddenly the hotel is “overbooked” and you are routed to some other hotel (the beneficiary of the scam). With this in mind, I was quite brusque with Vivek and ended the call, and then I looked up the number of the hotel in my own files and called it myself to verify that this was all on the level.
I was patched through to Vivek, who reassured me that he really was the duty manager at the Imperial, which I only sort of believed. For gosh sakes, couldn’t the phone be hacked to redirect calls to that number to the scammers’ line? This is India, after all – a country not lacking in technical know-how. We demanded to be driven to the Imperial to get to the bottom of things.
But it was actually the truth, and our room at the Shangri-la was totally swank (for about 25% less than the room at the Imperial), and we got a free meal at the famous Spice Route restaurant, so we definitely came out ahead.
Not too much else to report on Delhi. Hot, blah blah. On to Dharamsala.
In just a few days, Ted and I will depart on a 20-day trip to India. This is pretty seriously daunting for me. I’ve gone on a lot of trips overseas, mostly with my family while I was growing up, but those were always with tour groups, and my mother did all the planning and worrying for us. This trip isn’t exactly an expedition into the unknown, since I'll be with the nice Ted and also about one hundred of our friends (Buddhist teachings, you know), but it’s still a big undertaking for a sheltered child like myself.
I started packing a full week before we leave, and I’ve hit Walgreens and Summit Hut (Tucson’s wonderful local version of EMS or REI) nearly every day this week. Today I took my relationship with Summit Hut to the next level by bringing Ted with me, and he too was delighted with all their cool camping and travel goodies.
Like me, he was seduced by a cool brand called PacSafe, which makes travel bags and pouches made from some magic uncuttable material akin to kryptonite or adamantine. I fell for the impermeable waist pouch with a fabric-covered steel strap, and Ted went for the travellers-cheque-sized wallet with metal leash. I had to tear myself away from the fortress-like purse (which is much more attractive in real life than in the photo), mostly because I figured I’d be more likely to lose the purse and contents altogether, which is why I opted for the waist-pack instead.
One thing I did not buy, in spite of being mightily tempted, was the Snowpeak Titanium Spork. This was no mean feat, because it really is hard to resist the siren song of a titanium spork.
I'll spare you the list of purchases from Walgreens, since it’s mostly emergency travel-malady stuff I sincerely hope we won’t need to use.
And yes, I’m bringing the digital camera and hope to provide some exciting travelogue posts. Although I don’t expect to see anything quite like these sights from last summer’s business trip to Japan, I think there will be much for me to report.
I started packing a full week before we leave, and I’ve hit Walgreens and Summit Hut (Tucson’s wonderful local version of EMS or REI) nearly every day this week. Today I took my relationship with Summit Hut to the next level by bringing Ted with me, and he too was delighted with all their cool camping and travel goodies.
Like me, he was seduced by a cool brand called PacSafe, which makes travel bags and pouches made from some magic uncuttable material akin to kryptonite or adamantine. I fell for the impermeable waist pouch with a fabric-covered steel strap, and Ted went for the travellers-cheque-sized wallet with metal leash. I had to tear myself away from the fortress-like purse (which is much more attractive in real life than in the photo), mostly because I figured I’d be more likely to lose the purse and contents altogether, which is why I opted for the waist-pack instead.
One thing I did not buy, in spite of being mightily tempted, was the Snowpeak Titanium Spork. This was no mean feat, because it really is hard to resist the siren song of a titanium spork.
I'll spare you the list of purchases from Walgreens, since it’s mostly emergency travel-malady stuff I sincerely hope we won’t need to use.
And yes, I’m bringing the digital camera and hope to provide some exciting travelogue posts. Although I don’t expect to see anything quite like these sights from last summer’s business trip to Japan, I think there will be much for me to report.
- Mood:
daunted
Ted's the one on top. What more can I add?
Sorry about the lack of updates. Jet lag has been a major drag. Tucson-Chicago-Tokyo-Tucson-Paris is not an ideal itinerary. I now see the appeal in travelling by boat. Do boats have Internet access?
I've mostly been wandering around, with or without the nice Ted, who is sometimes in meetings. Feeding him has gone well -- my language skills have rescued him from picking up all his meals from the nearby fancy grocery store. I've also been able to translate Les Simpson for him, as well as a variety of posters in the Metro. It's good to put that Master's degree to use!
I've been under pressure from several near relatives to make Ted do some sightseeing, and to do some myself. Apparently I did a bad job in Tokyo, where I never bothered to take an excursion out of town. My vague excuse was the cost and the hassle, plus the fact that I genuinely enjoy just wandering around in a strange city, but I didn't even follow the helpful advice from![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
gomijacogeo and others about things to do in Tokyo proper. So I'm trying to do a little better in Paris.
But, dammit, I lived here for a year and saw nearly all the major sights. The remaining sights... well... I couldn't have been all that interested if I didn't see them when I first had the chance. I've been taking Ted around in buses instead of just the Metro, so he's seeing a lot of streets and sights in passing (he was able to check the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre Pyramid off his list that way). He really liked Notre-Dame, though the Sainte-Chapelle left him cold. I blame myself, because I brought him there in the morning, forgetting that the morning is the best time to visit during the winter and not the summer. I brought him through my old neighborhood, très pittoresque, and we may head back there tomorrow.
On Tuesday I took a little break during the weary afternoon to watch "Charlie et la Chocolaterie" at the famous cinema La Pagode. The lovely salle japonaise was looking a little more shopworn than it did in 1994, but it was still nice. I enjoyed the movie, and although it was definitely creepy in spots, I really liked Johnny Depp's performance and was not at all reminded of Michael Jackson. Ted, who is more interested in Movies Where Things Go Boom, is happy to wait to see it on video, probably courtesy of the nice FIL.
Yesterday I scored some great sunblock, much coveted in the States since the active ingredient "Mexoryl" lacks FDA approval (even though it's been used in Europe for more than a decade and provides way better UVA protection than any other sunscreen). You can buy it on the gray market at home, but they charge about twice the Paris price. I'm trying it out today, and so far there's no burning or itching (a good sign, which was not true of the last sunblock I bought). If I make it through tomorrow with no red bumps, I may stock up. I wonder if it's available at the duty-free shops...
I've mostly been wandering around, with or without the nice Ted, who is sometimes in meetings. Feeding him has gone well -- my language skills have rescued him from picking up all his meals from the nearby fancy grocery store. I've also been able to translate Les Simpson for him, as well as a variety of posters in the Metro. It's good to put that Master's degree to use!
I've been under pressure from several near relatives to make Ted do some sightseeing, and to do some myself. Apparently I did a bad job in Tokyo, where I never bothered to take an excursion out of town. My vague excuse was the cost and the hassle, plus the fact that I genuinely enjoy just wandering around in a strange city, but I didn't even follow the helpful advice from
gomijacogeo and others about things to do in Tokyo proper. So I'm trying to do a little better in Paris.But, dammit, I lived here for a year and saw nearly all the major sights. The remaining sights... well... I couldn't have been all that interested if I didn't see them when I first had the chance. I've been taking Ted around in buses instead of just the Metro, so he's seeing a lot of streets and sights in passing (he was able to check the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre Pyramid off his list that way). He really liked Notre-Dame, though the Sainte-Chapelle left him cold. I blame myself, because I brought him there in the morning, forgetting that the morning is the best time to visit during the winter and not the summer. I brought him through my old neighborhood, très pittoresque, and we may head back there tomorrow.
On Tuesday I took a little break during the weary afternoon to watch "Charlie et la Chocolaterie" at the famous cinema La Pagode. The lovely salle japonaise was looking a little more shopworn than it did in 1994, but it was still nice. I enjoyed the movie, and although it was definitely creepy in spots, I really liked Johnny Depp's performance and was not at all reminded of Michael Jackson. Ted, who is more interested in Movies Where Things Go Boom, is happy to wait to see it on video, probably courtesy of the nice FIL.
Yesterday I scored some great sunblock, much coveted in the States since the active ingredient "Mexoryl" lacks FDA approval (even though it's been used in Europe for more than a decade and provides way better UVA protection than any other sunscreen). You can buy it on the gray market at home, but they charge about twice the Paris price. I'm trying it out today, and so far there's no burning or itching (a good sign, which was not true of the last sunblock I bought). If I make it through tomorrow with no red bumps, I may stock up. I wonder if it's available at the duty-free shops...
These appliances would do great in the USA, except for one small detail.
TED, from the bathroom: The ceiling here is strange. Did you touch it?
ANDREA: Um, no. I haven't gotten around to touching the ceiling yet.
ANDREA: Um, no. I haven't gotten around to touching the ceiling yet.
As I eat a cold, sub-par croissant at the IETF breakfast buffet, I am reminded that even a lousy croissant in France is better than almost any croissant in the United States. It's really nice to be back in Paris, especially with the nice Ted. I lived in Paris during the academic year 1993-1994, and although I loved the city, it was more of a character-building experience than a happy one. I was here for graduate school -- a one-year Master's degree in French from Middlebury College -- and my experience didn't measure up to the "best year of my life" expectations I had going in. I never connected particularly well with the Parisians, and although I had plenty of American friends, I felt quite isolated in those (mostly) pre-email times.
I had the good fortune to land an apartment in the Marais, a beautiful, centrally-located neighborhood which has since become the height of chic. Alas, most of my friends from Middlebury were living with families or widows off in yonder 16th or 17th arrondissements, swanky, bourgeois, and boring. So on weekends I would have to ride the metro 30 minutes away from my much-more interesting quartier to join them.
The highlight of their otherwise dull neighborhood was an Irish bar called "James Joyce Pub." Irish bars are particularly fun in Paris, because the atmosphere is much more convivial than in ordinary Parisian bars. Normally it's hard to meet people in French bars, since they tend to sit in little clumps and talk only among themselves. Only the tackiest dragueur (pick-up artist) would come up to a group of American co-eds and start talking. But Irish bars were much more friendly, and the English language dominated. Many French people were attracted to the atmosphere there, and it was my best hope for achieving the linguistic coup of landing a French boyfriend (which everyone knew was the best way to develop a good accent!).
But hélas, that was not meant to be for pauvre Andréa -- I had a series of impressively lousy dates with Frenchmen, but no coup de foudre (I won't translate that, but if you think it means something obscene, your French is not very good). Nevertheless, I have many happy memories of the James Joyce Pub, and for once I'm a little sad that my lifelong vow against drinking alcohol will prevent me from enjoying a Guinness there (going in for a club soda is not the same). Of course, when I recall that a Guinness probably costs about $9 (les dragueurs were good for something!), and when my clean-living metabolism recoils from the mere threat of alcohol, my sadness vanishes. But I remember it fondly.
Which is why it's funny that Ted's and my hotel is literally across the street from the James Joyce Pub. Here I am, in the heart of my friends' boring neighborhood! Happily, we're on a good Metro line and can easily zip to more interesting districts -- we already have our unlimited Metro passes for the week. Last night, however, I literally had to drag poor sleep-deprived Ted from the room for dinner. He would have been content to eat tomato and basil pasta from some restaurant he spotted nearby, but I refused, on the grounds that (A) he ate nothing but tomato and basil pasta in Japan and (B) if he didn't get up and walk around, he'd go to sleep too early and wake up too early, all hungry and sad.
For the first half-hour, as we trundled in the Metro toward St-Michel (the famous Latin Quarter), he was such a sleepy zombie that I wondered if I was being too harsh with him. And as he dumbly trailed me during the 10-minute walk from the Metro to the Tibetan restaurant I'd looked up online, I grew worried as he failed to be delighted by such an interesting neighborhood. But when we sat down at the restaurant, Lhassa, his eyes lit up when he discovered the menu was in French, English, and Tibetan (more familiar to Ted than French). And his first sip of bho cha (salty, buttery Tibetan tea) reminded him pleasantly of the stuff he'd had in Nepal.
The food was very good, and I finally stopped feeling bad about dragging him out of his twilight state. We even strolled a bit after dinner, and we were barked at by the French watchman in charge of shooing people away from Notre-Dame at sundown. Alas, we wound up staying up a little too late, as our American biorhythms kicked in, but we still got between seven and eight hours of sleep. Plenty of strolling should take care of my jet lag, and Ted will manage his with coffee and brute force.
I had the good fortune to land an apartment in the Marais, a beautiful, centrally-located neighborhood which has since become the height of chic. Alas, most of my friends from Middlebury were living with families or widows off in yonder 16th or 17th arrondissements, swanky, bourgeois, and boring. So on weekends I would have to ride the metro 30 minutes away from my much-more interesting quartier to join them.
The highlight of their otherwise dull neighborhood was an Irish bar called "James Joyce Pub." Irish bars are particularly fun in Paris, because the atmosphere is much more convivial than in ordinary Parisian bars. Normally it's hard to meet people in French bars, since they tend to sit in little clumps and talk only among themselves. Only the tackiest dragueur (pick-up artist) would come up to a group of American co-eds and start talking. But Irish bars were much more friendly, and the English language dominated. Many French people were attracted to the atmosphere there, and it was my best hope for achieving the linguistic coup of landing a French boyfriend (which everyone knew was the best way to develop a good accent!).
But hélas, that was not meant to be for pauvre Andréa -- I had a series of impressively lousy dates with Frenchmen, but no coup de foudre (I won't translate that, but if you think it means something obscene, your French is not very good). Nevertheless, I have many happy memories of the James Joyce Pub, and for once I'm a little sad that my lifelong vow against drinking alcohol will prevent me from enjoying a Guinness there (going in for a club soda is not the same). Of course, when I recall that a Guinness probably costs about $9 (les dragueurs were good for something!), and when my clean-living metabolism recoils from the mere threat of alcohol, my sadness vanishes. But I remember it fondly.
Which is why it's funny that Ted's and my hotel is literally across the street from the James Joyce Pub. Here I am, in the heart of my friends' boring neighborhood! Happily, we're on a good Metro line and can easily zip to more interesting districts -- we already have our unlimited Metro passes for the week. Last night, however, I literally had to drag poor sleep-deprived Ted from the room for dinner. He would have been content to eat tomato and basil pasta from some restaurant he spotted nearby, but I refused, on the grounds that (A) he ate nothing but tomato and basil pasta in Japan and (B) if he didn't get up and walk around, he'd go to sleep too early and wake up too early, all hungry and sad.
For the first half-hour, as we trundled in the Metro toward St-Michel (the famous Latin Quarter), he was such a sleepy zombie that I wondered if I was being too harsh with him. And as he dumbly trailed me during the 10-minute walk from the Metro to the Tibetan restaurant I'd looked up online, I grew worried as he failed to be delighted by such an interesting neighborhood. But when we sat down at the restaurant, Lhassa, his eyes lit up when he discovered the menu was in French, English, and Tibetan (more familiar to Ted than French). And his first sip of bho cha (salty, buttery Tibetan tea) reminded him pleasantly of the stuff he'd had in Nepal.
The food was very good, and I finally stopped feeling bad about dragging him out of his twilight state. We even strolled a bit after dinner, and we were barked at by the French watchman in charge of shooing people away from Notre-Dame at sundown. Alas, we wound up staying up a little too late, as our American biorhythms kicked in, but we still got between seven and eight hours of sleep. Plenty of strolling should take care of my jet lag, and Ted will manage his with coffee and brute force.
Back in Tucson now, and somewhat recovered from jet lag. My last day or two in Tokyo is turning into a big blur, but I'll try to extract whatever data may still be intact.
Friday was very hot and muggy, but my pathetic failure to find a suitable sushi restaurant spurred me outside toward the Tsujuki fish market. I had no desire to go inside and see the actual fish-based transactions (which mostly happen before dawn anyway), but I was keen to try a sushi restaurant in the neighborhood. I went to one recommended by the hotel, and even though it didn't have a little conveyor belt I managed to order what I wanted without feeling like too much of a doofus. After lunch, I walked back the long way through the Ginza so I could pick up one last laptop brush at Sofmap, and then I headed back to the hotel to relax and cool off.
Ted wound up getting home very early, since he had no more customer meetings, so we just hung out until venturing forth for dinner. Italian food again (the best option for my little vegetarian), but at least this restaurant had outdoor seating, which was relatively smoke free. Very cool outdoor seating, I might add -- it was on the roof of a building, with other buildings towering around it.
Saturday was go-home day. We took the train to Narita airport, and after checking in we ate in the impressively large terminal food court and mall. There I finally had the conveyor-belt sushi experience -- hooray! I didn't eat much, though, and this was a good thing because not long afterwards came a 6.0 earthquake. I had never experienced that large an earthquake before, so I was kind of freaked out. Nobody else seemed to be bothered, and Ted, who had experienced the 1989 San Francisco quake (7.1) was quite calm as well. Strangely, the 4.0-ish Illinois quake I survived (thanks, New Madrid Fault!) hadn't really prepared me in the same way. The quake didn't delay our flight or have any other noticeable effect, so we were packed into steerage on Singapore Air and sent home.
Next stop, Paris! This trip will not be anywhere near as daunting as the trip to Japan, considering I lived in Paris for about nine months and am fairly fluent in French. So far I've prepared by researching public transportation options and vegetarian dining. We'll need to bring passport-sized photos so we can get a weekly Carte Orange (the Parisian transit pass, so much cooler than the touristy Paris Visite). I've dusted off my French by writing a nice email to Nicole, who is technically my uncle's ex-mother-in-law but functions as my affectionately bossy Parisian great-aunt. I'm practicing my oral comprehension by watching DVDs with the French language track on (hello, I'm jet lagged -- what else am I supposed to do?), and I hope to smooth out my pronunciation by singing along with my Serge Gainsbourg albums.
Sorry to end the Tokyo dispatches with a whimper, though I guess the earthquake counts as a minor bang!
Friday was very hot and muggy, but my pathetic failure to find a suitable sushi restaurant spurred me outside toward the Tsujuki fish market. I had no desire to go inside and see the actual fish-based transactions (which mostly happen before dawn anyway), but I was keen to try a sushi restaurant in the neighborhood. I went to one recommended by the hotel, and even though it didn't have a little conveyor belt I managed to order what I wanted without feeling like too much of a doofus. After lunch, I walked back the long way through the Ginza so I could pick up one last laptop brush at Sofmap, and then I headed back to the hotel to relax and cool off.
Ted wound up getting home very early, since he had no more customer meetings, so we just hung out until venturing forth for dinner. Italian food again (the best option for my little vegetarian), but at least this restaurant had outdoor seating, which was relatively smoke free. Very cool outdoor seating, I might add -- it was on the roof of a building, with other buildings towering around it.
Saturday was go-home day. We took the train to Narita airport, and after checking in we ate in the impressively large terminal food court and mall. There I finally had the conveyor-belt sushi experience -- hooray! I didn't eat much, though, and this was a good thing because not long afterwards came a 6.0 earthquake. I had never experienced that large an earthquake before, so I was kind of freaked out. Nobody else seemed to be bothered, and Ted, who had experienced the 1989 San Francisco quake (7.1) was quite calm as well. Strangely, the 4.0-ish Illinois quake I survived (thanks, New Madrid Fault!) hadn't really prepared me in the same way. The quake didn't delay our flight or have any other noticeable effect, so we were packed into steerage on Singapore Air and sent home.
Next stop, Paris! This trip will not be anywhere near as daunting as the trip to Japan, considering I lived in Paris for about nine months and am fairly fluent in French. So far I've prepared by researching public transportation options and vegetarian dining. We'll need to bring passport-sized photos so we can get a weekly Carte Orange (the Parisian transit pass, so much cooler than the touristy Paris Visite). I've dusted off my French by writing a nice email to Nicole, who is technically my uncle's ex-mother-in-law but functions as my affectionately bossy Parisian great-aunt. I'm practicing my oral comprehension by watching DVDs with the French language track on (hello, I'm jet lagged -- what else am I supposed to do?), and I hope to smooth out my pronunciation by singing along with my Serge Gainsbourg albums.
Sorry to end the Tokyo dispatches with a whimper, though I guess the earthquake counts as a minor bang!
After a sluggish morning, I dragged myself out for lunch, in search of sushi. It is embarrassing to admit that I haven't eaten sushi here yet, but I'm kind of intimidated by the language barrier. The restaurants sell sushi meals, but they all seem to include some weird item I wouldn't want to eat, and I'd hate to waste food like that. I haven't yet run across a sushi conveyor belt restaurant, where you can just pick what you want as it passes by. Well, that's not quite true -- I did see a restaurant like that but it was in the heart of a majorly touristy district, which put me off somehow.
So I planned to eat sushi for lunch, but I chickened out and ate Indian food instead, feeling rather glum and friendless in Tokyo (Ted was in Osaka all day meeting customers). The language barrier and the fear it provokes in me are a real problem. Anyway, after lunch I rode the train to Shibuya and Shinjuku, two garish neighborhoods known for neon and amusements. I strolled through 109, a mall famous for outfitting trendy schoolgirls, and although I didn't even come close to buying anything (not even the t-shirt that said "You can touch me if you like"), the experience didn't make me feel as old and washed up as I'd feared.
Incidentally, on the streets and in a shop I noticed a few surprising brand names. One was a pachinko/slot machine parlor called "Gaia." The other, more hilariously, was a cheap brand of men's underpants called "Black Man." Yowza!
But I digress. Getting home on the subway was challenging, as Shinjuku station is enormous, but I managed to get on the correct train in spite of a weird, non-obvious transfer. It wasn't very late, but I was still feeling sort of blue and just wanted to curl up with a book. But then, leaving the subway station, I heard a convincingly Beatle-like performance of "Please Please Me," so I followed the noise and discovered a music festival ("Beer Live!") in the nearby mall courtyard (did I mention that our hotel is in a megalopolis of malls?). Imagine how it brightened up my day to discover a Beatles cover band giving a free concert!
They sang and played very well, though the band members did not all have the same grasp on the lyrics. The fellow who sang "A Day in the Life" was seriously blurring the lyrics, to the point of adding a few extra syllables to "I'd love... to... turn... you... on..." (+ "urrr.... hooo"). I wound up meeting a zany couple from California (Japanese wife, American husband) and spending the evening with them listening to the show, while Ted zoomed and wobbled home from Osaka on the bullet train. The husband is 84 and the wife maybe 55 or 60, and they were both live wires: the husband got up and danced a while (nobody else did), and the wife and I talked about pop music (she recently attended a U2 concert). She helped me order food from the snack bar (yay!), and she also interpreted some of the band's banter. Honestly, stumbling across that dorky little concert and hanging out with that couple was the unexpected highlight of my day.
Not sure what tomorrow's plan is. I may ask at the hotel if there are any sushi conveyor-belt restaurants near the fish market, which isn't far from the hotel.
( Don't miss the very strange pictures from the concert )
So I planned to eat sushi for lunch, but I chickened out and ate Indian food instead, feeling rather glum and friendless in Tokyo (Ted was in Osaka all day meeting customers). The language barrier and the fear it provokes in me are a real problem. Anyway, after lunch I rode the train to Shibuya and Shinjuku, two garish neighborhoods known for neon and amusements. I strolled through 109, a mall famous for outfitting trendy schoolgirls, and although I didn't even come close to buying anything (not even the t-shirt that said "You can touch me if you like"), the experience didn't make me feel as old and washed up as I'd feared.
Incidentally, on the streets and in a shop I noticed a few surprising brand names. One was a pachinko/slot machine parlor called "Gaia." The other, more hilariously, was a cheap brand of men's underpants called "Black Man." Yowza!
But I digress. Getting home on the subway was challenging, as Shinjuku station is enormous, but I managed to get on the correct train in spite of a weird, non-obvious transfer. It wasn't very late, but I was still feeling sort of blue and just wanted to curl up with a book. But then, leaving the subway station, I heard a convincingly Beatle-like performance of "Please Please Me," so I followed the noise and discovered a music festival ("Beer Live!") in the nearby mall courtyard (did I mention that our hotel is in a megalopolis of malls?). Imagine how it brightened up my day to discover a Beatles cover band giving a free concert!
They sang and played very well, though the band members did not all have the same grasp on the lyrics. The fellow who sang "A Day in the Life" was seriously blurring the lyrics, to the point of adding a few extra syllables to "I'd love... to... turn... you... on..." (+ "urrr.... hooo"). I wound up meeting a zany couple from California (Japanese wife, American husband) and spending the evening with them listening to the show, while Ted zoomed and wobbled home from Osaka on the bullet train. The husband is 84 and the wife maybe 55 or 60, and they were both live wires: the husband got up and danced a while (nobody else did), and the wife and I talked about pop music (she recently attended a U2 concert). She helped me order food from the snack bar (yay!), and she also interpreted some of the band's banter. Honestly, stumbling across that dorky little concert and hanging out with that couple was the unexpected highlight of my day.
Not sure what tomorrow's plan is. I may ask at the hotel if there are any sushi conveyor-belt restaurants near the fish market, which isn't far from the hotel.
( Don't miss the very strange pictures from the concert )
I just inquired with the concierge, and the tours they have to offer are not appealing. They mostly go to places I have already been. But I am too tired to set off all day on my own again. After two problem-free days, the jet lag is now starting to hit me, so I may just take it easy this morning and then head off after lunch.
- Mood:
grumpy
More wanderings yesterday. I didn't have much time in the morning, since I was to have an early lunch with Ted and his colleagues, so I strolled to the nearby historic Shimbashi station, a mini-museum in a rebuilt 1870s railway station. But there was no obvious way to get inside. The ground floor has a restaurant, but it wasn't open yet, and I wouldn't have been able to ask for help anyway. But a little knot of older Japanese women started to gather, and I watched them as they, too, circumambulated the building, knocking on doors and windows. They were misdirected several times by the restaurant staff, but they eventually learned from someone that the museum was closed (not according to the schedule). I would have enjoyed seeing the museum, but it was quite entertaining to watch the growing flock of women (most wearing little downturned hats), and I felt I earned their esteem by showing interest in an obscure historic site and sitting patiently with my parasol overhead.
After lunch (unagi!), I went up to the Ueno district and visited the Tokyo National Museum, mostly with old Japanese and Asian art and artifacts. To be honest, I found it rather dry, but the walk was nice, and it was surrounded by some pleasant parks and gardens. Next I peeked down Ameyoko-cho, on the advice of Ted's Japanese colleague. It's a long street with many vendors selling a variety of, um, crap. Then I headed down to Akihabara, with its famed "Electric Town." There I dutifully hunted for a camera my father plans to buy, but it was actually more expensive here than in the States. So I left mostly unscathed, with only a card reader for my digital camera and a few more of those laptop screen brushes.
Dinner was mildly challenging, since Ted is a vegetarian and we have no way of asking whether a theoretically-vegetarian dish has been "enhanced" with fish in some surprising way. But we eventually found an Italian restaurant/bar that did the job nicely, all for around $20 (for the two of us). Better than Ted's Yokahama strategy in 2001, which was to eat veggie burgers at the nearby Hard Rock Cafe.
Today my feet are hurting, so I may look into a guided tour. Taking a guided tour usually requires me to swallow some pride, but I generally enjoy them once I'm aboard. I'll bring my camera, for maximum dorkiness.
BTW, there's a a very angry-looking landmark near our hotel:
After lunch (unagi!), I went up to the Ueno district and visited the Tokyo National Museum, mostly with old Japanese and Asian art and artifacts. To be honest, I found it rather dry, but the walk was nice, and it was surrounded by some pleasant parks and gardens. Next I peeked down Ameyoko-cho, on the advice of Ted's Japanese colleague. It's a long street with many vendors selling a variety of, um, crap. Then I headed down to Akihabara, with its famed "Electric Town." There I dutifully hunted for a camera my father plans to buy, but it was actually more expensive here than in the States. So I left mostly unscathed, with only a card reader for my digital camera and a few more of those laptop screen brushes.
Dinner was mildly challenging, since Ted is a vegetarian and we have no way of asking whether a theoretically-vegetarian dish has been "enhanced" with fish in some surprising way. But we eventually found an Italian restaurant/bar that did the job nicely, all for around $20 (for the two of us). Better than Ted's Yokahama strategy in 2001, which was to eat veggie burgers at the nearby Hard Rock Cafe.
Today my feet are hurting, so I may look into a guided tour. Taking a guided tour usually requires me to swallow some pride, but I generally enjoy them once I'm aboard. I'll bring my camera, for maximum dorkiness.
BTW, there's a a very angry-looking landmark near our hotel:
In a move that will surprise no one, I bought a parasol today. I brought my huge Tilley hat to Japan, of course, but I saw so many women carrying parasols that I simply had to join in the shady fun. The parasols I saw were surprisingly pricey, but I just had my birthday and somehow felt entitled. No photos yet, but it's really quite pretty. And it may even be functional... the tag was all in Japanese, except for the big letters "UV." That has to be good, right? And it was made in Japan. Am I a good tourist or what?
A propos, this morning I walked around the nearby Ginza district, mostly because it was a short walk from the hotel. Not very interesting overall, except of course for the extremely interesting novelty of being in Asia. I thought the highlight would be visiting MUJI, which is basically the IKEA of Japan, but MUJI left me cold. Next door, however, was Sofmap, a big computer store. The familiarity of a computer store was comforting, and yet the foreignness made it fun. I managed to find the very accessory I'd hoped to find in Japan: a retractable laptop brush (I've coveted one ever since Ted's friend Perry impressed us with his).
I made it back to the hotel, and I even managed to find some very reasonably priced food for lunch (although I'm ashamed to admit it wasn't at all Japanese -- just a sandwich from a coffee shop). Then I went to Tokyo's biggest tourist attraction, Senso-ji, a huge Buddhist shrine. I didn't have a guidebook with me, and there was no documentation in English, so I just winged it. Which is why I'm now embarrassed to discover that I somehow missed the five-story pagoda. How is that possible?
The scene at Senso-ji was a little odd and quite alien to my Buddhist experience. There appears to be a tradition of offering loose change at shrines, and so there was the steady clatter of coins being tossed into grates and such. And people were doing something with rolled up paper and wooden sticks, presumably for luck or fortune telling. All the noise made me think of pachinko, or Skee Ball. But the smaller shrines were a little mellower, and there was a nice one with a row of lovely statues which were more familiar to me.
Tonight I'm hoping for some real Japanese food, and I think the odds are good, since we're dining with some of Ted's colleagues. And tomorrow I'm thinking museums (to visit, not to eat).
A propos, this morning I walked around the nearby Ginza district, mostly because it was a short walk from the hotel. Not very interesting overall, except of course for the extremely interesting novelty of being in Asia. I thought the highlight would be visiting MUJI, which is basically the IKEA of Japan, but MUJI left me cold. Next door, however, was Sofmap, a big computer store. The familiarity of a computer store was comforting, and yet the foreignness made it fun. I managed to find the very accessory I'd hoped to find in Japan: a retractable laptop brush (I've coveted one ever since Ted's friend Perry impressed us with his).
I made it back to the hotel, and I even managed to find some very reasonably priced food for lunch (although I'm ashamed to admit it wasn't at all Japanese -- just a sandwich from a coffee shop). Then I went to Tokyo's biggest tourist attraction, Senso-ji, a huge Buddhist shrine. I didn't have a guidebook with me, and there was no documentation in English, so I just winged it. Which is why I'm now embarrassed to discover that I somehow missed the five-story pagoda. How is that possible?
The scene at Senso-ji was a little odd and quite alien to my Buddhist experience. There appears to be a tradition of offering loose change at shrines, and so there was the steady clatter of coins being tossed into grates and such. And people were doing something with rolled up paper and wooden sticks, presumably for luck or fortune telling. All the noise made me think of pachinko, or Skee Ball. But the smaller shrines were a little mellower, and there was a nice one with a row of lovely statues which were more familiar to me.
Tonight I'm hoping for some real Japanese food, and I think the odds are good, since we're dining with some of Ted's colleagues. And tomorrow I'm thinking museums (to visit, not to eat).
- Mood:
recumbent
In Tokyo now. We arrived last night and haven't seen much yet, though we have quite a view from our hotel room. We're on the 32nd floor and are facing a weird red and white Eiffel Tower clone, and we're above some cool train tracks. One of Ted's colleagues advised against getting a room on the train side, but the tracks and trains look neato, and at 32 floors up, we can only barely hear them. It's nothing compared to our Southern Pacific exposure in Tucson, with the disgruntled conductors who provide ambience by blowing their horns at night.
Having received no advice about cell phone rentals, we tried out one of the airport rental companies, and I now have a nerdy little phone. It actually costs less to dial the US than to dial another number in Japan, but incoming calls are free, and I only intend to use it as an occasional walkie-talkie with Ted, who will be working all week. I picked a very distinctive ringtone, so I'll recognize my own phone among all those around me. Enjoy!
Having received no advice about cell phone rentals, we tried out one of the airport rental companies, and I now have a nerdy little phone. It actually costs less to dial the US than to dial another number in Japan, but incoming calls are free, and I only intend to use it as an occasional walkie-talkie with Ted, who will be working all week. I picked a very distinctive ringtone, so I'll recognize my own phone among all those around me. Enjoy!
- Mood: amused
- Music:"Telephone Beat"
