The chapter we’re studying in my Spanish textbook is called “Ida y Vuelta,” and it’s travel-themed. Yesterday, we split into two groups for an in-class activity in which each group had to come up with a travel adventure plan to present to the other group. Details were to include where we’d go, what we’d do, how long we’d prepare for the trip, and how we’d finance it.
I sheepishly reported to my group that I have a real-life travel adventure plan I am hoping to put into action soon. When I told them what it was, it sounded so much like fantasy that I started passing it off as such to hide my embarrassment. “Primero, voy a ir al Senegal para practicar mi francés, y luego voy a ir al Argentina para seguir aprendiendo mi español, y voy a ir de un país al otro país por, erm… no sé… viajar alrededor los otros países del mundo, quizas?” Which, if I spoke proper Spanish, would translate to, “First I’m going to go to Senegal to practice my French and then I’m going to go to Argentina to continue learning Spanish, and I’m going to get from one country to the other by traveling around the world, maybe?”
We ended up fusing that plan with everyone else’s much more modest travel fantasies (tomar el sol en Florida, conducir por México, viajar a Praga para ver los museos) and decided we would finance our now wildly-untenable trip by working really hard in a restaurant for two months beforehand and selling our travel photos to National Geographic during our trip – which actually sounds much more plausible than the idea of me circumnavigating Africa in-between language immersion stints.
At one point while trying to explain the plan, my classmate asked the teacher, “Cómo se dice, ‘crazy'”?
I piped right up, “Loco!” Because if you harbor a dream as far-fetched as mine, you’re going to know that word in many languages.
Early Monday morning I had been asleep for about four hours when my radiator came on making sounds like it was being beaten by an angry mob of hammers. It didn’t stop even after I closed the valve, and I couldn’t fall back to sleep.
Both drunkenness and sleep deprivation severely affect my ability to speak a foreign language – but not always in a bad way. They can sometimes render me mute and flailing, but they can also lower my inhibitions and inspire stream of consciousness-style gabbing far more advanced than my wide awake and sober self is capable of. It’s always a toss-up which extreme I’ll swing towards, so I didn’t know whether my Spanish class on Monday afternoon and French Speakeasy event that evening would be disastrous or miraculous.
Turns out it was a little of both. In Spanish I couldn’t put two words together and did more miming than talking, but in French I was transcendent. (Relative only to myself.)
One of my speaking partners was a woman, Christine (in the picture above), who is harboring remarkably similar dreams to mine right now. I think it was four years ago that she took a cargo ship from France to the United States in search of adventure and now she wants to travel the world, learning new things in each country and picking up jobs along the way taking photos for non-profits. We agreed it would be fun to conspire together, and in the meantime I signed up for the next Speakeasy in November…
This week, I walked into a room to find Bono and Angela Merkel chit-chatting, stood ten feet away from Barack Obama as he joked around and waited for his staff after a speech, mistook a be-capped Daniel Craig for Vladimir Putin, and minutes later rode an escalator up two floors with the real Vladimir Putin. (All the while marveling at how neither the American nor Russian Secret Services saw fit to tackle me.)
Those are just the highlights from a very, very exciting week that I hope will now be followed by a very, very quiet weekend.
I leave you with some interesting items I’ve come across over the past few days:
Rather than deleting the cities I’ve programmed into my Weather Channel app while traveling, upon my return I like to periodically set them as my current location – to remind myself how lucky I have been to visit these places, to feel a little bit closer to them digitally if not geographically, and to torture myself with how much better it is everywhere outside of New York.
Case in point: here is the week’s forecast for the cities I have been to within the past year and a half:
Alright, I admit that Paris is the weak link. But what it lacks in weather it amply makes up for in ridiculously good food. And the other two cities have NYC beaten by a long shot.
So, when it’s barely fifty degrees out after months of frigid temperatures, talk foreign weather to me! During the slow ascent out of winter, the Buenos Aires forecast reads like erotica.
I had so many fun plans for this weekend, starting with dinner tonight at a Serbian restaurant, my first Balkan meal ever. But about an hour ago I felt the first stirrings of sickness in my increasingly sore throat and since then it’s spread throughout my entire body – a general malaise that can only mean a cold is on its way. Must. Fight. Back. Must eat delicious meats with unpronounceable names.
Hope you all have a healthier weekend than mine unfortunately promises to be, and that you don’t need to entertain yourselves while convalescing with these interesting reads I’ve gathered from all corners of the Internet:
I’ve heard a lot of superlatives about Paris – that it’s the most romantic city in the world, the most beautiful, the city of light. But I think its most-fitting top billing is tastiest.
Why? Because I got a contact high every time I passed a bakery. Because the freshly made mayonnaise at a hole-in-the-wall cafe was so far beyond what’s eaten in America that the two deserve different names. Because a 3:00am omelette at a randomly selected bistro was the best I’ve ever had. Because my first bite of entrecôte with bearnaise sauce propelled me to break my 3-day French-only streak with an awestruck, “Are you fucking kidding me?” directed at no one in particular, since I was alone.
And that’s only Paris. In Alsace, they took meat and potatoes to a whole new expletive-inducing level. In fact, except for one unfortunate breakfast, everything I ate in France was better than 90% of what I’ve eaten in America.
Granted, I am one for hyperbole. But even if you take me with a grain of salt (which, incidentally, was also more delicious in France), there’s no denying that the French have a very special way with food.
So without further ado, here’s everything I ate in France:
First row: (Alsacienne) baeckeoffe; smoked duck and goat cheese salad; camembert with pine nuts and honey; best-tasting omelette and fries; charcuterie and cheese plate. Second row: confit de canard; choucroute garnie – note the thing that looks like a layer cake but is actually the fattiest, most delicious chunk of ham ever sliced; the (weak link) omelette; smoked salmon; steak with potatoes and pesto. Third row: gluten-free croque monsieur made by philippe; coquilles st. jacques; picnic lunch bought at the only open store in a tiny alsacienne village; steak and vegetables; pot au feu (after the soup was consumed). Fourth row: smoked salmon and goat cheese salad; breakfast of cheese and jam and nutella; potatoes and lardons and extra fat; entrecôte with bearnaise sauce; chef salad. Fifth row: Homemade jams; adorable baby radishes; three glutinous things that, full disclosure, I watched my dining partners eat but did not actually eat in France (two tarte flambees and a croque monsieur).
And that brings us to… DESSERT!!!
First row: creme brulee; gluten-free canelé and madeleines from Helmut Newcake; pavlova; delightfully decorated ice cream; Laduree macarons; a chocolate-covered meringue on top of mocha-flavored buttercream – I think this type of pastry might be called a merveilleux (and it certainly was); chocolate pot au creme, caramel pot au creme, pistachio creme brulee and caramel creme brulee (aka best breakfast ever); cherry, straciatella and chestnut ice cream; rose-flavored sorbet and coffee ice cream, because we couldn’t find rose-flavored ice cream anywhere; a gluten-free madeleine; creme caramel; some sort of ice cream cake; gluten-free chocolate cake and gluten-free chocolate cookies, made by Philippe; chocolate mousse; a gluten-free religieuse from Helmut Newcake; and gluten-free tarte tatin, also made by Philippe.
The only thing on my wish-list that I didn’t end up eating and really wish I had is raclette. It sounds like God’s gift to cheese and potato lovers, but the specialty restaurant we tried to go to in Paris was all booked up and we ran out of time to find an alternative. I guess this gives me a reason to go back…
I’ve again neglected to post my many recent clippings from the World Wide Web in a timely fashion. But now I have a veritable cornucopia to share. Enjoy!
On the way back from the Philippines my colleague, Tyler, and I had a 21-hour layover in Tokyo, which really amounted to 12 hours excluding all the time spent on the way to or from or in the airport. Even though I had a horrible head cold, sore throat and laryngitis and felt I could barely make it another 12 minutes without falling over, I knew there was no question I would stay up all night to take full advantage of those 12 hours.
So here you have it, my one amazing night in Tokyo, hour by hour:
2pm flying into Narita
3pm Narita Airport
First observation in Tokyo: their toiletry is awesome; their toiletry signage is even more awesome.
4pm Narita Express into Tokyo
5pm freebies at Shibuya hotel check-in I took five face towels – their exfoliating powers were ridiculous. This after rather blindly wandering the streets, trying to match up the Japanese lettering on the map with the Japanese lettering on street signs (and finding not one person who spoke a lick of English).
6pm mad dash to Harajuku…
…where, as expected, everyone looked over the top amazing. The photo above is by far not the best outfit we saw (though I would like to point out that this person’s hair, hat, bag, bag charms, and sneakers all matched). But it’s the only photo I managed to take that is not completely out of focus because I’m trying so hard to not get caught taking photos.
7pm mad dash back to Shibuya in time to meet the in-laws for dinner
My brother’s wife’s parents were coincidentally in Tokyo at the same time as me for a conference, so we met up for dinner. The hotel recommended a place that seemed boring but on the way we passed a narrow, packed izakaya (sort of like a pub) that looked fairly amazing from the outside and was ridiculously incredible on the inside. The employees were all women who were utterly wacky and found every possible excuse to jump up and down, clap wildly, and put on googly eye glasses. The food was fantastic, our sign-language communication was hilarious, the atmosphere was giddyness-inducing, and I began to become unhinged with joie de vivre.
8pm We are presented with a specially decorated dessert plate
The extra m in “comming” took me right over the edge and made my heart do flip flops.
9pm walking through Shibuya Crossing
Supposedly the busiest intersection in the world. On the green light, everyone crosses every which way at the same time.
10pm caffeine break near Shibuya Crossing
Note the masked woman in the upper right. About 1 out of every 20 people in Tokyo was wearing a face mask. Though hacking up a lung, I was not. This made me slightly self-conscious. (Although I couldn’t figure out if the masks were to keep sickness in or to keep sickness out.)
11pm pachinko in Shibuya Tyler and I said goodbye to Jim and Judy and headed back out to wander among the Saturday night crowds. We passed a pachinko place and thought we’d have a go, but we came in about five minutes before they closed and they would not let us play. 😦
12am back in Harajuku en route to Shinjuku
With all night to kill, we decided to head back to Harajuku to properly check it out. In any case it was on the way to Shinjuku, our destination for karaoke. We asked a group of 20-somethings how to walk to Shinjuku and the only one who spoke a few words of English answered, “Walk?! No! No!” and mimed driving. We insisted, “Yes, we want to walk, we have all night.” He then bugged his eyes out of his head and shouted, “Walk??! AMAZING!” as he leapt into the air like Gene Kelly. Then they all started dancing and jumping around. I was starting to notice a very appealing trend…
12:30am pit-stop in Yoyogi
We stopped in to a 24-hour pharmacy so I could buy tissues (my nose was running like a faucet and my laryngitis had gotten so bad that I could barely whisper.) We ended up talking/whispering abut baseball and universities with the cashier, Kazu, who had been a high school exchange student in the Twin Cities and was now studying to be a CPA while working nights. He was the only person we met in Tokyo outside of the airport who spoke more than six words of English. (Which is not to complain – I speak about eight words of Japanese, four of which I learned while there.) We had a lovely conversation that catapulted me to very dangerous levels of heart-swell.
1am Karaoke Kan / the best four minutes of my life
Crashed a karaoke session with the plea, “We’re here from New York for one night, can we sing with you?” To which they all started jumping wildly up and down and clapping. (To which I started jumping wildly up and down and clapping.) They told me to pick the song so of course I chose my karaoke standard. And then a miracle happened. Much like the Hanukkah lamp burned for eight days even though there was only enough oil for one, my singing voice came out for four minutes even though my speaking voice had been MIA for two days. We sang as though we had known each other forever, and I was transported with joy.
There’s video. I love it so, so much.
2am Halloween in Shinjuku
It was only October 19 so it was strange to see so many people in Halloween costumes. An ex-pat from England explained to us, “They love Halloween but they don’t really know what day it’s on so they just celebrate for the whole month.” I LOVE THIS PLACE.
3am admiring the view from the top of the Shinjuku Park Hyatt
We walked in like we owned the place, took the elevator to the penthouse, and entered a cavernous, completely dark, completely silent, completely empty lounge with floor to ceiling windows commanding 270 degree views of Tokyo. Having the place all to ourselves to just stare out at the vast city was pretty great.
4am all-night automat in Yoyogi
We started back to Shibuya. Halfway there, we stopped at a 24-hour ramen place with a Nighthawks feel. It was empty except for 3 middle-aged besuited men who at first glance I took to be businessmen but then realized were security guards on lunch break. Tyler chose something at random from the automat machine because there were no pictures or English translations on the buttons. He handed the receipt to the cook, who made what turned out to be a bowl of ramen with a big piece of tempura in it. I didn’t bother trying my luck because about 99.99999% of the food in Japan has soy sauce in it, which contains gluten, which makes it off limits for me. 😦
5am sushi and hibachi in Shibuya
Back in Shibuya we tried to find a place where I could eat something, anything, but I got turned away at three places where they had literally no food that didn’t have soy sauce in it. Even the side order of egg was boiled in soy sauce at one place. Even the corn somehow had soy sauce in it! I was about to give up when we saw a restaurant on the corner that looked so hopping I wouldn’t have minded just sitting in there sipping green tea. But lo and behold they had sushi and Japanese barbeque, so I went nuts. I think I ordered three entrees. And it was so good. So good. I managed to eat incredibly well in Tokyo despite not being able to consume their most common ingredient.
The restaurant was packed with people who had also stayed out all night. A guy in the group next to us asked in very broken English where we were from. Tyler said, “New York.” He grinned from ear to ear and shouted, “New York! Cool! Cool!”
6am selfie as the sun comes up
I was very proud of myself for staying out all night. And very, very, very intoxicated with living.
7am back to Narita
I half-jokingly decided to buy a Japanese mask for myself because my hacking had gotten out of control since I used lung capacity I did not have for karaoke. I bought a pink one that looked and felt like a maxi-pad. It was surprisingly comforting except that every time I breathed or laughed, my glasses fogged up.
And then we were back in Narita, and then back on a plane, and then back in New York.
It’s so surreal to spend one brief night somewhere halfway around the world but have that night be so intense and many-splendored that it leaves a lifetime’s impression.
I hope to get back to Japan one day. It rocked my world.
So much to say about the Philippines but I will start with this thought: I love staying in a place long enough not only to observe the little things that are culturally different but also to discern which of those things are ubiquitous and truly significant. When you spend enough time to notice something over and over again, it makes you feel you are getting to know the culture on more than just a surface level.
For example, one day we drove past kids playing basketball on a roadside court surrounded by wilderness. I wasn’t sure if it was an anomaly or a thing. Within a few days I realized the courts are everywhere (everywhere in the middle of nowhere). Apparently Filipinos love basketball and they also love putting their courts in the most random places (including on an actual road, so that we had to drive through the court to get where we were going).
In no particular order, here are 11 things I saw everywhere during my 11 days in the Philippines:
AFFECTIONATE SCHOOLKIDS
The boys all walk home with their arms around each other’s shoulders and the girls hold hands or link elbows.
TUK TUKS (WHICH THEY CALL TRICYCLES)
There are so many scooters in the Philippines, and most seem like they are being used as taxis. They load them up with a death-defying number of people til they look like clown cars, with multiple people riding on the seat behind the driver, multiple people in the sidecar, and multiple people on the roof of the sidecar holding on to one measly handlebar.
VULCANIZING SHOPS
I kept seeing tires on the roadside advertising these shops. I realized I have no idea what vulcanizing means. Apparently it is what you do to patch holes in tires.
SODA BOTTLES FILLED WITH FUEL
I first assumed they filled Coke bottles with a homemade punch-like brew but later learned it is actually gas for all the scooters.
STORES WITH THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD NAMING CONVENTION EVER
I found it hilarious that most stores took a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach to their names: the first word was the person’s given name, the second word was the type of store. Everywhere I looked it was Louisa’s Bakeshop or Fernanda’s Store or even just Mary Store, no apostrophe needed.
EYE CANDY JEEPNIES
These mini-busses are franchises, so the driver can decorate the vehicle to his liking. The results are amazing. (Also amazing: riders climb in the back wherever they happen to be when the bus passes by.)
KTV BARS
KTV = karaoke
MILLIONS OF DOGS ROAMING FREELY
(Not to mention freely roaming water buffalo, and hogs, and goats, and ducks, and chickens…)
CHICKEN ARROZ CALDO
Traditional breakfast porridge that was a gluten-free god-send. Not pictured because I liked mine no frills: the tiny limes (called calamansi), fried garlic, and green onions usually sprinkled on top.
THE AFOREMENTIONED BASKETBALL COURTS
PINT-SIZED BANANAS
And one more for good measure:
REMNANTS OF SPANISH COLONIZATION
I noticed just a few Spanish words and culinary influences, but the most visible evidence of the former Spanish presence were the grand old cathedrals cutting a strange and imposing figure in the midst of hut villages.
A few other things I didn’t get photos of:
A million Jollibees, the McDonalds of the Philippines (and to my chagrin, the welcome signs to villages were often printed on signs featuring the bee)
Garlic rice – i.e. rice with fried garlic chips in it – served with everything
Freestanding shrines with statues of Mary in them
Frogs hopping along the roads at night
Laundry drying on lines and over fences
Rice paddies
Rain, rain and more rain (it was rainy season)
And the more abstract things you can’t really capture on camera:
A predilection for sweet-tasting everything
Lots of religious faith
Air fresheners that smelled like chemical lemongrass and made me nauseous
talk foreign to me 