Nice comes a long way

Caught the 8pm US Airways shuttle, last flight to LGA from BOS.  A mostly empty plane,  fell asleep before we left the ground. Got into LGA around 9:20.  I miss Delta. 

Stayed in Times Square at the new Element on 39th street. Studio-style apartments, recently opened. $119 a night, no major complaints. Had late night tea with A, a high school buddy working in finance. As a result of working A LOT, A has taken a liking to celebrating shabbat. Potential topic for doctoral dissertation: relationship between career, aging, and religious observance. 

Slept like a baby, had an early midtown breakfast with N, an old and dear friend. Decided that I like turkey bacon. 

Midtown New York morning traffic/hustle is totally insane. I don't miss it at all. 

Work Work Work.  Only in new york does a meeting end two hours early. 

Took a frozen walk from Union Square to Soho, where I had coffee/dinner at Aroma on Houston. New York has changed a great deal since 2009, for the better. More smaller stores, boutiques, and experimental chains/shops. Energy of recovery/renaissance.

Inadvertently split a taxi with a snowboarding economic consultant whose father grew up in Brooklyn. 

Punjabi cab driver was very amused/confused by the split cab incident, prompting a long conversation that included Indian and German political history, airline industry gossip, and values: he loves Jet Blue/Air India/Lufthansa, was relieved at the assassination of Indira Gandhi, had only recently heard about Adolf Hitler (while on a layover in Frankfurt?) and told me that he's become more religious and less materialistic as he gets older. See above bolded comment.  

Talked the US Airways gate agent into bumping me onto the early flight back to DC without the $50 fee, after an unsuccessful attempt at check-in.  In the words of the TSA agent: nice comes a long way. 

New England Buddha

Our 6:30pm flight from DCA to BOS got cancelled and we plugged ourselves onto the 5:30 flight. US Airways was surprisingly palatable, though I sat in the middle seat.

Spent the evening in the Sheraton Framingham, a pleasant hotel with a remarkable germanic brick facade. Slow elevators, nice staff, and well-booked. Dinner at Samba, a fantastic japanese seafood/steak joint with Argentinian  influences. Some of the best-tasting sushi i'd had in a while.  Remarkable Buddhas, one depicted below.

Young and Resting in New England

Returning to the hotel, got tea with b in the buzzing restaurant. Distant piano music, obscure Sinatra tune. Investigating, I find balding salesman playing "Angel Eyes." He welcomes the accompaniment and we exchange pitches before I head off to sleep. 

What comes down will probably go up again...

Slowly bouncing on the DC trampoline: dinner party (UP), 127 hours (DOWN), work day trip to philadelphia pre-snow on the Acela (UP UP UP), running on a treadmill (UP), phone calls (bounce onto back), walks through georgetown (up/down), warm snaps in February (slowing down), To Have and to Have Not.

Flying to Boston on Tuesday night.

Sudden Outbreak of Snow

Flash snowstorm starting in the late afternoon.

The people at work freaked out and started leaving faster than the crowd at Yankee Stadium before the bottom of the ninth inning. Rumors about the metro failing and terrible traffic.

I got a ride home from a co-worker. It took a few more minutes than usual.

Snow in DC demands True Grit.

Winter of my Content

Still floating from a wonderful weekend. Highlights:

-L2 on Friday night. Think meatpacking district in a georgetown cavern, smaller, hidden, and sans ibankers.

-ben's chili bowl at 3am. Think chili dog at 3am.

-"True Grit" on Saturday night with B. Terrific. The best movie I've seen since Roman Polanski's Ghost Writer. Better, even. Those Coen brothers know what they are doing...

-sunday phonecalls with israel, botswana, and brooklyn. Oh, skype.

-monday post-work showing of "the way back" by Peter Weir (directed Witness, year of living dangerously, etc). Intense and hard to watch, numbing. Apparently Stalinism was extremely bad. Who knew?

-watched State of the Union with N and R and ate dumplings and french bread. Enjoyed the dumplings.

Seven Days Later: Happenings, reflections, misc.

It's my one week anniversary of being back in the United States. Here's what's happening:

-going out to Japanese food in Dupont Circle with V = incredibly comforting. Horde of Japanese tourists/ex-pats engaged in some sort of congratulatory ceremony with applause and flowers = endearing.

-party-hopping on Friday and Saturday night. Party #1 is international, bubbling, and diverse. I spend most of the time chatting up World Bank staff and a public sector consultant from L.A. V meets a lobbyist who represents fraternities: apparently the last three American Presidents were brothers. Trying to curry favor with the Washington insiders, I approach and note that some of my best friends have been in frats. He thinks I am saying lobbyist and asks which firm. Ensuing chaos.

-Chili Cook-off at the Raven at Mount Pleasant. No lobbyists here, but I do meet an incredibly friendly CNN producer who tells me I should consider a career in public speaking. Exchange pleasantries with a familiar hill staffer (Senate side) about the productiveness of the recent lame duck session and talk to a guy I know in Commerce about an upcoming trip to one of the Stans. Sample some chili. Encounter another New Yorker-in-exile.

-Birthday party at an uber-minimalist bar somewhere downtown. I spend thirty minutes talking to a skeptical bureaucrat about the philosophical/psychological underpinnings of boredom. Apparently Heidegger wrote 100 pages on the subject.

-Co-worker's black-light party in Adams Morgan. We are the oldest people in the room, possibly by three-five years. I talk to an affable but improperly attired med student of Southern origin and a hilarious financial consultant who lives with his parents in Westchester. There is a guy screaming unintelligibly at the top of his lungs. We stay for roughly thirty minutes. Extremely entertaining.

Am still jet-lagged and dehydrated, although the culture-shock is wearing off. Uh-oh.

Soundtrack for the Subcontinent

For navigating the fast maze that is the Frankfurt airport, Amy does it best. "You know I'm no good," Amy Winehouse.

"Hey Bulldog" by the Beatles for running in Mumbai.

When in Bangalore, try "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News.

Ray Charles and Johnny Cash work well in Kerala. Makes a lot of sense, if you think about it.

Kovalam is a good place to read a book quietly.

For Gurgaon, Bono. "Stuck in a moment you can't get out of," U2.

Varanasi has its own soundtrack. Just listen*

Counting Crows' "Goodnight L.A." or "One Fine Day" by David Byrne + Brian Eno as the fields of Uttar Pradesh roll by on a January afternoon.

Music is not allowed at the Taj Mahal.

Indian Bus rides call for Nina Simone: "Sinnerman" from the Thomas Crowne Affair soundtrack. Particularly appropriate as you get leveled by a speed bump while attempting to move out of the way when fellow passengers move an elephantine sack over your leg. Where ya gonna run to?

John Mayer is soothing when recovering from stomach ailment and dehydration in the Reston Emergency Room. "Waiting for the World to Change."

*whistling the ewok victory song by John Williams is strangely satisfying after visiting the burning ghats. 

End of the Line

Made it to Delhi after a harrowing five-hour bus ride from Agra. Bus cost 150 rupees, which is roughly three dollars. Sat next to an IT student who interrogated me about the US/India/my marital situation until I told him I'd like to rest. Also met a lab consultant at a fertility bank, the interrogator's brother-in-law: took me a while to figure out that the word he was saying wasn't cement. Some nice banking students sat behind us and were very helpful. They asked me to come back to India soon.

From the bus station, my tuk-tuk driver took an hour to find the hotel in near-freezing weather, stopping three times to ask for direction. He then asked for more money. While I try not to show anger while in Asia (in Cambodia and Laos, this is unacceptable culturally and causes both parties shame), I find it's very effective in India when someone asks for something that is unreasonable.

My hotel is in the diplomatic enclave, on the outskirts of the city. It reminds me of Paris.

Journey to the West

Two intuitively impressive Austrians and I are driven to Mughal Serai at 10:30pm, a journey that takes us onto a proper indian highway, which is not dissimilar to some of the scenes in Tron: Legacy. I fear for my life at numerous points, although the Austrians seem relaxed.

I am fearful of missing my train, which has been delayed an hour. As we approach the station, I get ready to run to the platform. The driver, in defiance of a previous agreement, begins to mutter something about 50 extra rupees for parking. He actually chases me onto the platform to remind me about the bogus charge. Fearing I'll miss the train, I pay him and ask for help carrying my bag. He walks away and the train is delayed by another hour. I watch some homely Irish play cards and finish reading Hermann Hesse's "journey to the east, " which the guest house has presented me with as a parting gift/loan.

The Magadh Express comes two hours late, ostensibly due to fog. The first class car is roomy, grimy, and wonderful. My cabin-mate is a young Delhi-based lawyer who pleasantly lectures me for an hour.

We depart into the night.

Another Shabbat

Cold. Fog. No power. Israelis. Kabbalat Shabbat. Candlelight. Hummus. Sitar. Varanasi. Sublime. Warmth.