Clark travels the world

2011-08-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

After my awesome night at the Delirium bar in Brussels, where they claim to have 2004 available beers (this number is terribly over inflated, but they still have more than you can imagine) it was back to the hotel. Luckily I'd met an awesome couple from San Francisco who were also enjoying the fruits of belgian farmers and laborers in fermented form. They were staying in a hotel close to my own and so we three set off back toward our respective hotels. Along the way I saw some guys running around actin' a fool, but it was 3 AM, so I decided to join in. These guys were from DRC (not republic of the congo which is the home of at least one of cologne's lesbians) but the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I wondered what they were doing in Belgium, given Belgium's less than spectacular recent history with that region of the world, but nonetheless, they were running around like idiots, and at least half a dozen brilliantly good, highly alcoholic beers, and a pari of new friends later, I decided that it was a good idea for me to also join in the fun! So I made a joke about the one guy who tripped and allowed his pursuers to catch him. I think I said something to the effect of "He's not ethiopian, he's slow." Although it's possible I said "he's retarded." They thought that was funny. Maybe it's because I called the guy who could clearly kick my ass retarded, or maybe because they were all drunk too, or maybe because I'm retarded. Any way you look at it, fun is sure to happen next!

So they saw a nice american girl who was clearly not afraid of them and they flirted with her a bit, she smacked their asses and made more jokes about them, although in english, so I'm not sure they were understood. We 8 walked and talked for a bit and then alas we all parted ways. The Congolese to the right, the couple to the left, and myself straight ahead. I got to the hotel around 3:30 AM and there was a guy standing outside saying "it's blocked." He was saying this in French, and my french is extremely limited, so I asked him what was happening. His English is extremely limited and he told he "it's no possible. Blocked." He was the hotel night attendant and had managed to lock himself out. I asked where he was from and he said algeria, so I had to fumble badly through arabic and french to procure what had happened. In the meantime a couple from Spain came along, and while they claim to speak english, I think they only understand english. Basically their english is about twice as good as the normal chicagoan's spanish. They were, of course, really upset by the situation. I had to hear about how in Spain this situation would have been rectified quickly, etc.
It was not very fun.

Basically what had happened was that the night attendant was careless, took out some garbage and the sliding doors shut behind him. Of course, from the hours of 10PM-6AM those doors lock automatically. This dude is a total newb. Anyway, I got tired of hearing him trying to call people in the middle of the night and the spaniards (rightly) complaining. I was not really in the mood for conversation as I wanted water and sleep. I couldn't get water, as everything was closed, and I had no bathroom access, so the best I could do was sleep. So I found a nice little spot between two cars parked in the closest parking lot, put my jacket down on the concrete and drifted off to "paradise." I slept about an hour, which is how long I was told it would take for someone to show up. Of course, having dealt with middle easterners and arabs a lot during my life, I knew that was just a number given to us to placate us and assuage us. And so it was, 5:30 in the morning, still locked out. The sun was already coming up and so I took a gander at the nice quiet streets of brussels near my hotel. Finally at 5:55AM I got into the hotel, someone inside had awoken and came downstairs and so we four were let in. I got to bed at 6. Woke up at noon. I got no apology and compensation at all, just an explanation in french that the night attendant had locked himself out. Lame. But, for what it's worth, the hotel was cheap, in a great location, and I'd probably stay there again, but would be a bit more cautious when returning.

A short trip to Belgium

2011-08-06T05:25:00.000-07:00

Being in southwest Germany, it is in fact a moral obligation to go to beer mecca. No, I don't mean Oregon, California, Washington, or Colorado. I mean Belgium. Basically, everyone (except Germans) know that Belgium makes the world's best and most unique (native) styles and beers. For goodness sake, I named one of my cats after a brewery in Belgium. I have not been to Belgium since I was able to drink or liked beer. So, if I didn't make it this time, I would be more than remiss. In fact, I would be a bad person, and in need of seeking absolution from the beer gods.

So I went. From Cologne it's really not very far. About 1.5 hour train ride including crossing a border. I got to Brussels, with only one day to spend and didn't even have a hotel booked. So I stepped off the train, with no map, no hotel, and no knowledge of brussels except a few travel articles I'd read and a fervid love of all things ale. First of all, however, I decided a little sightseeing would be in order. I got into Brussels central train station and walked out acting as if I knew what the hell I was doing and found the main cathedral. So I walked about 250m to the cathedral and checked it out. I love stepping into cathedrals. They are always beautiful, impressive, and usually well temperature controlled, as well as quiet. If you need a break from wherever you are, step into one. They are nice. Sadly for me, before I had enough time to orient myself, it was 6PM and I had to leave the cathedral. It was hot outside. Brussels, is known for being cold and rainy, and for the two days I was there, wouldn't you know it... It was upper 80s and sunny! The beer gods had smiled on me. I set out to look for a place to sleep. Before that, however, I decided to get a crepe and a beer. Orval at the little creperie. This must be heaven! I sat down in a park and picked up someone's unlocked internet connection long enough to search out a couple small B&B places and set out to stay in one of them. Some of them no longer exist, don't rent in the summer season (because the owners are elsewhere I suspect), or are full. Finally I found one. It was a nice cheap €45/night and I took it. I had my own private bathroom and was conveniently located for walking anywhere in central brussels.

I went to my room long enough to shower and look at a map. Enough time there, I have some beer to drink, and mussels to eat! A quick stop by the Mannekin Pis (little pissing boy) and then toward the Delirium Bar! I found the Delirium bar and saw that it is open until 4AM everyday and decided eating a huge pot of mussels would be a good idea before indulging in what would promise to be a very long night. In Central brussels, there is a small district replete with seafood restuarants, each serving shellfish towers, mussels, frites, and lots of beer.

A quick aside, I was shocked that every little kiosk and convenience store in Brussels sells nearly 100 varieties of beer. Brussels only has two functional breweries left. In the greater area, of course there are more, but every little shop in brussels sells as many as they can possibly stock on their shelves.

I went to one of the closer food stalls (restaurants if you like) and ordered burgundy snails and a pot of mussels in white wine. The snails were slightly overcooked and a touch rubbery, but that butter sauce was to die for! The pot of mussels was like ordering mussels for 3. I couldn't even finish the mussels themselves, forget the frites. I did eat some of the frites because they are delicious, but only a couple. I had to save room for the beer! Finally I made my way to the delirium bar, which was utterly overrun with foreign tourists smoking and having a grand old time out in the alley, but I waited it out. I found my niche and was able to mostly disguise the fact that I'm an american by ordering beers that the bartenders had trouble finding. I was proud of that. The rest of the night, that a story for another entry...

Hilden

2011-08-06T05:02:00.000-07:00

After just a little over a week in Köln, Nasim's apartment lease was up and she'd rented an apartment in a town named Hilden. It's just outside Düsseldorf, but on the Köln side on things. Quite convenient if you ask me. First of all, it will force me to learn a bit more German as people in Hilden are far less likely to speak English than those in the major cities. Second, the trains to either major city are frequent and relatively cheap. I should also mention, the trains are fast and efficient. I quite like it so far, but it seems a bit isolated. Things do close early, and there isn't a large culinary selection, but everything is within walking distance, and the apartment is on the "far south" side of town, meaning city center is 15 minutes by foot. I wish I could find a brewery that serves a big bold beer that pairs well with indian or turkish food. I think I'm going to have a hard time with that in Hilden. But I just need to keep reminding myself that two major cities are less than an hour away by train.

Leg two of Beer Pilgrimage: Complete

2011-07-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

As I may have mentioned a few (hundred) times before, I don't really love Kölsch beers. However, learning a few interesting facts about them recently, has allowed me not to be so harsh. Asking around I had heard or several brauhuas operations that produce and sell Kölsch on tap in Cologne. Being a beer with a PDO I had to find one. After catching up on my missed episode of Masterchef (USA) (it's totally a guilty pleasure) and seeing all the delicious pork dishes Nasim and I had a hankerin' for some (how can I say anything in this line that isn't an obvious "that's what she said" joke or completely unapologetic sex euphemism?) pork.
We had met up earlier that evening with some of Nasim's friends in Cologne and some of their visitors as well. They were traveling the next morning, and so they left us to our own devices early on.
After wandering around a bit we magically stumbled upon Päffgen. This is supposedly the best Kölsch beer brewed in Cologne. Lucky for us, the kitchen was still open
(Ist der Köche offen? - best I could muster) and the beer was flowing.

Pork, Potatoes, and fresh Kölsch from the tap at the brewery, yes please! It was awesome. I drank 4 (little glasses) which is more than I can say I've ever drunk any beer that I "don't like." After all was said and done I'd had slightly less than two pints, a good warm-up, but alas the night was over. I enjoyed that beer greatly. The brauhaus, however, really made the experience wonderful (of course I had nice company too). The main hall is how the vikings described heaven. A huge old wooden room, with long tables and gentile folk happily eating large plates of delicious heavy food, and sipping endlessly from glasses of beer. And, of course, if you're in Cologne and you don't cover your glass with your coaster, you're surely getting another!

Party at the JunkYard

2011-07-31T14:20:00.002-07:00

I haven't partied with 18-21 year-olds that hard since I was about 18 myself. While in Cologne, Nasim had made a few friends. Most of them international, but a few Germans as well. One friend called up on a Wednesday and said there is a party tonight. I said "great, let's go." As the hour came closer and closer, things got murkier and murkier. I didn't know where the party was. The guy who'd invited us, didn't exactly know where it was, who hosted it, the time, or anything that you might expect from someone who'd invited you to a party. This had trouble written all over it.

Our initial plan was to meet at 8. We ended up meeting up around 9 and I still wasn't told where we were going. Unlike India, Germany is not exactly a place where you simply go when someone says, let's go. Germans are far too organized for that. I was eventually told that we needed to take a train from the main train station. What the hell was the point of meeting at the main train station at 8 then? Argh! I was getting irritated. After we took the train, I heard we were going to Pascha. In case this word is unfamiliar to you, Pascha is the name of the big disco in Ibiza. The european party capital. It appears that many European cities in fact have a place called Pascha. Even in Chennai, there is an embarrassing attempt to replicate a Pascha. In Germany, of course it's a three-story strip club and disco and restaurant. Whatever...

So the party wasn't at Pascha. Although, I guess it was nice to walk by and see pictures of topless women on the way. The party, it turns out, was a "public" party. I have no idea what that means still, but that night it meant paying an entrance fee. I'm generally opposed to going places that charge covers, but this seemed a bit different. If nothing else it would be a good story!

The "party" was completely bizarre. I'm not certain, but my guess is that I was the oldest person in attendance, including security, DJs, bartenders, and attendees. We ended up in an enormous junkyard across the road from Pascha with about 1200 teenagers and early 20 somethings. Everywhere we turned was some "trash-sculpture." I don't mean that the art itself was bad, but rather made from trash. The toilets were an interesting situation. They were up on a platform and paid entrance. Additionally, we had to buy tickets to buy beer or shots of the ubiquitous and ever-popular jagermeister... Teenagers and early twenty somethings are a bunch of lightweights. Rather, they know NOTHING about pacing or hydrating. I also think early twenty-somethings expect to act drunk if in fact they are drunk. Whereas, I know that if you really want to get drunk, make sure nobody thinks it's time to cut you off!

In any case, we did some dancing, and heard some euro-techno and some bad hip-hop and some goth-rock. It was unusual to say the least. Come to find out this place is a gallery or something for a sculptor named Odo Rumpf.

Black Swan v. Old Brown Dog

2011-07-31T14:20:00.001-07:00

While staying in Velbert with more family I found a new friend. His name is Milo and he's an enormous brown dog. His owner/keeper told me he "weighs" 58 kilos. Which "translates" to 128 pounds. Sadly, since his family had a baby, he hasn't been able to get as much attention as he wants. He sits with his frowny puppy face at the window looking in on the children playing. From what I'm told, he gets along really well with the children, but he's enormous and the baby is small. The family rightly understands that this dog could eat their child. Anyway, Milo stays outside and doesn't get as much attention as he probably should. I should note, that he is fact a well cared for dog. He's very healthy and the family loves him, but he COULD eat their baby.

Anyway, as I get bored a little hanging out with middle eastern folks for hours and hours on end waiting for nothing to happen and not being able to converse because I don't speak any middle eastern langauges (except enough arabic to get myself into trouble). So I asked if I could take Milo for a walk. Of course, he went nuts, he started jumping on me. Nearly 130 pounds is heavy when a dog is fast and can jump really high. Anyway, I calmed him down for 3 second, enough to get his leash on, so he wouldn't run off, or if so at least he'd simply be dragging me.

As we started down the road, it was drizzling, but Milo was so excited; he was smelling stuff and peeing on things. Good dag activities. Of course, he was nearly dragging me. Forget that I significantly outweigh him; in every other athletic category he's a lot stronger. So I went along for a walk. Had I had roller skates, it would have been a dandy morning jaunt. Just a few hundred meters (or yards is you prefer) down the road there was a little fenced in area where ostensibly birds come to bathe in a man made pond, and have a quiet area where people and dogs won't bother them. Sitting in the pen was a large black swan. At first Milo saw the bird and walked away. He made a little detour to the other side of the road so as to not have a confrontation. This bird I should mention was probably only 20 to 30 pounds. Yes, Huge for a bird, but not very big compared to the dog. I thought it was rather amusing, but Milo seemed to think less of it.

So we went for a little stroll further, beautiful community gardens with a very German feel. In fact, it looked more like a series of cottages with lawns, except that the cottages were small storage spaces and the lawns were flower and vegetable gardens. Velbert, it bears mentioning, is an extraordinarily wealthy little community. Think Winnetka to Chicago is like Velbert to Düsseldorf.

As we turned around to head back toward the house the mood of the walk changed from Milo dragging me to me dragging Milo. I discovered for a third time that day how strong a 130-pound dog can be. Surely enough we passed the swan again. This time as Milo was lagging behind he saw the swan take an interest in me and so Milo thought he'd check out the bird. Luckily, the two were separated by a fence, which I believe was high enough that Milo couldn't jump over it without a dog trampoline. As soon as Milo came close, the swan quickly turned its attention to the dog. A showdown began!

They stared each other down for nearly half a minute. When Milo finally moved, he approached the bird (probably to make sense of the bizarre smell of this bizarre creature) the swan responded by perching up, sending his neck straight and head high, puffed his chest, opened his wings slightly, and angled his head down directly at Milo. I have to say, it was intimidating. Intimidating enough, indeed, to make Milo put his tail between his legs and walk away without a nice goose dinner. Now that's what I call excitement!

Gay City Cologne

2011-07-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

I had heard before setting foot in Cologne that it is Germany's "gay capital." I haven't seen it too much, perhaps it's because it doesn't phase me like it used to. Although, it's also possible that I'm not looking for it or that the distinction might be a bit overblown, or that all the gays have gone on a magical vacation for summer to some much nicer warmed place, while Germany is cold like October (and no Oktoberfest beers either).

Over the last few days, however, I have been noticing some "activity." I think what has happened is that I got out of the hipster neighborhoods and went to old city and a few parks, and nicer areas slightly off the tourist path(s). I have also noticed that in comparison with lesbians there are very few gay male couples. Sure I've seen a half dozen or so (3 in the same park on the same day), but not as many as lesbians.

Sadly, my German language skills are not quite up to snuff enough to ask about being a homosexual in Europe. I think it's entirely a good thing when a society is open enough to have "deviants" (more on that later) accepted in its masses. The statistics in the United States show overwhelmingly that gay male couples do far more for their communities at large than their straight counterparts. (Pardon me for not citing exact references, but I can look them up for the interested reader, of which I think there might be one.) Nonetheless, I find the people in Cologne to be overall very friendly and I think this is related to two things:
1) Dom is awesome
2) It gained the reputation of gay capital for being a tolerant city.
I find Kölners don't begrudge me for not speaking German, and are usually happy to volunteer info about their city. They are also happy to volunteer their opinion that Düsseldorf sucks. I respectfully disagree, but it seems to be more like a Portland-Seattle rivalry. I'm not picking sides just yet.

The people of Cologne love their city, and I think they have a lot to love. I'm at least that happy with Chicago, but I know I'd be even happier if gay couples were just an accepted part of normal society. I will save the Republicans for gay marriage and adoption rant for later as well as most of my political musings which essentially interest only a handful of unfortunate souls.

Kölner Dom

2011-07-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

Cologne's Cathedral is impressive. It's super-duper impressive. I was just in New York a few weeks ago and had the chance to visit the Cathedral of St. John the Divine up near Harlem, which is supposedly the largest (physical) church in the United States.*

That is, a church that was built as a church and not the monstrosity that is Joel Osteen's Houston Rockets former arena.

St. John the Divine is big, enormous, huge. It's far larger than the better known St. Patrick's cathedral, which of course belongs to the Catholic church. None of that matters. Dom is much larger. It reaches nearly 230ft in height, but what's far more impressive is that its construction was begun in the year A.D. 1248. Note, that is not a typo. As frequent as typos are in this blog, that year is not.

A.D. 1248
In the year of Our Lord Twelve Hundred and Forty Eight.

It wasn't fully completed until the 1800s. Wow!
I stepped inside just to have a gander. It is really something phenomenal. Honestly the most beautiful Gothic Cathedral I've ever seen. Just have a look at it's Wikipedia page Kölner Dom.
While this reveals some interesting history and facts and figures, the real thing is impressive. I want to climb up (inside) one of the spires soon. We were supposed to the other day, but got sidetracked by needing to return to meet the landlady mid afternoon.

Dom is such an important landmark and such a piece of the identity in Cologne that it is truly ubiquitous in this city. The zoo has worked it into its logo. There is a brand of beer called Dom Kölsch (a little sweet, but very pleasant, especially sitting in the grandeur of its namesake). The big musical theater/amphitheater is called the Cologne Dome. It's the site of the HauptBahnHof (main train station). Dom is everywhere in this city. It is used for all kinds of advertisements and having spoken to several Kölners now, it is apparent that they strongly identify with this landmark as part of their city. What's more, I've met a handful of people who have moved from other countries to Cologne in part because the cathedral this city such an identity.

Definitely worth seeing at least once!

Getting Setup in Germany

2011-07-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

I need a phone and regular internet access. The phone is less crucial, but helpful since I have a handful of people here I'd like to contact; most of them from my time in India, and of course, my hostess.

I am, I admit it, far too fond of the interwebs. I love my email, writing this absurd blog, and playing kakuro. The phone thing is easy. Nasim had already bought me a SIM card. I just have to recharge it. As it it, I've only received one phone call, and no texts. The internet thing is slightly trickier. I suppose the US has these surf sticks, but I think more homes simply have internet access. It is apparently very common in Germany to have a surf-stick with a SIM card that gives internet access through the cell phone towers. It's kind of brilliant actually, especially for a traveler spending any significant time in one country. I only paid €19 for the stick, and I got 5 days free access. After that, it's just buying data. I think there is a monthly plan for something like €25. That's great, because I can surf on the trains now, go to coffee shop, wherever. If I need to look up something while traveling, I don't need to find someone with a smart phone, I've got my actual computer.

The rub comes in getting the Surf Stick. As you may be well aware, Germany is extremely organized and most people are either no nonsense or low nonsense when it comes to money or property or any sort of economic or security matter. In order to get a surf stick, this poor sale's guy had to fill out an inordinate amount of red tape which included filling out at least two pages worth of info on my passport, visa (luckily I don't need one in Germany), who sold me the device, the contract, etc... It took quite a while, in fact nearly half an hour just to hand me a surf stick and send me to the cashier. Yeesh. That's ok, I got it, and I'm online now.

I don't have a railpass or even a eurail pass, but I think it might be a good idea to get one for the month of august. It seems several big trips are coming up.

First Kölsch Beers

2011-07-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

First, a note about what Kölsch beers are exactly.
In order to properly be called a Kölsch beer in Europe, a beer must be made in the metropolitan area of Cologne. That is to say, this is a protected denomination beer, at least as far as Europe is concerned. It's quite light, a bit effervescent, pale in color, and top fermented.

I thought I knew a lot about beer, but the PDO bit and the top fermented bit surprised me. Basically, every beer made in Cologne is 4.8% alcohol. That's the way they do things here. Another fun thing here is that most Kölsch beers are served in little 0.2L glasses. If you want another, do nothing. If you want to stop, simply put you coaster on top of your glass. If you get another, the waitstaff will simply make a mark on your coaster. At the end of the night, they pick up your coaster, count the marks and multiply by €1.50.

As far as the beers go... I have to admit, Kölsch is probably my least favorite style of beer, whereas I really like Alt beer. Alt beer, it should be noted is from Düsseldorf, and the two cities really hate each other, despite being only 40 km apart.

Quick aside, Düsseldorf plays in the second league of Bundesliga, and Köln in the premier division. For a few years Köln was relegated and Düsseldorf was on their schedule. For the first match, the stadium completely sold out (a paltry 55,000 fans) and Köln had to hire 10,000 police on for the match specifically. Yoinks!

Anyway, back to the beer. I've only had a few true Kölsch beers in the states and they are all kind of bland. So I found that in Cologne there are over 50 different Kölsch beers brewed. I've been making my way through them kind of slowly. After less than a week, I'm kind of tired of them again, but I have found a few surprises.
Sion, is a bit sweet, but goes down nice and easy. I suppose on a hot day it would be even better. Mühlen is really shocking. It has light hints of tobacco and earthy flavors despite being as purely golden as the rest. Päffgen, is only served at the brewery, to my knowledge, and it the most highly rated Kölsch beer. I liked it, but it tastes a touch sour. Früh is too sweet, Reissdorf is too boring, Gilden is rather plain as well. There are several more and I will try them slowly but surely. At least they are light and served in small portions. If I don't really like it, I don't have much suffering and I also don't spend much money.

I will admit, however, that Kölsch beer is far better on tap, and I really want a hot day, so I can knock a couple back and experience them properly.

Other interesting Kölsch beer facts:
As I mentioned before Kölsch is top-fermented, technically making it an ale. It is then lagered for a short time to clean it up. So it's a bit of a hybrid style. Knowing that, it's exciting since it clearly predates the lager style brewing that has completely dominated germany for a couple hundred years. Also, a few Kölschs are brewed with wheat. This has only been allowed in Germany since 1913 when the Reinheitsgebot was revised (unmalted barley no longer allowed, yeast officially added to list of ingredients, cane sugar, and wheat are also allowed additives).

If a good hot day comes, I'll come on down to the brewing area and enjoy a few cold ones I hope.

Getting to Cologne

2011-07-29T02:52:00.000-07:00

After our one-day Frankfurt adventure we wanted to get back to Nasim's apartment in Cologne, but if you've ever spent time with anyone from the middle-east you'll know that leaving isn't as easy as, "Thanks for the great time, see you later." You have to stay, and chat, and stay some more, and chat some more, and go through the pleasantries of trying to leave for a while. We had decided that after picking up from a party that we'd like to take the 4PM train back to Cologne. No such luck. Our host had decided that 4:30 PM was a good time for shisha (arguilleh, gheylan, hookah; as you like). So we stuck around for a bit, more rain, smoking a pipe that our host had so carefully prepared for his guests. Finally, we all agreed that the 7pm train was the right one. So our hosts drove us to the train station at 6:55pm. Yeesh. Very middle eastern.

We made the train and set off for Cologne. About 90 minutes later we'd arrived and Nasim showed me the apartment she only has for a few more days before moving to another one. She lives in a nice part of the city, just outside the main central district, close to the university, so there is plenty going on. She also had bought a few Kölsch beers for me to try and they were patiently waiting in the fridge for me when I arrived. That was pretty great. We set off for the local bar (literally down the street) and tried a couple beers, got harassed by an extremely drunk, extremely regular local who I suppose didn't like us intruding on his bar. The other people in the bar came to our rescue and pulled him outside while a few others gave us loads of suggestions about what to see and do in Cologne. Off to a propitious start methinks!

First Activities in Frankfurt

2011-07-29T02:03:00.000-07:00

We flew to Frankfurt and I was informed that we were attending a 30th birthday party. I thought, AWESOME! A German Party my first night in Germany! I came to find out, that this was not a German party at all, but a party of foreigners, mostly Iranians in Germany. There were, of course, a few Germans there, but they explained to me the differences in the party. First of all, at a German party, there is no Persian pop music. Second, German parties often have a much higher proportion of men. Third, a German party will NEVER run out of beer (this is capitol offense number one). Fourth, you will rarely see a party where most of the people don't drink.

Another rough spot for the evening was the presence of rain. It had rained everyday I was in England, and my first night in Germany it rained, hard. In fact, it got really cold as well. It was July 25, and I could see my breath in the air. It was cold rain in the dog days of summer. Apparently, I'm experiencing unusual weather in Europe. Mind you, I'm not at all shocked by this. Somehow I have the good (mis)fortune of experiencing strange weather while traveling. I think I even wrote two other entries about it.

Well, the party was fun. It was an interesting first day in germany. I was at an iranian 30th birthday party with iranian food, girly drinks, cold summer, and finding myself completely lacking in any German language tools. The police came beause someone else had called it in. Apparently, the area in which we were, is a foreigners area. Very few actual Germans live in the area where we were in Frankfurt. But the Polizei showed up. One was a guy who had a shaved head and was wearing a long braided ponytail in the back. He looked really disturbing, so I stayed out of that action. We all went inside to continue the party of dancing and drinking "Tequila" and smoking "cuban" cigars. I eventually smoked my first cigar. I have to say, I didn't really enjoy it. I was told that it was a Cuban cigar, and the lure of something so exotic and illegal as an American excited me. It turned out it was some shit cigar made in the EU. I don't even know where the tobacco came from. It tasted like someone had added a spice mixture to the tobacco. I couldn't taste anything after that for a while. Not exactly what I'd envisioned for a "cuban" cigar. However, I guess I'm still in the clear with the US government. I apparently didn't even come close to a cuban. It is my understanding, that I'm a lot closer (in physical proximity) to cuban cigars when I'm in major cities in America than I was that night.

After a short night's sleep we got up and began the process of recovering from a party. It was raining again and we had to pack up a party tent, picnic tables, and chairs. Collect all the bottles, glass and plastic, make sure all the trash was in its correct bin, and eat the leftovers which were soon to go bad. All in a Sunday afternoon post-party recovery. What a interesting introduction to Germany!

The US Foreign Service

2011-07-29T01:45:00.000-07:00

Finally it was time to leave the old country and make our way down to Continental Europe. We had to do another day of traveling by, car ride, catch a train, catch another train, catch a third train, walk a lot, wait on a plane, catch another train, walk some more and finally arrive at our evening's destination. We made it from Duxford to Heathrow in splendid time. By that I mean enough time to check in, have a mooch, grab a couple of drinks, eat lunch, and try to blow our last few pounds left over.

As most of you know, airport food is usually dreadful, or terribly overpriced. We were lucky enough to find an airport restaurant that had Fuller's on cask, and good food. The price was not even terribly inflated. We lucked out. After we'd ordered food, I set out to have my last cask conditioned ale of my English trip, and as usual started chatting with the fellow next to me. He sounded American and so I asked him where he lived. To my surprise he said, "Moscow." After a short while we each returned to spend another pound or two, and we chatted a bit more. I invited him to our table as our gate hadn't been announced. He was on the same flight as we to Frankfurt and so we had time for a good ol' chin wag.

He told me his reason for living in Moscow was that he is in the US foreign service. He's a low-level diplomat. So I got into asking him how he got into that. His reasoning was basically that his wife had been a diplomat's daughter and wanted to travel more, as well as having her children grow up around the world. Pretty simple I suppose. Then he waxed on about the advantages and disadvantages of being in the foreign service. Apparently he loves Indonesia, but when you love a place, they are sure to move you. Moscow is roughly a two-year assignment and he has no idea where they'll send him next. I got to thinking, maybe I could be in the foreign service too.
So I went to the site "Is the foreign service right for you? I took the quiz, and apparently the foreign service is right for me. Nevertheless, I think I'm too much of an educator, mathematician, brewer, and straight-talker to join the foreign service. But perhaps one's mind is changed by signing up for it and working for the dept of state. I still think I'd like to brew professionally and take beer all over the world as an ambassador rather than having to (at times) stick up for policies with which I wholeheartedly disagree. But, as with many things I find while traveling abroad, the wheels have been set in motion...

The Queen's English

2011-07-27T02:26:00.000-07:00

Those of you who've had the (mis)fortune of hanging out with me at parties in the last couple of years know that I'm obsessed with languages (not as much as brewing, mind you, but languages nevertheless). Even listening to the radio I have a habit (good or bad depending on your stance) of repeating words that sound funny to me, and trying to nail the accent. I have had a particularly difficult time with what I call "the Australian 'o'." I suppose it's more of the 'o' that people in eastern Australia say, rather than something that is said out in the bushes, but I still can't say it correctly. British English, on the other hand, I've got a decent grasp on. I suppose listening to Chicago's relay of the BBC world service nearly every day has helped that along. While in Stourport and Bewdley my hosts said that they have strong regional accents there. To me they weren't that strong. It's not the London accent, but the english is fairly clear. I was informed, however, that my host in Duxford speaks the Queen's English, and is proper. This was good information. I had been working on a subtle British accent for the 8 days in England, and was told a few times that it sounded convincing. I even managed to pick up a few idioms that I hadn't remembered.

Here's a quick list of things Brits say and how they translate into American English.
Most of these, I suppose you'll all already know, but some are fun.

lift = elevator
flat = apartment
puncture = flat tire
chips = french fries
crisps = potato chips
bin = trash can
rubbish = trash
Can you make heads or tails of it? = Does it make sense?
chin wag = chat
loads = lots
mooch = mooch (if you're talking about a free loader)
mooch = look around (if you're browsing a store)
"We're just having a bit of a mooch"
mate = friend
jumper = sweatshirt
trainers = sneakers
pants = underwear
trousers = pants

It's fun to try to work those things into normal daily speech and keep your accent as American as possible. It begs funny looks, and often an explanation, but a funny one.

Anyway, back to the Queen's English. My host owns a wine store in Cornwall, is multilingual, and speaks perfect (Queen's) English. It was an interesting experience being in the birthplace of my mother tongue, and having learned it far better than the last time I visited. I can't quite decide whether or not the pacing of American English or British English is faster, and I can't decide which would be more difficult to learn for a non-native speaker. What I've landed on for the time being is that a non-native speaker of English who moves to the southeastern USA, or the far northern UK, will essentially have an impossible time learning proper English. Past that, I can't quite tell. I find the Queen's English imminently understandable, much in the way I find the quintessential "midwestern" accent understandable.
Perhaps while teaching next year I'll try and use only british idioms while using my "american" accent. Should be interesting.

Ale is the True and Proper Drink of an Englishman

2011-07-27T02:12:00.000-07:00

My last night in England for a while...
I was staying in Duxford with Nasim at one of her aunt's houses and just around the corner, we'd been informed, exists a very traditional english pub. That's right, the kind that closes at 11PM on Friday night. A bunch of cask ales on tap, English grub, low ceilings, and the works. This is a locals-only joint. Anyway, we trotted down there in the rain and sat for the last couple rounds of the evening. I had to get in my last,last,last fill of english ales before getting to continental europe where I'm having a much harder time finding ales. Kölsch bier is a slightly different story, but I'll get to that in good time. English ales, on the other hand are all very weak. Apparently, IPA to them means 3.8% alcohol. If you go to a microbrewery in the United States and you get a beer with less than 4% alcohol, chances are you're drinking "light" beer. The food is heavy, the beer is thin, I guess that's why they say the english drink so much. In order to get drunk off of english beer, you really have to exert yourself. I also suppose they've kept it that way since ale did save england from the plague. I guess I have no room for complaint.

As we were stepping out of the place at the late hour of 10:55 PM (I should rather say, "ducking out") I saw a cross beam at eye level with the words "Ale is the true and proper drink of an Englishman" painted in fading yellow letters. This made me very happy. I greatly enjoyed traveling around the British Midlands drinking lots of weak ales pulled from the cask. I shall return to England again and again. It is a wonderul thing that the beer renaissance has come back to europe. It's no longer American brewers who are looking toward the future and the past to make good beers.
If ale is in fact the true and proper drink of an englishman, then you might as well sign me up for being an englishman!

San Antonio United, an update

2011-07-26T15:56:00.001-07:00

So I followed the Gothia Cup from England where I had run into the U14 girls competing in the youth world cup. Proudly, they finished first in their group which was Girls' 14 Group 3 (of 21 groups!) and sadly lost in the first elimination round. I hope these young women learned a lot about traveling and will continue to be good sports ambassadors for the United States. If not, then I will not cheer for them (high stakes here).

Cambridge, England

2011-07-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize Cambridge was such a tourists' town. While spending a scant two nights in Duxford, England we had a day in between to go see Cambridge. I figured it was worth my while to see a university as old and prestigious as Cambridge. Furthermore, I wanted to look at it and feel no remorse for having shunned the opportunity to go there for a year before graduate school in the states. I feel mildly vindicated.

First things first...
We nearly got on the bus going the wrong way from Duxford as there was only one side with a proper bus stop. Luckily the bloke across the way pointed us in the right direction. We had a lovely hour-long bus ride on the top of a two-decker bus. About half the journey was through countryside, and the other half through small villages and cities. Upon arriving in Cambridge, we did our normal thing of setting out on foot to see what the hell is going on in town. Immediately I was drawn toward some strange, yet familiar sounding music. I saw a guy with a long lock of hair, wearing some bizarre "ancient" clothing and a group of similarly dressed (and apparently like-minded) folk playing strange old instruments. The aforementioned first guy, ostensibly the leader of the band, was playing what I can best describe as a two-neck guitar wherein one neck had 6 strings and the other 8. It had a higher pitch and terribly different timbre than a guitar, but he played it as if he were playing rhythm guitar for The Who. I think the band was called PenKelt. I'll check back in with you on that one. We sauntered on into town a little further and stopped in to see the Great St. Mary's. Honestly, while it was beautiful, it really was just another grandiose church in Europe. There are so many big ass churches everywhere on this continent. I really wanted to see King's college, but it was six pounds fifty just to enter the chapel. I know John Rutter and Stephen Cleobury have been there, but honestly... 6.50 to go into another chapel which is literally across the street from the free one I just stepped into? Then I realized I couldn't go see anything at all without first going through the chapel, so I walked around the outside to ascertain whether anything interesting was happening inside or not. Apparently, it was a normal summer friday in king's college. We tried Clare College to, but to enter the lawn area was three pounds. Yeesh. All the meantime we were walking around getting harassed by poor university students trying to sell us punting tours. The punts by the way, are not dissimilar from the gondolas of venice. They looked ok, but in the end there are multiple walkways up and down the river running through cambridge, and they are FAR easier to navigate. In addition to all that, you don't have to wear a life jacket. So we walked around for a bit. Luckily we had nice weather for a few hours whilst still in jolly ol' england.

We sat down for a quick lunch across the way from King's which turned into a 90 minute ordeal where we had "traditional" english food served to us by Turks. In the meantime we met a retired parliamentarian and his wife. They were lovely, but I had a hard time hearing them over the clammer of the turkish waiters running around frenetically.

Later on the walk, some jackass with two pitbulls asked me for some change to help feed his dogs. So I begrudgingly gave him 20p which he promptly told me was not enough. We had a 5 second back and forth of me saying "I didn't have to give you anything" and him retorting "That's an insult brov" and throwing the coin back at me. I've never had someone throw money at me after asking for it moments before.

My overall impression of Cambridge was that it is a lot like New York or Paris with a fetish for music from the middle ages and japan. Also, all the street performers are erudite hippies who had some bizarre specialized skill possessed by only a handful of living people and perform for a few quid a day.

When we returned to Duxford, our host told me that this is called "the silly season" at Cambridge. It's filled to the brim with Asian tourists trying to make sure their sons and daughters are good enough to get into Cambridge. I wondered why I had seen so many Korean kids in identical track suits...

Beer Pilgrimage Leg One: Complete!

2011-07-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

Last night, being our last night in the Stourport area, our hosts wanted to take us out for a nice meal. If you know anything about England and its history as a dyeing empire then you know they have marvelous Indian food. So even though my hosts are Persian, they asked if I liked Indian food, not really remembering that I lived in Chennai at least for a bit. After a few months away from India, I got over my aversion to Indian food. I think the 3x a day curry got to me after 6 months straight. Luckily, that has passed, and I'm more than happy to indulge in ethnic delights from all over the world. We drove nearly an hour to a very tiny town named Lye (honestly). It reminded me of Devon Avenue in Chicago. Everything on this one stretch of road was Indian, Pakistani, Bengali, and some restaurants were even BYOB. Apparently, we'd been directed to the best restaurant on the strip. Even at 9PM on a Wednesday, they were packed and a party of 6 had a long wait (over half an hour). So they told us (and I'm not even kidding) "There is a great pub just down the way." So we set off for predinner drinks. Upon seeing the cask ale selection (10) I got very excited, but more exciting was the Goose Island IPA bottle in the fridge! I lost it, I got so excited and started exclaiming how I could actually give a demonstration to my hosts about how hoppy american beer really is. To those of you who actually drink American beers, and IPAs in particular you might know that Goose Island wins a lot of awards as an "english style ipa." Anyway, before I got ahead of myself, I saw a selection of 10 cask ales. They were all from a brewery name Sadler's. On the left was a stout, and down the line, malty, malty, malty, malty, and blammo! Right in the middle, a beer called "Hop Bomb." I seriously lost it. I ordered that straight away, and then took care of ordering the rest of the drinks for my hosts. It was the holy grail of english beer for me. Hoppy like and american ipa, cask conditioned, and served cold. Cask ales here in england are served a lot colder than they are in the states. I understand why americans THINK that brits serve their beers warm and flat, but that's just a mistake in the way we serve them in the states. My beer was frothy and cold and full of hops on the tongue and nose. Stupendous! I freakin' loved it. I passed it around for all my hosts to smell, and they all agreed it smelled "lovely" and "like flowers." I took a brief moment (I tried to contain my excitement) and explained why, in fact, it did smell like flowers. Then I had to do it, I went and bought the Goose Island IPA in england. The bartender told me that it was her brother's and her favorite beer. I was absolutely chuffed to bits. I passed that one around as well, and everyone agreed again that it was a beautiful beer. Thank you Goose Island for making an "English style" beer that the brits understand.

So there you have it, leg one of beer pilgrimage complete! I found cold, hoppy, cask conditioned english ipa in england.

By the way, the Indian food was also excellent and Nasim managed to smuggle the bottle of IPA to the restaurant. Wouldn't you know it, India Pale Ale, pairs well with Indian food.

Malvern Hills

2011-07-21T01:21:00.000-07:00

On our last day in Stourport-on-Severn our hosts asked whether we'd like to go see Birmingham or "hike" up Malvern Hills. My decision basically boiled down to the fact that I think of Birmingham, England like I think of Houston, Texas. They are both big cities with all the big city things, but nothing particularly special about either of them. Sure, Birmingham has shopping malls (no interest to me), sports teams, big confusing motorways, restaurants, pubs, theater, etc... But so too does Manchester, Newcastle, and every other big city in England. I voted for going to "hike." It should noted that our hosts commented on the fact that Malvern Hills are essentially that, hills. They are not really mountains and it only takes about an hour or so to climb up. There are, however, five peaks and so one could spend several hours bopping around from peak to peak catching some gorgeous views. It should also be noted, that this, being England, has a restaurant and pub at the top of the initial walkway just a few hundred feet from one of the summits. This place is called St. Anne's well. Supposedly it is holy, but I'm not sure to whom. It doesn't seem like a very Anglican thing to have holy water coming from a spring out of the side of a mountain, but it seems overtly catholic. Nonetheless, we got there about 4:30PM and the restaurant closes at 4PM, so we hiked onward and upward. Our views were damped significantly by clouds, but I repeat myself. This is, of course, England. Rain is expected everyday for the next 30 years until further notice. The weather forecast had said Wednesday was supposed to be sunny, but I knew better than to believe that. I take a much more Markovian view of the weather.

We started up one direction and some fellow "hikers" with guitars headed another direction. While we were taking a short break a discussion broke out as to how far Edinburgh, Scotland is from Birmingham, England. I guessed 200 miles, my host told me much further than that, probably 300 or 350. The "hikers" sitting near us ventured guesses each of 400 miles and 500 miles. Honestly people... The United Kingdom is not THAT big. I realized that I had completely underestimated the size of the UK. Much in the same way that many Europeans underestimate the size of the United States. Anyway, I looked it up and it's 246.02 miles give or take a few. Go figure, I was the winner (at least by price is right rules).

As we parted ways, one the hikers who'd been sitting next to us lit up a cigarette. I thought it was a bit odd, but after a moments whiff, I realized it wasn't tobacco, and things came much more into perspective. England seems to be much more relaxed about marijuana and much more uptight about driving.

We made it up to one peak and it was gorgeous. Forget the clouds, it really was a beautiful sight. We sat up at the top, had some snacks and it was actually cold at the top. The wind was relatively unobstructed and thus greatly affected the temperature gradient where we were. I can't name all the towns we saw from the top, but it reminded me once again of East Tennessee. There are certainly fewer hills here, but off in the distance you can make out a blue hue to the ground and rolling hills. I tried explaining briefly to my hosts what the blue ridge parkway is, but we were interrupted by some lamb and sheep in view on the next hill over. We finished our snacks and made our way over the the next hill to meet and greet (not meat) the animals only to find they were encapsulated by a very large electric fence (on which one should not whiz). Luckily, there is a gate with a posting saying, you are more than welcome to enter and hike up to the top, talk to the animals, etc. so long as you shut the gate behind you. We entered and attempted to pet the "cute little animals." They were having none of it. Every time any of us approached, they just scooted further along up the hill, leaving behind a patch of grass and another pile of lamb droppings. It was honestly like a mine field up there, but the consequences were much less severe. More like a shit storm. Anyway, after snapping a few record photos we were all cold and decided to head back down to the closest pub. Did I mention I love this country?

Heading down, was a lot more difficult than going up because of the stress on the knees. The views were still phenomenal, and coming down we were met by thousands upon thousands of ferns and bright purple flowers. Funny the only colors I can remember are green (really bright green), blue, brown, and purple. I suppose there were a few berry trees with a scant amount of red, but it was a somewhat unusual color combination, at least to my mind.

I'm glad we took the route of "hiking" rather than seeing Birmingham. I'm sure I'll make another trip back this way in the future, and hang out in Birmingham a bit more, but for now, I'm more pleased to have seen the scenery.

Stourport-on-Severn Part 2

2011-07-20T02:48:00.000-07:00

I have been enjoying the scenery here in Stourport greatly. From my hosts' home looking out the back window I see some lovely rolling hills full of trees. Of course, it's cloudy and grey, but never mind that. It really reminds me of home with the exception of the clouds. I remember being in Ireland in 2001 and thinking the same thing. I guess the original european settlers who had come to east tennessee recognized the geography was similar and decided it felt "enough" like home and settled there. I also imagine they soon realized that the weather was drastically better and decided they had made a good decision. Since arriving in England, the weather forecast has included clouds and rain everyday of our visit. Today is supposed to be sunny, but of course, it's mostly cloudy. At least no rain as of yet. I understand now why English people travel by magical umbrellas (brumbershoots here). It appears the king's singers' anglican chant of the weather forecast is pretty much accurate.

England: Rain is expected everyday for the next 30 years until further notice.

Stourport-on-Severn Part 1

2011-07-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

After a mostly restless night in the hotel with hilariously jet-lagged slumber we set off for Stourport-on-Severn. This is an area just southwest of Birmingham which is a short walk,train,train,train,walk,car ride away. In order to get here we walked about a mile to the nearest rail station. This was not the Underground, but part of the national railway service operating in the London suburbs. We took that to the underground, then the underground to London Euston station, then the national rail service to Birmingham New St. The whole ordeal didn't take that long, but it felt like a lot of effort and a lot of money to get to Birmingham. After that, we got a bit lost and couldn't get ahold of Nasim's aunt and cousin who were picking us up.

Another short drive and we had arrived. On the way we learned that Sunday night is the night to go out in Bewdley. Apparently Saturday night is only a suitable night to go out for the townies. Strangely enough, Monday night is also a night to go out. After going over an absurd amount of minor cultural differences and regional accents we arrived and had a bite to eat. I was hanging with Nasim's cousins who are 18 and 20 respectively, but are quite well known around Bewdley as it is a very small town. We showed up for SND (Sunday Night Drinks) at one bar and I found yet another wonderful selection of cask ales and asked the bar tender which was his favorite, to which he replied, "I don't know, I hate all ales." I felt punched in the gut a little. So I simply said, "give me this one, and went on my way." In the meantime I met another of the locals who told me he is heading to Columbus, Ohio. I asked him why he'd ever go there, and he told me for a job interview. Good Luck mate!

We decided to hit up another pub where there was pool. It was like miniature pool. The pool balls to so small, the bounced off the table half the time, so it made for some hilarious and awkward shots. After a few minutes (read, an hour or two), Karaoke started up! I haven't sung karaoke in a while, but at some point was told that I was required to sing. I asked if they had any Tommy Tutone, thinking it was a 50% chance that I'd be able to get out of it. Sadly, no. Within a matter of seconds the KJ had queued it up and I was handed a mic. Luckily for me, it's one of the few songs I actually know all the way through. I remembered something that my best friend had taught me at a house party several years back. When playing rock band or singing karaoke, YOU are the entertainment for that song. I had noticed some pretty good singers, so I decided I was going to be the entertainment instead of the words scrolling across the screen. So I did some crazy dancing (read, terribly bad dancing), air guitar solo, etc... Apparently I made a lot of friends last night! When I got set to leave, the bloke behind me insisted that I stay for another song. I noticed that all the singers were pretty good, but no one took it upon him/herself to dance. I don't quite understand why those willingly choose to participate in karaoke are unwilling to make themselves look like complete asses. Anyway, because of my apparent willingness to be publicly humiliated, I spared myself any criticism and made a few friends. Sadly though, when you make friends in Bewdley you are not immediately offered pints by new "friends." Last call, for alcohol, when left with a terrible ringing in our ears and I was stupid with exhaustion (having only slept 8 total hours in two nights). I crashed out and awoke with no glory, but no additional shame. All in all, a very successful first day in a little country town in England.

First Pints in England

2011-07-17T16:58:00.000-07:00

I had a few hours before needing to return to the airport to meet Nasim and so I decided it was about time for beer. The first bit of my beer pilgrimage is getting proper cask conditioned ales in the UK. The last time I was here was 2006 and had a relatively difficult time finding hand pulled ales. Luckily now, everything has changed. The Beer Renaissance in the United States has started affecting (or infecting) Europe! Wonderful news if you ask me! I decided upon traveling that I should try to go somewhere and see where it takes me. Where else? Warren St! I set out to take the tube that way. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your stance, the tube was shut down on the picadilly line from Boston Manor all the way until Hammersmith. So there was bus service to Hammersmith or Ealing Broadway. I just followed the swaths of people heading in a single direction happily herded along like sheep. I ended up at Ealing Broadway, and just hopped on the nearest underground station toward Warren St. After another two hour trip (noticing a trend here) I got to Warren St. I felt at home (sort of). I saw that Warren St was quite short and had a pub. Sold! Moreoever, the pub had a sign for Cask Ales in the window. My beer pilgrimage had begun! So I sat, ate a bit, drank several pints of cask ale and chatted up a fellow from Quebec City who'd just bought a town house near Tampa. He discussed with me his observation about how stupid American Politics and politicians are.

Notice to Americans... Our healthcare system is horrible. Even with the reforms set in place, it still pretty much stinks. What I've learned is that many other developed countries pay more in taxes, but the citizens don't think of taxes the same way we do. They tend to believe in the fact that their taxes are investments in their country. In the end, that buys them, free education (and much cheaper through university level), good roads, and healthcare which is orders of magnitude cheaper.

Nonetheless, I shall not wax further on about the intricacies and faults of America. I love it, with all its faults.

I got set for my 2 hour commute back to Heathrow to pick up Nasim. Eventually got back, but later than anticipated. Then we set out for traditional British pub dinner. Had proper fish and chips, shepherd's pie (with LAMB, not beef) and more cask ales. Set off back for another trip back out southwest and eventually made it to the hotel. A lot of traveling and moving around for one day, but I learned a lot about the London underground.

Just across the border

2011-07-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

After my slow process toward the UK border, I collected my luggage and set out to buy a SIM card and get some cash monies. I get to the SIM card vending machine and see a tall slim indian girl whom I recognize. I look at her for a moment, and she looks back. I, being completely exhausted from failure to sleep and over two hours of continual standing, I thought that I was just seeing things. So I simply asked, "Is your name Tanvi?" She said, "Are you Clark?" It turns out she was a student of mine 8 years ago at Northwestern during my first year of graduate school. I met her ma and pa, and discussed India for a few mintues. Found out they are going on a cruise of the Norwegian Fjords and made mention of a my beer pilgrimage and seeing a lady.

That was probably one of the most random traveling experiences I've had yet. In the end, we were both impressed with each other for remembering the other's name.

After a little confusion, I finally made my way to the hotel near the airport and checked in and took a nap. All you need to know about England, is that you should expect to spend a lot of money here if you expect to have any fun at all (said in england "a tall").

On the way to England.

2011-07-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

Alright folks, it appears my blog is back up for a few weeks by popular demand. That means a lot to me, really!

I took a direct flight from Chicago to London which was mostly uneventful except that I was sitting near an irish girl who'd been staying in chicago for 7 weeks. Usually, as most Americans know, Chicago is a sort of second rate destination city for travelers, so I was extremely happy to hear she'd chosen to spend her summer there. In the end, she told me she'd spent her time in Lincoln Park (an area I essentially avoid) and told me she missed out on all the things that I actually like in Chicago, and only partook of the things which I mostly dislike. Oh well, at least we had a few europeans enjoying chicago, I guess I can't complain too much.

In the meantime I spent a great deal of time waxing on about the many ways english speakers from different cultures say things. It was interesting for me, and me next seat friend told me repeatedly, "you spend way too much time thinking about that." Although, I did manage to procure a lot of information from her about several things she found bizarre about the United States. Principally, and this is no surprise to anyone who likes going out for drinks, is that 21 is the legal drinking age. She highly disapproved of this. She also seemed to dislike the fact that we don't say "bin" for "trash can." You know, the bin, where you put the rubbish?

Once in Heathrow Airport, I stood in the longest customs line I've ever been in. It literally (pronounced here, litrally) took me 2 hours to get my passport stamped. And that's just to get into the UK, hell really just England. But, while waiting I got to do some interesting exhaustion based people watching. There were two groups that stood out. First, a man with three wives who had them all wearing niqab. I kept wanting to see what happened when they actually got to the immigration desk to see if they had to show their faces. I missed it, but later after baggage claim, the man looked fairly calm. I can't imagine anything particularly exciting happened. But, I'm always a bit amused when muslim women have to show their faces. It's well known that niqab is not required, I can't help being slightly amused at it's principal according to islam. Nonetheless, that was the less interesting group of people. There more interesting group of people was a group of young girls all wearing matching soccer shirts and their parents. Apparently they are San Antonio United and they were passing through the old country on the way to Sweden for the Gothia Cup which is the youth world cup in Sweden. 84 teams, all the players very, very young. I was taken aback a little. Anyway, I wish them luck. They're first game is monday, and I'll try to keep up with it and update you, dear readers, here from the blog (back by popular request).

Finally made it through, almost lost my luggage, because all our luggage had been unloaded and sorted, and placed in a neat pile. My luggage, however, is really small. I've packed EXTREMELY lightly for 6 weeks travel. In any case, I recovered it and got set to get to the hotel to take a nap after my one hour of sleep on the place with seats too small for me to properly sit in.

Dax, France

2010-06-07T08:00:00.001-07:00

Where to go from Armagnac? It was an interesting dilemma. Sadly, getting to Barcelona or Madrid was nearly impossible. I was without a phone, and without a positive response from my friends of a friend in Madrid as to whether or not they were at home or if they had a place to stay. I tried to arrange some couch surfing and a van ride to barcelona to no avail. So what to do?

Step 1) Open up a big-ass map.
Step 2) Locate yourself
Step 3) Locate all the "resaonably close" places (athens is not reasonably close to gascony)
Step 4) Check Train/plane/bus schedules
Step 5) Go somewhere.

After this short amount of debate (in my head) the decision was clear.
San Sebastian, Spain is next up on my crazy euro tour.

How to I get there? Well, it turns out Dax, France has a car rental return and the train to San Sebastian is not far or expensive. Moreover, the train to San Sebastian runs nearly every 30 minutes. So down to Dax I go. I see that the next train leaves in a few minutes. Go to buy the tickets, success. Off to San Sebastian.

One small problem... The car rental return is not open. I forgot about that whole two hour lunch thing. So I go inquire about using my ticket for a later train. The guy says, no problem. I say excellent. But now I have to wait for several hours to return the car. Well, what should I do? Simple solution: Walk around Dax for a few hours.

What I found: Dax is a charming little town in southwest france. They love rugby and taking long lunch breaks. Beer, wine, and all manner of other french beverages are readily available. In addition, there are several beautiful little grocery stores selling fresh fruits, cheeses, and quality meats. Not realizing that the train was truly only 90 minutes to the border, a store got some business from me. I think the whole purchase was inspired by Jenlain Amber Biere de Garde. I FINALLY found my Biere de Garde. So off with my Biere de Garde, some camembert, some fresh greens, some bread, tomatoes, and some meat. Also had to buy a small knife. My total bill came to something like 15 euros. Not bad at all. The single sandwich + beer lunch at the local pub was about half that. So, I got to eat most of a loaf of bread and double the beer (not available at pub) etc. Had a nice lunch waiting on the car rental to reopen.

I decided I could live in Dax if a job became available. It's really close to Spain, really close to Armagnac, and on the ocean. Beautiful little town, in which life does not seem in any way rushed. My guess is that it's the sleepy little sister town to Bayonne or Biaritz which are just a little further down the coast toward spain.

A night with the kids

2010-06-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

It is possible that God was amused with my timing for my vacation. It seems that everywhere I went, the local place was on holiday. While it is certainly true that Europeans take vacations more liberally than Americans (which is a good thing), I didn't realize that everyone staggered their vacations in such a way. I have no way of knowing for certain (other than intuition, and mine is very bad) that Europe scheduled their vacations just to spite me. So it is. France has holiday until May 1. When was I in France? Until April 29... Labastide D'Armagnac was already quiet and sleepy, but I went when no one was there. No visitors, no locals, no one. Luckily, the Bouglons WERE there so I had a place to sleep. The single fortunate thing about being at Chateau du Prada during those days was the fact that the children (early 20 somethings) were there doing some maintenance on the estate along with several of their friends. So, on the second night in Armagnac I found all the kids sitting in the parlor directly adjacent to the room in which I was sleeping, listening to music, smoking, and generally having a gay time. So I joined them.

What ensued was an excellent evening. The oldest son speaks a touch of english. More than I speak French, so we got on just fine. He asked me, "Do you like Armagnac?" I wasn't sure if he meant the geographical place or the drink of the same moniker produced therein. So I asked which he meant, and he said, "the drink, of course." I told him, my whole reason for showing up was to drink some brandy. So he went and fetched a couple bottles that were "just sitting around." When he returned he was carrying two bottles, one a 1992 Colombard and a 1994 Folle Blanche. I was amazed at these bottles that were just sitting around. I'd already consumed way too many armagnacs that day, and here he was with two more amazing bottles. So, what to do? That's right, drink up. In the meantime, I'd collected on my travels, some brandy from Lebanon, and was also carrying around some of my own moonshine. So I made a paltry offer in return. What struck me as extremely odd was the fact that the kids living in a chateau famous for its distilled product were shocked that I knew how to distill on my own. So I let them taste and smell my 70%+ concoction. The consensus, "It's too strong." Well I KNEW that...

After we all got a little more tipsy and they kids all smoked a pack more of cigarettes the piano playing began. That's when I think I impressed them the most. Again, strangely, in a house with several beautiful old pianos, no one had taken much time to learn beyond that of a novice. Well, it was fine. In one sense I wish I'd stayed an extra night so I could hang with the kids once more, but alas, they were working, and returning back to school and other duties on May 1, and I was on vacation enjoying their hospitality.

Final, interesting thought. The eldest son of Baron Phillipe Bouglon does NOT speak his native Gascogne. I figured in a family as prominent as such that the language tradition would actually be carried down. But no. In Labastide D'Armagnac, Gascogne is a dying language. Therefore, I didn't get to learn any gascogne words or funny phrases involving drinking.

A Conversation with Martinne Lafitte

2010-06-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

Domaine Boigneres. I may have mentioned it (54 times). To my mind, it is clearly one of the finest brandy houses in all the world. It's offices... Right in the quaint village of Labastide D'Armagnac. Nice! I had the Bouglons call Martinne Lafitte and ask if I could stop by. She had some schedule to keep, which confused me, because nothing seems to go very fast in that part of the world. Nonetheless, she said I could come by at 4:30 PM. So I did. Funny enough, I showed up directly after visiting Chateau Briat. I had already had a few full servings of brandy and maybe a small glass (or two) of wine. Luckily for me, I made it safely back to Prada and was within a short walk (everything is within a short walk in labastide d'armagnac) from Boigneres. It turns out the vineyards are some 9km away from the actual office, which is simply Martinne Lafitte's house. I showed up and there was a gardener outside who pointed me to the front door. When Martinne showed up, she said in her extremely thick French accent "Ah, you want to taste!" Oh boy... It could have turned into a really rough time if I weren't concentrating so hard on trying to fumble my way through french and english as she did the same. Her english is stronger than my french. Thank God.

Out comes bottle #1, 1989. Oh my god, fantastic. We sit and chat, and I ask her everything I can possibly think of about brandy, whiskey, wine, beer, france, spain, her football interests, etc... It turns out, she actually doesn't know THAT much about brandy. What she knows is how to make a supremely good one. I suppose, when you have at your disposal (literally) hundreds upon hundreds of bottles of the finest ever made you don't need to worry about knowing everything about everyone else's brandies. No worries, she knows armagnac and cognac pretty damn well, and has favorable opinions about Spanish brandy. Good enough for me.

Second taste, 1984. Five years better than 1989.
Third tast, 1981. My birthyear. Apparently 1981 was a better year than I remembered...
Fourth taste, 1979. This was the disappointment of the lot. Basically, that was a really bad year for grapes in Armagnac. They only had a good yield of ugni blanc grapes. In case you don't know, Ugni Blanc are the grapes from which Cognac is primarly made. It is part of the big difference in the styles. Ugni Blanc are mostly boring, flat grapes, that distill well in pot stills. In column stills they are used to fill in gaps in other grapes. But to throw them into a column still alone, and allow that to be 1979's brandy. Well, it wasn't as good as 1981.

Fifth Taste, 1976. Complete obliteration is upon me, but I'm still hanging in there letting my taste buds have the ride of their life and making my brain work to keep up my french. At this point, Martinne started telling me a story about a man who'd grown folle blanche (armagnac's pride of grape varietals) in california and had made an armagnac style brandy. She said it tasted good, but there was no terroir. I was amused, sort of. I do NOT have the sophistication to taste the difference between distilled grapes on the basis of location. Varietal, sometimes, location, definitely not. This brandy, however, might be the single best beverage that has ever run across my lips. That's saying a lot. It could be that I was actually getting toward inebriation, or the fact that I'd just tasted a "disappointing" brandy, but my god it was good.

Sixth taste, 1975. Good by cruel world. Thirty four years in a barrel. That's a lot of dedication! Well, it shows. Apparently 1975 was NEARLY as good a year as 1976 for boigneres' grapes. I still think the 1976 was slightly better, but perhaps Domaine Boigneres 1975 is the SECOND best beverage that has ever run across my lips.

At the end, Martinne, told me she had an appointment with the vet at 6. She has a very old, very cute cat, with cancer. Poor baby! She's a cat lover too. Totally awesome. Thanks Martinne for the chat and the brandy. The effect was not lost on me!

Chateau Briat

2010-06-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

In my running around in Armagnac I had contacted a man by the name of Jean du Mareil. He works at Chateau Briat and is the original source of sending me the way of M. et Mme. Bouglon over in Labastide D'Armagnac. He has also informed me that I'd be able to sample some of the armagnacs at the estate. I definitely wanted to visit.

With the rental car I went over to Briat. It's about 10km away from Prada and not too difficult to find. It's a little out of the way, but then again, so is everything in Armagnac.

Before I had arrived, Stephane De Luze (the proprietor) had told me he'd be available and that I'd meet with him. He in fact is the sole heir to the company and the estate. Luckily for me, he speaks English since he did his university studies in the United States. A sad fact about him is that he came into the business by force. A little more than 5 years ago his parents died in a car accident and he, being the eldest son, immediately assumed the role of owner proprietor. Intrestingly enough, he doesn't do any of the distillation himself, but in fact ONLY takes care of the cellar and barrels. Someone else tends to the vines, makes the wine, bottles, etc, etc. I should also mention, that Briat is a tiny estate. Only 8 acres of vineyards. Basically each job requires one person only. There is one lady who bottles all the bottles BY HAND. I had no idea that distilleries still did that. I guess this is a small time operation and there is no need for huge automated machines performing every duty 1000 times a minute.

During my little visit, I got to tour the vineyards. In late April, grapes are beginning to grow and therefore I didn't get to eat any off the vines. I did, however, get to drink some of the finest brandy on this planet.

Quick aside: If you're really into brandy, might I suggest the following Armagnac houses...
Briat
Boigneres
Lacquy
Darroze
Prada
Tariquet

So, since stephane takes care of the cellars, we went through and he siphoned out a little brandy and wine from barrels. Apparently, not everything can be distilled, and so he keeps a few barrels of wine around as well. He's also interested in making a fortified wine, but I doubt that type of product will pick up much steam. Perhaps, for personal use. Amongst the things I got to taste were a glass of 2009 that had spent only 4 months in the barrel, a 2004 for straight from the barrel, and a 1987 (Baco grape only) straight from the barrel. The 2009 was shockingly mature. I think the grapes came out well, and the brandy took the correct mix of grapes from last year's harvest. In addition, the barrel is brand-spanking new, and so the coloration is happening rather more quickly. Forget all that though.

I tasted the 1987 straight from the barrel. If there has ever been a treat for anyone as great as that... I do not know what it might be. I was able to drink 23+ year old armagnac straight from a barrel. I should also mention that Stephane does not mix brandies often and almost never "tops up" (fill up one barrel once some liquor has evaporated). He's extremely dedicated to the quality of his beverage and it shows. He pumps air through an old barnhouse to let the armagnac breathe and has a particular way of stacking barrels to make sure certain brandies get more air than others. I was totally impressed. So, this brandy was sitting at around 44% ABV which means it's been sitting in a barrel long enough to lose about 13% alcohol to evaporation and pick up a really deep color (naturally, not by coloring additive).

Brandy nerds, you are officially allowed to be jealous!
All in all, I'd say it was a good day.

Labastide D'Armagnac and St. Justin

2010-06-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

The entire region of Armagnac is a subregion is Gascony. The local language there is Gascon and none of the younger generation speaks it really. However, I'm told that if you attend sunday services at the single church in the miniature town then you'll hear it spoken by the older generations. There is some debate about where this language and group of languages (occitan, aranese, etc) as to whether it is a romanace language (primarily) or a language developed from Basque and Latin. In any case, the younger generation is allowing it to die slowly.

Labastide D'Armagnac is a booming metropolis of about 700 folks. There is one bar, 2 restaurants, a church, and a bunch of distilleries! Included in Labastide's populus are The Bouglons (of chateau du prada) as well as Martinne Lafitte (of Domaine Boigneres). If you don't follow the brandy world much, Martinne Lafitte is the proprietor of what some consider the finest brandy house in all the world. I don't know if it's the single best house ever, but it's in the top 10 without any question and little thought.

The problem for my stay there is that I was there at the end of April. Apparently the French are on Holiday until May 1. Apparently everything comes back to life after May 1. So I walked around the streets for some time, found THE bar, and the restaurants which were closed and realized there wasn't much else happening in that town. Luckily the Bouglons told me about another restaurant in the next town over of St. Justin. Hotel France. An original and inventive name for a hotel in france I thought. It turns out that they have an exceptional prix fix 4 course menu every night. Wandering around St. Justin, you'll find a carbon copy of Labastide except that at the end of town there is a fire station and a school and a library. Otherwise not much is happening there either. It's an interesting place. It's like a ghost town when everyone is on holiday, but I suspect I'll make another trip back as soon as possible.

Chateau Du Prada

2010-06-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

My temporary house in Armagnac. It's an old, old mansion that has housed the same family for several hundred years. Currently the home to M. et Mme. Bouglon. That is Baron Phillipe de Bouglon.

The house is simply gorgeous. It's set in the smack middle of Labastide D'Armagnac (a booming town of nearly 700 residents) just behind the public park and the big catholic church. At the Chateau, Mme. Bouglon cooks breakfast for all the visitors (not so many during my stay, just a few others kids, mostly helping with farmhouse repairs and whatever else). The breakfast is fresh orange juice, freshly baked bread, eggs from her hens, and bacon from her pigs, cooked by her, in the kitchen. Oh my many many many many gods, what a treat! The rooms of course were stunning, several old pianos and old busts of old dead family members, oh and did I mention... Housemade Armagnac!?!?!?

I HIGHLY recommend anyone going there if you have the availability!
Here's the link: Check it out, awesome stuff!

Le Chateau du Prada

Cliff beaches of Varkala

2010-06-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Kollam was boring. The house boat was beautiful, but boring. The people were friendly, but boring. Also, they have no sense of real customer service. So, Yvonne and I set off to Varkala. Lonely Planet had some good suggestions, and we decided to take them up on their suggestions. Despite being mildly anti-taj, we stayed in a Taj hotel in Varkala. The room wasn't that cheap, but wasn't really that expensive either.

Varkala is famous for one thing, and one thing only. The cliff. Since Varkala is so far south in India (on the west coast) the water is much cleaner. It's crystal blue. All the industrial crap from mumbai and pune and the other big cities which dump filth into rivers and tributaries leading into the ocean are far enough away that varkala hasn't YET been ruined. (However, I don't put is past the Indian people to completely trash it too.)

So, the cliff... The Arabian Sea is gorgeous, and the beach is only about 100 meters deep before you hit a big cliff. By a big cliff, I mean something like 200 meters straight up. Directly on top of the cliff, right to the very edge are hundreds of little shops and restaurants. Varkala is overcrowded with european tourists (many of them russian) and the cafes and restaurants TRY to cater to that. They fail, but at least they try. I was so sick of curry I went to an italian restaurant that claimed to serve "authentic" italian food, so I ordered the Penne. Oops. I should have known better after having been in India over 5 months not to order "authentic" italian food. What an Idiot. Oh well. We strolled up and down the cliff several times jumping in and out of shops, using internet cafes and catching some time in the shade. From the top, the view of the beach is fantastic. It's really an incredible sight. No two ways about it.

From the beach though, the view is entirely different. Looking up at the cliff which is completely composed of red clay and strong roots that have been brave enough to grow on the side of a precarious cliff one can see throngs of tourists haggling with tibetans and kashmiris from afar. There is a little yelling that makes it way all the way to the beach. Looking just below all the shops and restaurants you'll see something that reminds you that you're in India. No matter how nice and pristine a place is, if you're in India, you cannot escape India. The gorgeous cliff is completely covered in trash. Thousands upon thousands of water bottles litter it, along with newspapers, unwanted magazines, wasted food, umbrellas and anything else people have "dropped" over the side. A f*ckin' mess. One would expect that something so beautiful might garner at least a little more respect, but then again, I'm an anal retentive American. I believe we should handle our garbage correctly. I think we should hire people and services to collect, compress and recycle our garbage and NOT THROW IT ON THE SIDE OF A BEAUTIFUL CLIFF at an otherwise beautiful beach. Ugh.

Well, all told, go to the top of the cliff and look down and you won't be so disappointed. Just try to avoid anything called "italian" food while there. I highly recommend the seafood.

Paris street food

2010-06-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

Who loves crepes? I for one, certainly do. What about sugar waffles? I like those too. How about Doner Kebabs? Count me in. Street side cafes with any manner of delicious coffee, wine, beer, and artisinal lemonade? Often serving beef tartar, shell fish, and small sandwiches, graced at times with offal? Oh yes, can I have more?

India and the rest of Asia have quite an excellent tradition of street food. They have some extremely tasty morsels to be had, whereas the west generally frowns upon "street food." I'm here to say, SHAME ON US ALL for thinking that way. I remember one of the best things about Philadelphia was the abundance of food trucks. Those delicious greasy feast halls which are kitchens on wheels and covering every square inch of university campuses in the philly area are nothing at which to scoff!

So it is in Paris. Not everything mentioned above is actually "Street food" as we might classify it, but to be completely and utterly fair, most of it is, and I'll count the street side cafe.

In my attempts to see a more authentic paris and be away from tourists (when possible) I went to the Les Halles. Apparently the Les Halles were formerly a series and huge market stands selling anything that could be bought in Paris at the time. Also, because of all the food sold there, I'm to understand it was teeming with rats.

Well, now, it is no longer teeming with rats. Not visible ones anyone. That's right, invisible rats! Or at least a plethora of them have moved back underground. The les halles is currently a large shopping area with a beautiful fountain in the center. It is fairly close to the Notre Dame and also houses a few monuments which are odd in shape, and odder in location. In any case, amongst the shops, monuments, and lovers hanging out at the Les Halles, you'll also find some DAMN good street food. Les Crepes du jambon, fromage, et l'ouef. Oh my many gods, I haven't had a crepe that good since I lived in Philly. Ham, egg, and cheese. How can you go wrong? (Vegetarians excluded from this portion of the conversation). After one crepe, I decided is was good enough to have a second for dessert. I went with Nutella and banana for the second offering. Good stuff. What's that? Waffles for second dessert? Alright!

So, after stuffing my face full of goodness I take a little tour around the Les halles and allow myself ample time to get ready for more food. Well, I failed a little. In no more than 15 minutes I ran across a wine bar serving beef tartar. It was all over. That was the end of that afternoon. Lunch, then second lunch. I felt like a little hobit. I had to wait for dinner for hours and hours just to make sure I didn't eat myself into a frenzy (dangerously close).

A few days later... That's right Doner Kebab crepes. Oh my, if there were ever anything so devilishly good in the world, it would be truly hard to beat the idea of shawarma IN A CREPE! That is a disturbingly good idea.

Motorcycle Ride in Kerala

2010-06-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

Kollam, not the most interesting town in the world. The nightlife is lacking. In fact, the daytime life is lacking as well. In fact, the only thing around is the big hotel conference center at which we were staying. So, one night we took the bus down to the next restaurant. The food there was mostly terrible, but at least we weren't trapped eating dinner at our hotel. The food probably would have been better, but we wanted to get the hell out of the hotel. All day sitting around is fun, except for the fact that it's not.

So: off we are to the local "restaurants" on the local bus. We eat, drink a little terrible beer, and decide after watching chennai get crushed in cricket that we should leave. Back to the local bus stop. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. A young man comes along on a motorcycle and drops his friend off at our bus station. He asks what the hell we two white people are doing at a bus station in kollam at that hour without anyone else. We tell him we're just going back to the hotel. He says he'll take us.
Yvonne is quite vociferous. "No, I'm not getting on that thing, especially without a helmet." I was for it from the beginning. After a little persuasion I finally convince yvonne that we should get our asses on a motorcycle and go with the flow. The guy turns out to be an excellent pilot. Swerving in and around big buses and trucks, small cars. All the three of us on a motorcycle built for two and no one wearing a helmet. We made it all two miles back to the hotel safely, and then got some terribly peculiar looks from the hotel guards and staff. Our motorcycle guy seeing that he will get in trouble if he stays too long, jets off into the Kerala night and we never see him again. If only our parents knew how crazy and irresponsible we were...

The train to Armagnac

2010-05-19T00:06:00.000-07:00

I like trains. I took them enough in India, but in Europe they are nice. Somehow a 750km train ride in India take 12 hours while in Europe it takes about 6. Depending on how many stops, it can be much faster.

So, on my itinerary was a visit to Armagnac. You might have heard that I'm a brandy fanatic, and well, going to France without visiting a few of my favorite brandy chateaux would be simply an insult to all the is good in this world. Ok, maybe not to EVERYTHING. But I'd certainly be remiss to neglect such an opportunity. Off I go. It's a tricky thing getting to Armagnac. You may have never heard of armagnac because it is completely overshadowed by it more commercial relative Cognac. Everyone has heard of cognac. Of course, rap music has something to do with that. Hennessey, Remy-Martin, Martell, and Couvoisier are the four well known major houses and they have gained some notoriety. Why, I can't tell you exactly, because the brandy they make is, generally speaking, far inferior to the really good cognac houses. I guess it's all a matter of marketing and branding. Look at Jack Daniel's... In any case, there is another reason Cognac is much more popular. It's because there is a major river in Cognac. Armagnac is essentially landlocked. Cognac had a much easier time distributing its product, and therefore it gained more popularity. But mind you, Armagnac just celebrated its 700th year of making grape brandy. So, the tradition and the quality are far superior in armagnac (that's an opinion, but I think a well founded one).

What does all that have to do with getting a train to armagnac? Well, the point is that you CAN'T actually get a train to armagnac. You have to catch a train to bordeaux or to mont de marsan and then rent a car, or hire an expensive taxi. Mont de Marsan is significantly closer to Labistide D'Armagnac, so I decided taking the train there would be a better call. Then to rent a car... Avis was the only place that had car rental, so that made the decision quite a bit easier. It was perhaps too expensive, but once I saw Labastide D'Armagnac, well, let's just say, renting a car was the best course of action...

A fun little navigation through southwest france, and 25 miles later was Chateau du Prada.

Chennai Super Kings: BRING IT

2010-05-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

I called it! I called it from day one. Chennai Super Kings win the Indian Premiere League! I called that from day one. I also said that they'd beat the Mumbai Indians. Turns out, that was the championship match.

I have had the serious good fortune of being in cities when a bat and ball championship has occurred. For example 2005 Chicago White Sox! Also, 2008 Phillies! Now 2010 Chennai Super Kings! Of course I was not in chennai for the game or the celebrations, but I did support the team for the whole tournament.

I have this thing about supporting sporting. Somehow, sports are one thing that can really unite people locally (or regionally or nationally) across religion and politics.
Example: most right thinking americans will cheer for an american in the olympics. Of course we have the disease of having TOO MANY revisionists who wish to see the United States do poorly in everything (until of course it comes to their own personal finances), but in general, I think Americans cheer for Americans. Chicagoans cheer for Chicago teams (Cubs/Sox is an exception), Philladelphians cheer for Philly teams, Chennaikers cheer for the Chennai Super Kings (there are no other teams).

For what it's worth, I, myself, needed something for which to cheer concerning my time in Chennai and I actually like cricket. My close Indian friend doesn't like it, but that's because he's bitter about the fact that academics get paid shit while cricketers make more money each year than he will in a lifetime working in India. To be fair, I have the same gripes with professional athletes in the United States, but I got over it. They simply make more money, that's life. Life is unfair, cricket is awesome.

After a grueling regular season in which the super kings (what a shitty name!) were relegated to next to last in the standings after an abysmal 5 match losing streak, things began to look up. They won 3 in a row. Lost 1, then proceeding to kick ass and take names all the way to the semifinals and then crush sachin tendulkar and his elite batsmanship all the way to the tune of IPL champs! BOO YA! Go Super Kings. Also, Matthew Hayden is my boy!

Vietnamese Food in Paris

2010-05-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

Bahn Mi. It is among the best thing that has ever been concocted and simultaneously called a sandwich. But I didn't eat it in Paris. I did, however, seek out (like an eagle hunting an injured bird) a small vietnamese section in town to find pho.

I had COMPLETELY forgotten that Vietnam was a French colony not so long ago. Actually, I hadn't forgotten, but merely missed the connection when I got to Paris. I guess I was just so relieved to get to europe after months in the much further east. Paris surprised me with how well mixed the culture is. But the idea that I should find french speaking vietnamese resteraunteurs shouldn't have surprised me at all. Anyway, I was told there was "something like chinatown, except from vietnam." I knew what that meant. It meant I'd found a place where my nose would be happy. So, of course I went.

Funny thing: I have a hard enough time ordering vietnamese food in english... French just flabbergasted me. But somehow I managed to order pho. Basically the point and smile technique works everywhere. Sadly, I didn't get my pho with tendon and brisket, but I got whatever "normal" thing they serve. Oh, did I enjoy it.

What was more important to me, was trying to remember all the places that the french colonizers had gone. I came up with a long list of them and realized that there is a long list of ethnic tastiness to be had in Paris. Bistros, fine, beef tartar, completely delicious, but pho, tabbouleh, west african specialties, south indian things, etc. Paris offers a lot of tasty treats which are NOT french. I like that. I could be happy with that for a long time.

The Hidden Nieghborhoods or Paris

2010-05-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

I don't know how much I can claim to have visited the "hidden" neighborhoods of Paris, but I certainly made it into neighborhoods with very few tourists, and a much SMALLER proportion of english speakers. By the way, Thank you Parisians for putting up with my English. Thank you even more for putting up with my insultingly horrid C+ first semester level French! That helped me out a lot.

First Stop: Canal St. Martin.
If you've seen the film Amelie, and remember it... There is a scene in which she in skipping stones on a canal. This scene also offers perhaps some of the BEST filmwork of the early 2000's. It's a really fluid shot that goes from behind her, over her head and in front of her to just above the stone that seems as if it will hit the camera.
THAT:
That is Canal St. Martin. It is really lovely. The only tourists around are on canal cruise boats and so they aren't walking around bothering the normal crowd. Had a "Kebab" from a nearby turkish restaurant and somehow managed to plop my ass down to eat it right next to the canal flanked on all sides by lesbians enjoying the hell out of their sunday afternoons and girlfriends. Saw a guy with a remote control motorboat causing havoc with some of the canal's geese. Great amusement. The "kebab" or what we lebanese know as shawarma was decent. I do have to say, the donner kebabs all over Europe are TOTALLY subpar to those in Lebanon. If Turkey's Kebabs are really done that way, then I should make a habit of inviting people to Lebanon just for eating. Seriously, I know Turkey has a great culinary tradition (or has at least stolen many great culinary traditions from those it has conquered), but their Donner Kebabs as just not that good! Anyway, it was still delicious on a Sunday afternoon in Paris. I was still on the look out for Biere de Garde and when I spotted a group of kids with a bottle I immediately went to them and asked where they got it. They pointed me in some direction and I went.

On the way to the beer store, I got sidetracked again.

Second Stop: Little Jafna (or Little Sri Lanka).
As I mentioned before, I got REALLY excited about visiting a Tamil speaking Sri Lankan neighborhood in Paris. I really like Sri Lankan food, and I can even ask for it in Tamil. This will SURELY get me superb service and instant friends. What I found instead of Sri Lankans were Indians who don't speak Tamil, and an influx of Chinese. There were a few stores that sold Indian clothing, but were closed on Sunday Afternoon. I had no idea that Indians would ever close a shop if they had opportunity to make money. I was totally shocked. So in fact, I got to speak no Tamil, read no Tamil, and show off to no one with my limited Tamil skill. That's ok, because I came across a Lebanese restaurant with good hummus and tabbouleh. I sat around and did the common people watching thing that Parisians do. Eventually I made my way a little further and found the bar waiter who suggested Parc Des Buttes Chaumont.

About that time I got a craving for Vietnamese food. I have been without good pho for FAR FAR FAR too long, and went in search of it. In case you're wondering... Yes, I went in search of the Vietnamese Niehgborhood (which is near the Belleville stop on the Paris metro) and found it. However, I was supposed to meet my host at another restaurant in another part of town for "Persian" food. I enjoyed it quite a lot, but I suspect (always a sneaking suspicion) that Lebanese people had something to do with the particular preparation of food. All in all, a most successful day of running around the capital of france.

The Elusive 961

2010-05-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

As per current records, the oldest cultivators of wine in history are those in the Bekaa Valley. By the way, that's in Lebanon. So, yes, I AM saying that Lebanon has a longer wine tradition than any other country. According to modern scholarship this is still true. I'd bet you with the stupid hummus wars in place, Israel will find some reason to say that wine is originally from Israel. Fact of the matter is this: Lebanon makes great wine. Even after war, even with a heavy islamic influence, even with an economy that went to shit, even with (insert other thing here that makes wine production difficult) Lebanon still makes great wine. One more remark on how awesome lebanon is for making this stuff...

One of the best vintages is 1978 Chateau Musar. Fine whatever, it's some year, some winery, somewhere. But 1978 was in the middle of a gruesome civil war. Absolutely horrible war, absolutely fantastic wine!

So, when you go to Lebanon looking for something other than wine or Arak it's a little difficult to find. Strangely finding lebanese brandy is a task. I'd expect that to be a no-brainer, but apparently, they simply like grape juice and anise too much. Oh well... But beer... Good luck buddy. Almaza is the king of Lebanese beer. If you're looking for something else, chances are you'll get Heineken (Almaza'a parent company) or Corona (for what reason I have no idea). But the new kid on the block, 961... Fat Chance. Lebanon's first microbrew.

I found a bottle way up in the mountains. I didn't even have to go to Beirut to find it. Moreoever, I didn't have to search for the brewery that apparently no longer exists. I found a bottle in the mountains. Tired of drinking the bland german and turkish products that actually make it to Lebanon I finally went for the 961. Problem was, I was looking for IPA, and they only had traditional lager. Why the hell is this such a popular style? If traditional lager were a varietal of grape it would be ugni blanc. Who makes WINE out of ugni blanc? Basically no one. Why? Quite simply, it's kinda of bland and boring. It doesn't have much flavor and it basically pissy alcoholic water... making it the wine equivalent of traditional euro-style piss lager which is the model for Budweiser, Miller, and all other evil breweries.

But, I wanted a real beer, and this was my best shot...
So I gave it a go.

Shockingly, it was really tasty! It was the same style, except with a nice hoppy backbone. I guess if I'd come from the states or Canada and tried it, I would have been terribly disappointed in how bland and boring it is, just like everything else. But I was coming from India, where the common "beer" can only be described as having imitation beer flavor. So if you go and read comments about 961traditional lager on ratebeer or beeradvocate you'll probably find more complaints than complements. I can't offer any other comment, but I definitely want to try their other beers. At least they are bold enough to add hops to their eurostyle piss beer.

But, all things considered, if you're going to Lebanon to drink, best bet is wine (or arak).

Kollam Beach

2010-05-18T06:15:00.000-07:00

Between the boredom of the out-of-town part of Kollam where we were and the need for some activity in the day (which is the same feeling really) we had decided to go into nearby Kollam Beach. A whole 12 km bus journey. Which means it only occupied an hour of our time (each way). We'd heard the waters were rough and the tides had serious undertows and therefore people didn't usually go in the water. I suspect there are other reasons that people don't go into the water. Part of it has to do with the fact that Indians generally use waters for BATHING, not swimming. Even in Pondicherry I saw people in the water essentially for bathing purposes. No one would be crazy enough to SWIM in the water. So it was with Kollam Beach.

What should be an otherwise beautiful tourist spot is basically an Indian hideout completely littered with garbage. Literally littered with litter. Disgusting!
After sitting on the beach for a while and watching a couple of kids get about 3 feet deep into the water with all their clothes the wind started up. Part of Kollam's tide comes from the fact that the beach itself is steep. The water doesn't gently come to shore, but rather hits a shore with a serious incline. The wind therefore picks up sand in a funny way and threw it against us in a stinging manner. Ugh. Well, we kept sitting after that first blast of sand (what was considered a cool breeze is as my friend says "a searing wind") we watched these kids playing in the shallow water. Then we watched them throwing litter and more shit right into the water.

That did it. I went down and started grabbing shit out of the water and collecting it. I walked all the way to the sidewalk to grab a huge trash can and carry it about 50 m in toward the water. I demanded that people throw away their garbage. F*cking trash. I hate India! Why do you just litter everything? Destroying your beautiful beaches... Bastards!

Anyway, I actually managed to get about 4 people to pick up a piece of garbage close by and toss it into the bin. I figured if every person took away one more piece of trash than they left, the beach would be clean in about a week. This belief is actually two combined statements.
1) There is a lot of trash
2) There are so many more indians visiting that beach.

Anyway, a little sun, a little sand, picking up a little trash, attempting to go to bar. Oh wait, they have a full menu, but aren't carrying ANY of the drinks on it. What is this place. Ugh. Ok, back to the bus to our hotel with a bar carrying no drinks and walking toward the closest restaurant a mile away and listening to the loud "devotions" playing 20 hours a day right into our room. Gotta Love India.

Parc des Buttes Chaumont

2010-05-18T01:23:00.000-07:00

I bet I spelled the park name terribly wrong. My apologies to all my parisian readers (if there are any, and probably there are not).

I spent a Sunday afternoon in Paris touring around some less well known neighborhoods and found an alley with a few pubs, cafes, and restaurants, near a section I believed to be called "Little Jafna" in Paris. I had been on a mission to find this sri lankan neighborhood because according to some sources it's a Tamil speaking neighborhood or Paris. I figured between my broken french, tamil, and my well versed english I'd have no problem getting across the point I needed.

Well, I got sidetracked. I sat down for a beer (shock) and the bar waiter sat down and started chatting. I freaking LOVE paris. He sat down with a map and told me where basically everything was that he finds cool in paris. Amongst the highest recommendations was the parc des buttes chaumont. So on Monday I set out to find it. Armed only with a map with a few circles on it and limited french I figured it would happen. Luckily, Paris is geographically VERY small. The suburbs stretch out forever, but Paris itself... not so big.

In order to get to the park you have to walk up a rather large hill. I didn't know Paris had such a hill, but it does. You'll pass by the canal where Amelie skipped stones, and past a small chinese and vietnamese nieghborhood into a residential area where all the beautiful american stereotypes placed on paris are true. The only difference is that Paris is still more awesome than the sterotypes portray it to be.

Quick disclaimer: These are my opinions about Paris, but I think they are widely held opinions.

I step into a little wine shop right next to the local butcher. Why the hell not, I'm in France right? What's this? Really good wine for how much? TWO EUROS? THREE EUROS? A bottle of Cote Du Rhone 2004 for SEVEN EUROS!? OH MY GOD, I am SO MOVING HERE! So I splurged about bought two bottles of wine to take back to my host. I spent a whopping 7.35 euros (~$11) on two nice (not amazing, but very nice) bottles of wine. Walked along toward the park. Aha! There's a sign pointing me exactly where I want to go. MMM sushi. Don't stop now, go to the park. Oh, another liquor store, but with microbrewed french beer... Well, there goes more of my money. It was worth it, I found some exceptional beers of which I'd never heard and paid another 3 euros for a couple of bottles. Not a big spending day in fact.

Finally I make it to the park. It is absolutely gorgeous. Despite the fact that it was far too cold to really enjoy it, I sat up at the top of the first hill and watched people for a while. I got to play with a small dog running around chasing birds while his owner was studying something. There was a group of kids picnicking at the top of the same hill, so I busted out one of my beers. Not only, no complaints, but I found signs that say, don't litter, and they have pics of wine bottles on them. Drinking in the park, how novel! So I enjoy two of the finest french beers of my life and watch people for quite some time. A group of "alternative life style" women doing some very old school calisthenics, a group of teens playing guitar and singing crappy songs. I'm transported directly back to my youth for a moment. Then on the recommendation of the same waiter from sunday as before, I set off looking for a restaurant called Rosa Bonheur. It turns out, that restaurant is IN the park. The park is quite a bit larger than I'd expected. It contains miles of running tracks and several restaurants (including a mexican restaurant which I did not visit). I finally found Rosa Bonheur, but it was closed for renovation. Oh well.

Hey what's that? It's some look out or something... Nice!
Checking it out... Good place to sit, excellent view of paris, get to see the sunset from here... Sitting down right about now.

Eventually it occurred to me that the park closes AT sunset and I had quite a way to go down to get out. In order to avoid being
a) Trapped in the park all night
b) arrested
I decided it was best to leave BEFORE the park closed. Good call by the way.
But I did find something that to which I will immediately return upon arrival in Paris the next trip. There WILL be a next trip.

An odd weather traveler

2010-05-18T01:17:00.001-07:00

This spring in Europe has been exceptionally cold. I've been told how cold and rainy it is here in France, Spain, Holland, and even in Poland. It's just been a miserably cold spring. For me, it's ok, but it's interesting that I'm getting uncommon weather because I have a history of this. Perhaps I noted this once while I was in Delhi earlier this year, but let me just give a short recap of my unusual weather experiences with travel.

3 days of 5 raining in Denver,
3 days of 5 raining in San Diego,

both of which are 330+ days of sunshine per year.

Rain in the summer in Lebanon,
Beautiful springtime weather at christmas in Lebanon,

Coldest day in 7 years in Delhi,

Amazing sunshine and warm weather at easter in england,

and now a brutally cold spring in europe.
It has been amusing to me that most of my trip has been spent with temperatures in the 40s and 50s (F) and even a few nights of frost (in MAY!!) which qualifies as colder than the coldest temperature in recorded history in chennai! Weird.

Here's hoping Philly Beer Week is nicer!

The HouseBoats of Kerala

2010-05-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

I know it's a tourist pitch. It is completely and utterly a tourist pitch. But I'll still go for it. In Goa, if you don't drink Fenny, your trip is incomplete. In Kerala, if you don't see the backwaters on a houseboat, your trip is incomplete.

Fine, let's do it. Actually, I've got to say, for all the terrible shit going down in Kerala, it's really a beautiful place. So we trotted around looking at a couple of houseboats in Kollam and Kollam Beach. All about the same. Fortunately, the best boat was owned by our hotel. So we rented it for a night. I have to say, for the price, it's damn hard to beat it. But if you're into excitement or socializing, you'd better make sure you've got a lively group going with you, otherwise your trip will bore you to sleep and it won't take long.

Our negotiations landed us with a one-night cruise up the backwaters from out hotel. We thought we'd dock at some village north of our starting point and begin again early in the morning and land back at the hotel by about noon. Oops. The boat actually docked at the hotel's "island" about 300m away from the hotel. Quite boring. We'd asked for other people to join us and the hotel insisted that we didn't have to have anyone with us if we didn't want. It was not about the price! For one night with boatride, beautiful room, all meals included for two people the cost was around $150, maybe a touch less. I didn't care about splitting the cost. Going to bed at sunset is just a little boring...

So my suggestions to myself are these. Make sure you have at least 4 people and some entertainment with you. Also make sure that you're taking a two night cruise and that you can dock somewhere else on the first night.

Things that went well.
The food at least was excellent. Actually, some of the best I'd had in India. In addition I'd been asking everyone in the whole state of Kerala for Toddy (fermented coconut wine) and the guy organizing the boat house said he could get some "fresh" toddy. I was excited about that. Turned out, it was basically coconut sap. It hadn't really fermented much yet, but there was yeast present. That basically meant the whole glass of milky sap tasted like bread. A little weird, but I knew what was going on. In addition, somewhere in the middle of a big lake, we decided that it would be a good idea to go swimming. I jumped off the roof of the houseboat and into the lake. It appeared that the lake had a really soft bottom which was only about 2 meters down. So it's rather lucky that I didn't dive into the water, but rather just jumped in. Totally fun time. The water was a bit strong in current, so we decided after about 20 minutes we were done swimming. Funny thing: the boat had no ladder. I don't think they are accustomed to crazy americans actually ENJOYING SWIMMING. So they had to pull us each into the boat by hand. THAT was amusing.

Like Beer? Give Paris a shot.

2010-05-13T01:41:00.000-07:00

After a short delay in my travel plans in which I had to skip over Amsterdam and Antwerp I flew into Paris. What to do? What to do? Luckily I was staying with a friend of a friend who happens to be a physicist and had a decent internet connection. So, after I get set up briefly I scour the web for some fun info on Paris.

First things first. No Eiffel Tower, no Louvre, no Notre Dame. In fact I saw all those things before when I was a teenager traveling around with my parents and sister. Fine and well, you can't totally miss all that if you're in central Paris. So, what did I search for? Of course. "Forgotten Neighborhoods of Paris." I also looked for lesser known neighborhoods, hidden gems, etc. I went around to most of the suggested neighborhoods, but what I thought was best was an article I found about a guy who'd toured Paris looking for good beer. Turns out, Parisians drink a LOT of beer. Like as much as coffee, tea, or wine. Basically, on every corner there is at least one Brasserie. In older days, a brasserie was ACTUALLY a brewery. Now, most of them function as cafes and beer bars. The selection isn't always that great, but most of the time there is really great food being served, excellent coffee, and of course french beer.

The nice thing about Paris, which everyone talks about, is the fact that lunch is not rushed. For me, the most enjoyable thing about being in Paris is going to a brasserie and sitting. Just sitting. There is no rush. Start with Ricard or Pernod. Have a small salad or a soup. Have a beer, a glass of wine, whatever you like. No rush whatsoever. I somehow think that if you rush through this sort of thing you'll end up spending most of your money much faster than you'd expected. For me... Salad, beer, and perhaps a little beef tartar if it's available. Perhaps another beer. I should also point out that beers in Paris are not served like beers in America or Germany of India. They are served in little 8 oz servings, half pints. I love the half pint!
Also, French beers are mostly belgian style blonde ales. It's a good thing. I do however, recommend that if you're going for beef tartar, go for a belgian style brown ale or a nice glass of red table wine. (Note, this means french table wine, not yellow tail...)

So, if you happen to find yourself in Paris, go sit at a brasserie and waste away the day talking to random people and watching folks skate,bike, and stroll in front of you. Have yourself a beer, have another, then walk with no rush to the next "item on your agenda" (If you're in such a rush as to have one).

More Polish Misadventures

2010-05-12T02:01:00.000-07:00

Before all the ass painting and fire-breathing tuba madness I had been speaking with my host at the mathematics institute about how sorry a mathematician I am. I'm kind of ok with that. At least I'm a good speaker. Well, with that rousing recommendation of my mathematical abilities I decided to set out and see some more warsaw.

I went to the nearest metro station, bought a 24 hour ticket and set out for old town. I accidentally overshot it and first went to the neighborhood immediately north of old town known as new town. Stare Miasto and Nowy Miasto. I navigated on instinct alone. I'd looked at a map earlier and was carrying a badly detailed tourist pocket map just for reference and just set out in the right direction. First thing, I saw a huge monument. Again, since my Polish language skills are close to nonexistent, I discerned that I was at a monument for World War II casualties and veterans. It was surrounded by an enormous building, super duper big (in area, not height) and I thought perhaps it was a museum, but that didn't make too much sense. I found out later (from a chilean consulate) that it is the ministry of justice. Go figure. I strolled through the new town neighborhood and realized I was slightly in the wrong spot and just turned south for a bit and wandered directly into a beautiful part of the city.

Stare Miasto is prototypical as an eastern european city. Colorful buildings, lots of big beautiful churches, lots of people eating at pubs and drinking copious amounts of beer. Walking around the not so big neighborhood I ran into lots of small things with big charm. Old town is also on the west side of the river that runs through the middle of warsaw. I walked down close to the river, and found some nice "forests" on either side. I guess they used to be forests, but there are still lots of trees adorning each side of the river, it's just that now they aren't the thick forests that they once were. Human settlement and a little thing called war took care of the forest density. I sat down at a small pub for a pint. I saw on the TV that some football match (soccer game) was happening.

Quick Aside: Football (as a sport's name) is even more confusing here than elsewhere since Warsaw has two soccer teams and an American Football team (called the Eagles, GO PHILLY! E-A-G-L-E-S). I didn't bust out any e-a-g-l-e-s here, because I didn't think they'd understand what the hell I was doing. Besides, the match was between the two warsaw soccer teams. Turns out it was the Polish first league and a fairly important match. But to my understanding it was sort of a yankees-mets or cubs-sox or rangers-islanders or jets-giants or galaxy-cd chivas type rivalry. That is to say (for the less sports educated readers) they don't like each other very much. But to me, polish first league soccer isn't terribly interesting. I'm gearing up for USA-England on June 12.

I finished my (first) pint and wandered around. I walked through a very residential area of nowy miasto and saw two kids on bikes. They weren't really kids so much as people my age, but they WERE on bikes and they WERE speaking english. Turns out, one is from the states and the other from chile. The american had something to do and so split immediately, but I asked the chilean (who speaks rather good english) if he wanted to go for a beer.

First things first. We heard loud cheering and wanted to go see what it was. Turns out, it was the same soccer game (football match) that was airing in the pub. Some kids across the street from the stadium had a nice half stair-case from which we could look into the stadium. So with my new found chilean friend and a crowd of random people we watched about 20 minutes of the big game.

So, now with a traveling companion we set out to see some warsaw. It turns out this guy from chile has been living in Poland for close to a year and is a consulate. He works with the embassy here. He also told me that there are 50 Chileans living in all of Poland. I guess his job is not REALLY taxing when it comes to visa issues and such. Don't get me wrong, he works harder than I do, but it seems the amount of travel from Poland to Chile is rather minimal, and looking after Chile's citizens in Poland is probably not as difficult as say, looking after tibetans in india...

So we went for some food and drink. Stopping along the way to eat Shawarma and sausage and drink a beer across the street from the mourning place for Poland's recently passed president. We paused to pay homage, and then drank. I'll drink one more for the president before I leave.

He told me he had to go to the gym since it closes early. And we agreed to meet close by at 10 PM. That gave me more time to wander around. By the way, I'm not getting very good use of my 24 hour pass. But it's ok, I saw about 6 neighborhood of warsaw that were new to me.

At 10 we met again and wandered around. He shared with me some fantastic chilean pisco (he was shocked that I knew what it was and liked it) as well as some really fantastic mexican mezcal. Didn't think I'd see either of THOSE in poland, but then again, I didn't expect to see a fire-breathing tuba either. The rest of the night BASICALLY went as usual. A little pub crawl, talking to random folks in languages I don't really speak, drinking beer I don't really like, and walking home after the train stops running. Off fore more misadventuring!

Polish Misadventures

2010-05-12T01:02:00.001-07:00

ASS PAINTING. Wait. What? Does that shop door say "ASS PAINTING?" It can't possibly be right. I step closer to find out what's going on. OH!

GLASS PAINTING!

That seems much more appropriate for old town warsaw. Although, I'm still not sure why the sign was in English. Either way I got a huge laugh out of it. But the shop keep still needs to replace the 'GL' lettering on the door. For now the door actually says "ASS PAINTING." Mind you, I'm not in any way against the idea of a business whose main goal is indeed livening up certain sets of buttocks with colorful ardor and panache, but I simply can't see the sustainability of such an enterprise, maybe in Warsaw...

I turn around and in my 360 degree view I see three gorgeous old catholic churches, a sort of fortress protecting Stare Miasto (the neighborhood of old town) a momument to someone I don't know for doing something I never learned in a language I can't read, a big open public space filled with restaurants and bars, plentiful youth with skateboards, guitars, and ice creams, and somewhere not so far off I hear polka. It sounds live. I gravitate toward the polka.

Open admission... I like Polka music. I especially love it when beer is involved, or when I'm in the former eastern block.

This polka sounds mildly strange, like only the tuba is live. When I find it around the corner I see that indeed it's only a tuba. He's got a boombox with him. Although, something else is strange about this guy...

FIRE IS COMING OUT OF HIS TUBA! What the hell is going on? Fire breathing Tuba. I'm pretty sure that sealed the deal. I love Warsaw.

I had to sit and watch for a little while. It turns out that I was in a slightly touristy area, but the locals hang out there too. This fire-breathing tuba guy doesn't seem to be run of the mill. A lot of people were looking at him. I was sitting and wondering what sort of contraption he rigged to make his tuba breathe fire. I also wondered how he'd tuned his tuba to keep it from being incredibly sharp. I took another walk around the block and came back to see the fire-breathing tuba from the other side. I walked very close behind him and found that he welded a contraption onto the bell of his tuba so that when he presses a small button with his left hand it releases some gas and flame. He was pressing the button when he was playing notes to give the impression that he was breathing fire. But it really looked awesome! Fire freakin breathing freakin tuba!

A walk on Beirut's seaboard at night

2010-05-11T03:44:00.000-07:00

After getting "stuck" in Lebanon for five days before heading on to Paris I finally got a ticket to to fly. For a brief moment I considered an overland trip from Beirut to Belgium, but that would have been
a) expensive
b) timely
c) less fun than my fantasies may have suggested.

So I waited to get a plane ticket. It turns out, that to get a "cheap" plane ticket you have to fly at painful o'clock. So I did. Thing is, that my flight was at 4:50 AM. That meant I needed to be at the airport by about 3:00 AM. So I decided that I'd go into Beirut with my cousin(s) and we'd hang out until a late hour, then he'd take me to the airport. We left the village at about 9PM and got into beirut about 9:45PM. We picked up another friend (who also happens to be a cousin) and the three of us set out for a shopping mall. I had nothing to do with this decision. However, my one cousin who was driving had a girl to go see. She works in said shopping mall. So now the four of us are out in Beirut with no mission. This, I should point out, is not the lebanese way. Usually there is some place or some activity in mind. I guess for my cousin, picking up a girl and dropping me off at the airport were the objectives. Somehow we missed that whole 5 hour span in the middle.

In any case, we drove around gemayze (beirut's party district) and didn't stop. We almost drove up to Jounieh (definitely my vote, I love jounieh) but didn't. In the end, we drove down the coastline a short way past the american university of beirut, past some old rundown buildings, past the old ramada inn and found a nice arguilleh bar and restaurant by the sea.

Quick Aside, I know I've mentioned it before, but the old ramada inn in downtown beirut is amazing. It's completely riddled bull of old mortar shells and bullet holes. And it's sitting amidst some of the most beautifully rebuilt pieces of downtown. It's really something to see. It reminds me of how horrible war is, but somehow it's a real piece of hope since it's STILL standing. If you can't knock down a major chain hotel over the course of nearly 20 years, you can't defeat the city in which it stands. Anyway, enough romanticizing.

We get to a restaurant and I immediately see Kibbeh Naye (raw meat) on the menu and jump on it. My cousins and random girl joining us were surprised that I'd eat such a thing. Come on people, it was on the damn menu. It's not like I asked for something illicit that no one would ever eat... Anyway, the common practice in Lebanon is to drink Arak with kibbeh naye to, you know, "kill the germs." So I ordered that. What!? No alcohol here? Isn't this an overpriced smoking lounge on the sea? It is? And you don't carry the national beverage? Not even if I ask for it "off the menu?" W. T. and F? So I sat and ate my raw meat which of course was delicious and drank a 7up. I felt like a kid. Here ibn ghazi, have your sandwich and your 7up while the adults smoke from pipes. A bit lame. BUT, there is a bright spot just ahead.

After the restaurant we went for late night coffee and tea (always a good thing) and parked right on the seaboard. Beirut has really done a nice job with the oceanfront recently. So we took a stroll for the remaining few hours. My cousin and his girl took off way ahead so they could "talk" (which apparently is exactly what they did...) and my other cousin and I walked far behind telling dirty jokes and talking about Lebanon's future developments. It's a beautiful stroll. IF you get a chance to be in Beirut at about 2AM go for a walk down on the seaboard and catch a glimpse of all the young folks smoking the arguilleh, drinking tea, and playing backgammon with fiendish intensity uncharacteristic of all the other activities taking place. I almost decided to get into a backgammon game, but I don't trust the guys who play every day for money and have a far greater knowledge of good cheats than I.

Regant Lake Palace Hotel in Kollam

2010-05-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, back to India again. I never really finished blogging about my trip with Yvonne down India's west coast. I'm still missing the entire Kerala portion. So, after the bomb on the plane from kingfisher airlines (still bitter that they have an airline by the way) on the plane from bangalore, we made it to Trivandrum (thiruvananthupuram) and had booked a hotel in Kollam. Kollam is only about 80km north of trivandrum, but the bus takes a long time to get there. Somehow, everything is really slow in India, even on good roads.

So we get out of the airport, find a cab to the bus station, and find the bus to kollam. Luckily these buses go every few minutes. So, for a matter of $2 or something small like that, we were on our way to the Regant Lake Palace Hotel on a small bus with all our luggage. Fast forward 2 hours later and there we were.

Regant Lake Palace Hotel, somehow evokes everything that a tourist should expect from India. It's a beautiful hotel in the middle of nowhere (actuall between the arabian sea and a lake) which is horribly decorated and has a staff full of people who WANT to be helpful, but simply aren't. They really were sweet people, but simply not a clue about anything. Quick example: It was the Malayalam New Year or maybe the Kerala New Year (I can't keep them straight) and this meant 10 days of blaring devotional music playing at ear splitting level. We were put on the side of the hotel where the music was. The speaker blaring this annoyance was hoisted way into a tree that was approximately 40 ft high (ie the level of the hotel room). We asked to be moved to the other side (as there were no other guests in our hotel) and the bellhop said the music was coming from the other side and it would be louder there. What a f'ing idiot. He didn't even check, he just called the front desk and described (incorrectly) where our room was. Did I mention this music starts at 5AM and ends at 1AM? Did I mention that most of it isn't really music, but more high pitched wailing and drums? Did I mention that I hate high pitched indian singing? Did I mention that they didn't change our side of the hotel? Did I mention that this was the second new year this year? Bizarre.

Anyway, the hotel was really lovely, great breakfast (included in the room price) and was on a lake. Did I mention they have their own private island (about 5000 m^2 which is to say extremely tiny for an island)?

Warsaw

2010-05-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

Hello readers! I apologize for the inordinately long delay in my blogging. I've been bouncing around western europe and arrived recently in warsaw where I'm staying at the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish National Academy (IMPAN).

I took an overnight train from Utrecht, Netherlands to Warsaw Central station. I was shocked that the train came directly. In fact, I think the train went all the way to Moscow, but I decided that since my entire euro vacation was built on the premise that I'd be giving a talk in Warsaw and attending a conference later, that I'd better not miss it... That would really be signing my mathematical death warrant. As it is I'm on pretty thin ice.

So, Warsaw... I got here on Sunday morning. Noone here at the institute, no internet, no phone, no map... I asked around for a long time just to find the institute. Found it. Checked in, set down my bags, went exploring.

So it Warsaw, what is the first thing I find? Why yes, a shawarma place owned by a jordanian where I had to order my food in arabic. Of course, that screams Poland to me.
Although I was really happy with that, because it turns out that Jordanian Arabic sounds really similar to Lebanese Arabic except that Jordanians sound a lot angrier. I ate my shawarma (with no tomato!!!!) and chatted with a guy who loves the united states more than any self respecting jordanian should. That also made me happy. Then he gave me a true jordanian show. He told me about a nightclub close by that he really loves because of "the bitches." Oh warsaw, you excite me.

Ok, back to work on my talk. Done with work, what's next? Vietnamese food of course! I found a vietnamese place very close by. They were out of Pho! (clark then exudes a long cry) and finds an english speaker who tells me chmielna street (about 20 minutes walking) has a lot of vietnamese restaurants. Off I go! Ask away, ask away. How to I get to Chmielna street? Oh, you don't speak english either...

Finally I made it. Funny thing, lots of bars, no vietnamese places. What I did find however, was that chmielna was back in what looked like some alley from the main road. It turns out that there are lots of "it looks like an alley" streets in warsaw. I decided to spend about 4 hours last night going up and down them seeing what I could find.

Interesting finds so far:
1) Winairnia Tblisi.
I recognized the first word meant winery or something related to wine. The second word is the capital city of Georgia (not the Atlanta one, the eastern european country). Sure enough, a store, and wine bar full of nothing but wines from georgia... Didn't know they had 100 wineries.

2) Beautifully conserved catholic churches next to stalin era statues of workers. Industrial workers promoting the well fare of society (clearly).

3) Warsaw is an eastern block city which is modernizing very quickly. I actually really like it, and am excited to see what I find this week.

Guns and Explosives Under My Bed

2010-04-22T23:26:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it was naive of me to think I could go to Lebanon a third time in 5 months and not see something terribly shocking. I sort of figured I'd seen a lot of things in Lebanon. My family is a bunch of mountain folks. They go down into the city a lot, but know how to survive. Hunting is a big sport, but the scarred psychology that remains after a civil that rocked the nation for two decades is a fragile one. "Defense" is still in the front of the minds of many people. One of my cousins that I hadn't seen in nearly 7 years is back from working in the gulf and he likes guns. I'll just leave it at that. He likes guns. The first morning after I awoke, he showed me a pistol. He said "it's good quality, German." Upon further examination he revealed it to be a 1918 german pistol. I don't really know anything about guns (turning my back somewhat on both of my heritages...) but it looked and felt like a really nice piece of machinery. I can't condone it, but I try to appreciate something that is done with real quality. Besides, this pistol had some old cloth wrapped up and stuck in the barrel. Also, the bullets were not in the gun. So I let that one go as a nice machine. What I saw next really shocked me.

My cousin asked if I liked it. I honestly answered "yes, it's a high quality gun." So, essentially given the green light, he asked if I liked hunting. Again I answered honestly (gotta stop doing that around lebanese family...) "I don't like it myself, but I appreciate people who hunt and eat what they kill." So he pulls out a high powered gun. I don't mean a hunting rifle, I mean a military grade weapon. It was the most imposing gun I've ever been able to touch. BIG rifle. Not something I would think to use as a "deer hunting weapon" more like a Samual Jackson from Jackie Brown style "for when you absolutely got to kill ever motherf*cker in the room" style weapon. Any deer that comes up against that thing... Well...

Ok, two weapons, high caliber. Third gun! WHAT. THE. F*CK!? is that thing? I has a shoulder brace and is a much higher powered gun than either of the first two. I was almost afraid to hold it. This was an assassin's gun. Scary shit. I'm not kidding. It was scary shit. Of course, it wasn't loaded and the ammo wasn't even in the room. But holding that kind of potential destructive power is not something with which I can yet consider myself comfortable. Oh MY GOD. I think my tour of guns is finished for the day.

Ok, guns, enough. Later that morning after a beautiful breakfast in perfect weather on a perfect veranda overlooking some of the world's most gorgeous scenery, my (78 year old) aunt comes out and says something to her son and grandson. Her son begins explaining to me that they found some leftover explosives in the old wood shed. He said during the war they had to be ready to defend themselves at a moment's notice. He also explained to me that these explosives can simply be lit on fire and they do so sometimes just to light fires in the stove or whatever other common household chose is necessary. Explosives (plastic explosives) don't explode from fire alone. They require a chain reaction, and generally a powerful force to hit them first. Some my younger cousin (who'd been showing me the guns) goes to the wood shed and brings out some plastic explosives onto the deck... WHAT. THE. F*CK!?
He plays with them a little, and I tell him not to throw them or else invite disaster. He said, if these explode we'd find the stones of the house in beirut. He's right. There were some big explosives leftover. I don't know how much firepower was there, but certainly enough to knock down the house in which they currently reside (and it's a big house). My older cousin finally explains to me that during the war he had a whole stockpile of weapons including but not limited to grenades, mortars, 2000 lbs TNT, TWO bazookas (not just one bazooka, but two bazookas...), smaller explosives, and a small militia's worth of guns. After that war was end he took most of the illegal stuff (I guess it wasn't illegal in the war, because there were no laws) to the local army storage base and said he'd found it somewhere. Whatever kind of story is sufficient to get that stuff off your hands. What was leftover were some guns for "hunting" and a few forgotten plastic explosives.

Spice Plantation in Goa

2010-04-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

Goa really does have some wonderfully touristy things. I don't know how you can go to one of the world's premiere spice growing regions and ignore the spice markets and spice plantations totally. So off we go to the spice plantation. Cab far, non Indian resident fare, pre-paid lunch, more nickel and diming, and we're there!

One of the many things I picked up in India is a real love for cardamom. I liked it before, but it's a potent spice. Bite into one of those little capsules and it's a strong flavor. Perhaps too strong. I love it. It shows up in a lot of Indian dishes and in north india in chai and I get a huge kick out of chomping right into one of those powerful spice pods! One thing I didn't know (learned on the tour, I'm such a crappy tourist sometimes) is that cardamom is one of the world's most expensive spices. I can't remember where it ranks, and I'm not sure who's ranking it, but the tour guide had said something about.

I should take some time here to mention the tour. Our tour guide was a little Indian girl (probably about 30, but she looked 15 or 16) and gave us an over rehearsed under enthused tour. Most of the tour was about herbal remedies for things rather than cook this delicious dish with this spice, but still kind of interesting. However, it was monotone, flat, too fast to retain any useful info, and jokes were thrown in there, but totally deadpan. It was a shame because I actually liked a couple of them...
For example:
Concerning Peri Peri chillies, which are amongst the hottest chillies in the world. (I think they rank just below habeneros on the scoville scale) She said "These chillies are a cure for people you don't like. Just put two in any sandwich."
No laughter. Come one people, that wasn't so terrible for a joke. It's just that our girl didn't deliver it as if she meant it.
Second example: Concerning Fenny...
"The fruit of the cashews is left to ferment, then distilled twice. And if you people drink it you will be ready for take-off."
Ok, that one is not so funny, but I like the idea that she's making a jet fuel joke about homemade rotgut!

Anyway, I got to pet an elephant, eat some love apples (about which a british woman said "I'm not feeling the love..."), eat some raw coffee beans which was a fairly bizarre experience, and see some spice I'm not accustomed to seeing grow. We were fed lunch which was quite tasty and at the end of the tour the "brave people" were allowed to try the homemade fenny. Of course both Yvonne and I wanted to try more rotgut! Actually, it wasn't bad at all. It wasn't jet fuel, it didn't smell bad, and we weren't ready for take-off. It was essentially cashew flavored vodka. I've had much worse. Also, I didn't go blind, or lose any sight (not even from blackout).

Making a Still (limoncello part 3)

2010-04-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

I have no idea about the legal regulations in India, but as the saying goes...

"In India, the answer is always 'no'... unless it's 'yes.'"
I'm just assuming that perhaps I did something mildly illegal. Oh well, tons of bootleggers all around and a black market that can provide 50 bottles of whiskey at 3AM with hoards and hoards (and hordes) of drugs (and drug smugglers) I figure they won't even realize there is a moonshiner (the term is probably something else) producing liquor very quietly for personal consumption. So, how does one do this?

I have to ask for a still. "The fixer had promised the ability to get one." I couldn't get ahold of him in time (or rather he couldn't get ahold of his guy on my schedule) so I had to take matters into my own hands.
It turns out the things that are easier to get in India than a still include:

1) GUNS
2) DRUGS (any variety)
3) Sex (again, any variety).

My sister points out that this can be said to be true in the united states as well. I guess I'd contend that you can legally BUY a still in the united states too, but these items are easier to get on the black market than a still. Who knew?

So, off to MAKE a still. I have very little idea what I'm going to do or the challenges facing this particular endeavor, but this is definitely all for the sake of science! (I have no other intention than to produce high quality alcohol for scientific purposes. Definitely not for consumption, no definitely not that.)

Pressure cooker, high grade plastic tubing (copper is nearly impossible to find, plus I'd need welding equipment...) and something to affix the tubing to the pressure release valve. Pressure cooker... Expensive. Oh wait, how about the second hand store(s). We found a nice 10L cooker for Rs 700. The usual price is 750 for 5L.
Tubing... Rs 14/meter... And a nice perfectly sized affixing tool for Rs 9. Ok, we're in business. Now, how does this thing work?

Attempt one: Run the tubing up through the ceiling fixtures and across the room into a small bucket with a hole in the bottom. Put water in the bucket to cool the tube (condenser) and allow goodness to come out.
EVERYTHING IS WORKING! OH SWEET SASSY MOLASSY! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! IT'S WORKING. OH SHIT! IT'S NOT CONDENSING! F*&^ this is hot! all the alcohol is vaporizing... SHIT SHIT SHIT. Well I collected what I could. It worked.
Over the course of the week I played with ways of condensing alcohol and finally figured out what to do...

In the end I need to run the tubing actually a very short distance from the still, put as much ice as my poor freezer could make in a big bucket and put as much tubing as possible in the water. Collect the alcohol into a carboy. That ended up working. I distilled 30 L of alcohol into 3. If I'd gotten my still right the first time I might have pushed that number to 4.5 or even 5... Oh well, I distilled it.

The trick was the second distillation.

Stranded in Dubai

2010-04-19T01:55:00.000-07:00

My flight out of India to Amsterdam was to take the following route:

Chennai to Dubai
Dubai to Bucharest
Bucharest to Amsterdam

I went like this
Chennai to Dubai no problems whatsoever (except for excess baggage charges, what are you going to do?).

I landed in Dubai at 12:25 AM. Romania closed their air space at 12:00 AM. Oops.
When I left India, my flight to bucharest was still on and expecting to depart with no problems. So I land in Dubai. I collect my bags, transfer flights, and oh...
I end up talking to a lebanese lady in the airport at "information desk." I knew she was lebanese by the way she approached my problem.

"information": There is no flight. Why you are trying to check in?
exasperated traveler: I know, but where is the airline?
info: the flight is canceled.
me: I KNOW that. I can read. I want to talk to the airline.
info: but the flight is canceled, why will you talk to them?
me: Ok, let's just say hypothetically speaking... that the flight were NOT canceled.
info: (interrupting) but it is canceled, so why do you care?
me: You didn't let me finish. Where WOULD I check in, if the flight WEREN'T canceled?
info: But it is canceled, there is no flight.
me: Are you lebanese?
info: Yes, why?
me: You talk like you're lebanese.
info: (confused look).

So I go to 20 other people asking about what I can. I was told to "go to my hotel" by "information" I told her, I'm trying, but my hotel is in amsterdam. That relit the fire of "you can't get to amsterdam." THAT LADY, was an idiot... But she was also definitely lebanese in being so bound to immediate practicality that the longer term solution to the problem was of negligible importance. A bit annoying for me. I actually ratted her out later. A man going around the airport talking to stranded passengers was trying to save face for customer service. He asked me if people were helpful. I told him truthfully "yes, except for a lebanese lady at information. She was the only one who didn't give me any information." HA, take that "information." Truthfully, all the airline attendants were really friendly and helpful. I speak about dubai as sort of a crappy place because it's just one big shopping mall with a couple indian neighborhoods and a building that looks like a big phallus (the biggest phallus in the world), but one thing they know IS CUSTOMER SERVICE! Well done, dubai on the customer service!

So I slept in the airport. A couple of really lovely french ladies/girls and a tunisian guy were sitting with me and the tunisian guy had no problem getting home. The french ladies booked the last two tickets to tunisia. Their plan was to boat to marseille and then train to paris. I thought it would have been fun to travel with them, but I had a shitload of luggage (my life's possessions basically) and didn't want to drag it around too much. Everything to Europe was closed. Dead, caput, nada, zero, zilch, zippo, nothing, no dice, fat chance.
So I saw that Beirut had some open flights. SURPRISE! I'm going to Beirut! I slept in the airport in dubai, got up about 10 AM (after 3 hours sleep) and bought a ticket on the 12:45 to beirut. I took Middle East Airlines (lebanon's carrier) and only had to pay $25 for baggage overages! A good result after Emirates $202 from chennai to dubai... So I went to beirut. Once there, I bought a phone card, called the only numbers I know and said I'm catching a cab to Btekhnay. Of COURSE, no one had read my email and so were all completely taken by surprise that I showed up. So, in the end I'm stranded in Btekhnay rather than Dubai. Things could DEFINITELY be worse. My third trip to Lebanon in 6 months. Not bad if I do say so myself. But I'm still on a mission for good beer and brandy. I WILL make it to belgium and gascony. I'm all over it like white on rice. Stay tuned.

Anjuna Flea Market

2010-04-19T00:09:00.000-07:00

If you happen to be in Goa on a Wednesday and are looking to buy an incredible amount of cheap goods, or looking for some hippies to smoke up with, well have I got the place for YOU! Anjuna flea market! It's famous and rightly so. Lots of sit down snack joints (lots of joints for snacks...) Basically it's full of Russian and eastern european tourists and other white folk buying goods from kashmiris (shock) and tibetans (shock) and everyone else who wants to make a buck (or a few rupees) selling essentially useless crap.

We rented a cab to take us up and back, but part of the negotiation included stopping into some "coupon shops." This is a term that at first I didn't mind, but it grew ever more irritating as the trip wore on because more of our time got eaten up seeing shops selling things we didn't want to buy. But hey, we get a discount for stopping in, and the driver makes his Rs. 20 or whatever. Eventually we learned how to say, "We'll just pay you 60 more if you DON'T take us to the coupon shops." That worked a little, but the cab drivers are sort of indentured servants. If the shop owners find out that they've been driving people around and don't stop in to THEIR stores the cab driver has a harder time saving face. This is my guess. I can think of no other reason why they would be reluctant to take more money and NOT stop... Shorter time, more money...

Anyway, we got to the market. I got the driver's cell number and we set off.

Hey! Look at those shirts! Cool bags. Is that a shop selling old jimmy hendrix vinyls? No, just T-shirts. Is it just me or is Che Guevara REALLY popular here? Do they actually realize he was part of the Cuban revolution? Maybe he's just some counter-cultural icon. Hey! Look over there! They're selling trumpets!

I go to look at the trumpets, and they guy selling them tells me to pick any one and play it. I do so. It's broken. He says "1000 Rupees." I say sadly "it's broken."
He says "no problem, you pay thousand." I don't think he understands what I'm saying. I set it down and walk away looking dejected. He wonders what the problem is and chases me. "Sir, how much you give me?" I tell him again, "it doesn't work." I try to tell him "right now, it's not a trumpet." No success. "No problem sir, you give me 800." I finally walk off. He realizes that I'm actually NOT interested. I still don't think he understands that it's because the trumpet was broken. one of the tubes was pinched and it needed about $100 repair to play it. Add to that, I have no REAL desire to relearn the trumpet if it means carrying one from goa through kerala through chennai through wherever the hell else I'll go just to get it repaired before I can play it.

Hey! Look at that? What are they selling? Rocks? Yes, I think they are selling rocks. Wait, no, those are unpolished gemstones. Ah, no, they are selling jewelery and that is part of their demo. Wow, an BIG jewelery tent. Lots of Tibetans (shock). Funny thing about the Tibetans, they don't give much of a discount. I think Russell Peters (Canadian-Indian comedian) Says it best. (Concerning Chinese-Indian business relations) "You know why Chinese and Indians can't get along? It's because Chinese want to take every penny from you, and Indians don't want to spend a dime."

While I am terribly reticent to call tibetans "chinese" I think their business mentality is still similar. I think at one point (I didn't witness this directly) Yvonne asked for a discount on some bracelet and the seller acted insulted that she suggest a discount. The dealer hurriedly took back his bracelet and said, "you go now." WOW! No counter offer, nothing. Anyway, that episode over. I wandered further into the market and saw all kinds of scantily clad old hippies. I didn't expect to see women in their 50's and 60's wearing midriffs and tube tops with low rise jeans and thongs sticking out. The sight was rather unsettling to be honest. There was a restaurant WAY in the back (about a mile from the entrance) with a LIVE BAND. I hadn't seen a live in house band in India. These guys are pretty good.

Ok, time for a cold beer. What do you have? "KF sir." Oh my GOD! I'm swearing off KF. It is officially no longer considered beer! I'll have a coke. You things are bad when...

Ok, cold coke. I feel a little better. Time to go. I went away with some nice shirts, and a few too many eyefulls of women wearing things that maybe they should have thought twice about. And WAY too many eyefulls of men not wearing enough...
If you're in Goa on a Wednesday, go give it a shot.

Iceland's Volcano

2010-04-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

Iceland's Volcano... It's officially messed up my travel plans too. I'm en route to Amsterdam. My route: Chennai to Dubai to Bucharest to Amsterdam. Funny thing, I thought Romania would be free from volcanic ash. Wrong. The volcano sent a second plume of smoke up into the atmosphere. I'm not really upset. It's a bit annoying, because it's gonna cost me a lot of money to get the hell out of Dubai. Funny thing, Romania shut its air space at midnight and my flight was supposed to be at 4:00 AM. Oh well. Now I've gotta figure out where I'm going next. I guess Beirut's looking good again.

So to all you travelers out there who are stranded just like myself. Fret not, the volcano probably won't erupt for more than a year straight (cf 1821). But hey, it really, really could be worse. So far, I've met a tunisian, a couple of french ladies traveling my way (sort of) and I was just chatting with a lovely older lady from Alabama on her way back to Atlanta for medical treatment. I got to talk about wine, lebanese food, and pork barbeque and the intricacies of red beans and rice. All while here in lovely dubai airport. Oh yeah, also, I got another stamp in my passport! Woo! But getting on to amsterdam... Well, that looks relatively unlikely. But hey, I've also got a nice liter of homemade hooch traveling with me somewhere... (I received a handshake for this announcement from my new alabamastani friend). Dubai's not SO bad, and also, I'll probably make an impromptu trip to beirut. Could be worse.

A Bomb on the Plane

2010-04-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

Getting from Goa to Kerala... Not as easy as I'd envisioned. No direct flights, and trains take 100 hours. So we had to fly through Bangalore. Bangalore, once again impresses! Nice airport! Free wifi! Good Dosas at the airport! I thought airport food was supposed to be crappy! Not in Bangalore, totally good dosas.

Well, the second leg of our trip was from Bangalore to Trivandrum. In fact, Trivandrum got one of the stupidest renamings in India's massive identity crisis a few years back.
The official name of trivandrum is now

Thiruvananthupuram. WT and F!? Why would you change it from a name that barely fit on signs to a name that not only doesn't fit on signs, but can't even be used in a thesis title because it's so long!? Give me a freaking break. And to top if all off, the difference in the way it's spoken is only one extra syllable, that 'an' in the middle. Give me a freakin' break. Anyway, none of this is the point. The point is that we flew on a little hopper flight on Kingfisher Air. (Yes, that same piece of shit brewery got big enough to have an airline!) Well, as soon as we reached Trivandrum we had to catch a bus up to Kollam, which is only 50 km, but 90 minutes on a bus (express bus that is). We got to our hotel a bit late, but made it nonetheless. No sooner than we'd gotten there than did we see a news ticker notice (on Kingfisher News btw) about a bomb on a kingfisher airlines plane from bangalore to trivandrum (yes they use bangalore and trivandrum in the news instead of bengaluru and thiruvananthapuram). HOLY HELL! Was it on OUR plane? Surely not? Maybe so. They reported no passengers were hurt as the bomb wasn't detonated.

As soon as I let that shock sink in, I realize that this will mean hell in a few days when we have to fly OUT of trivandrum. They are going to be extra careful with their screening. Oh man, that's not good. They are going to go forward with the same reactionary screening for which airport security is so notorious. React to something that ALREADY happened, and give no credence to what other bad things might happen. Yeesh! But for as much "screening" as they do at every indian airport, one would expect that a bomb wouldn't make it on a plane from india's 4th biggest airport. Oh India, how I love all your rules that do nothing more than aggravate honest citizens.

The "Best" Rickshaw Driver in Chennai

2010-04-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

I was heading up to Zara in Nungambakam. It was Tuesday night. Nungambakam is far from here. I had to catch a mosquito taxi. Damn! Here's one. "You want how much?"
"That's way too much!" "How about 100?" He's not going for it. Argument ensues. I win. He's still not dropping the price. "Ni Naiy ("you dog")!" He laughs "Ni naiy." Ok, fine, I'm done debating this stupid price and there is no other mosquito taxi coming by right now. Ugh. I can't believe I gave into that price. Piss. More inner expletives...

Ok, we're going. It's not that far. What's this? He likes my Tamil? That's cool. What's he doing now? Is he RACING the other rickshaws? Am I going to die? Is he making the sound of a car peeling out? This guy is hilarious. He's asking me something in tamil... "How long have I been here?" I respond? "Yes" he repeats in Tamil and then in English "how long you are staying here?" "Five months, aingee." "Oh your Tamil so good." He starts counting in Tamil. He starts singing in Tamil, asks me something else I have know idea. I ask him if he speaks English "Englisha Teriamaa?" "Little little, konjum sir." We pull up to a stop light. Apparently there are two young women in the back of the next rickshaw over. He looks over. No, scratch that, he very obviously leans over to stare at them. I catch him in the mirror. He smiles, and then pulls the rickshaw forward so I can see too! I take a quick glance, nothing special. But just to acknowledge the whole ordeal I look at him in the mirror and we are both nodding as if to say "Look! Single Women! NICE!" Of course I'm not thinking this at the time. I've now begun thinking, this dude is hilarious. I'm kind of ok overpaying him for this one ride, because he's a totally f'ing nut job. Also, I dig his sense of humor.

The ride finishes rather quickly, and I'm happy about it, because I still have an overwhelming feeling of disdain for mosquito taxis. However, this guy was at least fun to ride with. He kind of acted like a kid happy to have ripped off another westerner enough so that he can buy his petrol for the night. It was amongst the very few times I felt like I got my money's worth out of a mosquito taxi ride. So, for now, I'll dub this crazy dude, "Best Rickshaw driver in Chennai." Well done, sir, well done.

How many New Year's?

2010-04-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

Just two days ago I was wished by some faculty and staff members a happy Tamil and Malayalam New Year. WHAT!? This is the new year!? What's going on here? Let me review the situation briefly.

January 14, Pongal = Tamil New Year. It's the only Hindu Holiday on the Solar Calendar. There were many big celebrations here and lots of very nice Kolam on the ground. Brilliant stuff. I'm told this holiday has a different name in North India, but still represents the new year. In fact, I think it sort of goes along with the Republic Day (January 26) which is the day of drafting India's constitution. I figure that in some way marks a new year. It wouldn't surprise me if the two are tied together somehow. But as it is, January 14 is the New Year holiday, and January 26 is NOT a new year holiday.

March 16-25 Some New Year's celebration which lasts ten days. I know that this is the new year because Yvonne and I were in Kerala during this time. The music started every morning at 5:00 AM and went all the way until 1:00 AM. It was the most annoying thing ever. It's not that they were playing music so much, but that it was so loud. We were on the 4th floor of a hotel which was near a temple. Through our closed windows the temple's music was louder than the television. I could even hear it in the bathroom. Give me a break! I was ready to go cut the wire to the speaker in the middle of the night! I may have also made it known how much I hate the way Indian women sing. It's god awful. High pitched squealing, basically. OH MY MANY MANY MANY GODS! If this is pleasing to you, will you please send me another god with good taste?
Pardon that interuption... Anyway, there can be no doubt, that was a new year celebration. I asked many people why the music was so loud and the response was, it is a big holiday, new year. Which still didn't answer the question of "WHY THE HELL IS THIS SO ANNOYING FOR 20 HOURS A DAY!?" But it did reinforce the idea that it was indeed a new year celebration...

April 14, Happy Tamil and Malayalam new year? Wait a minute, um what? Excuse me, did you say "new year?" I'm not quite sure I'm hearing this correctly. I don't see any sign of celebration, no new year's signs, nothing of the sort. But yet, we get an institutional holiday because it's the NEW YEAR? Someone help me out here! New year was a month ago, or wait, was it three months ago? I'm now more confused than ever.

My only good guess is that Hinduism is actually the NEWEST religion on the block and their calendar is in the year 27000 because they celebrate the new year ever 6-8 weeks.
I guess when there are only two seasons, a)hot and b)hell then you gotta find some time to celebrate something...

As it is, I'm terribly, terribly confused as to how this calendar works now.

The Beaches in Goa

2010-04-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

Somehow, we failed to get up to Panjim for too much time. Panjim happens to be the capital of Goa. It's a quaint village of about 50,000 people. On a quick aside, I really do love that about Goa, there is no megacity in this tiny little portugese haven within india.

In Goa, however, the northern end of the state is the party place. Panjim is sort of central, but slightly north. It's where the nightclubs are and very close to the popular beaches. I got no problem with popular beaches, but one will find that they are quite a bit more polluted than the "unpopular" beaches. Like I said before, the beaches in Goa are not as utterly pristine as all the guidebooks claim them to be. They are just pristine in comparison with the rest of India's beaches. HOWEVER, they are clean enough that you can swim in them, and swim in them I did. Also, they are clean enough (being 700 km south of mumbai) that you can eat the seafood.

The beaches in the south are covered with party joints. Many, many seafood shacks serving "beer" and spirits and fresh (right out of the ocean fresh) seafood. In many cases you can find a decent breakfast at any hour of the day on the cheap too. At night, the beaches are quiet, except for the few party shacks that stay open until about 1 in the morning. The only problem on the southern end of the state is that the beaches are not well lit where there are no party shacks. Somehow, this is a bit more ominous than it should be. But the Goans assured me people in Goa are much more laid back and friendly than in other states. I think they're right. Luckily, no ill fortune befell us as we strolled up toward the rock'n'roll sounds and fried fish smells that naturally attracted our attention.

So there's my recommandation. Go to Goa, go the the south of Goa. Drink Fenny on the beach and enjoy ACTUALLY SWIMMING.

Limoncello step 2

2010-04-14T04:13:00.000-07:00

What to do, what to do, what to do? It turns out that brewing, and distilling presents far more challenges in India (south india specifically) than it does in chicago or philadelphia. What's the difference? There are several. Among them, the heat, the lack of good equipment, the lack of good cleaning supplies, yeast, and oh yeah the HEAT.

So, first things first, cleaning...
Bleach and water, lots of water. Some scrubbing , ok, lots of scrubbing and rinsing.
You don't want bleach water, or indian tap water infiltrating your brew.

The equipment:
A big pot for boiling, and some fermenters. The fermenters are basically plastic carboys. Think Culligan water tanks. Just that, except the name, get this, is not Culligan, but "Shine." Could it be more perfect?

The ingredients: Jaggery (raw sugar), White Sugar, yeast, filtered water, pineapple juice, and lemons.
Some comment here. The yeast was hand carried from the United States. Getting good fermenting yeast here? Not sure where/how to do such a thing. It's Red Star Premiere de Cuvee (champagne yeast). Works wonders, I made a meade and a cyser from it.
lemons and pineapple juice are to give the yeast nutrient. Yeast can't just eat sugar. It needs some other food too.

The process:
Disolve all the sugar into water. Warm up yeast. Pitch yeast into room temperature water.
Here is the biggest problem!
In india...

Getting things cold...

Is really difficult!

My italian buddy was helping me out that day. We got everything set up, except the wort was nearly boiling temperature! I waited nearly 12 hours for it to cool down.
When I finally pitched the yeast, the wort was still slightly warmer than room temperature. That's not good. Room temperature, I should mention is 35 C = 95 F. After about 40 C yeast dies. Oh yeah, I should also mention, that fermentation is exothermic...

Ah F%@# the yeast died! Luckily I had a spare packet of yeast. I warmed it up, and pitched it. Now, my 38L of pre-hooch is getting eaten by enough yeast to devour 10 times that amount! But most of it is dead. HOW THE HELL DO YOU COOL THINGS DOWN IN INDIA!!?!?!?

So, I've got a boat load of liquid and I'm trying to make it into something that will distill easily. NOT SO EASY. But for now, step one has been achieved. There is a large quantity of beautiful brown sugary goodness becoming less sugary sitting in the middle of my apartment! Happy fermentation!

Goan beverages

2010-04-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

When I mentioned I was in Goa, I got plenty of beer related messages on the book of faces. A friend of mine from Tennessee, of all places, pointed out a beer to me of which I was fully unaware! Shock! Horror! It's called King's. Mind you, this is NOT Kingfisher (which is not beer), but simply King's. It's a "Pilsner" even though it's definitely not made in the Czech Republic. Well, I should have known, it kinda sucked. I had my one Indian beer triumph in Mumbai (and got sick along with it). I shouldn't have expected two beer triumphs in a week. That is simply asking FAR too much, unless of course one is at GABF or Philly Beer Week...

So King's... It's just more of the same. Somewhat tasteless yellow fizzy beer called a "pilsner." I don't have much more to say, other than it's rather unmemorable.

Luckily for me, I had done my homework in other ways. Yes, Goa has a winery (Madera, not Madeira) and makes all the usuals, port, brandy, whiskey. The real treat for me was Fenny (pronounced FAY-NEE, not feh-nee). There are two types of Fenny. The first is made from cashew fruits, the second from coconuts.

If case you are in the dark, as I was, about cashews. They are fruits. Wikipedia, help me out here. The nut type thing we eat is one end of the cashew and the other end is a fruit. By the way, I do NOT recommend eating the cashew fruit before it is ripe... Experience tells me otherwise. It has some sort of funny numbing chemical in it, and I "burned" my tongue. Ah well, that what you get for eating forbidden fruit.

So, Fenny. The fruit part of the cashew is allowed to over ripen, then it is fermented into funny, strongly pungent fruit wine. At that point it is distilled twice into rocket fuel known as Fenny. It is usually cut from 80% to 30% with water, but it's kinda of strange. I definitely enjoyed it on a daily basis in Goa. It has a funny smell, and unless you've smelled cashew fruit, I can't describe the smell. Because it smells like ethanol and cashew fruit.

I was told repeatedly, not to smell it. Rubbish I say! It smells good, and tastes good too. However, I can see the appeal of making it a drink for mixing. So after some experimentation, Yvonne and I came up with a fantastic Fenny Cocktail.

Brew some extra strong black tea, then:

Black Tea + Fenny + Brandy + fruit juice (I recommend, pomegranate or apple) to taste.
Throw that bad boy in the fridge until it gets really cold, and drink it poolside. Voila.

Goa

2010-04-13T05:28:00.000-07:00

If you look at the Lonely Planet Series you'll find several things about India. In particular, There is an "India" book, a "Southern India" book, and a "Goa" book. Goa, it should be noted is India's second smallest state (second to Sikkim between Nepal and Bhutan). But, Goa still has it's own entire lonely planet travel guide. There must be something good here right? That's right. Goa, is basically renowned for being a tourist's haven within India. The tourist guides, however, say that the beaches are every bit as pristine as the people say they are. I'm not so sure about that. The beaches, were, in all fairness, the best I'd seen in India to that point. Nonetheless, the water was still slightly polluted. But I didn't scoff at eating seafood from Goa even though I'd just gotten sick eating seafood in mumbai. For our stay, yvonne booked a hella good hotel in a small town called Benaulim in the southern portion of Goa. We had a pool with a swim up bar. DID NOT THINK I'D SEE THAT IN INDIA! The beach was just about a mile away. In fact, the beach was much closer, it's just that the imposing "Taj Exotica Beach Resort" stood in our way, and even though we looked like wealthy tourists, they were still pissy about anyone entering to grounds at any time of day.

So, the first observations about goa...
One can't help but notice the portugese influence. Goa only (re)joined India in 1963. So one might imagine that with 400 years of portugese colonization there is a fair amount of catholicism hanging around. And if one imagines that, one is correct. I hadn't seen any concentration of catholic churches anywhere in India as in Goa. I doubt that any place has such a concentration. Certainly, Pondicherry might be another place, but the French quarter of Pondicherry is so small, that there are only a few churches there anyway (and half of them are british churches).

The second thing one will notice in Goa is the overabundance of white people. Goa must be have nearly 1/3 westerners at any given time. At Anjuna flea market there are plenty of old worn out hippies who just never left and opened up shop as t-shirt (and marijuana) sellers. The beaches are full of westerns and little beach snack shacks/restaurants/bars with tourists. There are only a few areas in India where I'd imagine the concentration of westerners is even remotely close to that.

The third thing one will notice (and first thing if you're ME) is the number of liquor stores and bars. They are simply everywhere. I really mean everywhere. Every third shop it seems! We were staying at an out of the way place in an out of the way town and between our hotel and the beach there were 4 pubs. Just 200 meters in the opposite direction a liquor store. You seriously can't go anywhere in Goa without seeing a plethora of bars and liquors stores. I attribute this to the portugese influence. I guess they think, similar to most europeans, that liquor isn't the devil's drink after all. In fact, the proper liquid to turn from wine into jesus' blood is port (If you're portugese of course). That said, Goa has wineries. It's way too damn hot in Goa to grow good grapes, but the Portugese made it happen anyway. Oh, I should also mention, that liquor in Goa is embarrassingly cheap. I bought a whole bottle of brandy (750 mL) for Rs 64. That is not much money in anyone's book.

The last thing that you might notice is again coming from the portugese influence, but it's the cuisine. Many Goans who have clearly never left Goa proclaimed that the reason I like Goan food is because it's western. WRONG! Goan food is not western! It is, however, delicious! Two specialties in Goa are Xacutti and Cafreal. These are both sauces (gravies) usually served with some fresh seafood right out of the arabian sea (which is clean enough for getting good seafood). These, to be fair, are Indian. There's no escaping that. But, they each have a distinctive European twist. I think the reason I liked them so much is that, well they taste good. The second reason must be that this truly is fusion food, but done extremely well. I must have eaten Xacutti 5 or 6 times in a week.

So, Goa, here we are, a week to explore, and attempt to relax/ escape India within India.

The ladyboys have come to extort money

2010-04-13T01:03:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how I could've missed this as an entire post. I think I alluded to it a while back in my description of the Delhi portion of the big India trip. HOWEVER, this morning on the train I was essentially melting and as the train is pulling away I hear, jingle jingle jingle jingle, and then hop, there's a woman in front of me on the train. Oh wait, that's a man, wait, no, that USED TO BE A MAN, now (s)he is a ladyboy. I haven't seen very many ladyboys in Chennai. I wonder why that is. But nonetheless this ladyboy walked up and down the train clapping his/her (pardon my ignorance, but I really don't know the proper gender pronoun for ladyboys) hands and touching most of the gentlemen on the shoulders or patting their heads. (S)he somehow, missed me. That was a first. I've never been the only OVERLOOKED person on the train. Perhaps it was that I was standing at the door and close to a foot taller then (s)he.

I'm always taken slightly aback when encountering the ladyboys. One never really knows how to deal with them. India has a few funny regulations that make dealing with ladyboys tricky:
1) Women cannot be arrested by male police officers
2) Arrested women must be accompanied by a man
3) Ladyboys are not considered men or women
4) Ladyboys are not considered citizens

How do you piece that together? I'm just not sure. It basically adds up to add the notion that ladyboys can get away with a lot. Of course, it also means that they have to put up with lot. I just really don't get it at all. But what I do know is that when it comes to begging, ladyboys can just really ask for whatever they like and harass you until they get it (unless of course you're a tall imposing foreigner).

The Train to Goa

2010-04-12T03:27:00.001-07:00

Um? A 12 hour train journey? No AC? "Sleeper" car, what the hell man? I actually thought it was kinda fun. Sadly though, this was yvonne's first sort of sick day. Ouch. Kinda picked a bad day for THAT to happen. I should mention that sleeper cars, don't exactly have what we might consider "toilets." For me, being a man, it's not so bad, just pee in a hole in the floor. It just flows out onto the tracks anyway. But luckily after one day of recovering from my night of "worship" I was feeling much better. I had no stomach issues, because there really wasn't anything IN my stomach.

I had originally suggested we take an overnight train as the trip was 12 hours so we'd get to see the scenery for the second half of the trip. As it was, we decided for the train starting at noon and arriving to madgao, goa at midnight. We got to see the first half of the scenery in maharashtra. It wasn't quite as scenic as I'd have hoped. It was also really hot. REALLY, REALLY HOT. The breeze didn't exactly help. I quote a German friend of mine from chennai...

"The breeze is nice, but in Germany it would be considered a searing wind."
So it was with the Maharashtra "breeze." We were sitting in a section of 8 seats. Somehow, 11 people were sitting all around. I guess that was kind of fun. There were 8 places for sleeping. Sadly for me, being 6'4" (i.e. 8" - 10" taller than everyone else) my feet stuck WAY out into the isle. I got tapped a couple times by passersby upset that I was kicking them in the head. Ah well, it was the authentic Indian Train Experience. I got ripped off for 5 rupes here and 5 rupes there. The two tall foreigners hanging out on the train... We were a sight to see for sure. But hey, I ate some decent biryani, drank some boiling hot coffee in 100 degree heat, talked to some new people, saw some scenery, and read most of a book. A successful train ride for me. Of course, I know someone who might have preferred an AC car...

Elephanta Island

2010-04-12T02:54:00.001-07:00

Last Day in Mumbai and we decided to go to Elephanta Island. It's a small island just a few kilometers into the Arabian Sea near Mumbai. The boats leave every few minutes and the boat ride is fairly cheap. Elephanta Island itself houses a few amazing temples high up into the hills carved out of stone. I was under the impression (just viewing the temples) that they were Buddhist temples, but after reading some of the promo literature, I found that it was a Shiva temple carved in the 1500s after Buddhism had been absorbed into Hinduism. I forget the process by which this absorption happened, but suffice it to say, Hinduism is a religion which is amorphous enough to absorb most other religions (not islam) and just fold them into their ever growing mythologies...

Anyway, the temples were absolutely fantastic. I had a hard time enjoying it so much, because the day was so absolutely murderously hot. On top of that I couldn't eat much because I had spent most of the night worshiping the porcelain god by making offerings of Leopold's Fish and Chips... I have an issue with Mumbai on its climate. It's hot, it's India afterall. Mumbai, however, is also muggy as hell because it's basically an island in the arabian sea. The air, however, is not breezy like one might expect for an island, it's still. I was shocked at the stillness of the air. I'd hoped that Elephanta might give some reprieve. No such luck. Even when we got high up into the hills (200m up) the air was still and hot, just the same. The only difference was that the trash had thinned out a bit, but we could look down onto the bay and see the filth floating close to the island.

After walking around the temples, being hungry, but not being able to eat I was worn out (sorry yvonne for having to drag my ass around all day). We finally sat down for a spot of lunch and a cold "beer." The only "beer" they had that wasn't the indian-imitation-beer-flavored-soda-water was Foster's. Oh well. I gotta say, that first sip is instant mood improvement. In fact, my mood improved in the breeze (from the ceiling fan) and with the beer until I was actually able to taste it, then I sank back into heat induced depression.

So, the verdict it this. elephanta island is actually worth seeing. The temples way up top are freakin' amazing. I, however, recommend going in the middle of december or january, mid march is too hot. The boat is kind nice, the toy train (from the dock to the entrance of elephanta island) is fun to ride. One thing of which to be fully aware is that if you go to elephanta, you WILL get nickel and dimed a lot. Pay for the boat, then pay for the train, then pay (a lot) to enter the island, then pay another entrance fee to see the temples. Then, the restaurants will give you large menus with very few of the items actually in stock. So, it's pretty cool, but you have to be prepared to spend a lot of your cash for that trip.

The Plan (for limoncello)

2010-04-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

In my life, I haven't come across too many Italians (from Italy). I know of many, many Italian Americans, and they seem to like everything Italian. I guess I understand that. For the last few months however, we've had an Italian grad student visiting the institute. He like the several other actual Italians I've met, is completely crazy for his homestyle food and beverage. Perhaps he's a bit peculiar in that he also enjoys Indian food and doesn't decry it immediately as "something less" or "inferior" to Italian food. But a couple months of curry thrice a day tends to get to anyone. Recently he's been going nuts for good pasta and certain things Italian.

I have to commend the guy. He's more adventurous than I am when it comes to traveling and seems to be hitting up more parts of Indian than I thought would be possible is such a short time. But, despite all the traveling, he had expressed a desire to have some limoncello and pasta. He asked me one day (not knowing exactly how much I know about alcohol...) if he could get "pure alcohol." I told him, fat chance in this country. Best, option is I make it for him. He looked intrigued and asked how this was possible. So I told him the basic procedure, and he said, sounds great. He tells me he can make a killer good limoncello. I said, it's a deal. He, by the way, is making an American graduate student stipend (which is to say, way more than the professors here) and so he has some purchasing power.

So the plan:

1) Completely ignore any legal restrictions that india may place on home brewing or home distilling and just go for it.

2) Ferment lots of sugar (lucky for me, I brought champagne yeast with me, thanks homesweet homebrew!)

3) Build a still
4) Distill our concoction.
5) Give it to the Italian and let him work lemony magic with it.

How will it turn out? Stay tuned.

An excursion into the black market

2010-04-10T05:13:00.000-07:00

After my little adventure at Sparks night club, I, with my german pal decided to go back to the fixer's place to continue our evening of eating and drinking (seeing as how the nightclub closes at some laughable hour). We hung around the premises for some time afterward and about 2:30 or so took off for this guy's place which he said was "close to the IIT." Somewhere along the way, we made a little side stop. We walk down a little alley that is completely dark... Who's this? Someone working? No, I don't think so. The Fixer turns to us and asks what we want. After a moment I understand and say just rum. We had the other fixings (supposedly) of water, orange juice, other fruit juices, etc. So the other indian guy disappears for about a minute and emerges with two small bottles of old monk rum. "Two hundred." Ok, I guess that's the price to pay at 3:00 AM. It's usually 60 or 70, but no matter, I got to see it.

After an excursion of no more than 5 minutes we hop back into the rickshaw and power away to the fixer's place. He turns on his band's music (it's ok, very western sounding, a bit of a rip off of DMB, but no matter) and promptly passes out, and falls off his own bed. My german buddy and I finish off one of the tiny bottles of rum and a full pint of orange juice and decide to let the guy sleep. We kill the music, so he doesn't have to deal with an angry land lord, or wake up with too much of a headache.

We finally catch a rickshaw back to IIT and to my neighborhood for way too much money, but we all made it home safely having spent too much money and I got to see my first glimpse of the black market. What I saw wasn't particularly impressive. For what it's worth I could probably score something similar to that in most big cities in the United States, but it was fun to see. I am certain a only saw the first drop in an ocean of illicit activity, but I got to spend some of my money doing something mildly illicit. Good times.

The Fixer

2010-04-10T04:15:00.000-07:00

So, I'm getting way out of sequence here, but there are alot of stories to tell from the west coast (of india) trip and a few interesting things have happened back in Chennai since.

I went with one of my German pals to a club in Chennai called Sparks. Hmm... Another "swank" nightclub at a fancy hotel with an exorbitant entrance cover: Rs. 1000. By the way, if you're keeping track at home Rs 1000 is basically $22. Of course, you get drink vouchers with your Rs 1000... It doesn't make up for the fact that the drinks are also overpriced. Anyway, I'm there hanging out, there is a lot of really loud, somewhat out of date dance club music (no shocker there) and a dearth of women, again no shock. Oh, I should mention that this is a "no stag entry club" which means that men must be accompanied by a women to enter. Nonetheless, a friend of a friend got us in and we were even allowed on the dance floor! If you're into dancing in Chennai, you might as well get accustomed to dancing with men, because that's who is at the club you're going to, stag entry or no, it's full of men...

Whatever. I start drinking with these two guys, one is a singer in a local band, the other is a muslim. I was very happy with this arrangement. I started then talking about my plans to produce homemade rum. They seemed genuinely interested in this idea and so I explained how the whole thing works. I'd been told that these guys have connections to the black market and the underworld. So I casually brought up the idea, that I need a still. I explained how this works and they said they could get it for me. Funny thing is, the responded with, "I thought you wanted guns or something. It's a lot easier to get them [than a still]." Apparently, alcohol is a really bad thing around these parts, but guns, drugs, sex, not so much. While I don't particularly have a problem with "sex" the idea that it's prostitution (and usually eunuchs) that bothers me slightly more. While it's not my place to say anything about the Tamil cultures or traditions when it comes to marriage, it sure makes things miserable for single foreign men living here (ask any single foreign man in chennai...)

After these exchanges, phone numbers and all, I leave with a promise that I have a fixer that can get me copper tubing, and a still welded for me cheaply. I also left with a lot of (probably empty) promises about what I can and can't get here. This guy said he can get American beer here as well. Basically, he has pilot friends who he calls and has them pick up things when they return from their duties. Seems easy enough. I haven't exactly seen any evidence of this yet, but it's a nice idea to have in my back pocket.

Leopold's

2010-04-08T03:05:00.001-07:00

The search for good bee in India is officially ended! I found ONE good beer at ONE bar. Again, Leffe! Same as in Dubai. This time I was in Bombay. I'd been trying with all my might to avoid the famous and infamous Leopold's in Colaba. Everyone talks about it as the place to be. Basically it's an expat bar with crappy food and a beer selection of about 10. They also have beer on draft, and serve that fancy imported stuff. So there it is, Leffe Blonde for Rs 275. Damn, that's expensive for a beer! Alright, they even serve it in a Leffe glass! Oh, this glass is covered in dust and dirt... I guess not too many order Leffe around here. I take a quick look around, what do I see? Oh yes, the hoards of bottles of imitation beer. WT and F!? Even when good beer is available I guess we see that cheap wins. Perhaps, more bars should adopt the strategy of Exchange Bar and Grill in NYC where drink prices change as the night wears on. Supply and demand curves. In this way, the demand of crappy usually remains strong with low prices and diminishing supply. Well, KF my friend, you are about to see your stock plummet! Good bye, no more KF. On the other hand, Leffe would probably remain the same price.

Anyway, I got my good beer in the right glass, albeit a dirty one and enjoyed heartily. I then ordered some food. Being Friday and Lent means I can have me some fish. What to order at a british style pub near the arabian sea? Fish and chips of course. Hmmm, this fish smells a bit off. Ah well, it's deep fried, what can be the harm? Fast forward a few hours later: I'm on the toilet with mumbai levels of pollution coming out both ends. Fantastic friday evening. It was almost authentic America, oh except that vomiting is usually induced by drinking too much, not getting food poisoning...

So, Leopold's you proved yourself in one way and one way only. I, however, do think I'll be ordering fish and chips with you anytime soon. Yvonne maintained health by ordering the veg dish. Go figure!

Mumbai, roaming the streets

2010-04-08T01:51:00.000-07:00

First morning: We set out in search of nothing in particular. I think, however, we stopped at a dozen or so jewelry stores... Woman's gotta have her sparkly things.

No sooner than we'd set out did a strange little "religious" man stop me and give me a "blessing" from lord krishna. Turned out to be rather a curse than a blessing. In any case, he asked me where I'm from, I told him Lebanon. That threw him off for a moment, but undeterred he proceeded to give me a little digestive candy and flowers and tie a piece of string around my wrist and dab some colored powder on my already sweaty forehead. OF COURSE, he wanted money. I didn't have any small bills with me. No tens or twenties. I would've just given him rs 20 and been done with it, but I had only a 500 with me. No way he was getting that! So I asked him if he takes credit cards? He said no. I told him, "This is the 21st century, you should get with the program." He told me he takes real money. This means, he takes, Euros, US dollars, and Indian Rupees. I promptly pulled out a Lebanese 5000 note and handed it to him. I told him it was worth much more than it actually is (actual value $3.33, I told him $5 = Rs 225). He looked at me confused. I told him that's more money than he'd get the rest of the day. It probably was. I immediately wiped the dot off my forehead, cut the string off, and tossed the flowers into a compost heap. Maybe that was where I went wrong. I think, however, where I went wrong was allowing myself to get swindled by some "religious" man. Later that day, at India Gate, another nearly identical man came to me, and attempted the same shit. I put a hand in his face and gave him a vociferous, "NOPE." He understood and sort of laughed knowing that I'd been taken once already. Bastards! I'm an idiot.

After my religious experiences in Mumbai, Yvonne decided to take me on a walking tour. Here's an unsolicited plug for lonely planet... They know who to write a damn good travel guide. I'm constantly impressed at the accuracy of information and the depth thereof. Just using their one page, walking tour guide of Mumbai, we made it around the center of the city up through several neighborhoods. We saw a "nice" park, a few "nice" churches, some administrative building, and surprise, surprise, hundreds upon hundreds of kids playing cricket. Most of whom I'm guessing should have been in school at that time.

Mumbai is completely weird. It's so polluted and muggy that you can barely breathe (especially after the arid Jaipur). It is distinctly Indian. It's crowded, the traffic is completely nuts, there are more slums than you can possibly fathom. There are lots of colonial buildings left by the british. It's east meets west, except that the only western things in mumbai are the old buildings and the new office buildings/hotels. After one night and one day I certainly did not have the hang of it. A couple more nights/days to catch on...

Mumbai, First Night

2010-04-08T01:28:00.000-07:00

Off to Mumbai, "city of dreams" for a few nights...
Some quick random stats (and approximations of stats) about Mumbai

Metro area population: 22 million
Percentage of residents living in slums: 55%
Average income: Rs 190/day = 3x national average = $4.10/day
Largest slum: Dharavi, population 1 million +
Tallest buildings: 60 stories.
Humidity: Off the charts
Quality index: very low

Ok, so Mumbai got off to a good start. Their airport is amazing. We show up and see ads for carlsberg everywhere, which is a good and welcome change from the (approximation of a beer) we'd seen everywhere else. Getting a prepaid taxi to the hotel was easy.
We're headed toward the happening neighborhood, Colaba. It's a peninsula way down south at the bottom of the city. Apparently this is where the high concentration of bars, uppity hotels, night clubs etc are. We check into our hotel, the Hotel Diplomat. It was recommended to Yvonne by some guy on a plane on the way to New Delhi. We went for it, because it had open rooms. I understand why they had open rooms...

So, we set out in Colaba in search of a good bar. We found one, sort of. Some hole in the wall with a big back bar where all the foreigners hang out (NOT LEOPOLD'S!).
We ordered several rounds, had some indian food and chatted with a group of girls from europe. The beer was crap, but the rest of the spirits weren't so bad. The prices hurt a little after having been treated to a jaipur bar.

After we finish at the late hour of 11:30 (what the hell INDIA!?) we run into several rather unsavory characters who offer me all manner of drugs.
"Weed, grass, hash? Come on man, amsterdam, don't be shy."
Amsterdam!? Doesn't this guy know that all the world's best marijuana is grown in india,pakistan,afghanistan? Idiot. Oh well, he didn't get my money that night...
It turns out, that would be a constant theme in colaba.

Tiger Fort Pics

2010-04-08T01:21:00.001-07:00

Amber Fort Pics

2010-04-07T01:13:00.000-07:00

The Evening Bar Scene in Jaipur

2010-04-06T05:40:00.001-07:00

I need a beer. I need a good beer, and soon. This is my mantra in India. Sadly, none has yet been had. Up until Jaipur, since my last night in America, I'd had only a few. I got one in Dubai, and three from Yvonne's suitcase...

So, Jaipur seemed like a cool enough, relaxed enough town that bars aren't so hard to come by, and aren't so dumpy as Chennai's. We find a place that's selling cold beers for Rs. 80. I'm afraid this means (the "beer" whose name I refuse to say) and nothing else. Well, we walk in, and being two westerners we are immediately led away from the good drinking into a dining room. Problem is... NO ONE ELSE IS IN THE DINING ROOM! It was also lit by fluorescent bulbs and smelled a little bit like cleaner and old carpet...
We insisted we'd rather go downstairs to the bar. Somehow, Indians want to hide away their sinister bars from well seeming westerners such as ourselves... Whatever!

Finally, we made it down into the lair. It was a normal bar. Nice comfy seats, TVs showing cricket, nice drink menu, food menu. Drinks are CHEAP! We ordered maybe a few more than we should have and enjoyed the hell out of them. Also, I ordered up an array of delicious Indian foods to go with Indian whiskey (no good beer unfortunately). But, if I were in Jaipur instead of Chennai, I think I'd have found my local bar...

Amber Fort and Tiger Fort

2010-04-06T03:14:00.001-07:00

After a restful/ not so restful night's sleep we were ready to go again in Jaipur. We'd arranged a flight to Mumbai for later in the evening, but the airport was 25 km away. So what to do? Of course, hire a driver for a half day. Amber, well, of course. Everyone told us to go to Amber Fort. It's the beautiful and intricate one. More importantly, it's much easier for the drivers to get to. We insisted however, that we'd like to go see Tiger/Jaigar/other name I can't remember for it Fort on the basis that it's atop the city. It's WAY up a hill side and looks directly down on Jaipur. So, after much negotiating, haggling, fussing, bitching, complaining, and promises of payment we jumped in a car destined for Amber Fort, Tiger Fort, and Jaipur Airport.

Amber Fort: Well, to be fair, it is simply astonishing. It's a beautiful and intricate fort/palace that is set up essentially like a maze. There is lots of beautiful marble inlay similar to the Taj Mahal. In addition, there is a hefty amount of wall painting which (at least to me) is characteristic of Rajasthani art. In and out all day are people riding in on elephants. These elephants, by the way, are decorated with the same powder used at Holi and for making Kolam here in south India. Those elephants are well trained. I don't know how well treated they are, but they don't seem to mind. They walk down the hill, back up the hill, walk around the court yard in the fort, drop off passengers, pick up more, drop some elephant droppings, repeat. Anyway, the Amber is quite beautiful, but I got the biggest kick out of it because I got charged the Indian rate.
I knew that my Indian residency paper would come in handy somehow. I handed it to the guy at the window, handed him the correct Indian amount, and in I went. Saved myself Rs 200. The ticket collector once again inquired as to my status, but I assured him I live in India, and he let me pass. WOO!

Tiger Fort: The road up to Tiger Fort is harrowing. I now understand why not so many cab drivers want to go up there. It's bumpy, winding, narrow, with overgrown bushes and shrubs coming in the open windows all the way. Ouch. Little scratches on your arms by the time you get there. But, I will tell you this. Visiting Tiger Fort was amongst the best tourist decisions we made the whole trip! There were only a dozen tourists there and most of them were Indian. In addition there is a beautiful restaurant/bar on one side where you can look way down onto Jaipur. It's far enough above all the noise and traffic, that it's almost, dare I say it, peaceful. Of course, Jaipur (a tiny city of 2.35 million) is busy enough that it's still not very peaceful even where it is "peaceful." We had a couple of "beers" and some Rajasthani and Gujarati style Thalis for lunch with egg sandwiches. Delicious.
In one sense, Tiger Fort is less spectacular than Amber Fort because it's not as intricate. But I'm more impressed with how they got the material up the mountain that much further to construct the thing at all.

Charming a Cobra

2010-04-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

First things first. Yes, it is a real snake. No, I don't think it's actually a cobra. Something was totally weird about this snake. It's like it didn't really move at all. It also had beady eyes and a normally shaped head (not triangular) which generally means it's not poisonous, but still a little weird. In any case, We had tried to go to City Palace in Jaipur, but at 5PM it closes. We did however find a "snake charmer" and he charmed a little money out of our wallets. I'm a stupid tourist whore... But there are some great pics.

The Sindhi Sikh Temple

2010-04-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

The Neighborhood where we stayed in Jaipur was near the Sindhi section of town. In fact the section of town is named "Sindhi Colony." Well, having a taste for all things peculiarly exotic and ethnic I REALLY wanted to go see the Sindhi neighborhood. We were after all, right next to it. So I asked around for info about the neighborhood. It turns out, very few Sinhdis still live there. I was very sad. In case it is of interest to you, Sindhi is one of Pakistan's 3 official languages (the others being Urdu and Punjabi, Kashmiri does not hold official status as far as I know). The Sindhis are an ethnic minority in both Pakistan and India. Their land was in fact split up during the partition of Hindustan. In addition, the Sindhi are in large part Sikh, rather than Hindu or Muslim. Their alphabet is similar to that of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, except that it contains 52 letters whereas Arabic has 28, Farsi and Urdu have 32... I can read Arabic script (poorly) and make my way through certain things in Urdu and Farsi, but Sindhi... It's a lost cause. (Omniglot link: Sindhi alphabet)

So, feeling a little dejected that the Sindhi aren't IN Sindhi Colony we set out to see the rest of Jaipur. After we went to Hawa Mahal, we went through the shopping huts in the pink city. Yvonne was looking for bangles and shoes, while I was interested in eating. While she shopped and haggled, I just sat and shot the breeze with all the shop owners who complimented (sometimes falsely, just to get my attention) my facial hair styling. Eventually it was about 5PM and we set out to see the City Palace, but oh... The city palace closes at 5 PM, so I charmed a cobra (tourist whore that I was) and we hired a rickshaw (bicyclist) to take us around to places that are not "coupon shops." We struck the deal, that for every shop he's stop in (3) where he'd get Rs. 20 we'd just pay him to take us elsewhere... So we struck a deal for this little small Indian guy to cart around two tall Americans for the rest of the afternoon for Rs 100. He took us to the Sikh temple (A Gurudwara). I hadn't been to a gurudwara yet, and so it was interesting for. It was a nice small temple, completely made out of marble, and luckily, marble keeps cool in the shade. We all had to cover our heads and walk around. I didn't notice until we were leaving that the inscriptions on either side of the entrance gate were in Devnagri Script and Sindhi script. Where we had just gone was one of the last remaining Sindhi temples in Jaipur. Turns out, the Sindhi neighborhood had moved from where our hotel was to the neighborhood behind City Palace... Go figure.

A few more Hawa Mahal Pics

2010-04-05T00:06:00.000-07:00

Hawa Mahal

2010-04-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hawa Mahal is the wind palace. In all the brochures and promotional literature it looks like a huge imposing massive structure, but really, it's only about 40 feet tall. It was built for Lord Krishna (I think). I was shocked at how small it really is, inside and out. I had trouble walking up the ramps on the inside just to get to the top. Yvonne had less trouble, but I caught her ducking a couple times...

Another funny thing about the Hawa Mahal is the fact that its edifice stares straight into the heart of the shopping in the pink city. If you're on the street, you can almost walk by it and not notice it. The entrance to the Hawa Mahal is on the back side. That meant that walking into it, we had no idea it was the same place until we got inside and asked people about this beautiful face. We were told it's on the OTHER side. It's a little bit shady methinks...

Here are some pics.

Jaipur

2010-04-04T04:51:00.000-07:00

Street Food

Agra was a long day. Two trains, two cabs, two different places to sleep, paying way too much to see the Taj, getting carted around by a rickshaw driver who was only interested in stopping in shops that paid HIM, ugh.

So off to Jaipur we went the next morning at a casual 5AM. Ouch! 5AM!? What the hell were we thinking? Who knows. What I do know is that Yvonne definitely had the foresight to book first class AC tickets. I gotta say, I haven't been the biggest fan of chair cars, because it's difficult for me to sleep in a chair, but this was definitely a nice ride. First class means you don't deal with food sellers. They brought me newspaper of my choice to start the ride. All passengers got a rose (of course I know one passenger who was more pleased about that than I), cereal, tea, THEN BREAKFAST, then more tea. I fell asleep after that, but apparently the service continued like this for nearly the whole 6 hour journey. By the time we arrived in Jaipur, I wasn't really feeling refreshed, but I wasn't feeling like I should kill anyone either.

So, here we are, Rajasthan, the so called, land of the kings. It's semidesert. A lot of dirt and dust infiltrating my lungs. It's really hot too. Of course, the only piece of it we saw is Jaipur. Jaipur is known as "the pink city." Apparently, back at somepoint during the British Raj's tenure prince (andrew?) came for a visit and wanted the city to be pretty. It was then decided to paint the city pink. Rather, now it's more of a terra cotta color. But still alright.

Jaipur is also known as the city of palaces. There is a lake palace (that you can't go in), Amber Fort, Tiger Fort, Hawa Mahal (the wind palace), and a large variety of other palaces and forts whose names I can neither remember nor pronounce correctly in the first place. Well, we got some cabbie to take us to the hotel. It was an OK hotel. For the price it was decent enough. We were only there one night en route to Mumbai.

The other thing about Jaipur that one will notice, is the immense shopping area with a dearth of restaurants! I got hungry man! Ah, street food saves the day...

The Taj Mahal

2010-04-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess there isn't a lot to say about the Taj Mahal. It's a huge beautiful building that took a lot of laborers (20,000) a lot of years (22) to build and then they all got slaughtered. A lot of work for a Muslim boss who doesn't even give his workers wine at the end of the day...

I think in the end, the opulence of the Taj kind of disgusted me. I really, just didn't get very good vibes from the place at all.

I think the amount of literature about the Taj far outdoes what I could possibly do for it, so let me tell you a little about my day in Agra instead.

Rather than trying to book a room in Agra for the night we'd decided that we'd go at ass o'clock early to Agra and come back on a late express train to Delhi. As you might expect, there are a lot of daily trains back and forth from Delhi to Agra because, frankly, a lot of people want to see the Taj Mahal. So after a somewhat crowded morning train ride we arrive in Agra about 11 AM. Right as we're getting out of the train station, we get completely pounced on by all the drivers trying to take us everywhere. Finally we decided to hire a guy for the day to drive us to the Taj and to Agra Fort and to wherever else we wanted. Agra Fort seemed unappealing to both of us and so we forewent that. However, we, like all other tourist who come to India, went to see the Taj Mahal. It is a first class rip off for foreigners. Indians have to pay Rs 20 and foreiners Rs 750. They aren't even subtle about it. I was a little pissed off about that. There are lots of rules a regulations in place, mainly if I do say so myself, for Indian tourists (not all of them, but the minority) who would trash the place. Nonetheless the policing of tourists is MUCH more strictly enforced for foreigners. I was standing in line with an Austrian guy who with his girlfriend had been traveling around India staying in Ashrams and such and he said "they just look at us as wallets with legs. They don't care about anything else. It's just a form of racism and they are open about it." I was a bit shocked to hear a person who had come to India for some sort of spiritual quest speak so openly against India. But I was also impressed. He just out and said it, and told me a few stories about being in ashrams where he got overcharged blatantly. So, I ascertained he wasn't sold on his India experience. Anyway, it turns out the Taj is pretty and grandiose, and all that other crap that the tour books say it is, but I was generally unenthused. I couldn't get out of my mind a building with so much inlay with writings from the Qu'ran all over it was built by such a terror of a man. He killed all the workers after they built a mausoleum for his wife just so no one could replicate it. F-that!

The real highlight of the day was going to an art school (before the sales pitch) and seeing how the marble inlay was done. At this art school it is still done by hand and with much patience and diligence. Turns out, at the end of the day, they just wanted to sell us stuff at overblown prices too. In the end, we bought a carved Ganesha for our hosts in Delhi (my friend's family) but the price marked was Rs 2500. We said we'd pay Rs 550 for it. Of course they took the deal when we walked out. Lame. Anyway, here are some Taj Mahal pictures.

Why Indian Women are Short

2010-04-02T02:53:00.001-07:00

Green Park in Delhi

2010-04-02T02:38:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't some nice public space, it's just a neighborhood. It is however, named, Green Park. Yvonne and I were running around trying to find some place with a reliable internet connection. So we walked out of our guest house in Delhi, turned left and walked for a while. We stopped to ask people if we could find a travel agent, or a booking agent, or anything else we could think of. It turned out to be a big hassle.

Let me set the record straight: VERY FEW PEOPLE IN INDIA SPEAK ENGLISH. I don't know what the tour books and tour guides tell you, but they are lying if they tell you it's possible to get around only speaking english. It simply is not possible. I work at an upper echelon institute full of PhDs in the sciences. I still have a hard time understanding some of them and they are educated in English. My ears are pretty good now, but a few months ago... forget about it.

So, what does one do when one wants to book plane and train and automobile tickets? Ask for a travel agent naturally. Well, we got led around to a car rental place. I stated immediately, "I'm not driving a car in Delhi. I'm not likely to drive a car in India." Turns out, it didn't matter. The car rental place only rents to companies. Useless. So we asked the guy at the counter who "CLAIMED" to speak english where a travel agent was. He pointed us in some direction, we walked that way. Just to be sure, we asked another half dozen people on the street en route to the "travel agency." My Indian friend (from Delhi) had warned me about this early on in my stay, but he warned me against the Tamils. "They will tell you to go somewhere, because they don't want it to seem like they don't know." Well, he was completely and utterly correct in that statement. My belief now, however, is that this phenomenon is not unique to just southerners. We walked around and every person seemed to give us different directions. So we decided, it was internet cafe time. Eventually we wound up at a Reliance store and Yvonne bought some 500 minutes of internet usage. So we sat in there for almost 2 1/2 hours booking trains to Agra, Jaipur, mumbai, goa, and a couple plane tickets too. Luckily, we got most of our travel arrangements for the first half of the trip finished at that point.

In the meantime, walking around Green Park we found a charming little neighborhood in south Delhi. Furthermore, there are a few random mausoleums and tombs identical to those in Lodhi Gardens, which are no doubt from the same sultancy, just removed a few kilometers.

Back to the Lotus Temple

2010-04-02T00:52:00.000-07:00

Last time I went to the Lotus Temple is cauhgt me by surprise. I went with my friend and our driver dropped us off on the backside of the temple's grounds and so when the temple was in sight it appeared to be really huge. The fog had given it an eery presence. This time around, it looked like it does in all the promotional literature. I gotta say, the Lotus Temple is my favorite building in India. After I went and sat in it again and got a few moments of quiet (even in India) I went down to the information center where they were showing a video on the construction of the Temple. It is quite impressive to say the very least.

Being Baha'i means that they build 9 sided temples. In case you're wondering that calls for 9 40-degree angles to be built. It's not the easiest job to undertake. Moreover, the design process of the temple was incredible. Check the pictures below to see how intricate the structure is. The construction involved all sorts of new engineering techniques and the marble which sits on the outside was specially crafted in Italy over a period of more than 2 years. All told, Lotus Temple is my favorite building in India. In fact, it might be my favorite building in the world. It's worth the visit if you ever get the chance.

Pakistan's (Field) Hockey

2010-03-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

After the World Cup of Field Hockey in which Pakistan's team finished last, they unanimously and uniformly resigned from the team. This had come on the heals of big talk and bigger expectations for the nation that had won the 1994 competition.

I was shocked to read in the paper that Pakistan's ENTIRE team had resigned from the national team. They had said that their performance was unacceptable and had brought shame to their country. I don't know about you, but when I think of things that are shameful about Pakistan... Well, let's just say, not being good at MEN'S FIELD HOCKEY, ain't one of 'em... Call me an asshole, but give me a freaking break.
Anyway, back from my miniature rant.

In some sense, I understand that these men were trying to do the honorable thing, but perhaps the only resignation that is required it the coach's. Perhaps also the team captain if he really takes his leadership so personally, but the whole team. Basically, there are some young and really talented players who are also young and impressionable. There is no need for them to resign. I guess they wanted to their commitment to their country as a team and in some way that's a nice gesture, but on the other hand, to leave your country without a national team at all... Well, that's just silly. It takes a few years to prepare a team for an international competition and recruiting is a much longer process. Leaving your home country without a team at all is just backwards.

Well, in the end, Pakistan's hockey organization couldn't possibly accept the resignation of the WHOLE team, so they made the team withdraw their resignations. Maybe the team knew that would happen. Perhaps, they expected it and knew that Pakistan's governing body of hockey couldn't just throw out one resignation, it was all or nothing. Maybe Pakistan's hockey team did this to SAVE all their jobs. It's hard to say, but either way, it was a bizarre piece of news to hear in India.

World Cup of Hockey

2010-03-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that while we were in Delhi, the World Cup of FIELD HOCKEY was taking place. It is entirely fair to mention that India isn't quite a world contender in ICE HOCKEY. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of all Indians have never left India, and therefore have never seen snow, and never been ice skating. Well, field hockey it is then. I was shocked to find that men play this game. In the United States this is only a women's game, at least at the collegiate level. So while the world cup was on, and especially while India was playing, you couldn't get anything in any store or restaurant. Indians are definitely crazy for their team. So, I got to watch several of the games. I gotta say, I learned the rules of field hockey while in graduate school. I used to go watch Northwestern's team play and just realized that field hockey is sort of a silly game. I mean no offense to anyone who really lives the game, but it's weird.

Quick disclaimer: It would also be fair to say that most, if not all, sports are completely ridiculous and absurd, but in my mind field hockey is much higher on the list than most!

So here we are, in India, world cup of hockey taking place, Indians completely crazy for their team, watching every minute of every India match intently. I noticed some other strange things. The teams playing included Australia (champion), Germany, Netherlands, England, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Spain, and a couple others I can't remember now. For the most part, the teams look identical, clean cut white guys running around with sticks. The peculiar thing was that the Pakistani team (largely full of muslims) looked like this as well. In cricket for example, Pakistan's team looks like a group of muslim athletes, long beards, religious wear when appropriate, and a general appearance of a religious group of people, playing a sport. In hockey, Pakistan's team doesn't give this appearance. The strangest thing to me, was the appearance of India's team.

India's team really looks like a bunch of rag tags. There are all manner of religious hairdos, and unkempt looking individuals running around together. I have to say, while the appearance of EVERY OTHER TEAM IN THE TOURNAMENT was clean cut and mildly appealing, the appearance of India's team was quite slovenly. It's funny to me because in cricket it's different. India's cricket team generally looks well kept and appears on the pitch well. As it turns out, India placed 8th of 12 (I think) and so their appearance didn't matter much, but I had a hard time watching them play as a team, because they didn't appear to be one. As it is Pakistan finished at the bottom of the tournament, so their appearance didn't matter much either.

Connaught Place and New Delhi

2010-03-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

Delhi is a weird city. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, but it is really strange. On the one hand you have the really old city that is Old Delhi. I've not yet in my life seen a more crowded place than the area around Jama Masjid (India's largest mosque). It does well to be compared with a beehive. There are children there who can do nothing less than break your heart. They are beggars, persistent beggars and they can be no more than 6 years old. They sit around the steps of the mosque, a clever move if you ask me since Muslims are required to give alms to the poor (one of the 5 pillars of Islam). Moreoever, Old Delhi is filthy, really filthy, the kind of filth you can't imagine unless you see it. But even with all that, Old Delhi is alive. It's buzzing from 4 AM and buzzes until long after midnight. I think it's a 21 or 22 hour city. There are shops selling any manner of things you can imagine, fast talkers, food sellers (delicious food!), rickshaws (actual rickshaws, not autorickshaws), drug dealers, pickpockets, fixers, you name it, it's probably in Old Delhi.

Contrast that with NEW Delhi. New Delhi, is clean, relatively speaking. It was a planned city, and designed by a French architect. There are large sweeping motorways, broad sidewalks, organized neighborhoods, beautiful parks, museums, and fabulous structures. The most striking example of this runs right through an area of town called Connaught Place. There is an enormous structure which to the untrained eye looks identical to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Parliament, the President's Palace, and the National Stadium. The most surprising thing however, may be the fact that these four structures are in a straight line. Being the mathematician I am, I can't help but wonder exactly how straight that line is... Perhaps it just follows a geodesic on the surface of the Earth, or maybe it's a straight line within the universe. Either way, when you're there, it really looks impressive. Take a look for yourself:

It is worth noting that this last structure was made for the English Queen. It is next to the Arc de Triomphe (de Delhi) and when standing at Parliament looking toward the Arc de Triomphe de Delhi you can see this structure through the arc. The pictures of the other structures are missing for a couple reasons. Yvonne and I were walking that night with my friend, his brother, and his cousin. During our stroll all the people were moved out of the street (perhaps we shouldn't all be in the street anyway) and were kept there for some time by the police. Soon, a bus full of athletes rolled by. The reason for this was that the World Cup of hockey (field hockey) was taking place in Delhi while we were there. There was no way we could get to the national stadium that night. In addition, after dark, people are not allowed to go up to Parliament or the President's Palace.

Near the Arc de Triomphe de Delhi is a large mall, very similar to the national mall in Washington, D.C. So New Delhi is something like Washington, DC + Paris + London. Old Delhi is like no other city I know (but that's simply because I haven't traveled enough to make an accurate comparison).

Qutub Minar Pics 3

2010-03-30T03:37:00.000-07:00

Qutub Minar pics 2

2010-03-30T03:31:00.001-07:00

Qutub Minar pics

2010-03-30T03:25:00.000-07:00

Lots of Pics via camera of YPA (it reminds me of IPA, mmm IPA).

Qutub Minar

2010-03-30T02:19:00.000-07:00

I hadn't really heard of the Qutub Minar before I went. I got some idea about it in one of those hotel tourist type booklets. Yvonne pointed it out to me and we decided we might as well go see it while we were in Delhi. The fun thing about Delhi as opposed to some of India's other major cities is that it has a boatload of historical places. Another thing that is funny is that all the really amazing historical places around north India tend to be Islamic. What that means is that generally the "really old" stuff is actually only a few hundred years old. Most of the ruins found in Europe are far older. Of course, once you get a little bit outside the major islamic reach from a few hundred years back you can see much older Hindu temples. All that aside, the Qutub Minar is a really beautiful sight (and site). The main minar is a 24 sided tower, which from far off looks strikingly like a phallus. I had to walk around the main tower to count how many sides it had. The architecture was shocking. It was square sides interlaced with rounded "sides" all the way around on the bottom level. The bottom level rises up several meters (maybe 10-15) then there is another level, and yet another. I forget the actual height of the minar, but it's pretty alright. Also on the grounds are a mosque, a mausoleum and some other buildings. We decided not to rent the audio guide, but rather just look around and see it for ourselves. It's quite interesting.

Perhaps another interesting thing that the Qutub Minar provided for me is the idea that India is just not very subtle about it's (dis)like of tourists. The entrance fee for Indians is Rs 10, while the entrance price for foreigners is Rs 250. In case you're playing along at home that's 25 times the price for foreigners as for Indians. And despite my Indian salary, guess which price I had to pay...

I wish I had thought to carry my registration papers with me. This proved to be useful in jaipur, but before that, I got swindled, and swindled pretty badly.

Almost getting arrested

2010-03-29T06:13:00.001-07:00

This is way out of sequence with the rest of the blog, but I figured I should write it down before I forget about it. Last night I stayed at my institute for a long time being an internet fiend. Chatting away with people, trying to stay up to catch the score of the Tennessee-Michigan State game. Well, I got heading home about 1:30 AM here. It takes me a while to walk home. Sadly, I couldn't catch a rickshaw. The only one that stopped for me asked for 4 times the price I was willing to pay. When he finally came down to twice the price I was more than halfway home. I hate those little yellow mosuito taxi drivers! So I finally made it back home about 2:45 AM. In front of my house, the gate is locked at night, and it's usually too dark to see the lock on the gate. For this reason, sometimes I just hop over the fence, and open the main door to my second floor apartment. Wouldn't you know it, for the first time in nearly 5 months of being abroad I saw a police officer in my neighborhood. He saw me hopping the fence and rode up on his motorcycle to harass me.

Are you kidding me!? I've never seen a PoPo in my neighborhood, not once. The first time I see you he harasses me for potential breaking and entering. Basically I had to show him and demonstrate for him that I actually had the correct keys to open the locks I claimed I had.

Once that happened, I told the piggy sorry and thanked him. Luckily, I didn't have to pay him off, I didn't have to wake up my landlords, I didn't have to worry about a police raid or any of the other threats that generally go with this sort of accused activity. Ugh! India, give me a break. Throw me a freaking bone.

Delhi Haat

2010-03-29T02:59:00.000-07:00

I had real trouble finding this place. The big problem is the name. I kept thinking it was Delhi Heart. That's just not it. Until I saw it in print I didn't realize that I was saying it totally incorrectly. I think the real trouble is that I've gotten accustomed to people saying the English "r" as "ah". In any case, I think the name of this thing might not even be Delhi Haat, but perhaps Dilli Haat. I saw Dilli written a few times and I could've sworn people were saying "Delhi." Anyway, none of this is the point. The real point is that it's a big shopping center. The shopping to be done here, however, is not mall, shopping, but clothing and art. It reminded me greatly of the Pongal Bazaar that took place at Kalakshetra here in Chennai earlier in January. My friend told me that there are handicrafts from all parts of India available there. He was saying this from experience about 10-15 years ago. Now, there is food from all parts of India which is cool, but the VAST majority of shops are Kashmiris. Somehow, I'm not surprised. Those Kashmiris somehow end up everywhere there are shops in India. I think I finally offended one. I was busting his chops for trying to sell me something I didn't want at a price I wasn't willing to pay. What happened was I started making fun of him a little bit because he tried to tell me that he was rare as a kashmiri for having left. So I told him, everywhere I've been in India all the shops were run by Kashmiris and therefore I thought that very few people actually lived there.

Funny enough, over the rest of the course of the trip, I saw ever more Kashmiris. It turns out that there are lots of Tibetans around India too, but they are generally ONLY in touristy places, and kashmiris are everywhere.

Nonetheless, Delhi Haat was kind of fun. I bought a long Indian shirt. Not sure what I'm going to do with it in this heat, but it stills looks cool. Here are some fun pics.

More Lodhi Garden Pics

2010-03-29T02:28:00.000-07:00

Lodhi Gardens in the springtime

2010-03-29T01:01:00.000-07:00

This time visiting Delhi, I repeated a few visits from the first time. My friend lives close by to Lodhi Gardens, and so the three of us took a stroll in the nice springtime afternoon. We bought some beers from the local liquor store and sat outside, had a "picnic" of beer and roasted chick peas. Yvonne jumped out while my friend and I were hiding away our picnic from "authorities." So without further ado, here are some nice pics from Lodhi Gardens in the springtime (not so much fog this go around).

Delhi, for the second go around

2010-03-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

As you might (or might not) remember I had gone to visit a close friend in Delhi in the first full week of january. During that time, the fog was terribly heavy, and the temperatures were (dare I say it) cold. Of course, I should qualify coldness again as in the lower and mid 50's (Fahrenheit).

This time, my friend assured me "it is now springtime in New Delhi." I had a hard time believing this. It was already in the 90s (30s C) when my sister left. But surely enough, the temperatures in Delhi were upper 70s and lower 80s. It was really nearly perfect weather. Of course, as an american I still think of those temperatures as more indicative of early summer, rather than springtime, but that in no way stopped my enjoyment of it.

So I went back to some places again, and saw some new things.

This time, with a visitor from the states with me, my friend's father had booked for us a few nights in the guest house of the Indian Oil Company. I have to say, if you get the chance to stay in a guest house, GO FOR IT.

I should certainly qualify what I mean by guesthouse. Apparently in India, this can mean many different things. The first of which (most common) is a shitty hotel. Those, you may want to avoid UNLESS you're a cheap bastard and really are just interested in saving money, but not comfort. The second, as far as I can tell means a house attached to an ashram or a spiritual center. I have no idea about these. Some of them have early curfews (9:30 PM) and disallow alcohol, sex, drugs, sharing of rooms by opposite sex couples, etc. Basically all the fun stuff. Although, there are others which I'm told are nice, I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations.
The third type of guest house is the one we stayed in. It is the private property of a corporation or governmental institution which reserves rooms generally for important people, eg governmental ministers, politicians, foreign dignitaries, etc. Luckily for me, my Indian friend is the son of one such person, and so he was able to book a few nights for us. Pretty alright I have to say. TV, fridge, nice big shower. They disallowed smoking inside, but otherwise not so bad. We certainly had alcohol. Ms. Appeltans was courteous enough to bring with her 3 bottles of outstanding beer (by the way, thanks to Axiomatic All Stars brewing of the Mole Stout!) and a bottle of duty free single malt scotch. If only good beer were available for purchase in India, I'd be a much happier man. As it stands, I enjoyed three bottles of beer more than any man should enjoy any bottles of beer.

So we left after 4 nights, to a rousing bill of 2 dinners (made in house) and 4 breakfasts, 4 nights sleeping, for Rs 394. That's right, I didn't miss a decimal place. Just a shade under $9... Again, if you're coming to India (which I generally recommend AGAINST) try to stay at a corporate guest house!

Five weeks of visitors

2010-03-28T01:56:00.000-07:00

Well dear readers. I apologize for the lengthy absence. My sister had been here for a few weeks and then Ms. Appeltans came through for three weeks during which we took a west coast road trip and met lots of other fun(ny) characters.

So the west coast trip plus the golden triangle went something like this

Meet in Delhi with my close Indian friend.
5 days and nights in Delhi
1 day to agra for taj mahal ('cause you kinda have to go see it)
1 day and night in Jaipur (one of my favorite stops on the trip)
3 days and nights in Mumbai
6 days and nights in Benaulim, Goa
3 nights in Kollam, Kerala
1 night on a house boat in Kollam
2 nights in Varkala (along the cliff beaches)
1 night back in Chennai.

In the last 5 weeks I've been to 7 states of India and two union territories. Not so bad for a short time.

My highlights in 5 weeks:

Bangalore
Jaipur
Benaulim
Varkala

I'll start blogging up a storm from here on and try to fill in as many details as possible.

Restoring My Faith in India

2010-03-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

All things seen, told, heard, and tasted, Bangalore restored my faith in India. I'm aware that there is so much that I'm not seeing in India. In fact one could spend an entire life roaming around India and not know more than 1% about it. I'm probably missing everything good in Chennai while I'm here in my office typing up this absurd and ridiculous blog, but Bangalore still treated me better.

I'm astounded how different the two cities are. It seemed to me, that most things that Chennai lacks, Bangalore has. Of course there are things lacking in Bangalore, it's not my home. But I gotta say, for a place to visit, skip out on Chennai, and go to Bangalore instead. A lot of people tell me that Bangalore is too busy as well, and that one should go to Mysore. Which all points to the fact that my excitement in exploring other parts of India has been restored to its original pluck. I'm ready to go exploring again and see some interesting stuff. I will, however, be reticent to return to Chennai for anything other than my job.

Middle Ages plus Technology

2010-03-04T05:48:00.000-08:00

There are many things that can be said about India as generalizations. They are all expressly true and false. India is just too enormous to categorize in one statement.

THAT BEING SAID...

India is like the middle ages plus technology. Everyone knows about the technology sector of India. The sheer magnitude of corporations and offices opening just based on computers and medical technologies is simply staggering. However, even with all these things, standards here are remarkably similar to certain standards in Europe in the Middle Ages. Let me give some examples (partly courtesy of my sister)

First, the fashion here hasn't changed in quite a long time. I don't know when the sarree and its related fashions were invented and implemented, but they are still around. Fashion in Europe was able to develop because civilizations were advancing. Perhaps it's possible that Indian clothing is perfect for India and needs no improvement. But I'd debate that based on the lack of footwear. Many people (even those wearing nice clothing) wear no shoes or very thin shoes which do terrible things to your feet. Not sure about that one.

Second, on the "heels" of the no shoes comment, the sewage system here is still the system of rivers and the ocean. Moreover, in Chennai specifically a lot of that sewage runs right into the street. Many people stop and urinate wherever they want/need. I don't have so much of a problem with that, except that there is enough sewage in the streets to begin with. In addition to the sewage in the streets, there is barely any trash removal service. I saw trash removal happening in Bangalore, but here in Chennai, I have only seen a couple trucks in my nearly four months here. There is, however, an enormous, an unfathomable amount of trash strewn along all of Chennai's lovely streets.

Piggy backing on those ideas... There is a lot of filth. Despite all this, people still eat with their hands. Now, I don't object to this in principal. Lebanese people eat with their hands sometimes too, but there are several stark differences. In India soap is NOT ubiquitous. Not only is there a dearth of soap, but also a lack of handtowels. So when people wash their hands with often not properly treated water (still swimming with sewage bacteria) without soap they still lack to wipe off the majority of the dirt that was there to begin with... Another issue which revolves right in the realm is a similar lack of toilet paper. There is a necessity in that case to eating with the right hand only and leaving the left hand for more sinister activities. But come on people! Toilet Paper is not a big technological invention.

So, let's review so far: Not much wearing of shoes, or proper ones. Lack of sewage and trash removal, lack of toilet paper, soap, hand towels and napkins, and lack of utensils for eating... Not shaping up to be a healthy society.

Well, speaking of health care, while the debate rages on in the United States about how to fix our health care system, there is no social welfare or universal health care system here. Things don't cost much (in general) but even then not everyone can afford medical care.

Finally, there is a small family of problems here concerning literacy and education. According to one study, India had 48% literacy in the year 2000. Ok, that was 10 years ago, but it can't have shot up to 100% yet. Furthermore, despite the fact that the first MODERN literary work on Tamil grammar was written in the 1300s, there still is no universally accepted way to spell certain words. In fact, coming back on the train a few days ago, we pulled into a station named Basin Bridge Junction. The Tamil signs literally said "Basin Bridge Junction" but on either side of the station were two huge signs with different spellings. I can understand not being able to transliterate certain things from other languages, but at a major train station, perhaps we should at least know how to write its name.

Throw in a caste system which still has a strong hold in this part of the world and things are beginning to look medieval in this part of the world, except with loads of technology.

The Search for Good Beer Continues

2010-03-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

My search for good beer WITHIN India almost ended in Bangalore. I thought that would be fitting for such an excellent trip. The location: Millers 46. I was told that Chimay was on the menu...

Moreover, Millers 46 is a Steak House. A STEAKHOUSE IN SOUTH INDIA!!! Of course, it's Lent and I'm not indulging in that sort of thing now. But I thought I had really found something. I go to the top floor to look down all three stories at the ant-like people below. I was REALLY HIGH UP (<--- a touch of sarcasm). The menu comes out, moment of truth... What's this? Chimay? YES! Orval? Yes! Two trappist beers on the menu, in India? YES YES YES!!! Oh happy day, I have found the place I will come to every weekend in India so long as I stay here.

What's that you say? You don't have Chimay, or Orval, or Carlsberg, or Tuborg, or Foster's? Really? There are 7 beers on the menu, and you're out of 5 of them? What do you have? Kingfisher and kingfisher strong. F*** ME!!!! You're gonna tease me like that and then dash my hopes! You bastards! My sister immediately sang her refrain

"Dear India,
If an item is on the menu, it should be in the restaurant..."

I died just a little inside. To make a point of protest I did not order a beer. I ordered the cheapest veg thing on the menu and tap water and left a very small tip. Actually, the tip was quite large for Indian standards, I guess I should have rethought that one first. 8% seemed like an insult, but in fact in India it's not an insult, it's actually a complement... Oh well.

I was so certain the search for good beer had ended (now for the second time in India). No dice! Why, why India must you tease me so? I would rather just not know that good beer had once been here than to be excited by it and then dashed.
I had given up my search, but I think I will now need to up my efforts. Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Goa, and Kerala (somewhere) are slated. I don't know how many I'll actually visit, but it's about damn time to find good beer somewhere in this country of 1.2 billion people...

IISc campus

2010-03-04T03:20:00.000-08:00

India has a lot of Institutes for research and things. The idea of the traditional university as we think of it in America is somewhat uncommon here. As far as I was concerned I thought the IISc (Indian Institute of Science) was sort of like my home at IMSc, which is a small campus and a few buildings. Not many grad students, no undergrads, but lots of research (and in my case, blogging) happening.
Well, IISc reminded me in many ways of IIT here in Chennai. It's a big spacious campus with clean roads, quiet and removed from the busy city around it, and a pleasant place to spend an afternoon. The hostels/dorms look a little bit like prisons, but otherwise a really cool place. Now that I've seen it I'm a little sad they didn't make me on offer for a postdoctoral position, but then again, if I'd gone to Bangalore first I might not like it as much. I'd probably think of it as crazy and backward like I do Chennai, and I would've thought of chennai as a pretty cool place. Although, Bangalore is MUCH cleaner, more cosmopolitan, and has beer on tap...

In any case, if you get a chance to go to Bangalore and need some respite from the busy city, Lalbagh Botanic Gardens are cool, and IISc campus is really lovely.

Mimosa in bloom

The first airplane designed and built entirely by indians in india

A funky tree root

Nice to not have an aural assault

Gorgeous Flower Garden in the center of campus